Today, Sara touches on the pick for this year's Big Read. The Big Read is a community reading program sponsored by the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith. This year's featured novel is Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys. In this Pulitzer Prize-winning follow-up to The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

Also this week:

Up From the Depths by Aaron Sachs

The big idea: why relationships are the key to existence by Carlo Rovelli

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

Life's Work by David Milch

Happy Reading, 

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (audiobook) 

Here's what Sara and Phil talked about this week:

Up From the Depths by Aaron Sachs

Acne by Laura Chinn

Tesla: Wizard at War by Marc Seifer

The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky

What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us by Mike Mariani

The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Here's what we talked about this week. As always, you can snag your copy from our shop in Fort Smith, Arkansas, or you can order from Bookshop or Libro.com. 

Ash Tuesday by Ariadne Blayde

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris

MadWoman by Louisa Treger

Haven by Emma Donoghue

Here's what we talked about this week:

Ithaca by Claire North

Joan by Katherine J. Chen

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal

All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers

The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver

All The Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work by Hayley Campbell

Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes

Happy Birthday, Bookish! 

Sara forces Phil to bring up Douglas MacArthur one more time, but then we get into some fantastically feminist retellings. One today's episode, we discuss Joan: A Novel of Joan of Arc by Katherine Chen, Ithaca by Claire North, The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean,   If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals about Human Stupidity by Justin Gregg, Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi and translated by David Boyd and Lucy North, We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky by Emma Hooper, and Kiki Man Ray: Art, Love, and Rivalry in 1920s Paris by Mark Braude. 

Find these in the shop, at Bookshop.org or on Librofm.com for audiobook versions. 

Phil is back from vacation, so we catch up with our reading and discuss burning questions like "What do you read on vacation?" 

In today's episode we discuss William Manchester's book AMERICAN CAESAR: DOUGLAS MCARTHUR 1880-1964, David Sedaris' HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, Sandra Newman's THE MEN, Adam Langor's CYCLORAMA, THE BOOK EATERS by Sunyi Dean, MERCURY PICTURES PRESENTS by Anthony Marra, and THE MANY DAUGHTERS OF AFONG MOY by Jamie Ford. 

All books are available at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookish

While Phil's on vacation, Sara and Jen talk about books, new releases, and the Delia Owens controversy gripping some bookish folks. Today we discussed: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Brood by Jackie Polzin, and Beasts of Ruin by Ayana Gray. 

We are including Phil's passage from William Manchester's book about Douglas MacArthur here. Do you have a passage that moved you this week? Tell us about it! 

"Captain Arthur McArthur was more austere than Judge MacArthur - he was, in fact, something of a stuffed shirt - but now and then he displayed flashes of wit. As Douglas told the story late in life, his father was serving on a military court in New Orleans when a cotton broker, urgently needing the loan of army transport facilities, attempted to suborn him. The bribe was to be a large sum of cash, which was left on his desk, and a night with an exquisite Southern girl. Wiring Washington the details, Arthur concluded: "I am depositing the money with the Treasury of the United States and request immediate relief from this command. They are getting close to my price." - Manchester

Phil Blackburn joins Sara this season as we talk about books, bookstore life, and focus on specific passages that get us through each week.