Russell, Rachel, and Rachael chat with our guest Susanne Bell, Senior Program Officer at Danville Regional Foundation, about setting realistic reading goals, recommending the right book, and a horrifying movie adaptation of one of our favorite childhood classics.
Susanne created a wonderful reference for the books she shared with us.

Childhood reads:

• “Make Way for Ducklings” by author and illustrator Robert McCloskey
• “Three Little Kittens” by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen
• “Anne of Green Gables” or anything by Lucy Maud Montgomery
• “Ozma of Oz” by L. Frank Baum

Novels:

• “Excellent Women” by Barbara Pym
• “A Spool of Blue Thread” by Anne Tyler
• “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi
• “Should We Stay or Should We Go” by Lionel Shriver

Short Story Collections:

• “Light Action in the Caribbean” by Barry Lopez (especially “Construction of the Rachel”)
• “The Thing Around Your Neck” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• “Fidelity” by Wendell Berry (especially “Pray Without Ceasing”)

Other titles we discuss:

• “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” by Stephen Graham Jones
• "Commonwealth” by Anne Tyler
• “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
• “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie

Russell, Rachel, and Rachael discuss our April challenge, childhood favorites, with one of our favorite childhood experts here in the library, Jess McAllister. We discuss how children's literature shaped us, opened our worlds, and continues to delight us to this day!

Books we discuss include:

• “The Borrowers” by Mary Norton
• “The BFG” by Roald Dahl
• “Dear Mr. Henshaw” and “Strider” by Beverly Cleary
• “Freckle Juice” by Judy Blume
• “The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise” by Dan Gemeinhart
• “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton
• “Amos Fortune: Free Man” by Elizabeth Yates
• “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• “Grandpa’s Mountain” by Carolyn Reeder
• Wayside School” series by Louis Sachar
• “My Teacher Is an Alien” by Bruce Coville
• “Dog Man” series by Dav Pilkey
• “My Weird School” series by Dan Gutman
• “Frog and Toad Are Doing Their Best” by Jennie Egerdie
• “The World of Beatrix Potter” series by Beatrix Potter
• “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame
• “Artemis Fowl” by Eoin Colfer
• Everything by Alan Gratz
• “The Complete Brambly Hedge” by Jill Barklem
• “The Mysterious Benedict Society” by Trenton Lee Stuart

Russell and solo Rachel chat with our guest, Scott Longerbeam, city GIS coordinator, about almost every Stephen King book, filming locations, and the love of a good librarian.

Books we discuss include:

• “Foucault's Pendulum” by Umberto Eco
• “Pet Sematary” by Stephen King
• “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros
• “The Demon of Unrest” by Erik Larson
• “The Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett
• “The Empusium” by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
• “The Bear and the Nightingale” by Katherine Arden
• “A Libertarian Walks into a Bear” by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
• “Extinction” by Douglas Preston
• “Pirate Latitudes” by Michael Crichton
• “The Indian Lake Trilogy” by Stephen Graham Jones
• “Cycle of the Werewolf” by Stephen King
• “Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season” by Stewart O’Nan and Stephen King
• “Horns” by Joe Hill
• “Locke & Key” by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez
• “Full Throttle” short stories by Joe Hill, including “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain”
• “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” by Alvin Schwartz, illustrated by Stephen Gammell
• “Scary Stories for Young Foxes” by Christian McKay Heidicker, illustrated by Junyi Wu
• “Wolfsong” by T.J. Klune
• “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Doulgas Adams

Russell, Rachel, and Rachael discuss our March challenge, first book in a series, with surprise guest Colton. Consequently there are a lot of dad jokes in this one. Listener beware.

