Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.

This week we talk to Rachel Ray, CEO of the International Book Project, a nonprofit organization in Lexington, KY that helps make book lovers out of people all over the world. She talks to us about the logistics of shipping books and how close relationships with the Peace Corps and other nonprofits help get English-language books into people’s hands.

And for our book recommendation section of the show, we are focusing on spies, but these definitely aren’t of the James Bond variety. We offer up 6 book suggestions that stretch our understanding of an espionage story. We are light on books set during the Cold War or World War II but instead focus on outside-the-box spy characters.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Dominé

2- The White Heart of the Mojave: An Adventure with the Outdoors of the Desert by Edna Brush Perkins

3- Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams on the Edge of Death Valley by Brent Underwood

4- Guards, Guards! (Discworld series) by Terry Pratchett

5- The Storyteller of Casablanca by Fiona Valley

6- Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson

7- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Jenni Scott @storytimereviews - Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

8- Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park

9- Who is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht

10- An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole

11- Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead

12- Mr. Nice Spy by Tiana Smith

13- The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix

Media Mentioned:

1- Murder in Glitterball City (HBO Max 2026)

2- John Hendrix's link to The Faithful Spy research - https://goose-hawk-c589.squarespace.com/bonhoeffer-research

3- Terry Pratchett Puzzle - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-world-of-terry-pratchett-1000-piece-puzzle-a-discworld-jigsaw-by-paul-kidby-terry-pratchett/29dbddde082184ce?ean=9781399620697&next=t&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=%7Bcampaignname%7D&utm_content=6443417794&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=16235479093&gbraid=0AAAAACfld41whhyxRMyYH28KslljMJPpx&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIieS7rND8kgMVYCBECB3sphbOEAQYByABEgIRtvD_BwE

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.

You can find Eiren Caffal at her website eirencaffall.com or on IG @eirencaffall

We chat this week with Eiren Caffall, a Chicago writer whose memoir, The Mourner’s Bestiary, sat on Carrie's shelf staring at her for a year until she finally made time to read it but she is so glad I did. In this creative nonfiction work, Eiren talks about her family’s long history with a chronic illness (specifically, polycystic kidney disease (PKD)) and connects that to the health of the waterways and living creatures in Maine. It is a master work that merges scientific writing with poetic language. We also talk about her novel, All the Water in the World, which came out less than six months after The Mourner’s Bestiary. It is also about water, but in a fictional dystopian setting where New York City has flooded due to the melting of the ice caps. If you enjoyed Station Eleven, you must give this novel a try.

And for our book recommendation section of the show, we are focusing on Old Dudes!! Carrie has a soft spot in her heart for curmudgeonly and/ or cuddly elderly men, so we are giving you six ideas of books that feature crotchety (or not) male senior citizens. We have a memoir, a children’s book series, a book translated from Swedish, novels featuring LGBTQ protagonists, and literary fiction.

Books Discussed in this Episode:

1- The Mourner's Bestiary by Eiren Caffal

2- All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffal

3- Howards End by E.M. Forster

4- Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius

5- Ignition by MR O'Connor

6- Hotshot: A Life on Fire by River Selby

7- The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Story of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown

8- The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann

9- The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

10- Queen Bee by Cierra Geraghty

11- The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

12- A Five Star Read Recommended by a Fellow Book Lover - In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes

13- The Very Long Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates

14- The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray by Walter Mosley

15- The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku

16- The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

17- The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain

18- Mr. Putter and Tabby series by Cynthia Rylant

19- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City: Murder, Secrets, and Scandal in Old Louisville by David Dominé

Media Mentioned:

1- 'Murder in Glitter Ball City' - https://www.wdrb.com/news/murder-in-glitter-ball-city-hbo-documentary-explores-2010-old-louisville-murder/article_1b4cc513-c22b-4543-b609-5b6267e1dce2.html

2- Our Episode with David Dominé - https://ThePerksofBeingaBookLover.podbean.com/e/season-5-episode-108-sex-drugs-and-true-crime-vibes-with-guest-david-domine-10-13-21/

3- True Detective Night Country (HBO Max, 2024)

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.

This week we talk to Rachel Ray, CEO of the International Book Project, a nonprofit organization in Lexington, KY that helps make book lovers out of people all over the world. She talks to us about the logistics of shipping books and how close relationships with the Peace Corps and other nonprofits help get English-language books into people’s hands.

And for our book recommendation section of the show, we are focusing on spies, but these definitely aren’t of the James Bond variety. We offer up 6 book suggestions that stretch our understanding of an espionage story. We are light on books set during the Cold War or World War II but instead focus on outside-the-box spy characters.

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

1- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Dominé

2- The White Heart of the Mojave: An Adventure with the Outdoors of the Desert by Edna Brush Perkins

3- Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley by Brent Underwood

4- Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

5- The Storyteller of Casablanca by Fiona Valpy

6- Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson

7- A 5 Star Read by a Fellow Book Lover Jenni Potter Scott @storytimereviews - Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

8- Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park

9- Who is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht

10- An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole

11- Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead

12- Mr. Nice Spy by Tiana Smith

13- The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix

Media Mentioned:

1- Murder in Glitterball City - HBO Max, 2026

2- John Hendrix - Link to The Faithful Spy research - https://goose-hawk-c589.squarespace.com/bonhoeffer-research