Reading Books Together: A Podcast with Deborah Brothers & John Paul Jaramillo
This December we discuss two Christmas-ritual themed works: Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” and E.T.A. Hoffman’s Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Deborah gives some context for the children’s lit aspects of both selections and John Paul decides we should have read Alexandre Dumas’ The Nutcracker. (He did also read Truman Capote’s “The Thanksgiving Visitor.”)
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
You’ve been bullet journaling for about a year now. Carrying the thing with you and pulling it out whenever you can. You’ve been getting down tasks and reminders. You even read the Bullet Journal Method book by Ryder Carroll. And after a year you are having thoughts like, This method is saving me. This method is keeping me sane. This method of getting notes down is keeping me mindful. That’s safe to say.
You have to admit though that the journaling method while keeping you mindful is mostly pointing out your flaws. You still owe emails and work to many friends and editors you know. You have many notes or bullets you continue to put off to the next entry and the next entry–this means you’ve been putting off some tasks and putting off some errands. For example, you haven’t emailed a few folks and you haven’t started your memoir file just yet. You seem to be afraid to start a memoir project. You don’t seem to understand why.
You’ve kept lists of documentaries you want to watch though you keep putting off watching them. Ken Burns’ Leonardo Da Vinci can help you in your Humanities 101 course but you keep putting it off. Burns’ Ernest Hemingway might help you with the memoir project problem. But again you keep putting off viewing the thing. You’ve journaled that the schedule of teaching and lecturing six times a week has you. That’s the excuse you reflect on. You have a listing of books to read and prepare to podcast on but you’ve put that off as well. In your notes you write, I wonder why? You don’t seem to have many answers. Mostly questions.
You have a listing of the year and all the birthdays of family and friends. You are prepared to remember though you notice there are a few you’ve missed.
The one repeated note you have in your notebook is on the task of writing. Continue to work on the Neighbor Lady project. That’s your latest. You feel it will be a collection of short stories and you have two stories drawn out that are nearly complete. You’ve written a couple of times under monthly reflection–why can’t I get going on this project? And you write: why can’t I get back to this project? Perhaps pointing out the flaws to yourself is the whole point. Perhaps that is what is saving you. Perhaps you will journal on this tomorrow.
Honored and humbled to receive the 2024 Mayor’s Award for the Arts in the category of Individual Literary Artist! My friend Tim Crawford won for Best Performing Artist! Thank you, Springfield Area Arts Council!
Join us this month as we talk about Mat Johnson’s award-winning 2015 novel Loving Day, a satirical look at contemporary USA’s engagement with race, identity, class, and culture. And of course, one-star reviews from Goodreads.
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
And we’re back! We skipped a month but in this episode we discuss the novel Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. John Paul discusses his love affair with the book and his awe in the structure, and Deborah discusses cultural myth, the sacred feminine, and cultural heroes. And, of course, we discuss Goodreads’ one-star reviews.
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
Join us a week late for our April discussion of our March pick of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. We talk about confined women, Jane Austen Hallmark movies, cozy horror, and of course, John Paul’s obsession with one-star Goodreads reviews!
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
Join us two weeks late for our February 2024 discussion of Ray Bradbury’s 1950 classic The Martian Chronicles. We talk novel-in-stories, colonialism themes, Sci-Fi vs fantasy, and of course, John Paul’s obsession with one-star reviews!
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
It’s January and we discuss the Newbery Medal winning book The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill, a fantasy designed for Middle Grade readers. “In which we reach certain agreements about the appeal of the storyline and themes and agree to disagree about some of the writerly stylistics.” Who is this book really for? Is it actually a feminist, girl-centered text at all? Stay tuned.
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
Reading Books Together: A Podcast with Deborah Brothers & John Paul Jaramillo
This December we discuss two Christmas-ritual themed works: Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” and E.T.A. Hoffman’s Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Deborah gives some context for the children’s lit aspects of both selections and John Paul decides we should have read Alexandre Dumas’ The Nutcracker. (He did also read Truman Capote’s “The Thanksgiving Visitor.”)
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
Reading Books Together: A Podcast with Deborah Brothers & John Paul Jaramillo
Join us as we discuss Terry Tempest Williams’ Erosion: Essays of Undoing (2019). November seems to be a good month to reflect and while many of the thirty or so pieces in this collection show how disturbing and chaotic the world can be, Williams reminds us that “Awareness is our prayer.” We discuss the major themes of personal and global loss in these pieces but we also understand they are working as “collages,” layered with activism, deep listening, and the restorative power of nature.
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
Reading Books Together: A Podcast with Deborah Brothers & John Paul Jaramillo
Join us this month as we read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, John Paul’s pick for our second annual October “Spooktacular” podcast. Deborah gives three reasons why the book is worthy of reading and more than three reasons why she never wants to have to read it again. John Paul discusses Marxism, Buffy, homoeroticism, and (of course) reads some one-star reviews.
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
Join us this month as we talk about Good Night, Irene: A Novel, Luis Alberto Urrea’s fictionalized account of his mother’s WWII service with the American Red Cross. It is clear Urrea is a poet at heart and his rich descriptions help anchor the reader into Irene and Dorothy’s world and what it takes to survive events that cannot be forgotten. (And of course, John Paul reads a few one-star reviews!).
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn, and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
Join John Paul Jaramillo and Deborah Brothers for the July edition of “Reading Books Together,” a monthly podcast where we talk about a book we’ve read. We focus our discussion on recurring themes in the life and short fiction of Texas-born writer Katherine Anne Porter, winner of a Pulitzer, a National Book Award, a Gold Medal Award for Fiction, and five nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn, and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
This month we talk about Brave New World, the classic dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley. We talk about our reactions to the book’s grumpy stylistics as well as its essential ideas and spot-on premonitions. We ramble about connections to Shakespeare and Browning, John Paul reads a few “one star” Goodreads write-ups, and we sum up our own mixed reviews as we revisit this book decades after our first encounter with it from high school days.
–Deborah Brothers holds a Ph.D. in English Studies and reviews books for Choice and The Lion and the Unicorn, and her essays, fiction, and scholarly work have appeared in several publications.
–John Paul Jaramillo holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of three books: The House of Order, Little Mocos, and Carlos Montoya.
