Unabridged Podcast

Welcome to Unabridged! Ashley and Jen (shown left to right in the photo) talk books, share recommendations, and celebrate all things bookish. On our blog (see our posts below!) we share bookish faves, pub day shout-outs, show notes, and book reviews.

Want to get more involved? Check out our 2022 reading challenge, join our buddy reads on Instagram, or sign up on Patreon!

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Apr 23, 2021
3 min

Yaa Gyasi's TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM - A Close Examination of Addiction and Its Impact on Family

by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse) I was so excited to see Yaa Gyasi's Transcendent Kingdom on Libro.fm this fall and am thankful that I was able to listen to an ALC of the audio. Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing is one of my favorite books, and I plan to read everything Gyasi writes because her work is brilliant. Although Homegoing and Transcendent Kingdom have some similarities including gorgeous writing, complex characters, and complicated relationships, where Homego

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Jan 31, 2020
3 min

Nick Bilton's AMERICAN KINGPIN: High-Suspense Narrative Nonfiction - Sara's Review

Oh, boy! Do I have a book for you. This book is a true-crime, narrative nonfiction, and it is fabulous. It is Nick Bilton’s 2017 Bestseller American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road. So, here’s the thing, if you don’t like true crime, you still might want to give it a go. If you don’t like nonfiction, you might still want to give it a go. If you read John Carreyrou’s 2018 New York Times bestseller Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon

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Jan 22, 2020
2 min

Welcome - Introduction and Overview

Just getting started with Unabridged Podcast? Welcome! We're Ashley, Jen, and Sara, and we are teachers and podcasters who are passionate about books. We have four kinds of posts here on our blog. On Mondays, we post about our Bookish Faves, on Tuesdays we do Pub Day Shout-outs, on Wednesdays our episodes drop, and on Fridays, we post book reviews. (Be on the lookout on Thursdays, too; we sometimes have an extra post then!) There are many ways to connect with us! In addition

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Jan 8, 2020
1 min

107: Mary Beth Keane's ASK AGAIN, YES - I Had to Open Another Tin of Book Darts

In this Unabridged Book Club (#unabridgedpodbookclub) episode, we discuss Mary Beth Keane's Ask Again, Yes, the amazing multigenerational novel examining two families in a planned community. We make connections to Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, John Boyne’s The Heart's Invisible Furies, and Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House, and we thoroughly discuss the intricacies of relationships over time and through generations as they are explored in the novel. Timeline Introduction

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Oct 2, 2019
1 min

93: Anissa Gray's THE CARE AND FEEDING OF RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY GIRLS - Relationships Between Women

We're thrilled to discuss Anissa Gray's new novel, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. Told in the alternating perspectives of the Butler sisters, this novel is timely, compelling, and, at times, heartbreaking. We offer pairings and recommendations for the ways that teachers can use this book in their classrooms. After you listen, join us on social media throughout October to participate in our book club discussions. We'd love to know what you think! Timeline Int

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Aug 16, 2019
4 min

Yara Zgheib's THE GIRLS AT 17 SWANN STREET - Ashley's Review

"There must have been signs, but we were distracted by the roller coaster of the adventure. Paperwork, looking for a couch for the apartment, ties and shirts for Matthias." "I used to eat. I used to like to eat, then I grew scared to eat, ceased to eat. Now my stomach hurts; I have been anorexic for so long that I have forgotten how to eat." "I did not choose anorexia. I did not choose to starve. But every morning, over and over, I choose to fight it, again." Thank you to Pa

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Jun 5, 2019
2 min

76: Bryan Stevenson's JUST MERCY - A Must Read for All Human Beings

In this #unabridgedbookclub episode, we discuss Bryan Stevenson's nonfiction book Just Mercy. Stevenson discusses his work as an attorney with prisoners on death row and with individuals who were sentenced to life in prison when they were children. During our discussion, we strive to cover the plethora of issues raised by the book, including mass incarceration, the way we deal with mental disabilities and mental illness, the death penalty, and the role of poverty in the crim

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Apr 17, 2019
1 min

69: VA Festival of the Book (Jason Reynolds, Laurie Halse Anderson, & More!) - Loving Every Minute

In this Unabridged podcast episode, we focus on our field trip to the Virginia Festival of the Book, held in Charlottesville, VA, from March 20-24. We offer our impressions of four sessions, including a dream conversation between Jason Reynolds and Laurie Halse Anderson and a serendipitous afternoon when we got to see the April Book Club Book authors Beth Macy (with Chris McGreal) and Jarrett Krosoczka in back-to-back sessions. You can find out more information about the annu

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Apr 3, 2019
2 min

67: Beth Macy's DOPESICK and Jarrett Krosoczka's HEY KIDDO - Obviously, We Read Both

In this Unabridged podcast episode, we talk about two books that look at drug addiction and its impact on families. Beth Macy's nonfiction book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America shows the bleak situation of the opioid crisis in America by focusing on the situation within three communities along I-81, the "Heroin Highway" in Virginia. Jarrett J. Krosoczka's Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction

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