Julie's Bookshelf Podcast

What is Banned Books Week? How did it start? What are some of the most-often banned books? All the answers in this episode!

Show notes: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1d0AjZnU7daYsJAsRrIewSXNc4XGTItKM

Happy Reading!

Welcome to Julie’s Bookshelf. My name is Julie but my friends call me Jules. If you tuned in to the preview episode of this podcast, you learned I have a master’s of book publishing and am a freelance book editor and bookseller at an independent bookstore in Bend, Oregon.

This podcast is my attempt to release some of the pent up information and excitement I have about books I read but don’t get to talk about. If you have a book you want to talk about, email me at [email protected].

So, let’s get started on this week’s discussion. This episode contains spoilers.

You can find detailed show notes for this episode and the previous episode here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1d0AjZnU7daYsJAsRrIewSXNc4XGTItKM?usp=sharing

Raise your hand if you are a book nerd. I’m talking stay-at-home-on-a-friday-night-to-read, take a book with you outdoors, keep a book in your purse or backpack book nerd. And not just the digital books that are on your phone or tablet--I mean real paper, ink, and spine cracking books.

Hi, I’m Julie but my friends call me Jules. I’m such a book nerd that I spent $54,000 to get a master’s of book publishing so I could be a freelance book editor. And I say spent in the way that those are my student loans but who knows if I will ever be able to pay them off.

While spending the weekend with my best friend, Alison, who is also my business partner and graduate school friend, I realized I still don’t get to talk about books enough. Not the ones that are published and I pick up from the indie bookstore I work at one day a week--shoutout to Roundabout Books in Bend, Oregon. And definitely not the ones I edit before they are published.

So I decided to start a podcast--my third actually. The first one was about Nancy Drew but we couldn’t keep it going with hectic schedules. The second is a comparison of FRIENDS and How I Met Your Mother.

And with all the freelance, clients, bookstore hours, and more that I do in a given week, I still thought it was a good idea to start another podcast. Maybe I’m crazy. Or maybe I just like books THAT much.

If you love books THAT much, join me on this little adventure.

Let’s start with our favorite books. For me, that list is long, and getting longer.

First, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, published October 1997 by St. Martin’s Press. I read this book for a women’s interest book club at Barnes & Noble in about 2002 or 2003. I loved it instantly. It is historical fiction centered on the biblical characters Jacob, Leah, Rachel, and their family, told from the perspective of their daughter Dinah. In the bible, Dinah is mentioned in only one sentence. And Diamant makes Dinah’s story flow for 324 pages. Over the years, I think I’ve read it at least 5 times. It is my first recommendation when someone says they need a new book because they’ve read all the current fiction releases.

Next is The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns both by Khaled Hosseini. I read The Kite Runner during a summer reading event for my local library which included an event with the author. I read A Thousand Splendid Suns for undergrad. They are both raw and beautiful. I thought A Thousand Splendid Suns was a tiny bit better but I recommend both to anyone.

For another author who has written several books I’ve loved we turn to Jodi Picoult. I read My Sister’s Keeper right before the movie came out. The book is so much better. The nuances between Kate and Anna and their brother cannot be expressed on screen. And the story is really about Anna, not Kate. Read it. Picoult is a prolific author and though I haven’t been able to even make a dent in her backlist, I really enjoyed The Tenth Circle and Nineteen Minutes. Both deal with very difficult topics--sexual assault and a school shooting. Picoult has a new book pubbing on September 22. I’m excited to read that one.

Now I could keep going for hours but I want to save some of these books for future episodes.

If you want to talk about your favorite books, you can email me at [email protected]. Or find me on Twitter at @julie_edits.

Next time: can you love the prose of a book and hate the plot and narrative? Discussing Therese Ann Fowler’s A Good Neighborhood.