All About Books Podcast Featuring Me

Last month while I was in Nebraska to do a training, I made a trip out to Lincoln to the studios of NET, Nebraska’s PBS and NPR Stations. I was invited as a guest on the show All About Books, a weekly broadcast and podcast hosted by Pat Leach from the Lincoln City Libraries.

From the All About Books website:

Going far beyond book reviews, we invite people passionate about books and reading to give their personal stories and insights into the larger world of words and ideas.

Pat asked me to come prepared to talk about one specific book and then we chatted about RA Service and how I got to be a “horror” expert. Pat was especially excited for me to talk about RA Service because she was sending some people to my training and she was hoping that when the community heard this episode [a few weeks after the training] they would be excited about RA and would come in and ask for help with their leisure reading needs.

Click here to listen

Here is the link to my appearance where I talk about In the Valley of the Sun by Andy Davidson

But more importantly, I wanted to promote All About Books in general. This program has been on the air for decades, airing across the state. I love that a librarian is the host. It is a place where book conversations happen out in the world, curated by a librarian. What a fantastic resource. And the people who come in are from all walks of life, all ages, and suggest every kind of book you would imagine.

The site also has bonus material by area professors. For example, here is a link to one on Graphic Novels which leads to both an interview with Richard Graham, Associate Professor of Media Studies, and an annotated list.

And now I leave you with this awesome rabbit hole to go down. Click here for the archives and spend your day listening to hundreds of people talking about books! [What do you think I have been doing all morning?]

But seriously, when I train people to booktalk, I stress how important the listener is in the experience. We need to practice talking about books by focusing on the feel of the book, not the plot, but we also need to practice listening to people talk about books. How do our patrons describe books and what things do they focus on when they are telling us what they like?

You can actually learn more about how to help readers by listening to book talks by others than you can by giving hundreds yourself. Why? Because when we listen to others, we understand what they want to know about the books we are suggesting.

So while I am promoting All About Books today because I was on, I want to use it as a reminder that listening is as important as talking in our work. I have a much longer post on this topic from my Call to Action Series entitled, “LISTEN!" here for those of you who want more from me on this topic.

Now I’m off to do more listening.