Story Insights

Hello Awesome Readers,

Professor James K A Smith from Calvin College explains that many of follow daily liturgies that in themselves are religious practices whether we acknowledge them as religious or not. Hopefully at some point we realize that these practices such as going to the mall and adoring every shiny object is a religious act. Once we realize this Professor Smith urges us to reorient ourselves towards Christ. Prof. Smith calls himself a philosopher so that's the approach he takes towards explaining his thesis more than being a theologian. Therefore parts of the ideas in this book overlap with other philosophers on what we actually worship something regardless of whatever religion we claim to believe or not believe in.

This one is actually from my archives. I am just now posting it here.

Learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziz-x3htfEk 

Read the book: https://bookshop.org/a/117636/9781587433801

Social media / Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/  

Hello Awesome Readers,

Today we're looking at a short story by Carmen Maria Machado titled The Husband Stitch. This story is about a woman who lives a seemingly happy life with her husband and later their wonderful son. This story contains all the intimate moments one may imagine between wife and husband. The wife however wants one thing to herself which is her ribbon her neck. Perhaps all women have a ribbon somewhere on their bodies in this world. The husband however keeps pressing on about touching and feeling the ribbon until we reach our final conclusion.

Read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/her-body-and-other-parties-stories-carmen-maria-machado/b2e477ec69c2c136?ean=9781555977887&bkshp-astro=t or https://granta.com/the-husband-stitch/ 

Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVJwtUMDQpo&t=2349s 

Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/  

Hello Awesome Comic Readers!

Amazing Spider-Man 543 Back in Black 5 of 5written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Ron Garney, inking by Bill Reinhold and coloring by Matt Milla. This is the finale for Back in Black. I really liked this issue. It proved Back in Black wasn't just a gimmick. Peter Parker is in desperation mode when a detective investigates a mysterious elderly gunshot victim which leads Peter to make rash decisions to move Aunt May to another hospital. There's less super powered shenanigans in this one and simply a man desperately trying to protect his aunt. 

Of Back in Black I only covered seven issues total but I'd be interested in reading the others. I need to work on my oral presentation skills. I edited out some stutters especially around the part the nurse tells the detective her goofy conspiracy about how the mysterious patient got there. I'll continue getting better at these over time. 

watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTG3Czu_f2k&t=1050s  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0AUth1MCFo 

Read: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Black-J-Michael-Straczynski/dp/0785129049 

Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/  

Hello Awesome Comic Readers!

Amazing Spider-Man 542 Back in Black 4 of 5written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Ron Garney, inking by Bill Reinhold and coloring by Matt Milla. Though, it's 4 of 5 there's tons of Back in Black issues in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Sensational Spider-Man though I only covered two of the Sensational issues. The last issue ended with a confrontation with Fisk and Parker. The fight was saved for this issue and it takes up the entire issue. This is part 4 of 5, but it is the end of the confrontation between them. After the next issue is One More Day which leads into Brand New Day, but unfortunately it seems I will miss publishing covering Brand New Day at the same time as the movie release.

watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTG3Czu_f2k&t=1050s  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0AUth1MCFo 

Read: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Black-J-Michael-Straczynski/dp/0785129049 

Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/  

Hello super readers, 

This part 3 of 5 of Amazing Spider-Man Back in Black written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Ron Garney, inking by Bill Reinhold and coloring by Matt Milla. In this episode Peter Parker finally confronts the man responsible for having Aunt May shot. King Pin! 

Oh, ya, maybe it need not be said again... This leads into One More Day which leads to Brand New Day which is the name of the upcoming movie. 

Not much else can be said. This whole issue leads to the confrontation at the end which we knew was coming by the end of the previous episode. 

I worked on deleting more pauses in my speech. Frankly I thought I paid Podbean to delete those for me but I guess I had to look for little stutters and such to cut out. I imagined to cut out a whole minute so I hope it makes for smooth listening. 

watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTG3Czu_f2k&t=1050s  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0AUth1MCFo 

Read: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Black-J-Michael-Straczynski/dp/0785129049 

Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/  

Hello Awesome Readers,

Today's episode is Amazing Spider-Man 540 Back in Black written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Ron Garney, inking by Bill Reinhold and coloring by Matt Milla. These arcs are a bit darker where Peter Parker wants to find who shot his Aunt May, figure out why and take revenge upon them. In this one he's mostly investigating who did it whereas in the last episode he found out what sort of firearm shot his aunt. His aunt still isn't doing well in the hospital which leads from Back in Black going to One More Day which leads to a hard reboot of the series called Brand New Day. I kinda get the feeling the upcoming movie by the same name actually handles the reboot thing a bit better than the comics. 

