Jul 10, 2018
Y'all. It's been a minute (or, ya know, 8 months). But we're back with a brand new episode featuring Julia Turner and Christen Thompson Lain, the founders of Itinerant Literate, a mobile bookstore in Charleston, SC.
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In which a local coffee shop assists in alcohol acquisition, we want more spaceships and dragons, and a book brings Emma to tears.
Christen and Julia were given some free beer from their local coffeeshop, Orange Spot Coffee: Stillwater Artisinal's Stateside Saisan and Sake-Style Saison. As our cocktail for the evening, we're drinking the Lime of the Ancient Mariner from Tim Federle's Tequila Mockingbird.
War Storm by Victoria Aveyard
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka (audiobook via Libro.fm)
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Monsoon Mansion by Cinelle Barnes
Daphne by Will Boast
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Julia & Christen are Excited About
The White Darkness by David Grann (pubs Oct 30, 2018)
There There by Tommy Orange
In which we discuss how bookstores work (and how you keep books on the shelves in a bookstore that moves), Julia and Christen give advice to future bookmobile owners, and the mobile bookstore finds a forever home!
Customer: So, is this a library?
Interested in breaking into publishing (then abandoning your fancy degree to become a bookseller)? Check out the University of Denver Publishing Institute. Julia and Christen met there, so that bodes well.
Shout out to Blue Bicycle (founder of YALLFest, Charleston's Young Adult Book Festival)
Fun fact: the aunt in Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson is described as itinerant. Maybe not the best role model, but not the worst!
The bookmobile is so purrrrrrrrrty:
Books that Itinerant Literate must have in stock:
Tips for potential bookmobile owners:
In which Julia, Christen, & Emma have the same wheelhouse; we debate Christen's concept of "feel-good" books; and Christen wants to be fierce & fearsome while naked
Book Description Guaranteed to Get You Reading
Christen loves fiction containing witches, dystopias, feminism, misandry, unreliable narrators, and anachronistic elements. Also, nonfiction books about product and content marketing. Highly recommend Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller.
Emma recommends We Were Witches by Ariel Gore, cause witches + misandry = win!
Julia digs retold fairy tales and pop science/medical nonfiction (shout out to This is Your Brain on Parasites by Kathleen McAuliffe).
Desert Island Pick
Christen: Harry Potter, natch
Julia: Young Adult faves, such as Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Station Eleven Picks
Christen's practical book: Peterson's Field Guides to Medical Plants
Christen's "feel-good" books: Letters to a Young Poet, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Or, to go more apocalyptic: The Giver by Lois Lowry (aka "The Handmaid's Tale for children")
Julia: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Wild Pick
Julia: Nature reading (The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery) or books about female resistance
Christen wants a guidebook about how to be Lady Godiva. #legit
Lady Godiva, the ultimate Rebel Girl
Bookseller Confession
Christen actively doesn't finish things she doesn't enjoy. Real talk, this is a necessity for all booksellers. And readers. And humans.
Neither Julia, Christen, nor Emma have read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. For the record, Kim loves this series and owns multiple editions of the books. Because it's awesome and Kim has great taste. Seriously, look at this pretty cover:
Impossible Handsell
Julia: Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks
Christen: Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
Everyone: Hogarth's Shakespeare series
Book for Booksellers
Julia: Jane Unlimited by Kristin Cashore
Christen: Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller
Favorite Bookstores
Favorite Literary Media
In which we tell you where to find Itinerant Literate on the Internets
You can find us on:
Emma tweets from @thebibliot and writes bookish things for Book Riot. She's also starting a newsletter called All the Books I'll Never Read, which you can subscribe to here. (Working on show notes is the first Kim has heard about this, and it sounds awesome.)
Kim tweets from @finaleofseem less frequently than Drunk Booksellers posts new episodes. #sickburn #stilltrue
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