Episode 16 - Library Superuser with Emily McClanathan

On this episode, Emily McClanathan, a Chicago Public Library superuser, discusses her love of character-driven stories and excellent prose. She also talks about how reading has helped her become a better writer, as she writes both book reviews and theater reviews in Chicago. We get into some shared loves and Emily gets to share a hot take about a book she thinks is overrated. 

 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

 

What Betsy’s reading: 

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore 

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay 

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle 

 

Books Highlighted by Emily:: 

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield 

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph 

Nerd: Adventures in Fandom from This Universe to the Multiverse by Maya Phillips 

My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety by Georgia Pritchett 

Born to be Mild: Adventures for the Anxious by Rob Temple

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire

Everybody’s Favorite: Tales From the World’s Worst Perfectionist by Lillian Stone

One in a Millenial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In by Kate Kennedy 

This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something - Anything - Like Your Life Depends on It by Tabitha Carvan 

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free by Linda Kay Klein 

 

Other Books Mentioned in the Episode:

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray 

Better the Blood by Michael Bennett 

Return to Blood by Michael Bennett 

Any Human Heart by William Boyd 

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell 

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 

The Eye of the World: Book One of the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan 

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein 

Zorrie by Laird Hunt 

Wolf Hall by Emily Mantel 

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally 

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan