Welcome Back! For this election week,I am sharing six books to distract you from the real world this week and a rant at the water cooler. The conversation touches on the debate surrounding warning labels on romance novels and the societal perceptions of the genre.
Chapters
00:00Welcome and Introduction to the Podcast
02:03Book Recommendations for Escaping Reality
15:08The Debate on Warning Labels for Books AKA Read Your Smut with Pride
21:18Current Thoughts and Closing Remarks
Books talked about in this episode.
The Love Song for Ricki Wilde By Tia Williams
The Gunslinger By Stephen King
The Unmaking Of June Farrow By Adrienne Young
The Meaning Of Mariah Carey
Atomic Habits James Clear
The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon
Transcript
Hey friends, I’m Lashawn and welcome back to the Pouring Over Books podcast. I am so excited to have you here and I can’t wait to talk more about books and books related things with you. But first I wanna start by saying thank you so much for the love on the first episode of the podcast. I appreciate all the feedback. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for listening and keep sharing.
I appreciate it so much so we can grow our little community here on the podcast. Well, friends, I’m recording this for a Monday and it is guaranteed to be a busy, maybe stressful week because of what’s going on. If you don’t know the election here in the US of A, I plan on coping of course with books. Yes.
So the goal of today’s episode is to give you a few, okay, think five, maybe six books that you can use to, let’s say escape reality until the world sets itself right again, because I think we’re in for a roller coaster this week and I want to give us all something to do while we wait. I’ve chosen, like I said, five books in five genres to try to help you find something that everyone might want to read. Hopefully.
one or even all of these books gets you through the next week. Think of this podcast as your emotional support episode. And if you want to have breakdowns and obsess with me anyway, join me over on threats. Same name, same handle, because I will be over there spiraling. Okay, so let’s get started. All right, so let’s talk about the five books that I want to recommend if you want to escape reality this week.
Number one, if romance is your thing, I’m going to recommend a love story for Ricky Wilde by Tia Williams. Ricky Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. When regal non-genetarian Miss Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricky jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning.
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She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the stories, the music, and the dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers. Then, one evening in February, as a heady, curiously off-season scent of night blooming jasmine fills the air, encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger.
who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way. Friends, this was so good. I mean, unexpectedly good. And I expect a Tia Williams book to be good. She’s one of my favorite romance authors and this is going to go, I can almost guarantee you it’s gonna go on my list of best books for 2024.
It was the romance and the magical realism that made it Chef’s Kiss for me. But I gave this book a five out of five when it came out and I’ve glanced through it again and that still stands. In fact, I’m like, no, I will not add it to my To Be Read list this month. I already have a list. Anywho, if you are looking for a good romance that will immerse you and draw you in, Love Song for Ricky Wilde.
There you go. So number two, if fantasy is your thing, I’m going to recommend The Gunslinger by Stephen King. Yes, that Stephen King, yes. Horror Stephen King. Yes, because this is the first book of a long series where Stephen King introduces readers to one of the most, one of his most, I guess.
Well-known heroes, Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spell-bound, a spell-binding journey into good and evil in his desolate world, which frightly mirrors our own, of course. Roland pursues the man in black, encounters an alluring woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with a kid from Earth called Jake. Both gripping, grippingly realistic,
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and eerily dreamlike, the gunslinger leaves readers eagerly waiting for the next chapter. This entire, if you have not heard of this series, stop what you’re doing and go look it up. This entire series is iconic. He started writing this in 1982 and the last book didn’t come out to 2004.
I read this in high school, I believe. This is one of the first fantasy series that I ever got into in my teens. And I will admit that I think I started watching the TV version that stars Idris Elba because, know, I mean, Idris Elba. But really, I would suggest that you read the book because of course the series that was on TV, I don’t even know what it was on, it’s similar, but there’s not enough detail.
you really need to read these books. It is the perfect fantasy series and it’s complete. I mean, he finally completed it. When I had read the last book in my teens, he had not completed it. But of course, in 2004, he did. So you don’t have to wait as long as I did. So that is The Gunslinger by Stephen King.
