It Gets Real Grey

Amanda Nelson Apr 14, 2016

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Amanda and Jenn recommend audiobooks, light reading for dark times, and more on this week’s Get Booked!

This episode is sponsored by Book Riot Live.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS here, or via iTunes here.
The show can also be found on Stitcher here.

Need a book recommendation? Fill out the form at the bottom of the post, or email getbooked@bookriot.com and we’ll help!

Questions!

1. Hello,

I’m 7 months pregnant and had to leave my husband due to his mental health issues. I’m a lifelong book lover and looking for something to read that will speak to my heart and make me feel less alone in this crazy situation. I just read Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, which I thought would exactly do the trick, but it didn’t quite get there for me. Maybe it was too light? Too funny? I don’t mind something emotional, so long as it speaks to me in the way that I know only a great book could. Suggestions?
–Emily

2. I’m looking for audiobook recommendations. I’ve just started listening to audiobooks while I work. I work on the computer all day and it’s nice to have a small distraction. Recently, I listened to Eat Pray Love and although I had previously read the book I absolutely loved the audiobook! I’m looking for nonfiction audiobook recommendations that have the same feel as eat pray love. Thanks, I look forward to listening to your podcast every week!

–Kristy

3. I love the show and am super excited about the move to weekly releases! I’m starting a book club/ restaurant club with my mom and a friend of hers where we read and eat around the world. I don’t know much about how to find good translations and was hoping you could help me! My mom loves a warm hearted book in the vein of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. There can be some darkness but she can’t get into a book where any of the characters experience too much trauma. She couldn’t even handle me giving her a synopsis of A Little Life, for example. She’s also a sucker for a nice love story! Thank you for your help!

–Rebecca

4. I am an 8th grade teacher that teaches at a Christian school. It’s small, 135 students. Mostly conservative, interdenominational families. I myself am a Christian, but very much desiring to be real and honest with my students. I want them to SEE the world and love all the people!!!! So can you give me an appropriate suggestion to read to them or teach in my classroom that would open their eyes to see the world from all perspectives and help them realize this small town and their experiences are not enough. I want them to be smart and not reliant on their parents’ faith, but make it personal and honest in this time we live.

Hopefully that’s clear enough.

Love you all!!!

Always Reading,

Scarlett

5. About a year ago I lost a pregnancy. I was just at the beginning of my second trimester and it was due to a very rare and serious birth defect. It was a really dark time, and when I look back at last winter, my reading was down to practically nothing.

So here I am, a year later, and I recently found out that I’m pregnant again. I’ve been assured by my doctors (many times) that the complications I experienced last time were a freak event. Still, the predominant emotion I’m experiencing is fear. At least until all the first screenings are completed.

I’m looking for book recs to keep me interested in reading while my mind is trying to wander to more stressful things. I’m not necessarily looking for anything “light”, but anything that will keep me turning the pages. I already have the new Mindy Kaling and the new Sarah MacLean ready to go. I am open to reading anything in any genre! I subscribe to the quarterly box and usually get the other special boxes you guys put together. I love all the content.

Thanks in advance!

-Kate

Books Discussed!

Split by Suzanne Finnamore

Yes Please by Amy Poehler (on audio!)

The essay in Tiny Beautiful Things

When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? By Mindy Kaling

Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, read by the author

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini, read by the author, recommended by Brenna Clarke Gray