My Favorite Podcasts

We live in strange times. It’s hard to even unpack that phrase. But we’re all looking to survive and maybe even thrive as we get through this current crisis, and one thing I’ve been particularly grateful for is that my usual podcasts are continuing to release, and some of them are even producing more content. 

Desert Island Movies

As a white woman in her 30s, I’m a fan of The Office. Heh. I’ve been an avid listener of the The Office Ladies Podcast and just finished reading The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History by Andy Greene. So I’ve been reliving favorite episodes, one of

What’s in my bag?

I am a person who needs her bag when she leaves for the day. I’m a city girl at heart, and I think that’s part of it. I want to have the essentials with me when I head out, just in case. Conferences totally fall into that category. As I’m attending the Public Library Association

You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe

Alexis Coe begins her biography of George Washington by stating that she had looked over her shelf of previously published biographies of Washington and noted they were all written by men. And as soon as she pointed that out I was even more determined to read what she had to say because gaining a woman’s

Favorite Books of 2019

Being a librarian and former bookseller, I’m a voracious reader who tries to read widely to try out different genres and styles of reading. Here are a few of the standouts from my 2019 reading list. This was a book that seemed tailor-made for me. As a one-time huge fan of VH1’s Behind the Music,

Good and Mad

A 2017 Pew survey found that nearly six in ten women said they were paying increased attention to politics since the 2016 election, a greater share than men. I’m for sure one of those six. I never considered myself a political person until the 2016 election. I barely paid attention to government matters most of

Reading Habits

I just finished reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. I have an anecdote for Ayn Rand from my bookselling days: I worked at a chain bookstore in Utah, and one summer there were a large number of teenagers fresh out of high school or entering senior year who came in asking for either The Fountainhead or

To the Mormon Newlyweds Who Thought the Bellybutton Was Somehow Involved

I got another review up at the Association for Mormon Letters website. Please give it a gander, and check out the book!

PhD Student Meets Hitler

I’ve been reading Travelers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd, which compiles the journals and letters and other observations of people who visited Germany starting in the 1920s and the Weimar Republic and into the Hitler regime. I find this a totally fascinating topic because so many people vacationed or conducted business in Germany

Hate Read Book Club continuation

So last year I was feeling down in the dumps (you know, that whole election thing) and needed something to do as an outlet for my snark. So I decided to start what I called the Hate Read Book Club – and it is what it says on the tin. You hate read a book.