Season 4, Episode 0: #ReadICT 2024 Kickoff Live

January 26, 2024

Sara and Daniel are joined by Suzanne Perez and Beth Golay of the Books and Whatnot podcast to talk about the new #ReadICT 2024 challenge categories. In this special kickoff episode which was recorded in front of a live audience at the Advanced Learning Library in Wichita, KS on January 4, 2024, Sara, Daniel, Suzanne, and Beth talk about what their (reading) plans are this year for each category as well as some titles they would recommend to others participating in the challenge.

This transcript was generated using Otter.ai and was reviewed for accuracy by a member of the Library's Digital Services team before publishing. If you find a transcription error, please contact us with any corrections and we will make those corrections as quickly as possible.

Daniel Pewewardy, voiceover Hello everyone in the year 2024. It's Read. Return. Repeat. with your host, Daniel Pewewardy. And?

Sara Dixon, voiceover Sara Dixon.

Daniel, voiceover Whoo!

Sara, voiceover Whoo! Season four, we made it.

Daniel, voiceover We are back and for this kickoff episode of season four, we're going to do something special today. Back on January 4, we recorded an episode, a live episode at the Advanced Learning Library with our friends at Books and Whatnot.

Sara, voiceover That is a podcast from KMUW, which is our local public radio station, segment of NPR. We did give a lot of really great recommendations. So if you're excited to join us for the ReadICT reading challenge this year, this can be a great episode to get a lot of good book recommendations and build out your reading list. Even if you're not, I mean, we just... we talk about books and we really like books. And so you can trust us. We're librarians.

Daniel, voiceover There was a book that Suzanne recommended about a lady whose husband turns into a shark that I was really interested in. I want to read that so...

Sara, voiceover I'm just really excited for all of the books.

Daniel, voiceover Yeah.

Sara, voiceover Except for... well, we'll get into it. We won't spoil anything. You guys listen to it. Let us know what you think. And welcome to season four.

[music]

Sara I'm Sara Dixon.

Daniel And I'm Daniel Pewewardy.

Sara And so our podcast is Read. Return. Repeat. And it's a ReadICT podcast.

Daniel Yeah, it's our fourth season and we're excited for the fourth season.

Sara Gosh. And thank you so much for that quick interlude. Suzanne, tell us about the challenge.

Suzanne Perez I'm nothing if not gracious.

Daniel What is this challenge?

Suzanne What is this challenge you speak of? Okay, so eight years ago or so, as sort of a lark when I was at the Wichita Eagle, which is another one of our partners in this project, I just thought I had been seeing the sort of adult reading challenges around the internet. And I thought, well, let's just do one here locally, and I made up 12 categories. And that's how it started. And it's sort of grown from there. And basically, the gist is, we now come up collectively with 12 random-ish categories to guide your reading or to help you guide your reading for the coming year. So it's 12 categories for 12 months, you don't have to do them in order. You don't have to do them once a month. You don't have to do them at all. There's no, you know, sort of ReadICT police that are gonna come after you for, you know, what you read. But it's really the idea is just to expand your reading horizons to explore new genres, new authors, new topics, types of books you normally maybe wouldn't read. So that's kind of what it's all about. Yeah. And we joined up at the Library with you, I think on year two. Yeah.

Sara And so we've been partners ever since. And it's been a lot of fun. We've seen it grow. And even recently, we had this kind of monumentous thing happen over on Facebook. Suzanne, can you tell our folks about that?

Suzanne Yeah. So we have a ReadICT challenge Facebook group that about a week ago or two, had about 2800 members, we were very proud of.

Sara Solid.

Suzanne Solid, solid group. It had been growing through the years. And then last week, I started getting lots of notifications that people were wanting to join the challenge.

Daniel We went viral, y'all!

Suzanne Yeah, we went viral. So there was a post by one of the members, Diane Morill, who had posted a picture of a box of books that she had gotten for Christmas from her husband and children. And each, there were 12 books and each one was wrapped up and labeled with a month on it. So she had a book for January, February, March, etc. She, on the ReadICT page posted a picture of this box and said, "Look at this cool thing my husband and kids did for me." That has had, that has now gotten 16 million views or something.

Daniel That's insane.

Suzanne Incredibly -- I mean, just incredible. But at some point, the Facebook algorithm went into action and started suggesting our page to reader types around the world. So now we are up to close to 8,000 members on that group and they're from all over and we're having to explain what ICT is. But they're all in, too. They're from Scotland and Ireland and South Africa and Australia and Canada. And anyway, they'll probably be listening to this podcast so welcome.

Sara We hope. Listen to us, New Zealand.

Suzanne So if you know about us through this recent popularity of the ReadICT challenge Facebook group, you are more than welcome to participate in this challenge. So welcome.

Daniel Do they think it's like, like a combination word of like read and like addict or something?

Suzanne I think that was part of it. They thought it was like read addict. "Read ict."

Sara Silly word.

Suzanne But yeah, ICT is so strange anyway. But then people on the Facebook group started checking in with their airport codes. "Oh, I see. Okay, I'm from Atlanta, ATL."

Daniel That's awesome.

Suzanne So it was very, very fun. It has been fun over there for the past several days and very exciting to watch. And I've been getting a lot of notifications on my phone and able to approve all, thank goodness. So that's what we've been doing.

Sara I know some of our folks have been trying to go through and approve things as well. We've just had so many requests and that's great. Good problem to have.

Suzanne That's been great. So the first thing I think I will do is read off all 12 categories. I know that everyone in this room certainly has seen the new, snazzy new bookmarks we have over there too. And thanks to the Library. These, this year's categories are category one, a book with a map. Two, a book you meant to read last year. Category three, a book about something lost or found. Category four is a collection. Category five is a book by or about someone neurodivergent. Category six is a book set in space. Seven is a book someone told you not to read. Eight is a book with a season in the title. Nine is a book featuring an animal sidekick. Ten is a book with a recipe. Eleven is a book published the year you turned 16. And twelve is a book by an indigenous author, which we'll talk about a little bit later as a nice tie-in to the Wichita Big Read this year in '24.

Sara Absolutely.

Suzanne All right. Any general, any general comments or concerns about the challenge, Beth Golay?

Beth Golay No.

Daniel I just want to clarify --

Suzanne She's all in. I dropped my phone. I apologize.

Sara It's fine, fine.

Daniel Oh, I was just gonna clarify a book set and space is like not Earth, outer space. I know like Earth is in space. That doesn't count. So yeah, I just want to clarify that.

Suzanne Anything not on the Earth.

Beth Don't we say count it for just about anything, though?

Sara General rule?

Suzanne Yeah, you know, general rule, I should really say up front that the threshold, again, there is... no one's gonna hold you to anything. You know, you can... I mean, the categories when we're thinking about the categories, we think about ones that we think can be molded and shaped in a lot of different ways. You can read fiction, nonfiction, middle grade, Y.A. and all these, for these categories. But yeah, there were, there are always people that are like, "Well, you know, this book is set on another planet, but they're not actually floating through space. Does it --" And I'm like, count it!

Daniel So just it's a free space category.

Suzanne Yeah, it is. And then also, I didn't mention that if you're part, if you have a Wichita Public Library card -- no, you don't even, you have to have a card to log on through Beanstack?

Sara You don't have to have a card. And in fact, we have had a few of our new ReadICT members join us on Beanstack so they have a place to log their books. And we welcome it. You will be limited to Wichita to qualify for one of our giveaway prizes because we can't mail it to you, you need to be able to pick it up from one of our branches that are conveniently located around Wichita. But if you want to get in Beanstack and utilize it, go for it. If you have any trouble with it, give us a call or send us an email if you're from overseas and don't want to like, you know, rack up a phone bill. That's fine.

Suzanne So yeah, every month there's a drawing for a fabulous prize if you log your, log your reading into Beanstack.

Sara That's true. I guess I could mention that. We do, we have a bunch of fun, kitschy, little like book lover kind of items. And so every month that you log a book in Beanstack -- and if you read all of your books all at once, and you log them all in January -- you just get the one January entry. If you wait and log them through every single month, then you get all of those.

Suzanne You've got to pace yourself, pace yourself for prizes. Or just keep reading.

Sara Keep logging books. You can log more than one book per category. Really, you make up your own rules is what I'm saying. Right?

Suzanne Very flexible, very flexible.

Sara Very flexible.

Suzanne So we're going to start with category one, which is a book with a map. Beth Golay has done something interesting with her list. You want to explain what you've done?

Beth I have chosen every book for my list this year, I've pre chosen which I never do. We read enough books where we just kind of say yeah, that works in the category. Every single book on my list this year is from James Mustich's 1000 Books to Read before You Die. I'm finally you know, doubling up and doing double duty. I've been wanting to read a book from this book a month since Suzanne and I discovered Mustich's book, and every single one of my 12 books tonight is from this book. That is cool. I can't wait to hear them because I don't know what you picked.

Sara Also, Beth promised to give me 20 bucks if any of my books match her books.

Beth That is true.

Sara I did not pick any of my books from there, but maybe I'm just --

Suzanne I was gonna say no wagering, but apparently there is some. So Beth, why don't you start us off?

Beth A book with a map. Mine is called Map --

[Suzanne laughs]

Beth Collected and Last Poems of Wisława Szymborska. And she is a Polish poet. And she was the 1996 Nobel laureate. And this could also work for a collection, because this book brings together more than 200 of her poems. And she died in 2012. This was published, collected and published in 2015. And I like the challenge of poetry for this one, because, you know, in one regard, it can be a fast read, because I mean, whitespace. But then to really sit down with poem and to read it aloud and to study the enjambments, you can really lose yourself in a few lines. I do not have the book in my possession yet, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm in for. But it is titled Map, and I'm counting it.

Suzanne Got a map on the cover?

Beth I don't know. Has the word map.

Suzanne That's awesome. All right. So mine, what I thought I'd do, for each category, I'm going to mention one book I have read and liked that would count for the category. And then I'm going to talk about one that I want to read. So my one, my book with a map that I would recommend is The Wager by David Grann. It was a Literary Feast pick for us last year.

Sara He was here last year.

Suzanne Yes, he was here at the Library talking about this book. You open it up and there's a map of this course that these explorers took. It's about a shipwreck and mutiny, and it's fabulously researched and written. And David Grann, of course, is the author of Killers of the Flower Moon. Not sure if that one has a map. It might.

Sara It probably does.

Beth I think it probably does, it does.

Suzanne So anyway, that was it. That's the one I would recommend. And then for my book that I want to read that has a map, I just got this one for Christmas. And I opened it up, and there was a map in it. And I was so excited because I didn't know there'd be a map in it. So it's called Fatherland: a Memoir of War, Conscience and Family Secrets. It's by Burkhard Bilger. And I'm just gonna read a little bit about it: "As a boy growing up in Oklahoma, Burkhard Bilger often heard his parents tell stories about the Germany of their youth: winters in the Black Forest when the snow piled up, when Nazis came to power," yada yada yada, turns out someone in his family was an actual -- was part of the Nazi Party. And it's his sort of dealing with everything that comes with that learning about what happened with his ancestors. And you know, just dealing with all of the ramifications of that. So I'm really looking forward to this one.

Sara Sounds good. I actually had to giggle because you "yada yada yada." That's why I was laughing. I was not laughing at Nazis. That's not funny. But that sounds good. It's really interesting. My book for book with a map is literally anything written by N.K. Jemisin. Because I love her and give her. I've talked about her a lot last year. But she's got like, if you want high fantasy, we've got the Broken Earth trilogy, or the... I'm sorry, yeah, the Broken Earth trilogy with like, Fifth Season, and there's an obelisk in the title, but they're like...

Suzanne Obelisk Gate, I believe?

Sara Maybe, maybe? I don't know, they're all three really good. And if you're unfamiliar, and you haven't heard me wax poetic -- can I say that in this context?

Suzanne Yeah.

Sara Anyway, about N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, the first one she wrote -- and we should say she's a woman of color -- and so she wrote this high fantasy book, won a Hugo Award, right? She wrote the second book in the trilogy, won a Hugo Award. She wrote the third book in the trilogy, and it also won a Hugo Award, which is like high praise in the science fiction fantasy community. So wow, I loved it. I don't even like fantasy. I loved it. But if you don't want high fantasy, all of her other books, her latest duology is The City We Became and The World We Make. And those are set in New York, which so there's some realism there. But then on top of that, all of the boroughs are actual personifications like they are... they have avatars that are actual humans. I'm not explaining this very well. But it's so good. It was weird in the best way. And she's just such a great storyteller. I love her. I love her. If we can get her on this podcast, I will lose all of my wits.

Daniel I enjoy her story in a book I'll talk about later. She did one of the collections, I read hers. My book with a map, how many of y'all ever gone on like road trips? Like back in the day we all had books with maps on them and it's all on the phones. And so like when you go on like a road trip, like really off the like, because off the highways there's like always cool stuff, right? And you never know like what to see. I've been using like atlasobscura.com for years to like, find really cool like off the trail hidden things. And they have an Atlas Obscura by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton. I think they like one or two years ago, they just did a revised edition from their 2016 version. I take this book on every road trip I go because your phone never always works. And sometimes loading Atlas Obscura kind of gets hard. So definitely it's a, it's a book that I recommend. I list a lot of audiobooks so I don't know what books have a map in it. But I will say evolution -- was it Devolution by Max Brooks about the Bigfoots attacking the plain community in like Oregon. I was like this, I was like, I bet that book has a map in it so I went and got a physical copy. And it did. Because they talked like so detailed about the area in the book. I was like, oh, there has to be a map. So it's like, this category is tough for me because I listen to all my books.

Suzanne Yeah.

Sara But it just goes to show that you can find a way, right?

Suzanne In the word map.

Sara Yes, absolutely. So category two is a book you meant to read last year. And if you don't have already a stack of these at home, then we're not doing this challenge correctly. What did you have for that one, Suzanne?

Suzanne I have not yet read Heaven and -- the Heaven and Earth -- The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.

Sara Also on mine.

Suzanne It was on every single best books of the year list and New York Times, every... Obama's list, every list I can think of, it was on there. I have it. I own it. Ding ding ding. I just have not read it. So that will be mine.

Sara That's actually on my list too. But I have like a whole bunch of them. I also, The Wager was on mine. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson. I mean, that, there's... I have a lot. I'm always wanting something to read. Beth?

Beth Mine is the William Trevor collection. Also could be another collection. But in addition to this, Adam O'Fallon price is an author who, several years ago started reading every story in William Trevor's collection and ended up writing his own essay. And he, I think he estimated that it would take him three years to get through the collection and write these essays. So in addition to reading the collection, I also want to read Adam Price's essays -- I'm sorry, Adam O'Fallon Price.

Suzanne How many, how many stories are in that collection? Do you know?

Beth I don't know.

Suzanne I know it's thick.

Beth More than 100.

Suzanne More than 100.

Sara Oh, wow. Really? I was thinking like 20.

Beth Oh, it's the complete collection, and it's about three inches thick.

Sara Cool.

Suzanne Beth aims high.

Sara That is that is lofty. Daniel?

Daniel There There by Tommy Orange.

Suzanne Oh, wow. Yeah.

Daniel Like it's a book like -- for the listeners, I'm a Comanche. My dad's Comanche so I'm Comanche. And it's like a book that people have been telling me to read for years ever since it came out because like, I'm an urban Native, and so... I still haven't read it. But it's just kind of like, next to next to Killers of the Flower Moon, it's like the number one book that Native Americans are always recommended. So it's really awesome that people are actually recommending a book by a Native author. So I got what, like, three months to read it? I got, I guess it's on the top of my list.

Sara Three and then some change.

Daniel Three and some change.

Sara No, no, because it's March, j/k.

Daniel So I'm trying to get it read by the Big Read. And then anything by Silvia Grace Marino --

Sara Oh, uh huh.

Daniel Yeah, by Sylvia Garcia Moreno is a book, like I've been wanting to read her books. They seem real cool. There's like, one about Doctor -- Island of Dr. Moreau, Mexican Gothic, Silver Nitrate --

Suzanne You guys heard any of hers? No, I have not.

Sara I've only read the one and then I've heard mixed reviews on some of her others. But I did like the other one. I thought it was fun to read. I read The God of Jade and Shadow. Is that right, anybody?

Daniel I'm not sure.

Sara Audience member giving me a nod. I appreciate that.

Daniel But she like comes up on all my lists and are like, recommend if you like this, and so it's like, I need to read one of those books. I bet I'll like it. Good.

Suzanne All right.

Sara Next up, we have a book about something lost or found. And didn't you find that when you were thinking about this category that you were like, oh, but that book is also about lost and found? But that book is also about lost and found!

Suzanne Yeah, you know, there's all those books that have lost or found in the title or are very clearly about something lost or found. But then if you really start thinking about it, I read a lot of books about found family. So anything about, you know, a lot of middle grade novels are like that. And then as far as -- or like, nonfiction, you can think about books about, you know, discoveries of any sort, you know, any sort of major invention, exploration, things like that. My book that I would really recommend is a book about lost innocence called Mary Jane. I've been raving about this book all year. It's, it's a novel by Jessica Anya Blau. It's about a young teenage girl growing up in the '70s. And she's, she is raised in a very traditional household and she's asked to nanny for the family down the street, who are really, really hippie and sort of sexual revolution types. And a lot of interesting things happen in this novel. It's very well written. Just yeah, highly recommend it. That's called Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau. Again, yeah, think about lost and found in all sorts of ways. It was, this was definitely sort of her coming of age novel. And then for -- this is another one I meant to read years ago is The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb is one that I -- I read Brendan's Slocumb's Symphony...

Beth Of Secrets.

Suzanne Symphony of Secrets this past year and loved it. I want to read his first novel, The Violin Conspiracy, which is all about a stolen violin, right? So he loses it.

Beth Well, it's about --

Suzanne I mean, and other stuff.

Beth It's about a found, yeah, a found Stradivarius. It was found in the attic, nobody really realizes it is this violin. It was given to his ancestors by their owners. So it has a lot of slave, slavery stuff. Yeah, very good book.

Suzanne So that's my want to read for last and found.

Beth Mine is The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson -- Hodgson Burnett?

Sara I don't know, but I love that book.

Beth I've not read it.

Sara My mom used to read it to me.

Beth But I'm assuming there's a garden that was a secret and it will be found -- [chuckling in room] -- so I chose that one.

Suzanne I think you're right.

Sara You are correct.

Beth Is it on your book, is it on your list?

Sara It is not on my book list so it's okay.

Suzanne No $20.

