Book Dreams

We're finally able to tell you our grand opening date! (Spoiler alert: It's October 25. Come visit!) Press play to hear what we've been doing to get everything ready for you. We talk, too, about the upcoming movies and shows based on books that we're excited about, and we play a game where we each come up with the weirdest possible book pairings and then challenge the other person to figure out how to connect them. Is this game worth playing ever again? Let us know!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The store is almost ready! We're just waiting (and waiting and waiting) on a new entrance before we can start putting books on the shelves. Find out our latest news, victories, and frustrations and hear about what we're reading now and what we're excited to read next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We (authors Eve Yohalem and Julie Sternberg) are opening a bookstore called Books & Cake in Hillsdale, New York! Renovations are underway--take a listen to hear how they're going; how we decided to take this step together; what's surprised us along the way; our unusual plan for organizing the books in the store; a few book recommendations; and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julie and Eve have big news! Find us on⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast)⁠, or email us at ⁠contact@bookdreamspodcast.com⁠. We encourage you to visit our ⁠website⁠⁠ for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of ⁠Lit Hub Radio⁠ and the ⁠Podglomerate network⁠, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our ⁠Privacy Policy⁠. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like ⁠Storybound⁠ and ⁠The History of Literature⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why, oh why, does Eve make Julie take on questions that no person on the planet wants to be forced to think through out loud on air? (Three guesses who wrote this description.) The question this time: Is there free will? Julie's answer: ....  Never mind. Skip Julie's answer and go straight to Eve's discussion of what professor of biology and neuroscience Robert Sapolsky has to say on the topic in his latest book, Determined, A Life of Science Without Free Will. Then stay for talk of additional books Eve and Julie have read and enjoyed recently, including Sarah Polley's memoir, Run Towards the Danger, which Julie found particularly thought-provoking and memorable and Eve now wants to read, too. Find us on Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our theme for this episode is book connections—times when one book leads us to thoughts of another or inspires us to read further. It’s one of our very favorite aspects of reading: escaping into the world of one book, then tying it together with the world of another. Eve talks about two pairs of books—one of her all-time favorites, one a new discovery, and two that are “absolutely delicious”—all connected by a common theme, and, despite being in a terrible reading slump, Julie’s found a veritable web of book connections, thanks to an all-time great mystery writer. Find us on Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's been a long time since you've seen an author interview here on Book Dreams, but we were recently given the chance to interview Roz Chast, and who could possibly say no to that?! Roz is a beloved New Yorker cartoonist with a style all her own, and Eve and Julie have both been big fans of her work for decades. She is as funny, insightful, and distinctive in person as she is in her drawings, and it was a joy to get to speak with her. Take a listen to hear about everything from her latest book, in which she illustrates her dream world; to what it's like to submit cartoons and cover art to The New Yorker; to the role anxiety plays in her cartoons and in her life. Roz Chast is a cartoonist for The New Yorker and has published more than a thousand cartoons in the magazine since 1978. She is also the author of a number of books, including Going Into Town, What I Hate from A to Z, and the #1 New York Times bestseller Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant, which won the National Book Critics Circle award and the Kirkus Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her latest book, I Must Be Dreaming, is a USA Today bestseller, a New Yorker Best Book of the Year, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, and a Washington Post Best Graphic Book of the Year. The Miami Book Fair is an “eight day literary party” founded by Miami Dade College that’s been held every November in Miami, Florida since 1984. The Fair plays host to more than 450 international authors reading and discussing their work, as well as more than 250 publishers and booksellers exhibiting and selling books, with special appearances by antiquarians showcasing signed first editions, original manuscripts, and other collectibles. Many thanks to our friends at Miami Book Fair for coordinating this episode with Roz. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“This is so bad that I feel like I'm in a Stephen King novel where there's just one thing off about my familiar world, but that one thing is a living nightmare.” In a Book Dreams first, Eve and Julie disagree wildly about a book. Can they resolve their differences? Find out in this episode where they talk about books they’ve both read, with the exception of one novella that Julie says is “definitely going to be one of my favorite books that I've read this year, and might make it onto my all-time favorite list.” Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eve read so much during the weeks since our last episode, she gave herself a repetitive reading injury. But it was worth it! In this episode she shares thoughts about books with mesmerizing voice, memorable characters, sweeping scope, and poetic brilliance. Meanwhile, Julie--who has managed thus far to avoid reading-related injury--talks about a critically acclaimed novel set in Berlin around the time of the fall of the wall, and a buzzy satire of the publishing industry. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What have Julie and Eve been reading lately? Find out in this new bonus episode, in which Eve talks about the legacy of her dad, a constant reader, the brilliance of Helen Dewitt (again), the searing poetry of Louise Glück, and a light and highly readable beach read. Meanwhile, Julie’s been pursuing a reading vision, discovering the propulsive, mind-expanding books—and book recommendations—of S. A. Cosby. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What have Julie and Eve been reading lately? Find out in this new bonus episode where we talk about loving old favorites even more the second time around, lessons Julie gleaned from a book about life in a picturesque German village during the Nazi regime, discovering an author whose novel is “dazzling,” and the joy and abundant rewards of overcoming a fear of poetry. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve all been there: one of those tough times in life when it’s hard to get your mind to settle enough to escape into a good book. Yet that’s when we need books more than ever. Eve and Julie have both been going through rough patches recently. Here are the books that have been helping. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our last regularly scheduled episode of Book Dreams. We started the podcast because books, more than just about anything, bring us joy. So we thought, what better way to end the podcast than to spread that joy and talk about how to make great book recommendations for other people? Our guest, James Gilbert, is a bookseller at the Heywood Hill bookstore in London, which runs, in its words, “the most personalized book subscription service in the world.” James makes personalized book recommendations for Heywood’s subscription (and other) customers–including, for the past several months, Eve and Julie. James talked about the key to being a good book recommender, how to help people figure out what they want to read when they’re not sure of it themselves, how he decided which books to send to Julie and which books to send to Eve, and when it’s okay to recommend books you haven’t yet read yourself. One more thing: This is not our last episode ever–we’ll continue to air bonus episodes every month or so. And we’re working on a new podcast! It’s called Rebel Nuns. We wanted to focus on stories about groups of people coming together to take collective action with a positive outcome, and it turns out there are many fascinating accounts, from ancient Mesopotamia all the way up until today, of nuns banding together to fight the powers that be in the service of causes they believe in. These stories are all-too-often hidden, and they reflect larger forces in society, and we can’t wait to tell you all about them. We’ll post updates about Rebel Nuns here in the Book Dreams feed. Thank you so very much for listening to Book Dreams, whether you’ve been with us from the very beginning or whether you’re tuning in today for the first time. We’ve loved learning and sharing and bonding over all things book-related with you, and we’re excited to keep connecting over bonus episodes and all that is to come. James Gilbert has been a bookseller, and professional recommender of books, for eight years at Heywood Hill, an internationally renowned bookstore in London that runs “the most personalized book subscription service in the world.” Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Book Dreams producer and guest host Gianfranco Lentini takes us on a journey to a real-life literary paradise—a thin barrier island just 50 miles east of New York City—that has been a haven for authors, especially queer authors, for more than a century. Author and scholar Jack Parlett joins Gianfranco to discuss the subject of Jack’s latest book, Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise. They talk about the significance of creating and maintaining queer spaces as havens, and they examine the cultural context that led many writers—including Noël Coward, W. H. Auden, Walt Whitman, Tennessee Williams, and James Baldwin—to spend summers on Fire Island, experiencing personal freedom that was denied to them everywhere else. They also explore the effect that those earlier writers, as well as Fire Island itself, had on the authors who make the island their second home today. Says Jack, “The [Fire Island] landscape itself knows something, feels something, about the people who were there. It's a repository of their legacies." Jack Parlett is a writer, poet, and scholar. He is the author of three books: Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise; The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture from Whitman to Grindr; and Same Blue, Different You, a poetry pamphlet. Fire Island was named an Editor’s Pick by The New York Times and One of the Best Books of 2022 by The New Yorker and BBC Culture. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Boston Review, Granta, Literary Hub, BBC Culture, Poetry London, and elsewhere. Jack currently holds a junior research fellowship at University College Oxford, where he also teaches. His research focuses on 20th and 21st century American literature and culture with an emphasis on queer writing and questions of gender, sexuality, and race. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we talk to author Angie Cruz, whose latest novel is the widely acclaimed How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water. This irresistible book inspired a conversation about a myriad of topics: how the unconscious mind influences the creative process, the lengths women will go to escape a dangerous situation, invisible labor as it pertains to women–especially immigrant women. Friendship, partnership, motherhood, and more. Take a listen! Angie Cruz is the author of four novels. Her book Dominicana was the inaugural book pick for the Good Morning America Book Club. It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and won the Alex Award in Fiction. It was named a “most anticipated” or “best book” in 2019 by Time, Newsweek, People, Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Esquire. Angie is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning literary journal Asterisk, and she's currently an associate professor at University of Pittsburgh. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water was a New York Times Notable and a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do family secrets show us about the times we live in, and how do they impact the people who safeguard them? These are questions that sociologist Margaret K. Nelson explores in her most recent book, Keeping Family Secrets, a study of more than 150 memoirs involving families hiding something of consequence during the 1950s. In this episode of Book Dreams, we talk to Margaret about a host of fascinating topics, everything from how misguided—and even damaging—prevailing expert advice can be; to the complicated costs of concealing true genetic ancestry; to the complex relationship—highlighted in recent years by the availability of DNA testing—between biology and cultural identity. Margaret K. Nelson is the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Sociology Emerita at Middlebury College, where she taught for more than 40 years. In her latest book, Keeping Family Secrets: Shame and Silence in Memoirs from the 1950s, she focuses on six categories of secrets revealed time and time again in memoirs from that era, including the institutionalization of a child, unwanted pregnancy of a daughter, and the Jewish ancestry of one or more family members. Margaret has written a number of other nonfiction books as well, including Like Family: Narratives of Fictive Kinship and Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our 2022 end-of-year holiday extravaganza! In the spirit of holiday giving, we have a present for you, which, if we’re being honest, is also a present for us: BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS. Two dozen of them, in fact! At the end of almost all the interviews we conducted this year, we asked our guests, “What’s one book you love and why do you love it?” We held back the recordings of their answers so we could share them with you now, with our gratitude for another year of book dreaming. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why, exactly, do we feel so shattered when someone we love leaves us? What is the science behind the physical changes we experience during heartbreak, such as weight loss and anxiety, and why do so many of us stop behaving rationally? In this episode of Book Dreams, we talk with acclaimed science writer Florence Williams about her latest book, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey, in which she explores questions like these within the framework of a heartbreak of her own and its aftermath. In her conversation with Julie and Eve, Florence discusses the brain science behind our responses to this kind of loss; the potential impact of loneliness and feelings of abandonment on our immune systems; why some of us bounce back from heartbreak faster than others; what advice she gives to everyone struggling to recover from heartbreak; and so much more. Florence Williams is a journalist, podcaster, and the author of Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey. Her first book, Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science and Technology, and was named a notable book by The New York Times. She's also the author of The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, The New York Review of Books, and many other outlets, and she's a contributing editor at Outside Magazine. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is it like to create a modern, feminist retelling of an ancient, foundational text? Vaishnavi Patel–author of the instant New York Times bestselling novel Kaikeyi, a reimagining of the Hindu epic the Ramayana–paints a vivid picture in this episode of Book Dreams. Vaishnavi’s novel “tells the story of the evil stepmother character [Kaikeyi], who sets off the whole epic by exiling Rama, and then just sort of disappears. [The novel] asks, What if she had reasons for doing what she did? What if the story was a little bit different and we can understand her actions rather than them just being spur-of-the-moment jealousy, which is what we get in the Ramayana?” In this conversation with Eve and Julie, Vaishnavi relates why she became fascinated by Kaikeyi’s story; how her research led her to surprising evidence of feminism in the Ramayana source material; how she’s handled backlash from people who “believe in some sort of Hindu supremacy” and who deem her novel a threat; and why the novel in fact strengthened her relationship with Hinduism, as well as the connection of some of her readers to their Hindu faith. Vaishnavi Patel is an attorney focusing on constitutional law and civil rights and the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Kaikeyi. She writes at the intersection of Indian myth, feminism, and anti-colonialism. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are the raw materials of our lives? Who are the authors, the singers and songwriters, the actors and artists whose work resonates with each of us and makes us who we are? It’s a question that is brilliantly and masterfully explored by arts critic Margo Jefferson in her new memoir, Constructing a Nervous System, in which she weaves her personal history with those of the artists who are part of her “nervous system,” setting it all within a wider cultural context. In this spirited and wide-ranging conversation, Julie and Eve talk with Margo about deriving power from our heroes and our anti-heros, how accepting complexity can be a better course than cancellation when we encounter racism and other biases in cherished artists and their works, how critics can betray their readers, and so much more. Margo Jefferson won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and previously served as Books and Arts Critic for Newsweek and The New York Times. Constructing a Nervous System was long listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. It was named a Best Book of the Year for The New Yorker and Publishers Weekly, and a Most Anticipated Book for The New York Times, Time, Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Observer, Vanity Fair, Bustle, Buzzfeed, and more. Margo's earlier memoir, Negroland, received the National Book Critic Circle Award for Autobiography. She's also the author of On Michael Jackson and is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices