Book Cougars Podcast: Two Middle-Aged Women on the Hunt for a Good Read

Welcome to Episode 272, featuring an Author Spotlight with Mary Lisa Gavenas about her new book, SELLING OPPORTUNITY: THE STORY OF MARY KAY. If you’ve been listening to the podcast this year, you know we’ve featured authors who’ve written about women in history as part of our way of celebrating America250. Gavenas and her book bring this informal series to a close with a fascinating biography of a woman whose name we all know, but of whom we knew so little. We both enjoyed this biography and learned so much not only about Mary Kay, but about the time period and culture in which she lived, from changing attitudes about education to gender expectations & limitations to business practices from WW1 into the 1990s. It is a fascinating account of a life and time, and it's written so engagingly that at times it felt like a novel. In our Just Read segment, we discuss: Procrastinators Get Stuff Done: How to Go from Overwhelmed to Finished by Dana K. White Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan Black Notice and The Last Precinct by Patricia Cornwell The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People by Judith Orloff The Good House by Ann Leary In Biblio Adventures, Emily talked about attending the opening reception of the Children’s Book Illustration Show at the Stony Creek Willoughby Wallace Library. She is also crushing her Page-to-Screen Bingo card as she watched THREE movie adaptations! We are grateful to this episode’s sponsor, The Love Operation by Melissa Collings. Thanks so much for listening, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode272

Welcome to Episode 271, where Stephen King’s CARRIE takes center stage! Get it? Okay, bad joke. In our Just Read segment, we discuss King’s 1974 novel, CARRIE. We both appreciate the story and what it says about bullying and religious abuse, but you’ll have to listen to learn why Emily is cranky with King. Also, in our Just Read segment, Chris talks about Elizabeth Kostova’s exciting new release, MYSTERY PLAY, which is a follow-up to her smash hit, THE HISTORIAN. In Biblio Adventures, we rehash our joint jaunt to the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library to take in their exhibit, “Silent Springs, Windswept Seas: Rachel Carson’s Environmental Vision.” Emily took a trip to Maine where she stopped at Elements Books Coffee and Beer in Biddeford, the Saco outpost of Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shops, and Royal River Books in Yarmouth. The trip's highlight was seeing Min Jin Lee in conversation with Richard Russo at the Maine Literary Festival, a bi-annual event. Meanwhile, back in Connecticut, Chris had a Couch Biblio Adventure via Untapped Cities, featuring a conversation with Nona Footz, author of the new biography, A Mansion of Her Own: The Mysterious Life of Heiress Alice Delamar. As usual, there is a lot more packed in this episode than we list here – like a giveaway of Cassie Campbell-Pascall’s new book, JUST A GIRL: A MEMOIR. We are grateful to this episode’s sponsor, Bad Girls Go Everywhere by Ellen Sherman. Thanks so much for listening, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode271

Episode 270 is another 10th episode, which means it's time for another giveaway! In the spirit of this being our year of reading Page-to-Screen adaptations, one lucky newsletter subscriber will receive movie-cover-related copies of Practical Magic 2 by Alice Hoffman, Dog Stars by Peter Heller, and Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko. The winner will be drawn on 10/15, so you have until then to subscribe if you haven’t yet, and if you are already a subscriber, you don’t have to do anything (other than–in the spirit of Alice Hoffman–cast a Pick Me Spell). This was our first time recording a regular episode since early September, so we talk about A LOT of books. We had some excellent in-person and online Biblio Adventures including: - Honest Dog Books hosted Blair Braverman in conversation with Dr. Jen Goldbeck about her book Think Like a Dog: How Positive Psychology Can Help Your Dog Thrive. - An Unlikely Story Bookstore hosted Laura Zigman in conversation with Alice Hoffman about her new novel The Witches of Cambridge. - The National Willa Cather Center invited Richard North Smith to discuss My Mortal Enemy. - The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library welcomed Terry Tempest Williams for a talk on Rachel Carson's influence on her work. This was in connection with their exhibition, "Silent Springs, Windswept Seas: Rachel Carson’s Environmental Vision. Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor: Motherhood, and the Places Between by Jacqueline Kolosov. Thanks so much for listening, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode270

Welcome to a special MIN JIN LEE triple header to celebrate her new novel, AMERICAN HAGWON. Part 1: We talk about AMERICAN HAGWON in the first part of the episode. The novel publishes on 9/29, and if you haven’t already preordered or reserved a copy at your library, consider this your reminder to do so. It’s an excellent reading experience, from the characters to their situations to the writing itself. It’s a multigenerational, multi-family, multi-location saga that we didn't want to end. Part 2: We share the conversation we had with Min Jin Lee about PACHINKO that was recorded live at RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison, CT, way back in 2018 (and featured on Episode 41). Part 3: In 2019, we chose FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES as a readalong pick. The first part of this segment is from Episode 89 and includes our conversation about the novel, and then Min joins us for a more in-depth discussion. Breaking news: Min used to say she was writing a trilogy, but has recently announced she’s writing a quartet of the Korean diaspora experience. Her fourth novel is titled Marshall Plan. There’s no pub date yet, but you can bet we’ll be on the lookout. We’re happy to report that the memoir Min mentions in Part 3 is still in the works. Thanks for listening, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode269

