Episode 55 - Competitive Reading with Austin Waters

On this episode, Austin Waters, a friend of mine from high school, describes how he has had lots of experience with many different types of reading and writing. We discuss reading plays, how we read so many good books in high school, and how competition in reading can be detrimental. 

 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

 

What Betsy’s reading: 

West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge 

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak 

 

Books Highlighted by Austin:

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie 

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Assata: an Autobiography by Assata Shakur 

Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too by Jomny Sun

There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America by Alex Kotlowitz 

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon

Someone Like You by Roald Dahl

My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist by Mark Leyner

Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live by Rob Dunn 

 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Educated by Tara Westover 

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson & GB Trudeau 

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Redwall by Brian Jacques 

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Animal Farm by George Orwell 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz 

Decoded by Jay-Z 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

The Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri by Martin McDonagh 

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong 

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong 

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders 

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang 

The Epic of Gilgamesh trans. Andrew George 

Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes 

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes 

Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez 

Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba 

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan 

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver 

Hamlet by William Shakespeare 

The Tempest by William Shakespeare 

Macbeth by William Shakespeare 

The Odyssey by Homer 

No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman 

Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon 

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton 

On The Calculation of Volume Book I by Solvej Balle, trans. Barbara J. Haveland 

House of Fury by Evelio Rosero, trans. Victor Meadowcroft 

On The Clock by Claire Baglin, trans. Jordan Stump