Books we discuss include:

• “The Dark Is Rising” series by Susan Cooper
• “Dragon Masters” series by Tracey West
• “Goosebumps” graphic novel series by R.L. Stine
• “Ghost on Haunted Street” by Colton Carter
• “Done and Dusted” by Lyla Sage
• “The Mysterious Benedict Society” by Trenton Lee Stewart
• “Leave No Trace” by A.J. Landau
• “Joe Pickett” series by C.J. Box
• “Finlay Donovan Is Killing It” by Elle Cosimano
• “Impossible Creatures” by Katherine Rundell
• “Mummies in the Morning” by Mary Pope Osborne
• “The Emerald Atlas” by John Stephens
• “Wildwood” by Colin Meloy
• “Every Heart a Doorway” by Seanan McGuire
• “Middle Earth” series by J.R.R. Tolkien
• “Spy School” series by Stuart Gibbs
• “The Cricket in Times Square” by George Selden
• “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” by Beverly Cleary
• “Redwall” by Brian Jacques
• “The Green Ember” by S.D. Smith
• “The Great Library” series by Rachel Caine
• “A Death in Door County” by Annelise Ryan

Russell, Rachel, and Rachael chat with our guest, Honorable Doctor Corey Williams about his long title, and many other titles that shaped his love for reading.

Books we discuss include:

• “The Word Bird” by Nicola Davies, Abbie Cameron (illustrator)
• “Darius the Great Is Not Okay” by Adib Khorram
• “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
• “Moby-Dick or, The Whale” by Herman Melville
• “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• “The Trumpet of the Swan” by E.B. White
• “Watership Down” by Richard Adams
• “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson
• “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck
• “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck
• “Congo” by Michael Crichton
• “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” by Gregory Maguire
• “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum
• “The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids” series by Debbie Dadey
• “The Boxcar Children” series by Gertrude Chandler Warner
• “The Great Library” series by Rachel Caine
• “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
• “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” by Ned Vizzini

Russell, Rachel, and Rachael discuss our next challenge, love stories and go on an important tangent about 90's teen movies.

Books we discuss include:

• “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman
• “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare
• “The House in the Cerulean Sea” by TJ Klune
• “The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife” by Anna Johnston
• “The Weight of the Stars” by K. Ancrum
• “A Novel Love Story” by Ashley Poston
• “The List” by Robert Whitlow
• “The Girl Behind the Red Rope” Ted Dekker, Rachelle Dekker
• “Voyage of the Damned” by Frances White
• “All Stories Are Love Stories” by Elizabeth Percer
• “Book of Days” by James L. Rubart
• “Monster” by Frank Peretti
• “The One” by John Marrs

Russell, Rachel, and Rachael chat with our guest Catherine Carter, owner of The Dog-Eared Page bookstore and teahouse. We discuss the deep and abiding friendship between libraries and bookstores, books about rabbits, and so much more.

Books we discuss include:

• “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski
• “Manacled” by SenLinYu
• “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James
• “After” by Anna Todd
• “Quicksilver” by Callie Hart
• “Harry Potter” series by J.K. Rowling
• “Dragon Rider” and “Inkheart” by Cornelia Funke
• “The Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris
• “The Lord of the Rings” series by J.R.R. Tolkien
• “Jaws” by Peter Benchley
• “The Empyrean” series by Rebecca Yarros
• “Watership Down” by Richard Adams
• “Christopher Bunny” by Jane Werner Watson, Richard Scarry
• “Bunnicula” by Deborah Howe
• “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams Bianco
• “The World of Beatrix Potter” series by Beatrix Potter
• "Bunny Trouble" by Hans Wilhelm
• “The Sea of Trolls” by Nancy Farmer
• “Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano
• “Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe” by Heather Webber
• “Book Lovers” by Emily Henry
• “A Court of Thorns and Roses” and others by Sarah J. Maas

Russell, Rachel, and Rachael discuss our January challenge, Memoirs and Autobiographies, and new Rachael lore just dropped.

Books we discuss include:

• “Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood” by Gary Paulsen
• “Sonny Boy” by Al Pacino
• “Greenlights” by Matthew McConaughey
• “Pageboy” by Elliot Page
• “Officer Clemmons” by Dr. Francois S. Clemmons
• “Sociopath” by Patric Gagne
• “Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood” by Trevor Noah
• “Educated” by Tara Westover
• “Just as I Am” by Cicely Tyson
• “The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving a Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra” by Alex Messenger
• “Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir” by Natasha Trethewey
• “The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book” by Wendy Welch