Jun 4, 2013
It's our first installment of "Hosts on the Hot Seat," our Q&A segment where you Q and we A. We recommend The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope and Is This Tomorrow.
Remember when we asked you all to ask us questions? Many of you did and we're answering a couple of them in this podcast. Don't forget to submit your own questions here!
Connor in Ohio wondered what we do when we encounter an unfamiliar word while reading. Ann and I both tend to infer the meaning from context when we're reading a paper book. When we're e-reading we take advantage of the "click and define" feature. Unfortunately, that can lead down the Google rabbit hole, looking up things other than definitions. It recently happened for me while reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and for Ann while reading Detroit: An American Autopsy.
Robin from New Jersey asked if we were both readers growing up and what books or people influenced us. I've always been a reader. Early series I loved included The Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators, The Tripods Trilogy, and the Doctor Who show novelizations. Ann started her reading career by memorizing Twinkle Tots, and read, while in the bathroom, the entirety of a biography of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts. The Chocolate War was very important to Ann in middle school. A few picture books that I particularly remember loving are The Story of Ferdinand and The Little House, and Ann loved The Story About Ping.
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope by Rhonda Riley is a beautiful love story about Evelyn, a woman who meets a person who is clearly not human, but their connection is instant and strong. This is a book I read knowing very little about the story, and the twists and revelations were wonderful to experience. In my opinion, the story synopsis on the book gives away far too much of the plot, so I beg you, don't read the flap copy!
Ann recommends Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt. It's the story of the disappearance of a child in the suburbs of Boston in the 1950's. The writing is beautiful and captures the domestic life of the 50's and 60's perfectly, and brings these characters to vivid life.
Ann and I have each read (and loved) the other's recommendation, so both of these books are recommended by both of us!