Talking Book Bans with Leah Johnson and Kelly Jensen

October 1-7, 2023 is Banned Books Week, a week meant to raise awareness of censorship attempts taking place in libraries and educational systems across the United States. As book bans continue to increase, we invited Kelly Jensen of Book Riot and Leah Johnson, author and owner of independent bookshop Loudmouth Books, to discuss combatting censorship, the importance of libraries, and much more on the Libro.fm Podcast.

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How can we fight against book bans?

To learn more about ongoing book bans in the United States, check out these reports from the American Library Association and PEN America.

1. Vote! Your voice is needed at both a local and national level.
2. Show up to school and library board meetings, and share your thoughts. “What we need are bodies expressing some form of resistance in the spaces where these decisions are being made,” says Leah.
3. Write a letter to the school and/or library board. Kelly suggests: “Find out who’s on the board, write…four or five sentences, just show your appreciation for the work being done [at your library].”
4. Write to your local media outlets. Share your enthusiasm and support for the library.
5. Borrow from your library. “So you’re seeing people are wanting to ban a specific book. It’s a queer book, let’s say. See if your library has it…[then] borrow it. If they don’t have it, put in a purchase request. Ask that your library buy[s] this book,” says Kelly.
6. Encourage friends, family, and strangers to sign up for library cards.
7. Organize a protest. Students especially have seen success with collective organization!
8. Spread the word. “Talk to everybody that you know about book bans, these kinds of projects and this kind of research, and these conversations…a lot of people really don’t know,” shares Kelly.
9. Remember your rights. Take a stance and advocate for your rights—and others’ rights—to read.

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About our guests

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Audiobooks by Leah Johnson

While Kelly’s books are not on audio, we encourage you to learn more about them on her website and order them from your favorite independent bookshop!

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Audiobooks we discussed

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Full transcription

Karen Farmer:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Libro.fm Podcast where we talk to authors, narrators, booksellers, and more. I’m Karen.

Craig Silva:

And I’m Craig. Welcome to our second official Banned Books Week episode. Karen, we have been doing this podcast for over a year.

Karen Farmer:

That’s wild.

Craig Silva:

Do you think we’re going to make it to a third Banned Books Week episode?

Karen Farmer:

Well, I hope we don’t have to do any more Banned Books Week episodes, maybe.

Craig Silva:

Ooh, good answer. Good answer.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah.

Craig Silva:

Also kind of a non-answer.

Karen Farmer:

Yes.

Craig Silva:

So yes, Banned Books Week, this is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982, which is insane to me, I can’t believe it’s been going on for that long. Like you, I wish it could be over, but alas, here we are. It was launched in a response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries. Sadly, it feels very relevant to this day.

Karen Farmer:

Yep.

Craig Silva:

This year, Banned Books Week is taking place October 1st through 7th. So at the time of this episode coming out, it’s happening right now. The theme of this year’s event is Let Freedom Read.

Karen Farmer:

Craig, did you see who the honorary chair is?

Craig Silva:

I did. Do you want a drum roll or are you just going to announce?

Karen Farmer:

It’s LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow and many other things, but he’s a great choice for this, I would say.

Craig Silva:

I would say so, yes.

Karen Farmer:

Thank you for the background on that. Something that we really love about this effort is that it brings together really the entire book community. So librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, students.

Craig Silva:

Podcasters.

Karen Farmer:

Podcasters. Everyone is involved in this and shared support of the freedom to seek and express ideas. There is a ton of great additional information that you can find online. I recommend BannedBooksWeek.org, which is the official website. So if you’re interested in learning more or getting involved, definitely be sure to check that out.

Craig Silva:

For this episode, we got so lucky, we were able to speak to two huge champions of free speech and advocates for anti-censorship. The first guest we got to speak with is Kelly Jensen. She is an author and editor at Book Riot who has been writing about banned books and censorship for years and years, and is a wealth of knowledge. So, felt very lucky to land this.

Karen Farmer:

Yes, agreed. And our second guest is author and brand new bookstore owner Leah Johnson. Kelly and Leah have a lot going on right now, as you can imagine. So unfortunately we couldn’t get everyone on a call at the same time. But, good news for you, our listeners, is that you get two interviews back to back in one episode.

Craig Silva:

I thought for sure we were going to say for the price of one.

Karen Farmer:

I thought about it.

Craig Silva:

So before we start the interview, banned books and censorship and everything going on right now, it’s a tough topic, and the people we spoke with are very passionate. So this episode, unlike most of ours, does have a couple of curse words in it. So if there are any little ears around, you might want to wait to listen to this one until later. With that out of the way, if you don’t follow the podcast, please do. And if you do, feel free to give it a rating if you have time.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. So enjoy the interviews, everyone. As always, you can stick around afterwards to hear a little bit more about what Libro.fm is doing for Banned Books Week this year and also what Craig and I are reading and enjoying.

All right, well, to get us kicked off, welcome to the podcast, Kelly. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down and talk to us for our Banned Books Week. To kick things off, we would love it if you could introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little bit more about all the things that you do in the bookish world.

Kelly Jensen:

Well, first, thanks for having me on the show, on the podcast. My name is Kelly Jensen and I am an editor at Book Riot. I’ve been at Book Riot for about 10 years now, and have covered censorship and book bans. Pretty much the whole time I’ve been here, we have not had quite as much coverage as we have in the last three years, so I think for a lot of people it feels new, but it’s not particularly new. I run the Literary Activism newsletter onsite, which rounds up in archives all of the book ban news happening throughout the country and at times throughout the world. And that has been going since October 2021, so two years now. And then prior to that I was a public librarian, so I also have experience with banned books on that side of the desk as well.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. Thank you so much for that information. And as Craig mentioned before we started recording, we have all kinds of questions to pepper you with, so I will pass it over to Craig for our first question.

Craig Silva:

Thanks, Karen. So for anyone that follows you or Book Riot, you are well-known as an anti-censorship champion. We saw and you just mentioned that you were a former librarian, and we wondered if that played into your role driving that passion that’s spreading anti-censorship awareness and how that’s become so important and central to your work.

Kelly Jensen:

Yeah, it has, but I actually want to go back a little bit further. So my junior year of undergrad in college, I did an internship to see if librarianship was the field that I wanted to go into, and I had an incredible internship supervisor who had this project idea for me to learn about banned books and why books are being banned and censored. So it was a research project. Looked at all of the stories of banned books, see what themes are coming out, and then that ended up being a really powerful project for me, that senior year of college I used for a senior thesis project about censorship in children’s literature. Great opportunity, learned a whole lot.

And that really was a theme that ran throughout library school for me and then into librarianship. And here we are now this many years later. I think about that one professor, she wasn’t a professor, the one librarian who supervised me and kind of gave me the freedom to do this research and to learn, and it’s just unfortunately grown since then. I wish it hadn’t. I wish that I weren’t still writing about this, but here we are.

Karen Farmer:

Speaking of research, so I read the article that you posted in Book Riot yesterday. I know that PEN America and the American Library Association just released reports on the current state of book bans in schools. I highly recommend for everyone who’s listening that you check out Kelly’s article. I was wondering if you could share some of your key takeaways from that and if there was anything that you found surprising as you were going through those reports.

Kelly Jensen:

Nothing particularly surprising, maybe that because of the way ALA and PEN defined book bans, they’re a little bit different between the two organizations. And then also I think a little bit different than how I approach capturing and writing about books that are being censored and banned. I take a much broader approach to it. They take very specific approaches, which is great. We have to define these terms and how we use them.

So if there was one thing that kind of surprised me, is it seems like there are a lot more books that have been pulled or banned or challenged versus what’s in those reports, but I think that comes down to definitions, not necessarily that they’re hiding anything or they disagree, but following their parameters. It seems smaller than I anticipated. That said, I think one of the big takeaways and the thing that I keep thinking about and have been thinking about for the last year or so is how these books are not new books. Most of these books that have been banned, particularly the top most frequently banned books, they’re not new books. The average publication date of the top 11 that PEN cited as the most banned in the last year average 18 years old.

Karen Farmer:

Wow.

Kelly Jensen:

Published in 2005 is their average publication date. That’s not new. So a lot of the panic around them, a lot of the pushes for censorship, you start to wonder why did it take you so long if this is really such a pertinent issue now because it gives, I think, some merit to the idea that this is all manufactured. If it was really an issue, we would’ve heard about it long ago. And certainly, we did. I don’t want to discount that we didn’t. Ellen Hopkins is the most banned author and she has had that honor for, if you even want to call it an honor, but she’s had it for her whole career. But what we saw in 2009, ’10, ’11, ’12, that area where there is a bit more censorship historically than there was in the last 10 or so years before where we’re at now, it wasn’t as broad, it wasn’t as clearly orchestrated. They were much more one-off stories as opposed to like, we have these groups like Moms for Liberty, No Left Turn in Education who are coordinating these sorts of book bans on a nationwide scale.

Craig Silva:

Why do you think it’s so much worse now than say in 2005? Is it just the polarized political climate or are there other factors at play, you think?

Kelly Jensen:

I think that the polarized political climate is a really big piece of it, but I think another key piece is how easy it is to share this information now. We’ve got social media that makes it so easy to spread information, spread misinformation and disinformation and malformation, and that’s really what’s driving a lot of this. So Moms for Liberty can post a book review in their book looks database of a book that they don’t like and they can trigger the alarm bells and start to get that book challenged at schools and libraries across the country. But then these other groups, ones that maybe aren’t affiliated with Moms for Liberty or that are affiliated with other groups, will take that information, put it into a Facebook post, and then they spread it. So one post that Moms for Liberty creates can spread to millions of people really easily. And because they pull this information out of context, it’s been really a boon for them when they use a graphic novel because they can pull out these passages, get pulled out of context that look really bad, but when you read the whole book aren’t at all.

You think about GenderQueer, it’s six pages in a 250-page book, but because they pull out these passages, they can share them and suddenly they’re able to get people really riled up. So it’s just there are forms of communication that are a lot easier, and I think that because we have done such a poor job of helping people build their literacy when it comes to information and navigating the internet, that when they’re handed something like this, it’s easy for them to be scared, worried, concerned, and then they have this evidence there. It’s evidence that we know has no context, but they don’t know that, and so it raises their concerns as well.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, it makes me think of the quote in your article from Casey Meehan talking about the fact that, unfortunately, we can’t think of Florida any longer as an outlier in this situation. Something that I thought was really interesting in that quote was that there are these playbooks that people are using to perpetuate these book bans in their school districts, and those are being just shared and repeated over and over again across the country. That makes a lot of sense, what you said then with the social media, that these playbooks are just so much more widely distributable. That kind of playbook situation, has that been something that you’ve seen increasing recently? Curious how that’s been evolving.

Kelly Jensen:

Yeah. One of the key stories that I came across with this playbook idea came from Moms for Liberty, one of the chapters in Iowa, and it was one of the parent groups who was pushing back against what was happening. So this playbook laid out a letter that came from, I think it was a class of high school juniors saying, “We’re going to be reading this book in class. It covers these topics. Sign your name acknowledging that you know that we’re going to have this discussion in class.” Well, what happened is, Moms for Liberty, that chapter, put it in their playbook saying, “This is the kind of mail you are getting from your teachers who know this material’s inappropriate. We need to push back. Here’s how we do that.”

What that playbook didn’t mention, what wasn’t indicated at all is that there was a second page to this letter that they got from the teacher. That second page said, “If you don’t want this book to be used with your child, we have an alternate assignment. Let us know. We’ll get you another book.” Well, it’s pretty convenient to leave that piece out and make it sound like the teacher’s doing something terrible and that parental rights have been taken away because they don’t have an option when in fact they do. The teacher has laid out what the option is, but it’s very convenient to not include that page when you’re pushing an agenda. So that’s kind of, I think, a really great example of how they’re doing this. It’s cleverly manipulating real things to fit their agenda, and they do it in such a way that they could stoke that panic and then get more people to buy into their arguments and their beliefs.

Craig Silva:

So one of the things Karen and I both really love about your work is that you give lots of actionable advice. You’re not just reporting on these things, but you’re actually giving advice and steps that people can take for parents and educators, and we really both enjoyed the piece around what people can do to alert their school boards to these bad actors that we were just talking about. We were wondering if you could share what resources you recommend for folks like us that want to get involved and learn more about participating in anti-censorship.

Kelly Jensen:

So I want to step back and give some more context. A thing that I think more and more people are starting to understand is contributing to this, and that is the death of the local news. There are fewer and fewer local papers, which means there are fewer and fewer reporters who are reporting on the boring stuff. So there’s fewer reporters going to school board meetings, library board meetings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They used to be standard. They’d report what was going on, show up in the paper. Most of the time it was not interesting. Well, those reporters are no longer doing that. As we’ve got these giant media conglomerates, and even in places where there is a robust news presence, it’s so large that it’s impossible for them to have reporters at all these meetings.

So a lot of what is happening is that people who are banning books are taking advantage of this. They’re showing up to these school board meetings, these library board meetings where there aren’t reporters there. And instead, they’re using their own phones to capture these moments that they can spread as viral, letting themselves be heroes for parental rights for 15 minutes, whatever. We’ve all seen the videos, we’ve all seen those headlines. But all of that is to say one of the most important and actionable things that anybody can do is to show up to a school board meeting or a library board meeting, and show up, speak during the public comment. You get somewhere between two and five minutes, depending on the board, depending on what their rules are, and just say that you appreciate what your libraries are doing. It’s as simple as that.

You saw a book display at your public library that you really liked, that you borrowed something from, show up and be like, “Hey, I really appreciate that they took the time to curate this great display. I read a good book from it.” It’s that easy. I know that with that comes the fear of public speaking, which is real, right? You could also write a letter, find out who’s on the board, write that same letter, four or five sentences, just show your appreciation for the work being done. That goes on the public record, so that will go to the board members. It goes in their packets. They see that. And that kind of narrative really not only boosts the self-esteem and the feelings of those who work in the library at a time when they are being called every name imaginable that doesn’t feel good, but it also shows that there are people in the community who care, who notice and really appreciate that work. That’s kind of the easiest and most impactful thing you can do.

The other thing I always recommend, and this is something that anybody, young, old, whatever, can do, that’s borrow books from the library. It’s request books from the library. So you’re seeing people are wanting to ban a specific book. It’s a queer book, let’s say. See if your library has it and borrow it. If they don’t have it, put in a purchase request. Ask that your library buy this book. That helps on so many levels. For the most part, public libraries want to purchase what their community is asking them to purchase, so if there’s interest from the community, they’re going to do their best to serve that interest. Those are two very easy things.

You could also write letters too if you do have a local paper. Write to your local paper and say, “Man, the library’s doing some great programs.” Or it’s Library Card Signup Month as we’re recording this, so September, just say, “I got a new library card this year.” Or I encourage people who don’t have one to go get one and just show that you care about the library, and do it in such a way that is not just sharing on social media. That has an impact, I don’t want to downplay it. Your librarians are going to be able to record that they purchased this book because it came from a request, or your board sees that somebody appreciated this display that was made, and the thought and the time that went into that. Anything actionable that helps the people on the ground is going to be good work to do.

Craig Silva:

God, I love all that.

Karen Farmer:

Thank you so much.

Craig Silva:

Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

I love the library, so I’m like, I can’t wait to go do these things.

Kelly Jensen:

Yeah.

Craig Silva:

I know. I was watching you being like, “Oh, I have a library card, multiple.” I also love your comment about local news. It’s something I feel passionate about. So just last plug, as we’re giving dispensing advice, if there is a local newspaper in your area, there’s a lot of independents that are popping up, which is great. There’s one in my hometown. Subscribe, give them your money so that independent journalism can exist. I think these things are definitely in tandem.

Kelly Jensen:

And just to add and build to that too, my community is very lucky. We have local news, independent journalism here. It’s great. We also have an incredibly active community Facebook group that’s like 40, 50,000 people. Not built by the city. It’s built by the residents. If you have something like that, as annoying as those can be, as much as you’re sick of reading about the potholes, that construction, all the stuff that comes up, use it as an opportunity to plug the library too. You see an event or you see a program be like, “Hey, did you know the library is doing this? It’s free. Show up.” Even if it doesn’t get butts in seats, you’re helping raise the awareness within a community who may not know. We as people who care about the library and who use the library are very well aware of the library, but we could easily forget how many people don’t know or don’t take advantage of it. So being an ambassador for the library in those spaces in your community where you can be is going to be hugely helpful and beneficial.

Karen Farmer:

On that inspiring note, something else that’s really brought me a lot of joy in reading your updates and just seeing what’s happening in the space is the success that students are having, the students themselves rallying together for change in their schools, and I was wondering if you had a particular anecdote that you love or would be interested in sharing about what the students themselves are doing successfully.

Kelly Jensen:

The students are awesome, honestly. They are understanding that this is an attack on their rights and their abilities to not just borrow the books that they want, to find the research that they need, but to be themselves. We know that the books are the symbol here. The reality is this is an attempt to further marginalize marginalized people and to, in the dream world, make sure they don’t exist or that they’ve pushed so far to the margins they don’t want to be here. Students see that and students are saying, “No, no, no, no. You don’t get to tell us who we are. We’re in the process of discovering who we are and we’re going to embrace that.”

One group that has really stood out to me is the PARU group at Central York High School in Pennsylvania. They were the first group of students to protest book bans in their school, and they held a public protest. It was in fall of 2021, I believe. That school was one of the earliest schools dealing with book bans on a really big level. So they were showing up before school started every day and protesting the book bans, using their voices as students to say, “No, you can’t ban these books.” They were successful. Fast-forward to the end of last school year, so the 2022-2023 school year, more books are being banned at Central York. Those kids showed up again. Alumni who had graduated since the first round even came back to help these kids’ protest.

Karen Farmer:

Wow.

Kelly Jensen:

And they have supportive advisors, they have supportive faculty in the school who are really helping them to engage on a broad range of social justice issues, but in this one, they were able to do it right at their school. 7:00 AM, kids get off the bus, guess what? There’s a group of these students who are protesting book bans, and they’re getting everybody to know what’s going on and to use their voices to put an end to it. And they were successful again. They did this, I think it was a three-week protest the second time, and again, they were successful.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. Oh, I have chills. The kids—kids are amazing.

Craig Silva:

I love that comment too about that the protest was successful and that it was raising awareness that it was even happening because I do feel like a lot of times this stuff just kind of quietly happens, the book just quietly goes away. So obviously the protest is important for many reasons, but I do love just like, “What are those kids protesting about?” And then it just raises awareness and it’s like, “Why are they doing it?” It’s so important. So thanks, kids.

Kelly Jensen:

Yeah. I just had a phone call this week in fact with a high schooler in DC who was telling me she’s doing this senior project. The assignment is, pick any current contemporary issue. You’re going to research it for the first half of the year. You’re going to write about it the second half of the year and come up with ways and steps people can respond to this. And she chose book bans. Listening to this young person talk about it and be so articulate in terms of understanding what’s going on on a broad scale and asking such intelligent questions, I was like, I was not that person as a senior in high school, or as a senior in college if I’m being honest.

It was one of those moments where you pause and you’re like, okay, a lot of kids don’t know what’s going on, or if they do know, they don’t know what to do about it. But then you get emails from a random high schooler who’s like, “Can I talk to you about book bans?” And it’s like, “Heck, yes, you can talk to me about book bans.” And then, please talk to everybody that you know about book bans, these kinds of projects and this kind of research, and these conversations are so important because a lot of people really don’t know. And for young people in particular, it’s important to remind them that they have rights and that they should be standing up for those rights and that they have just scads of adults who believe in their rights too, even if those adults aren’t the ones that they’re hearing the most from.

Craig Silva:

Thank you so much for sharing that story. Speaking of stories, our last segment before we let you go, we call Instagram story time. We look through your Instagram.

Kelly Jensen:

Oh, god.

Craig Silva:

That is everyone’s reaction, by the way. Everyone goes, “Oh no.” We sometimes go pretty far back too.

Karen Farmer:

Deep in the archives.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, but we did not do that to you.

Kelly Jensen:

Okay.

Craig Silva:

So Karen chose a photo and we’re going to ask you to elaborate. So with that, you can take it away, Karen.

Karen Farmer:

Yes.

Craig Silva:

Uh-oh.

Karen Farmer:

This is a very fresh one from your Instagram.

Craig Silva:

Uh-oh.

Karen Farmer:

And I just wanted to take the opportunity to brag about something amazing that happened to you. I saw, I think this week you posted that you got a commendation from the Louisiana Library Association. For folks that don’t have the picture in front of them, it’s a very lovely photo of an official looking document with lots of official looking signatures, thanking Kelly for her work. So first of all, congratulations, and second of all, can you tell us a little bit about the story behind that?

Kelly Jensen:

Yeah, thank you. This is actually the second commendation, and they came from… Let me back up. I got a commendation from the Louisiana Library Association as well as the American Association of School Librarians. So the one from Louisiana came this week, and it gave me chills, and in part because I don’t feel like what I did is even comparable to the person who nominated me for this commendation. And that person is Amanda Jones who, if anybody listening doesn’t know, what’s the best way to put this, was really dragged across social media for defending banned books. Amanda is a middle school librarian in Louisiana. She went to her county’s, her parish’s rather, public library board meeting, and spoke up against book bans because they were happening in her public library.

A couple of the very right-wing groups from Louisiana who are notorious for spreading false information, for really dragging people, chose that as an opportunity to call her every name imaginable and made this a big public campaign, getting her face out there, connecting her to her job. Now, again, she was speaking at the public library, not about her own facility or her own students or her own school. And really made her a villain of all of this. I had the opportunity to talk with Amanda when this all started, and she really jumped on this. This became kind of her way to get as involved as you possibly can in pushing back against book bans. She’s been across the country, she’s been pursuing litigation against these groups who’ve done this. She has been, I don’t like to use the word star because nobody wants to be a star for this, but she’s really kind of set an example for “I’m one person and yet I’m able to do so much to spread the word about what’s really happening.” And it’s taken a toll on her. It’s taken a big toll on her.

So when she told me that she nominated me, I was like, “Why? You’re the person that deserves it.” And we had a great conversation about it. So it’s really meaningful because it’s not just about the work I do. I get that that’s what it’s for, but for me, it’s very much about those relationships with people like Amanda. There are several other people I can name who we’ve talked, we’ve gotten on the phone, we’ve talked, I’ve had the opportunity to interview them and share their stories. It’s like, here we are this long into it and I still deeply care about everything that’s going on, and I want to know what’s going on and I want to support in whatever way I can. So for me, it feels good, and then it also is that reminder of like, okay, sometimes the most important things is to sit back and let somebody else tell that story and listen, and then just hold them with everything you’ve got.

Karen Farmer:

Absolutely the best Instagram story time we have done on this podcast. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Craig Silva:

We’re going to give you an Instagram story time award. It won’t be as meaningful but, I thought I was going to cry. It’s a beautiful story. Congratulations again.

Kelly Jensen:

Thank you.

Craig Silva:

So last but not least, we end every interview with asking for recommendations on what we should be reading or what you’re reading right now and loving and what you think we should be reading next. That sounds good. I haven’t read that.

Kelly Jensen:

I make that noise because there’s this psychological phenomenon that when you’re asked something that is so part and parcel to you, there’s so many connections that it’s hard to answer.

Craig Silva:

Don’t worry. Just like freaking out at Instagram story time, every time we ask this question that people go, “What are books? I’ve never read a book in my life.”

Kelly Jensen:

Never.

Craig Silva:

And everyone runs to grab their phone and check what their Storygraph says or whatever.

Kelly Jensen:

Yeah. So I would say any book that is being banned or challenged is worth picking up. You can go through the lists that show up with PEN, that show up with ALA, but also go through any upcoming books that cover topics that are being banned. So books that are going to be by or about queer people, books that are going to be by or about people of color, books that are about social justice, pick those up, request those, read those. I know that that’s like cheating a little bit because I’m giving a big.

But I also find that there’s a lot of really interesting adult nonfiction that is not at all about what’s going on that really offers a lot of insight into where we got, where we are. One of them that I just read is called Outrage Machine. It’s Tobias Rose-Stockwell. It’s a book about the way that Facebook and other social media have helped to amplify anger in our culture. And it’s a really fascinating book to listen to. It doesn’t talk about book bans at all, it doesn’t talk about any part of censorship, and yet as you’re listening to it, you see all the pieces and how they stack up. Because it’s not just about books and censorship, it’s about so many other things going on in our culture right now.

It’s part exploration of how this all happened, how it works, and then also solutions for how we can solve these problems. What are real things that we can do? How do we stop ourselves from also reacting? Because it’s so easy to get so angry. And I think about this all the time. I’m not an angry person, but I’m angry all the time. How do I stop that? How do I parlay that anger into something that is meaningful and valuable? And I think that this book does a really good job of answering those questions and then offering some solutions.

Karen Farmer:

That sounds amazing. I’m adding that to my list immediately.

Craig Silva:

Yes, same.

Kelly Jensen:

I was going to say it was an audiobook, worth listening to on audio. Hint, hint.

Karen Farmer:

Oh, perfect. Fantastic. Libro.fm.

Kelly Jensen:

Yes. Yeah, there you go. I’m like 99.9999999% sure I listened to it through Libro.fm.

Craig Silva:

Nice.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. Well, Kelly, I know we’ve kept you a couple of minutes over time. We get to talk to you all day. Thank you so much for sitting down with us and all of the wisdom that you shared. We just appreciate it so much and all of the work that you do.

Kelly Jensen:

Well, thank you for having me. And yeah, show up, do what you can.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, thank you so much again for your time. We’ll stay in touch. We’ll talk to you soon.

Kelly Jensen:

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Craig Silva:

Bye.

Karen Farmer:

Bye, Kelly.

Kelly Jensen:

Bye.

Craig Silva:

Leah, welcome to the podcast. We are so excited that you can make time for us today. I know it’s a busy day for you and a very busy time in general for you, so appreciate the time. For listeners who may not be familiar with your work, we’d love if you could just give a little bit of brief intro about yourself and your writing.

Leah Johnson:

Sure. First of all, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to chat with y’all today. So I’m Leah Johnson. I’m the author of books for children and young adults. My first book was called You Should See Me in a Crown, and my most recent book was published in May, which feels like years ago now, but it was truly just months ago. It’s called Ellie Engle Saves Herself, and it’s about an unassuming 12-year-old girl who develops superpowers overnight and has to contend with being a regular seventh grader and also a person for whom the fate of the universe could be in her hands. Other than that, I also own a bookstore now, which is new. I’d never get to introduce myself that way.

Craig Silva:

How momentous.

Leah Johnson:

We’re testing it out, seeing how it feels. Yeah.

Craig Silva:

That’s great. We definitely have questions about your bookstore. We’re excited to talk to you about it.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah.

Craig Silva:

But we are limited on time because of the podcast world. So thank you for your introduction. Speaking of questions, Karen, do you want to kick us off with the first one?

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, I wanted to start with the inspiration for your writing. I know that you write so beautifully about identity and gender and sexuality, and we’ve been doing research about you and reading your work. We’ve heard that your lived experience growing up in Indiana kind of played a part in why you wanted to write about these topics, perhaps not seeing these things represented on the shelves when you were growing up. So we wanted to hear a little bit more about how your experience played into the work that you do.

Leah Johnson:

Yeah. Before I answer this question, I do just want to say for those of you listening, I am wearing an incredibly badass denim jacket today. It’s actually from the Rosie O’Donnell Show. It was amazing from the ’90s. It just got here yesterday. So you all can’t see me, but I did just want to acknowledge that I do look incredibly cool, and that’s important to this story.

Yes. So all of my books are deeply tied to my lived experience, and part of that is because I didn’t know anything about what it took to write a book when I started writing my first book. And the advice that everybody repeats to you all the time in your early days of writing is, write what you know, write what you know. And what I knew was the experience of being a queer Black girl with anxiety growing up in relative poverty in Indiana.

So I imbued my first book with all those same things, and it was so liberating to be able to do that. It gave me a sense of what was possible for myself, because if I could write this happy ending for this girl, then maybe I could begin to envision that for myself. So in a lot of ways, the book was intended to give readers like me a mirror to reflect their experiences back to them. But also, it was just a way of affirming myself to myself and acknowledging that all these things are a part of me, and they can exist at the same time, and they can exist in a way that doesn’t always have to end in trauma, which was so prevalent in the books that I read growing up with queer kids or with Black kids.

Craig Silva:

Have you gotten a chance to speak with a lot of the young readers who have read this? And have you had any interesting reactions or conversations?

Leah Johnson:

Yeah, so I put this book out. My first book came out during the height of the pandemic, and so I didn’t get to tour in person with the book, which was a bummer, but it did give me the opportunity to do a lot of Zoom school visits. In that, there were kids who were more comfortable shooting me a little DM on the side, telling me how much the story meant to them or telling me that they felt comfortable enough to come out to their parents because they read it, or maybe they weren’t in a safe environment and so they didn’t feel empowered to say anything to anybody else about it, but just reading the book felt like validation to them.

Those messages were really life-giving in a time where I felt really scared about the future, not just of my work, but also just the future of what it was going to be like to be a person in a post-pandemic world. So yeah, I’ve gotten some really, really wonderful responses to my work over the past couple of years, which I’m grateful for considering the landscape for queer writers and BIPOC writers right now being so volatile.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, I’m so glad that book is on the shelf for those kids and books like it. Thank you for writing it. So as anyone who follows your career or your social media knows, you just started a new bookstore. I think I saw a video posted like 15 hours ago of a sneak peek of it. It’s very exciting. For people that haven’t heard of it yet, can you tell us a little bit about the bookstore and why you decided to start it now?

Leah Johnson:

Yeah. I needed another job. I just had a lot of free time on my hands and just really wanted something to do.

Craig Silva:

You only had one lawyer, you really wanted a second one.

Leah Johnson:

I really needed another accountant. I needed another lawyer. I wasn’t spread thin, and I think that’s what you need to be a functional human. So Loudmouth Books is Indiana’s only banned bookstore. We specialize in stories for, by, and about marginalized people. So in Indiana, this year, we saw a record number of bills targeting queer folks, BIPOC folks, bills that made it easier to keep stories that reflected those experiences off the shelves. And it felt really urgent for me if I was ever going to open a bookstore, which is every nerd’s dream, if I was ever going to open a bookstore, it felt like now was the time. And I could give you a long-winded answer about how, “Oh, I had the money and the time in my career was right.”

I mean, those things are all true, but the real truth of the matter is I was outraged and I felt like, as a writer, my hands were tied because the only thing I can control is the writing of the book itself. I can’t control how it’s received in the world. I can’t control how it’s marketed, how it’s publicized. I can’t control how we really respond to it getting banned. But, opening a bookstore where I get to uplift the voices of marginalized writers, where I get to host events that take books that are often pushed aside and not always shelved at the big box stores, it gave me a measure of… Dogs are barking outside, come on.

Craig Silva:

Don’t they know you’re doing an interview?

Leah Johnson:

And it’s crazy because it’s with Libro.fm. You know what I’m saying?

Craig Silva:

Dogs are so selfish.

Leah Johnson:

Have some respect for the institution of Libro.

Craig Silva:

I’m not editing this out.

Karen Farmer:

That dog is not an audiobook fan.

Leah Johnson:

Literally doesn’t care about independent bookstores. I can tell you that.

Craig Silva:

That dog shops at Audible.

Leah Johnson:

Oh, wow, capitalist dog. I hate to see it. Oh, Lord. Opening Loudmouth gave me some measure of control and also gave me an avenue to really utilize the platform that I’ve been able to develop over the past couple of years to loudly and proudly proclaim the importance and urgency of the work of so many of my peers and friends and colleagues.

Karen Farmer:

Loudmouth sounds amazing. I cannot wait to come visit this bookstore. Can you talk a little bit more about the curation aspect? So what you’re going to stock, how you decide what to feature, what’s coming in and being put on the shelf?

Leah Johnson:

Yeah, that’s a great question and you caught me at a good time because it’s literally all I think about. So over the past six months, I have painstakingly selected every individual title that is going to be on the shelves at Loudmouth. Everything in there, you know I saw it on a list somewhere, it was recommended by a friend, it was a book that I’ve read and loved. You know that it was selected with care. And all of the titles are for, by, or about a marginalized person or group of people. That definition is broad because obviously if I stocked only books that had been banned or challenged, then we would have not nearly enough books to fill up our shelves. So really, we’re just focusing on stories that are maligned oftentimes or are at risk of being banned even if they haven’t been yet.

Craig Silva:

It had to have been hard to cut that down. How big is the store?

Leah Johnson:

Not big, let me tell you. So we had a soft opening where we brought in Silent Book Club Indy and about 35 ish, 40 people came through. It was wonderful. It was a great event, but having bodies in the store that were not just mine and my mom illuminated for me, that 1,200 square feet is not that big. So we have a sort of compact space, but we are utilizing every inch of it.

Craig Silva:

God, I can’t wait to visit this place either.

Leah Johnson:

It’s amazing. It’s amazing. I’m not going to lie. And I’m not just saying that because it’s mine and I’ve sucked my life savings into it. It just, it’s fun to be there. I designed it also, and it’s… what’s the word I’m looking for?

Craig Silva:

Amazing?

Leah Johnson:

It’s amazing. But it also employs the aesthetic style of eclectic maximalism, which is also called dopamine decor. So we have a lot of bright colors, a lot of disco balls. It’s supposed to make you happy just being in there. So even if you don’t love books, which I can’t imagine you’re listening to this podcast and you don’t love books, but even if books are not necessarily your thing, there’s something in the space for you even if it’s just good vibes.

Craig Silva:

That’s amazing. When is the official launch day, or is it already open?

Leah Johnson:

It opens on September 30th, so we’re-

Craig Silva:

So close.

Leah Johnson:

… eight days out. Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

Nice.

Craig Silva:

Well, this episode’s going to come out on, I believe October 3rd, so at the time of this release, the store will be open, so everybody go to the store.

Leah Johnson:

It’ll be open and it’ll be Banned Books Week.

Craig Silva:

Yep.

Leah Johnson:

By the time you hear this, I may or may not just be a dried out corn husk. I may not even be a person anymore, but that’s okay.

Craig Silva:

How’s the response from the local community been so far?

Leah Johnson:

It has been overwhelmingly positive, which is wonderful. Indianapolis is sort of in a bookstore renaissance right now where we’re seeing, or we’ll see before the end of the year, five new independent bookstores opening in the city, which is a massive number for any mid-size city. But it’s especially significant for Indianapolis because we’ve gone so long with so few indies, and they’ve done such great work and held it down for us, and now there’s a lot of new kids on the block. So I think people are just excited about books and excited to have places to exist in person together after spending so many years and months apart.

Karen Farmer:

Mm-hmm. Speaking of that too, you mentioned events a couple of times. Are you able to tell us a little bit about what you’ve got planned or what your vision for the events looks like?

Leah Johnson:

Yeah. So the idea of Loudmouth really came about in part because I want to sling books, I want to hang out with bookish people, but it also just operates as a community space. So local organizations get to come in and host their events and just have somewhere to be in community with each other. So we have Black Queer Indy, which is a new organization that just provides Black queer folks in the city with opportunities to hang out with other Black queer folks. So they’ll be in the space in November. We have Kosoko Jackson, the author of The Forest Demands Its Due, a queer white horror coming on October 5th. So we’re going to do some cool Banned Books Week shenanigans with Kosoko. In late October, we have Minda Honey coming to celebrate the launch of her new essay collection memoir called The Heartbreak Years. We have Olivia A. Cole coming who wrote the book Dear Medusa and The Truth About White Lies.

So I’m very fortunate that I have a lot of homies who have been really excited about coming through the store. Indianapolis doesn’t get a ton of book tours. It’s not the Midwest city that people come to when they think, “Oh, I need an excited audience for my work.” People usually just go to Chicago and they’re like, “That’s good. I think we’ve seen enough.”

Karen Farmer:

I relate. I live in Ypsilanti, Michigan, so I deeply relate.

Leah Johnson:

Oh, yeah. Oh, you get it. So yeah, we’re trying to become a new home for diverse writers and writing in the Midwest. It’s sort of a lofty goal, but it seems like we’re on our way.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, it’s coming to fruition.

Craig Silva:

Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. Well, one of the things kind of related to Banned Books Week that we wanted to ask you your perspective on, obviously you have done a lot for and speak a lot about the fight against censorship and the importance of not banning books and creating a space for them. And we wondered, as you think about these things and work on these things, if you have advice for those of us without a platform like yours, how we can get involved, how we can make a difference and be part of this cause?

Leah Johnson:

Yeah, I mean, this is maybe the most important question of the moment which is, what… Am I allowed to curse on this podcast?

Craig Silva:

You can do whatever you’d like.

Karen Farmer:

Right, right.

Leah Johnson:

This is maybe the most important question of the moment which is, what the fuck am I supposed to do to stop the rise of fascism? And it feels almost insurmountable I think, this fight at this moment, at least it can feel that way depending on how nihilistic you are, I guess. And my response to that is, first of all, these are decisions that are being made on local levels. I’m not even talking about state legislatures, which is a huge problem especially here in Indiana, but I’m talking about school boards, which are meetings that people without children or school-aged children I think often ignore or don’t think about.

If you want to make real lasting impacts, first of all, vote, and I know that’s a very neoliberal solution, but also just show up. What we need are bodies expressing some form of resistance in the spaces where these decisions are being made. Support the librarians who are doing the good work, fighting the good fight. A lot of these decisions about what books can and cannot stay on the shelves are completely out of their hands. So when you see a display with banned books, when you see displays that have queer titles face out, when you see end caps with books about racism outside of Black History Month, let them know that you see the work that they’re doing and think it’s necessary and urgent. It can be so isolating to fight this fight in these spaces where it feels like every power that be is working against you. So getting reminders from the people who are on the ground that we’re in this together I think is actually one of the most heartening things you can do.

Karen Farmer:

Thank you so much for sharing that. We spoke to Kelly Jensen earlier today who will be a part of this.

Leah Johnson:

Oh, Lord. Listen to me about this. Kelly has been on that soapbox megaphone in hand for years, and nobody was listening to Kelly when she was over at Book Riot talking about this stuff. Nobody was hearing what she was saying, and now everybody’s waking up. So Kelly, if you’re listening, I just want you to know I see you, I respect the work, and you deserve all the credit because you were really out here trying to wake folks up and they weren’t ready. And now we’re all playing catch up.

Karen Farmer:

Yep. Yep. I can’t wait for her to hear this.

Craig Silva:

I know. I know. She was bummed that we couldn’t find a time that worked for everyone, so I’m sure she’ll really appreciate hearing that message. Yeah, I echo Karen, thank you for sharing that. It’s very topical and hard to… It does sometimes feel hopeless, but I’m glad to hear that it’s not from you, which is great.

Leah Johnson:

I mean, look, what do I know? You know what I mean? I’m just slinging books and writing to the best of my ability, not nearly enough. But there’s this John Green quote that my sister had on a poster when we were kids that I think about all the time. It said, “The world may be broken, but hope is not crazy.” And I think to be a human is to have the need to believe that better is possible. So does it feel that way all the time? No, absolutely not. But I have to believe that we can do and be better for each other, because otherwise, what am I doing? What are any of us doing?

Craig Silva:

Yeah. We like to do this thing where we always somehow put the hardest question right before the silliest question.

Leah Johnson:

Okay.

Craig Silva:

It’s our favorite thing to do. So we end on that and have to do this awkward thing where we say, now we’re going to talk about your Instagram.

Leah Johnson:

Oh, great. Okay.

Craig Silva:

Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

I promised we had a question about your dog.

Leah Johnson:

Right. I was like, I don’t know how Tiny’s going to be involved in this conversation, but I am thrilled about it.

Karen Farmer:

Well, so Instagram story time, basically, it is what it sounds like. We pull up your Instagram and we comb through it to find something that compels us in a way that we would want to ask you a question about it.

Leah Johnson:

Great. Okay.

Karen Farmer:

And Craig has chosen your Instagram picture for this session.

Leah Johnson:

Okay. All right.

Craig Silva:

Okay. So we saw a photo of a very cute dog dressed as a very cute burrito around Halloween time, and that made us start thinking about and wanting burritos.

Leah Johnson:

My baby.

Craig Silva:

So we want to know, what is your burrito order?

Leah Johnson:

Oh, my gosh. Okay. So first of all, let me say this. So the photo in question is my dog Tiny, she’s an old lady. She’s missing all of her teeth in the front, but she still will rip your face off if she thinks you’re disrespecting me in particular, which is I love that about her. I mean, she has gotten in trouble. She is a criminal, but also I do love her. But last Halloween, I didn’t get our second costume here in time, I have two dogs, and so Tiny wore the burrito costume on the grid, and Jessie, my other dog, wore the burrito costume on my Instagram Story. So I do just want to make sure that it’s clear Jessie was also the world’s cutest burrito last year. She just-

Craig Silva:

Didn’t make the grid.

Leah Johnson:

You know what I mean? It was so hard. Anyway, what is my burrito order? You know what? That’s a great question. At Chipotle, I am a bowl girl, but I guess it’s all the same ingredients. So this is what it is, brown rice, black beans, pico de gallo, sour cream, lettuce, cheese, steak as the protein. And then I always top it with the green Tabasco. Don’t bring me the other stuff. That green is the only one I want.

Craig Silva:

100%.

Leah Johnson:

And that’s my order every single time. I have never deviated from that order. And I’ve been to Chipotle hundreds of times. The only thing I’ve ever eaten there. When they asked about the guac, I’m like, “First of all, don’t even speak of that to me. Don’t even bring that up. I’m not even doing that.” And then, “Oh, you want some queso?” “No, I don’t want any queso. That’s not what I came here for.” And I’m never going to go there for that. I know what I want. I know what I want. I know what I’m about. So yeah, that’s my order every time.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome.

Craig Silva:

I love it. Oh, my god. All right. We end every interview asking for book recommendations, what you’re reading, what you think we should be reading. And don’t worry, everyone makes the face you’re making right now when we ask this question.

Leah Johnson:

I’m like, have I read a book? Have I read a book ever in my life?

Craig Silva:

Yeah.

Leah Johnson:

Oh, my gosh. Wow. Hold on.

Craig Silva:

Every time I ask this question, how long until their eyes get really big?

Leah Johnson:

Okay. Oh, my god. Okay. So the book I’m reading right now is called You, Again by Kate Goldbeck, and it is a re-imagining of When Harry Met Sally, but starring two New York bisexuals. Very funny, very smart. I’m really enjoying it. I’m not done with it yet because it takes me about eight years to read a book, but now that I own a bookstore, I get these books early. I’ve always gotten galleys because of blurbs or whatever, but now it’s a little different because genres where people don’t actually care about whether or not I read their book, I can now get them a little earlier. So yeah, I’ve been reading this for the past couple of weeks since before it came out, and one day I’m going to finish it. When is that day going to be? I don’t know.

What else am I reading? I recently read the book Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany. It’s about how fangirls created the internet as we know it. I teach a class called One Direction Will Save the World: The Politics of Fandom. So this was our primary text this semester because we’re talking about the machinations of boybands. So I love that book and would recommend it to anybody who grew up on Tumblr, anybody who loved One Direction, anybody who’s trying to figure out why they’re so obsessed with BTS. You know you love them, but you can’t quite nail down why or how. I would recommend that. So those are my two recommendations: You, Again by Kate Goldbeck and Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany.

Karen Farmer:

That is the best class name also that I have ever heard. That sounds like an awesome class.

Craig Silva:

I want to take that class.

Leah Johnson:

Thank you. I was so excited about teaching this class. So I have this fellowship with Butler University, and I was only supposed to be teaching in the writing program, and then they were like, “Hey, we also need somebody to teach a seminar for first years.” And I was like, “I’m not qualified to talk about anything but the Jonas Brothers. So how can I make this into a semester long course that sounds like somebody’s really going to get something?”

Craig Silva:

That’s the quote of the episode, “I’m not qualified to talk about anything except the Jonas Brothers.”

Leah Johnson:

The only area of scholarship I have is the Jonas Brothers.

Craig Silva:

You need an honorary degree in it.

Leah Johnson:

Yeah. Honestly, I’m waiting for my PhD to show up, but it hasn’t yet. That’s okay. Yeah. So One Direction just was a great organizing principle because they were the internet’s first boyband. You know what I mean? This is not what you asked me, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Karen Farmer:

I love it.

Craig Silva:

No, no. Tangent away. I love it.

Leah Johnson:

One Direction emerged at a time in the aughts where we were just getting a sense of how social media can be used to mobilize and also weaponize our desires. And ugh, the implications, the global implications, wow, never would’ve known, but now you do.

Karen Farmer:

Yep, yep. Oh, my gosh.

Craig Silva:

I’m jealous of these students that get to take this class.

Karen Farmer:

No, I was just thinking that. I’m like, sign me up, please.

Leah Johnson:

Some of my finest work, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m like, I’m burnt out. I’m very, very tired. I also am not equipped to write two lectures a week to talk about this, but it has been, if nothing else, I’m like, I don’t know if they’ve learned anything, but I know, me personally, I’m walking away enriched. So that’s all I know.

Karen Farmer:

10 out of 10.

Craig Silva:

I like that you were like, “I’m writing, I’m also teaching a class. I’m feeling burnt out. You know what I should do is open a bookstore.”

Leah Johnson:

Yeah, I keep thinking about that. I’m like, “Leah, this is your best planning.” But nobody would ever mistake me for somebody who’s good at planning, organizing. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that I did this, but it did. It still surprised me.

Craig Silva:

Well, it seems like it’s coming along beautifully. Can’t wait for the opening day.

Karen Farmer:

Yes. Congratulations on that, and thank you so much, given how busy you are, for taking some time out to talk to us. We are really, really appreciative.

Craig Silva:

Yeah.

Leah Johnson:

Of course. Thank you. I’m really honored that you asked me.

Craig Silva:

Yeah. Thanks for coming on the podcast, and hope the rest of your day is dog free and full of Chipotle.

Leah Johnson:

Yeah, I mean, all I want is my two dogs to behave themselves, and if we can have that happen, then we’re in the clear.

Craig Silva:

I believe in them. I believe in Tiny. Have a good rest of your day.

Leah Johnson:

You too.

Craig Silva:

Bye.

Karen Farmer:

Bye.

Craig Silva:

Well, everyone, thank you so much for listening to the two interviews this week. I hope you enjoyed them. We really did. I learned a ton. I have lots of resources now. I need to go to my library and get a card immediately.

Karen Farmer:

Yes, and you can get them in multiple cities. You can collect them all.

Craig Silva:

Yes, I can be like you. I like to think that you just have a Rolodex of library cards on your desk.

Karen Farmer:

You’re not entirely wrong. I already ran out to my local bookstore Literati and picked up Outrage Machine that Kelly mentioned and have started browsing that. It’s really, really interesting and good. So, highly recommend that resource.

Craig Silva:

I also ran out to my local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith, since we’re giving shout-outs, and picked up You, Again that Leah mentioned. I haven’t started it yet, but I’m very excited to dig into it based off her explanation or synopsis of it.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, and speaking of resources, so I teased that we would talk a little bit about what Libro.fm is doing for Banned Books Week. We have a great landing page. It’s libro.fm/banned, all kinds of reading material on there, as well as a 35% off sale on all of the banned books that we have in our catalog. So check that out, and if there’s anything on there you haven’t had a chance to read, now might be a good time.

Craig Silva:

Thank you for sharing that information, Karen. And now I would like you to share what you are currently reading.

Karen Farmer:

Oh, I am so glad you asked. I’m reading such a good book right now.

Craig Silva:

You act surprised every episode that I ask this question. We end every episode this way.

Karen Farmer:

Just excited. Just excited to talk about it.

Craig Silva:

All right, well, lay it on me.

Karen Farmer:

It’s a brand new book. It is called Hope. It is by Andrew Ridker. And I can’t say enough good things. This is about a family of four that lives in Boston, so you will have a lot of familiar places if you choose to read this book, Craig. Each section of the book is from the perspective of a different person in the family, and it is absolutely hilarious. It’s a very poignant representation of family life. I just can’t say enough good things. The audiobook is also phenomenal. It’s narrated by Rob Shapiro who has rapidly, in listening to this, become one of my favorite narrators. So, highly recommend that. I also just finished the new Joyce Carol Oates short story collection because I love short stories. And wow, is it amazing, one of my favorite short stories. It is actually about a woman named Karen who is a poet living in Ann Arbor, and I couldn’t believe it.

Craig Silva:

When you told me that, I was like, maybe you have a stalker. It was so on the nose.

Karen Farmer:

I would be honored if Joyce Carol Oates was stalking me. That’d be amazing. Yeah. So those are my recommendations. What do you got?

Craig Silva:

Well, first off, I will 100% read that, which you say was called Hope.

Karen Farmer:

Hope: A Novel.

Craig Silva:

I am a sucker for anything that takes place in Boston, both movies, books. I love being like, “I know where that is.”

Karen Farmer:

Okay.

Craig Silva:

And also, big fan of multiple perspectives jumping back and forth. So back to the Booksmith, oh, maybe I’ll go to the library. Oh, you said it’s brand new, but maybe I’ll go check it out and see if it’s there.

Karen Farmer:

You can request it and then they’ll put it on the hold shelf for you with your name on it. It’s a very special experience.

Craig Silva:

Oh, well, this sounds perfect. I have a plan now. So thank you for that recommendation. I just finished a book, it is called The Last Politician and it’s by Franklin Foer. I had read a ton of fiction recently and was needing a palate cleanser in between books. So this book is about kind of Joe Biden’s road to the White House and his first two years in office. If you’re into current politics, you’ll probably really like this book. If you’re not, you won’t. But I found it super interesting. It’s very easy to read. It’s not dense. It feels like an insider’s view into the West Wing. There’s lots of the backroom deals and people showing up at Joe Manchin’s houseboat with a bottle of his favorite scotch to try and schmooze him into voting. It’s a lot of the background information of all these bills and stuff. So for me, it was super interesting, really liked it. And it’s a quick read. It’s not too long. And then the book I just started was actually a recommendation from you on our last episode called The September House by Carissa Orlando.

Karen Farmer:

Yay.

Craig Silva:

I’m only a few chapters in. I’m loving it. It has a very beetle juicy vibe to it. It’s like a horror book with ghosts, but it’s kind of funny, but also scary. I believe either the first sentence or right after, it’s like, “Well, the walls were bleeding again.” I was like, well, I’m hooked. Immediately hooked on this. So thank you for that recommendation. It is a good book as we get into, well, one, it’s September at the time of recording, so I’m enjoying that it’s The September House, and then two, it’s almost spooky season.

Karen Farmer:

Oh, I can’t wait.

Craig Silva:

Me neither. I’ve already started horror books, horror movies, and by started, I mean all year.

Karen Farmer:

Right. I was going to say that’s kind of permanent for you.

Craig Silva:

Yes, yes, a permanent spooky season.

Karen Farmer:

If any of the books that our guest mentioned or that Craig and I mentioned sound compelling to you, I highly recommend checking out a Libro.fm membership. If you haven’t done so already, you can use the promo code LIBROPODCAST and you’ll get two audiobooks for your first month of membership instead of just one.

Craig Silva:

And as always, thank you for listening.