Episode 16 - Library Superuser with Emily McClanathan

Books with Betsy

On this episode, Emily McClanathan, a Chicago Public Library superuser, discusses her love of character-driven stories and excellent prose. She also talks about how reading has helped her become a better writer, as she writes both book reviews and theater reviews in Chicago. We get into some shared loves and Emily gets to share a hot take about a book she thinks is overrated.

Books mentioned in this episode:

What Betsy’s reading:

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle

Books Highlighted by Emily::

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

Nerd: Adventures in Fandom from This Universe to the Multiverse by Maya Phillips

My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety by Georgia Pritchett

Born to be Mild: Adventures for the Anxious by Rob Temple

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire

Everybody’s Favorite: Tales From the World’s Worst Perfectionist by Lillian Stone

One in a Millenial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In by Kate Kennedy

This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something - Anything - Like Your Life Depends on It by Tabitha Carvan

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free by Linda Kay Klein

Other Books Mentioned in the Episode:

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.

The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray

Better the Blood by Michael Bennett

Return to Blood by Michael Bennett

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

The Eye of the World: Book One of the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

Zorrie by Laird Hunt

Wolf Hall by Emily Mantel

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan