January Audio Book Club Antics

Yeah, so I'm a huge fan of Slate's Audio Book Club. It's pretty much the only book club podcast I listen to these days. The January discussion just went up the other day and it's sitting in my podcasts taunting me because I can't yet listen to it. That's right, yours truly didn't get the January book, Brilliant Friend - the first of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Trilogy Series - read in time for the Slate discussion. 

For those of you who follow this brilliant bookish podcast, you know how incredibly important it is to read the damned book before listening to Katy Waldman, David Haglund, and Parul Sehgal's amazing yet major spoiler-ish discussions. And I failed. But the Neapolitan Trilogy Series seems particularly relevant right now given that the third book, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, has turned up in the 2015 Tournament of Books.

So if you've been reading Ferrante, it might be worth your while to pop over to Slate and take a listen. Oh, and by the way, February's book will be Phil Klay's award-winning short story collection, Redeployment. Let's plan ahead this time, shall we?

Welcome to Night Vale

While others are binge watching shows on Netflix, after learning that Wil Wheaton made a guest appearance on the October 15 episode of the on-going, comedy-satire-conspiracy-theory-podcast-masquerading-as-a-novel-masquerading-as-a-radio-show for the fictional town of Night Vale, I decided it was finally time to binge-listen to this cult classic and get caught up on Welcome to Night Vale.

For those of you unfamiliar with this popular podcast now in it's second year (Episode 56!), Night Vale is a conspiracy ridden desert town in the Southwest. Every podcast is delivered by Night Vale Community Radio. We learn every soap-opera-like detail (hysterical) via this radio broadcast, each of which lasts approximately 20 minutes. Created by Joseph Fink with the radio broadcast performed by Cecil Baldwin, the podcast is drowning in satire and has led the Top Ten Podcasts lists since 2013.

I won't try to catch you up on the plot of Night Vale, but I will say that if Wil Wheaton is guest performing, it's cool enough for all of you, too. 

Holy crap....in Episode 3:

"Listeners, we are currently fielding numerous reports that books have stopped working. It seems that all over Night Vale, books have simply ceased functioning. The scientists are studying one of the broken books to see if they can understand just what is going on here. The exact problem is currently unclear, but some of the words being used include ‘sparks,’ ‘meat smell,’ ‘biting,’ and ‘lethal gas.’ For your own safety, please do not attempt to open a book until we have more information on the nature and cause of these problems. The city council has released only a brief statement, indicating that their stance on books has not changed, and that, as always, they believe that books are dangerous and inadvisable, and should not be kept in private homes."

Historically speaking.....

Most fans of historical fiction novels are, by nature, lovers of history, too.  We love learning about different people from different time periods and often wonder why our favorite historical fiction novel couldn't have been substituted for our high school history textbook.

That love of history frequently drives historical fiction readers to Google characters and events in the novels we read and to search out the "real story" behind the novel.  Perhaps that's why A Reader's Respite is drawn to a handful of very, very good history podcasts.  Read on......

History According to Bob is one of the gold-standards in history podcasts.  A college history professor for 33 years in Kansas, Bob Packett produces (just about daily) 20-30 minute podcasts on a variety of history subjects.  His delivery is conversational, fun, and makes you wish you had a professor just like him when you were in college.  Many of his podcasts are archived on his website for download.  Or, because he produces entire series of podcasts about a single subject, you can also purchase CDs with his collections.  (One of the best birthday presents A Reader's Respite ever received was Bob's CD collection of WWI podcasts....we still listen to that thing!).

Another tried-and-true favorite for us is Things You Missed in History Class, hosted by Katie Lambert.  Katie tackles all sorts of intriguing historical subjects and people in her 20 minute-long podcasts and her voice is just fun and melodic.  Looking for the real scoop on Catherine d'Medici?  Yep, they've got that.  How about Blackbeard?  Or the eruption of Mt Vesuvius?  It's all covered here and is some of the best, quick info out there.  Oh, and Katie also has a very cool blog.

Last, but certainly not least, is the fabulous podcast put forth each month by the BBC History Magazine.  These podcasts are a tad longer, running about an hour, but feature some the of latest and greatest history discoveries.  March's edition featured a riveting story about how the exact site for The Battle of Bosworth had been discovered in England....all you Tudor-ites will know the significance of that find!  Also, check out their digital edition of the magazine for articles about Richard III and more....

Technological Trickery

We live in a gilded technological age.  Which is fabulous in many ways.....Google, blogs, iPhones, feed readers, e-readers, iKotex iPads, Facebook, Twitter, and of course, the legendary iPod.

If you're anything like A Reader's Respite, you are constantly discovering new ways to utilize all of your gadgets.  One of our favorite things is the PodCast.  Now some of you may think of these audio blogs as a chatty, hard-to-understand, bad-audio pain in the neck.  But there are some very, very well-done podcasts out there that are professional, well-organized and present very useful and thoughtful information.


Here are some of our favorites:

These podcasts are updated every Thursday and run about 20 minutes or so.  They include NPR's book picks, reviews, interviews and publishing news.  NPR also has a nice option that allows you to subscribe in a blog format in your feed reader if you don't want to subscribe to the podcast.

Librarian Nancy Pearl (of Book Lust fame) also a Book Lust Podcast here in Seattle that run about thirty minutes each. Very cool.  She used to have regular book review podcasts on NPR, but they seem to have stopped producing those last summer (boo hoo).

Of course the NYT Book Review offers a podcast....would you expect anything less?  'Nuff said.

The BBC's World Book Club is perhaps our favorite book related podcast.  It's a once-a-month production that runs just shy of an hour and always features a well-known author who discusses their books in front of an audience and takes questions.  It's fantastic!  And like NPR, the BBC offers you the option of subscribing to their RSS feed if you'd rather skip the audio and read it on your computer screen.

Also, don't forget your local library.  Hundreds of libraries, such as the Seattle Public Library, feature regular podcasts with book reviews and new releases that are very fun and informative.

When do we find time to listen to these?  We play them while we're making dinner, in the car, and we've even been known to fall asleep at night with our little iPod earphones plugged in.

Do you subscribe to any of these?  Have suggestions for other great book-related podcasts?  Tell us about them!

And for those of you who are history fanatics like A Reader's Respite, tune in tomorrow and we'll give you a list of all the history podcasts we are addicted to.