This episode is brought to you by our soon-to-be-rival podcast, dreamed up by YA librarian Crystal Chen—who's also this week's guest! All rights reserved by her! We talk musicals, poetry, what it really means to create a list of "best" books, and professional development for library staff members.

Book Recommendations

NYPL's Best Poetry Books (and our most recent best books lists)

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice by Bill Browder

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright

Bad Blood  Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Kiss Number 8 by Colleen A.F. Venable

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Also recommended:

The Woodstock Library in the Bronx

ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response

"VEEP" and "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"

Gwen and Frank tackle one book that feels comforting and homey; one that's distinctly unsettling; and one that's somewhere in between. Plus: A stranger on the train helps us deconstruct the genius of J-Patt.

Your Duck Is My Duck: Stories by Deborah Eisenberg

The Farm by Joanne Ramos

Mary Poppins Returns

Emily Blunt and the rest of the cast going down the bathtub slide!

Everything Doris Day

Dr. Carla Hayden sits down with Gwen and Frank to discuss what it really means to lead the Library of Congress—which, by the way, isn't only FOR Congress. Plus: lessons she learned from storytime, how she organizes her home library, and the first time she ever saw herself reflected in a book.

It's the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and Jason Baumann—NYPL curator and Grand Marquessa of All Things Stonewall—joins Gwen and Frank to discuss the Library's new anthology about the uprising and its role in the LGBTQ civil rights movement. And then he walks us through some yoga breathing, and it's legit.

The Stonewall Reader in our catalog and the NYPL shop

Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet Into the Stonewall Era in our catalog and the NYPL shop

City of Night by John Rechy

City Boy: My Life in New York during the 1960s and 70s (and more books) by Edmund White

The History and Practices of Hatha Yoga by James Mallinson

Kay Tobin Lahusen's photographs in our Archives & Manuscripts Division

Jason's first appearance on The Librarian Is In (episode 2!)

And check out more of the exhibition and the rest of the Library's Stonewall coverage at nypl.org/stonewall50.

Aminatou Sow, writer and co-host of the popular podcast "Call Your Girlfriend," talks with Gwen and Frank about poetry, the mental treadmill of the Internet, and her childhood best friend: the librarian. 

Book Recommendations

Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry

Magical Negro by Morgan Parker

If They Come for Us by Fatimah Ashgar 

Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks

Also mentioned: 

Microsoft Encarta '95

PEN15

"won't you celebrate with me" by Lucille Clifton 

"Final Notations" by Adrienne Rich can be found in her collection, An Atlas of the Difficult World

What makes a place home? Frank follows a book rec from a listener and discovers a powerful memoir that makes him rethink the American dream. Gwen's book is a new fairytale retelling... sort of... that involves feudalism and magical gingerbread and... well, maybe you should just have a listen.

Book Recommendations

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

Also mentioned:

The recent Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold

The Netflix series "Working Moms"

The network TV show "The Rookie"

Our Poetry Bonanza has arrived! In this episode --titled to pay homage to Frank's favorite Emily Dickinson stanza-- he and Gwen get to read and hear poetry recommendations from their listeners.

Listener Poetry Recommendations:

"My Mother Says I am Sickening" in The New Kid On the Block: Poems by Jack Prelutsky

“Good Hot Dogs” by Sandra Cisneros in A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poems for Children by Caroline Kennedy

"Why I Am Not a Good Kisser" in Selected Poem by Mary Ruefle

"Kal" in  If They Come for Us by Fatima Asghar

The title poem in What the Living Do: Poems  by Marie Howe

"What Resembles the Grave But Isn't" by Anne Boyer

IRL by Tommy Pico

The title poem in Inventory by Dionne Brand

"I want a dyke for president" by Zoe Leonard 

"Girls of the Wild" in Wild Embers  by Nakita Gill

"Fold" in You & Yours by Naomi Shihab Nye

"Scientific Romance" by Tim Pratt

"Where the Mind is Without Fear" from Gitanjali (Song Offerings) by Rabindranath Tagore

Also mentioned:

NYPL's Poem in Your Pocket Day

Gwen and Frank meet a handful of characters who aren't bothered by what other people think. Plus: the pros and cons of reading reviews, the extra voice in translations, and the no-person's-land between picture books and middle-grade fiction. 

Book Recommendations:

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata,  translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Sarah Berman's Closet by Maira Kalman

The Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale, art by LeUyen Pham

Also mentioned:

The End of Eddy  and History of Violence by Édouard Louis 

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

NYPL's Poem in Your Pocket Day

Shrill — the Hulu series and the book by Lindy West

How on earth can you read when you have a newborn? Stephanie Anderson—a new mom and a professional book selector for NYPL and the Brooklyn Public Library—comes to talk about the shifting habits of a reader with a new baby. Plus: Frank channels Supernanny! Again.

Book Recommendations: 

Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy  by Angela Garbes

Cesearian Section: An American History of Risk, Technology and Consequence by Jaqueline H. Wolf

The board books:  Bunny Roo, I Love You by Melissa Marr and Global Babies 

Also mentioned:

The New York Times article on cute aggression—why you want to squish and eat that baby! 

In the Witch Elm by Tana French 

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Happyland by J. Robert Lennon

The films Back to the Future and The Terminator

Angela Garbes' article, "The More I Learn About Breast Milk, the More Amazed I Am"

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Lauren Childs

Bull by David Elliott

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

Greek mythology and contemporary fiction join forces this week! Gwen and Frank read two books that make readers ask, what would you do—or, what should you do?

Book Recommendations: 

Golden Child by Claire Adam

Circe by Madeline Miller

The audiobook of Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North  by Blair Braverman

Also mentioned:

A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul

Mythology by Edith Hamilton

The Odyssey , translated by Emily Wilson

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

Here Come the 123s!  by They Might Be Giants, and also please watch the amazing video of the "Never Go to Work" song (guaranteed to change your life for the better)