New Canaan Library's Podcast for Adventurous Readers
Please take our survey to help us improve for next season!
Booked Solid is New Canaan Library’s librarian-led book discussion podcast for adventurous readers.
Our podcast reads and discusses Adult books in the library's collection, and is perfect for listeners who want to find excellent reads in any genre. If you are looking for a book club that you can attend any time, give us a listen!
New Episodes the last Friday of September, October, November, January, February, March, and a bonus Summer Reading Recommendations episode in April or May.
Our current hosts are Collections Librarian Kathleen, Adult Services Librarian James, and Children's Librarian Kat.
Listen to recent episodes of Booked Solid below, or listen to any of our previous episodes on your podcast player of choice!
Our Most Recent Episode:
Kathleen, Kat, and James explore the endless halls of the House and attempt to unravel its secrets in Susanna Clarke’s intriguing fantasy novel, Piranesi. Join our hosts for a discussion on liminal spaces, dark academia, and the ways in which we connect to the world around us.
Our Current Season
Kathleen, Kat, and James get a taste of Italy with Jhumpa Lahiri’s excellent collection of short fiction, Roman Stories. Join us as we celebrate the Library's Lit Lunch pick with a discussion about the unique strengths of short stories, connection and belonging, and a deeper dive on three of our hosts' favorite pieces from the collection.
Kathleen, Kat, and James start the new season with a turbulent journey down the Mississippi River in Percival Everett’s excellent historical fiction novel, James. The group discusses the book’s clever use of language, the bizarre and harrowing situations our heroes find themselves in, and the challenges in retelling an American classic.
Past Seasons of Booked Solid
With Season 5 of Booked Solid fading into the rearview mirror, hosts Kathleen, Kat, and James are on break until the fall… but not before they recommend some of the best books they’ve read this year and highlight the upcoming summer releases they can’t wait to get their hands on. If you’re looking for your next summer read, be sure to check out this episode of Booked Solid!
Kathleen, Kat, and James come face to face with unexpected horrors and unfriendly in-laws in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s book Mexican Gothic. Join our hosts as they discuss the Gothic novel, the strangling grasp of the patriarchy, and the terror of the fungi kingdom.
Kathleen, Kat, and James travel down the Silk Road and encounter con artists, storytellers, and danger around every corner in Daniel Nayeri’s book The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams. Join our hosts as they discuss unreliable narrators, historical jokes, and the joy of finding a book that works for all ages.
Kathleen, Kat, and James read N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season and discover a rich fantasy world full of dark secrets, unsolved mysteries, and the beginning of the end of the world. Kathleen shows off her detective skills by catching a twist before it is revealed, Kat looks at the systems at play, and James struggles with pronunciation. Join our hosts as they discuss fantasy, writing style, and more in this month’s episode of Booked Solid.
This month, Kat, Kathleen, and James read the first nonfiction book of the season, Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. The group discusses the horrific conspiracy that the book documents against members of the Osage Nation in the 1920s, the shocking systems of oppression and exploitation that enabled and outlived it, and the excellent writing and skill of the author in covering such a difficult topic.
This month, Kat, Kathleen, and James saddle up to explore a genre that they all rarely read: historical fiction, courtesy of Geraldine Brooks' award-winning novel Horse. Tune in for a discussion about history and commodification, and discover which of the hosts doesn't like horses.
This month, Kathleen, Kat, and James venture into the unexplored depths of Julia Armfield’s haunting book, Our Wives Under the Sea. Kat loves the characters, Kathleen is fascinated by the mystery, and James can’t stop thinking about a tragic fateful decision. Join our hosts as they discuss grief, relationships, and the terrible fear and pull of the unknown.
Season 4 of Booked Solid focused on YA books with all-ages appeal.
Kathleen, Kat, and James get together with special guest Sam to celebrate four successful seasons and 2,000 downloads of our humble little library podcast. The four hosts talk about books they’ve read and loved recently as well as the books they are excited to read in the fall. Expect great reads, laughs, and some dark secrets to come out in this very special episode of Booked Solid.
