In this encore episode of the Unabridged Podcast, we each share some cozy read recommendations with you. After our Bookish Check-in, we talk about what makes a cozy read for us, and then we each share one that we've loved. The books we chose include Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce series, Colleen Wright's The White Christmas Inn, and Alexis Hall's Boyfriend Material. We end the episode with our Give Me One . . . Cozy Comfort. Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the bo...
Dec 29, 2021•34 min•Season 5Ep. 210
In this encore episode of our Unabridged Book Club pick from December 2020, we talk about Christina Lauren's holiday rom-com, In a Holidaze . After our Bookish Check-in, where we each share what we're reading, we chat about the novel and then offer another holiday book recommendation. We end with our Give Me One and talk about holiday songs that make us cringe. Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the episode. Interested in what else we're read...
Dec 22, 2021•43 min•Season 5Ep. 209
In this throwback episode from 2019, Jen and Sara get into an uncharacteristic sparring match about the essence of the Love, Actually film while Ashley stays (also uncharacteristically) decidedly neutral. Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the episode. Interested in what else we're reading? Check out our Featured Books page. Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram, Facebook , Twitter . | Join our Unabridged Podcast Reading Challenge . | Visit o...
Dec 15, 2021•19 min•Season 5Ep. 208
In this Unabridged Book Club episode, Sara, Jen, and Ashley discuss their December book club pick, Jean Meltzer's The Matzah Ball. We all discuss this 2021 release (spoiler alert: we all loved it!!!), and then we each share a pairing suggestion. Our pairings include Talia Hibbert’s Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Sarah Adams’s The Match, and Beth O’Leary’s The Switch. This book club pick is perfect for the holiday season and is the perfect mix of a fun romance coupled with serious issues. Visit the Una...
Dec 08, 2021•53 min•Season 5Ep. 207
In this Unabridged Episode, Sara talks about using Slack as a communication tool for teams, content groups, schools, etc. She discusses how she, Ashley, and Jen use it for the podcast and how her instructional technology team uses it in her school district. In addition, she discusses the importance of finding tools to simplify the lives of teachers after a very stressful 2021. Visit the Unabridged website for more great content! Want to support Unabridged? Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram, ...
Dec 03, 2021•5 min
In this seasonal episode, Jen, Sara, and Ashley are sharing some of their recent favorite reads that would be perfect for holiday reading picks! Our recommendations include Sarah Morganthaler’s Mistletoe and Mr. Right, Sophie Cousens’s This Time Next Year, and Jasmine Guillory’s Royal Holiday. We end the episode by sharing our favorite seasonal drinks for our Give Me One! Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the episode. Interested in what else...
Dec 01, 2021•33 min•Season 5Ep. 206
For our November Unabridged Book Club pick, we had so much fun reading this classic novel, Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables ( Amazon | Bookshop.org ). We also shared our pairings including Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and Fannie Flagg’s Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man. Sara, Jen, and Ashley all have different levels of experience with this classic novel, so it was super fun discussing our personal experiences with it! Visit the...
Nov 24, 2021•50 min•Season 5Ep. 205
In this Bonus Unabridged Episode, Jen shares about our Unabridged Reading Challenge for 2022 ! We loved doing our very first challenge in 2021, and we are thrilled to announce the 2022 challenge! You can learn about all things related to the 2022 Reading Challenge on this Reading Challenge page , where you can see the 2022 categories, join in on the discussion groups, and download templates to help you keep track (and more!). Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter if you'd like a 2022 reading tr...
Nov 19, 2021•5 min
This is one of our favorite annual episodes. As many of you know, Sara is our resident gift giving guru, and she carefully curates a list each year of amazing bookish gifts perfect for the book lovers in our lives (and for us to put on our own wish lists!). Jen and Ashley share a few of our favorites, too. Listen in, and let us know what your go to bookish gift picks are! If you're interested in the long list of Bookish Gifts from Sara (our Gift Giving Guru!), be sure you sign up for our newslet...
Nov 17, 2021•39 min•Season 5Ep. 204
What is a favorite fairy tale retelling for you? At Unabridged, we are having so much fun with the Fairy Tale Retellings category on this year's Unabridged Reading Challenge ! We're coming at you this week with three new fairy tale retelling recommendations, including Elizabeth Lim’s Six Crimson Cranes, Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Kalynn Bayron’s Cinderella Is Dead, all of which were excellent! Don't miss this fun discussion; you're sure to find a retelling that you'd enjoy!...
Nov 10, 2021•32 min•Season 5Ep. 203
In this Unabridged Teaching Tidbits Episode, Jen talks about student seminars. She defines what they are, shares some of the benefits, and offers different ways to implement them in the classroom. She also provides a detailed example of the way she's created a seminar assignment for her English classroom and discusses the reflection process. Visit the Unabridged website for more great content! Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram, Facebook , Twitter . | Join our Unabridged Podcast Reading Chall...
Nov 05, 2021•8 min
As audiobook listeners, Jen, Sara, and Ashley are always on the lookout for amazing audiobooks! Join Sara, Jen, and Ashley as they share their latest audiobook recommendations including Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Jennifer Ryan’s The Kitchen Front. Each of these recommendations is not only a great book but is also enhanced by the audio experience. Looking for more recs? Don't miss links to other audiobook posts in our blog show notes. Visit the Unabridged website ...
Nov 03, 2021•37 min•Season 5Ep. 202
In this Unabridged Book Club episode, Jen, Sara, and Ashley discuss Aiden Thomas's Cemetery Boys, which has also been our buddy read for the month! We share our pairings for this one including Kacen Callender’s Felix Ever After, Molly Knox Ostertag’s The Witch Boy (trilogy), and Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite’s Dear Haiti, Love Alaine. We had such a great time discussing this one! Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the episode. Interested ...
Oct 27, 2021•51 min•Season 5Ep. 201
In this Unabridged Episode, Ashley shares about using the Calm App both for self care and in the classroom. The Calm site and app include an entire suite of resources to help with encouraging mindfulness, practicing meditation, and getting better sleep. Ashley talks about how the resources are grouped by age range and shares some of the ways that she has used the app. She mentions the free resources for teachers Calm provides, and she talks about how teachers can get started with using Calm. Wan...
Oct 22, 2021•8 min
We always love sharing our latest memoir recommendations with you all! In this episode, Sara, Jen, and Ashley each pick a memoir that we have read or listened to recently that we loved and want to recommend! Today, our memoir recs include Jenny Lawson’s Broken (In the Best Possible Way), Ashley C. Ford’s Somebody’s Daughter, and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart. This is a topic we love to revisit because there are always new amazing memoirs coming out to discuss; don't miss episode 138 where w...
Oct 20, 2021•30 min•Season 5Ep. 200
In this Unabridged episode, Jen and Sara discuss Scream. Before diving into that discussion, Sara, Jen, and Ashley all share our bookish check-in reading, which this week includes Laura Florand’s The Chocolate Thief, Sarah Adams’s The Match, and Ashley Audrain’s The Push. Jen and Sara share their experiences in 1996 watching Scream for the first time, and then they share their thoughts about watching it again now in 2021. Afterwards, we all come back together for our Give Me One where we admit a...
Oct 13, 2021•51 min•Season 5Ep. 199
In today's teaching tidbit episode, Sara talks about the book Tina H. Boogren's 180 Days of Self-care for Busy Educators ( Amazon | Bookshop.org ). She discusses a both the content and setup of the book. In addition, she discusses the importance of self-care and how teaching is even more difficult due to the events going on in our world. We appreciate educators so much, and hope you find this episode helpful. Visit the Unabridged website for more great content! Want to support Unabridged? Follow...
Oct 08, 2021•6 min
In this Unabridged episode, which has become an annual tradition, Sara, Jen and Ashley share our latest thriller and spooky recommendations with you, perfect for fall mood reading. Our recommendations include Alex Michaelides’s The Maidens, Shea Ernshaw’s A History of Wild Places, and Riley Sager’s Survive the Night. We talk about the best ways to enjoy thrillers and wrap up our episode by sharing some of our favorite Halloween memories. Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and l...
Oct 06, 2021•36 min•Season 5Ep. 198
In this Unabridged Book Club episode, Sara, Jen, and Ashley discuss Darcie Little Badger's young adult lit book Elatsoe ( Amazon | Bookshop.org ). This fascinating book combines several genres including fantasy and paranormal fiction. We also share our pairings, including Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter, Aiden Thomas’s Cemetery Boys, and Dhonielle Clayton’s The Belles. We had a great discussion about this outstanding book and hope that you enjoy it! Visit the Unabridged website for our ...
Sep 29, 2021•45 min•Season 5Ep. 197
In today's teaching tidbit episode, Jen talks about ways to facilitate discussion. She suggests alternate types of discussions and ways to reduce the pressure of sharing ideas aloud in class. She mentions programs like Nearpod , Flipgrid , and Schoology that can offer new ways for students to share ideas, both ahead of class and in the moment. (Don't miss Teaching Tidbits 5 , where Jen talks about literature circles, and 18 , where Sara talks about Flipgrid.) If you like our teaching ideas and w...
Sep 24, 2021•9 min
In this Unabridged episode, Jen, Ashley, and Sara share some of our favorite authors who write for multiple age groups OR for different genres (or both!). This episode is perfect for those completing the Unabridged Reading Challenge for 2021; this will give you lots of great ideas for who to read for the versatile authors category. We talk about favorite authors such as John Green, Jacqueline Woodson, Rainbow Rowell, Sherry Thomas, and others. Listen in to hear our thoughts, and find us on socia...
Sep 22, 2021•34 min•Season 5Ep. 196
In this Unabridged episode, Jen, Sara, and Ashley share book recommendations for book picks that surprised us and brought unexpected joy. Our recommendations, including Rebecca Stead’s The List of Things that Will Not Change, Patrik Svensson’s The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World, and Tiffany Haddish’s The Last Black Unicorn, are very different from each other, but they were all books that turned out to be more than what we expected. V...
Sep 15, 2021•34 min•Season 5Ep. 195
We're back with our Teaching Tidbits episodes for this school year! In our first teaching tidbit episode of season five, Ashley talks about podcasting in the classroom and different ways that teachers can incorporate podcast creation into class activities. Ashley mentions programs like WeVideo and Adobe Spark, which can be used to create the podcasts. (Don't miss Teaching Tidbit 6 where Sara talks about using Adobe Spark!) If you like our teaching ideas and want to see more that we've created, c...
Sep 10, 2021•11 min
In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we discuss one of our favorite topics, book-to-screen adaptations. In this one, we focus on young adult books that have been adapted to films or series. We talk about ones we've discussed on the podcast and others we've loved. This episode is perfect for the 2021 Unabridged Reading Challenge because it covers the category for a YA lit book that has been adapted as well as for the bonus "Watch the Adaptation" category! Visit the Unabridged website for our full ...
Sep 08, 2021•30 min•Season 5Ep. 194
In this Unabridged podcast episode, Ashley, Jen, and Sara talk about one of our favorite topics—we share book series we've loved reading. We're focusing on young adult literature fantasy and dystopian series, and although there are tons of great recommendations in this category, we narrow it down to Marie Lu, Dhonielle Clayton, and S.A. Chakraborty. Check it out, and find us on the socials to share your favorites with us! Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the book...
Sep 01, 2021•36 min•Season 5Ep. 193
For our Unabridged Book Club pick for August of 2021, we're discussing Balli Kaur Jaswal’s Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows. We talk about our overall impressions, what worked for us, some quotations, and then we pair this one with other books we think readers who loved this would enjoy including Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X, Sandhya Menon’s When Dimple Met Rishi, and Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians. Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the e...
Aug 25, 2021•33 min•Season 5Ep. 192
In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we talk all things graphic! We share a graphic novel, a graphic memoir, and a graphic nonfiction pick, all of which would work well for the Unabridged Reading Challenge 2021 . Listen in to hear what we have to say about our picks including Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, Gene Luen Yang’s Dragon Hoops, and Jerry Craft’s Class Act. Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the episode. Inte...
Aug 18, 2021•37 min•Season 4Ep. 191
In this Unabridged episode, we discuss one of our favorite topics, book-to-screen adaptations! In this episode, Ashley, Jen and Sara share their Bookish Check-in, and then Sara and Jen discuss the pilot episode of Riverdale. Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the episode. Interested in what else we're reading? Check out our Featured Books page. Want to support Unabridged? Follow us @unabridgedpod on Instagram, Facebook , Twitter . | Join our ...
Aug 11, 2021•42 min•Season 5Ep. 190
On today's Unabridged episode, we share about a popular topic - books we cannot stop reading! We share about a fantasy favorite, Sarah J. Maas, with A Court of Silver Flames, and romance favorite Alyssa Cole with her thriller When No One Is Watching. We also talk about Laura Hankin’s Happy and You Know It. It's always fun to read a book you can't put down, so we wanted to share some that had that effect on us! Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned ...
Aug 04, 2021•33 min•Season 5Ep. 189
In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we're discussing specific thrillers that we've read and LOVED (including books by Ruth Ware, Oyinkan Braithwaite, and T.M. Logan), and we're talking more generally about what does and does not work for us when it comes to the thriller genre. We've talked a lot recently about comfort reads and light reads, but we know from our Bookstagram community that thrillers are also a great escape for many readers. Let us know what you have read and loved when it comes to...
Jul 28, 2021•38 min•Season 4Ep. 188
