A quick episode this week with updates about how you can support the podcast and links to what Julie has been reading on her own time recently.   Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram    Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Join the Best Book Ever Newsletter HERE! Subscribe for FREE to receive weekly emails with complete show notes, photos of our guests, and updates on what Julie is reading on her own time. Support the podcast for just $5/month and you’ll receive the weekly newsletter AND a monthly themed curated book list. Become a Founder for $100 and you’ll receive the weekly newsletter, the monthly curated book list, AND a personal thank you on the podcast AND a Best Book Ever T-Shirt in your favorite color and style.   Discussed in this episode:   Episode 118 Tyler Foley on “The Fool’s Progress” by Edward Abbey, still one of my favorite episodes even though I hated the book Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell Episode 125 3rd Annual Kids/YA Gift Giving Guide The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides The Survivors by Jane Harper Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman Jaymi Couch – Let’s Read Nonfiction   (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

Today I’m joined by Kim Sherwood, an author and creative writing lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. Kim’s newest release, "A Wild and True Relation," has the tremendous distinction of a gushing review by Dame Hilary Mantel herself, who said that Sherwood’s book is “a rarity – a novel as remarkable for the vigour of the storytelling as for its literary ambition. Kim Sherwood is a writer of capacity, potency and sophistication.” In addition to that, this April Kim is releasing the first book in a new James Bond trilogy, called "Double Or Nothing," commissioned the Ian Fleming estate. Kim and I had a wonderful talk about these different genres, and what brings these iconic characters to life, and why "Wolf Hall" is the Best Book Ever.   Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Kim Sherwood Website/Twitter/Instagram     Discussed in this episode:   Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (book 2 in the Wolf Hall trilogy) The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel (book 3 in the Wolf Hall trilogy) A Wild and True Relation by Kim Sherwood Orlando by Virginia Woolf Double or Nothing: A Double O Novel by Kim Sherwood From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (This one also exists in graphic novel form!) George Baker Spare by Prince Harry Waverly by Walter Scott Testament by Kim Sherwood Greenway House – the Home of Agatha Christie V.I. Warshawski Novels by Sara Paretsky (There are, to date, 21 novels in this series.)   (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

Aleenah Ansari (she/her) is equal parts storyteller, creative problem solver, and journalist at heart who's rooted in the stories of people behind products, companies, and initiatives. She writes about travel, entrepreneurship, mental health and wellness, and representation in media for Insider, The Seattle Times, Byrdie, and more. You can usually find her searching for murals in Seattle and beyond, reading a book, and planning her next trip to New York. Aleenah joined me today for a particularly canded discussion about BIPOC representation in our reading life, and the way books and therapy are crucial to our mental health   Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Aleenah Ansari Website/Twitter/Instagram/Linked In   Discussed in this episode:   Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller Aleenah’s article about the best indie bookstores across the United States Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers by Bob Eckstein Word on the Water – The London Bookbarge More Than Enough by Elaine Welteroth Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – And Keep – Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller Dear Therapists podcast with Lori Gottlieb and Guy Winch Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman   (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

“Twenty Years at Hull House” is the acclaimed memoir of social reformer Jane Adams. It contains unflinching descriptions of poverty and degradation of the Industrial Revolution, and the steps she took to establish housing, food, clean water, and education for the poor of Chicago. Joining me today is Rebecca Sive, author of three books on women’s politics and power. She’s also a motivational speaker for women’s audiences; a former professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and the recipient of numerous awards for her public leadership and service. Rebecca and I talked about how to find rest as a feminist voter, the way every public service is bound up in all aspects of society, and how the messages from Jane Adams’ work, written over one hundred years ago, are still so relevant today.   Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Rebecca Sive Website   Discussed in this episode:   Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams Every Day is Election Day: A Woman’s Guide to Winning Any Office, from the PTA to the White House by Rebecca Sive Vote Her In: Your Guide to Electing our First Woman President by Rebecca Sive Make Herstory Your Story: Your Guided Journal to Justice Every Day for Every Woman by Rebecca Sive Paul Wellstone Unbought and Unbossed by Shirley Chisholm Rebecca’s article about Twenty Years at Hull House in Windy City Times Division Street: America by Studs Terkel Rebel Bayou by Samuel and Sarah Hyde The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How it Changed America by Nicholas Lemann   (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

We are going a little off script for today’s episode. I’m not sure either one of us would call “Spare” the Best Book Ever, though I’m sure it has plenty of people who would. But it is definitely the book of the week, and a book that I think will come to be seen as a watershed moment in the history of the royals. Suswati Basu is a multilingual journalist, mental health books show podcast host, and award-winning activist, and one of my favorite guests of the show. I was eager to get her take on this book that has been in the news basically nonstop for the last week, and talk beyond the headlines. Besides settling the score with his family, there are a lot of really big issues in this book, and I was eager to get her take on them. We also talked about the biggest issue for all of us readers – is it actually any good?    Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Suswati Basu Website/Instagram/Podcast/YouTube/Facebook/Twitter   Listen to Suswati talk to me about “The Stranger” by Albert Camus   Discussed in this episode:   Spare by Prince Harry Suswati’s Review of Spare in National World Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (co-written by J.R. Moehringer) Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff The Godfather by Mario Puzo The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga   (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

This week I’m joined by the fabulous Katy Leep Arditti, consumer of all things Thriller and Fantasy, business owner, massage therapist, and one of my favorite book club friends. Friends, Katy introduced me to a book so totally out of my wheelhouse, I actually contemplated not reading it, and just having her on to tell me about it. But I’m so glad I avoided that temptation, because Ordinary Monsters turned out to be easily one of my favorite reads of 2022. It was a delightful talk about the importance of smart heroines, rollicking adventures through foggy London, and surviving tremendous personal grief.   Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Katy Leep Arditti Instagram   Discussed in this episode: Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum Thrillers by the Book Club Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff The Bechdel Test Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn BBE Episode 119 – V.P. Morris on Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Ben Onwukwe (audiobook narrator) Small Town Big Magic by Hazel Beck Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark   (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

To kick off the new year with a very special edition of Best Book Ever, my daughter Erin is taking over the hosting duties this week, interviewing me. She asked me all the things I normally like to ask my weekly guests – favorite books, goals for 2023, Mr. Darcy, and everything in between.   Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Erin Strauss Instagram   Discussed in this episode:   Unwind by Neal Shusterman Maze Runner by James Dashner The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Divergent by Veronica Roth Scythe by Neal Shusterman Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson Howard’s End by E.M. Forster A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle The Giver by Lois Lowry The Remember Balloons by Jessie Oliveros Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh Bo Burnham Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides The Midnight Library by Matt Haig Verity by Colleen Hoover The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds   (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

Time for an end of year wrap up with my Podcast Twin, Malavika Praseed. Malavika is putting her marvelous podcast on hiatus for the time being while she pursues a Master’s Degree in Fiction Writing. She is one of my very favorite readers, and I always love catching up with her and finding out what books she loved over the past year, and how she thinks her reading life will change now that she’s not running her podcast. As always, it was a great chat, with lots of laughs about serious and not-so-serious books.   Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Malavika Praseed Instagram/Chicago Review of Books     Malavika on Best Book Ever Podcast:   Episode 029 Malavika Praseed on “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers Episode 079 Malavika’s 2021 End of Year Wrap Up   And I went on her podcast once to talk about, you guessed it, My Favorite Book Your Favorite Book Podcast: Howard’s End with Julie Strauss     Discussed in this episode:   National Book Award Long List The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon A Death in the Family by James Agee Ethan From by Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton William Faulkner Jhumpa Lahiri Jeff Pearlman Carson McCullers Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Best Book Ever Episode 089 Stephen Pelton on Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Howard’s End by E.M. Forester The Hours movie The Hours by Michael Cunningham The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers East of Eden by John Steinbeck The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy Why is Santa Claus Erotica Suddenly So Popular? All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews The Pultizer Prize Winners for Fiction, by year Fuckbois of Literature podcast Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man: A Girl Friday Mystery by Emily J. Edwards Chicago Review of Books (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

Episode 126 Memoir-Palooza with Denise Massar     Today, I’m so happy to welcome back the very first guest of the show, an amazing writer and reader, and, not to brag, but my best friend and soul sister, Denise Massar. Denise is a memoir junkie, and it occurred to me that mid-December is a perfect time to host a Memoir-Palooza, since so many of us like to give them as gifts over the holiday season, and I thought it would be interesting to hear which ones she liked best over the last year. A lot of the ones we talk about today deal with grief and loss, which also makes a lot of sense to address right now, as the holidays can be rough for a lot of people. Denise is my all-time most trusted memoir resource, and I know you’re going to love hearing her tell me why she thinks Memoirs are the Best Books Ever.   Denise Massar is an author, a mom via birth and adoption, and an adoptee. She writes about parenting, caregiving, racism, and anything else she can’t stop thinking about. As a reader, she’s most interested in stories about women’s day-to-day lives—in the 80s when grade-school classmates were reading Judy Blume, Denise was into Erma Bombeck. Her essays have been published in RAISE Magazine, TODAY Parenting, An Injustice!, MUTHA Magazine, and Jane Friedman’s blog. Denise’s memoir, SEARCH HISTORY: A Memoir of Loss, Obsession, and Meeting My Mom at 40, is currently on submission. She is represented by Jacquie Flynn at Joelle Delbourgo Associates.     Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Denise Massar Website/Instagram/Twitter/Facebook       Discussed in this episode:   Denise Massar on Best Book Ever Episode 002 Mothers of Sparta by Dawn Davies I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas What Comes Next and How to Like it by Abigail Thomas Episode 097 – Lizbeth Meredith on “What Comes Next and How to Like It” by Abigail Thomas In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir by Saeed Jones Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr The Salt Path by Raynor Winn Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney Catastrophe Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi Spare by Prince Harry J.R. Moehringer     (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com

It’s time for my favorite episode of the year – our Annual Kids/YA Gift Giving Guide. I asked a group of young people, ages 8-19, to tell me about their favorite book. As always, their answers were as smart, funny, interesting, and diverse as the kids themselves. I love talking to young people about books, and even if you don’t have any young people to buy for this year, I know you’re going to love hearing these interesting people tell me about their favorite books.   A note: as always, the interviews go in age order, and the older kids talk about books with some very mature themes.   Follow the Best Book Ever Podcast on Instagram or on the Best Book Ever Website   Host: Julie Strauss Website/Instagram   Discussed in this episode:   Hope, Age 8 Mysteries in Our National Park: Cliff-Hanger: A Mystery in Mesa Verde National Park by Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson (This is part of a 12-book series all set in national parks across the United States.) The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne (Both Hope and her twin sister Mackenzie talked to me about multiple Magic Tree House books in last year’s episode)   Henry, Age 8 Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar Holes by Louis Sachar Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger by Louis Sachar Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom by Louis Sachar   Supernatural Bear, Age 10 Dog Man by Dav Pilkey The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey   Dante, Age 10 The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate The One and Only Ivan movie The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate The One and Only Ruby by Katherine Applegate Odder by Katherine Applegate Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series on Disney+)   Dorian, Age 10 Spy School Project X by Stuart Gibbs Spy School Secret Service by Stuart Gibbs Spy School Revolution by Stuart Gibbs The Fun Jungle Collection by Stuart Gibbs   Kate, Age 12 My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga The Storyteller’s Death: A Novel by Ann Dávila Cardinal   Jack, Age 14 Maus by Art Spiegelman   Joey, Age 15 The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabreil Bá The Umbrella Academy on Netflix Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang Paper Girls Series on Amazon Prime Scythe by Neal Shusterman Terminator Genisys movie The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe   Erin, Age 19 The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides Thrillers by the Book Club Pod Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane     (Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you shop using my affiliate link on Bookshop, a portion of your purchase will go to me, at no extra expense to you. Thank you for supporting indie bookstores and for helping to keep the Best Book Ever Podcast in business!) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bestbookeverpodcast.substack.com