Kathleen and James channel their inner teen detectives and dive into Holly Jackson’s devious YA thriller, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. This month the discussion focuses on intrepid teen sleuths, the trouble with using homework as an excuse for investigating a murder, and fun with localization. Kathleen is in her element with this murder mystery, while James is lost in the woods. Will he piece together the clues, solve the mystery, and put this season’s final episode behind bars? Find out in this episode of Booked Solid.
This month, Kathleen and James travel to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children to discuss the fantasy novella (and murder mystery!) Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. Listen in as they discuss portal fantasies, found families, and where their magical doors would lead. Will this story steal their hearts? BE SURE to check out this episode to find out!
This month, Kathleen and James read the lush and lyrical novel in verse Me (Moth) by Amber McBride. Tune in for a discussion about identity, self-discovery, and spirituality, as seen through the lens of the life cycle of a moth. James and Kathleen love the language, but will the story haunt them just as much as the prose? Find out in this episode of Booked Solid—and stick around for bonus content James recorded against his will.
Kathleen and James welcome special guest Kat to the podcast to discuss R.F. Kuang’s historical fantasy epic, Babel. Tune in for a discussion on empire, colonialism, and revolution, as well as everyone’s favorite bad dad, Professor Lovell. Will James and Kat’s enthusiasm for the book win over fantasy skeptic Kathleen…or will it get lost in translation?
Kathleen and James join forces to pull off one last job… talking about Leigh Bardugo’s excellent fantasy heist, Six of Crows. James fails to keep his cool and cracks under the pressure. Kathleen discovers she enjoys fantasy heists and tries to reconcile this fact with the person she thought she was. The stakes are high, but the rewards are higher in this episode of Booked Solid.
Kathleen and James get together and explore an incredible retelling of a myth that fully realizes its characters in new and exciting ways. James reveals that he is a verifiable fanboy for Greek mythology while singing this novel’s praises. Kathleen welcomes James to the podcast and tries to keep things on track. They both agree that everything is better after Odysseus dies. Booked Solid reads Circe, by Madeline Miller.
Season 3 of Booked Solid focused on YA books with all-ages appeal.
Kathleen and Sam return to discuss powerful themes of friendship, family, and acceptance in Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson. It's a bittersweet season finale that explores a beautifully rendered story about never giving up on those you love. Kathleen embraces hidden weirdness and family darkness while Sam shares big changes and gets weepy at poignant endings. Big changes are once again afoot for the podcast--we welcome a new friend and seal the deal with cookies.
Kathleen and Sam dive into Ain't Burned All The Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin, a truly unique book--a mixed media, collage in verse that tackles both the Covid pandemic and being a black youth in today's America. Let's celebrate national poetry month with powerful words that create visceral responses. Kathleen frightens Sam while gesticulating with a knife and almost admits that she loves poetry. Sam shares her passion for altered books and struggles with heavy BIPOC informed reads. Listen in to tap into your inner creative spirit and to feel less alone when there's nothing but bad vibes in the headlines.
This month, we read the graphic memoir, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Join Kathleen and Sam as they grapple with Spivak pronouns while discussing this quietly brave story about life outside of binary privilege. Tune in to hear about love, support, and asexuality. Let's disturb the universe and embrace the many ways to self-identify. We will do hard things, quote poetry, and even admit to a crush.
Like in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Booked Solid was unable to tell our story, but Sam finally gets the tech issues sorted out while Kathleen warms up to magical realism. Loneliness and beauty abound in this tale about immortality and untethered humanity. Could you find solace in art? Is being a muse enough? Are ideas wild? Join us as Kathleen finds comfort in being forgotten while Sam gets uncomfortable with her inner cynic.
Kathleen finally convinces Sam to read Genuine Fraud, by E. Lockhart (one of her favorites), and redeems herself from a world of predictable happy endings. This is not a therapy session but is it a cry for help? Kathleen wonders if you have to be morally compromised to live the life that you think you should be living. Sam gives Kathleen the moniker "tiny steps toward darkness." Come learn how to trade a paperclip to eventually buy a house and stay tuned for literally, anything else.
Kathleen & Sam are back to discuss The Midnight Library--a book that tackles life choices and regrets in a quirky and philosophical thought exercise. Sam is not convinced that there is no place like home but embraces Stephen Hawking and string theory (and apparently double negatives). Kathleen confuses us with her post pandemic enjoyment of predictable endings. Listeners beware. Spoilers and surprises abound in every single spooky season of your multiverse.
Season 2 of Booked Solid focused on YA books with all-ages appeal.
Sam & Kathleen wrap up the season with great ideas for summer reads and ponder humanity, philosophy, and veganism while grappling with an endearing, warm fuzzy fantasy read. Booked Solid reads House In The Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune.
Celebrating our One Author New Canaan visit by reading Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson, and by embracing her unique voice in poetic prose. Kathleen and Sam consider unreliable memory and discomfort reads, upcoming poetry month and summer books.
Sam embraces a sequel and Kathleen ponders the Zombie Adjacent in a satirical alternate history of the Civil War with Justina Ireland's book Dread Nation. Let's get pumped for One Author New Canaan--Jacqueline Woodson!
A tiny town with super-sized hockey. A master of character study is the best cocktail party wingman. Speaking out and the fall out. Books in translation. Find out about the technicality that keeps New Canaan as the reigning Girls Ice Hockey Connecticut state champions for three years in a row. Booked Solid reads Beartown by Fredrik Backman.
"Don't believe the hype, it's a prequel." Kathleen and Sam revisit Panem during the pandemic. How did the Hunger Games prequel hold up? Did we grow up too much to go back? Kathleen shares some great read-alikes and villain origin titles and Stand-alone Sam rages against prequels, sequels, and same-plot-different-story approaches. Booked Solid reads The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins.
Our podcast glows up and embraces young adults, new adults, and the forever young adult at heart. Listen in as we discuss Alice Hoffman's latest installment--a prequel in the Owen's family of powerful witches. Let's get excited for Lit Lunch while Kathleen drops a bomb on us. Booked Solid reads Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman.
Season 1 of Booked Solid focused on YA books with all-ages appeal.
Kathleen and Sam are back to talk about With The Fire On High, by Elizabeth Acevedo. The hosts talk about Quiet YA and "This is why we can't read nice things."
Existentialism. Measured trauma and violence. One-ups-manship. We will burn the tape and keep the ashes. Booked Solid reads Nothing, by Janne Teller.
Murder. Trauma. Souffle. Abandoning Democracy. Join teen librarians Kathleen & Sam as they discuss Sadie, by Courtney Summers.
Join teen librarians Kathleen & Sam as they discuss Melissa Albert's The Hazel Wood.
Join teen librarians Kathleen & Sam as they discuss Jesse Andrews's Munmun.
Renaissance Paintings. Books in verse. Embrace Trauma. Be Judith. Booked Solid reads Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough.
Recommended Reads
-
Piranesi
Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
For readers of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds. -
Invisible Cities
Italo Calvino's beloved, intricately crafted novel about an Emperor's travels--a brilliant journey across far-off places and distant memory.
"Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else." In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo--Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor detects these fantastic places are more than they appear.
-
Coup de Grâce
Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station.
Determined to find a way out again, he starts to explore the rooms and corridors ahead of him. But no matter how many claustrophobic hallways or vast cathedral-esque rooms he passes through, the exit is nowhere in sight.
The more he explores his strange new prison, the more he becomes convinced that he hasn’t been trapped there accidentally, and amongst the shadows and concrete, he comes to realise that he almost certainly is not alone.
A terrifying psychological nightmare from a powerful new voice in horror. -
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars in 1806, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England - until the reclusive Mr. Norrell reveals his powers and becomes an overnight celebrity.
Another practicing magician then emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell's pupil, and the two join forces in the war against France.
But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wild, most perilous forms of magic, and he soon risks sacrificing his partnership with Norrell and everything else he holds dear.