Welcome to Episode 268! We recap our Big Book Summer reads, which were all good. There wasn’t a DNF among them, although Chris hasn’t yet finished ROOTS. Wake Now in the Fire by Jarrett Dapier and AJ Dungo All We Hide by Robyn Gigl 11/22/63 by Stephen King Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution by Denise Kiernan Land by Maggie O’Farrell Point of Origin: Scarpetta #9 by Patricia Cornwell Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman, release date 9/8/2026 American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee, release date 9/29/2026 Time marches on, so although it is goodbye to Big Book Summer, we now say hello to Shorty September! This year, we’ve challenged ourselves to choose books that are <200 pages. Emily plans to read: Zorrie by Laird Hunt Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto Morning Star: Growing Up with Books by Ann Hood Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot Tokyo Ueno Station by Miri Yu, translated by Morgan Giles Consider the Oyster by M.F.K. Fisher When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka Chris plans to read: My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather for an upcoming event via the National Willa Cather Center Murder at the Tavern: A Guilford Mystery by Juliana Harris (Don’t) Call Mum by Matt Wesolowski The Night Library of Sternendach: A Vampire Opera in Verse by Jessica Lévai Gibbons or One Bloody Thing After Another by James Morrison Cinder House by Freya Marske If you’re playing along, what short books do you plan to read this month? (Seriously, we want to know.) If you share on social media, use the hashtag #ShortySeptember for others to find your picks and recs, and vice versa. Oh, and we announce our Q4 Readalong pick for our year of reading Page-to-Screen Adaptations. It’s a novel that grew out of a song and was then adapted into a movie. As always, we talk about more books than are listed here. Thanks for listening, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode268

Welcome to Episode 267, featuring an Author Spotlight with Susan Gregg Gilmore. Her new novel, THE CURIOUS CALLING OF LEONARD BUSH, is the fiction winner of the 2025 Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing. The novel is available now in hardcover and pubs in paperback on September 8th, so pre-order now or ask your library to order a copy. In our “Just Read” segment, we talk about: All We Hide by Robyn Gigl The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman (release date 9/8/2026) The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture by Jimmy Carter We discuss our Q3 Readalong pick The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, translated by Anjali Singh, and the companion read, Wake Now in the Fire by Jarrett Dapier with illustrations by AJ Dungo In #BiblioAdventures, Chris recaps her trip to Alabama and Georgia where she visited the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Virginia Highland Books, the Atlanta History Center, Horton’s Books and Gifts, and Vestavia Hills Library in the Forest. A flight delay/reroute also gave her time to visit Parnassus Books at the Nashville airport. Big thanks to the sponsors of this episode, Social Animals by Camille Perri and Greta Garbo and the Rise of the Modern Woman by Scott Reisfield. As always, we talk about more books than are listed here. Thanks for listening, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode267

Welcome to Episode 266, featuring an Author Spotlight with Jennifer (Jenny) Putzi, a leading scholar of nineteenth-century American women's writing. She talks with us about her captivating new book, THE RECONSTRUCTION DIARY OF FRANCES ANNE ROLLIN: A Critical Edition, which is out now from UNC Press. Jenny is also co-director of the Black Women's Diaries Project, an exciting digital humanities initiative with a public website that will launch this November. In our “Just Read” segment, we talk about: “The History of Sound” short story in the collection THE HISTORY OF SOUND by Ben Shattuck THE SECRET OF SNOW by Tina Harnesk, translated by Alice Menzies “The Killers” by Ernest Hemingway In #BiblioAdventures, we recap Christopher Myers’ wonderful presentation of his new family memoir, ROBERT SHAW: An Actor’s Life on the Set of Jaws and Beyond, at Mystic Seaport Museum. We spill the tea on what actor Robert Shaw, a lifelong reader and an award-winning author, thought about the novel JAWS by Peter Benchley. We also talk about: Couch Biblio Adventures: Not Dead Yet/Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up and Margo’s Got Money Troubles. Bookstore visits: The Curious Cat Bookshop, a new B&N, Ink Fish Books, and The Yellow House Public libraries: Southington Library, The George Hail Free Library, the Daniel Albert Piercy Library, and the main branch of the New York Public Library. As always, we talk about more books (and screen adaptations) than are listed here. Thanks for listening, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode266

Welcome to Episode 265! Content warning: We talk a lot about JAWS in this episode, both the novel and the movie. We jest about the content warning (maybe), but there’ll be more JAWS talk in the next episode, too, because after we recorded this one, we jumped in our biblio-adventure-mobile and headed to Mystic Seaport for a related author event: Christopher Shaw Myers talking about his new nonfiction book about his uncle, ROBERT SHAW. Other books that we discuss in our “Just Read” segment include: The Man by Laura Sims (a spontaneous #buddyread) Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney When the Stammer Came to Stay by Maggie O’Farrell, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini The Card-File System of Note-Taking by Jacques Goutor Unnatural Exposure, Scarpetta #8 by Patricia Cornwell Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe In #BiblioAdventures, Emily talks about starting to watch the adaptation of Margo’s Got Money Troubles, and Chris recaps Ellen Carol DuBois’ Zoom event on her biography, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life. This was an in-person and online event hosted jointly by the Lewes Public Library, Browseabout Books, and the History Book Festival. As always, we talk about more books (and movies) than are listed here. Thanks for listening, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode265

Welcome to Episode 264! We were thrilled to have a chance to speak with CLAIRE FULLER about her new novel, HUNGER AND THIRST. If you’re looking for an atmospheric, creepy, twisty, coming-of-age novel that’ll keep you wondering what’s really going on, look no further! Claire’s Author Spotlight follows our regular segments. In our “Just Read” segment, we talk about: 📖 JAWS by Peter Benchley 📖 MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES by Rufi Thorpe 📖 THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE by David Sedaris In #BiblioAdventures, Emily recaps attending Soon Wiley’s fascinating event at RJ Julia Booksellers. Soon, author of Cece Downings Start Over Summer, was in conversation with Patricia Santomasso, the audiobook narrator of the novel. Chris visited the Pandemonium Rainforest Project and was excited by their book tent outside and their loungey vintage book room inside. She also had two #BuddyRead conversations with friends: the novel 11/22/63 by Stephen King and ABRAHAM LINCOLN VAMPIRE HUNTER by Seth Grahame-Smith (both the novel and the movie adaptation). Speaking of buddy reads, in the last episode we announced our third-quarter readalong in our year of reading Page-to-Screen adaptations: THE COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS by Marjane Satrapi, translated by Anjali Singh. The film adaptatio was written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. We chose this title months ago and were saddened to hear of Satrapi’s recent death. Because of this, you may want to request it from your library right away; we hear there are now waitlists for it. PERSEPOLIS was originally published in two volumes, so you may find those if the complete version is a longer wait or unavailable. We have also chosen a companion read: WAKE NOW IN THE FIRE by Jarrett Dapier with illustrations by AJ Dungo. This is a graphic novel based on the true story of PERSEPOLIS being banned by the Chicago Public School system in recent years. The Zoom discussion is set for Sunday, August 16th at 7 pm ET. It is free and open to all, but you do need to email us to register ([email protected]). As always, we talk about more books (and movies) than are listed here. Thanks for listening and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! Show notes for the episode can be found at: https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode264

Welcome to Episode 263! We were excited to talk with Denise Kiernan about her timely new book on the eve of America’s 250th birthday, OBSTINATE DAUGHTERS: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution. In our “Just Read” segment, we talk about: TABLE 4 AT THE RIVER CAFE: Conversations about Food and Life by Ruthie Rogers 11/22/63 by Stephen King LAND by Maggie O’Farrell “The Summer People” by Shirley Jackson (in the collection DARK TALES) WHEN SHE WAS OURS by Anna Nordberg (pubs on 8/1/2026) CAUSE OF DEATH: Scarpetta #7 by Patricia Cornwell WHISTLER by Ann Patchett In #BiblioAdventures, Chris visited four bookstores in Mystic, CT: the Maritime Bookshop at Mystic Seaport Museum, Bank Square Books, No Other Book Like This, and Alice’s Little Haunted Bookshop. Emily watched the movie adaptation of FOE by Iain Reid. We are both #currentlyreading HUNGER AND THIRST by Claire Fuller. We also have a #buddyread planned of JAWS by Peter Benchley to coincide with a Jaws-related author event at Mystic Seaport on July 22nd. Christopher Shaw will talk about his new biography of his uncle, ROBERT SHAW: The Misunderstood Genius Behind Jaws. As always, we talk about more books than are listed here. We hope you enjoy this episode, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! P.S. We also announce our third quarter readalong pick for our year of page-to-screen adaptations. We’ve chosen a related companion read about the banning of this pick by the Chicago public school system. https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2026/episode263