I need to speed it up if I am at all to keep up with the release time of the movie which is in less than two weeks. So, perhaps just comics for a while. I do feel the comics and short stories should be a different podcast series each, but I can't know unless you tell me, I guess. I am sure there's someone like me who just wants to read a bit here and there sometimes and isn't a super reader even though we should strive to be super readers.

watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTG3Czu_f2k&t=1050s  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0AUth1MCFo 

Read: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Black-J-Michael-Straczynski/dp/0785129049 

follow me: [email protected]  https://discord.gg/36WxYB7T  https://locals.com/bookstoread/feed https://x.com/BookChatWithYou 

Hello awesome readers!

Today we're looking at Pigeons at Daybreak by Anita Desai. It is a slow somber story about Mr Basu who is terminally ill and taken care of by his wife, Otima Basu. We see all the little bickerings of a couple who is 55+ plus years old. Things are quite compact in this story. Both care characters care for each other though the resentment is also quite clear throughout. The story is a picture of one of their days from morning one day until dawn the next day. The story starts with Otima taking forever to situate herself to read the newspaper to her husband since that was once one pastimes. Honestly, there's nothing exciting here. I am sharing this story because I had to read it for a class many times but since I am going familiar with this sort of illness to caretaker sort of lifestyle I felt I could share this story and ask others to comment on it. (No, not me, my wife, child etc are sick...)

Read this story here: https://idoc.pub/documents/anita-desai-pigeons-at-daybreak-gen5m72pjk4o or https://www.amazon.com/Games-Twilight-Other-Stories-Penguin/dp/0140053484?tag=ustxtaddt-20 

Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeZANtyhRNg 

Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/  

Hello Everyone!

This one is on "The Sheriff's Children" by Charles W Chestnut. It is a short story about a man accused of a crime and at the risk of being lynched for it. Once the sheriff hears of all this he wants to maintain order in town and have justice be properly served however that may go. After several twists the accused meets a tragic end. I liked this story and its twists. The themes of racism and mixed-raced persons is fascinating and perhaps educational for us.

Sometimes two episodes carry a theme that carries very well together but this episode and the last one could not be any further apart. One thing to say about that is that I want this to all be conversational and I am not going to pretend to research everything thoroughly for these reviews. There's a balance between being well read, well spoken, academically bright and conversational. I want to lean towards the conversational part because I believe that's the most important part. 

What honestly scares me is how does someone say the right culturally appropriate terms in a modern context yet use the words for such stories as needed. It's a curious thing. 

Read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-best-short-stories-by-black-writers-1899-1967-langston-hughes/3e865397bba0e728?ean=9780316380317 or http://public-library.uk/ebooks/86/96.pdf 

Listen here: https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/sheriffs-children/ 

Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/  

Hello Everyone!

Today's episode is on "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" by Ernest Hemingway. I found a set of Ernest Hemingway books I bought in China years ago. They're both short story collections but one is a translation into Chinese. "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" has all the classic dialogue we expect from Hemingway. In this story Francis Macomber and his wife Margot travel to Kenya so Francis can hunt in the safari, but it proves more than he can handle and during the trip tensions rise between Francis and his wife and Robert the professional hunter. Eventually things end badly for Francis.

Read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/complete-short-stories-of-ernest-hemingway-ernest-hemingway/59cba40c3bf84ef5?ean=9781025566368  https://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/303/Hemingway/The%20Short%20Happy%20Life%20of%20Francis%20Macomber.pdf 

Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct-vhTrKKGg 

Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/  

Niagara Falls, Or Does It? by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver is a short children's novel for Age 8-12 years or Grades 3-7. It's the first in the Hank Zipzer series. I borrowed this book from my previous job to review after reading a autobiographical piece by Henry Winkler. Though, this book is about a kid struggling with dyslexia, who doesn't even know it, there are concepts here universal for us all and we could all learn a bit from from it. So, you hope you listen and if you're a super big kid listening then you can finish this book in a day and hand it off to someone else. Every now and then a book can remind someone why teaching in K-12 may be worth the effort.

read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/niagara-falls-or-does-it-1-henry-winkler/285b653a84f02f5a?ean=9780448431628&next=t

Contact me: https://bookchatwithyou.podbean.com/p/contact-page/