Shows
All Books AloudDoes your reading change during the summer?Send us a textHave you ever wondered why we have "summer reads" but not winter or spring or fall reads? We both had various associations with "summer reading," namely from being kids out of school and having the languorous expanse of the summer stretching out in front of us. But we wondered what is really behind this phenomenon. Join us to find out more and hear about our own summer TBR lists.-----------------------Books we're reading in this episode: Dragon Haven (Rain Wild Chronicles 2) by Robin HobbSwift and Saddled by...2025-06-1854 minAll Books AloudWould you go on a bookish vacation?Send us a textElizabeth just got back from a trip that included a day in the Original Book Town, Hay-on-Wye in Wales in the UK. It was adorable and she went to more bookstores than you can shake a stick at. It also made her wonder what other bookish vacations she could go on. When we started to dig into this idea for this episode, we found out that the answer is: a lot! Join us in daydreaming about bookish trips to literary festivals, literary museums, bookish hotels, famous libraries, a friends reading retreat, a...2025-05-0756 minAll Books AloudWhat is the IMLS and why should we care if it is dismantled?Send us a textHave you heard about the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) in the news lately? An Executive Order in mid-March ordered it be "eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law" and there has been a lot of conversation about it since. But this agency was relatively low profile politically until recently, so many people might not know much about it. On this episode we talk about what the IMLS is, what it does (and what it does not do), its history and mission, what our communities stand to l...2025-04-021h 03All Books AloudHow is working in a bookstore like playing a video game? Interview with the bookseller and events manager at Fireside BooksSend us a textHave you ever wondered what it would be like to work in a bookstore? According to Rebecca, bookseller and events manager at the independent bookstore Fireside Books, who we interview for this episode, it's a lot like playing a video game! Join us to find out what she means by this, and also hear her talk about so many other interesting parts of her job, including how her work affects her reading, what it's like managing a book club, how her store and other indies are dealing with AI, and the t...2025-03-1245 minAll Books AloudIs reading a niche hobby?Send us a textWe were planning to talk about our reading habits and rituals in this episode...but then Elizabeth heard an NPR podcast about how no one reads anymore, at the same time as Martha read multiple articles about how more people bought Rebecca Yarros' latest book than any adult book since records began and that thanks to TikTok, Barnes & Noble is opening more stores this year. We had to ask ourselves: how could both of these things be true?Join as we try to sort fact from moral panic, discuss the gendered...2025-02-1944 minAll Books AloudIs being an audiobook narrator a dream job? Interview with Laura HorowitzSend us a textHave you ever wondered what it takes to be an audiobook narrator? Or is it perhaps your dream job like it is for Martha? In this episode, we interview audiobook narrator extraordinaire Laura Horowitz.Laura tells us how she got into the business, what a day in the life for an audiobook narrator looks like, how she connects with authors and fans, and what the rise of AI might mean for audiobook narrators like her. This interview was so fun and informative! It’s one you won’t want to miss. Find...2025-01-2929 minAll Books AloudFact or Fiction? It's bookish mythbusting time!Send us a text[Apologies, listeners! We're re-releasing this one because there was an audio glitch in the original episode. If you've already downloaded the episode from Wednesday, try this one instead!] Happy New Year! There are some beliefs, truisms, urban legends, myths, whatever you want to call them, about books and reading that seem like they just won't die. Do audiobooks really count as reading? Are all readers introverts? Has reading education in schools really gone downhill? Is learning to read a natural process that will just happen organically if we let it? We t...2025-01-0953 minAll Books AloudHow was your year in reading? 2024 reading round-upSend us a textHappy Holidays! We're bringing back our year-end reading round up. Join us as we talk about our year in reading, our favorite books of 2024, and what we're looking forward to reading in 2025. We also talk about how our conversation about goal-setting in January of this year impacted our years in reading (spoiler: profoundly and in a good way!) -----------------------Books we talk about in this episode:Books we're reading now:The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie LeongTower of Dawn by Sarah J MaasHeartburn by Nora Ephron2024 r...2024-12-1858 minAll Books AloudLooking to escape into another reality? Join us for a deep-dive into the fantasy genre!Send us a textRomantic fantasies have taken the book world by storm in recent years, but fantasy stories that allow us to break free of the rules and limitations of our own world and reality are as old as human history. We wanted to learn more about the genre's history and its variations and sub-genres. What's the difference between fantasy and science fiction? Between high fantasy and low fantasy? What about all the sub-genres? Are Romantasy really something new or are they just a marketing ploy? How about cozy fantasy? Join us as we t...2024-11-271h 22All Books AloudShould you join a book club?Send us a textWhether or not you'll enjoy a book club depends a lot on your reading style, habits, and preferences. But if you're interested in joining a book club, there is truly one out there for everyone - different types, communities, themes, modalities, and more.Join us as we talk about our own experiences with book clubs (as both participants and moderators), the history of book clubs (which includes a lot more social activism than we expected!), celebrity book clubs, and how to find a book club that's right for you.-----------------------2024-11-0654 minAll Books AloudHow does a little girl from Detroit become a librarian icon? Our interview with Nancy Pearl (finally!)Send us a textSeason 2 is here and our first episode is a big one! In some ways, we have been building up to this moment since the podcast began: we finally chat with Elizabeth's librarian inspiration and the All Books Aloud unofficial mascot, Nancy Pearl. Nancy has had a storied life and a career about as influential as a librarian could hope for, and she shares so much of it with us during this hour. We talk about how her difficult childhood led her to the library, how the librarians in that first public l...2024-10-161h 07All Books AloudHow does a lifelong literary fiction reader end up writing a romance novel? Interview with Sarah T. Dubb, author of Birding With BenefitsSend us a textIn our season finale we talk with author Sarah T. Dubb about her debut novel, Birding With Benefits. It's a fun, flirty, sexy, and touching fake-dating romance novel featuring two protagonists in their 40s who fall in love while - you guessed it - bird-watching together. But Sarah hasn't always been a romance reader (or writer). In fact, her reading journey started solidly in literary fiction, but she fell in love with romance during the pandemic (like someone else we know...ahem...:)Join us for this super fun conversation as we...2024-06-051h 06All Books AloudBook adaptations - love them or hate them?Send us a textIs the book always better than the movie? If you had asked either of us before this episode, we both would have said unequivocally 'yes!' But our discussion showed us that this topic might actually be more nuanced than we realized. Join as we talk about nearly every Jane Austen adaptation ever made (don't worry, we also talk about other adaptations...a little), ponder whether we enjoy watching screen adaptations of our favorite books even if they're not perfect, daydream about books we wish would be made into screen adaptations, and more.2024-05-2246 minAll Books AloudHow do siblings grow up to be different types of readers? A chat with all four Brookbank siblings!Send us a textTwo very special guests joined us for this episode - the other half of our sibling quartet, Bekka and Mike. Listen in as we talk about our early experiences with reading, the similarities in how our reading journeys started, where our tastes differ, and how we took different paths based on our personality traits.We really enjoyed reminiscing with our siblings and reflecting on some childhood nostalgia, and we hope you'll enjoy it, too!-----------------------Books we're reading in this episode: The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard (T...2024-05-0839 minAll Books AloudDo you re-read books?Send us a textThe topic of this week's episode is one of the few book-related topics we've found where we disagree! Martha loves to re-read her favorite books, whereas Elizabeth thinks life is too short to re-tread old ground. Martha begins the episode by setting herself the challenge of changing Elizabeth's mind...listen to find out if she's successful!-----------------------Books we're reading in this episode: The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard (The Cazalet Chronicles #1)Nettle and Bone by T. KingfisherA Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J...2024-04-2442 minAll Books AloudWhat's involved in translating a novel? Interview with Polly Mackintosh, French-English translator for Gallic BooksSend us a textWe have explored a lot of different components of the book publishing industry on the podcast, but neither of us know much about the work of literary translation. So, we were thrilled to get the chance to talk with Polly Mackintosh about her work. Polly is Commissioning Editor and in-house translator for Gallic Books, and is the translator of the forthcoming novel, Clara Reads Proust by Stéphane Carlier. We chatted with Polly about how she got started as a translator, what her favorite and most challenging parts of the work ar...2024-04-1050 minAll Books AloudWhat books do you bring on vacation?Send us a textThis episode was recorded in-person and on location during our sister vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii! We kept our reading choices for the trip a secret from one another and did a live reveal, then we talked all about vacation reading while getting a little tipsy on tropical fruit juice and rum cocktails. Among and around several digressions, we discuss questions like, what types of stories do you like to read on vacation? How many books do you bring? What format of book do you bring and why? What a...2024-03-2732 minAll Books AloudHow has BookTok affected books and publishing?Send us a textEven if you don't use TikTok, you've likely at least heard of the phenomenon known as BookTok. Individual videos sometimes get millions of views, and the combined hashtags for these videos on TikTok have had hundreds of billions of views. The publishing industry is paying attention - and so are we! Is BookTok really driving book sales? Or is it just creating yet another thing for people to envy online and feel bad about in their real lives? Is it lowering the quality of writing in books, turning them into fast f...2024-03-1353 minAll Books AloudIs it ever okay to throw away books?Send us a textWhat do you do with books that you're finished with? Books you've read or don't want anymore or spilled coffee on? In this episode we discuss what makes a book valuable - to individuals and to society - and why this can sometimes result in anxiety about how books are disposed of. We dig into the work libraries do to preserve books and the “weeding” they have to do to stay functional for the communities they serve. Elizabeth goes on a teeny-tiny rant about the controversy this weeding can sometimes cause, but w...2024-02-2848 minAll Books AloudWhat is it about romance?Send us a textRomance novels generate over $1.44 billion (with a 'b!') in revenue and are highest-earning, biggest, and fastest growing genre of fiction in the book industry. And yet, if you're a romance reader, you've probably had to defend it to someone at some point or maybe you've even been embarrassed of your reading. Why are these books that so many read still so fraught?We talk about our personal experiences with reading romance, the history of the genre, and discuss questions like, what defines romance today? Do men write romance? Is romance...2024-02-141h 26All Books AloudWhat are book hangovers and what can you do about them?Send us a textIf you're a reader, you know the feeling: you turn the last page of a book and want to cry that it's over. You immediately feel bereft. You can't stop thinking (and even talking) about the characters, the story. You wish you could turn back time to when you were still reading or somehow enter the pages of the book and live in the world. No other book appeals to you, and you might even start and then abandon books trying to move on. You have a book hangover!In this...2024-01-3145 minAll Books AloudDo young people still read for fun?Send us a textThe idea that "the kids just don't read anymore" is a tale as old as time. And, it is something that Elizabeth decided to investigate head-on in her role as an academic librarian. The results of the research study she designed and ran, interviewing just under 100 university students in the U.S. and the U.K., were published a few months ago and we talk about them in this episode. Spoiler alert: young people (even when they're in college and even during the semester) do still read for fun! We get...2024-01-171h 20All Books AloudShould you set a yearly reading goal?Send us a textHappy New Year! Who doesn't love a good year-end round up?! Join us as we talk about our year in reading, our favorite books of 2023, and what we're looking forward to reading in 2024. We discuss the pros and cons of setting reading goals, complete with research that will not only let you off the hook with your yearly reading goal (if that's what you want) but will also get you out of having to walk 10,000 steps a day :)-----------------------Books we talk about in this episode: 2023 reads we haven't t...2024-01-031h 00All Books AloudAre books good holiday gifts?Send us a textWe say yes! But there's a way to do it well. As with any type of gift-giving, there are some pitfalls to avoid... For example, arbitrarily giving a book to someone because you like it, or because you've latched on to one detail about them and thus neglected the bigger picture. But never fear! We’ll help you match the right book to the right person using reading doorways. (If you haven't listened to our bonus episode about reading doorways...what are you waiting for?!)Bonus: we’re offering a bookish holi...2023-11-2251 minAll Books AloudHow do you read so much?Send us a textIf you're a reader, you've probably had someone ask you this question. We unpack what this question sometimes really means (How do you have so much free time? Must be nice having no obligations! I'm so busy I could never find time to read. You must be some kind of a superhero!) and explore the roots of some of these false beliefs about reading. We then talk about tips and tricks for reading more if you or someone you know is asking this question in earnest. Part sass, part research, and part practical...2023-11-0843 minAll Books AloudCould reading doorways be a substitute for genres?Send us a textIn this bonus episode, we talk about something that didn't come up in the genres episode but should have. It’s a concept called the four reading doorways. Could it be an alternative to genres? Nancy Pearl thinks so! Join as we talk about what the four reading doorways are, learn how they're useful when recommending books to others, and explore how they show up in our own reading.Sources:Pearl, Nancy. “Check It Out with Nancy Pearl: Finding That Next Good Book.” March 16, 2012. Publishers Weekly. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-t...2023-11-0125 minAll Books AloudCan you separate the book from the author?Send us a textCW: discussions of sexual assault and other crimes, racism, antisemitism, and other forms of bigotry, as well as Zionism (all in reference to books and authors from the 19th/20th centuries, rather than to current news).Can you separate the book from the author? The art from the artist? What do we do with books that were written by people with views that we disagree with or who have done things we find morally objectionable? Can we entirely put these scruples aside and appreciate art on it's aesthetic merits alone? If...2023-10-2551 minAll Books AloudWhat makes a good audiobook narrator?Send us a textWhat makes a good audiobook narrator? Is it enough to have a good voice? To be a good reader? A good actor? Something else? What about on the side of the reader? There are certainly things that make the experience of listening to an audiobook narrator better or worse for people. But are some of these things objective and common to everyone? Or is this a totally subjective preference? Join us as we dive into this topic!-----------------------Books we're reading in this episode: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld2023-10-1134 minAll Books AloudDo genres help or hinder your reading?Send us a textDo genres help or hinder your reading? Some people are very loyal to their genres of choice. Genres can be a way to connect with other readers, provide a language to talk about books you love using tropes, and help steer you in the direction of books you may like when you visit a bookstore. Genres can also help narrow down the world of reading choices. But do they narrow that world too much? Do genres keep you from reading books and discovering new types of stories you may enjoy? Do you enjoy...2023-09-2756 minAll Books AloudDo you finish every book you start?Send us a textDo you finish every book you start? Why or why not? Some people feel a strong moral imperative to finish a book once they've started reading it. Other people will mark a book DNF (Did Not Finish) after a few pages if they're not able to get into it and move on to the next book. What pulls some people to keep reading a book if they're not enjoying it? And are people who give up missing out on a book they would love if they stuck with it? Do we owe it...2023-09-1335 minAll Books AloudDo audiobooks count as reading?Send us a textDo audiobooks count as reading? And does it really matter? Why do some people seem to care so much about making this distinction? Where do the moral overtones surrounding reading that underlie this question come from? Arguments around this topic are often centered on the benefits of reading - and there are plenty, including educational, professional, psychological, social, and emotional. So, does the format we read in matter when it comes to the benefits we get from reading? Whether you've found yourself justifying your audiobook listening to someone as "real" reading, o...2023-08-3039 minAll Books AloudTrailerSend us a textWelcome to All Books Aloud. Here is a short intro to the show. Subscribe for more from us soon!Support the show----------------------- Intro and outro music: "The Chase," by Aves. Do you have thoughts, questions, or ideas for future episodes? Email us at allbooksaloudpod@gmail.com. And if you want to learn more about the podcast, visit our website at allbooksaloudpod.com.If you liked this episode, please consider leaving us a review to help us reach more listeners.And if...2023-08-1900 min