How does a little girl from Detroit become a librarian icon? Our interview with Nancy Pearl (finally!)

Season 2 is here and our first episode is a big one! In some ways, we have been building up to this moment since the podcast began: we finally chat with Elizabeth's librarian inspiration and the All Books Aloud unofficial mascot, Nancy Pearl. 

Nancy has had a storied life and a career about as influential as a librarian could hope for, and she shares so much of it with us during this hour. We talk about how her difficult childhood led her to the library, how the librarians in that first public library inspired her love of reading and her desire to be a librarian herself, and how that career led to some of her noteworthy epiphanies about books and reading. 

How did she come up with reading doorways? How did she realize that no two readers read the same book? What does she think about book bans and the state of libraries today? And what did she once say about finishing books to Elizabeth's grad school class that made them all gasp? Listen and find out!
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Books we're reading in this episode:    
The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
The League of Gentlewomen Witches by India Holton
The House Witch #2 by Delemhach

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Intro and outro music: "The Chase," by Aves.

Do you have thoughts, questions, or ideas for future episodes? Email us at allbooksaloudpod@gmail.com. And if you want to learn more about the podcast, visit our website at allbooksaloudpod.com.

If you liked this episode, please consider leaving us a review to help us reach more listeners.

And if you'd like to see more bookish content from Martha & Elizabeth, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @allbooksaloudpod.

Read on!

Transcript

[All Books Aloud intro and theme music]

Martha: Hey liz. How are you?

Liz: Hi, Martha. I am great. And one of the reasons I'm great, despite having a little bit of a cold, is. Because today we're talking to one of my friends and heroes, I think I'll say, Nancy Pearl. , Nancy, hi.

Nancy: I,

Liz: I'm gonna do a little introduction of you, so don't get embarrassed.

Nancy: I already [00:01:00] am.

Liz: Nancy Pearl is a librarian, best selling author, literary critic, and the former executive director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library.

Her prolific reading and her knowledge of books and literature first made her locally famous in Seattle, where she regularly appears on public radio recommending books. She became more broadly known with Book Lust, her series that started in 2003 but went on for quite a while, , and in that same year received the unusual honor of a Seattle based company creating a librarian action figure in her likeness.

She also received other more traditional honors like being named 2011 Librarian of the Year by Library Journal. That was all from your Wikipedia page. I learned a lot about you from that Wikipedia page. , I first met Nancy when she taught at the University of Washington's Information School, where I did my graduate degree, and I was lucky enough to take two classes with her, and she introduced me to the concept of reader's advisory, , which [00:02:00] listeners to our podcast will have heard me talk about a lot on various different episodes, , but that Nancy's where I first learned about that art and science of recommending books to anyone, but specifically to library Um, And listeners will also, , have heard me talk ad nauseum about the wisdom that I received from Nancy over, the course of those classes and beyond. , we joke that you're sort of our unofficial mascot of the podcast, Nancy. So

Nancy: I'm honored.

Liz: we're very excited to talk to you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Martha: Yeah, thank you nancy

, the first thing that we do on our episodes is that we talk about what we're reading right now. Do you want to go first, Nancy?

Nancy: , well, I am rereading. So, harking back to your, was it , your last one, , the whole pod you did on rereading, but

Liz: think so. But yeah, one of the episodes in the first season.

Nancy: I am a big rereader and I'm rereading. A book called The Underpainter by [00:03:00] a Canadian writer named Jane Urquhart, and I happen to love Canadian fiction. I think there's something about it and Jane Urquhart has won numerous prizes for her writing , and she has a brand new book that's out already. , and I read the new book and I thought, Oh, this is, this is really, she's the kind of writer where you want to underline sentences and things like that. And I quite liked the new book, but then I thought, Gee, I want to go back and read my favorite book of hers, which is The Underpainter, which is, , set over the course of the 20th century from, , basically World War I through the 1970s, and it's a mixture of, , the main character is totally imaginary, but some of the people that he interacts with, some of the artists that he interacts with are, , real.

So that's always interesting to me, but what I loved. about this book is she just is able to make these characters [00:04:00] really come alive. And, Elizabeth, you know that's my favorite. , that's what draws me to the books. I love are just wonderfully drawn characters. And, , this is his life and how he becomes how he deals with the past and the present and how they never, never get untangled from one another.

So that's the under painter by Jane.

Liz: So you would say that that's a character doorway book. I was wondering if it sounded like maybe it was a language doorway because you were talking about underlining the sentences.

Nancy: Yeah, so it's both. I think they're very, very close. I think it moves so slowly that people who are really interested, people who are looking for a fast read , this is not the book for them, nor I would say is Jane Urquhart the author for them, but, um, but this just does the two doorways that I'm usually most appreciative of.

Martha: Mm

Liz: talk about doorways a lot. We did a whole [00:05:00] episode on

Martha: Mm

Nancy: Oh, did you?

Liz: Yeah,

Nancy: Nice.

Liz: Martha really loved that when I, when I introduced her to that, didn't you, Mar?

Martha: Yeah, I think it's so great, , like, this book for Nancy is such a great illustration of it contains her two favorite doorways and she loves it, and she rereads it. It just really checks all the boxes for her. It's just such a great, such a great theory. And I probably won't read that book then, because I like a fast paced story.

Mm

Liz: Martha's a story reader.

Martha: Mm hmm.

Liz: So what are you reading right now, Martha?

Martha: Well, speaking of doorways not matching, I'm reading Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson. This is one of his few standalone novels. He wrote a few during the pandemic, and he was just kind of testing out something new, I think is the way it's been described to me. It's .

Described as similar [00:06:00] to the style of , The Princess Bride. Kind of a silly fantasy adventure. And I'm about halfway through it. And it's just been a little bit of a slog for me. I find it a little bit boring. So I was thinking, why am I forcing myself to finish this book? I need to just give it up.

Right, Nancy?

Nancy: Yeah,

Martha: , and I was in the bookstore yesterday talking to my friend Rebecca, who works there and runs the book club. And we got on the topic of Brandon Sanderson. And she said, he really is well known for. Going into great detail about the whole framework of the magic in the story that he's writing, and I think that's why I'm not loving it because he's focusing more on how the magic works than moving the story forward.

So in my mind, I'm like, Our main character's been on the ship forever. Can we just, , get to the next thing? , so anyway, I'm sure other people would love it, but for me, I think I'm not gonna finish it and move [00:07:00] on to something else.

Liz: I'm so proud of you,

Martha: yeah. Thank you. I mean, it took me 150 pages to realize, but that's okay.

Liz: Yeah, that's our most popular episode, Nancy, the one where we talked about not finishing books and where I made my full throated, , rant about how you taught me to not finish books if I wasn't enjoying them.

Nancy: But, you know, there's always , the caveat that you can always go back to that book. It's not like you're tossing the book in the garbage, you're burning it. It's still there. And if you are curious about it, I mean, there are lots of books I've gone back to that I've given up on.

'cause, you know, maybe in a different time. Martha, you'd be, you'd have more patience for that, you know, that wouldn't have risen to the top of what you're looking for,

Martha: That's such a great point because I think that's what keeps me wanting to read it, I want to know what happens, so maybe, like you said, in a different mood, in a different time, I'll, I'll get to find out how it [00:08:00] ends. But for 

Nancy: or you could read the last chapter,

Liz: Yeah, there you

Martha: oh my gosh, I never dreamed that, but maybe I should.

Liz: I remember we talked about that in a class and some of the people in the class had a similar response. Nancy was like, just go to the end and read the last few pages and people were like,

Martha: Shocking.

Liz: There are no rules. Do what you want. It's your life, your reading life.

Martha: Oh, it's so true. I love it. . So then I'm listening to Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Mass. This is the second book in the Throne of Glass series, and this is a reread for me. We talked about this in another episode. This time of year, I typically reread Harry Potter, the Jim Dale version on Audible, and we dissected why I do that.

And I decided I wanted to not do that this year and try something different. But. This month rolled around and I realized part of the reason why I [00:09:00] reread a long series at this time of year is because I run out of Audible credits. And it helps get me over the hump to when Michael gets me my birthday gift and fills my Audible credits back up.

So I just thought that was kind of a funny, , anecdote that that's,

Liz: birthday's in the, at the end of November. So November is your dry month. Huh?

Martha: Yeah, yeah, so I have to fill it with books I've already read, which is totally fine, and this time I'm doing , Throne of Glass instead of Harry Potter, so that's what I'm reading. What are you reading, Liz?

Liz: That's so funny. I love that. Martha. , I just finished. The League of Gentle Women Witches by India Holton, which is the second in her Dangerous Damsels series. And I would describe it as a fantasy romance. which is not my main genre, but listeners will remember , the first book in this series.

The way that she uses language is so different [00:10:00] and fun and just wild, it really captured me. And this book is similar, , I enjoyed it. I finished it, but I had a similar feeling after finishing it that we talked about at some point.

I don't think we didn't do a whole episode about it, Martha, but I also, in addition to having a hard time with rereading for similar reasons, I think I have a hard time with series because inevitably when I get to the second book in the series, I'm like, I've already read this. , I know these characters.

, I know the formula, for lack of a better word, not that it's the same story at all, it's not, but there's something about it that just doesn't feel fresh enough for me usually, and , I enjoyed this enough to finish it, but I don't think I'll probably continue with the series, which it's not any demerit to the author, I just, I think series are not really my bag.

But India Holton is a lot of fun and the series is about basically this magical world that is, like a fantasy version of Regency England, so it's [00:11:00] all proper British manners and tea, but they're also able to do magic. And there's one half of the people that do magic that are called pirates that fly around in their houses and they call them battle houses and they fight each other and pillage and plunder and, steal things.

And then the other half of the people that do magic are witches, and they're a little bit more demure. The parlance of our TikTok time, they're a little bit more , low key with their magic. They don't want people knowing that they're witches. And so the main character of this book is a witch, , and is very bookish.

There's a lot of Jane Austen quotes in there. throughout, which you'll both know, , I really loved that part. So yeah, it was a great book, but, , I think I'll probably leave it there. There are other books in this series though, for people who have read it and enjoy it. 

Martha: Yeah, that book's on my TBR too. I think I'll get around to it someday. So, Nancy, can you give us a little background on yourself? We're curious how you became a librarian [00:12:00] and how you decided reader advisory was so important.

Nancy: So I, , grew up, , In a family in Detroit, Michigan, that would definitely now be, described as dysfunctional. But when you're a kid, you just know, you know, it's miserable and unhappy. And, , I would rather be any place than home. Which never felt safe. So I spent all my time basically at the local public library and it was the librarians there that recognized I think this love of reading in me and just kept me supplied with books and you know when they met me I was probably eight or nine and all I read was horse and dog books as lots of eight and nine year old girls do.

And actually, if we went to that library today, I could show you where the horse and dog [00:13:00] fiction was kept because they pulled that out from the regular kids fiction. And Miss Whitehead, who was the librarian that I was, closest to, she was Canadian. And so , she wanted me to read all the British children's books like the Wind in the Willows and Mary Poppins and all of those books.

And so , she would come up to me and she would say, Nancy, A brand new horse book just came in the library. Do you want to be the very first person to read this book? Well, I mean, wouldn't you love to be the very first person in the library to read this book? So I would always say, oh yes, and I would hold out my hand for the book, and she would say, oh but wait a minute, before you read this, I'd just like you to try this other book.

And so little by little, she . Got me to move away from that shelf of horse and dog books and just read as widely as she felt that I needed to read and. When [00:14:00] I turned at that time in the Detroit library system, you couldn't check out an adult book. The young adult books were shelved in a separate section with the adult books, and you had to walk across the whole front of the library where the service desks were to get to the adult section. And when I turned, you had to be like, 13, I think, and when I turned 13, Miss Whitehead actually took me over there and introduced me to the librarians there and sort of let me go . And so I knew when I was 10 that I wanted to be a librarian, and I thought at that time I wanted to be a children's librarian because I wanted to do, , for other kids what she did for me, which is really give me the world.

And I think, , what a noble, what a wonderful thing that she did for me. Well, all the librarians at that library did for me. And so I did go to library school and I did become a children's [00:15:00] librarian. And , after a couple years, children's books just stopped having, there just wasn't enough to them.

Much as I loved them, and loved the idea of working with kids, and I loved doing story hours, and I loved doing school visits, and all of that, I felt like I needed a lot more. So, when I went back to work after I had children, I was working as a adult librarian. And My supervisor at the library, Tulsa City County Library, used to say that whatever she said to me, my next sentence would be, oh, that reminds me of a book I've read.

And so, , it just seems like a natural thing to do. Like, when Elizabeth was talking. I was thinking, when you were just talking, and you were talking about the Jane Austen quotes, and just automatically, I just thought, I wonder if she's read the book Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld. I mean, I love [00:16:00] that book.

I absolutely love that book. And, you know, and making that kind of connection. So that's how it all got started and, I was really lucky enough to work for people who saw that I could connect with readers in a way that, , I'm sure many people can, but I could connect with readers , and then I had the opportunity to, teach readers advisory at the UW.

What was then the library school and that was so great. I mean, it had some bad semesters, some bad students, but but for the most part, it was just a real joy. , those classes , were just high points. For me. Yeah.

Liz: all so beautiful. I don't remember hearing that full, I don't, maybe I have, but I don't remember hearing that full story of when you were a kid with Mrs. Whitehead. , I love that so much. It reminded me while you were talking of, This isn't the first time I've remembered this.

I, I've always remembered it, but it really brought it back to me when you [00:17:00] were talking about that experience. That one time in class you said that , the conversations that librarians have with patrons about their reading, or giving them suggestions about what to read, that we play a really important role in that sometimes it's like we're therapists, or some type of like really close counselor relationship, and that we play a really important role for people sometimes that we should take seriously, and that's almost sacred, you know, , not to,

Nancy: Right.

Liz: to exaggerate it too much, but that always really stuck with me, and I just really appreciated that.

Why do you think that that is 

Nancy: I mean, I think because what people love to read, I don't think of it as a counselor or a therapist. I just think that we're so fortunate because people unknowingly share their lives with us because of the books that they, want to read I always remember a story that, , oh my gosh, one of the older UW library school people, who I think was [00:18:00] gone by the time you were there, but , he said that, he was working in a small library, and he always put aside, these certain novels for one particular patron, and they were kind of, , heavy.

Novels and he kept showing them to her and she kept saying, , no, no, don't look good to me. And he was shocked. And then what he learned later on was that she was going through this difficult period in her life.

And she just didn't want those kinds of books. But she knew that she would come back to them when this period was over. , I have a friend who loves mysteries, and I was reading this mystery series by Ellie Griffith, where the main character is a archaeologist who teaches, , in university in Northern England and, , so I was telling her about these books and I said, , yeah, she teaches in Northern England and she's having this affair with the , head of the police, , department there.

, and this [00:19:00] friend said, I don't read books about adultery. And you just knew everything about that person,

Martha: it really is powerful because. There are so many books. There are so many books. We can't possibly even read a fraction of them in our lifetime, but , the books we do read can have such a big part in shaping us. in our lives. So I do think that it is to think about a little bit crazy the impact you can have because I was thinking when you guys were talking about it being a little bit like therapy in our book hangover episode Liz we talked about how sometimes when you get a book hangover it could be because some of the research or an article that we found it talked about it could be because You're grappling with something in the book that relates to your life that you're not quite over, or you're still working through.

And so, it really, in that sense, could be therapy 

Nancy: mm hmm.[00:20:00] 

Liz: Yeah. . It was some type of psychology study that I found. , yeah, and , obviously librarians are not dispensing mental health advice, but therapy in the sense that people open up to us, , I think that's what I took from what you said.

And yeah, like you said, even if they don't directly tell us, , it always reminds me, I've told this story on the podcast before, but, I started doing readers advisory at my college library, which is not generally a service that academic libraries offer for lots of reasons but because I I took those classes from Nancy and was really passionate about that. I was like, well, just because I'm an academic librarian doesn't mean I can't do this. I can do what I want. I'm going to do Reader's Advisory.

So I have signs up saying, , ask the librarian for recommendations and stuff like that. And I'll just never forget that one of the first years that I was doing that at my library. I had a student come up who was being really vague. She was like, something like maybe, about taking care of yourself or wellness so I was pointing her towards these almost [00:21:00] psychology therapy books and I can't remember what she said, but she was just really dancing around it and I was like, you know, in the recreation collection, we just got in this book by one of the Kardashian sisters.

I don't remember which one it was, but it was the book that was like, , look good naked or feel better naked or something like that. And it was her sort of self help book.

Martha: Mm

Liz: And I was like, you know, we just got in this book by whatever Kardashian, , do you think you would like that?

And she was like, no. That's actually the book that I wanted. I was just embarrassed to say it. She's like, that is literally the exact book that I came in here looking for. And I was like, well, you are in luck because here we go. But she, you know, I mean, she was a student. Why is she embarrassed? , she's , 19, 20 years old.

 You're allowed to read a book by a Kardashian, but she just didn't expect in that environment that she didn't feel free to express that. And so I just remember her being so. thrilled that we had that book and that I was not making her feel ashamed about reading it or anything like that. And I was like, okay, this is why.[00:22:00] 

Nancy: Yeah. I mean, I was going to tweet about, because I just finished Leanne Moriarty's new novel, called In One Minute or , something like that. And I thought it was great. I think Leanne Moriarty can always tell a good story, but I just thought, , the characters in this were really interesting and I just loved this book and I thought, If I tweet that I love this book, that is going to tell all of those snooty readers, , that I read not snooty books, which I am definitely not reading these days.

which, which I'm, I was horrified that I felt that way because I've spent, you know, much of my career telling people that there's no need to apologize for what you read and yet here I am sitting here, , worrying about Leanne Moriarty's new book, but it's great. It's, it's really, really, really good.

Liz: Yeah. I've talked to Martha on the podcast a [00:23:00] lot about getting over my internalized snobbery about reading and your classes actually were one of the main things that helped me get over that because you made us read books and other genres

Nancy: Right?

Liz: because we have to be able to talk about them if we're going to be librarians, right?

And all of a sudden when I had the permission because it was an assignment to read books and all these other genres, I was like, oh, I actually really like a lot of these. , 

 But , , I have to say that's gratifying to hear that you still struggle with that because I think a lot of people do.

I think a lot of people do. There's a lot of discourse on social media right now about people, bemoaning the state of books because so many people are into these romantasy books like Sarah J. Maas that , Martha was talking about. And it's this moral panic almost of like, these books are terrible and everyone loves them.

What's going to happen? It's like, calm down. , it's fine. .

Nancy: Yeah, totally.

Liz: they want. There always are going to be good books.

Martha: Yeah.

Nancy: And a good book is a book that you like. And that's it. I just refuse to buy in. Well, I say I refuse [00:24:00] to, and then I just did.

Liz: Well, but we're all human, but , what you do , is what's important.

Martha: Mm

Nancy: right. All right. I'll send out that tweet. I mean, nobody cares. That's the thing. Nobody will care. But you worry that somebody is going to think, you know, I just did book talks at a very chi, chi, , women's organization in Seattle.

And, those lists that I do always reflect what I'm reading, what I have been reading in the last year since it's been a year since I was there. And so many of them were rom coms. And I thought, well, how's this going to go over? And, you know, many people at this time, I mean, we live in a terrible time, you know, and there's so much awfulness going on everywhere. And rom coms are one way to. Get out of that for the period at least that, you know, good ones. And of course, I only talked about really good ones.[00:25:00] 

Liz: Yeah. I've talked about that too. Since the pandemic started, I've only been pretty much solely reading light books,

just light, happy, Escapists. 

Nancy: Right. 

Liz: read Romantic Comedy by Curtis

Nancy: I did and I loved 

Liz: loved it so much. Martha and I both loved it.

Nancy: Yeah, I loved it. My husband loved it. He's really the rom com reader. He's the first book. There's Senter. Have you read any of her

Liz: I don't think so.

Nancy: So there's two books. , mine and Joe's favorite of hers is The Bodyguard, which is,

Martha: Oh, I've heard of that, but yeah.

Nancy: and then her brand new one, which is called The Romancers or something like that, is also great.

 But interestingly, I haven't gotten into, I've tried, but I haven't gotten into any others of her books, but the, oh, The Bodyguard's wonderful. And the new one is wonderful, too.

Liz: adding that to my list

Martha: Yep.

Nancy: it's just Catherine's center, [00:26:00] just, , C E N T E R.

Liz: Okay.

Martha: Mmm

Liz: , so we talked a little bit already about reading doorways. Can you tell us a little bit about when and how you first came up with that concept or refined it into the way that you talk about it now? 

Nancy: You know, it always interested me, when thinking about my own reading, why I liked certain books that , on the surface, seemed so different from one another, or were in a different part of the library, you know, the big, the big, Divisions fiction, nonfiction, but why did I like, Joyce Johnson's memoir, Minor Characters, , as well as, , The Underpainter.

 I would think what was alike about that that would draw me to both those books? And then I thought about why there were books that I would start and then not like, what didn't I like in those books? And occurred to me, and then in my sort of desire to make reading democratic in a way, or give everybody a [00:27:00] voice, , that , when somebody says, I want a book just like the book that I finished, , they're not talking about plot, you don't want another, , I mean, the big book, , when I was working as a librarian was the Prince of Tides by, , Pat Conroy, and people would come in and say, I want another book just like the Prince of Tides.

Well, , what did they mean by that? And when you think about that, , first of all, there is no other book just like the Prince of Tides, but there's other books, not a lot, but some that, that will give you the same feeling that you had , that same sense , of being with this family and all that family stuff and the writing is great and, all of that, and there are books that would do that, but they're hard to find unless you have a librarian, , who can put that stuff together.

Take this [00:28:00] out?

 And one of those books is, , David James Duncan's, , what is the name of that book? , I'll think about it. It'll come to me,

Liz: I remember you saying in library school that you always can remember author names, but not the titles of the book. And I feel like I'm the exact opposite. I remember the title, but not the name of the

Nancy: Yeah, . It used to be so easy to bring those things back. What is the name of that book? Oh, it has to do with baseball. Anyway, I'll think of it. , and so gradually, , in very broad terms, I realized that there are people who want to, , turn the page. They just want to find out what happened and they want a book.

They don't want book at that moment where they're gonna hug it, because they love it so much , and they don't want a book where they have to linger over the sentences , and ooh and ah, they just want to find out what happens next. And that's , a whole type of book, and it's the most popular type of a [00:29:00] book, we talk about it as airplane reads and things like that.

And then, , there's the language people, the people who read poetry and what they want and , their fiction or their books is that kind of, Language. And then there are the people who are, , incurably nosy about other people's lives. And that would be me. And, , what they want is they want to go into a character's life or characters lives, and those were the 3 that were the most important to me, or , the easiest to recognize, , and your mood changes.

So, , there are certainly times. I would say now when I really want a good story, , and I want something that I don't have to linger over, but then , I had , a woman that I was working with who was getting her , library science degree, and, I would say, what are you reading Martha?

And she would say, Oh, I feel like I'm there. In that sense of there ness, was so [00:30:00] important to her. , where it wasn't at all important to me , I loved the Lord of the Rings books, and I appreciated how he, develop this whole world of Middle Earth. But it wasn't the there ness that I loved in that book.

So, , I wrote a book for Libraries Unlimited, two or three books, I guess, for Libraries Unlimited, where it divided up the books into those four categories. And I still think that that works much better than genre,

Liz: Mm hmm.

Nancy: Because you're getting at a person's response to the book, not the topic of the

book. 

Liz: Yeah.

Martha: You know, there's nothing wrong with liking a genre, like we've talked about, but variety is the spice of life, and it's like you said, you don't actually want to read the same exact story again, so I think that your theory is so great, because you get the same feeling, but you could read something totally different, and that's so much more exciting, I think, than just, Oh, I like this mystery, [00:31:00] so I guess I'll try another mystery, but, 

maybe it's more about story and the other one had a more character focused plot. So yeah, I just I love it

Nancy: oh good. so the book by David James Duncan, that is good for the Prince of Tides readers is called the Brothers K. And it's a great audio book as well. 

Liz: I'm glad you pulled that

out. That would bug you for the rest of the time.

Nancy: What a relief.

Martha: So another concept we've talked about a lot on the podcast that we're curious what the genesis of was no two readers Read the same book.

Nancy: Yeah. in literature circles, I think a lot of people are talking about that a lot more. And , Erica Baumgardner, I think her name is, a novelist wrote, A novel about that, , that whole phenomenon of [00:32:00] you reading a different book. But I think , it just seems so obvious, doesn't it, that , when you're reading a book, whatever book it is, whether it's a memoir or fantasy, or a mystery, whatever you are.

Bringing to that book Your Every Moment of Your Life , up to that moment, , and Paul Oster, the novelist and, , essayist who died recently. Paul Oster said in one of his essays that he deliberately leaves room for the reader in his novels, because he says, and in the end, I firmly believe that that book is written by.

Me, he says and the reader and together, you're collaborating with the author to write the book. So , I don't see how it could not be true

Martha: Mm hmm

Nancy: that everybody reads a different version of the book. We could all read [00:33:00] and get the, the facts , the progression of the novel, this happened, that happened.

We could all agree on that kind of thing, but the importance of those different things I think would vary depending on, on our personal, , lives on our experiences.

Liz: Yeah, I feel like that's the crux of it. , obviously the facts of the book and what the plot is are one thing, but it's the emotional meaning to you of the relationships or of the characters or of their experiences, what they're going through, how you interpret the way that they deal with things, that's all going to be filtered through

Nancy: Right. Yeah. And , if you're annoyed at a, tick the author has, like the author insists on doing this or whatever, other people probably are not going to be annoyed by that. They're not going to even notice it. It just. For some reason, , you have focused on that , and then one time I was leading a, when I first came to Seattle to do the job that I was doing [00:34:00] at the library, I went around to a lot of book clubs to talk to them about good books to read and to lead discussions to model. how to be a book club leader, which I think is an important, thing. , and I remember I was leading a discussion, on a Wallace Stegner book called The Angle of Repose, which is a really wonderful novel. Now, Maybe a little dated, but at that time, , it really was a wonderful novel, and I always have said that when you're, leading a book group, don't ask , whether people liked the book or not at the beginning, start with a question like, what is the title?

What's the significance of the title? And so this was a book club of women Boeing engineers, and I said, well, what's the significance of the title, the angle of repose? Well, they all could give me the definition, the engineering [00:35:00] definition of what an angle of repose 

Liz: Huh. 

Nancy: But then I would say, well, but what does it mean?

And what it meant was the definition of angle of repose they were readers who weren't comfortable because of their jobs, I think, weren't comfortable sort of thinking about metaphors,

Martha: hmm.

Nancy: you know, and

Liz: interesting.

Martha: Mm

Nancy: yeah, isn't that right?

Liz: Whereas I had no idea that the angle of repose was even a technical thing. Like I'm all metaphor.

Nancy: Right. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Um, yeah, I am too. All metaphor.

Martha: I think no two readers read the same book is part of why I love rereading, too. , your perspective, what's changed in your life since you read a book and how you see it differently now. But Liz, you might say that's why you don't want to reread, because maybe you don't want to The image of the book you ha have in your head

Liz: Yeah, [00:36:00] that's one of the reasons. That's one of the reasons , I've had books not hold up. And we in our rereading episode that you listened to Nancy, I started out being very against rereading, but Marth and the conversation actually softened me on it a little bit.

And I actually am rereading Pride and Prejudice right now my husband is reading out loud to me. And even that book that I actually have read a lot in my life, reading it now , I'm picking up things that I didn't. Notice last time and just being older, being married, not reading it for any academic purpose.

'cause the last time I read it I think was probably when I was writing my college thesis on it. It just is a totally different experience. So yeah, I think that that is very much another application of No two Readers read the same book, . It sounds like you're a reread as well, Nancy.

 Well, I am a rereader, but I always have this fear I don't want to reread. For just what [00:37:00] Martha said, there's too many books I've re read that I think, oh my god, why did I like this book? And that takes away the whole pleasure, that whole initial pleasure of loving, just loving. yeah, and then I , published this series of reprints with Amazon of my favorite books that were out of print and, those all held up. , thank God they all, but, um, you know, you're, you're not the same person. Whether you read a book at 14 and at 24, you know , that 10 years, but even a year can do it.

Nancy: Just your experiences are gonna color the way that you look at the book or read the book. For years since I was in high school, kept , a book where I would write down my favorite, you know, write down poems or quotes or something like that. And now when I go back and look at those [00:38:00] early, early collections of poetry, I think, Oh, God, these are so sappy.

You know, it's just like, oh, it's so embarrassing. But,

Liz: It does feel a little risky.

Martha: Yeah. So Rereads beware. It's

Nancy: yes,

Martha: you have to know that going into it.

Liz: Yeah.

Nancy: Oh, we should have your re readers beware.

Liz: Rereaders beware. The reward is also potentially really, really great though. Of rereading. Because, the experience that I described of finding new things to love in a book , can be great. But yeah, rereaders beware. Okay, 

we have a few, I would say, of our more controversial topics that we've grappled with on the podcast that we want to get your take on . So the first one is a little bit more of a softball. It's, , the thing that actually was the impetus of starting this podcast and of our name and everything, is do you believe that audiobooks count as reading the [00:39:00] same as physical books?

Nancy: Absolutely. Yes. , and I'm a late, I was a late adopter of audio books. , and then I started doing a lot of walking for some reason, and I started by listening to the Terry Pratchett books, which are my absolute favorites, which I have re read and re listened to many, many, many times, and I would just keep walking longer because I didn't want to stop listening.

And then I went from Terry Pratchett to Georgette Heyer. Who I absolutely love as well. And, Now, I really think I enjoy listening to books more than I enjoy reading them. And I think they totally, totally count. The difference is that when you're reading a traditional book, it's you and the author.

You know what Paul Oster said, it's you and the author creating the book. With the audio books, you brought a [00:40:00] third person into this dynamic and that changes things because you have to like the reader in order to really like that production.

And, I'm just so happy that Audible had all the old Terry Pratchett's, , read by these two wonderful, wonderful readers because now they've had them all redone and , they're not nearly as good.

Martha: That's such a great summary of the difference because I feel like Liz and I have kind of danced around this a lot with different topics. We've talked about narrators, we've talked about audiobooks, but the fact that you're inserting a third person and that makes all the difference.

It's so simple, but we just have never really said that directly. So thank you, Nancy.

Liz: Yeah. That's so true. And that's also the reason why the narrator is so important, which we have talked about a lot. I have very. specific qualifications for audiobook narrators, and just immediately, within like two sentences, I'm like, eh.[00:41:00] 

Nancy: yeah, right. And it's why I find myself so drawn to the, like Juliette Stevenson, like the British actresses, , who just are fabulous, fabulous readers. Like Belgravia, did 

Liz: No, my gosh, that's on my list. I want to

Nancy: Oh, you've just got to listen because it is Julia Stevenson and it's so good. It's just great. And the readers who read , the Georgette Heyer are, , yeah, I love Georgette Heyer and I love Terry Pritchett, but I love them more on audio now than I love them reading myself.

Liz: Yeah.

Martha: that.

Liz: I pretty much only listen to British narrated audiobooks.

Nancy: That's right.

Martha: So, Nancy, how do you feel about yearly reading goals? 

 

Nancy: I think that's their laudable, but you shouldn't take it seriously if you can't meet them. I mean, I think that, Trump's election and [00:42:00] then the pandemic, and then I got really sick last year and I mean, everything. Just kind of came to a halt since 2016 and really changed my reading and, , then I discovered the pleasures of jigsaw puzzles that you can listen at the same time, which just is the highlight of my day.

Sad to say, not much of a highlight, but still.

Liz: Sounds good to

Nancy: Right. Anyway, , yeah, I don't think you can be married to those goals, because I think that does you as a reader a disservice.

Liz: Yeah. None of us need another reason to flog ourselves for not,

Martha: put more rules around reading.

Nancy: Right. 

Liz: Yeah. , so, speaking of things in the world not being great, , how are you feeling and thinking about the current state of libraries? , there's been a lot of news [00:43:00] in recent years about, especially public libraries and school libraries, books getting removed from shelves, I think that we probably both agree that is a very dangerous thing to do to remove or ban Whatever you want to call it remove challenge books in this way.

Do you have any thoughts about that?

Nancy: , yeah, have a lot of thoughts about public libraries, and I have to say that, , 99 percent of who I am at this point is nostalgia. But librarians goals should be to meet the needs of their community, but to understand that there are people in the community who, , don't share their particular view of the world , and , their view should be represented, I believe, . And I think, we're just going through a very, very, very hellish time that has fallen in on libraries and school libraries, especially. , and then I also think that over the years, The [00:44:00] public library has never done a really great job telling people what librarians do, , so that the general public thinks, well, anybody could do a story hour or, something like that. And then you could get into the whole, , are we teaching librarians, especially librarians who want to be in a public library or school library, , how well are we teaching them about what the real world is going to be like?

And, do we have, I mean, I just thought libraries. You could just die for your library. I mean, it was so, so important to me. And I just feel so sad, about what's, what's happening.

Liz: Yeah,

it is really sad. I also have a ton of thoughts about it, obviously, but what but Not spend the next hour ranting about this The one thing that I want to pick up on that you said that really [00:45:00] I think is the, the thing that to me is the strongest thing that's occurred to me throughout all of this recent challenges of books and of librarians and, , school boards taking over the job of the librarian and deciding what books are going to be on the shelves and what books are not and holding the librarians legally responsible for, you know, X, Y, and Z.

Is that. Thing that you said about the public not understanding what librarians do, and I've ranted to Martha about this so many times about the fact that , librarians are professionals who have to go to graduate school for two years. , That is not something that a lot of professionals have to do, right?

, a lot of jobs that are thought of at the same, , sort of social level as a librarian you don't have to go to graduate school for. , and, , just the whole concept of collection development and the way that librarians are trained to, like you were saying, not just buy books that represent their own personal [00:46:00] views, but buy books that are going to represent all the views of the people in their community and also maybe even represent things that aren't in their community in order to give a wide variety of books.

for the kid like you who walks into the library from a family who might not have been equipped or whatever to expose them to different things in the world and who need that. , , it's a real shame that there hasn't been, , and I don't know where the blame lies, right, , but that the public doesn't have a better understanding of that job, and it's being treated as if it's just, oh, well, you're a liberal librarian, and so that means you're choosing these liberal books, and it's just that, straight line, like, x equals y.

Martha: hmm.

Liz: equation is such a misunderstanding of what's happening

Martha: Mm 

Liz: really in libraries,

right? 

Nancy: Yep. Yep.

Martha: At the risk of being too long winded with this topic, but that is my problem with [00:47:00] my community and my community because , our school board is challenging books. , they have not been employing well trained librarians for one reason or another. They've been putting teachers in that role who are not trained librarians and I have to assume it's to keep costs low.

And my argument has been. If you hire well trained librarians, let them do their job. You know, they want to take money away from libraries. They want to get the school board all involved, but it's like actually you should be doing the opposite. Give the libraries more money to hire good librarians. And a lot of this would be a non issue in my mind.

Yep. I

Liz: is that they're not actually hiring actual librarians who have all that that I was just talking about. And so then that changes the equation yet again for this conversation, if you're not willing to hire those [00:48:00] professionals. All right, I'm going to move us on to another. possibly equally depressing in our, in our sort of lightning round of controversial topics., we did an episode at one point pretty early on about how we handle or think about reading books by authors that we don't agree with or that have done or been accused of doing things that are terrible 

, and , I'm interested, , what your thoughts are on that, because I remember us talking about this in one of our classes one time.

Nancy: Right, right. , my problem is that it's hard for me to separate the author from the book. And so I can't just read the book without, if I know that the author has done something. you know, I mean, know, J. K. Rowling and, you know, do you read the Harry Potter, how can you read the Harry Potter books with the same

Martha: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Nancy: joie de vivre, which we all read them [00:49:00] with, , if we care about what J.

K. Rowling says about, , trans children or trans adults or women. , you can't, I can't, , like some of the World War II poets. They were really fascists. And when I learned that, I just, you know, and I had them in my notebook, and I just wanted to just scratch them out.

I, it's beyond me to separate. Maybe a stronger person or a better person could, could make that, cut that piece. You know, you are not, you are not your work. You are you. The work is the work.

Liz: That's interesting. That's interesting. I, I think that I expected you to say something different. else. Yeah, just from my memory of our conversation with of this, but I, I wonder if it relates back to what we were talking about people, changing over time in different phases of their life.

And it also could be my interpretation [00:50:00] of what you said at the time is maybe filtered through my own perspective. but that is really interesting. Essentially. We sort of fell in the episode into a place where , I don't think we're at odds with what you said, but it's basically just that it's a decision that everyone has to make for themselves.

Martha: Yeah.

Liz: And what we were against is the idea , that people are telling other people that , you shouldn't be reading this person because I'm not. I'm not able to separate it and it makes me uncomfortable. Or , no one should read them and if you are reading them that you're a bad person.

, that's where we got a little uncomfortable with it.

Nancy: But we don't want that in any case. I mean, you can make decisions for yourself, but making a judgment about somebody else's reading,

Martha: Mm hmm. Mm

Nancy: that's not That's not acceptable.

Liz: yeah, that's a road we don't want to go down. One of the things that we talked about in that episode is if we start, and you started talking about this, that if we start not reading everyone [00:51:00] who has ever done anything that we don't agree with or held an opinion that we don't agree with, eventually there's no one left.

Because, , mores and what's acceptable and what's not changed so much that. I don't know. It's a really tough one. I'm obviously still grappling with it myself.

Martha: We also talked about on that episode that there is a spectrum and It depends, because reading is so personal, it depends on what you've gone through in your life, what your traumas are maybe, what your threshold is, we talked about Like you said, social mores and how they've changed. , are you going to hold an author from the 1800s to the same standards as an author from today?

And so there's just so many factors that where we landed was kind of like, you should be thinking about this and being intentional about [00:52:00] your reading choices, but we can't tell each other what's okay. And what's not okay. 

Nancy: And do we want those books in the library?

I mean, do we want a book by Ted Bundy, in the library? Or are we going to make do with Ann Rule's books, , about Ted Bundy?

Martha: Mm

Liz: the time period that the author lived in is a really good one too, Martha, because we did talk about in that episode, it feels really different to talk about an author that is still alive today that's still actively talking about things and hurting people today, and also still making money from that book that you're reading today versus someone who has been dead for a long time and like maybe their estate is making money, it feels like , a different proposition, potentially, a current author versus an older author.

Nancy: Which Jane Austen book does the, is it Sense and Sensibility, where the father goes off to the sugar plantations,

Liz: Park.

Nancy: Mansfield Um, [00:53:00] you know, what do we do with that?

Liz: That is actually a really interesting example, not to get too nerdy, Jane Austen nerd, but there's been a lot of scholarship that has actually come out recently about that. Looking at Jane Austen's reading and her letters at the time and making an argument, obviously we don't know, but making an argument that part of what she was doing , was making social commentary to her readers at the time , that she was trusting that they would have understood what she was saying. 

Martha: Yeah.

Nancy: But is that an aspirational reading of Jane Austen from people who love her and don't wanna, I don't, I, yeah, I,

Liz: It totally could be. yeah,

Because we'll never know.

Nancy: Mansfield Park was the book that, that was I think my least favorite. 

Liz: It is most people's least favorite.

Nancy: way Fanny was treated, I just couldn't take it.[00:54:00] 

Liz: Yeah. 

Martha: Well, we have one more question that is a little more difficult, but not as depressing, I think. Maybe, we'll see. . What are your thoughts or opinions on AI in books? Have you thought much about that? It's a topic we've been circling around for a while.

Nancy: Oh, I'd be interested if you'd, if you end up doing like a whole pod about, , AI and books. Do you mean, are you thinking now about AI writing?

Martha: or, or even narrating

Liz: of it. Yeah, all of it. Um,

Nancy: you be able to tell the difference, do you think?

Liz: Curtis Sittenfeld, our author that we've all now shared a love for, , she did this piece in the New York Times where she wrote a short story and , Chat GPT , wrote from the same prompt.

Nancy: I

Liz: It was so interesting. Did you read it?

Nancy: did read it. I was fascinated.

Liz: It was fascinating. I [00:55:00] felt like I could tell, the difference between the AI story and a Curtis Sittenfeld story.

