Ep. 20 – Summer Learning

On The Same Page is a podcast from the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library to keep you in the loop and on the same page about what’s happening at your library.

In this episode, we hear from MIT Spokes about their Louisa STEM program and get some book recommendations from City Councilor Kathy Galvin. And as always we discuss what we’re reading.

Abby read:

• Brazen by Pénélope Bagieu (reminded us of Little Leaders by Vashti Harrison)
• Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman (A Morris Award finalist)

Erica read:

• Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed (who is a co-founded of We Need Diverse Books. This title reminded us of I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai)
• Summerlost by Ally Condie (who previously wrote the Matched trilogy)

We talked to Charlottesville City Councilor Kathy Galvin about the importance of summer reading. She talked about her home library as a child the public library in Brockton, MA as well as the following books:

• The Giant Golden Book of Elves and Fairies by Jane Werner Watson (not owned by the library)
• Joan of Arc books
• The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• The Sailor Dog by Margaret Wise Brown
• Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

Currently she’s reading:

• The New Localism by Bruce Katz
• The March by E.L. Doctorow
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Friends Divided by Gordon S. Wood

MIT Spokes, a group of university students traveling cross country on bike this summer, stopped at Louisa County Library on June 1 to present a STEM outreach event. (Follow their journey on Instagram) We had the opportunity to ask them what they were reading.

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
• The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
• Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (not owned by the library)
• A Higher Loyalty by James Comey
• Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
• Consider Phlebas (book #1 in the Culture series) by Iain Banks
• The Circle by Dave Eggers
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed
• Peter Pan by JM Barrie
• The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (because it is similar to The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson essays
• A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

If you have an idea for podcast guests or topics or titles you’d like to recommend we read and discuss please email us at podcast@jmrl.org.

This podcast is made possible with generous support from the Friends of Jefferson-Madison Regional Library. Find out more about the Friends, what they do, and how to support them at the following link.

Friends of the Library