Merry Wanderer of the Night:
podcasts

I've become a huge fan of Enthusiasticast over the last year but their recent episode fifty really built a soft spot in my heart for them. For those of you who don't know, Enthusiasticast is a book podcast run by two hilarious guys, Jon and Mark. For the most part they review literary fiction or possibly "guy's fiction" by which I mean Hornby-esque writers. It's unfortunate that we have these gender distinctions in literature because as a woman Hornby is one of my all time favorite writers, and apparently Jon, suddenly, is a big fan of romance.

Okay, maybe big fan is a bit of a stretch-- but on episode fifty he reviews a book called Tell Me Lies

by Jennifer Crusie. This a book I've seen around but have passed off as a girly book.

I, a woman, have passed on this book because it looked too much like chick lit. And even worse: I started this blog to encourage people not to feel about what they read. I was sick of the English department telling me what books were good and what books were bad so I decided to go against it and say "Hey, there is good stuff in this here historical romance to ya'know!" For the most part I think I've succeeded in my mission. I've tried different kinds of books, like romance novels, and I've gotten over the "I haven't read that book guilt." I still do judge a book by its cover though-- I guess I've just gotten a little more liberal with the covers I choose.

As a side note, I think this is also partially the fault of publishers. I hate how books by women get slapped with pink high heels on the cover just because they are about girls. There is a lot of great women's fiction out there-- but it's a genre I've left mostly unexplored because the covers turn me off.

But why do we make ourselves feel guilty about the books we read? Why is a bad emotion like guilt associated with an awesomely fun activity like reading to begin with? I know I've asked these questions before, but Jon got me thinking about them again. He forced me to be a little more honest about how open I am when it comes to books. I'd love to hear your answers to these questions, and I'd also love it if you went and listened to Enthusiasticast.

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I mentioned a few times last week that I started a podcast recently. Some of you mentioned you'd like to more about it, so I'm just going to do a full out post here. The podcast is called GreenReads and I started it with my boyfriend. We're reading one book every two weeks and then talking about it on our podcast. The books we're talking about are somehow related to the environment, but not always overtly. We just published our first real podcast and we discuss A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. You might remember that I reviewed A Walk in the Woods last week. There is some overlap between the podcast in my review, although I talk about the book in a very different way. When I review a book here I usually talk about how I liked it as a book and as a reader. On the podcast I'll talk more about how I read the book as an environmentalist.

The podcasts are about 30 minutes long and can be listened to on our website or downloaded from iTunes for free. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and it will automatically be downloaded to your computer every time there is a new one.

If podcasts aren't really your thing but you still want to know more about the environment you should check out our blog. Every once in awhile we'll do a post where we talk about something environmental we've done recently.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Do you ever listen to book-related podcasts? If so, which ones and why? (Include the URLs for people who aren’t familiar with them.) Or, of course, there’s the flip side … did you even know that such a thing existed? (I ask because I know a lot of people who have no idea what a podcast is.)

I do listen to book-related podcasts, usually when I'm walking. My absolute favorite is Books on the Nightstand with Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman. I have added a ridiculous amount of books to my TBR because of their podcast and they always make me think about bookish related things, like e-books and big books, when I had really considered them before. I recently started listening to the Do Nothing But Read podcast with Amanda and Brandon. Amanda also hosts Do Nothing But Read Day I participated in a few weeks ago. They are hilarious and talk about different sorts of books than Books on the Nightstand does. I, of course, listen to KCRW's Bookworm with Michael Silverblatt. This features a lot of literary fiction, poetry, and essays and it's more of an interview podcast instead of two people talking about books. I look both platforms, and Michael Silverblatt is great at interviews. I learned about Patti Smith's memoir, Just Kids, through Bookworm and I probably wouldn't have read that book if I hadn't found out about it through the podcast. Those are really the only three podcasts I keep up with right now, but I'd love to listen to more! I prefer listening to podcats on my iPod so usually I use iTunes to hear about different podcasts.

How about you? Do you listen to podcasts? What are some of your favorites? You can also join the conversation at Booking Through Thursday.

I've recently started listening to a lot of talk radio and literary podcasts. I thought it was important to do a post showcasing these shows because they provide a lot of great insights into the literary world and really round out my blogging ideas.

By far my favorite literary podcast is Books on the Nightstand. This weekly podcast is hosted by Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman. They both work in the publishing industry, but this podcast isn't full of fancy lingo I can't understand. It's actually very easy on my ears and the podcasts are relatively short because I honestly don't have a lot of free hours to listen to podcasts. On average the podcasts are about twenty-five minutes long. There is usually some kind of book topic, this past week it was cookbooks, and then Ann and Michael each suggest a book and talk a little bit about it. Ann and Michael have great chemistry and their podcast is informative as well as fun to listen to. I subscribe to this podcast through iTunes but you can also download the podcast on their website.

Another great podcast is the New Yorker's monthly fiction podcast. This podcast features an author reading a story by another author and then there is a discussion about the story and why they chose the story they did. This podcast has introduced me to a few writers I would not have otherwise heard of and this is another short one. It's only once a month and about thirty minutes long. Very easy to keep up with!

NPR Books isn't my favorite podcast but I listen to it pretty frequently. It's fairly short, about twenty minutes, and features, reviews, news, and interviews. It's an enjoyable podcast but it doesn't feel as friendly to me as Books on the Nightstand does.

The next podcast isn't exactly a lit show but it is a show about book bloggers. Linus's Blanket's Nicole hosts That's How I Blog, a weekly podcast about blogging books. This is a great podcast that has given me ideas on how I would like to change my blog, and Nicole asks some great questions! It's always interesting and there is also some discussion of books (obviously, what else can you expect from book bloggers) in each episode. You can download these podcasts on Blog Talk Radio.

I'm probably a little biased on this one, but the University of Iowa's radio station has two great literary radio shows. One is the newer Not Your Literati which is hosted by my two pals Pierce and Mackenzie. This show talks about what is up on the undergraduate literary scene every Sunday. There is another show on Tuesdays called The Lit Show, which I sadly don't get to hear very often. You can listen to these shows even if you don't live in Iowa City. You can find the schedule on KRUI's website and download the stream for your music player. Both of these shows are one hour long.