Category: Show Notes

Today, Traci Thomas of The Stacks podcast joins Chelsey and Sara to discuss The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm, X, as told by Alex Haley. We loved diving into this iconic nonfiction classic with our favorite nonfiction expert, and we’re so excited to share this conversation with you. 

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Our discussion includes:

• What makes this a “life-changing” book?
• Does The Autobiography of Malcolm X belong in the classroom?
• Which parts of the book ring especially true today
• Brilliant storytelling and an incredible use of rhetoric

Plus, as always, we’re recommending a bunch of contemporary pairings to read along with this classic.

Shop the pairings:  https://bookshop.org/lists/novel-pairings-for-the-autobiography-of-malcolm-x

Traci’s Pairings:

• Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
• The Dead are Arising by Malcolm X by Les Payne, Tamara Payne
• Heavy by Kiese Laymon
• Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
• The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. by Peniel E. Joseph
• Stokely: A Life by Peniel E. Joseph
• Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

Sara’s Pairings:

• Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo by Zora Neale Hurston
• Pale by Edward A. Farmer

Chelsey’s Pairings:

• Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
• Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
• X: A Novel by Ilyasha Shabazz and Kekla Magoon
• How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones

Also mentioned:

The Stacks Ep. 60 Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Stacks Ep. 135 The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Today Chelsey and Sara are discussing And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. We’re sipping some red wine while we talk about this classic locked-room mystery and pair it with some atmospheric, page-turning reads. We discuss Christie’s legacy in the mystery world (and her impact on literature in general), what we look for in the mystery genre, and that wild ending.

Our discussion includes:

• How Christie’s novels have shaped today’s literary landscape, perhaps more than any other classics [17:18]
• The appeal of locked room mysteries [23:00]
• Spoiler alert: the twisty ending [26:42]

Plus, as always, we’re recommending six contemporary books to pair with our classic,  including a Japanese mystery in translation and a Christie-inspired campus novel.

We do discuss some spoilers in this episode, but we’ll give you fair warning.

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Today Chelsey and Sara are discussing And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. We’re sipping some red wine while we talk about this classic locked-room mystery and pair it with some atmospheric, page-turning reads. We discuss Christie’s legacy in the mystery world (and her impact on literature in general), what we look for in the mystery genre, and that wild ending.

Our discussion includes:

• How Christie’s novels have shaped today’s literary landscape, perhaps more than any other classics [17:18]
• The appeal of locked room mysteries [23:00]
• Spoiler alert: the twisty ending [26:42]

Plus, as always, we’re recommending six contemporary books to pair with our classic,  including a Japanese mystery in translation and a Christie-inspired campus novel.

We do discuss some spoilers in this episode, but we’ll give you fair warning. 

Books Mentioned:

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Shop the pairings:  https://bookshop.org/lists/novel-pairings-for-and-then-there-were-none

Chelsey’s Pairings:

• The Guest List by Lucy Foley [38:50]
• The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji [46:45]
  • Honkaku murder mysteries
• The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda [55:25]

Sara’s Pairings:

• The Truants by Kate Weinberg [42:08]
• Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty [51:18] 
• The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton [1:00:48]

Picks of the Week:

Chelsey: The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jane Ashford

• When Agatha Christie Vanished 
• Drunk History Agatha Christie

Sara: Clue

Readers, today we have a special treat, a bonus episode! We watched the new Rebecca adaptation on Netflix, and we have OPINIONS. We’re talking about how we feel about DuMaurier’s original, what we loved about the movie, what we hated, which spooky and suspenseful movies we’re excited to watch this Halloween weekend, and what we’re currently reading. Did you watch the new movie? What did you think?

P.S. We discuss the movie in depth, so spoilers abound! 

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Support our show AND independent bookstores. Use our Libro.fm affiliate link to get an audiobook subscription for yourself or as a gift. 

Watch Hitchcock’s Academy Award winning adaptation here. 

“Lily James Looks Like an American Girl Doll in Rebecca”

Lily James stars in The Pursuit of Love

Books mentioned:

Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier

The Winters by Lisa Gabriele

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

Today we are thrilled to welcome Courtney Wallace, also known as The Incessant Bookworm on her blog, Youtube, and Instagram account where she shares what she’s reading, tips for the reading life, and reading challenges. We’re chatting with Courtney about her back to school reading challenge, how reading challenges influence her reading life, AND we’re pairing our favorite fall activities with a bunch of book recommendations.

Shop our pairings: https://bookshop.org/lists/fall-book-recommendations-with-the-incessant-bookworm

Sign up for Libro.fm: https://libro.fm/redeem/novelpairings

Books mentioned (affiliate links):

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

 Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Ulysses by James Joyce

Belgravia by Julian Fellowes

Waiting for a Scot Like You by Eva Leigh

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

A Brush with Death by Ali Carter 

Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay 

We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy Wax 

Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia 

Jackaby by William Ritter 

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Inferno by Dan Brown 

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

A Taste of Sage by Yaffa S. Santos 

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo 

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel 

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi 

October Sky by Homer Hickam 

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova 

How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

The River by Peter Heller  

An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten 

The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall 

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister

The Voting Booth by Brandy Colbert

Fall-themed ASMR Channels

Autumn Cozy 

Autumn Ambiance Playlist 

Calmed By Nature 

Cafe Ambiance  

Fall Ambiance 

Today Chelsey and Sara are discussing Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. We admit to some bad English major habits in this episode, and we get super nerdy with a discussion on Gothic novels and the Romantic literary movement, modern horror, and the history behind Mary Shelley’s iconic monster. We also make some surprising modern connections across science, ethics, and social media. If you’re in the mood for eerie, spooky, and not-too-scary reads this month, get ready to take note of our pairings in this episode. 

Our discussion includes:

• Sara’s experience with teaching Frankenstein in the high school classroom [8:20]
• The stranger-than-fiction true story behind the novel [10:30]
• Defining “Gothic novels,” historical and contemporary [20:05]

Plus, as always, we’re recommending six contemporary books to pair with our classic,  including graphic novels and absorbing nonfiction.

Shop our pairings: https://bookshop.org/lists/novel-pairings-for-frankenstein

Sign up for Libro.fm: https://libro.fm/redeem/novelpairings

What to read or skip in Frankenstein:

1. Victor thinking about creating his creature
2. Creating the monster
3. Monster talking to Victor
4. Skip all of the wandering around the countryside

Shop the pairings (affiliate links):  

Chelsey’s Pairings:

• The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Millicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara [43:30]
  • WSIRN Episode w/Mallory
• Mary: The Adventures of Mary Shelley’s Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Granddaughter by Brea Grant & Yishan Li [50:40]
• The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey [58:20]

Sara’s Pairings:

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro [40:02]
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood [46:45]
• Destroyer by Victor LaValle, illustrated by Dietrich Smith [53:51]

Picks of the Week:

Chelsey: Penny Dreadful on Showtime/Netflix

Sara: Mary’s Monster by Lita Judge Illustrations: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626725003

Today Chelsey and Sara are discussing “Horror Story” by Carmen Maria Machado for this season’s installment of Short Story Club. Each quarter, we choose a short story that’s widely available and discuss its genre, themes, and important moments before recommending books to pair with it. For spooky season, we decided to go with a fresh, new voice we both love. This super short “micro story” felt like the right balance of spookiness for two readers who don’t love horror. Of course, we end up taking a bit of a deep dive into the horror genre anyway. If you read the story and join us for this mini book club, please let us know what you think of the story!

Our discussion includes:

• Machado’s striking imagery and sparse prose
• What does the horror genre do? Why is it popular?
• Gaslighting in horror stories
• Deeper themes and metaphors

Plus, as always, we’re recommending six pairings,  including a modern gothic novel and a few scary short story collections. 

Books mentioned:

In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Shop the pairings:  https://bookshop.org/lists/novel-pairings-for-horror-story

Chelsey’s Pairings:

• His Hideous Heart ed. by Dahlia Adler [32:47]
• Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez [39:18]
• Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft ed. by Jessica Spotswood [45:05]

Sara’s Pairings:

• The Bright Lands by John Fram [30:17]
• When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole [35:18]
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia [41:22]

Also mentioned:

Gaslight (1944)

Today Chelsey and Sara are kicking off the spooky season by discussing The Crucible by Arthur Miller—a play about the infamous Salem witch trials. We get pretty nerdy in this episode. Full of drama, history, and high school English class nostalgia, this play was so much fun to talk about! Chelsey shares details from her immersive high school reading experience, Sara shares memories of teaching the book (and the movie), and we share absorbing reads to pair with the themes, history, and tone of the play. Plus, we discuss implications and complexities for discussing and teaching this play during the Me Too era. 

Our discussion includes:

• How the play conveys (or villainizes) feminine power and gender roles [9:20]
• Complicated feelings about Abigail Williams & John Proctor [14:00]
• What IS a crucible? [20:21]
• Speculating why there are lots of witchy books on the publishing calendar right now [29:45]

Plus, as always, we’re recommending six contemporary books to pair with our classic,  including a comedic novel set in the 1980’s and a murder mystery set on the Plymouth Plantation.

Shop the pairings:  https://bookshop.org/lists/witchy-novel-pairings-for-the-crucible

Chelsey’s Pairings:
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry [35:45]
Interview w/Barry
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson [44:45]
I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Conde [49:57]

Sara’s Pairings:
Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit [41:15]
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell [47:02]
A Secret History of Witches by Louisa Morgan [52:02]

Picks of the Week:
Chelsey: You Must Remember This  Episode 14 Arthur Miller, “After the Fall” 
Sara:The Unobscured Podcast

Today Chelsey and Sara are  toppling your TBRs with campus novels. We know this back to school season is weird for students, teachers, parents, and the rest of us as we navigate new seasons during a pandemic. So let’s go back to school safely with books that take place at school, that revolve around learning or academia, and that give us the new school supplies, crisp fall leaves, sharpened pencils feeling. 

We have so many books on this list…all sorts of tones and types! Don’t worry about writing everything down; we have links to all of the books mentioned in our show notes. It’s very possible we won’t get through all of the books we want to on this episode, but we’ll have an even more complete list of campus novels on our new blog: novelpairings.com.

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/novelpairingspod/

Shop our Campus Novels list on Bookshop:  https://bookshop.org/lists/campus-novels-83ca9b6c-710c-436f-a0cb-af159a5ac6b7

Use our referral code to get TWO  audiobooks for the price of one through Libro.fm: https://libro.fm/redeem/novelpairings

Classics

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Possession by AS Byatt

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Mysteries

If We Were Villains by M.L Rio

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Likeness by Tana French

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Young Adult

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart (@allisonreadsdc)

We Are Okay by Nina Lacour

Bloomability by Sharon Creech (@anniebjones05, The Bookshelf)

Dear Martin & Dear Justyce by Nic Stone 

Magic Campuses

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Campus Romances

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Normal People by Sally Rooney

My Education by Susan Choi

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Miscellaneous

On Beauty by Zadie SmithNever Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Today Chelsey and Sara are discussing Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, which we selected for our back-to-school season as “a book we wish we read in high school.” Love Medicine is a novel made up of  interconnected stories that span generations of two families: the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. The stories deal with small family dramas, and huge ones, depicting characters’ past romances and relationships as these families interact over decades. There’s drama, humor, spirituality, and history in between the pages, and we have six incredible books to pair with Erdich’s masterpiece. 

Shop our Backlist Recs on Bookshop:  https://bookshop.org/lists/anticipated-fall-reads-2020-backlist-pairings

Use our referral code to get TWO  audiobooks for the price of one through Libro.fm: https://libro.fm/redeem/novelpairings

(We’re currently listening to: Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi and The Pull of the Stars, Barn 8, and Migrations).

Listen Here

Our discussion includes:

• Floating on the beauty of Edrich’s language and enjoying a little bit of disorientation [13:40]
• Erdrich’s dark, sarcastic humor [18:03]
• The biggest thematic question in Love Medicine and other important themes [23:25]

Plus, as always, we’re recommending six contemporary books to pair with our classic,  including a brand new YA release and a well-loved favorite. 

This episode is spoiler free and well-suited to listening before, during, or after you read Love Medicine. 

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Shop the pairings:  https://bookshop.org/lists/novel-pairings-for-love-medicine

Chelsey’s Pairings:

• The Break by Katherena Vermette [38:00]
• Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo [44:37]
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi [51:30]

Sara’s Pairings:

• Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford [41:05]
• Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine [48:30]
• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kemmerer [55:08]

Other books mentioned:

LaRose by Louise Erdrich

The Nightwatchman by Louise Erdrich

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo

Picks of the Week:

Chelsey: Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga

Sara: This Land Podcast