Your Shelf or Mine

Becky, Jennifer, and Heather discuss The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum and it's many adaptations, spinoffs, retellings, etc. including: The Wizard of Oz, MGM film (1939) Wicked by Gregory Maguire (1995) Wicked (musical) by Stephen Schwartz and Winne Holzman (2003) Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige (2014) Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor (2025) The Antidote by Karen Russell (2025) Heather references this article: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/american-oz-why-wizard-oz-so-wonderful/       

Becky and Jakob discuss two important American political essays:  "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau (1849) "Letter From Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963) They are available from the library in the book "Writing Politics: An Anthology" edited by David Bromwich, published by the New York Review of Books.

Becky and Austin explore the myth of the American Pioneer through Little House on the Prairie. We discuss "Little House on the Prairie" and "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, "Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder" by Caroline Fraser, "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich, "Prairie Lotus" by Linda Sue Park, and the new Little House on the Prairie Netflix series. 

Becky, Shelley, and Austin explore the Founding myths through musical theater. This is the first in a six-part series exploring American mythology through different texts. We discuss 1776 (music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards, book by Peter Stone) and Hamilton (music, lyric, book by Lin-Manuel Miranda). Other work referenced: "We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution" by Jill Lepore, "A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America" by Richard Slotkin, and the essay "Race-Conscious Casting and the Erasure of the Black Past in Lin-Manual Miranda's Hamilton" by Lyra D. Monteiro.  https://online.ucpress.edu/tph/article/38/1/89/90687/Review-Essay-Race-Conscious-Casting-and-the?__cf_chl_f_tk=RYgtNhx8xBI4oM1lbTJWq.vpN8FWjMQmCiZ91vf4euU-1783030175-1.0.1.1-vToaORa2QQj0TiJ5U9.4FCSpCIaP_CS_PS864EnlqEA 

Becky, Holly, Jakob, and Austin talk about books of the 2020s, trends in reading and publishing, our hopes for the future, and a couple of predictions for the next big thing. This reading data: https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-pleasure-all-signs-show-slump Books mentioned include: Spillover by David Quammen, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, The Plague by Albert Camus, The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,  These Precious Days and Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, There is a Door in This Darkness by Kristin Cash ore, All Fours by Miranda July, Book Lovers by Emily Henry, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, What Were We Thinking by Carlos Lozada, Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen, Just Us by Claudia Rankine, The Trees by Percival Everett, Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette, Intimacies and A Separation by Katie Kitamura, Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, Ducks by Kate Beaton, The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty, The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, The Most by Jessica Anthony, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, Autocracy Inc by Anne Applebaum, Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, Doppleganger by Naomi Klein, Detransition, Baby by Torry Peters, Woodworking by Emily St. James, Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan, Diary of a Misfit by Casey Parks, Jesus Wept by Philip Shenon, Romney by McKay Coppins, Motherland by Julia Ioffe, The Gales of November by John U. Bacon, Murderland by Caroline Fraser, King of Kings by Scott Anderson, All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilberty, Challenger by Adam Higginbotham, More Everything Forever by Adam Becker, Red White and Whole by Rajani LaRocca, The Midnight Children by Dan Gemeinhart, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, Wanderhome by Jay Dragon, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, The House in the Cerulean sea by TJ Klune, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, The Women by Kristin Hannah, Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey,  The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, Alchemised by SenLinYu, Convent Wisdom by Ana Garriga and Carment Urbita, The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo, We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, Berry Song by Michaela Goade, Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, The Tragedy of True Crime by John J. Lennon, The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne,  We Tell Ourselves Stories by Alissa Wilkinson, Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik, Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, Back After This by Linda Holmes, The Caretaker by Ron Rash And authors Patricia Lockwood,  Claire Keegan, Rachel Kushner, Timothy Snyder, Helen Garner, Casey Plett, Mr Beast/James Patterson, Stephen Graham Jones, Silvia Moreno Garcia, and more!