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Cozy Reads with Megan and Alyisha in MA

The Checkout Stack

43 Plays1 month ago

Introduction of Guests

00:00:19

Speaker

Hello, and welcome to the Checkout Stack, where we talk books with a new librarian every episode. I am your host and the world's biggest library superfan, Maria Skogin, and I am so excited to introduce both of our guests today, Alicia Wasilewski and Megan Tully, from Ames Free Library in Massachusetts.

History of Ames Free Library

00:00:39

Speaker

Do you want to go ahead and introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the library, Ames Free Library in Massachusetts that you work for?

00:00:46

Speaker

Yeah, sure. um So I am Megan Tully. I am the head of Reference and Adult Services at the Ames Free Library. And we are located in Easton, Massachusetts, which is about a half hour south of Boston. Our library opened in 1883. And it was opened originally as a library. It's a question we get a lot. You know, was our building originally a library or was it a private residence? It has always been a library. And the found the funding for the founding of the library, did I say that five times fast, um was declared in the terms of the will for Oliver Ames Jr., who was a president of the Union Pacific Railroad. You'll find a lot of buildings in our town are named after the Ames family because of their prominence in town. They owned a shovel works factory, as well as some other businesses in the area. And so we opened in 1883,

00:01:40

Speaker

um We were designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, the famed architect who also designed Trinity Church in Boston, among many other public buildings. And we have been in operation um since then. And we also now have a second building on our property called Quiset House, which was a private rent was a private residence built in 1854. And we now use that as we call it our learning commons. That's actually where we are recording today in our podcasting studio. And so it's a space that we use kind of an ancillary space for the library for a lot of our programming and events. Very cool. Okay. Wow. You want to give a quick intro?

00:02:22

Speaker

Sure, Megan did all of the hard work. I'm Alicia Woziliski. I am the Youth Services Specialist at the Ames Free Library. And my favorite part about the building is that we have actual gargoyles. Oh, stop. Are they scary? Vaguely, vaguely scary. Right now they're scarier than normal because our roof is being fixed.

00:02:47

Speaker

um Yeah, so they're they're kind of, ah the perspective is shifted in a brand new way. I don't think they're going to crumble and fall on us. No, we're good. They're totally stable. But yeah, the gargoyles are great. I love i love our space.

Book Discussions: Various Reviews

00:03:04

Speaker

fun. Well, since we've got double the guests today, we've got almost double the books. So I'm going to move us right along into our recent reads. So I will go ahead and kick us off and tell you a little bit about the book I just finished, The Wedding People by Alison Espak. So this is a really popular one right now. It really was kind of making the rounds during the summer as like the summer reading novel.

00:03:30

Speaker

So the basic premise of the story is that a woman travels to a very fancy resort hotel with the intention of killing herself. But when she gets there, she realizes she is the only guest at the hotel who is not there for an elaborate wedding.

00:03:48

Speaker

Through a course of events, she somehow becomes kind of embedded into the wedding itself, learning more about the couple and their history and slowly deciding whether or not she is going to go through with her initial intention.

00:04:04

Speaker

This is kind of a combo of some of my favorite things, which is mainly rich people behaving poorly is like my favorite sub genre. And then but it's like a really great combo because it's rich people doing ridiculous things and you're like, ah you're the worst. But then it's also really thinking about the human condition and what it means to be alive and the lens through which we look at our lives and how that can change over the course of just a few days.

00:04:31

Speaker

So yeah, I really enjoyed it. I would say it's worth all the hype it's been getting. That was The Wedding People by Alison Esback. And then whoever wants to go and ask, feel free to take it away with a recent read. Okay. So my recent read is The Husbands by Holly Gramazzio. It is a book that is a little bit weird, but it was so much fun to listen to.

00:04:56

Speaker

So it centers on Lauren who is a young woman and she returns home from a night out with her friends to find her husband waiting for her at her flat door, which is weird because she is not married. And so she has, there's new decor in her flat and you know, her phone is full of pictures of this man named Michael who she's apparently married to. But things get even weirder when Michael goes up into the attic to change a light bulb and a different man comes down the attic stairs.

00:05:26

Speaker

And so it turns out that Lauren's attic is apparently magic and can just make her husbands. And so she kind of just has this infinite supply. And each time someone goes up into the attic, a but husband goes up into the attic, a different one comes down.

00:05:43

Speaker

And obviously this is chaotic for her. Her life changes in some small and some big ways every time a new husband is introduced into her life. um And so it's very zany, but also a super thoughtful look at modern dating and relationship culture. And what happens when you really start just living your life instead of kind of trying to plan for your life?

00:06:08

Speaker

Does she have any control over the husband that comes down or is it a total surprise every time? It's a total surprise every time she doesn't know what she's going to get. That's a really fascinating premise. I'm definitely going to add that on my list. I'm wondering if there's ever like a really lazy dude who like doesn't want doesn't want to go up in the attic and she can't get him to leave. There there are some really interesting twists along with the way with the different with the different guys who come downstairs. and you know, whether or not she maintains a relationship with them or not and things like that. And I did, I will say I listened to this one on audio and it was really fun just in terms of hearing her, not really a spoiler, there are certain points where she's just like, nope, get it back up the stairs. Like he comes down the stairs. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. go back up and So, you know, there's there's a couple moments like that that are really hilarious as you're listening to it as an audio book. Cool.

00:07:08

Speaker

fun What do you have for us, Alicia? Yeah, I recently read a short novel in translation from French called And the Birds Rained Down by Jocelyn Saussier.

00:07:22

Speaker

In 2024, I seemed to be leaning hard into the escapist fantasy of just dropping out of society and getting in touch with nature. And that was my theme before November he even rolled around. So I'm just going to continue on with that.

00:07:40

Speaker

This one is pretty short. It's under 200 pages. It's about a trio of octogenarians who build off-grid cabins in the forest so that they can live and die on their own terms. ah Two women unexpectedly break their solitude, a middle-aged photographer and an elderly woman who was recently sprung from a psychiatric institution.

00:08:04

Speaker

and their lives change. Saucier says a lot about freedom and community. It's a gorgeous book and it's quietly funny. One of my favorite little jokes is that the photographer, instead of calling herself a nature photographer, uses the term vegetative photographer because of her ultra-flow lifestyle.

00:08:30

Speaker

I think some readers might be upset about the ending, but I'm not among them. And one of the nicest things about this book is that it's one of those books that just feels good to have in your hands, like the paper quality, the font, it's all super lush.

00:08:46

Speaker

Super fun. And just to ah restate those titles, that was The Husbands by Holly Grimasio was what we heard first and then And The Birds Rained Down by Jocelyn Saussier and that was translated by Rhonda Mullins. Did you say it was originally written in French? I did, yes. Nice. Could you tell when you were reading it that it was a work in translation or was it pretty seamless? Honestly, no, it was it was seamless.

00:09:13

Speaker

That's great. Okay. Next, we are going to move into our book recommendation portion. So first off, we're going to pick some books off of the new release list. These are titles that have been released within the last year. ah Go ahead whenever you guys are ready. Yeah, of course. So my title that I'm going to recommend is The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren.

00:09:38

Speaker

And before I talk about it, I actually want to take a slight detour because I just finished a different book recently by Catherine Center. And in her author's note, she talks about romance books and the joy of romance books, which just pinged in completely on why I put this book on the list in the first place. Um, because I am a firm believer that everybody needs more joy in their lives and romance books are the perfect way to do get that.

00:10:03

Speaker

And so I want to read this again. This is from Catherine Center. This is a her author's note for Hello, Stranger. She says, I think love stories are deeply misunderstood, in part at least because they don't work like other stories. Love stories don't have happy endings because their authors didn't know any better. They have happy endings because those endings let readers access a rare and precious kind of emotional bliss that you can only get from having something that matters to look forward to. Yes, misery is important.

00:10:33

Speaker

But joy is just as important. The ways we take care of each other matters just as much as the ways we let each other down. Light matters just as much as darkness. Play matters just as much as work. And kindness matters just as much as cruelty. And hope matters as much as despair. More so even. Because tragedy is a given, but joy is a choice. Romantic fiction thrived during the pandemic, and there were lots of theories about why. People thought we were lonely,

00:11:02

Speaker

We needed escapes. We wanted some laughs. All true. But I think more than that, it's because love is a form of hope. And so, as I said, I just recently finished this book and I was listening to the author's note and I was like, this is exactly why I wanted to recommend The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren. They are, I don't think anyone who is a romance fan has not heard of Christina Lauren. They are a powerhouse duo in contemporary romance fiction at this point.

00:11:31

Speaker

And this book has all of that bubbly, swoony, spicy Christina Lauren magic that their fans have come to know and love. And as usual for them, it also has so much more. It centers on a fake fake marriage between an eccentric artist named Anna and a buttoned up professor named Liam.

00:11:54

Speaker

And they were, they essentially had an arranged marriage of convenience when they were in college, they needed housing. The only housing that was available was for married students. So they got married and then went on with their lives, kind of, you know, did their thing, got divorced um or so Anna thought, and then carried on with their lives. And then a couple of years later, some things transpire in Liam's family.

00:12:22

Speaker

that lead him to need to call on Anna to essentially play out their marriage in real time, as if it was a real relationship and not this marriage of convenience they had put together. They are such different people, um but their their chemistry and their banter is hilarious.

00:12:42

Speaker

I also highly recommend the audiobook. It has a standout performance from Patti Murin as Anna and John Root as Liam. I actually always recommend Patti Murin as a narrator. If she's near at something, I will listen to it. So I go with that. And that was The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren. Wow, that was such a beautiful quote. What a great way to kick off that recommendation. You were saying, is Christina Lauren a writing duo? That's multiple authors that write together. Yes, yes.

00:13:12

Speaker

Okay. And that's, they've done a series of romance novels. Do you know anything about how they write together? but So they write, it's actually, it's funny. They started writing, they met writing Twilight fanfiction. Um, they met on like a Twilight fanfiction message board and then they kind of got together. I think the first, if I'm remembering correctly, the first sort of romances they started writing were series romances, like those billionaire romances that you see a lot of, those sorts of books are where they started. They essentially, I think each take a character and, you know, they choose the voice for that character and they write kind of in tandem that way. I think most of their books, if not all of the books that I have for of theirs that I have read, it's a dual point of view. So kind of each one is writing one character.

00:14:03

Speaker

I love that. I feel like that makes the romance more authentic because it's coming from two different people's brains and having that relationship form. That's really, really fascinating. Alicia, what do you have for us off of the new release list? Yes. The book that I have for you is called The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

00:14:25

Speaker

I want to start by saying that this is not my typical read at all. It's about a girl who goes missing at a summer camp. She's not just any camper, but she is the daughter of the wealthy owners, which totally fits into your love of rich people behaving poorly. Oh, good. Oh, yeah. Come to find out her brother also went missing before she was born. His body was never found and the case went cold.

00:14:54

Speaker

So usually as soon as I see the words missing child or serial killer in a synopsis, I am out. That is not for me. And this one has both of those things, missing children and a serial killer. But the nostalgia of the summer camp setting is what appealed to me. I read a book of short stories earlier this year called Wicked Wonders by Ellen Klages, which had a summer camp setting and I loved it. So I was already you know, in that vibe. And the setting combined with the fact that a few readers who I trust wholeheartedly recommended it convinced me to give it a try. And I'm so glad that I did. It's way more of sort of a literary fiction book than it is a thriller. It has a lot of strong character development, which is particularly impressive because there's a huge cast of characters. but It's got an evocative setting, which I love.

00:15:52

Speaker

And I'm big on characters and setting and language. I usually care less about the plot. I do like coming of age stories, so that fits the bill there. And it also helps that the themes are things that I care about, gender politics and class class and wealth disparity.

00:16:09

Speaker

But I think anyone should know going into it that it's not a straight thriller. I think that disappointed some readers. I was relieved. Those books tend to terrify me. Also, my stepdad is a homicide detective in a pretty big city. So I've heard enough true and gruesome stories that I tend to avoid them in my reading life. and So not a thriller, but definitely super captivating.

00:16:35

Speaker

Okay, so it is a dark book though, but you didn't find it to be overwhelming given all the things you just shared about yourself. You still found it like approachable and you were able to go to sleep at night. and Oh yeah, 100% and I am a baby so. Okay. Great. That was The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

00:16:56

Speaker

Next, we are going to turn into our backlist book recommendations. So the purpose of this segment is to hopefully recommend some books that you can go pick up off of your library shelves without having to wait forever and ever for it to come in on the hold list. but So Megan, why don't you kick us off with your backlist book recommendation?

00:17:18

Speaker

Of course. So my pick um is one of my perennial favorites. I recommend this book to basically everybody that I can put it in their hands. And it's Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. And I am not someone who personally revisits um the books that I've read before, even if I really love them. They're a handful of exceptions, you know, for childhood favorites, you you know, reread them as an adult. But by and large, I'm a once and done reader. I don't go back and read it again. With this book being the major exception,

00:17:48

Speaker

It was the first and only time in my life that I have ever finished a book and then immediately turned it back to the beginning and started over. Oh, I've never done that. And read it through again, I know. but And so this is also a weird book to recommend because it's the sort of book that I feel like you need to go into reading it, not knowing much about it. So it's hard to talk about the plot when you don't want to say too much about it that way. And I realized it's a very biased take for me to approach to approach with it because I read it. I went into it not knowing that so so much about it. And I feel like that was a major part of the reading experience was to kind of go in not knowing. But what I will say is that it is a novel that follows three friends through very different periods in their lives. First, when they are students at an exclusive and secluded boarding school in the English countryside. And then again, when they are adults.

00:18:40

Speaker

and only read a handful of Ishiguro's books but for me the experience is always very much akin to peeling an onion and you just and keep keep keep uncovering more and more layers as you read and the experiences experience manages to be both deeply emotional and cathartic. This book in particular does deal with the themes of morality and mortality and just it's so so beautifully done. It's also one of the very rare occasions where I will also recommend the film adaptation to people. The film and I don't remember what year it came out, I should have written that down. It has Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley and Kerry Mulligan and it is a fantastic adaptation. Which would you like would you say read first and then watch?

00:19:28

Speaker

Yes, absolutely. I would say read first and then watch, but it is it is very, very well done. Awesome. And that was Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Ashley, what do you have for us off of the backlist?

00:19:44

Speaker

Oh, yeah. and So the book off my backlist is definitely back backlist. um It was written in 1975. It's called Turtle Diary, and it's by Russell Hoban. There also was a movie adaptation made of this, but I've never seen it. So I can't speak to that. Definitely read the book first, I guess. yes This book came to me sort of in an interesting way. I host an annual reading event.

00:20:11

Speaker

on one of my favorite bookish social media platforms, which is called Litzy. And participants create a list of seven to 20 of their favorite reads from the past year. And then I play a matchmaker using their answers from a very detailed Google form. um I pair them up with done things like yeah based on things like genre preferences and reading history. And then we all spend the new year and the whole month of January reading from our matches list.

00:20:40

Speaker

so Turtle Diary came to me from my match this year. Like I said, it was published in 1975. And the most surprising fact about it to me is that it's written by a super famous children's book author. And I didn't even realize because I didn't find it on my own. I just saw the title and went for it. But Russell Hoban wrote the Francis picture book series like Bread and Jam for Francis, I think is the most popular one. OK.

00:21:10

Speaker

It is about two lonely Londoners who independently decide to free the sea turtle at the local zoo. They end up teaming up. And it sounds really cute and wholesome, but it's not as cute and wholesome as these two people are severely depressed. and But it does have this aching thread of hope running through it that I found really helpful.

00:21:36

Speaker

And I should also note that the language is really quirky and weird. ah Russell Hoban was a strange guy. If you just look at like the titles of some of his other adult novels, they're all different and they're all totally bizarre. In this one, there's a whole paragraph basically where he mimics the bird language of two oyster catchers communicating with each other. And it's total nonsense. It's just like these two birds fighting as if they were a married couple, but not using real words.

00:22:05

Speaker

And I expect that some people would find that too ridiculous to tolerate, but it completely sold me. I was just like giggling super hard in my reading chair, my husband staring at me strangely.

Exploring the Litzy Platform

00:22:21

Speaker

Okay, I have many questions. First of all, yeah so Letsey, this app facilitates what you were describing or tell me more about the app Letsey. No. So Letsey is kind of a combination of like Goodreads and Instagram. So you use it to post book reviews. When you're posting, you can either choose a review, a blurb, or a quote from the book. And so the blurb can be literally anything. you know People share pictures from their lives, a picture of their dogs, whatever. So this is this is an event that I organize and people sign up for it. But there's also, I designed it as like a cost-free way for people to connect because there are a lot of book swaps on the platform.

00:23:14

Speaker

and like gift swaps where you sign up for like you know a Christmas swap and you agree to send two books and your favorite chocolate and two book-themed goodies to someone that you get matched with. but That's but cost prohibitive for a lot of people. and There are a lot of people on the platform from from different countries all over the world. And so this gives a way for people to get to know one another without having to spend money on things or on postage. Wow, I love that. So you are you organize this and you're doing it with people that you just know through the platform, not people you know in real life? Exactly. I think it gets me sick here doing it. How many people do you get participating every year?

00:24:03

Speaker

I limit it just so that it's not a ridiculous amount of work for myself. Last year, I think I had 64 people. Wow. That's so fun. That's such a cool idea. is li'sy like I know there's a lot of people right now, I've been seeing these posts on Goodreads that people are trying to leave the platform, but they're looking for alternatives. Is Lizzie, could you have all of your same things that you would have on your Goodreads? Like, can I keep my TBR list on it? Or is it just posting as you go, kind of? I would definitely use Storygraph um in yes instead. Yeah, instead of trying to use Let's See for this, you can have a TBR, you do have a TBR list, and you have a list of read books as well. But you can't, you can't really like tag your books. You know, like I i like to separate my TBR lists into genre.

00:25:01

Speaker

So that if I feel like reading a romance, I can find a romance in my romance TBR. And this is just like one big lump. So I wouldn't use it so much for tracking. It's more of like a social experience. Okay, so let's see instead of Instagram and Storygraph instead of Goodreads if people are looking to leave those platforms. Yeah.

00:25:22

Speaker

Okay. Uh, I guess those weren't questions about the book, but I just, I'd never even heard of that before. So I'm definitely going to be checking it out. Find us, find us next week. Hopefully I'll make an account for the checkout staff. It's like a super wholesome corner of the internet. It's really lovely. I yeah i need to get back on there. I was on Litzy years ago, um, but then I was in grad school and couldn't, you know, work full time and do grad school and keep up with social media. So I dropped off, but I need to get back on there because i like Alicia said, it's super wholesome. it is you know You don't get bombarded with all of the other stuff that you find on other social media

Mystery and Memoir Recommendations

00:25:59

Speaker

platforms. It is books and it is you know bookish life and all of that. but Well, just to say the title one more time, we haven't talked about it for a minute because we've been all up in fli conversation, but that was Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban.

00:26:16

Speaker

You got it. Next up, we are going to go into our local authors. So we want to highlight authors in the communities that we are talking to librarians in. So Megan, go ahead and tell us a little about your local author and their book.

00:26:33

Speaker

Yes. So the book that I'm recommending for this is Gone for Good by Joanna Schefhausen. We are a small library, so we all wear many different hats. And one of the hats that I wear as is as the facilitator for our long-running mystery book club. And I don't remember how Joanna's books first got kind of recommended for our reading list. I think a member might have recommended her. But a couple of years ago, we read Gone for Good, which is the first book in her Detective and Elisa Vega series.

00:27:03

Speaker

And she became an instant favorite among the club members. They loved the book. And actually at the meeting where we discussed that book, we found out from someone who was there that she lives locally. And so immediately the plan was made that we would read her books again and invite her to join us. And I'm happy to say that she did. um We were so thankful that she was able to join us this year to discuss another book. But the one that hooked everybody, as I said, was Gone for Good. And it's the first book following Detective Analisa Vega as she returns to her hometown as a homicide detective and is confronted with the cold case surrounding a serial killer.

00:27:43

Speaker

that Alicia's shaking her head. She's absolutely out. yeah She's investigating. They believe that a serial killer is back and killing again. And it's a very personal case for her because one of the killer's original victims was a friend of her family. And so she's very committed to solving this case. And she also is from a family of police officers. So there's a lot of the kind of interpersonal dynamics of being sort of that generational police work.

00:28:12

Speaker

and her ex comes to town. He is also a detective and they don't have a great relationship. So there's a lot of headbutting there and it's a great mystery for readers who enjoy ah police procedurals and also who enjoy the stories that kind of interweave the aspects of true crime and cold cases. All right. That was Gone for Good by Joanna Schaffhausen. Alicia, what do you have from a local author? I have Hammerhead by Nina McLaughlin. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are lucky because Massachusetts is rife with authors. Hammerhead is a memoir. I loved it because she is or she was very much like me. Her job was all about words.

00:29:01

Speaker

She was a journalist and I work as a children's librarian, so admittedly my job has more to do with googly eyes and glitter and being able to do a realistic chicken impression than hers did, not so much that in journalism. But otherwise, our professions were of a similar ilk. So reading about how she gave it all up to apprentice herself to a carpenter was unfathomable to me. She found that she was doing a lot of work in her head and she wanted to actually touch something and have hands-on skills. She learned how to build is what she did. And in a time when things often feel like they're falling apart and we're also in our own heads and anxious about everything and devoted to our screens, this kind of grounded and constructive work seems increasingly important to me.

00:30:00

Speaker

This is actually a backlist title also. It was published back in 2015, but I feel like it's only become more relevant as more time has passed. Plus, she's a fabulous writer. Memoirs and narrative nonfiction are 100% my jam. And after reading it, I almost feel like I could identify a Phillips head screwdriver. So that's something, I think.

00:30:25

Speaker

Yeah, I definitely relate to that feeling working in like the knowledge work sector, wanting to have more like hands-on activities. Do you know, is she still working as a carpenter now or did she go back or is she doing both? ah She definitely went back to writing. What's cool though is that she apprenticed herself to a female carpenter. So there's there's a lot of discussion about gender as well and in in the book. I love that. That was Hammerhead by Nina McLaughlin.

Cozy Reads

00:31:03

Speaker

All right, next up we are going to talk about our bookend topic. So in this segment of the show, our guests can choose any topic and then they're going to share three titles on it. So Alicia and Megan, what is the topic you guys picked for today?

00:31:19

Speaker

Sure. We picked the title or the topic cozy reads, and this isn't so much like cozy mysteries. I know that's its own genre, but just things that make you feel warm and comfortable having read them. So the first book that I have is actually a series of books. They're called The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon by Beth Brower.

00:31:49

Speaker

um They're really short. They're multicolored and sort of like velvety matte and just really pretty to have on your shelves, which I mentioned because I found them actually kind of difficult to find, so I had to buy them. ah Megan did purchase the first one for our collection because I wouldn't shut up about it. a Yeah, but they're really pretty little books and her latest one which I think is volume eight or nine, is coming out in just a couple of weeks. So I'm all excited. But anyway, these books sort of remind me of the pleasure of watching the BBC show Escape to the Country. Have you ever seen that show? No, I never watched the BBC growing up. Tell me about it.

00:32:39

Speaker

Oh, I didn't watch it go growing up either. i I discovered these, I think during the pandemic, actually. It is like, it's like a house hunting show, but completely not American. Like you don't even find out if the couple got the house or like if the... but it's very how it is It's them hunting for these like,

00:33:05

Speaker

cozy little thatched roof cottages with you know that like it looks like hobbits would live in them with like sprawling gardens and they usually do a feature where they go into town and discover something interesting and unique about the town whether they like make their own stained glass in town or there's. So it's all about the vibes. There's like, yeah, it's all about the vibes. Like on items the best chips. But so so the thing about this book is that the setting is really important. It's in this tiny little quaint English town.

00:33:42

Speaker

they have a plucky young heroine at the center, Emma M. Lyon. There's a cast of eccentric characters who live in the town, there's a love triangle, there's maybe a ghost, ah but nothing like supernaturally cheesy, more like a tame and ordinary sense of the things that haunt us, but all made a little bit British and quaint. And also what I love about them is Emma is a reader. She's really trying to better herself. Oh, these also take place in 1883, I should mention. Okay, that's a good time. The year that we opened, I know. And the year of the Louisiana Purchase, which I weirdly remember from high school.

00:34:25

Speaker

and oh yeah So she's a reader in 1883, and literary references abound. So if you are a book lover, you're going to really identify with her. It's things like Shakespeare, but also transcendental authors and poets, which warms my New England heart.

00:34:45

Speaker

That was the Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon by Beth Brower. And I'm going to have you repeat one more time because people are going to want to watch that show that you mentioned. Yes, it's called Escape to the Country.

00:34:59

Speaker

Okay, on the BBC. it's Wonderful. It's not all England either. It's like Wales and the Highlands and just these places that you wish you were. It really feeds into that anywhere but here mentality. Yep, yep, I'm excited to watch that and it's gonna i'm good add that to my list too. I'll do my favorite house, maybe I will, I'll find the link.

00:35:27

Speaker

All right, what is the next pick for our cozy reads bookend? So I have picked What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Machiko Ayoma, which was translated by Alison Watts.

00:35:42

Speaker

I read this book. This was one of the first books that I read this year, and I was just so completely charmed by it. It is a collection of loosely connected short stories with each story following a character who is at some sort of crossroads in their personal or professional life. And in each story, the character finds his or her way to a community center that's home to a library. They wander in and are directed to the librarian Sayuri Kamachi,

00:36:11

Speaker

and when they tell her what they're looking to learn she to learn to discover, she prints a list for them with the books that she says that they should borrow. The caveat being that the list always includes one book that has nothing to do with what they're looking for, like completely out of left field. They're like, I think you made a mistake. And she's like, no, no, just take the list. Check out these books. That feels realistic. Right? Yeah. So so it turns out that the one book that has nothing to do with what they were at the library for is the book that changes their life.

00:36:43

Speaker

and sort of gives them the perspective and the direction that they need to get unstuck. I found it to be such a calming read. um And it's especially great for the readers who believe in the magic and the transformative power of books in libraries. um I do think that some readers will probably find it a bit too contrived, but it hit all the right notes for me. And as a librarian, I deeply wish that I had whatever magical book recommend me recommending power that the librarian in this book had, because like her picks were just so spot on for every single person that she met.

00:37:16

Speaker

You do have faith in yourself. So yeah, so I just I thought it was delightful. And it's just a cozy little cozy little story. And it's great because as I said, it's connected short stories. So you can read one or like read part of one and kind of dip in and out. And you don't have to feel like you're kind of keeping this whole plot thread going on. It's perfect for when you just want a little curl up with a cup of tea and just like kind of a little light read.

00:37:43

Speaker

And are all the book recommendations in the book real books? That's a great question. I think some of them are. I don't remember now if all of them are real books or not. I'm pretty sure I tried to Google them at some point when I was... I'm trying to remember. There's like a particular children's book that features something very distinct and I remember looking that up, but now I can't remember if it was real or not. I feel like maybe that one wasn't real.

00:38:08

Speaker

She also, the other thing that she does when she, ah when she is printing them their, their book recommendation list is she does needle felting. And so she, she prints them a list and then she gives them this little kind of like needle felted trinket that is also connected to, you know, this book that they did not ask for. um And again, somehow it kind of just becomes this token of them finding their way. It's just so, it's their turn.

00:38:34

Speaker

That was What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Machiko Ayama, translated by Allison Watts. And what is the last cozy read in our bookend today? The last cozy read that we have is the book that I am probably the most passionate about. It's called Wintering by Catherine May.

00:39:03

Speaker

It's a combination of nature writing and memoir. So the last time, the first time and the last time that I read this, I'm typically not a re-reader either. But the last time that I read this was, I think, very early 2020, before everything. So I knew that I was going to mention it today and it had been a while and also the time that it had been.

00:39:27

Speaker

clearly was very weird and not normal time. So I was like, I need to refresh myself about this book. But I started listening to it again the first time I read it in print. I started listening to the audio book in the car. And it begins with the sentence, some winters happen in the sun. I started listening to it the day after the election. So do with that what you will.

00:39:53

Speaker

But it asks the questions, how do we create soft spaces during hard times? When everything is stripped bare, what can we see with startling clarity? And how do we conserve our energy and use it on that which is vital?

00:40:12

Speaker

And like I said, if I'm a rabid fan for any singular author, it's Catherine May. I just feel like our spirits are kindred, but I try to be sort of gently rabid because I think being excitedly rabid is kind of counter to her vibe.

00:40:31

Speaker

so is Sorry, that was a, it's a memoir and then also part nature writing. Yeah, it's nature writing. It's nature writing and memoir. So she talks she talks about how trees winter, how animals winter. She travels to see the the northern lights. She does a little bit of cold weather.

00:40:54

Speaker

cold sort of like extreme wild swimming in the cold. um So it's a lot of experiences with the outdoors at the same time that it explores specific things that are happening in her life. And what was so great for me is that the year that I read it, it helped me to hate winter less because she truly loves winter and thinks that it is profound and important to our well-being, you know, whether you go through it seasonally or just emotionally, but it helps me to hate hate winter less and I am, I really really really hate being cold and I really really really hate how long it's dark for it in the winter, so any little bit that helps I will cling on to.

00:41:44

Speaker

Great for

Upcoming Library Events

00:41:45

Speaker

all of the winter haters out there that need a little dose of remembering why it's a good season still that was wintering by Catherine May. those were That was a great selection. I feel like those are going to be really good ones going into January, February and curling up and feeling cozy for the season.

00:42:06

Speaker

Thanks. Lastly, so those are all of our books for today. So at the end of memory episode, I like to leave some space um to plug anything that you guys wanted to talk about for you ams the Ames Free Library in Massachusetts. Yeah. So so the biggest thing that we have coming up is that next year is Easton's Tricentennial. And so the library is coordinating with the town's Tricentennial committee to offer some really exciting programs.

00:42:35

Speaker

We have a book club series that's going to be featured um outside of our regular book clubs. Yeah, I'm really excited about this Tricentennial Book Club. The thing that we did is it's it's a traveling book club. So we tried to pick locations in town that are historically or culturally important to Easton. And then we chose books to go with the theme of the spot.

00:43:03

Speaker

So they're not all like historical fiction written in 1883. So for instance, so we have six spots on our list and then books that go with those spots. So there's like a brewery in town called Shovel Town. So I forget what the book title is for that one.

00:43:22

Speaker

It's the author who wrote Kitchens of the Great Midwest, and it's which is phenomenal. And it's something about beer, like the logger queen of something. The logger queen of Minnesota. Yes. Yes. Or there's um a sheep pasture in town. And so the book for that is, it's called Unraveling. It's by Peggy Ornstein. The subtitle is, What I Learned About Life While Sheering Sheep, Dying Wool, and Making the World's Ugliest Sweater.

00:43:52

Speaker

but we It's such a great book. I would say more about it if we had time, but I won't. So we picked books thematically and then we're also aiming to do like a small activity at the book club too. So part of the time we'll be discussing the book and then part of the time we'll be doing a related activity. So at the sheet pasture,

00:44:12

Speaker

We're planning to pair with a business and in town called Auntie Zaza's and she's going to do a little like fiber arts lesson for us and for the participants. That sounds so much fun. If someone in your community is interested in doing the book club, do they have to sign up in advance or how do they get involved?

00:44:31

Speaker

So some of the logistics of that are still up in the air, but we do assume that yes, this one will have registration because we are going to be off-sites. We want to make sure that you know the the community partners who are generous enough to host us that we don't just show up and don't tell them how many people are coming. 50 people to taste your beer. Hi. yeah so So we will most likely have registration. There will be information about this on our website soon.

00:44:54

Speaker

So they can keep an eye out for that. And then the other big thing that we have as part of this is because, you know, we are a library and stories are our thing. We have a project um that has actually been in the works for a little bit called 300 years, 300 stories. And it's our attempt at kind of collecting oral histories from residents around town about the history of Easton and about their lives in Easton.

00:45:22

Speaker

just as a commemoration of the 300 years of the town in order to sort of put together this collections that everyone's story matters to the town and to give them a chance to to have that be part of Easton's history. Could be represented, exactly.

00:45:40

Speaker

Wow. And if somebody wants to participate in that, how do they find out where to tell their stories? Absolutely. So they can find that on our website as well. So it's aimsfreelibrary.org is where you can find us online. And we also have, I'm going to pull this up because I always get it, get the website wrong. So I want to make sure I give it to you correctly. And so the direct website for the 300 years project is 300 years.

00:46:06

Speaker

300stories.omeca.net. And then the other way just we are pretty active on Facebook and Instagram. So people can always follow us on there. We post program updates and, you know, upcoming events that we have going on. And we also have a series of newsletters that people can subscribe to for weekly events, monthly events.

00:46:28

Speaker

book clubs, we have a nature newsletter that one of our staff members um who is a naturalist writes and that's phenomenal. She does amazing work. And so those can be found on our website, which is aimsfreelibrary.org slash newsletters. And you can kind of find the whole list that we have there and subscribe to whichever one's interest you.

00:46:49

Speaker

Great, and there will be links to all of those things in the show notes, so if you're interested and you can't remember those websites, feel free to open up the show notes and click on them. This has been a really great episode. I loved having two librarians on. i think i will It's a great dynamic. We had fun too. yes Good. Listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five star review. And more importantly, send us to someone else you think might like the show. We are still in the early stages and we're trying to just grow our audience right now.

00:47:24

Speaker

It's been super fun to create the podcast, and I'd love to keep sharing it with people. So help us find the right audience. If you're a librarian and you're interested in being on the show, feel free to reach out to me at the checkout stack at gmail dot.com. All righty. Thank you for joining us today. Now go forth and use your public library.