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In our final episode, Christina and Jen share what they’ve read recently, and what they’re going to read next. Pirate Enlightment by David Graeber, Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow The Relevant Library: Essays on Adapting to Changing Needs by Vera Gubnitskaia Libraries as Dysfunctional Organizations and Workplaces by Spencer Acadia How To Think Like A UX Researcher by David Travis and Philip Hodgson Brookings Institute Webinar “Innovations in Hyperlocal Governance” Co-cities: Innovative Transitions Toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities by Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy by Josh O’Kane You’re Invited by Amanda Jayatissa We’ll Never Tell by Wendy Heard The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier Pure Colour by Sheila Heti How The World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy by Julian Baggini The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction by Jaime Kreiner Look: How to Pay Attention in a Distracted World by Christian Madsbjerg Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas, and Predict the Future by Rohit Bhargava Luxury Retail and Digital Management: Developing Customer Experience in a Digital World by Michel Chevalier and Michel Gutsatz Buildings for Books: Contemporary Library Architecture by Chris van Uffelen Interaction Design: From Concept to Completion by Jamie Steane and Joyce Yee Making Dinosaurs Dance: A Toolkit for Digital Design in Museums by Barry Joseph Family Spaces in Art Museums: Creating Curiosity, Wonder, and Play by Julia Forbes The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, 4) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes A Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn Thank you all so much for listening!

The ladies of the RBL Podcast dip into the magical with what they're reading lately. Christina's shares work from one of her favorite authors: Get In Trouble by Kelly Link, and White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link. Plus, check out this amazing feature in Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/article/kelly-link-white-cat-black-dog-profile.html Jen recommends Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen, and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. For her professional reading, she explores Working in Style by Chris van Uffelen, and Inspired & Inspiring: Labs, Studios and Workshops for Creative Minds by Markus Sebastian Braun. And in Kat's final episode, she shares Feed by M. T. Anderson, and The Last Heir to Blackwood Library by Hester Fox. *Note: At time of posting, our online catalog is down. So all links to materials are from bookshop.org or each book's website (when available.) Ask us to order these titles for you next time you visit!

This week Jen's reading Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein and The Trend Forecaster's Handbook by Martin Raymond.  Christina's working through Stanford's Human-centered AI Reading List (view the full list here!) starting with Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith, and she's enjoying Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Kat shares adventures closer to home from Little Ohio: Small-Town Destinations by Jane Simon Ammeson and Ohio Magazine. Plus, a cameo from Jackie, the manager at our Springfield-Lakemore branch! *Note: At time of posting, our online catalog is down. So all links to materials are from bookshop.org or each book's website (when available.) Ask us to order these titles for you next time you visit!

The RBL team has some bittersweet news.

Connect with your inner sleuth with Kat’s take on Long Bright River by Liz Moore, Transcription by Kate Atkinson, The Witch Elm by Tana French, Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Recursion by Blake Crouch. The mystery continues with Jen’s take on Mary Kubica’s Just the Nicest Couple, which sends her running to “In the Hall with the Knife” by Diana Peterfreund, the first the Teen book series based on Clue. She winds down with Philippa Stanton’s Conscious Creativity: Look, Connect, Create. Christina considers new possibilities with John Lorinc’s Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias, Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond and Don’t Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.

Christina is on a film roll with Sarah Polley’s memoir Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory. Discover a magical mixture of magazines and gothic mystery with Kat’s talk on Orion Magazine and Paraic O’Donnell’s The House on Vesper Sands. Jen talks workplace philosophy with The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationships with Their Jobs by Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter and The Strategy Book by Max Mckeown.

Christina explores the weight of social expectations and gender dynamics with My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig before taking an introspective stroll through The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler. Jen continues to treasure hunt (with a side of murder) with Maureen Johnson’s truly devious series: Truly Devious. Richfield’s manager also shares selections from her wayfinding presentation, including Wayfinding: From Here to There: The Art and Science of Finding and Losing Our Way” by Michael Bond, You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon, but Get Lost in the Mall” by Colin Ellard, and Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World” by M.R. O’Connor. Kat invites you to explore our magazine collection and the world, starting with The New York Review of Books, followed by Two Years on a Bike: From Vancouver to Patagonia” by Martijn Doolaard.

Season Five is here and we have great expectations. Christina walks the halls of dark academia with Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, continues her foray into the world of Alex Stern with Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo and signs off with runaway bestseller Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang. Jen reviews The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz, a convoluted work of suspense that failed to enthrall. But no fear—Jen’s faith in the world of spine-tingling mystery is restored by Maureen Johnson’s The Box in the Woods. Kat trudges through a blizzard of material starting with The Beautiful Snow: The Ingalls Family, the Railroads, and the Hard Winter of 1880-1881 by Cindy Wilson. Heard of SearchOhio and OhioLink? Learn about ASCPL’s partnership with public libraries and university libraries. Unwind with Paper Poetry: Creative Papercutting Projects by Simone Bendix & Helene Bendix and Send Something Beautiful: Fold, Pull, Print, Cut, and Turn Paper into Collectible Keepsakes and Memorable Mail by Emily Hogarth.

Yearly reading goals: do we set them? Do we accomplish them? We also share what’s up next on our TBR piles. Christina picked up Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabriele Zevin again, and liked it better this time around.  She also shares Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv, and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy. Next up: Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated by Stephanie McCarter. Jen discovered Slow Looking by Shari Tishman, and the Art of Creative Thinking by Rod Judkins. Next up: Saving Main Street by Gary Rivlin, and Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger. Kat poured over I Used To Live Here Once by Miranda Seymour, and recommends Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.  She also fell for Madly, Deeply by Alan Rickman. Next up: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. And be sure to stop by our New Poetry display next time you're in the branch, on the endcap of Aisle 9/10! (Including Zoetrope: Poems by Cleveland poet Kevin Latimer.)

This week we tackle books from all the fun genres we pulled out of a hat in our episode "You Have My Full Attention" (Nov 1st, 2022.) Jen didn't like Fake Memoir; she tried Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill & A Hell Called Ohio by John M. Hamilton.  But she loved Nordic Noir! She read Winterkill by Ragnar Jónasson & The Golden Cage by Camilla Läckberg is next up on her TBR pile. Christina didn't like Cat-Themed Murder, but she made it all the way through Purr M For Murder by T. C. LoTempio.  She found a great Book About Monsters; Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. Kat found great a great database of Canadiana: www.canadiana.ca.  And she explored a few Amish Romances, including Wife on His Doorstep by Patricia Johns, The Amish Quiltmaker’s Unconventional Niece by Jennifer Beckstrand, & Murder Tightly Knit by Vannetta Chapman.

In this episode, the library ladies of Richfield cover a range of topics from art and academia, disorder and design, fancy juices and the vastness of space. Christina cleans her palate with Graphic Novels, especially those from Canadian publisher Drawn and Quarterly.  Check out their recent anthology Drawn and Quarterly: Twenty-five Years of Contemporary Cartooning, Comics, and Graphic Novels edited by Tom Devlin, or Wendy, Master of Art by Walter Scott, and Rave by Jessica Campbell. Jen frees herself from her rut with Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives by Tim Harford, Design for the Mind: Seven Psychological Principles of Persuasive Design by Victor Yocco, and Nike: Better Is Temporary by Sam Grawe. Kat celebrates existence with Mocktail Party: 75 Plant-Based, Non-Alcoholic Mocktail Recipes for Every Occasion by Diana Licalzi Maldonado and Kerry Benson, and explores the spectrum of scenarios in The Book of the Moon: A Guide to Our Closest Neighbor by Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Galaxies: Inside the Universe's Star Cities by David J. Eicher, Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Collisions, Killer Asteroids, and the Race to Defend Earth by Gordon L. Dillow, and The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean, and the Looming Threat That Imperils It by Helen Scales.

We kick of the episode with something fun: we picked fun genres out of a hat to review in Episode 7! So look for that in the coming weeks. Christina's enjoying Everyday Information Architecture by Lisa Maria Martin, and one of the books she references, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff. Jen's exploring Creative Bug, and found a great artist who goes by e bond.  She's also pouring over Damn Good Advice by George Lois, Nike: Better Is Temporary by Sam Grawe, Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans by Paul Van Doren, and Us & Our Planet by Phaidon & IKEA. Kat recommends Epic Bike Rides of the World by Lonely Planet, Soundings: Journeys in the Company of Whales by Doreen Cunningham, and Phosphorescence: A Memoir of Finding Joy When Your World Goes Dark by Julia Baird. This week we also talk about "vocational awe," a big topic in librarianship.  Here are some great posts we recommend if you're interested in this conversation: https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/ https://annehelen.substack.com/p/vocational-awe https://soundcloud.com/fixmylibrary