This week, we are talking all things Charles Dickens.

This week’s focus is Joshilyn Jackson’s Mother May I, but we’re also discussing thrillers, sports books, a cancer memoir, and the joys of re-reading.

Joe and Julie discuss Angie Thomas’s brilliant novel Concrete Rose.

New logo, same bookish podcast! Joe and Julie talk about Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

We loved Brian Doyle’s One Long River of Song.

In imitation of this week’s Great Writers, Joe, Julie, and their kids share what they love about the Beatles.

This week, we’re talking all things music.

Joe and Julie discuss Wendell Berry’s magnificent novel Jayber Crow.

Joe and Julie read Jesus and John Wayne.

Joe and Julie discuss A Promised Land, Barack Obama, presidential writing in general, and what else they've been reading.

Joe and Julie catch up on their holiday reading and discuss the writing of Malcolm Gladwell.

Joe and Julie end the year with each of their top ten books of 2020.

Joe and Julie talk political books, middle grade and young adult books, and the importance of reading the right book at the right time, and they do a deep dive into Frederik Backman’s amazing Anxious People.

Joe and Julie discuss Jon Meacham’s His Truth Is Marching On and catch up on the other things they’ve been reading.

Joe and Julie talk about Michael Ian Black’s A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son.

How do you decide whether to read controversial literature? We’re discussing this and more on the podcast today.

Joe and Julie discuss Nick Hornby’s novel Just Like You.

This week, Joe and Julie discuss Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom.

Joe and Julie share what they’re reading and discuss Richard Grant’s The Deepest South of All and Amanda Petrusich’s Do Not Sell at Any Price.

This week’s deep dive is on Tim Soerens’s Everywhere You Look and Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan.