[INTRO MUSIC PLAYS]
ELENA: Hello and welcome back to Hoo’s at the Writing Center! I’m Elena!
KARISSA: I’m Karissa.
SARAH: I’m Sarah.
KIMBERLY: And I’m Kimberly!
ELENA: October is the spookiest month of the year, but it’s also National Book Month! In this episode, we wanted to talk about some of our favorite books, new and old, as well as the bookstores and libraries that carry them. As college students, it can be tough to find time to read for fun, but a lot of us also genuinely really want to get back into the habit of reading. Especially in quarantine times, curling up with a good book can be a perfect way to escape and immerse yourself in another world – or learn a little more about this one – for a little while.
SARAH: Alrighty, so we’re gonna start off with our favorite books of all time. These can be childhood favorites, books we keep coming back to, or books that genuinely changed our lives, we know that it might be impossible to pick just one but for time’s sake we definitely have to um, Kimberly, would you like to go first?
KIMBERLY: I would always love to go first, so the book that I would literally read whenever I got the chance to was Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata. She wrote a lot of children’s books and I was very fond of her uh, as a youngling. It was about these two sisters who move from Iowa and Georgia and have to navigate growing up, sisterhood, identity, racism, and just so many other topics you wouldn’t expect would be found in a children’s book, but I saw- I learned a lot from this book and thinking about it now looking back on it as an adult, just like how many mature themes there were and how uh the author was able to make it into a story that was easily accessible for children and she has made other books that I had a whole collection of and I regretfully say that it is now gone. But it was one of my favorite book, and this book made me emotional because I have an older sister and the whole story was based on the younger sister so I was reading it and was having all of these emotional ties to my older sister because, if you read the book you’ll understand why. It made me connect a lot with the main character, I highly recommend it, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a children’s book because it was just impactful for me as a young person and also a younger reader. Cynthia Kadohata was my favorite author as a kid alongside, and I know a lot of other people can relate to this but Jerry Spinelli with Stargirl – one of the other books that I love and Wendy Mass who did Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life and other books. I was a big fan of those authors but Kira Kira will always have a special spot in my heart. Uh our next person who’s going to share her favorite book is Karissa!
KARISSA: Hello, yes! Um my favorite book of all time probably just because I have a fond memory of reading it. Like the process of reading it was really enjoyable, and I don't’ really remember enjoying the act of reading a book as much as this one um and it’s For One More Day by Mitch Albom. It’s about a guy and his mom dies and he um just turns to like alcohol and stuff, just like substance abuse to kind of cope with that, and also is dad left when he was really young so he just feels really alone. Then he kind of loses touch with his wife and kids and the rest of his family because he's struggling with this addiction, and one night he drives back to his hometown, he gets really drunk and he decides to jump and after his fall, his mother appears to him and he kind of like spends a day in heaven with his mom and he gets to spend one last day with her. Throughout this day, she shows him like all the little things about herself and like their life together – things that he’s never noticed before she just kind of like hid from him for his own protection and safety because he was too young to understand. My favorite part about this book is like in between each chapter there’s little segments of stories or like excerpts from the main character’s journal and they’re titled “Times my mother stood up for me” and then there’s another one titled “Times I did not stand up for my mother”. It’s really really impactful just like these stories included in like the whole story and just the way that it’s told and it really changed my entire perspective on the ways we choose to or choose not to nurture and care for the relationships the we create and maintain in our life and also the ways in which we protects others that we care about, even if it’s at our own expense and they always don’t know the intention behind that. So yeah, I just remember like, it really changed the way I approach like my relationship and the world and everything and it was just like incredible impactful and I always keep coming back to it and like reading it again and again. And now Sarah is gonna share her favorite book...
SARAH: Hello! Um yeah, I wanted to share one of, or maybe like the book, that really changed my relationship to reading. So like, I don’t know if it’s necessarily like my favorite of all time, but it definitely holds a little nook in my heart for sure. So it’s called Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and it’s this beautiful, easy, YA – easy to read, highly recommend – book and um [cough]. Actually I found it off of this like gem of a recommended YouTube video and it was just like “YA must Reads” and I clicked on it and I watched it and um pretty much the book is about a girl who is heading off to college (she just graduated high school) and she’s headed off to the same college as her twin sister and you get to see like their relationship through college – or like through their first year. And she just like – the whole book is about her adjustment to like college life and that was very relevant with me as a high school senior! So, I decided to read it and um [progressive bolstering laugh]. Oh boy! Oh Elena what are you going to do with that? [laughs even more]
KIMBERLY: Elena’s trying to speak and it’s like [imitates loud lawn mowing sound with RRRRR]
SARAH: [laughs even more somehow] I’ll just draw out my part as long as possible [laughs more], um [more laughing] oh my goodness. Is it a lawn mower or like a leaf blower?
ELENA: There’s like three [laughing] can you hear it?
SARAH: No.
ELENA: Okay, okay good [chuckles]
SARAH: Oh my goodness that is so funny, I am just like now imagining just like the RRRRR like [laughing]
KIMBERLY: I think we need to include this in the episode [laughs] I think we need just a little segment [laughter continues].
ELENA: Literally, they have chosen this exact moment for all three of them directly in the like sad patch of grass right outside my apartment window.
KIMBERLY: A sad patch of grass?? [laughter heightens]
ELENA: Like it’s not even worth mowing!
SARAH: Seriously, just let it grow. Let it grow!
KIMBERLY: You don’t have a sign that says “Stop, I’m podcasting right now” [chuckles]
ELENA: I should honestly [reciprocates chuckle]
KIMBERLY: Like the little red blinker light like if it flashes it -- [laughs]
ELENA: [continues laughing] I’m so sorry Sarah
SARAH: No! It was hilarious don’t even [laughs] Oh goodness where was I? [chuckles with delight] Alright um...[little laughter]...yes! So [somehow even more little laughs]...um... this was really relatable to me as a high school senior and um genuinely I think that my middle school and my high school –no shade at all—but I’m still a little bit bitter...um... I – I feel like a lot of my English classes we read books that I like didn’t want to read so I had like a very bad attitude towards reading, therefore like you know I didn’t want to read for fun anymore and also my parents aren’t very big readers? So there wasn’t really anyone in my life to be like, Oh my gosh! There are different books, don’t you know? Like, you know what I mean? So, um, anyway, yeah! I highly recommend – I don’t know how long this segment was but [chuckles] I highly recommend Fangirl to anyone out there. It truly changed the way I read, and if you’re having a hard time reading out there, and just want a lil gift – check out Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Elena! I believe you’re up next, if there aren’t any technical difficulties [small chuckle] on your side.
ELENA: So I apologize for the lawnmowers outside if you can hear them but [laughter] Can you hear that? Okay, we’re gonna move. Rain check on this [laughter]. So when I was a kid, a book that I was absolutely obsessed with was called May Bird and the Ever After and the author Jodi Lynn Anderson. It’s definitely like a book that’s written for kids, but to this day it’s one of the books that I just keep coming back to because I have really, really really fond and vivid memories of reading it. Yeah, so, it’s-- basically the plot is, it’s about a girl who gets lost in the woods of West Virginia and she accidentally falls into the world of the dead, which she then has to escape because she’s alive, like you’re not allowed in the world of the dead if you’re alive, um, which is like a pretty dark concept for a children's book, but I feel like a lot of children’s books have concepts like that, and they work really well because it kind of frames this really dark topic in terms that like a child could understand so I think it was one of the books that kind of like, it explains death to kids in a really creative way. And it deals a lot with themes of like loneliness, mother/daughter relationships, found family, and identity. And it’s kind of like Coraline, but with way more world building and characters that you get just like really, really attached to and it also has one of the most satisfying and emotionally compelling endings of a series that I’ve ever read, ‘cause it’s three books, and they’re all really good. And as a kid I just related to it a lot, and I think it showed me how like fantasy stories and like any type of like fiction writing can be used to reflect on and cope with real world problems in really creative and healthy ways.
KARISSA: Okay, so up next we wanted to talk about our favorite new books, um, so books that we’ve read recently. We kinda decided that the cutoff would be within the last few years, um, so kind of like the last book that really made us take a step back and say like “wow, this was a really good book.” So up first is Kimberly.
KIMBERLY: Thank you Karissa [laughter]. Uhm, so my favorite new book is titled On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. It came out in 2019 so it’s very, very recent, and um, it was—I didn’t know about this book, my partner actually introduced it to me and I was incredibly in love with the way that there has been such an influx of poetry books that have come out and a lot of people going into poetry this year but I definitely will say that this is one of my top favorite books. And it’s not exactly poetry but the language is just very poetic, and it’s a reflection of the author’s own life, talking about his family escaping and navigating the Vietnam war, being gay, because the author was navigating his sexuality and how that sort of complicates his relationship with the people around him, and like being an immigrant, and racism, and just so many other topics. And my partner and I both cried while we were reading it, um, so it’s definitely one of those like good cry kind of reads, that if you really want to—Ocean Vuong is just so incredibly meticulous with his words and just reading the story between— uh, because it really does center about him and his mother, but it is just so incredibly moving, and it’s heartbreaking, and it’s fulfilling at times just to see how you can rise above obstacles and it’s just so incredibly heartwarming. It is definitely one of those stories that I recommend if you’re ready to just take it all in and to cry [soft laughter] a lot. Oh! Our next one [laughter]. Uh, our next sharer is Karissa.
KARISSA: So totally switching gears from Kimberly’s favorite new book, my favorite new book is All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda, um, and it was published in 2016 but I just read it last summer, and I really haven’t stopped thinking about it since because it’s this like super intricate, like really intense murder mystery, but it’s written super uniquely in the way that it goes backwards in time. So like the first chapter starts with two week since the main character has been back in her hometown and then the last chapter is the day she arrives back in her hometown. So, in that way it’s like really unique and like kind of hard to wrap your head around, but once you get the hang of it, it makes a lot of sense and it’s super cool and super interesting. And it’s like your cliche small town girl moves to the big city, then comes back home, and like murder mystery, some romance, oooo romance—forbidden romance, plot twists, suspense, murder, all the good stuff. It’s like a really—it's a page turner I couldn’t stop reading it, and I think about it a lot. Every once in a while it’ll just pop in my head and I’ll be like “oh my gosh remember that one book where all this crazy stuff happened? Wow.” Felt like I was in a movie, so I would highly recommend it if that stuff is like sort of up your alley. It’s a pretty easy read, it’s a quick read because it’s like you wanna get through, you wanna figure out who done it, so yeah! And up next is Sarah.
SARAH: First off, that book sounds very interesting, and I’m ready [laughter]. But, my new favorite book is called Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. This book was written in 2017, which was literally years ago, but genuinely I loved this book. Also I know that we were trying to give a little shoutout to books that we did not read in class. I did read this one in class, but it is so beautiful that I need to tell you guys about it. So, it’s actually a love story between two extremely different characters, and it’s captured through this incredible—that same like poetic writing like Kimberly was talking about, as the country around them is literally crumbling into this like civil war. So the two main characters Saeed and Nadia try to escape the country by literally exiting west through these like, not, I don’t wanna say magical doors but, I mean, we don’t have them I think, in this world [laughter]. So there are these doors and you , they’re like surrounded by light, and pretty much you open them, and...I mean, yeah, I guess it is pretty magical. [laughter] Anyway, um, and you open them, and they walk through, and you’re literally in a different country, which is...crazy, but I highly recommend this book, especially during this time that we’re in, as you get to escape with this couple through different countries throughout the world. Also, I think the – it was so cool that my professor picked this, like, British Pakistani author, because usually, that does not happen, unfortunately, so. Alrighty, Elena’s up next, cannot wait to hear what she’s been reading.
ELENA: Yeah, so, kind of like a similar thing actually, in terms of like, doors that take you to other worlds...so I got this book because I had followed one of the authors on Twitter and it won a bunch of awards, and there was so much hype about it, so it was – and it had a really cool cover, as well. So I was like, well I have to get it. And, it’s one of my favorite books now...it’s called This Is How You Lose The Time War, and it’s by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. So the way that it’s formatted is like – it's a queer romance, and [chuckles] and I did not know this when I got the book, so that was like, super pleasant surprise, um, I just got it ‘cause I was like, “I like sci-fi!” But, the way it’s formatted is the two love interests, the authors write – like, each one of the authors is each one of the women, so they write each one of the sections, and they’re formatted kind of like letters to each other. Yeah, so it came out in 2019, and I – like, I knew nothing going into it, except that it was sci-fi, so I was totally unprepared for how like, fascinating the worldbuilding would be, how cool the characters would be, and how like, hopelessly attached you get to the characters when you’re reading it. And, yeah, so it’s just...it’s a super weird story as well, like...there is this aspect of kind of like, jumping between worlds, or like, timelines, which is really trippy, but like, I think you get used to it the more that you read it. Um, and it’s also a pretty quick read, it’s only like, 200 pages or something like that. And, yeah, so I definitely recommend that you check it out, if you want a book that you absolutely can’t put down – I read it in like almost one sitting, which hasn’t happened in years, definitely not in college. So, yeah. That’s my ringing endorsement for this book.
KIMBERLY: I just wanna say that I cannot wait to like, put this all in my reading list and just start getting them, and to read them, ‘cause I am trying to make an effort to read as a college student, ‘cause I know we don’t have a lot of time. But, um, I think I’m just, I’m so excited that like, I have an excuse to! To be like, “I have to read all these!” So, with that, we actually wanted to do a little segment on talking about local bookstore recommendations in Seattle, but also places that are doing online orders, uh – of course we always recommend supporting small businesses, but, we wanted to give you a little list right now, because there are – a ton of options out there. So, the first thing that we want to say is Black-owned bookstores with online orders, so, you are free to visit these websites, and then they will ship to your home! And we’ll go ahead and put these in the description box: Sistah Sci-Fi, it focuses on Afrofuturism, mysticism, sci-fi, voodoo, magical realism, speculative fiction, and horror written by Black women, and it’s also in Seattle. Then we have Uncle Bobbie’s, which is also a coffee shop; it’s a great space for sharing, building, learning, laughing, debating, and eating, and also, again, all of these have online orders. And we have, uh, Harriet’s Bookshop, celebrating female writers, activists, artists through books and writing; The Lit. Bar inspires reading and healthy social connections, the Loyalty Bookstore has a selection of books that highlights diverse voices and creatives, Cafe Con Libros, which is a feminist bookstore, also a coffeeshop, caters to folks who are book lovers, coffee connoisseurs, or both. And then we have Mahogany Books, dedicated to sharing books written for, by, or about people of the African diaspora, Semicolon Bookstore, a Black-women owned shop merging books and art, and the L.E.M.S. bookstore is also in Seattle. And, I also just wanna throw out that, there are some favorites around the Cap Hill area, or in Seattle area which is, my favorite—personal favorite is Third Place Books which is located in Seward Park, and then there’s Half Price Books which is located all around Washington, and Elliot Bay Books, which is Cap Hill classic. But Karissa has other recommendations that she would love to share with you.
KARISSA: Yeah, I wanna second Elliot Bay because I love spending time there and they also have like this cute little cafe that I love to do my homework in, um, and I have to like limit how many books I buy everytime I go there because I’m like “this is your limit,” otherwise I would spend like all my money on books and the coffee and I would not get any homework done. But there’s also another really cool second hand bookstore literally a block form Elliot Bay, and it’s called Horizon Books, and it’s kinda small, but it’s so insane. They have like floor to ceiling books and they’re separated into like every section you could imagine, and you could spend hours, and hours, and hours just looking through there. Um, and then also something that I’ve actually really enjoyed doing is going down to Pike Place and just looking at all the second hand bookstores there because like some of the stuff you can find is really cool and just getting to see like all the already loved books and—it's one of like my favorite things. I really enjoy doing that, um, and then Sarah also has some recommendations as well.
SARAH: Yes, um, I’m going to third Elliot Bay, I guess, my goodness it’s so popular it’s ridiculous. But I will say if you guys didn’t know that SU students, we get like ten percent off at Elliot Bay, um, you just hand them your ID and, it's either ten or twenty percent—I actually, I take that back I believe it’s twenty percent if I'm not mistaken. And they are also doing online orders right now, it’s really cool. I did it a few weeks ago. You just place your little order online, then you pick it up social distancingly at the store. It’s pretty nifty. Also I love Twice Sold Tales, it’s another used bookstore that has kitties in it! I believe Elena also has some thoughts, so I will just let that be with her. I also love, I think this is a lot around Seattle as well, but there’s just little like free neighborhood libraries that are just all around more of the residential like neighborhoods around here, and I know they’re in my hometown as well, but I just love that that is a thing. Like, I will say I don’t really take the books ‘cause I feel bad because I don’t really live there, but I like opening [laughter] the little libraries and chekcing out what’s in there. Um, it’s really cool ‘cause it’s just such a big mix of like—there's cook books in there and just like kids' books, and all this kinds of stuff, so yes. Um, Elena also has some bookstores she would like to share.
ELENA: Yeah, so I think my top bookstore in Seattle is actually in the U district which I totally discovered on accident. It’s kind of this hole in the wall, and it’s called Magis Books, or Magus Books, and yeah, they actually—so I love Elliot Bay, but it’s also really expensive, I think even with the discount. You can find Elliot Bay books at Magis Books at like half discounted because they’re used, um, so I have gotten a lot of books from Magis Books that still have the Elliot Bay sticker on them, but they’re like half the price. They also have just like a bunch of really like weird, rare books in there, so it’s really fun to just go through there and look at all these like old, leather bound books and be like “I could never afford this, but it’s really cool to look at.” Yeah, and then Twice Sold Tales is great, seconding that. I think during my freshman year up in Seattle I really missed my cat, and I would go there to get my like fix of cats and books, and it was great, would recommend. And then my third recommendation is Ada’s Technical Books and Cafe, which is super cool. It’s up in Central District? Yeah, central-ish. And it’s a cafe and then there’s also a bookshop kind of built into the cafe. So, it’s super cool because they specifically have technical books for like STEM students, so you’ll see a lot of STEM students studying there, but they also have a really large and cool section specifically for Sci-Fi and graphic novels, um, so it’s kind of also like a comic book store. So, uh, yeah that is one of my favorite places and they also have incredible tea, so those are my recommendations.
So, bookstores are great, but they do require that you spend money, and there’s an option that’s free and it’s libraries. And I’ve actually been using my Seattle library card quite a lot during quarantine because they have not—I don’t believe that they have an option where you can like pick up your library books in person yet, but you do get access to e-books and audio books pretty much instantaneously with a library card. So getting a library card is super easy, we’ll have a link in the description for where you can go to do that. And as soon as the libraries do open, you’ll be able to pick up a physical card, otherwise once they confirm your info you just get instant online access to all the stuff they have up there. And there are libraries pretty close to us. There is—the closest one is the Capital Hill Seattle Public Library branch, which is on 425 Harvard Ave. E. and that one is—it's smaller but it’s super cool. I’ve been to like some cool readings there so they have cool events as well as books. And the really big one is the Central Library which is just downtown on 1000 Fourth Ave., and we also just want to give a shoutout to Lemuix Library and to research librarians and librarians in general because the Writing Center is in the library and we would not be possible without the support of the library, so huge shoutout to them.
In closing, we’re very lucky to be in a city so full of books, and even if we do miss being out in coffee shops and books stores and book store coffee shops, we want to emphasize during 2020’s national book month that you can still support local bookstores and libraries and still get some for fun reading in.
KARISSA: If you find yourself falling into the all too familiar state of boredom in the coming months, consider not just watching Netflix for several more hours, because as great as Netflix is, most of those shows came from stories first. Already watched The Witcher? Consider reading the book series. And Elena, can confirm it’s pretty good.
SARAH: The same goes for Jenny Han’s book To all the Boys I’ve Loved Before--ooo that’s a good one, I've read that—Maraget Attwood’s Alias Grace, Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon, and countless others. It may be a while until a new season comes out – read the book in the meantime.
KIMBERLY: So, thank you for listening, and take care of one another, and be safe, and this has been another episode of
EVERYONE: Hoo’s at the Writing Center
[OUTRO MUSIC PLAYS]
ELENA: Hello and welcome back to Hoo’s at the Writing Center! I’m Elena!
KARISSA: I’m Karissa.
SARAH: I’m Sarah.
KIMBERLY: And I’m Kimberly!
ELENA: October is the spookiest month of the year, but it’s also National Book Month! In this episode, we wanted to talk about some of our favorite books, new and old, as well as the bookstores and libraries that carry them. As college students, it can be tough to find time to read for fun, but a lot of us also genuinely really want to get back into the habit of reading. Especially in quarantine times, curling up with a good book can be a perfect way to escape and immerse yourself in another world – or learn a little more about this one – for a little while.
SARAH: Alrighty, so we’re gonna start off with our favorite books of all time. These can be childhood favorites, books we keep coming back to, or books that genuinely changed our lives, we know that it might be impossible to pick just one but for time’s sake we definitely have to um, Kimberly, would you like to go first?
KIMBERLY: I would always love to go first, so the book that I would literally read whenever I got the chance to was Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata. She wrote a lot of children’s books and I was very fond of her uh, as a youngling. It was about these two sisters who move from Iowa and Georgia and have to navigate growing up, sisterhood, identity, racism, and just so many other topics you wouldn’t expect would be found in a children’s book, but I saw- I learned a lot from this book and thinking about it now looking back on it as an adult, just like how many mature themes there were and how uh the author was able to make it into a story that was easily accessible for children and she has made other books that I had a whole collection of and I regretfully say that it is now gone. But it was one of my favorite book, and this book made me emotional because I have an older sister and the whole story was based on the younger sister so I was reading it and was having all of these emotional ties to my older sister because, if you read the book you’ll understand why. It made me connect a lot with the main character, I highly recommend it, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a children’s book because it was just impactful for me as a young person and also a younger reader. Cynthia Kadohata was my favorite author as a kid alongside, and I know a lot of other people can relate to this but Jerry Spinelli with Stargirl – one of the other books that I love and Wendy Mass who did Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life and other books. I was a big fan of those authors but Kira Kira will always have a special spot in my heart. Uh our next person who’s going to share her favorite book is Karissa!
KARISSA: Hello, yes! Um my favorite book of all time probably just because I have a fond memory of reading it. Like the process of reading it was really enjoyable, and I don't’ really remember enjoying the act of reading a book as much as this one um and it’s For One More Day by Mitch Albom. It’s about a guy and his mom dies and he um just turns to like alcohol and stuff, just like substance abuse to kind of cope with that, and also is dad left when he was really young so he just feels really alone. Then he kind of loses touch with his wife and kids and the rest of his family because he's struggling with this addiction, and one night he drives back to his hometown, he gets really drunk and he decides to jump and after his fall, his mother appears to him and he kind of like spends a day in heaven with his mom and he gets to spend one last day with her. Throughout this day, she shows him like all the little things about herself and like their life together – things that he’s never noticed before she just kind of like hid from him for his own protection and safety because he was too young to understand. My favorite part about this book is like in between each chapter there’s little segments of stories or like excerpts from the main character’s journal and they’re titled “Times my mother stood up for me” and then there’s another one titled “Times I did not stand up for my mother”. It’s really really impactful just like these stories included in like the whole story and just the way that it’s told and it really changed my entire perspective on the ways we choose to or choose not to nurture and care for the relationships the we create and maintain in our life and also the ways in which we protects others that we care about, even if it’s at our own expense and they always don’t know the intention behind that. So yeah, I just remember like, it really changed the way I approach like my relationship and the world and everything and it was just like incredible impactful and I always keep coming back to it and like reading it again and again. And now Sarah is gonna share her favorite book...
SARAH: Hello! Um yeah, I wanted to share one of, or maybe like the book, that really changed my relationship to reading. So like, I don’t know if it’s necessarily like my favorite of all time, but it definitely holds a little nook in my heart for sure. So it’s called Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and it’s this beautiful, easy, YA – easy to read, highly recommend – book and um [cough]. Actually I found it off of this like gem of a recommended YouTube video and it was just like “YA must Reads” and I clicked on it and I watched it and um pretty much the book is about a girl who is heading off to college (she just graduated high school) and she’s headed off to the same college as her twin sister and you get to see like their relationship through college – or like through their first year. And she just like – the whole book is about her adjustment to like college life and that was very relevant with me as a high school senior! So, I decided to read it and um [progressive bolstering laugh]. Oh boy! Oh Elena what are you going to do with that? [laughs even more]
KIMBERLY: Elena’s trying to speak and it’s like [imitates loud lawn mowing sound with RRRRR]
SARAH: [laughs even more somehow] I’ll just draw out my part as long as possible [laughs more], um [more laughing] oh my goodness. Is it a lawn mower or like a leaf blower?
ELENA: There’s like three [laughing] can you hear it?
SARAH: No.
ELENA: Okay, okay good [chuckles]
SARAH: Oh my goodness that is so funny, I am just like now imagining just like the RRRRR like [laughing]
KIMBERLY: I think we need to include this in the episode [laughs] I think we need just a little segment [laughter continues].
ELENA: Literally, they have chosen this exact moment for all three of them directly in the like sad patch of grass right outside my apartment window.
KIMBERLY: A sad patch of grass?? [laughter heightens]
ELENA: Like it’s not even worth mowing!
SARAH: Seriously, just let it grow. Let it grow!
KIMBERLY: You don’t have a sign that says “Stop, I’m podcasting right now” [chuckles]
ELENA: I should honestly [reciprocates chuckle]
KIMBERLY: Like the little red blinker light like if it flashes it -- [laughs]
ELENA: [continues laughing] I’m so sorry Sarah
SARAH: No! It was hilarious don’t even [laughs] Oh goodness where was I? [chuckles with delight] Alright um...[little laughter]...yes! So [somehow even more little laughs]...um... this was really relatable to me as a high school senior and um genuinely I think that my middle school and my high school –no shade at all—but I’m still a little bit bitter...um... I – I feel like a lot of my English classes we read books that I like didn’t want to read so I had like a very bad attitude towards reading, therefore like you know I didn’t want to read for fun anymore and also my parents aren’t very big readers? So there wasn’t really anyone in my life to be like, Oh my gosh! There are different books, don’t you know? Like, you know what I mean? So, um, anyway, yeah! I highly recommend – I don’t know how long this segment was but [chuckles] I highly recommend Fangirl to anyone out there. It truly changed the way I read, and if you’re having a hard time reading out there, and just want a lil gift – check out Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Elena! I believe you’re up next, if there aren’t any technical difficulties [small chuckle] on your side.
ELENA: So I apologize for the lawnmowers outside if you can hear them but [laughter] Can you hear that? Okay, we’re gonna move. Rain check on this [laughter]. So when I was a kid, a book that I was absolutely obsessed with was called May Bird and the Ever After and the author Jodi Lynn Anderson. It’s definitely like a book that’s written for kids, but to this day it’s one of the books that I just keep coming back to because I have really, really really fond and vivid memories of reading it. Yeah, so, it’s-- basically the plot is, it’s about a girl who gets lost in the woods of West Virginia and she accidentally falls into the world of the dead, which she then has to escape because she’s alive, like you’re not allowed in the world of the dead if you’re alive, um, which is like a pretty dark concept for a children's book, but I feel like a lot of children’s books have concepts like that, and they work really well because it kind of frames this really dark topic in terms that like a child could understand so I think it was one of the books that kind of like, it explains death to kids in a really creative way. And it deals a lot with themes of like loneliness, mother/daughter relationships, found family, and identity. And it’s kind of like Coraline, but with way more world building and characters that you get just like really, really attached to and it also has one of the most satisfying and emotionally compelling endings of a series that I’ve ever read, ‘cause it’s three books, and they’re all really good. And as a kid I just related to it a lot, and I think it showed me how like fantasy stories and like any type of like fiction writing can be used to reflect on and cope with real world problems in really creative and healthy ways.
KARISSA: Okay, so up next we wanted to talk about our favorite new books, um, so books that we’ve read recently. We kinda decided that the cutoff would be within the last few years, um, so kind of like the last book that really made us take a step back and say like “wow, this was a really good book.” So up first is Kimberly.
KIMBERLY: Thank you Karissa [laughter]. Uhm, so my favorite new book is titled On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. It came out in 2019 so it’s very, very recent, and um, it was—I didn’t know about this book, my partner actually introduced it to me and I was incredibly in love with the way that there has been such an influx of poetry books that have come out and a lot of people going into poetry this year but I definitely will say that this is one of my top favorite books. And it’s not exactly poetry but the language is just very poetic, and it’s a reflection of the author’s own life, talking about his family escaping and navigating the Vietnam war, being gay, because the author was navigating his sexuality and how that sort of complicates his relationship with the people around him, and like being an immigrant, and racism, and just so many other topics. And my partner and I both cried while we were reading it, um, so it’s definitely one of those like good cry kind of reads, that if you really want to—Ocean Vuong is just so incredibly meticulous with his words and just reading the story between— uh, because it really does center about him and his mother, but it is just so incredibly moving, and it’s heartbreaking, and it’s fulfilling at times just to see how you can rise above obstacles and it’s just so incredibly heartwarming. It is definitely one of those stories that I recommend if you’re ready to just take it all in and to cry [soft laughter] a lot. Oh! Our next one [laughter]. Uh, our next sharer is Karissa.
KARISSA: So totally switching gears from Kimberly’s favorite new book, my favorite new book is All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda, um, and it was published in 2016 but I just read it last summer, and I really haven’t stopped thinking about it since because it’s this like super intricate, like really intense murder mystery, but it’s written super uniquely in the way that it goes backwards in time. So like the first chapter starts with two week since the main character has been back in her hometown and then the last chapter is the day she arrives back in her hometown. So, in that way it’s like really unique and like kind of hard to wrap your head around, but once you get the hang of it, it makes a lot of sense and it’s super cool and super interesting. And it’s like your cliche small town girl moves to the big city, then comes back home, and like murder mystery, some romance, oooo romance—forbidden romance, plot twists, suspense, murder, all the good stuff. It’s like a really—it's a page turner I couldn’t stop reading it, and I think about it a lot. Every once in a while it’ll just pop in my head and I’ll be like “oh my gosh remember that one book where all this crazy stuff happened? Wow.” Felt like I was in a movie, so I would highly recommend it if that stuff is like sort of up your alley. It’s a pretty easy read, it’s a quick read because it’s like you wanna get through, you wanna figure out who done it, so yeah! And up next is Sarah.