I’m going to give that was also one of my, mean the whole series. I don’t even, I wasn’t writing back then, so I can’t, but when I think about it, it’s just, it’s one of those books you just need to read. Just need a book to read. All right. Our third book is a Romanticie because yes, there is a difference between fantasy and Romanticie friends. There’s, there is a difference. So the book that I’m going to recommend here is the Unmaking of June Pharaoh by Adrienne Young.
This was one of my absolute favorite books of last year. I’m gonna read you what is on the book jacket. In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrell is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrell women are known for their thriving flower farm and the mysterious curse that has plagued their entire family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrell’s disappearance.
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leading June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors. It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her names, and mysterious door peering out of nowhere. The signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own. After her grandmother’s death,
June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer to what she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes that she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart.
and an epic star cross love. Y’all, Adrienne Young is an autobiography author for me. In fact, I currently have an advanced copy of her new book that comes out in January and I’ll be settling in with that soon. Probably not till December when everything settles down, but I plan, I’m going to plan a day when I sit down and I read that book. But in the meantime, while we wait for that one, go read this one. It’s not a traditional,
Romanticy, like there are no fay, there are no vampires, there are no fated mates, I guess you could say. But it is a fantasy that has romance in it. So try it. It almost reads more as women’s lit than it does fantasy. But I have to make it fantasy because of all the magical, fantastical parts of it. Go read it. All right. The next book is Self-Help.
So if self-help is your thing, I’m going to recommend the one book that I always recommend, Atomic Habits by James Clear. Because no matter your goals, Atomic Habit offers a proven framework for improving your everyday. James Clear reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the teeny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. So if you’re having problems changing your habits, the problem isn’t you, the problem
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is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again, not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You fail at the level of your systems. I love this book. I reread this book at least once a year because it really changed the way I look at habits, consistency, and making and achieving goals.
I always like to do a refresher because even I, especially around the beginning of the year when I’m making my vision board and my goals for the year, I have to remember that it’s all about the systems that you have in place on whether or not you will achieve your goals. I used to just think, you write it down and it’s, know, plan to do it and it’s going to happen. No, you can even plan to do it, but what systems do you have behind the plan? Like if you say you’re going to work out every day,
you know, Monday through Friday, and then here it comes and you’re looking around at the end of the first day like, okay, I didn’t work out, why? Because you didn’t put a system in place. You didn’t put a plan in place to help you achieve your goals. And I credit that with helping me, you know, one, to do 75 hard this year, and then number two, to train for this marathon that…
is in 12 days. Okay? All right. And the next book I want to talk about is if you need a memoir, I’m going to recommend the meaning of Mariah Carey, Tis the season, and it is the perfect time to read the queen of Christmas’s memoir from the book jacket. It took me a lifetime to have the courage and clarity to write my memoir. This is what Mariah Carey is saying.
I want to tell you the story of the moments, the ups and downs, the triumphs, the traumas, the debacles and the dreams that contributed to the person I am today. Though there have been countless stories about me throughout my career and very public personal life, it’s been impossible to communicate the complexities and depth of my experience in any single magazine article or 10 minute television interview. And even then, my words were filtered through someone else’s lens, largely satisfying someone else’s assignment to define me.
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This book is composed of my memories, my mishaps, my struggles, my survival, and my songs, unfiltered. I went deep into my childhood and gave the scared little girl inside of me a big voice. I let the abandoned and ambitious adolescent have her say and the betrayed and triumphant woman I became tell her side. I want to suggest that if you read this, you get the audio book version of this book.
Because not only does Mariah Carey herself read it, which makes it just as chaotic as you think it will be, but it also is filled with little bits of her singing and acting out since it’s just so good. I always like, if it’s a celebrity memoir and the celebrity reads it, I will always go with the audio book because there’s nothing like listening to someone tell their own story because
another book like this. If you don’t want to read Mariah Carey, if you’ve already read this, Will Smith’s memoir also. He raps, he talks, he acts out. It is like perfection. It is like listening to a movie almost. And so that’s why I will suggest those. Okay. And my last suggestion, if you just want good fiction, I’m going to select Hello Beautiful by Anne Napolitano.
Another favorite from last year, I’m going to read you my review. I gave it five out of five stars. I put this book on my TBR list at the beginning of the year. I was intrigued by the fact that this was a little women retelling. The Padawona sisters resemble the March sisters and it’s easy to match up each sister with her counterpart due to the ongoing references in the book. But it was William, the Laurie of the story, if you think in terms of little women.
whose story is at the heart of this one and the one that ties everything together in the beginning and the end and who I personally was most invested in because he is a catalyst for the ongoing trauma slash drama of the book. I wasn’t sure if this book would be for me because it felt like it was too slow, but as I kept reading, I was invested in find myself thinking about the book even when I wasn’t reading it. This was beautiful.
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It was at once depressing and hard and at the same time full of joy and real life. I see why it was on a lot of the top books of the year this year. And since it is only my six five-star rating of the year, I highly recommend it. Okay? That is what I’m going to recommend for you to read this year. But I will say there’s one more book. No, let me add in this one more book. And I just thought of this.
while I’m recording, so I’m not really prepared. But if you want to immerse yourself right now, because of the climate, because of where we are right now, if you want to immerse yourself in the history of the political of it all, I recommend reading Sharon McMahon’s new book. Let me look it up. McMahon. I might be saying her name wrong.
But know, Sharon Sayso on Instagram, the one who always has all the details. If you want to know something about government and history and how politics works, you go to her. She has a new book out. It’s called The Small and the Mighty. 12 Unsung Americans who changed the course of history from the founding to the civil rights movement. If you want something a little bit more serious and a little bit more educational, I’m going to go ahead and recommend her book. I will put a…
She’s America’s government teacher. I think everyone should follow her. Like half of the misinformation in this country wouldn’t be here if they did, but I digress. I digress. So that is, those are the books that I’m going to recommend that we immerse ourselves in this week to distract us. Let me know on social media, in my DMs, wherever, let me know.
what you chose and what you read or even if you didn’t read something that was on my list but it was good and it helped you let me know just just let me know on instagram in my dm slide in my dms friends all right let’s move to the water cooler this week’s topic is should books have warning level warning labels
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Okay friends, let’s move on to the water cooler. Today’s topic is should books have warning labels?
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A big debate these days in the romance genre, which I think this whole debate is biased, but I digress. I say that a lot, but anyway, the big debate these days in romance is whether or not romance books should come with an explicit warning label. Evidently, the story goes, started with someone bought the book Icebreaker. It’s a romance, a contemporary romance.
hockey player and a figure skater, I think. And someone, the book has a cartoonish cover, as do a lot of romance novels these days. They, the books look like, they’re, they look like they’re fun. But someone evidently bought the book Icebreaker for their daughter because of the cover, didn’t read the blurb or anything.
Because the daughter says she saw it on TikTok and one of her friends read it it was good and they had no idea it was explicit The reason for these stickers according to some bookstores is to warn parents and teenagers of the sexual content of popular book talk recommendations But frankly and I’d say this so don’t you know don’t come after me with your pitchforks any book
that is not in the children’s and YA section should be considered adult. If you do not find that book in the YA section of your bookstore or library, consider it adult, parents and friends. Just because it’s on the bookshelf and it’s got a cute cover does not mean it’s YA. Most likely it is not. I’ve always believed that it’s on the reader and I guess the parent, if you’re monitoring that sort of thing to figure out
if the book is appropriate for you. I know that when I am reading a romance novel personally, I always look, like I look for certain things. If it says dark romance, most likely I am not going to read it because that’s not my thing. If it says BS bondage and all that stuff, think 50 shades, it’s not for me. It’s not my thing.
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And I expect, and sometimes it’s just as simple as reading the book jacket because the book that it seems to be the main contention, Icebreaker, I’ve seen that book in a bookstore and it says sexy book top book. So I’m like, okay, did you not read? But on the other side, I get the context as a parent.
But I also remember reading Jackie Collins when I was way too young and I hate to utter this cliche Gen X sentence, but I was fine. I also remember reading Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan. I asked for it for a Christmas present. And so I can see the parent’s perspective because I asked for it as a Christmas present and my mother just bought it for me because at that time I was a reader.
And in her brain, Lashawna asked for a book. Let me get her said book, because I used to ask for books all the time. It was only after I received the book for Christmas, and she picked it up once I was a fast reader, almost done with it. She picked it up and read it and was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. But then by then it was too late and everybody in my family had passed. Every female in my family read that book that Christmas. We was into it.
I still have my original copy and it is beat up and pasted together because so many of us read that book. But anyway, I digress. I mention this because in the modern era of romance novels, romance novels often have discrete or these cartoon covers to avoid drawing attention to their content. Because in spite of the fact that romance novels are a billion dollar industry now, romance novels are still seen as frivolous and trashy.
when you compare it to say serious quote unquote literature. I feel like adding these content warning labels reinforces the stigma. It’s like by signaling out romance novels, it’s as if they saying that the genre is more explicit and or offensive than any other genre. I mean, romance novels are often much more than sex scenes. I mean, yes.
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There are some where, frankly, you know, it’s just a smut fest and that’s okay. But romance novels are a form of entertaining just like any other book, any other genre. They provide readers with an escape just like any other genre. And if you set aside the sex, seriously, it’s for women especially, it deals with themes like consent.
What a healthy relationship looks like, what a healthy relationship does not look like. Self-discovery. It’s almost like a teaching method sometimes for some people and some of us, yes, it’s just entertaining. And this leads to the question of what message is this sending if we decide to put labels on books? Like, do you want romance readers to be ashamed of what they’re reading? I mean, imagine being on the subway with a big fat explicit sticker on your book.
then everybody knows, she probably reading some smut. I mean, really? No one should be ashamed of any book that they’re reading. I mean, sticking adult content warners on stickers on romance novel reinforces these harmful attitudes that society has towards romance genre. And again, it sends the message to readers that we should be ashamed of what we are reading. We should be celebrating and supporting the romance genre because it gets people reading. And is that not
point not stigmatizing and shaming it. So I just want to go on record to say read your smut with pride. Read your smut with pride. Okay? That is that that literally that that that’s all I gotta say about that. Alright so we’re coming that is all I really have for today. We are
coming to the end of the episode. But I do wanna talk about three things, the three things that I’m currently thinking about this week. Number one, I’m obsessed with voting. Tomorrow is election day, friends. If you have not early voted, it is your civic duty to go and vote. I’m not talking about who you voting for on here. I’m just talking about it is your civic duty, your forefathers’ fault to get you the right to vote. Go and vote.
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Number two, what I’m looking forward to this month. I made a list of 10 books I’m going to get through in November. I am going to try very hard not to deviate from this list. It’s heavily fantasy themed and I’m loving that for me. Loving. Okay, I’ve been purchasing things to take along on my marathon run because, you know, I gotta be prepared and I am that girl. I found this little portable charger this week.
that sticks right to the end you can’t see me right now but it sticks right to the end of your phone and just charges it it is so light and it can fit into my pocket because it’s small I don’t know how much it charges but since I’ll be running music on my phone taking some video and pictures because that is who I am
I wanted to make sure that I still had juice at the end of the long, possibly six hours that is going to take me to run this marathon. Yes, I am a slow runner and that is all. A runner is a runner. It doesn’t matter how slow I go. Anywho, so that is my loving lately right there. Current read. So I am currently listening to on audio.
Thank You for Listening by Julia Whalen. It’s kind of meta because it’s about an audio book narrator and in it, she is narrating books and so does her love interest. I can’t stop listening. I’ve reached a critical part in the story where, yeah, I can’t give away the plot, but I reached a critical part in the story, but I took a small break so that I could record this podcast and get it ready and out to you. But, I cannot wait as soon as I’m done.
I will go back to listening to this possibly while cleaning a bathroom. Anywho, that’s it friends. I hope, hope, hope, hope, hope that you protect your peace this week. And I hope that maybe, just maybe you can lose yourself in a good book for a while. Hopefully one of the ones that I have suggested here. If not, again, just pick a book, pick a distraction, pick something.
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and I hope you enjoy what you are currently reading. And that is all the pouring over books that I have time for today. So I will talk to you soon friends. Bye.
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