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.

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Aug 24, 2021
5 min

Pub Day Shout-Outs! for August 24th, 2021 featuring Heller, Barker, and Jeffers

by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse) Here are three books coming out today that I'm excited to read! Peter Heller's The Guide (Amazon | Bookshop.org) Description from Publisher: "The best-selling author of The River returns with a heart-racing thriller about a young man who is hired by an elite fishing lodge in Colorado, where he uncovers a plot of shocking menace amid the natural beauty of sun-drenched streams and forests. 'Peter Heller is the poet laureate of

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Aug 23, 2021
4 min

All about Culture: 6 YA Lit Books that Bridge the Generation Gap

by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse) This Wednesday, we share our thoughts about our August Book Club pick, Balli Kaur Jaswal's Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows. (You can join our discussion on Instagram on August 30th if you'd like to talk about that one! Just DM us or email us!) That book had so many amazing threads woven together, but one of them that really resonated with me was the way that generational and cultural differences can be overcome. One of the

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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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Mar 2, 2021
4 min

Pub Day Shout-Outs! for March 2, 2021, featuring Choi, Hashimi, and Ishiguro

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) I had a tough time today choosing only three books to highlight—it's an AMAZING release day. So, here are just three of the many, many books coming out today that I'm excited to read (plus a couple of mentions at the bottom of the page). Mary H. K. Choi's Yolk Description from Publisher: "From New York Times bestselling author Mary H.K. Choi comes a funny and emotional story about two estranged sisters switching places and committing insurance

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Nov 23, 2020
5 min

9 Books Considering Culture: Coming of Age as Children of Immigrants

by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse) In this bookish fave, I wanted to share some of my favorite middle grade and young adult lit recommendations that comment on the experience of children of immigrants. While each story is unique and their life experiences are all quite different, these books have common threads, such as an examination of the different facets that create identity and an exploration of the periodic tension between the parents' native culture and

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Jun 29, 2020
4 min

Fiction by Black Authors - Some Recent Favorites

by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse) Looking for amazing fiction reads by Black authors? Here are a few of my recent favorites, all of which are adult fiction by Black women. These span a lot of genres and styles, so see the details below to find one (or more) for you! Brit Bennett's The Mothers - I'm here for anything Brit Bennett writes. This powerful story (realistic fiction) comments on the complex relationships between women and the way that women's relatio

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Jun 13, 2020
32 min

Bonus: Re-release of Jason Reynolds Highlight with LONG WAY DOWN, GHOST, and WHEN I WAS THE GREATEST

In this bonus episode, we wanted to share a re-release of an episode highlighting three novels by Jason Reynolds, one of our favorite Black authors for young people and for the classroom. We feel his body of work has applications across many age levels and grades. You can check out his body of work here. We tried to go very light on the spoilers in this episode, but a few minor spoilers were hard to avoid as we revealed what we loved about these books. Timeline Introduction a

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Jun 10, 2020
46 min

129: Re-release of Angie Thomas's THE HATE U GIVE Book Club Discussion

In light of the unjust loss of Black lives in America and of the Black Lives Matter movement, we wanted to share an episode from 2018 where, for our book club, we discussed one of our favorite YA literature books for the classroom, Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give. In the episode, we discuss the novel and share pairings including Gabrielle Union's We're Going to Need More Wine, Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil's The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes Aft

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Mar 4, 2020
1 min

115: Kevin Wilson's NOTHING TO SEE HERE - Learning by Fire

For our March Unabridged Book Club discussion, we're focusing on Kevin Wilson's excellent Nothing to See Here (which was also a Book of the Month pick!). Listen to catch up with what we're reading now and to hear why we chose to pair books like Ninth House, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, and Young Jane Young with Wilson's novel. Finally, we're thinking about movies from our childhood in our Give Me One segment. Timeline Bookish Check In: 00:00 - 05:40 Book Club Discussion: 05:4

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Feb 24, 2020
3 min

Picture Books to Enjoy During Black History Month (and Every Month!)

