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Books and Bites
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
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Carrie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Books and Bites podcast. Each month we bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them. I'm Carrie Green and I'm here with my co hosts Michael Cunningham and Jacqueline Cooper.
Michael: Hello.
Jacqueline: Hi everybody.
Carrie: On today's episode we're excited to share a new Books and Bites bingo sheet for the Summer-Fall Reading Challenge.
Michael: Yay. Yay.
Carrie: So We've still got lots of great reading prompts for you. We have some slightly different rules. Michael, do you want to explain those, that rule change?
Michael: Sure. So this time, you can pair any prompt with an asterisk with a prompt without an asterisk. You can't use a title more than twice.
Carrie: Yeah, so we had a similar rule the last couple of times we've done it.
We just kind of wanted to clarify a little bit with this one. [00:01:00]
Michael: Yeah, it wasn't, I think it was a little, confusing.
Carrie: Yeah, it could be interpreted multiple ways. So hopefully this makes that a little bit clearer.
Jacqueline: So if you're gonna, if you have a novella, you can, and then there's an asterisk for an eBook, you can write the title in both squares?
Carrie: Like the prompt, a novella. Is that what you mean? Yes. Yes. So you could use it in both squares, but you can only use that title for those two squares.
Michael: Yes.
Jacqueline: Okay.
Michael: And we've also added some more prompts with those asterisks to make it a little easier this time.
Carrie: Yes. So, same amount, there's still 24 total prompts, plus the free prompt in the middle, free square in the middle.
But there's maybe a, a, you can double up a little bit more.
Michael: Yeah.
Carrie: So if anybody was struggling with the last one, hopefully that will help. And we've also got [00:02:00] some great prompts this time. Jacqueline, do you have a favorite prompt that you're looking forward to doing?
Jacqueline: Yeah, I'm looking forward to looking for a Southern Gothic book that's YA, so I'm pretty excited about that one.
And also, I like, I do like hybrid books, so I'm also excited about that.
Carrie: Yeah, I'm excited about that one, too. What about you, Michael?
Michael: Well, Jackie did take mine, but I'm also pretty interested in a book with a king or queen. I do like history and I've been wanting to read some medieval history, and if I can fit it in, because those books tend to be a little on the longer side, um, so I might start with that one here pretty soon.
Carrie: Yeah, I, I think that one will be fun too. And that's one of those prompts that you could do, you know, nonfiction, but you could also do fantasy or, you know, historical fiction. There's kings and queens in a lot of different types of books. I'm also looking forward to one of our prompts this [00:03:00] time is to attend a Books and Bites reading party or read on your own at the library.
That's if you can't make a Books and Bites reading party. So we did want to tell you about the Books and Bites reading party that we have on the schedule for Tuesday, August 20th at 6 30 p. m. And we did do this once during the last bingo sheet and people seemed to have a good time. We start off by doing some silent reading, 30 minutes of silent reading, and then we have 30 minutes of
bookish conversation.
Michael: It was fun.
Jacqueline: And we got to eat in the library.
Carrie: That's right. We do this out in the main library in front of the fireplace. So we'll have some snacks and some conversation starters and time to read on your own, which for some of us can be challenging.
Michael: Yeah.
Jacqueline: That is true.
Carrie: Today we are [00:04:00] talking about the prompt, Books by Authors with Disabilities, and that's because July is Disability Pride Month.
And according to the Arc, which is an organization that advocates for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Disability Pride Month, " is an opportunity to honor the history, achievements, experiences, and struggles of the disability community. " and the reason it takes place in July is the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act is July 26th, and that act was first passed in 1990.
There are a lot of different things that you could count as, as a disability. Michael, you want to read what the ADA says about a disability?
Michael: According to the ADA, an individual with a disability, "a person who has a [00:05:00] physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment."
Carrie: You know, we, we decided to, even though there's lots of good books about disabled characters by non disabled people, we did make a conscious decision to make it authors with a disability. And I think that's a really good way of participating in Disability Pride Month. We do have a list that we have created of books by authors with disabilities.