Sara You don't owe me money. But I can tell you that it's classic for a reason. It's beautiful. I love it. So good. Daniel, what about you?

Daniel Mister Magic by Kiersten White. I read that, just finished it. It's about nostalgia and how we kind of forget about like, TV shows as a kid. And this like mysterious TV show that a lot of people remember watching but like never actually aired kind of like a spooky story kind of thing. And it's this girl has, she doesn't remember her childhood. And her father dies and she kind of like starts uncovering what happened when she was a kid and she was actually on the show and it gets weird, gets really weird. And then...

Sara That sounds interesting, though.

Daniel Yeah, it's kind of like a creepypasta if you're into that because there's actually like a creepypasta that's similar and I was like, wondering if this was like a knockoff, but it was like, way more detailed than that. And like way more like a... it was actually like a book with the same kind of premise. And I actually liked it a lot better than like the creepypasta.

Sara What's a creepypasta?

Daniel A creepypasta is a form of internet folklore in which people go on Reddit and try to scare each other. So it's like internet --

Sara That's why I haven't heard of it.

Daniel Yeah, internet ghost stories.

Suzanne I have heard of Mister Magic, though.

Daniel And then The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, which is about to Isabella Stewart Gardner heist, so that's my book to read.

Sara I think I have that --

Suzanne I'm sorry, what was that?

Daniel The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro. If you guys don't know, in 1990, a bunch of guys ran into this museum in Boston and stole like millions of dollars of the art and just like cut paintings out of frames. This like smash and grab and it's like this big mystery kind of like the D.B. Cooper thing. And it's a fictionalized, The Art Forger kind of like, incorporates the actual thing into like a story of fiction. So ponder that for a minute.

Beth I've read it. It's good.

Sara I think I have it here. Maybe one of you can win it later. Oh, wow. Spoilers.

Suzanne How convenient.

Sara So my choice for a book lost or found, I have a few that I could recommend. So I'm gonna go with the I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai. I'm pretty sure this was my one of my favorite books from last year. And it's like true crime, and very much like Serial podcast vibes. But she, and it's all about collective memory too, which was fascinating. So it was like, this woman who, when she was a junior in high school at this private boarding school, her roommate was murdered. And so how does everybody remember what happened and who was, who was the murderer pinned on and was that correct? And so but also like podcast and true crime. But the girl was lost. And also memories were lost. And anyway, it just, it touched on so many different like social things that I found it like riveting, I kept turning the pages. And also I think I read it in like two days. I don't usually read thrillers that fast. It was a great, it was a great novel. It was so good.

Suzanne And also they're trying because it's sort of a mystery, there's a, they're trying to find out what really happened. So they're trying to find the solution to what actually happened to her too. So that's a good one.

Sara It was so good. And then there's one that I did, I did also do as Suzanne did with a book that I want to read. And it's The Future by Naomi Alderman. I think it recently just came out, but she wrote The Power, which was super good. And so The Future is I think some people go missing in that. And apparently you also have to like email for the epilogue so the epilogue is lost.

Suzanne Oh, wow.

Sara Isn't that fun?

Daniel Oh, wow.

Suzanne You know how I feel about an epilogue.

Sara I don't know. How do you feel?

Daniel What are you -- I want the Suzanne hot take on epilogues right now.

Suzanne I tend, I tend not to like epilogues. I think they're cop outs, most of them. You're just like, just end the book. You don't need the epilogue telling me what's happening with them 10 years later. I generally don't like them. Not always. I just am not a fan.

Sara I tend to actually agree with you. I also don't really love prologue. I don't love it. Just get into the story. I'm ready.

Daniel I only want to know like, if the dog is okay. [laughter in room]

Suzanne There's a website I think you can go on.

Daniel Doesthedogdie.com, yes, yes. It has dictated my like Netflix like watching a lot. I'm like, "There's a dog in here. Hold on. Okay, we're not watching the movie."

Suzanne Before we leave this category, I simply must talk about Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. That was another one of my favorite reads. Very, very strange. I love a strange, quirky novel and this was it. It was a debut novel by Emily Habeck about a woman, a newlywed couple and he turns into a great white shark.

Sara Huh.

Suzanne I know it's a weird premise. You just got to go with it. It, they live in a world where things like that happen and people transform into different animals. But it's all about kind of what is love and letting go. And there's just a lot of things getting lost and found in that book. So I really, really loved it.

Beth I do, I want to mention --

Daniel Shark Heart.

Suzanne Shark Heart.

Beth We talked about this in our last podcast because I'm afraid to reread it and I'm afraid it's not going to stand up. But I kept thinking of Shadow of the Wind for this one because of that cemetery of forgotten books that is found. And so I'm going to... it's not in the Mustich tome.

Suzanne It's not? It should be.

Beth But that's one I kept thinking for you know, more, more modern day.

Daniel I have like a nonfiction when I kept thinking of and that's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Suzanne Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one.

Sara The one would be in the 1000 books Sara Dixon believes that you should read before you die. That and The Secret Garden.

Beth I think that's actually -- oh wait, which one? The Shadow of the Wind?

Sara Yeah, Shadow of the Wind. But also I haven't reread it in years. And you're right.

Beth And I think it's Carlos Ruiz Zafón, does that sound right?

Sara Yeah, there's three names. Okay, we're going to move on, though. Any final thoughts on a book lost or found?

Suzanne I don't think so.

Sara Okay. Okay. So next up, we've got a collection. So this could be poetry, short stories, essays.

Suzanne Any kind of collection.

Sara Any kind of collection.

Suzanne So the one I recommend is this one right here, John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed. This could also work for the neurodivergent category a little bit later because John Green himself has OCD and he writes about that in his novel called Turtles All the Way Down. There's a character in that novel with OCD. But this, this is a Beth Golay made me do it book. She really, really loved it. And after I went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get to it. I'll get to it. I'll get to it," and I finally read it, I read/listened to it. He narrates the audio. It's also fabulous. Tearful in many, many places. Laugh out loud funny. Just fabulous. And yeah, I think I remember going to you saying, "Why didn't I read this earlier?" And you were like, "I told you." It was like one of your best books of the year.

Beth And it was one of my best interviews as well. One of my favorite interviews.

Suzanne So he basically takes, John Green is the novelist of Fault in Your Stars and many, many other primarily young adult novels. He's a YouTuber, he's known for a lot of things. But in this collection, they're basically essays on things in the world and he rates them on the five star scale so it can be... yeah, everything from humanity's temporal range to Jerzy Dudek's performance on May 25, 20... you know, it's like musical performances. It's Diet Dr. Pepper, it's teddy bears. It's Canada geese and velociraptors and anything you can think of, he writes about it in such a wonderful, wonderful way and then... I don't know, it's just, it's so hard to describe, but I just this is one of those books I think you could really press into anybody's hands and they would enjoy it.

Beth It's pretty special.

Suzanne Highly, highly recommended. John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed.

Sara Nice. Yeah. Daniel, what about you?

Daniel Out There Screaming, edited by Jordan Peele not Peterson like my autocorrect changed. It's African American horror short stories. I read it during spooky season and it was pretty great. I liked, introduced me to a lot of African American authors and like N.K. Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse had short stories in it. And I really enjoyed it. And then the one that I am going to read because it took me a really long time to get through, because these anthologies get huge and I didn't have enough time to read was Never Whistle at Night: an Indigenous Horror Anthology, edited by Shane Hawk with stories from Norris Black, David Heska Wanbli Weiden -- who we had on Read. Return. Repeat. -- Stephen Graham Jones, and also Afro indigenous author Rebecca Roanhorse who has a book in Out There Screaming.

Suzanne Oh, it all comes full circle.

Sara Full circle. Beth?

Beth I'm still thinking about Stephen Graham Jones --

Sara No problem.

Beth Who is one of the most handsome people I've ever seen in my life. Okay, mine is -- we're gonna edit that out. Oh, we can't, can we? It's gonna be on video forever.

Daniel I'm gonna tell him.

Sara I'm gonna interview him later this year --

Daniel "By the way, Stephen..."

Suzanne She "like" likes you.

Beth Okay, my collection is Ficciones, Ficciones by Borges. He's an Argentinian writer. He's best, you know, he's written in many forms, but he's best known for his short stories. I was first introduced to him when I had to read the short story "House of Asterion" for class and I just love him. I picked up this, a copy of this book at my favorite bookstore in Chicago. And I just, that's my collection. It's on the stack already.

Suzanne I would love to read more Eudora Welty short stories as well. I really want to explore her.

Sara I have a real hard time with short stories.

Suzanne Really?

Sara I think we've talked about this. I just, I need something that like pushes me forward to the next chapter. So I just, I will...

Suzanne Have you considered like have... reading a short story collection amid other things you read, like having one going and when you just have a few minutes to do -- that's what I love about short stories or essays is like it's this just little, you know, sort of magazine length thing that you can read whenever.

Daniel I'm gonna send you some creepypastas later.

Sara Me?

Daniel Yeah. It'll change your opinion on short stories.

Sara It's fine if it's like one. I'm like, oh, reading a short story, that's great. But like when I have to read a whole book of short stories --

Suzanne You don't have to read it all at once is what I'm saying.

Sara I know. Like I want to because if I put it down, I may not get it back. So none of my, none of mine are going to be short stories.

Suzanne I'm just saying slow and steady is a good way to read collections, any kind of collection. Poetry.

Beth Or on the bus.

Suzanne Or on the bus.

Sara There you go.

Suzanne There you go.

Sara Don't let my... not hatred, what would you say?

Suzanne Reluctance.

Daniel Prejudice.

Sara Reluctance to read short stories, you know, color your view of them. They're great, I'm sure.

Beth They really are.

Daniel This is, and the category, it's for a collection, right? So it can be a joke book.

Suzanne Absolutely.

Sara It could be a joke book.

Daniel Like a bathroom reader.

Sara So what I was going to suggest either -- I really like Phoebe Robinson, I did talk about her last year so I'm not gonna go super into it. But hers is a series of essays about her life, her views on the world. She's just, she's hilarious. And, and I love her. So but also, Mindy Kaling has written a couple books that are really good, and those came out a few years ago. So if you didn't get a chance to read those when they did, she's just a delight. And then what I think I'm going to try to read this year is the... Call Us What We Carry, which is a collection of poems by Amanda Gorman. She wrote and read a poem at the inauguration, this last one, and she was like 18, and she just was so vibrant and strong, and it was just amazing that this young person could get up there on a national stage and do this amazing thing. And so she recently put out a book -- well, actually, I think it was two years ago. But I have it and I'm gonna read it.

Suzanne I know, it just seems like we buy these books. It just, it was just yesterday, but oh, it was three years ago.

Sara Yeah. So that's my one collection.

Suzanne That's a good one.

Sara So next, a book about someone or by someone neurodivergent. And let's take a minute to define what this means. I don't have to be the one, I just started talking about it.

Suzanne You did it in our video quite well.

Sara I did do it in the video, you're right. I had a dog in my hand. It was very distracting.

Daniel Neurodivergent is someone who is... that isn't neurotypical, right. So like, maybe someone -- Authors or characters, right. Yeah.

Sara What's neurotypical?

Daniel Like neurotypical is term for people like, who don't have ADD or are on the spectrum or like, things that we have diagnosed that people whose brain and neurological symptoms operate in different ways. So like, I actually have a couple of different afflictions. I have CMT -- Charcot Marie Tooth -- it's a neuropathy. And I also have ADHD and I'm colorblind. So also like, because of that, there's a lot of things that I'm neurodivergent with. And so like, this category is for like authors who would fall in these categories of afflictions.

Sara And really, it's pretty broad. I mean, OCD, ADHD, autism, Asperger's. I'm going to talk about one that is something that I've never even heard of: the Angelman syndrome. Is that what it's called?

Suzanne Oh, I think I know the book.

Sara Yes, you probably know. But anyway, so there's a lot out there. And if you are confused, probably just better count it.

Suzanne Yeah.

Sara That's kind of a lesson here.

Suzanne This category, this genre has really exploded in the last few years, especially in the romance, romance books, there's a lot of neurodivergent romances now. It's just as hopefully in society we become more accepting and more inclusive, it's just really showing up on bookshelves as well.

Daniel I always know where like society is because I'll go to my parents' house and they're boomers and whatever like CBS show they're watching. And so now they're watching a show of like a doctor who is on the spectrum, The Good Doctor, and I'm like okay, so I guess like this is where we're at now with society accepting different things.

Sara Isn't Monk also a TV show about like a detective --

Suzanne House, wasn't he?

Daniel I think every detective is neurodivergent. Like Colombo, like for real.

Suzanne That would be a good thesis for somebody.

Sara You can take it, it's okay. You don't even have to give us credit.

Suzanne Sherlock, that's right.

Sara Sherlock.

Daniel I like all the memes that say like, they're like old people will be like, "Hey, we didn't have people on the spectrum disorder back in my day," is like, says your grandma who collects horses, only wears blue shoes.

Suzanne Cleans the curtains every Thursday.

Sara Well, on that front, Daniel, why don't you tell us about your choice for a book by or about somebody neurodivergent?

Daniel Okay, so I went down the celebrity rabbit hole on this one because I felt like it was like a easy way. First of all, I found out that Billie Eilish is neurodivergent.

Sara Also a vegan, by the way.

Daniel Tourette's. Vegan. And she has a book, it's called By Me by Billie Eilish. By Me, that's name of the book. It's really weird because like, the name of the book is Billie Eilish by Me, so it's Billie Eilish by Me by Billie Eilish, I guess. She's in the title and the author? I don't, I couldn't figure it out if it was called By Me or if it's called Billie Eilish. I saw on different --

Sara Self-titled.

Daniel Self-titled book, yeah. So cool photography book that kind of chronicles the early years of her life with her career startup going into COVID and lockdowns. It was, like she like heavily chronicled her life and is really cool seeing like, all these photos from like, someone coming up. But also today, I discovered that in the... in the fly fishing section, I've Never Met an Idiot on the River by Henry Winkler, who is mostly known as The Fonz. And my friend has been sending me like anytime I'm down, she'll send me like a tweet. And it's Henry Winkler saying something motivational with a picture of a fish he caught. And the dude is like, they're very optimistic. The guy is like, very optimistic and wholesome on quality content on Twitter. And this book from like, 2011 is basically his Twitter account. But and he's, it's great. And it's called I've Never Met an Idiot on the River. But also Henry Winkler has like a biography out right now, autobio, so I want to probably read that next and get the audio version and I hope he reads it. I don't know but love the Fonz.

Sara We got a "he does" from the audience. That's wonderful. Nice.

Daniel Hey!

Sara Hey!

Daniel We're gonna so jump the shark this season.

Sara [laughing] Beth, do you want to talk about what you chose?

Beth Yeah, making a lot of assumptions with this one I chose Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. Or else I'm pretty sure Sherlock Holmes is in here too. So that's my backup.

Suzanne Yeah, that's good. The one I recommend that I read many, many years ago -- I know it's been mentioned for this category -- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. It's told from the point of view of an autistic child, an autistic boy. Very, very well written. The pace I remember, I remember the feeling of the pace of this novel just being super like, you know, just like your resting heart rate went up as you were reading this novel, and it was just... really, really immersed you in sort of the way he thought and felt. And I highly recommend that. I also really recommend a one that I've talked about on our podcast before, Strange Sally Diamond, which is one of my favorite books of 2023 by Liz Nugent, neurodivergent character that you just absolutely fall in love with. She's somewhere on the spectrum. And also, it's set in Ireland. And it's a very, very dark, disturbing story, but one that's really, really good. That's Strange Sally Diamond.

Sara Dark and disturbing, but it's so fun, you guys!

Suzanne Dark and disturbing. Right up my alley.

Sara So one that I read was The Kiss Quotient, and the other two that followed it by Helen Hoang, is that how you say her name? And so in the first two books -- actually, in all of the books, there is someone who is autistic or otherwise on the spectrum. They are a little spicy. So you know, don't pick them up if that offends you, but they are really cute. And the first one is told from the point of view of someone who is autistic, so it... who just wants to, you know, find a human connection somewhere. And so it was just really well done and nice. One that I want to read is Happiness Falls by Angie Kim. It's fairly new, I think. And it's like thriller, because it's about this dad that goes missing with his son, and the son is mute because he has Angelman syndrome, is that what it's called? Yes, Angelman syndrome. And so when the kid comes back without the dad and the kid is covered in blood, they're like, oh, my gosh, what happened? But he doesn't, you know, can't tell them what happened because he can't speak. So I'm sure that based on that premise alone, it sounds fascinating and I can't wait to check it out. And so that's Happiness Falls by Angie Kim.

Suzanne Okay. Going to category six, a book set in space. This is not something I read normally so this is very much stretching my boundaries. I want to read Project Hail Mary. Everyone's raving about Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, author of The Martian. I know I should read it. So I'm going to. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

Daniel Is this his third, is this is the this is the one that just came out, right?

Suzanne Yeah. Oh, well, it didn't just came out. I think it came out maybe last year, a year or two ago. It came out after The Martian. But I think yeah, Project Hail Mary.

Daniel Yeah, I've been seeing ads for that.

Sara Beth, you want to go next?

Beth I don't like books or movies about space. At all. Although The Martian is one of my favorite movies, but he's never really in space for very long in that movie.

Daniel I'm gonna science some stuff.

Suzanne But he's not on Earth.

Sara But isn't he on Mars, which would qualify based on our --

Beth But he's not out of the atmosphere.

Suzanne But he's on Mars, which is our space.

Sara We're saying it's off Earth, so therefore it is space.

Daniel Off-world is the correct term.

Beth It's not in James Mustich's book, so I chose a space that scares me only slightly less and I chose 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.

Suzanne That's very similar.

Beth It's a different space. I also thought, you know, Room by Emma Donoghue, talk about a confined space. There are just different ways you can talk and think about space.

Suzanne That's true.

Sara I love looking at that in different ways. My, that I have read, I mean, if you haven't read The Hitchhiker's series by Douglas Adams, I mean, classic. Pick it up. Just do yourself a favor unless you don't like funny things or joy. [laughter in room] Then you can leave it alone.

Suzanne Joy, obviously do not.

Beth That is in this book.

Sara Is it? Oh, but you didn't choose it. Oh!

Suzanne You didn't choose it! Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

Sara All right. Likewise, A Wrinkle in Time if you haven't read it, classic. But one that I want to read is called Station Eternity: a Midsolar Murder. That sound fun? By Mur Lafferty. So I don't really know anything about it. I just really liked the title and I'm gonna, I'm gonna check it out. I think there's murders, obviously. They're in space.

Suzanne Space.

Sara And it must be mid-solar.

Suzanne Yeah. I'll add something later, after Daniel.

Daniel Like Beth and Suzanne. I never read books about space. I don't, I mean, like, probably can't tell it by looking at me that I would never read a space book.

Sara They have horror books in space.

Daniel I'm just kidding. My top of the book I went with was a book I read over COVID, Dune by Frank Herbert. Obviously classic. Takes place on Arrakis and little bit takes place in space. They fold space.

Suzanne My husband wants to give you a standing ovation right now. His all-time favorite novel.

Daniel We can... yeah, I haven't read any... like I don't know if I'm gonna, like that book is like 800 pages and I don't know if I'm ready to jump into the other ones. I, but newer books that I'm excited to read? So like ever since Disney acquired the Fox franchises, they got Aliens, Predator, they're kind of like pushing those books out and like honestly like they're pretty good like quality, the first one. They've been using the characters from Aliens, the movie, the 1986 movie Aliens, James Cameron's Aliens and doing books with them. I know a Y.A. novel with Vasquez. But the one I'm excited was Lance Henriksen's Bishop character, Aliens: Bishop by T.R. Napper coming out, or just came out, it came out like last month, so I'm gonna read that one.

Sara Okay.

Daniel He's the guy that like is a robot. No one's seen Aliens.

Sara I'm sorry. I haven't seen it.

Daniel "In space, no one can hear you scream."

Sara Well, good thing we're on Earth.

Suzanne One thing I will add, I was at Watermark Books in Wichita on New Year's Day and one of their booksellers was raving about a book called The Six: the Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts. And that just came out. It's nonfiction. She really, really loved it. It was Melissa over there whose opinion I highly respect. It's basically it's sort of a Hidden Figures kind of story, true story about the first women astronauts so she recommended that.

Sara Cool.

Daniel That sounds awesome.

Sara Well, if you guys would indulge us, we're going to take a short little break, take a drink of water. But for our audience and our podcast audience, we have a fun little video/audio clip of some other recommendations from our staff here at the Wichita Public Library. So be right back.

Jenny Hey, it's Jenny here with the Wichita Public Library and I am going to go and take a little walk and find out what our staff is reading or recommending this year for ReadICT 2024. Come join me. Hey, Brett, what are you thinking of reading this year for ReadICT category three, a book about something lost or found?

Brett I was planning on reading a detective novel called Gobbelino London & a Scourge of Pleasantries by Kim M. Watt.

Jenny That sounds amazing. Thank you. We're wondering, what do you recommend for ReadICT category two, a book you meant to read last year?

Charles Well, there are more than a few. But I think the first one that comes to mind, the one at the top of the pile is really Charlie Kaufman's Antkind, which I think I was afraid would be like that movie Antz, A-N-T with a Z, you know, with the voices of Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone, but it's nothing like that, thankfully. And I'm really enjoying it. I'm about halfway through now. So yeah, I think it's been on my night table for a couple of years now to be honest.

Jenny Well, that's better than my TBR list. Thanks. Jaime, our wonderful director. What do you plan on reading for category 12, a book by an indigenous author?

Jaime I'm looking at either poetry by Joy Harjo or rereading Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich. But that's another category. And I really am torn because I need to read Tommy Orange's There There.

Jenny Oh, sounds exciting. Thank you. Hey, Lexi. I hope I'm not interrupting your busy day in the teen room.

[Editor's note: they are the only people in the room]

Okay, wonderful. I was wondering, what are you wanting to read for ReadICT category one, a book with a map? I imagine a bunch of teen books are great for that category.

Lexi We have so many that are good. And actually I just picked up this one that I was wanting to read. And it's Powerless by Lauren Roberts. Map. And yeah, so this is the one.

Jenny Hey Kelly, what are you thinking of reading for ReadICT category eight, a book with a season in the title?

Kelly I would recommend A Winter in New York by Josie Silver. I just finished it and it was amazing.

Jenny Well, there you have it. Lots of good recommendations so far. Stay tuned for more. Back to you.

Sara Thanks, Jenny.

Suzanne That was awesome.

Sara We got another one coming up too. Yeah, they had a lot of fun with that.

Suzanne Yes.

Sara So yeah, let's just hop right back in, don't you think?

Suzanne Yes. Category seven is a book someone told you not to read. Yeah, there's a lot of challenges to books these days. It's not hard to find a title that has been challenged or removed from shelves somewhere. The one I'm going to read is actually one I wrote about in my reporting, it was pulled briefly off the shelves of school libraries right here in Goddard. It's called The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater. I know my friend Sheryl has read this and loved it. I think you actually told me about this last year. But it's, it won a Stonewall Book Award. It's won many, many awards, but it's about LGBTQ, an LGBTQ student and some bullying that goes on and a crime that changes their lives. But yeah, so it was, it was definitely someone didn't want someone to read this book at some point, and I'm gonna read it this year. How about you, Beth?

Beth Mine is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Just because --

Suzanne [laughing] So many people tell us not to read that.

Beth A former college professor came into Watermark when I was working there. And she said, "What are you reading?" And I said Moby-Dick. And she said, "Why?" She told me to skip the fishing chapters. Another one that I thought about putting on here except I don't want to read it. First of all, I should clarify that but I feel like it's one we should read. I really seriously considered Mein Kampf.

Suzanne Oh, yeah.

Beth Everybody should read it as a cautionary tale.

Daniel Nah, I'm good.

Sara I'm all right. Not to use yada yada yada.

Suzanne Yada yada yada, there's Nazis. No, that's a really great point.

Sara You're right. Cautionary tale, but also...

Daniel I was yeah, I was... really, I was thinking of a lot of different books for this, like, should I do books or people literally told me not to read like Mein Kampf or The Turner Diaries or the Satanic Bible? But I'm gonna save a book, I went with The Keys by DJ Khaled. Because when you open it up, it says, "The book they don't want you to read reveals DJ Khaled's major keys to success." And then the book I want to tell you guys not to read is The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo, because she has a whole chapter on books in here and how you shouldn't keep them around your house. So like...

Suzanne Yeah, down with her.

Sara I guess that's the wrong book for this crowd. Don't tell us to get rid of our books, right? For me, I thought I'd take this in a direction where I'll tell you what not to read because it was the worst book I read last year.

Suzanne Oh, wow.

Sara And that was Hell's Half-Acre.

Suzanne Hot take.

Sara Oh, gosh.

Suzanne But maybe it would be a perfect book for someone else.

Sara Yes, absolutely. By all means. I'll even tell you what it's about. It's about the Bloody Benders who are here, they were the first serial killing family. They were really kind of gross. And I feel like that's what they called themselves, right?

Suzanne Yeah, the first serial killing family. It's like some weird --

Sara It's really kind of the only serial killing family, I think.

Beth But were they really family? I mean, I read the book, I interviewed Susan Jonusas for it. But you hated it.

Sara What?

Beth I interviewed the author.

Sara Oh, you did? Oh, don't tell her I said that.

Beth I won't.

Sara I didn't like it.

Beth She's across the pond. Isn't she British?

Sara She's fine. She's fine. But it's about the Bloody Benders and very true crime and, you know, if you like that kind of thing, you could check it out. I didn't like it. That's all I'll say about that. But a book that I really hope to read this year and also one I think that's in my stack here is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas because I have not read it and it is on a lot of banned books lists.

Suzanne Then there's that whole category of books where people are like, do not read this book if you know if you get upset easily or like so many people said do not read A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which is one of my all-time favorite novels now. And it does rip your heart out and tear it to shreds and I can, I totally understand the warnings about it but it was a fabulous book. So you can also think about the category that way.

Sara If you love getting your heart torn out and ripped to shreds --

Suzanne Yes, stomped on and never put back together.

Sara -- for you. Absolutely sounds great.

Suzanne It was fantastic.

Daniel My other one for this was Bret -- anything like Bret Easton Ellis because I feel like his fans have a love-hate relationship with him and they always like, they read his books but they also hate his books. And they're like, "No, don't read it, don't read it, it's a waste of time."

Sara Is that American Psycho? Yeah, and like Art of Attraction or Rules of Attraction.

Beth I was just going to say David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest.

Daniel Like, I feel like people, I feel like the people that read those books are also like, not like they know it's like arduous to read or whatever and it's like not for everybody. So that's because all my friends that are Bret Easton Ellis fans, I'm gonna read one finally.

Sara Do it. I'll tell you not to read it, then you can count it.

Daniel Cool. Yeah.

Sara So next up, we've got a book with the season in the title.

Suzanne I have for many, many years wanted to read Empire Falls by Richard Russo and it has fall in the title and this is gonna be the year that I read it. I love Richard Russo. I love his other novels I loved... yeah, I mean, Nobody's Fool is one of my favorites, but I've just never read it. So Empire Falls is going to be mine. The other one that I've heard great things about -- hope it's not on anyone else's list -- Last Summer on State Street, which came out last year by Toya Wolfe. That was highly recommended to me, too.

Beth There are like 10 books in this that have a season in it. Like Boys of Summer or things... I mean, so lots of different genres as well. I chose Winter's Tale by Isaac Dennison. Isaac Dennison is the pen name for Karen Blixen. She was portrayed by the actor Meryl Streep in the movie Out of Africa. And so this is her book. It's, it's... Isaac Dennison is a woman and this is her book. It's a collection of haunting Gothic tales.

Suzanne Wow. Okay.

Sara That sounds like it might be up my alley. I get you.

Daniel How about you, Sara? What are your picks?

Sara Okay, thanks, Daniel. So one that I did read, but I can't really remember many of the plot points because it was years ago -- and I remember really liking it -- and it was Winter People. I would recommend reading this one in the fall when you're ready for spooky season. Because there's some ghosts, I think and like people mysteriously go missing. So also lost or found. But it was really good. It's by Jennifer McMahon. And I have liked several of her other books, but Winter People. And then the one that I want to read is actually by a local author. We had her on our panel for Local Author Day last year, and it's The Longest Autumn by Amy Avery. And so that one's going to be kind of fantasy. I looked it up, it says it just came out I think this month actually.

Suzanne She's actually going to be at Watermark this month.

Sara Oh, perfect. It's just coming out. So it's about like human who has to escort this god of... or autumn, no, the human and the god of autumn. And they go through this like journey and they go through this enchanted mirror. And then they get locked and stuck in the human realm and they can't get back and like all of the... because autumn has to go and bring autumn to the world. And so anyway, it sounds really good. And I'm excited to read it and support one of our local authors. It's great.

Daniel It's awesome and it sounds like Spirited Away so like, like, the whole idea of elementals and stuff.

Sara Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Did you go yet, Daniel?

Daniel No, I have not.

Sara Why don't you tell us?

Daniel So I was like this could be inventive, right? Doesn't have to be winter, spring, fall, summer, whatever. You could do like different seasons, like you know, like, if you're single you know about breakup season and you know about cuffing season. And I'm like, I looked up, I'm like there has to be a book called Cuffing Season and there's like five and they're all bondage like Fifty Shades of Grey books. And then there was a book about breakup season but I guess it was like an Alaskan detective novel because I guess when the ice thaws, they call it breakup season. I can't remember the name of that author. Honig, I think it was her name like or like something like that. And it's about like indigenous Alaska. It's kind of like that one looked interesting, but my actual real books are Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden -- we had him on the podcast -- it's a great detective novel if you're into like mysteries. Also, R.A. Salvatore has the Neverwinter Nights saga. I ended up accidentally like listening to an R.A. Salvatore book because he writes books that take place in the Dungeons and Dragons universe. And Audible gave you a book that like they had celebrities read and Ice-T of all people is like reading a Dungeons and Dragons short story in this collection of like The Legend of Drizzt who is like this character that is like all the R.A. Salvatore books take place. And everyone says Neverwinter is one of the better sagas and so --

Sara Oh, is that the graphic novel you sent, you showed me?

Daniel Which one?

Sara Oh, nevermind. That's for another one, just kidding.

Daniel Now, that's for my that we'll talk about, but those, The title is, the first one is Gauntlgrym and that's Neverwinter, Charon's Claw, The Last Threshold. It's very nerdy stuff, but I was like, I'll check it out.

Sara There's a book for everyone out there.

Suzanne Yeah, someone on the ReadICT board mentioned that she's going to be reading Love and Saffron for this because there's a seasoning in the title.

Daniel Season... ah, that's clever.

Sara Right? Yeah.

Suzanne I said count it.

Sara I mean, why not? Right?

Suzanne It's a good book too, by Kim Fay.

Sara Okay, what's next? We got category nine. That's going to be a book featuring an animal sidekick.

Daniel We should have brought our dogs.

Sara My dog would have hated that because she's very scared. Beth, what does our tome there have for animal sidekicks?

Beth My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerley. It's one of the first books of that like the "me and my dog" genre. And what I found interesting is that --

Suzanne The Marley and Me genre?

Beth Yeah. E.M. Forster was one of the early readers of this book and he said that "Tulip demanded recognition as a creature of her own right, as a dog of dogdom, and not as an appendage of man."

Suzanne Oh.

Sara That's right.

Suzanne My Dog Tulip.

Sara Better recognize Tulip.

Beth Is it on your list?

Sara No, it's not. I was waiting. I was like, no, that that one. Didn't quite catch it. Daniel, I'm gonna let you go first because I feel like we have a couple in the same category here.

Daniel All right, I'll just do one so we don't have any crossover. But I'm just gonna say my favorite fictional animal is this cat that's like a giant hairless Sphinx lion cat. And it can speak. It says one word. And it says it could tell you if it's lying. It's from Brian K. Vaughan's Saga. It's a graphic novel series. I think they're working on like a show for HBO or Netflix. It's just like really whimsical, like this fantastic world that like doesn't make sense. It's like a story of like, these two warring races. One people are people with wings and one people are people with antlers. And they don't mix but they had a baby together like the main characters did and they were like --

Sara Star-crossed?

Daniel So like everybody is chasing them. And like Brian K. Vaughan also did Paper Girls, which is an awesome... he's like one of the best graphic, comic book writers out there right now. And yeah, if you like weird fantasy stuff, like check out Saga by Brian K. Vaughan.

Sara Okay, I wasn't gonna choose that one. So yeah, Suzanne, you want to go next?

Suzanne Okay.

Sara I don't care.

Suzanne One that I've read long ago. And love is Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. It's a nonfiction book by Steinbeck about his travels across America with his poodle, Charley. It's fantastic. One I want to read this year is actually a nonfiction book called An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms around Us by Ed Yong. It's basically just how animals, how animals see the world. And I hear great, great things about this book. And I just got it on sale. And I'm excited about it.

Sara It is so good.

Suzanne You've read it?

Sara It took me all year because I tried to get the audiobook and I don't listen to audiobooks very fast. So I checked it out. I listened to a lot of it, like, checked it out again, checked it out a third time, I got all the way to the last chapter. And of course, you know, I had to wait because there's hold lists, which is why it took me all year. And so I finally just checked out the book to read the last chapter so that I... and then I got to see the pictures, too. But he reads the audiobook and he has a very soothing like British voice.

Suzanne Well, I hear such wonderful things about it. And I need to read more nonfiction.

Sara It was so cool. It's like, it was just fascinating to hear how other animals experience the world. Yeah.

Suzanne Okay, I feel good about my choice.

Sara Yeah, very good. Mine are all fiction. My ones that I've read that I really liked with animal sidekicks, you've got Starter Villain, which just came out by John Scalzi. We did get to interview him for the podcast. I can plug it because it's our podcast. And so they've got spy cats, cats that are spies that can type on computers. It's great. And weird, but fun. Very much Douglas Adams vibes. So if you liked Hitchhiker's, or any of Douglas Adams -- did Douglas Adams write anything other than Hitchhiker's?

Daniel And dolphins.

Suzanne I don't know.

Sara Is he in your book?

Suzanne He's probably in there. Beth'll look it up for us.

Daniel I want to say a book I do want to read this category is that Shark Heart book Beth was talking about. Like her husband turns into a shark, what's that about?

Suzanne It's great. It is. There are other animals in there too. But yes. And Remarkably Bright Creatures. A lot of people read that last year, or last two years and loved it. Which had an octopus, yeah as a narrator.

Sara One I want to read is Fourth Wing.

Suzanne Oh, yeah.

Sara I'm gonna say that because I'm pretty sure it has a dragon and like the dragon is the sidekick, right?

Suzanne Yeah, there are dragons.

Sara It's been checked out. And it's taken me months to get it. So it could also be a book that I meant to read last year. And I believe it's also got a map. So it could be a map, book with a map. So I see some nodding from the audience. I'm just saying you could read Fourth Wing and apply it to any of the categories.

Suzanne All kinds of categories.

Sara I'm sure there's something lost and found in there too.

Suzanne Oh, yeah. Probably.

Beth If you have yet to read Lessons in Chemistry, I mean, Six-thirty's the best --

Suzanne He was the best character in that book.

Beth Yeah.

Sara What's the dog's name?

Beth AND Suzanne Six-thirty.

Beth Yeah.

Sara I want to read that. That is on my, that's on my to-read list too. Okay. We are all the way to category 10, yes! A book with a recipe. I love cooking so I can't wait for this category.

Suzanne I'll go. It does not have to be a cookbook. It can be, there are all kinds of books in this category. I would highly recommend Taste by Stanley Tucci. The audio is fantastic.

Daniel Love Tucci.

Beth Who doesn't? Whoo!

Suzanne Yes. Would you have anything to say about Stanley Tucci, Beth?

Beth No.

Suzanne Stephen Graham Jones and Stanley Tucci? It is fabulous. It does have some recipes --

Daniel We're learning all about Beth today!

Beth He can make me a negroni any time.

Suzanne It's terrific as memoirs go and foodie books go. But the one I'm going to read this year is another "Beth made me do it." It's Search by Michelle Huneven. It's a novel about a committee, a church committee looking for a new pastor. But in the back there are recipes for things, dishes that were served at their committee meetings. And there are actual recipes in this book. So I'm looking forward to it.

Beth You guys remember the Diane Mott Davidson books? I mean, I don't know if she's still writing.

Sara What are the titles? The author sounds familiar.

Beth They were just like cozy mysteries where this caterer would always stumble upon these dead bodies, and then she'd have to figure it out. And I think her, the main character's name was Goldy Schulz or something like that. But she would include recipes, and I would make those recipes. They are so good. But that's not what is on my list.

Sara I'm gonna guess those are not in the --

Beth No, they are not.

Sara -- books you should read before you die. Another one, like long-standing series are going to be the Joanne Fluke series.

Beth Oh yes, yeah.

Sara Like all of these, like Blueberry Cupcake Murder or something like that. I mean, throw any fruit and sweet together and add murder at the end.

Suzanne How to write a cozy mystery.

Sara But I feel like she had a lot of recipes in those books. Okay, now you may continue with your real choice.

Beth I didn't think I was going to find one in this category in this book. But in the 11th hour, I found Clementine in the Kitchen by Samuel Chamberlain. It was published in 1943. And this is Chamberlain's memoir of Americans eating well abroad and at home. And it includes an assortment of traditional French recipes.

Sara That actually reminds me of the -- which I did not even think to include here, silly me -- but Foods of a Younger Nation, which I'd have to look up the author, but it came out a few years ago. And it was like a collection put together by the WPA. And they went around to all these different like regions and interviewed people on what they would make. And I think it had these weird recipes in it. And I remember I had a book club and we tried to make the recipes, but they were basically I mean, what people would put together when they were rationing things so they didn't have, you know, all of the wonderful ingredients for flavor. It was for protein and sustenance and it might look like a congealed mess, but darn it, it was gonna get you fed. So anyway, it was called Food of Younger Land. And I may have that description completely false, but it was really good.

Suzanne Food of a Younger Nation you said. Is it land?

Sara I don't remember. If you type it into a search engine, it will probably come back.

Suzanne Food of a younger --

Sara I think the author's first name is Mark.

Daniel I'm all about like, cookbooks that are like regional and local, like we grew up with like when I was a kid -- I'm from Oklahoma. And we grew up with the county assessor's office, like book that they've been doing for generations. Like I have a great grandmother that has a recipe in there. Kind of what they did, they go around. And like, suspiciously -- I won't say her name, but famous chef also from Oklahoma has a lot of similar recipes. Okay.

Sara She's stolen from your grandma?

Daniel No, from the county assessor. Public domain, she's more than right to take those recipes. But I don't, I never figured out that like... it's like a cherish book and did like a 100th anniversary for the centennial of Oklahoma. But does Kansas have anything like that?

Sara Not familiar.

Suzanne Not that I know of, but that would be cool.

Sara We do have a whole lot of cookbooks and our special collection.

Suzanne And so many cookbooks are good reading. I mean, there's --

Sara Yes, agreed.

Suzanne There's a lot of cookbooks. Salt Fat Acid Heat was a great --

Beth It's in here.

Suzanne Great. It is? That's a great book! And then there are so many. Yeah, there are just so many cookbooks. Dinner: a Love Story is one that I really, really love because you get the recipes intermingled with sort of family life and, you know, creating your, you know, just sort of centering your family around the table and just yeah, there's lots of... oh, Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin is fantastic. So anyway, a lot a lot in this.

Daniel But I didn't, I went ahead and this is a repeat for my selection.

Sara Okay.

Daniel The Keys by DJ Khaled is a recipe for success book. At the beginning of the cover he tells --

Suzanne The one they told you not to read.

Daniel "The book they don't want you to read reveals DJ Khaled's major keys to success" and he has a list of the recipes that I want to share with y'all. "Stay away from they, secure the bag, respect the code, believe in the hustle, and win win win no matter what."

Suzanne That sounds like good advice.

Sara Classic. Thanks, DJ Khaled.

Daniel DJ -- We the best!

Sara Win, win, win.

Suzanne All I do is win.

Beth I also, I need to clarify. I lied that Salt Acid Heat --

Suzanne That one's not in there?

Beth This one is Flour Water Salt Yeast.

Suzanne Really?

Beth Yeah.

Suzanne Flour Water Salt Yeast. Is that a cookbook?

Sara It's just bread.

Daniel Is that like the ratio guy? The ratio book's really clever. Have you ever heard of that one? It's like he breaks everything down by ratios and shows you how easy it is to make things and how it's all about science. I can't think of who wrote that.

Suzanne Like Water for Chocolate. Does that have recipes in it too?

Daniel What'd you put, Sara? I went to Koreatown in LA this summer and they have H Marts there and my phone charging cable broke and I went to H Mart and they did not have a charging cable and I had to go to Office Depot. I did not cry in H Mart, though.

Sara One that I was actually going to, the one I want to read is the Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Probably didn't say that right. But it's about this Korean American woman who spends a summer I think in Seoul with her grandmother and her mother are making all these recipes in the kitchen and eating food. And then I believe her mother passes away. And so to work through her grief, she starts going back through the recipes and recreating them. And so Crying in H Mart because H Mart was a Korean grocery store in her neighborhood. But anyway, it was, so it sounds really good. And it was on my to read last year. Good.

Daniel But now want to read it because I was like, I almost cried. I relate to this heavily.

Sara I think it's a little bit different: grief over a phone cord, grief for a lost family member. But you know, Daniel, you know, who's to tell you? Did anybody not go?

Suzanne I think we did. I think we all did.

Sara Did we all get to share? Okay, we're getting, we're rounding off with category 11.

Daniel I can start because I know this one dates you and tells you how old you are so --

Suzanne That's all right.

Sara We're okay with it. We've decided we're okay with it, right?

Suzanne A book published the year you turned 16.

Daniel We were all 16 in 2001. We can all just go pick a book from that year. I'll go ahead. So 2001 is when I turned 16, I believe. I hope I did the right math on that. American Gods by Neil Gaiman is a book I would recommend.

Suzanne Oh, what a great book. That's so good.

Daniel And a book that I haven't read yet but I might read but probably won't is The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, since he's like the great American novelist and I haven't read any of Franzen yet.

Suzanne Yeah.

Sara I had to read him in high school -- not high school, but college class and I was like, eh, Jonathan Franzen, won like some awards, whatever. I'm not going to tell you what year they were published. If you care that much, you can look them up. [Daniel laughs] The one like Harry Potter, the second book, Chamber of Secrets came out the year that I turned 16. I did not start reading them until I was well into college. But then the one I want to read a Stardust by Neil Gaiman because I loved that movie, it's so good. And so I've never read the book, I should read it.

Suzanne I didn't, guess I didn't realize Neil Gaiman was that old. He's not, you're just young, really young.

Sara I don't think that's true.

Daniel There's a lot of Harry Potters.

Sara But thank you for thinking that I could be.

Suzanne You are, you're younger than us.

Daniel I have like three JK Rowling books to pick for my year because like Fantastic Beasts came out and like the rules of Quidditch came out that year too, like those like supplementals.

Suzanne So I turned 16 in 1984. The '80s are an interesting year for publishing, interesting decade for publishing. But The Witches of Eastwick came out that year. I've never read it. Love the movie. Empire of the Sun is another one of my choices. Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy. And Boy, the Roald Dahl autobiography, which is what I will probably try to read because I got a copy of it the other day just for this challenge. So that's what I'm reading.

Beth The Book of Genesis came out when I turned 16.

[laughter in room]

Sara Not the Exodus or like one of the later ones?

Daniel Genesis.

Beth Mine, I turned 16 in 1983 and I chose Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee. He also is another Nobel laureate, and I am a fan of his. I mean, he had a book come out just a few months ago called The Pole, which is about this Polish composer who has so many Cs and Zs in his name, nobody can pronounce it so they just call him the Pole. He wrote a book called Foe which is reimagining Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. And this one has been on my list, The Life and Times of Michael K. And yeah, that's all.

Suzanne That's a goodie.

Beth Yeah. I'm excited.

Sara All right.

Suzanne Well, and there is a link on the... I think Jenny actually shared a link on the Facebook post, Facebook page, where Wikipedia sort of has done the work for you and you can you can look at... it's there on the page, but you can look up novels, American novels from all the different years and then you can sort of winnow that down to debut novels, other books published that year. It's very handy. She came across that and shared it.

Sara Great, that'll be a good resource.

Suzanne But otherwise, just Google books published in whatever, whenever you turned 16.

Sara I think I went to Goodreads and it was like books published in that particular year. I guess I'm the only one that didn't share. Mmm, too bad for you guys.

Suzanne You said the Harry Potter book.

Sara I did. You can look up the year that it was published.

Suzanne Oh, share your year, yes. Okay.

Sara Okay. final category, you guys.

Daniel 1978. Just kidding.

Sara No, no, no.

Suzanne Wow, you age well, Sara.

Sara Category 12, we're moving on, is a category by an indigenous author. So this does not have to be, you know, First Nations of America. This could also be indigenous Canadian or indigenous Australian. There's a lot of areas that have indigenous populations that you could choose a book from. And so we did this to tie in with the Big Read, which is coming up in March of 2024. We're gonna do March and April. I think I can announce that... well, I'll tell you the book is There There by Tommy Orange. And we are actually bringing Tommy Orange to Wichita with our partners Watermark Books. And that's going to be April 26. So I think that's right. Is that right? That's some scoop tonight. So anyway, I hope you guys can join us for that. It's gonna be really, really good. And I hope you really liked the book. If you haven't read it, there's your choice. If you have, there's plenty of other indigenous authors that we can offer you. Who wants to go first? Shout it out.

Suzanne I highly recommend Braiding Sweetgrass. I read it a couple years ago, it was, it's indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I can't believe how many nonfiction books I'm recommending tonight. That's weird for me. I am also very interested and intrigued by Wandering Stars, which is Tommy Orange's new novel that's out in February. So I believe we're going to try and tie in with Literary Feast for that, and do sort of an all Tommy Orange all the time, March or April.

Sara That sounds great. I'll come to that. Mine are, well, one that I have read is Winter Counts by David Wanbli -- no, David Weiden Wanbli Weiden.

Daniel You missed a "Heska" in there. Yeah, that's fine, though.

Sara We'll put it in the show notes because I just messed up his name.

Suzanne Oh yeah, there's gonna be, there's been going to be a list here.

Sara But we did an interview him for the podcast, as Daniel had said earlier, and it's a murder mystery. It's on the Lakota Nation reservation, and they even hit Carhenge. It's really --

Daniel It's a cool book.

Sara It's a cool book. It's fun to read, you know, if murder and trauma is okay with you.

Daniel I think the second installment comes out this year. I think that's what I, when we were looking it up, they said 2024 is when the next one will drop. So hopefully it comes out soon.

Sara So you have time to read the first one, if you so choose. The one that I want to read though, is The Removed by Brandon Hobson. He is the, it's going to be with the Cherokee Nation. And so this family dealing with grief, their kid dies, they have this bonfire coming up. And that also coincides with some Cherokee Nation national holiday, but also the death of the son. And I think it starts to blend between like what's real and what's spiritual, and all these different things. And it sounded really, really cool. And so I would like to read it. I'm sure that I messed that up. But yeah, that's it. That's all I got.

Daniel Can I go, is it cool? All right. Awesome. So for a book that I read I didn't know he was indigenous when I read it, but I loved his books and then I saw recently that he was indigenous, but it's, he had indigenous characters in them. But Daniel H. Wilson wrote Robopocalypse. And then there's Robogenesis. He's from Tulsa, Oklahoma. And his books are like science fiction. It's kind of like World War Z, the Robopocalypse, where it's like an oral history of the robot uprising. So if you have read World War Z, which is kind of presented in the Howard Zinn framework of like, different accounts from different people, it's a great book, I like it. I've been waiting for the movie for years. Way back, the book came out during Ready Player One, like at the same time, and I'm not to trash on like Ready Player One. But like Ready Player One is just hey, you remember the '80s? But like Robopocalypse is like a book that actually tells a story and things. And then for books I want to read is like we're in like this Native author renaissance. And a lot of these books that people are reading by indigenous and Native authors are all books that are like, within the last 10 to 20 years. And I was like, I'm gonna read some of the old like classic pieces of Native American literature. And the first one was N. Scott Momaday, because he's from the, he was born in the same hospital I was in Lawton, Oklahoma. And The Way to a Rainy Mountain is a book. And it's like a story of him going home and it's told from the voice of his father, the ancestral voice of the Kiowa oral tradition, and then the third voice that he tells a story is a story from personal reminiscence through his own voice. And then Vine Deloria's Custer Died for Your Sins, which I've been reading, it's very kind of like from 1968 or 9. And it's kind of just like this book that kind of for the first time a lot of people saw Native Americans outside of a historical context was reading Custer Died for your Sins by Vine Deloria it's like very classic. It's a GOAT Native American written novel. So I'm excited to finish that one.

Sara Yeah, Daniel. And that came up in Winter Counts, right? And so yes.

Daniel It also comes up and Kliph Nesteroff's We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, not written by a Native author, but about Native American comedians. So yeah, it's, it's been referenced a lot.

Sara Does it also... well, that's okay.

Daniel It's a collection of essays.

Sara We'll keep going.

Daniel We'll keep going.

Beth Mine is Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon, alleged Osage. And what I like is Mustich says, "Pick up Blue Highways when you have the urge to read and nothing particular on the top of your list." So I might not get this one done. I don't know, we'll see. [laughter in room]

Suzanne That's high praise. Read this if you have nothing else better to do. William Least Heat Moon. Didn't he write --

Beth PrairyErth.

Suzanne Yeah, PrairyErth, right?

Beth But it's not in the book.

Suzanne Oh, interesting. Okay, Blue Highways. All right.

Sara Did you have one still to go or?

Suzanne No, I said Braiding Sweetgrass.

Sara That's right, you did.

Suzanne Wandering Stars.

Daniel I'm assuming The Rock has a book. I've been, I watched the movie The Iron Claw about the wrestlers. And the Rock is part of a giant Samoan wrestling family. And I was like, I wonder if they have books about this because I'm interested in that like dynamic of like family that like wrestles and multigenerational. I don't know if that exists, but I'm gonna see if it does.

Sara If it does, let you know. Stay tuned for more where we might interview The Rock. No, we won't. I'm just kidding. But we do have one more little video that we would like to share with you or clip from our staff. They went around and shared a few extra recommendations. So hopefully you've got, you know, you haven't filled out your list already. And let's roll that.

Ian Hey, this is Ian at the Wichita Public Library. And I'm here tracking down some of my co-workers to see what they are reading or recommending for this year's ReadICT challenge. Hey, Zo, so what's your pick for category 11, a book that was published the year you turned 16?

Zo Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow.

Ian Okay, and then what year was that?

Zo Nice try.

Ian Hey, Alicia, what is your pick for category nine, a book with an animal sidekick?

Alicia Definitely Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert.

Ian All right, thank you.

Jenny What are you recommending for category for a collection?

Erin That's a good question. Like a collection of stories?

Jenny It can be stories, essays, poetry, diary entries, whatever you make of that.

Erin I have, I think I've got one for fans of the creepy and the sci-fi and a little bit edgy, I would recommend Speculative Los Angeles, edited by Denise Hamilton. It's a collection of 14 different short stories. They're all set in different neighborhoods in Los Angeles. And they're all very interesting and/or unsettling in their own right.

Jenny Ooh, that sounds good. I actually lived in LA for four years so I'll have to check that out.

Erin Absolutely. Yeah, if you've liked the Akashic Noir series, the noirs that are set in the different cities, this is their new project. They're doing speculative fiction. So if you're not sure what it is, this is a great time to jump in and see if you like it.

Ian Hey, Brenda. So what's your pick for Category five, a book by or about someone neurodivergent?

Brenda Happiness Falls by Angie Kim.

Ian Cool, thank you.

Racine Hi, I'm Racine and my recommendation for book category 10, book with a recipe in it, is Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Oh, that's so good.

Ian All right. Well, those are our staff recommendations. If you're looking for more recommendations, go ahead and head to our website at wichitalibrary.org. And back to you guys.

Suzanne All right. I think that is a lot of recommendations. We will have more throughout the year.

Daniel So many books.

Suzanne I know you guys talk about recommendations throughout the year as well. If you weren't taking notes tonight, that's okay. We are going to have a very inclusive list of all the books that were mentioned today. And we just want to thank you for coming out. Thank you so much for participating in the challenge.

Sara Absolutely.

Daniel We the best!

Sara Yay for you!

Suzanne Yay books!

Sara, voiceover And that's a wrap on our kickoff episode. It was so fun.

Daniel, voiceover Yeah.

Sara, voiceover We discussed books with our friends, Beth and Suzanne. And it was just so many book recommendations. So if your brain is full --

Daniel, voiceover Check them show notes. Check them show notes. Yeah, I'm really excited for season four. We're gonna have like, we have, you know, more episodes playing all throughout the year, there's gonna be, we're gonna have more great guests. And we're doing a little bit of some different types of episodes, right, Sara?

Sara, voiceover Yeah, we're gonna try to bring in a few little mini episodes where we have our podcast team come on and just talk about book trends. What we're reading, just kind of keep it really easy and simple, but have more fun with it.

Daniel, voiceover Yeah, it's gonna, it'll be a lot more fun. And I'm kind of excited to get Ian and Jenny to talk about things. If you guys remember Ian from the short stories from season two and Jenny from doing promotions throughout the last two seasons, yeah, that's --

Sara, voiceover And book recommendations throughout the last several seasons. So yeah, they've been really integral to behind the scenes and so now we're gonna bring them out so that they --

Daniel, voiceover Kind of have a chit-chat about books.

Sara, voiceover Heck yeah! But yeah, it's gonna be great season. Stay tuned. Also, if you are interested in more in-person stuff, we have book related events throughout the year: book swaps and different ReadICT related events.

Daniel, voiceover So make sure, yeah, to check wichitalibrary.org/events for more information about upcoming events.

Sara, voiceover Absolutely. Okay, let's get on to those credits. So as we said before, a list of the books discussed in today's episode can be found in the accompanying show notes. To request any of the books were heard about in today's episode, you can visit wichitalibrary.org or call us at (316) 261-8500.

Daniel, voiceover A big shout out to Suzanne and Beth from Books and Whatnot and also to KMUW for helping us put the show on. This has been a production of the Wichita Public Library and a big thanks goes out to our production crew and podcast team.

Sara, voiceover To participate in the ReadICT reading challenge, please visit wichitalibrary.org/readict. You can stay connected with other ReadICT participants -- which blew up at the end of 2023 -- on our ReadICT challenge Facebook group. You can find out what's trending near you, post book reviews, look for local and virtual events, and share book humor with like-minded folks. To join the group, search #ReadICT challenge on Facebook and click join.

Daniel, voiceover And don't forget to log your books in the reading tracker app, Beanstack. Each month you log a book in the challenge, you're eligible to win fun prizes. If you need any assistance signing up or logging books, give us a call, reach us on chat, or stop by your nearest branch.

Sara, voiceover You can follow this podcast on the Spotify app or stream episodes on whatever platform you listen to podcasts. If you like what you heard today, be sure to subscribe and share with all your friends.

Daniel, voiceover Bye.

Sara, voiceover Bye.