While I (Ashley) value the opportunity in February to celebrate Black history, I never want that celebration to be reductive -- Black history, culture, and experience should never be reduced to a single month or painted with a broad brush. However, I didn't want to miss an opportunity to shout out some of our favorite picture books in our house -- these books are ones that my daughters love and that we read often. Particular favorites of my girls (ages 3 and 5) include Barack

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Jan 24, 2020
2 min

Tomi Adeyemi's CHILDREN OF VIRTUE AND VENGEANCE: High Tensions and Hard Choices - Ashley's Review

Title and Author: Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Virtue and Vengeance Overall Impression: I loved Children of Blood and Bone and couldn't wait to read this sequel. I did have to read up on some plot details about the first one before I dove into the second book, but it came back quickly, and I was thrilled to see the main characters as they grew in their leadership and in their sense of purpose. I appreciated the three main perspectives (Amari, Zélie, and Inan) and found that Ade

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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 17, 2020
2 min

Jami Attenberg's ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS, Jen's Review

Jami Attenberg's All This Could Be Yours is a stunning and incisive examination of the obligations we have as parents and as children to each other and about the way that loving someone is, in a sense, an obligation. It's also about what happens when someone is so horrible that he erases those obligations, that he eliminates the love others have. The novel centers on Victor, a man who is dying in the midst of a family he has abused and controlled for years. Though he excels

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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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Sep 20, 2019
2 min

Min Jin Lee's PACHINKO - Ashley's Book Review

Upon beginning this novel, I was immediately swept away by the tender, compelling story of the young Sunja, child of Hoonie and Yangjin, and their family's challenges as they worked to make their living by running a boarding house for people in the small village where they lived in Korea. When Sunja found herself in a position of dishonor and shame, I was moved by her resolution and her courage. As she makes the move to Japan, the story shifts into an exploration of Korean li

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Aug 28, 2019
2 min

88: Autumn TBR Lists - Shopping in My Kindle Closet

We'll let you guess just which one of us went shopping in her Kindle closet . . . and then cheated to share an extra book (or two . . . or three!) on this episode. Well, actually, we ALL cheated because we have SO many books coming out this fall that we're eagerly anticipating. As a sneak peek, we're including Peter Heller’s Celine, Rainbow Rowell’s Wayward Son, and Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys. Take a listen to our TBR lists, and then let us know what books you look f

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Jul 26, 2019
3 min

Jandy Nelson's I'LL GIVE YOU THE SUN -Ashley's Book Review

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson is a literary work of genius. This is one I read quite a while ago, but it has stayed with me and remains one of my favorites. It's riveting and powerful without seeming forced or contrived in any way. It's the story of twins, Jude and Noah, whose lives are drastically, irreparably altered by a catastrophic event. The entire story shapes itself around that event and their quest to find themselves functioning on the other side. Let's talk

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Jan 16, 2019
2 min

56: Unabridged Awards - I Will Qualify Them All

-Alternate Titles- Address the nervousness OR Anticipating it is exciting OR Not a lot of table space for a drum roll OR I guess that was obvious OR What is wrong with you? OR We're going to take a bit of a dip OR Just phenomenal Favorites by Category Mentioned in Episode Jen - Most devastating, gorgeous novel that alternates between time periods - Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers Most satisfying end of a long series that I’ve been reading for years - Sarah J. Maas’s King

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Dec 5, 2018
1 min

50: Gretchen Anthony's EVERGREEN TIDINGS FROM THE BAUMGARTNERS - These Random People at Dinner

"This is me. This is my family. This is love." ~Gretchen Anthony Spoilers are inevitable throughout our discussion, so consider whether or not to listen if you haven't yet read the book, Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners! Timeline Introduction and Summary of the Book: 0:00 - 01:13 Main Discussion: 01:13 - 33:43 Book Pairings: 33:53 - 43:15 Classroom Connections: 43:15 - 45:38 Book Pairings Jen - Helen Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road Ashley - Jenny Han's To All the Boy

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