Reading an author's bio might be a way of deciding if they consider their condition a disability.
Michael: Yeah. My author, he has autism. He's on the spectrum. So, and he, he has been vocal about that on social media and interviews. So, you know, he stays, you know, he does have trouble, I guess, perceiving some things.[00:06:00]
So
Jacqueline: some people may feel like some things aren't a disability maybe.
Carrie: Yeah.
Jacqueline: So maybe they think they consider it more of an ability that they have.
Carrie: Right.
Jacqueline: Things.
Carrie: And then I also just wanted to mention, before we get into talking about the books that we chose for this month, that our June guest on the Prompt to Page Writing Podcast, which I also host, is Sandra Gail Lambert.
And, Sandra writes fiction and memoir that is often about the disabled body and its relationship to the natural world. So I would encourage you to listen to that podcast because she talks a lot about her own writing experience as a disabled person. And also, I highly recommend both of her memoirs, which we have in our collection, and her newest memoir is called My Withered Legs and Other [00:07:00] Essays.
So my book is How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir by Shayla Lawson. In How to Live Free in a Dangerous World, Lexington resident Shayla Lawson explores what it means to travel the world as a Black, non binary, and disabled person. The reader accompanies Lawson, who uses they them pronouns, on journeys that span from young adulthood to early middle age, from New York City to Tokyo to Zimbabwe and many other places.
The book is written as a series of essays with titles like "On Firsts," "On Blackness," and "On Them"-- titles that are somewhat coy about their subjects, if not the largeness of them. In "On Privilege," Lawson writes [00:08:00] about what it was like to be married to a Dutchman and live with him in the Netherlands. While there, Lawson volunteers at a refugee camp in a nearby village, and the experience is full of troubling ambiguities.
Lawson realizes, for example, that the white friend they volunteer with is racist, and that, compared to the asylum seekers, Lawson is relatively privileged. And in some ways, Lawson is better off than the white woman-- more open to new foods and cultures, better at navigating difference. Lawson is diagnosed with Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome in their late 30s, a disease that causes their joints to dislocate, among other symptoms.
At times they experience periods of paralysis. In "On Time," Lawson writes about how disability alters their view of time. They travel to Frida Kahlo's house in Mexico [00:09:00] City to see Kahlo's studio and the bed where she painted herself while recovering from surgeries. As a young person, Lawson didn't like Kahlo's work, but now they admire her artistic choices and her fearlessness in sharing her pain.
As in some of the other essays, Lawson speaks directly to the reader using the second person, a fitting and effective choice given their desire for intimacy. "I feel very frightened about how you might react," Lawson confesses. Sometimes, Lawson continues, they can't get out of bed to write but must speak into a recorder.
Here, they shift into the second person plural in a move that suggests the growing relationship between writer and reader. " But here we are," they say, "and we are so much closer together than we were when I was pretending to be an ordinary person. Because I have [00:10:00] nothing left, I have nothing left to hide." Lawson is both a journalist and a poet, and those skills serve them well in this memoir. Like the best poetry, Lawson uses both the senses and abstractions to convey meaning. At times, it feels like their language breaks down under the weight of their ideas, and I found myself having to re read sentences multiple times to make sure I understood what they were trying to say.
But mostly, I wanted to underline passages because of their beauty and insight. How to Live Free in a Dangerous World both challenged and expanded my own thinking, and for that, I'm grateful. In the final essay in the collection, Lawson searches for liberation in Bermuda among the descendants of the country's first Black settlers.
They find something like it while foraging for wild spinach and herbs with a local guide. "Who [00:11:00] told you you should be free?" Lawson asks, again addressing the reader, but also, perhaps, themself. "I did. Freedom is traveling, but liberation is food." While in Bermuda, Lawson falls back in love with bananas, a fruit they stopped eating after accidentally witnessing some very harsh labor conditions at a plantation in Nicaragua.
Bananas were first introduced to Bermuda in the 17th century, and they are an essential part of the country's food culture. I found a recipe for banana pie under the entry for Bermuda in the library database A to Z World Food. Mash three ripe bananas and beat them with some egg whites, sugar, vanilla, lemon juice, and salt.
Bake in a pie shell, chill, and serve with your favorite dairy or non dairy whipped cream.
Michael: [00:12:00] So she met Frida Kahlo in Mexico?
Carrie: No, they went to her house.
Michael: Oh, her house, okay.
Carrie: So it's there's the Frida Kahlo house is a museum there. Kalo had several disabilities, and one of the ways she stayed working was that she had like a bed with a mirror over it, so she would paint herself using that mirror.
Jacqueline: A lot of her paintings are self portraits, right? I think I've read a little bit about her.
Carrie: Yeah, and many of them depict her in pain and depict, you know, her disabilities. I've been re I've actually been separately reading about Frida Kahlo and, she had a very interesting life and just Some, you know, this terrible accident that disabled her when she was just like 17 or something.
Yeah.
Jacqueline: Pretty young.
Carrie: Yeah. She was very [00:13:00] young. But I think a lot of disabled authors find Kahlo's story to be very powerful because she was someone who, you know, was free with sharing her pain and.
Jacqueline: From what I read, she did almost the majority of her work from her bed, like she painted quite a bit.
Carrie: I don't know about the majority, but yeah, definitely a lot.
Michael: This month I read Chuck Tingle's Bury Your Gays, his brand new novel that comes out later this month in the follow up to last year's excellent Camp Damascus. The title of the book is actually an infamous trope that's been used in television films for years, where gay characters are usually expendable with tragic deaths, and on top of that, if they're in a relationship, the surviving character will come to the realization that they were never really [00:14:00] gay at all, and run into the arms of a heterosexual partner.
The book opens with Misha Byrne, a writer for the famed Harold Brothers Studios, heading to a very important meeting with the VP of Television. The studio is the talk of Hollywood right now with their film, where the lead was played entirely by a long dead actor, thanks to AI, nominated for an Oscar. Misha is also on top of the world.
His short film has also been nominated for an Oscar in a super popular television series, Travelers, a show like The X Files, is about to wrap its third season with a grand finale where the two agents finally confess their feelings for each other. Except now, according to the VP, the studio higher ups want him to axe that part and have Misha redo the finale and have one of his agents
die tragically, quote unquote, for the algorithm. Misha leaves that meeting fuming, and is immediately witness to a problematic producer being crushed by, of all things, a falling piano that leaves him profoundly shaken. A [00:15:00] couple weeks later, he meets up at the bar with his best friend Tara to figure out things, career wise and relationship wise.
But on their walk home, they abruptly run into someone dressed as a character from one of his previous horror movies. As time goes on, he starts running into more and more of his characters. He thinks they're crazy fans or that the studio might be behind it, trying to pressure him about his finale. As the stakes rise and the, people closest to him get caught in the crosshairs, Misha will have to risk everything to save the people he loves.
This book about creating stories is layered yet fast paced and compelling, using unease and disorientation to ratchet up the tension. Though this is a relatively short novel, it tackles a lot of important social issues. LGBTQ representation in media, capitalism, post strike Hollywood, AI, but mostly this book is a celebration of life and love.
Misha is a character you root for. He's fully fleshed out and alive to the reader. The author is able to really capture the [00:16:00] feelings and interactions that come with relationships. You feel everything he's going through and he goes through a lot and the way Chuck Tingle is able to effortlessly blend elements of horror and sci fi while staking the landing at the end was impressive.
I highly recommend it for fans of satire horror like the Scream franchise. Especially Scream 3. And with its humor and heart at the center of this book, I think fans of Grady Hendrix would also enjoy it. So I pair this with a flute of California 75. A twist on the French 75 cocktail, this swaps out the gin and champagne for vermouth and a sparkling California wine.
It's really simple to make. In addition to the vermouth and sparkling California wine, you'll need lemon juice, simple syrup, and a lemon twist for garnish. A perfect cocktail for the summer months. You can check out the recipe at Californiagrown. org.
Jacqueline: Sounds refreshing.
Michael: Oh, it is. It's very good.
Carrie: And the book sounds a little I mean, it sounds kind of meta.
