The Perks Of Being A Book Lover Podcast

Amy Smalley
  • 4.8 (42)
  • LANGUAGE LEARNING
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Perks of Being a Book Lover is a show about books, people who read, and how reading, at its very best, is a social experience. Whether it be a book club, a poetry slam, or the production of a play; words are meant to be shared. Keep up with us on FB.

  1. 18H AGO

    S14:Ep280 - The Missing Pages with Guest Alyson Richman + Musician Book Recs - 5/27/26

    Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Alyson Richman at www.alysonrichman.com or on IG @alysonrichman.   If you’re a historical fiction lover, you’ve probably read something by Alyson Richman. She’s the author of 11 novels, including The Missing Pages, which was published last fall. We were delighted that she agreed to come on the show and speak to us about this book, although we did sneak in a question about The Velvet Hours published in 2016, which our book club read many years ago. It is about a real Paris courtesan in the Belle Epoque who in her later years as World War II approaches shares her life story with her granddaughter.   The Missing Pages is a historical fiction novel that is about a man’s love of books, but it is also a ghost tale, a romance, and a story of the Titanic all rolled into one. Richman is known for making the reader feel the sumptuous details of the world she is writing about, and she does it again in this book.   Our book rec segment of the show is all about musicians, but we’re not talking solely about musician memoirs, although we do have one of those. We’ve got a children’s nonfiction book about a Ukrainian pianist who performed for Nazsis, a National Book Award winner, a mystery about a stolen violin, a story about a wedding singer whose own relationship is on the rocks, and a coming of age story set in the 1970s that includes a rock star.    Books Mentioned in This Episode: 1- The Missing Pages by Alyson Richman  2- The Velvet Hours by Alyson Richman  3- The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray  4- All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley  5- Buckeye by Patrick Ryan  6- The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal  7- Underlake by Erin L. McCoy  8- The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower  9- A Five Star Read from fellow Book Lover Anima D. @autopsyofbooks - And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie  10- The Encore by Juliet Izon  11- Songs For Other People's Weddings by David Levithan and Jens Lekman  12- Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis by Susan Hood and Greg Dawson  13- Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau  14- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by David Grohl  15- The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

    1h 12m

  2. MAY 19

    REPLAY - S13:Ep268 Pulitzer Prize Winner Daniel Kraus and ANGEL DOWN

    This week you get a bonus episode because we are revisiting the conversation we had back last November with Daniel Kraus, the author of Angel Down.  This novel just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  So enjoy and we will be back with an all new episode next week.   Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.   You can find Daniel Kraus at his website danielkraus.com or on IG at @kraus_author.   This week our episode features Daniel Kraus, a writer who has published over 20 books, but among moviegoers he may be best known as the co-author with Guillermo del Toro of The Shape of Water. The film of this story won four Oscars in 2018. Daniel’s 2023 novel Whalefall is being turned into a 20th Century Fox motion picture, and I hope that at some point his latest novel, Angel Down, will also be on film.  Both the premise and writing in Angel Down are unique. It is the story of a group of World War I soldiers told to go into No Man’s Land to rescue what they think is a wounded soldier. What they find is an angel. If you enjoy war novels, and even if you don’t, I recommend giving this book a read.    Our book rec section of the show features books related to women in politics. If you are interested in politics yet hate the nuttery of American government at the moment, these books can provide a reprieve. We have contemporary fiction, biography, memoir, alternative history, and electoral nonfiction.    Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- Whalefall by Daniel Kraus  2- Angel Down by Daniel Kraus  3- The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus 4- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 5- The Leaphorn and Chee Series by Tony Hillerman 6- Hearts of the Missing by Carol Potenza 7- The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch by Daniel Kraus  8- Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp  9- From Under the Truck by Josh Brolin 10- Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali  11- The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue  12- A Five Star Read recommended by fellow Book Lover State Katz @all.da.bookish.things - The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan  13- Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing by Alison Winn Scotch  14- Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win by Jo Piazza 15- The Partisan Gap: Why Democratic Women Get Elected But Republican Women Don't by Laurel Elder  16- Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld  17- Mrs. Lincoln: A Life by Catherine Clinton  18- A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Arden   Media Mentioned: 1- Frankenstein (2025-Netflix) 2- Dark Winds (2022 - present, Netflix) 3- The Shape of Water (2017) 4- 1917 (2019) 5- Whalefall (Upcoming Fall 2026) 6- Michelle Obama Says US Not Ready for a Female President - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/michelle-obama-says-us-not-ready-woman-president-rcna244136

    1h 13m

  3. MAY 13

    S14:Ep279 - Summer Reads with Guest Sam Miller of Carmichael's Bookstore 5/13/26

    Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Carmichael’s at carmichaelsbookstore.com   We were sad last fall that we weren’t able to record with our favorite bookseller, Sam Miller, manager at the Frankfort Ave location of Carmichael’s Bookstore for our Holiday Book Buying episode. But she is back for summer, telling us all about the new titles that will get you excited to sit back on a hot afternoon, either at the pool or in the air conditioning, and read to your heart’s content.    Books Mentioned In This Episode:   1- The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly  2- The Grand Paloma Resort by Cleyvis Natera  3- Angel Down by Daniel Kraus  4- A book that Changed a Life - Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks recommended by Briana Lathon Bluford  5- Yesteryear by Claro Claire Burke  6- American Fantasy by Emma Straub  7- Whistler by Ann Patchett  8- Puck by Samantha Allen  9- Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett  10- Fortune of Sand by Ruta Sepetys  11- Go Gentle by Maria Semple  12- Country People by Daniel Mason  13- These Days by Lucy Caldwell  14- Devotions by Lucy Caldwell  15- Opening by Lucy Caldwell  16- Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhorn  17- The Keeper by Tana French (Cal Hooper #3) 18- Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth  19- Killer Vibes by Jack Friday  20- Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim  21- Ignore All Previous Instructions by Ada Hoffman  22- Sublimation by Isabel Kim  23- Book Witch by Meg Shaffer  24- We Burn So Bright b y TJ Klune  25- Moss'd in Space by Rebecca Thorrne 26- American Rambler by Isaac Fitzgerald  27- Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess by Ben Mezrich  28- The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery by Kaitlyn Tiffany  29- The Carpool Detectives by Chuck Hogan  30- The Family Man: Blood and Betrayal in the House of Murdaugh by James Lasdun  31- True Biz by Sara Novíc  32- Mother Tongue by Sara Novíc 33- The Left and the Lucky by Willy Vlautin  34- London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe  35- 4 Janes by Marian See  36- Love and Other Monsters by Emily Franklin  37- This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman  38- Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment by Rhae Lynn Barnes  39- Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano  40- The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland    Media Mentioned: 1- White Lotus (2021 - present, HBO Max) 2-2026  Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction - https://www.pulitzer.org/news/2026-pulitzer-prize-announcement

    1h 1m

  4. APR 29

    S14:Ep278 - You Are Now Old Enough To Hear This with Guest Aaron Starmer + Alien Book Recs 4/29/26

    Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.   You can find Aaron Starmer at www.aaronstarmer.com or on IG @aaron_starmer.   This week on the podcast we welcome middle grade and young adult novelist Aaron Starmer whose most recent book, You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This, is a quirky middle grade novel about a Toe Beast and a girl who travels with a pack of dogs and a boy named Roman who learns some family secrets.  That sounds like a lot so we are glad Aaron joins us to explain it all in a much more succinct way than we ever could. And his 2025 YA novel Night Swimming just came out in paperback this week. And our book recommendation segment of the show is about aliens because what pairs better with a quirky novel than some extraterrestrials? We have Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning titles, a book about alien garbage, a wacky buddy road trip adventure, literary fiction about a girl who doesn’t feel human, and a philosophical first contact story starring the Catholic Church.   Books Mentioned in this Episode:   1- You Are Old Enough To Hear This by Aaron Starmer 2- Night Swimming by Aaron Starmer  3- The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly  4- Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman 5- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir  6- The Humans by Matt Haig  7- The Riverman by Aaron Starmer 8- The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler  9- Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues by Jonathan Kennedy 10- The Art of Vanishing by Morgan Pager  11- A 5 Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Tess @books_andthebeach - Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers  12- The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers  13- The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell  14- Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky  15- Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino  16- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card  17- The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis  Media Mentioned in this Episode: 1- Whitehall Book Club - https://www.historicwhitehall.org/whitehall-book-club 2- Resident Alien - (2021-2025, Netflix) 3- Project Hail Mary (2026)

    1h 8m

  5. APR 15

    S14: Ep 277 - The Folger Shakespeare Library Book Club with guest emma poltrack + Books about Book Clubs - 4/15/26

    Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.   You can find Folger Shakespeare Library at www.folger.edu   Now you may be familiar with the Folger Shakespeare Library’s editions of Shakespeare’s works. In fact, Carrie is still using some of  hers from high school. But she had no idea this world-famous research library in Washington DC had a book club. As a Shakespeare enthusiast, she was definitely intrigued, and we are so excited that emma poltrack, the Arts Engagement Program Manager for the Folger Shakespeare Library, agreed to join us and tell us all about the book club.    Our book rec segment this week are books about…..book clubs! We’ve got two memoirs about book clubs–one made up of professor friends and the other between a mother and son. We’ve got a horror novel with a book club that battles vampires, an intergenerational mystery-solving book club in England, a women’s fiction novel about a book club that asks its members to present the book that matters most, and a writing and reading group for Punjabi women in London that’s breaking boundaries.   Books Mentioned in this Episode   1- The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly  2- The Calculating Stars (A Lady Astronaut series) by Mary Robinette Kowal 3- The Martian Conspiracy by Mary Robinette Kowal  4- Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma  5- Tastes like Shakkar by Nisha Sharma  6- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin  7- The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu  8- Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell  9- Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson  10- Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton  11- Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons  12- Well Met by Jen DeLuca  13- Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett  14- Booth by Karen Joy Fowler  15- The Fraud by Zadie Smith  16- It Goes So Fast by Mary Louise Kelly  17- The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehman  18- The Night We Became Strangers by Lorena Hughes  19- Shibby Magee by Carrie Kabak  20- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Abigail @nobadbooks - Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser  21- The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix  22- The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood  23- The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, and Piper Kendrix Williams  24- The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe  25- The Busybody Book Club by Freya Sampson  26- Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel by Balli Kaur Jaswal    Media Mentioned: 1- For All Mankind (Apple +, 2019 - present) 2- But That's Another Story Podcast (featuring Will Schwalbe) 3 - Whitehall House and Gardens Book Club - https://www.historicwhitehall.org/whitehall-book-club

    1h 12m

  6. APR 1

    S14:Ep276 - Aftertaste with Guest Daria Lavelle + Women in STEM Book Recommendations - 4/1/26

    Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.   You can find Daria Lavelle at www.darialavelle.com and on IG at @daria.lavelle.author   What is a food that, when you smell it or taste it, reminds you of a person or a place? Our guest this week, Daria Lavelle, has written a novel titled Aftertaste that asks what would happen if you could summon ghosts with food.  This isn’t a horror novel, so these ghosts aren’t here to haunt us in the traditional sense.  But the main character, Kostya, is a chef who helps his clients find closure from their loss and grief through food memories. Lavelle’s novel is super unique, and she talks to us about her own Ukrainian-American family’s passion for food, how Covid and Russia’s war on Ukraine heavily affected its writing, and how love becomes the crux of all the book’s momentum.   Our book rec segment of the show features women in STEM doing all kinds of cool sciency, techny, engineery, and mathy things. We’ve got women doing research in the Amazon and under the sea, women physicists, young girls learning botany, Regency period women studying fossils, and female scientists who bring back a woolly mammoth.    Books Mentioned In This Episode 1- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy  2- Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller  3- The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh  4- The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow  5- A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat  6- Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach  7- A Five Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Kris N. @theretiredlibrarian - Beth is Dead by Katie Bernet  8- The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly  9- The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel  10- Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier  11- The Woman Who Split the Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner by Marissa Moss  12- State of Wonder by Ann Patchett  13- Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield    Media Mentioned -- 1- Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (2024) 2- Bringing Back Wooly Mammoths - https://www.npr.org/2026/03/04/nx-s1-5704318/colossal-woolly-mammoth-dire-wolf

    1h 12m

  7. MAR 18

    S14:Ep275 - Books with Betsy Podcast with Guest Betsy Tomszak + "Characters in Disguise" Book Recs - 3/18/26

    Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Books with Betsy at https://www.bookswithbetsy.com/ and on IG at @books_with_betsy   This week, we chat with Chicago resident Betsy Tomszak who by day is a kindergarten teacher who reads lots and lots of picture books. After school hours, though, she is a reader of all kinds of other genres and the host of the podcast Books with Betsy. She was kind enough to invite us to be guests last summer, and we’re finally able to return the favor so she can tell our listeners all about her show. We get the nitty gritty about why she started the podcast and why she wanted to talk to regular readers.    Our book recommendation segment of the show this week is about characters in disguise. Sometimes a disguise is just to mask one’s appearance, but in other situations it is not only a physical disguise but an assumption of an entirely different personality and back story. We offer you historical fiction novels set in Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, a novel based on a medieval legend, a National Book Award winner, and a memoir.   Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 2- My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq by Ariel Sabar  3- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë 4- Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb 5- Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capo Crucet  6- So You Wanna Be On Top? by Sarah Hartshorne  7- Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica  8- I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Hartman  9- Rules of Civility by Amor Towles  10- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles  11- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver  12- Summerdale by David Jay Collins  13- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai  14- The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy  15- The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley  16- Sundial by Catriona Ward  17- A Five Start Read recommended by Fellow Book Lover Jeanine Neale @jeans_stacked_shelf - Nobody Knows You are Here by Bryn Greenwood  18- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas  19- Master Slave, Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyoon Woo  20- Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear  21- Pope Joan: A Novel by Donna Woolfolk Cross  22- Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl  23- The Good Lord Bird by James McBride    Media mentioned:   1- Wuthering Heights (2026) 2- Shrinking (Apple +, 2023 - present) 3- The Good Lord Bird (2020) 4- Jateska Cultural Center - https://jasteka.org 5- Artwork by Vian Sora - -https://jasteka.org/abcs-events 6- Run and Read Chicago - https://www.readandrunchicago.com

    1h 13m

  8. MAR 4

    S14:Ep274 - The International Book Project with Guest Rachel Ray + Espionage Book Recommendations 3/4/26

    Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.   This week we talk to Rachel Ray, CEO of the International Book Project, a nonprofit organization in Lexington, KY that helps make book lovers out of people all over the world. She talks to us about the logistics of shipping books and how close relationships with the Peace Corps and other nonprofits help get English-language books into people’s hands.    And for our book recommendation section of the show, we are focusing on spies, but these definitely aren’t of the James Bond variety. We offer up 6 book suggestions that stretch our understanding of an espionage story.  We are light on books set during the Cold War or World War II but instead focus on outside-the-box spy characters.      Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Dominé 2- The White Heart of the Mojave: An Adventure with the Outdoors of the Desert by Edna Brush Perkins  3- Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams on the Edge of Death Valley by Brent Underwood  4- Guards, Guards! (Discworld series) by Terry Pratchett  5- The Storyteller of Casablanca by Fiona Valley  6- Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson  7- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Jenni Scott @storytimereviews - Theo of Golden by Allen Levi  8- Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park  9- Who is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht  10- An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole  11- Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead  12- Mr. Nice Spy by Tiana Smith  13- The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix    Media Mentioned: 1- Murder in Glitterball City (HBO Max 2026) 2- John Hendrix's link to The Faithful Spy research - https://goose-hawk-c589.squarespace.com/bonhoeffer-research 3- Terry Pratchett Puzzle - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-world-of-terry-pratchett-1000-piece-puzzle-a-discworld-jigsaw-by-paul-kidby-terry-pratchett/29dbddde082184ce?ean=9781399620697&next=t&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=%7Bcampaignname%7D&utm_content=6443417794&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=16235479093&gbraid=0AAAAACfld41whhyxRMyYH28KslljMJPpx&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIieS7rND8kgMVYCBECB3sphbOEAQYByABEgIRtvD_BwE

    1h 8m
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4.8
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About

Perks of Being a Book Lover is a show about books, people who read, and how reading, at its very best, is a social experience. Whether it be a book club, a poetry slam, or the production of a play; words are meant to be shared. Keep up with us on FB.

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