SARAH: First off, that book sounds very interesting, and I’m ready [laughter]. But, my new favorite book is called Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. This book was written in 2017, which was literally years ago, but genuinely I loved this book. Also I know that we were trying to give a little shoutout to books that we did not read in class. I did read this one in class, but it is so beautiful that I need to tell you guys about it. So, it’s actually a love story between two extremely different characters, and it’s captured through this incredible—that same like poetic writing like Kimberly was talking about, as the country around them is literally crumbling into this like civil war. So the two main characters Saeed and Nadia try to escape the country by literally exiting west through these like, not, I don’t wanna say magical doors but, I mean, we don’t have them I think, in this world [laughter]. So there are these doors and you , they’re like surrounded by light, and pretty much you open them, and...I mean, yeah, I guess it is pretty magical. [laughter] Anyway, um, and you open them, and they walk through, and you’re literally in a different country, which is...crazy, but I highly recommend this book, especially during this time that we’re in, as you get to escape with this couple through different countries throughout the world. Also, I think the – it was so cool that my professor picked this, like, British Pakistani author, because usually, that does not happen, unfortunately, so. Alrighty, Elena’s up next, cannot wait to hear what she’s been reading.
ELENA: Yeah, so, kind of like a similar thing actually, in terms of like, doors that take you to other worlds...so I got this book because I had followed one of the authors on Twitter and it won a bunch of awards, and there was so much hype about it, so it was – and it had a really cool cover, as well. So I was like, well I have to get it. And, it’s one of my favorite books now...it’s called This Is How You Lose The Time War, and it’s by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. So the way that it’s formatted is like – it's a queer romance, and [chuckles] and I did not know this when I got the book, so that was like, super pleasant surprise, um, I just got it ‘cause I was like, “I like sci-fi!” But, the way it’s formatted is the two love interests, the authors write – like, each one of the authors is each one of the women, so they write each one of the sections, and they’re formatted kind of like letters to each other. Yeah, so it came out in 2019, and I – like, I knew nothing going into it, except that it was sci-fi, so I was totally unprepared for how like, fascinating the worldbuilding would be, how cool the characters would be, and how like, hopelessly attached you get to the characters when you’re reading it. And, yeah, so it’s just...it’s a super weird story as well, like...there is this aspect of kind of like, jumping between worlds, or like, timelines, which is really trippy, but like, I think you get used to it the more that you read it. Um, and it’s also a pretty quick read, it’s only like, 200 pages or something like that. And, yeah, so I definitely recommend that you check it out, if you want a book that you absolutely can’t put down – I read it in like almost one sitting, which hasn’t happened in years, definitely not in college. So, yeah. That’s my ringing endorsement for this book.
KIMBERLY: I just wanna say that I cannot wait to like, put this all in my reading list and just start getting them, and to read them, ‘cause I am trying to make an effort to read as a college student, ‘cause I know we don’t have a lot of time. But, um, I think I’m just, I’m so excited that like, I have an excuse to! To be like, “I have to read all these!” So, with that, we actually wanted to do a little segment on talking about local bookstore recommendations in Seattle, but also places that are doing online orders, uh – of course we always recommend supporting small businesses, but, we wanted to give you a little list right now, because there are – a ton of options out there. So, the first thing that we want to say is Black-owned bookstores with online orders, so, you are free to visit these websites, and then they will ship to your home! And we’ll go ahead and put these in the description box: Sistah Sci-Fi, it focuses on Afrofuturism, mysticism, sci-fi, voodoo, magical realism, speculative fiction, and horror written by Black women, and it’s also in Seattle. Then we have Uncle Bobbie’s, which is also a coffee shop; it’s a great space for sharing, building, learning, laughing, debating, and eating, and also, again, all of these have online orders. And we have, uh, Harriet’s Bookshop, celebrating female writers, activists, artists through books and writing; The Lit. Bar inspires reading and healthy social connections, the Loyalty Bookstore has a selection of books that highlights diverse voices and creatives, Cafe Con Libros, which is a feminist bookstore, also a coffeeshop, caters to folks who are book lovers, coffee connoisseurs, or both. And then we have Mahogany Books, dedicated to sharing books written for, by, or about people of the African diaspora, Semicolon Bookstore, a Black-women owned shop merging books and art, and the L.E.M.S. bookstore is also in Seattle. And, I also just wanna throw out that, there are some favorites around the Cap Hill area, or in Seattle area which is, my favorite—personal favorite is Third Place Books which is located in Seward Park, and then there’s Half Price Books which is located all around Washington, and Elliot Bay Books, which is Cap Hill classic. But Karissa has other recommendations that she would love to share with you.
KARISSA: Yeah, I wanna second Elliot Bay because I love spending time there and they also have like this cute little cafe that I love to do my homework in, um, and I have to like limit how many books I buy everytime I go there because I’m like “this is your limit,” otherwise I would spend like all my money on books and the coffee and I would not get any homework done. But there’s also another really cool second hand bookstore literally a block form Elliot Bay, and it’s called Horizon Books, and it’s kinda small, but it’s so insane. They have like floor to ceiling books and they’re separated into like every section you could imagine, and you could spend hours, and hours, and hours just looking through there. Um, and then also something that I’ve actually really enjoyed doing is going down to Pike Place and just looking at all the second hand bookstores there because like some of the stuff you can find is really cool and just getting to see like all the already loved books and—it's one of like my favorite things. I really enjoy doing that, um, and then Sarah also has some recommendations as well.
SARAH: Yes, um, I’m going to third Elliot Bay, I guess, my goodness it’s so popular it’s ridiculous. But I will say if you guys didn’t know that SU students, we get like ten percent off at Elliot Bay, um, you just hand them your ID and, it's either ten or twenty percent—I actually, I take that back I believe it’s twenty percent if I'm not mistaken. And they are also doing online orders right now, it’s really cool. I did it a few weeks ago. You just place your little order online, then you pick it up social distancingly at the store. It’s pretty nifty. Also I love Twice Sold Tales, it’s another used bookstore that has kitties in it! I believe Elena also has some thoughts, so I will just let that be with her. I also love, I think this is a lot around Seattle as well, but there’s just little like free neighborhood libraries that are just all around more of the residential like neighborhoods around here, and I know they’re in my hometown as well, but I just love that that is a thing. Like, I will say I don’t really take the books ‘cause I feel bad because I don’t really live there, but I like opening [laughter] the little libraries and chekcing out what’s in there. Um, it’s really cool ‘cause it’s just such a big mix of like—there's cook books in there and just like kids' books, and all this kinds of stuff, so yes. Um, Elena also has some bookstores she would like to share.
ELENA: Yeah, so I think my top bookstore in Seattle is actually in the U district which I totally discovered on accident. It’s kind of this hole in the wall, and it’s called Magis Books, or Magus Books, and yeah, they actually—so I love Elliot Bay, but it’s also really expensive, I think even with the discount. You can find Elliot Bay books at Magis Books at like half discounted because they’re used, um, so I have gotten a lot of books from Magis Books that still have the Elliot Bay sticker on them, but they’re like half the price. They also have just like a bunch of really like weird, rare books in there, so it’s really fun to just go through there and look at all these like old, leather bound books and be like “I could never afford this, but it’s really cool to look at.” Yeah, and then Twice Sold Tales is great, seconding that. I think during my freshman year up in Seattle I really missed my cat, and I would go there to get my like fix of cats and books, and it was great, would recommend. And then my third recommendation is Ada’s Technical Books and Cafe, which is super cool. It’s up in Central District? Yeah, central-ish. And it’s a cafe and then there’s also a bookshop kind of built into the cafe. So, it’s super cool because they specifically have technical books for like STEM students, so you’ll see a lot of STEM students studying there, but they also have a really large and cool section specifically for Sci-Fi and graphic novels, um, so it’s kind of also like a comic book store. So, uh, yeah that is one of my favorite places and they also have incredible tea, so those are my recommendations.
So, bookstores are great, but they do require that you spend money, and there’s an option that’s free and it’s libraries. And I’ve actually been using my Seattle library card quite a lot during quarantine because they have not—I don’t believe that they have an option where you can like pick up your library books in person yet, but you do get access to e-books and audio books pretty much instantaneously with a library card. So getting a library card is super easy, we’ll have a link in the description for where you can go to do that. And as soon as the libraries do open, you’ll be able to pick up a physical card, otherwise once they confirm your info you just get instant online access to all the stuff they have up there. And there are libraries pretty close to us. There is—the closest one is the Capital Hill Seattle Public Library branch, which is on 425 Harvard Ave. E. and that one is—it's smaller but it’s super cool. I’ve been to like some cool readings there so they have cool events as well as books. And the really big one is the Central Library which is just downtown on 1000 Fourth Ave., and we also just want to give a shoutout to Lemuix Library and to research librarians and librarians in general because the Writing Center is in the library and we would not be possible without the support of the library, so huge shoutout to them.
In closing, we’re very lucky to be in a city so full of books, and even if we do miss being out in coffee shops and books stores and book store coffee shops, we want to emphasize during 2020’s national book month that you can still support local bookstores and libraries and still get some for fun reading in.
KARISSA: If you find yourself falling into the all too familiar state of boredom in the coming months, consider not just watching Netflix for several more hours, because as great as Netflix is, most of those shows came from stories first. Already watched The Witcher? Consider reading the book series. And Elena, can confirm it’s pretty good.
SARAH: The same goes for Jenny Han’s book To all the Boys I’ve Loved Before--ooo that’s a good one, I've read that—Maraget Attwood’s Alias Grace, Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon, and countless others. It may be a while until a new season comes out – read the book in the meantime.
KIMBERLY: So, thank you for listening, and take care of one another, and be safe, and this has been another episode of
EVERYONE: Hoo’s at the Writing Center
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