Michael: Yes. [00:17:00] Oh yeah.
Carrie: And it doesn't sound like maybe it's as, I don't know, violent as some of the horror that you read? Or am I
Michael: It's, it's really not. It, there's, there's, there's a little bit of stuff to it. You know, a little bit of blood, but it's definitely more, definitely more heartfelt, definitely more, a little more humor to it, a lot more meta than some of the other stuff I usually read.
You know, if you ever, I don't know if you've heard of Chuck Tingle, so he's written a lot of, I guess I want to say, I guess it'd be like parody or satire, erotic romances, a lot of titles I don't know if I could say here, but they're kind of hilarious and the covers are hilarious. And then he recently got into writing horror
last year with Kate Damascus, which, that book would also fit the character in that it's about a gay, a gay conversion camp and the main protagonist [00:18:00] is, has autism. But yeah, his writing is actually very well, very well done. And it's very, I guess he's very, I guess I would say he's very empathetic and it's all about everything he writes is about, I guess, more love
in a celebration of life. So I mean, I don't, yeah, it's a
little
different from what I usually read, but it's good. I think, I think it would, it'll appeal to other people who might not dig what the darker stuff I've read, I've read in the past couple of years, but
Carrie: yeah,
Jacqueline: yeah,
Carrie: Oh, go ahead.
Jacqueline: Oh, I was just going to say, I, that would be something I might consider.
Because of the satire and I do enjoy some of those like the Scream that you mentioned and I'm not sure that remember those Jason books, the Jason movies with the mask. I wonder how much is, was that supposed to be satire or did we just kind of,
Michael: it came, it almost became that because it's so campy. Yeah.
But, like in Scream 3, that one takes place in Hollywood, and this is very much about [00:19:00] Hollywood, and like screenwriting and creating stories.
Carrie: And a lot of those scenarios that you mentioned, I mean, they sound very realistic. So it's also,
you
know, I mean, that is kind of horror too, just
Michael: really, yeah, yeah,
Jacqueline: really happens
Carrie: though.
Yeah. That really happens.
Jacqueline: That makes it worse almost. That could happen.
Michael: All this
stuff
comes from
somewhere.
Jacqueline: I chose Storm and Fury, book one of the Harbinger series by Jennifer L. Armentrout for this month's prompt, a book by authors with disabilities. The Harbinger series is a spinoff of the Dark Elements series. Although Storm and Fury takes place chronologically after the Dark Elements, you do not have to read or listen to them in that order for them to make sense.
For teens [00:20:00] looking for more than one series to read, they might want to start with book one of the Dark Elements series, since many of the characters make an appearance in the spinoff. The reason I chose to discuss the first book of the Harbinger series, Storm and Fury, is the main character, Trinity Morrow, has the same disorder as the author, Jennifer L.
Armentrout. Jennifer was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease with symptoms usually starting in childhood that slowly causes most people to eventually lose most of their sight. Storm and Fury's setting is a supernatural world full of gargoyles, demons, and a girl named Trinity.
Trinity, who must be protected at all costs. Trinity's real identity must be kept a secret because she is the last of her kind. Although she may be going blind, she can communicate with ghosts. Trinity is lonely because she lives in a gargoyle's compound. For her protection, Trinity is rarely allowed outside the compound. In this story, gargoyles are the protectors of humankind against demons.
The gargoyles [00:21:00] have abilities shape shift, but their gargoyle form is their true form. According to Trinity, they're all attractive in their gargoyle and human forms. However, gargoyles rarely mix with other species. They live extremely dangerous lives, so they marry and have children at a young age. Most of the gargoyles think that Trinity is just a human girl, so they don't have much to do with her.
At the compound, her protector, Misha, and her father figure, Matthew and Terry, know the truth about her past and what she is. Misha and Trinity spend most of their time training for a supernatural battle that they will someday fight. She has to practice harder than anyone else, even though she's actually more powerful than any of the gargoyles, because she must learn to compensate for her vision losses.
She must be extra careful because of her disorder. She cannot see if someone's coming towards her sideways. Trinity explains that it's much like being a horse with blinders on. Life has become monotonous for Trinity and Misha. They rarely [00:22:00] have company at the compound because of Trinity. All that changes when another clan visits to ask for help.
The clan reports that something is killing both Demons and Wardens. Since they seldom have visitors, the newcomers fascinate Trinity, especially the annoying but super cute Warden Zane. When the Demons attack the compound and kidnap Misha, Terry and Matthew decide to allow Trinity to join the fight with Zane and rescue Misha.
In typical YA fashion, neither admit to liking each other. Will they be able to save Misha and admit their feelings? I enjoyed listening to this audio book in Hoopla. The Hoopla book I listened to from the app has a full cast with sound effects. I like Jennifer's writing style. Her characters are interesting and likable.
Trinity is snarky, funny, I found myself smiling and laughing along with the banter between the characters. Peanut the ghost from the seventies laugh out loud, funny with his shenanigans. [00:23:00] The author does a remarkable job of incorporating retinitis pigmentosa into the story so the readers learn more about the disorder.
In the story, Trinity reveals her symptoms and some of the ways she copes with the ongoing losses of her sight. Most of all, I like that Jennifer made Trinity a strong, brave hero who does not let her disability define her. I would recommend this book to readers who like a lot of action and suspense with their paranormal reads.
Since there are a few spicy scenes, I would recommend this paranormal romance to mature readers ages 14 and up. For a YA book, I would give it a 3 out of 5 for the spice level. Which can be, uh, I was talking to my coworker, the outreach, teen outreach librarian, and she was like saying, you know, her definition of what the different spice levels were.
So, so I was like, first I had a four, but then after she was talking, I was like, Oh, maybe [00:24:00] it's only a 3. 5. I don't
know.
But this might be, uh, the, what is it, Colleen Hoover fans might enjoy this, but it's not, I don't think it's as spicy as,
as her,
since she's adult. But Jennifer does write adult as well as YA.
For my pairing, I found a simple recipe for refreshing homemade vanilla ice cream from Love and Lemons. Homemade vanilla ice cream served by itself or with homemade blackberry pie, a childhood dessert that reminds me of long summer days in Indiana.
Carrie: Yes. Both sound really good.
Jacqueline: Yeah. Ha ha.
Michael: I was just gonna mention, I've never heard of a fantasy that incorporated gargoyles
as like, uh, I guess they're like a race or something.
Jacqueline: That's, that's becoming pretty popular in Y. A. and I don't know.
Michael: Gargoyles.
Jacqueline: [00:25:00] Gargoyles, yeah. Tracy Wolfe has got a gargoyle in her, paranormal books. So, they're, they're the hot new
Carrie: The gargoyle is the new vampire?
Jacqueline: The new vampire, yeah.
Michael: While you were talking about that, it brought to mind this cartoon in the 90s I watched growing up called Gargoyles, about a clan of gargoyles.
Carrie: Oh, really?
Jacqueline: Yeah.
Michael: It's about other clans.
Carrie: Huh.
Michael: And you know, they turn to stone during the day, but at night they come alive.
Jacqueline: Oh, yeah.
Michael: So. Trying to rip off one of my favorite cartoons.
Jacqueline: This gargoyle is like, um, I don't know, this is a sexy hot gargoyle, so I
don't
know.
Michael: These were not,
Jacqueline: Probably not what you were
watching.
Carrie: Man, some of those gargoyles, it's hard to imagine them as becoming sexy.
Michael: That was the whole point of them. It was terrifying.
Jacqueline: According [00:26:00] to Trinity, he looks hot. I don't know. Either way. Of course, she's been kept in a compound. You know, her whole, most of her life, I don't know, I'm just kidding.
Carrie: She doesn't have anything to compare it to.
That's funny.
Jacqueline: Oh.
Carrie: Thanks for listening to the Books and Bites podcast. To learn more about Books and Bites Bingo, visit us at jesspublib.org/books-bites. Our theme music is The Breakers from the album In Close Quarters with the Enemy by Scott Whiddon. You can learn more about Scott and his music at his website at doorforadesk. com.