On this episode, Blake Chastain, author and podcaster, talks about how reading has helped him slow down through the difficult times we live in now, how technology helps and hurts his reading life, and some really excellent book recommendations. He will likely make you want to read comics and if that’s new for you, go for it!! 

Exvangelical and Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement that’s Fighting Back 

Find Blake on Substack 

Hear me on Let’s Talk About Text on Apple and Spotify

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

Phantasma by Kaylie Smith

What Happened to Lucy Vale by Lauren Oliver 

Books Highlighted by Blake:

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers 

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart 

Females by Andrea Long Chu

Devotions by Mary Oliver 

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer 

House of X/Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman 

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson 

Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting by Shannon Vallor 

The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking by Shannon Vallor 

Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 

Fantastic Four: Solve Everything by Jonathan Hickman 

Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman 

God Is Disappointed in You by Mark Russell & Shannon Wheeler

Apocrypha Now by Mark Russell & Shannon Wheeler 

Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers 

The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams