Librarian Natalie McCall chats with debut author Ryan Douglass. Ryan’s book, The Taking of Jake Livingston , is about a teenage boy who has to deal with ghosts and racism at his mostly white college prep school. It’s a horror coming-of-age story that offers both scares and the exploration of real-world issues. Natalie and Ryan talk about what it’s like being horror-loving children, spooky racism, and what the editorial process is really like. This episode is a must-listen for any aspiring writer...
Jul 08, 2021•57 min
Librarian Natalie McCall chats with New York Times bestselling author Aisha Saeed. Saeed has written books for both teens ( Written In the Stars, Yes No Maybe So ) and children ( Amal Unbound, Bilal Cooks Daal ). She has also contributed essays and short stories in various collections ( Hope Nation, Our Stories, Our Voices, Once Upon An Eid ). Natalie and Aisha talk about rewriting Goldilocks (to depict her as the little house-destroying criminal she was!), letters to Judy Blume, and how stories...
Jun 15, 2021•49 min
Librarian Natalie McCall chats with Jasmine Warga. Warga is the author of the New York Times bestseller Other Words For Home . Other Words For Home earned multiple awards, including a John Newbery Honor. She is also the author of young adult books, My Heart and Other Black Holes and Here We Are Now , which have been translated into over twenty different languages. The Shape of Thunde r, her next novel for middle grade readers, will be published in May 2021. Originally from Cincinnati, she now li...
May 19, 2021•59 min
Librarian Natalie McCall chats with Justina Ireland, author of fantasy novels for young adults including the New York Times bestseller, Dread Nation (a genre-bending historical novel featuring finishing school zombie slayers). Justina also writes for the Star Wars franchise, including the books Lando’s Luck , Spark of the Resistance , and A Test of Courage . Her middle grade novel Ophie’s Ghosts comes out in May. Natalie and Justina talked about whether The Great Gatsby is actually any good or i...
Apr 01, 2021•51 min
Librarian Natalie McCall chats with Brandy Colbert, award-winning author of books for children and teens ( The Voting Booth, Little & Lion, The Revolution of Birdie Randolph, Finding Yvonne, Pointe, The Only Black Girls In Town) . Brandy was born and raised in the Ozarks (Springfield, Missouri!) and has a degree in journalism. She is on faculty at Hamline University’s MFA program in writing for children and lives in Los Angeles. Natalie and Brandy talked about both the magic and colonialism ...
Feb 18, 2021•49 min
Librarian Natalie McCall talks with Kim Johnson, author of This Is My America , a thrilling mystery that explores racial injustice and the American justice system (think The Hate U Give meets Just Mercy ). Kim was active in social justice as a teen and college student and now mentors student activists and leaders in her role as a college administrator. Natalie and Kim talked mysteries (are you the type of reader who sits back and enjoys the ride or the type that searches for clues to solve the c...
Nov 15, 2020•55 min
Librarian Natalie McCall talks with Christina Hammonds Reed, author of the New York Times best-seller, The Black Kids . This extraordinary coming-of-age novel explores race, class, and violence through the eyes of a wealthy, black teenage girl in Los Angeles during the 1992 Rodney King Riots. Beautifully written and thoughtful, the novel also sheds light on modern day America and Black Lives Matter. Natalie and Christina met over the phone (Natalie in the Library’s purple-walled recording booth ...
Oct 01, 2020•51 min
Librarian Natalie McCall talks with Nina LaCour, the bestselling and Michael L. Printz Award-winning author of four critically acclaimed young adult novels: We Are Okay, Hold Still , The Disenchantments , and Everything Leads to You . Born and raised in the East Bay, Nina received her undergraduate degree from San Francisco State University and an MFA in Creative Writing at Mills College. Her graduate thesis became her first novel, Hold Still , which received a William C. Morris honor from the A...
Apr 23, 2020•50 min
Librarian Natalie McCall talks with Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month and co-founder of 100 Word Story. He has two books on writing: Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Prompts to Boost Your Creative Mojo and Brave the Page, a writing guide for teens . In November 2019, Faulkner gave a talk at the Mill Valley Public Library about the creative benefits of trying to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. Find his podcast, Write-minded: Weekly Inspiration for ...
Mar 20, 2020•49 min
Librarian Natalie McCall chats with Traci Chee, New York Times bestselling author of the Reader trilogy (an imaginative fantasy with suspense, magic, and mysterious objects called books). Her historical novel, We Are Not Free (about four San Francisco teens forced into Japanese Internment camps during World War II) will be released in June 2020. The two book obsessives talk about how revisiting childhood favorites can lead to epic disappointment, the cat that started following Traci home when sh...
Feb 18, 2020•54 min
Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas shares the eight books that made him, and you can sense a theme: from James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son to Carlos Bulosan's America is in the Heart through Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States , Vargas seeks out the underheard voices of overlooked people. Hear his in this wide-ranging interview.
Jan 28, 2020•49 min
Librarian Natalie McCall chats with award-winning Canadian author Mariko Tamaki in this episode of 8 Books Remix . In 2015, Tamaki received the Michael L. Printz Award and a Caldecott Honor for her graphic novel This One Summer (two of the three major literary awards for youth awarded by the American Library Association). Her most recent book, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, is a sweet, spirited graphic novel about a Bay Area teen whose girlfriend keeps breaking up with her. Tamaki is one ...
Jan 16, 2020•41 min
Hey, sometimes you just gotta do a double album, and in this generous portion of 8 Books Remix, librarian Natalie McCall chats with Megan Whalen Turner, recipient of a Newbery Honor for The Thief , the first installment of a classic, still-continuing, book series with passionate (obsessive?!?) fans of all ages and backgrounds. The endorsements on her book jackets are a who’s who of some of the biggest names in fantasy for children and young adults. If you love them, Megan probably inspired them!...
Dec 17, 2019•1 hr 13 min
Librarian Natalie McCall chats with Misa Sugiura, author of award winning, contemporary young adult fiction. Her latest novel, This Time Will Be Different is a coming-of-age novel about a Japanese American teenager who struggles to understand the reverberating repercussions of her family being interned during World War II. Natalie and Misa bond over being nerdy English majors, reading problematic classics, the iconic literary heroine Harriet the Spy, and Tim O’ Brien’s brilliant evocation of the...
Nov 15, 2019•42 min
Librarian Natalie McCall knew she wanted to chat with Randy Ribay after reading his novel After the Shot Drops, her favorite book about school and basketball since Hoop Dreams . His latest book, Patron Saints of Nothing, is a National Book Award finalist. It’s a gripping coming-of-age story about a teenager who travels to the Philippines to uncover the truth about his cousin’s life and murder. Randy’s eight books ranged from children’s fantasy to b-boy poetry to short stories. The two James Bald...
Oct 21, 2019•48 min
Linda Michel-Cassidy talks to Alice Quinn, who recently retired as the Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America (PSA), during which time she established partnerships with prominent cultural organizations, organized hundreds of events across the US, and expanded the Poetry in Motion program. Quinn is the editor of a book of Elizabeth Bishop’s writings, Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments , as well as a forthcoming book of Bishop’s journals. This...
Sep 21, 2019•1 hr 8 min
In episode 3, Natalie McCall talked to the fabulous Lisa Ramee. Lisa’s debut novel, A Good Kind of Trouble, is one of the buzziest children’s books of the year. It’s about Shayla, a girl trying to understand and maybe even participate in the Black Lives Matter movement while also trying to sort out the drama of junior high (crushes, changing friendships, and adults who just don’t understand). They chatted about money (maybe being rich isn’t all that great?), race (colorism and learning how to lo...
Sep 16, 2019•41 min
In 8 Books Remix episodes, librarian Natalie McCall talks with the most talented and innovative authors in Young Adult Literature about five books they fell in love with during formative periods of their lives and three books they wish both teens and adults would read. Anyone who loves books, whether they’ve read any contemporary Young Adult Literature or not, will love these conversations between passionate book lovers. Brendan Kiely is The New York Times bestselling author of All American Boys...
Jul 02, 2019•41 min
Author Stacey Lee chats about the books that influenced her life and career, from the controversial children’s classic readers love (or hate) to the first book she ever read with a character who shared her Chinese-American background. Stacey and our host discuss some controversial questions, such as: will Disney ever make a fairy tale movie with a dark ending? And: does seeing an award sticker on a book cover make you want to pick up a book or run away from it? Stacey Lee is an award-winning aut...
May 04, 2019•41 min
Journalist Clare Malone gives us the scoop on the books that have influenced her, from the quirky Bagthorpe Saga series of children's books to thrilling Tudor tale Wolf Hall . Clare and our host discuss works of journalism, Elena Ferrante, and everyone's favorite epic poem about Satan.
Apr 29, 2019•49 min
Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild presents the books that inspired and informed her professional interest in crossing "empathy walls," from the work of C. Wright Mills, who connected personal troubles with public issues, to W. J. Cash's Mind of the South , a predecessor to her own work exploring Southern identity. Reflecting on George Orwell's inspiring essays on writing, Hochschild also touches on the theory behind her on-the-ground sociological research and discusses her recent book, Strang...
Apr 19, 2018•39 min
Poet and veteran Brian Turner musters his list of eight formative books, offering his unique take on classics like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the war stories Cross of Iron and Slaughterhouse Five , and delights our host by introducing her to Ismail Kadare's lyric tale of oppressive bureaucracy, The Palace of Dreams .
Feb 17, 2018•44 min
Psychology professor Stephen Hinshaw, author of Another Kind of Madness , a memoir of mental illness in his own family, discusses the books closest to his heart. Some deal directly with mental illness, like Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle and William Styron's account of his own depression, Darkness Visible . Some deal with wrenching moral dilemmas, like Beloved and Sophie's Choice . And he draws it all together with E. O. Wilson's Consilience , which seeks to unify all knowledge....
Nov 15, 2017•53 min
Innovative educator Ramsey Musallam highlights the books that drive him - like On the Road (that pun is free of charge). He wanders Into the Wild with Jon Krakauer and considers The Perks of Being a Wallflower with Steven Chbosky. And unlike most of us, he has even made it all the way through David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest!
Aug 18, 2017•31 min
Cultural critic Laura Kipnis recently found herself embroiled in a colleague's sexual harassment case. Presented with a trove of relevant documents, she dove in with the zeal of the detectives and adventurers who populate her list of formative books, from Nancy Drew to Fear of Flying - and even a little Freud.
Jul 12, 2017•38 min
Photographer Arthur Drooker explored the quirky world of convention-goers in his book Conventional Wisdom , and now he explores the quirky world of his own literary upbringing. Discussion ranges from coming-of-age classics like On the Road and Catcher in the Rye to Dickens, E.L. Doctorow, and ... Keith Richards?
May 30, 2017•37 min
Planetary scientist Pascal Lee's eight books include works by Jack London, Jules Verne, and Carl Sagan. Find out how these favorites inspired him to lead a life looking outward to the stars.
May 01, 2017•35 min