Susanna Clarke's brilliant first novel is an utterly compelling epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who, first as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history. -
House of Leaves
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth—musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies—the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.
Now made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices, the story remains unchanged. Similarly, the cultural fascination with House of Leaves remains as fervent and as imaginative as ever. The novel has gone on to inspire doctorate-level courses and masters theses, cultural phenomena like the online urban legend of “the backrooms,” and incredible works of art in entirely unrealted mediums from music to video games.
Neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of the impossibility of their new home, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams. -
Thistlefoot
The Yaga siblings—Bellatine, a young woodworker, and Isaac, a wayfaring street performer and con artist—have been estranged since childhood, separated both by resentment and by wide miles of American highway. But when they learn that they are to receive an inheritance, the siblings agree to meet—only to discover that their bequest isn’t land or money, but something far stranger: a sentient house on chicken legs.
Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas’ ancestral home outside Kyiv—but not alone. A sinister figure known only as the Longshadow Man has tracked it to American shores, bearing with him violent secrets from the past: fiery memories that have hidden in Isaac and Bellatine’s blood for generations. As the Yaga siblings embark with Thistlefoot on a final cross-country tour of their family’s traveling theater show, the Longshadow Man follows in relentless pursuit, seeding destruction in his wake. Ultimately, time, magic, and legacy must collide—erupting in a powerful conflagration to determine who gets to remember the past and craft a new future.
An enchanted adventure illuminated by Jewish myth and adorned with lyrical prose as tantalizing and sweet as briar berries, Thistlefoot is a sweeping epic rich in Eastern European folklore: a powerful and poignant exploration of healing from multi-generational trauma told by a bold new talent. -
Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (Bilingual Edition)
The immigrant tenants of a building in Rome offer skewed accounts of a murder in this prize-winning satire by the Algerian-born Italian author (Publishers Weekly).
Piazza Vittorio is home to a polyglot community of immigrants who have come to Rome from all over the world. But when a tenant is murdered in the building's elevator, the delicate balance is thrown into disarray. As each of the victim's neighbors is questioned by the police, readers are offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome.
With language as colorful as the neighborhood it describes, each character takes his or her turn "giving evidence." Their various stories reveal much about the drama of racial identity and the anxieties of a life spent on society's margins, but also bring to life the hilarious imbroglios of this melting pot Italian culture.
"Their frequently wild testimony teases out intriguing psychological and social insight alongside a playful whodunit plot."--Publishers Weekly -
So Late in the Day
From Booker Prize Finalist and bestselling author of "pitch perfect" (Boston Globe) Small Things Like These, comes a triptych of stories about love, lust, betrayal, and the ever-intriguing interchanges between women and men.
Celebrated for her powerful short fiction, considered "among the form's most masterful practitioners" (New York Times), Claire Keegan now gifts us three exquisite stories, newly revised and expanded, together forming a brilliant examination of gender dynamics and an arc from Keegan's earliest to her most recent work.
In So Late in the Day, Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he behaved differently; in The Long and Painful Death, a writer's arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Böll for a residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his presence and opinions; and in Antarctica, a married woman travels out of town to see what it's like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger.
Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt what could be between women and men: a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, the looming threat of violence. Potent, charged, and breathtakingly insightful, these three essential tales will linger with readers long after the book is closed.
-
The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories
Here is the whisper in the night, the creak upstairs, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you’d checked the lock on the door before it got really, really dark. Here are tales of suspense and the supernatural that will chill, amuse, and exhilarate.
Best known for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken (1924–2004) wrote over a hundred books and won the Guardian and Edgar Allan Poe awards. She supported her family by copyediting at Argosy magazine and an advertising agency before turning to fiction and went on to write for Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Vanity Fair, Women’s Own, and many others. Visit her online at www.joanaiken.com.
-
Stories of Your Life and Others
From the author of Exhalation, an award-winning short story collection that blends "absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space ... raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human" (The New York Times).
Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic.
Includes “Story of Your Life”—the basis for the major motion picture Arrival