I don't know if I would have been able to tell the difference between the AI story and another writer of a different quality to Curtis Sittenfeld, like a writer that is a little less literary, a little bit more story focused, like a bestseller, that , is more focused on the story than the language.

, it was a little scary.

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I, what did you think, Martha?

Martha: I didn't read that article. I would be curious to read it now. But I was thinking, Liz, because you know Curtis Sittenfeld's writing so well, even an author who writes the same way she does, but , you're not as familiar?

Liz: Yeah,

 I forgot to say that they did tell the AI to write it in the style of Curtis Sittenfeld, because her books were some of the books that were, you know, without her permission, used as fodder for the A. I. 's, maw

to consume, to [00:56:00] learn.

Martha: the thing about it now is that it's only gonna get better. 

Liz: Yeah.

Nancy: , one of the things I thought was most interesting in that article, Curtis Sittenfeld says the thing she did to prepare for writing the story that she doubts that the AI did, And the research that she did versus the non research and things like that. She's a very fair writer because then she said when they're then the section things that they did, they both did. , but this is how it turned out. Yeah, I, I mean, obviously, obviously, is anything obvious in this. I think that. Yeah, I, I mean, Can an AI, oh God, you guys, you got to do

Can an AI. Yeah, it is hard.

I mean, I was going to talk about the writer, being invested in the work, can AI be [00:57:00] invested in the same way? No, it can't. Can it?

Liz: No, I know. , I feel like that's what happens to me when I start talking about this. I'm like, no, I want art books to be something that has a human touch, that has human emotions behind it, that has human experiences, that has a human, and I'm like, AI can't do that, can it?

Nancy: Yeah, 

Liz: be able to? 

Like, I don't know. That's the part that's so hard.

Martha: AI has been created by humans. So there is an argument that it is a human story and that it will advance to a point where we won't be able to tell the difference. Where I go with it is. I don't want to read something that was written by AI, even if it's a good book. It's almost like a purist thing to say I want to read something that was written by a human, but then that almost feels like we're going against what we've already talked about.

About , putting rules on reading and judging [00:58:00] people for what they're reading and even reading books by authors who are problematic. If someone wants to read something written by AI, they can, but that feels wrong.

Liz: I know.

Nancy: Yeah. And then is there going to be a whole group of snobbish readers who would never read anything, you know, that wasn't? Yeah.

Liz: Yeah.

Yeah.

Nancy: But how would you know? I mean, how would you know?

Liz: Yeah.

Nancy: You know, like , in the series. By, , Isaac Asimov, where there's a detective who's a robot and his human and a human detective working together.

Really, the only way that you could tell the difference is that the robots are there. Their names all begin with our, like, our denial, something, something, and you know, what AI going to , have to be like, and is, oh, they're just an AI. You know, 

Liz: Well, right. [00:59:00] Especially given the fact that the companies that are publishing books, I mean, they're interested in making money, , let's be honest, at the end of the day. So I think there's an incent incentive for us to not know, right? For them to just be able to produce books 

more cheaply than they can when they're paying humans to write them and.

, and that's also the thing with AI that's scary, and the rest of the media landscape is that there are a lot of incentives in a lot of different industries and arenas for it to be made invisible, what is created by AI, and, I feel like that might be the crux of it that we're worried about, is that this idea that we wouldn't know, that we wouldn't be allowed to choose whether we want to take that in or not.

what you said was really interesting though, Martha, about how it's created by humans, so in a way it's human, because I talk a lot in my library instruction sessions , to college students about how search engines and [01:00:00] also AI replicate , the human biases of the people who created them.

 The top results on a Google search and the answer that you get from chat GPT when you ask about a controversial topic will the bias of the people that created that algorithm or of the people who are clicking on the links that are produced by that search, right?

, if, depending on what word you search for, depending on, , what, the prevailing notion about that is at the time you're going to get different things at the top and if you just take that as , this is the objective answer to this question, then you're just

taking in the biases of the people that created it and the people that are interacting with it.

And so , if it replicates our biases, then , like you were saying, I'm starting to feel trapped by my own logic. If it's replicating our biases, then how is it not capable of replicating the other parts of the human experience? Hmm.

Martha: a full episode. Yeah.

Liz: [01:01:00] Yeah, think it 

might

Martha: Maybe we'll have to interview someone who's very pro AI to get their Perspective.

Liz: Yeah, like, how could you be?

I feel like we should have come up with , a happier question to ask you towards the end.

Nancy: I don't think so. I don't think there are happier questions.

Liz: Um. 

Nancy: That's what we're grappling with.

Martha: Mm-Hmm. 

Liz: to grapple with. So I do want to ask, though, , before we leave, . , what is your life and books looking like these days? Are you're fully retired, right? Or are there projects that are in the hopper

Nancy: I mean, yeah, I'm still doing some public speaking. But, I'm having a harder and harder time finding books to read, I'm starting many, many books , and, maybe reading a chapter or two, and then I'll just read the end because I don't care.

Liz: but you care enough that you want to know the end?

Nancy: Yeah, but mostly because I, because maybe [01:02:00] somebody will talk about it or something, I've been thinking about nostalgia and how, I'm nostalgic for the libraries. that I knew and that kind of thing , but also nostalgic for where the world of books was so large and so varied.

And now I don't feel that way. , so I'm not reading nearly, nearly as much. , and a lot of the books that I'd like to reread aren't on audio, and I would like them to be on audio. Yeah, so I have a very, I wouldn't call it a hate love relationship with reading and books, but it's certainly not where it was. Ten years ago,

and Certainly isn't. Yeah, I've had a lot of trouble reading. And, , I'm sure you've talked about this before. I mean, the whole thing of being on social media, and how it just messes up any sort of [01:03:00] concentration that you can have. Yeah, I see that, , I feel like it's kind of sad what's happening to me in reading, but , there it is.

Liz: And , we did talk about the social media thing. As being something that, yes, it's happening, but also that you can train yourself out of, or be intentional about, , okay, I'm gonna look at my phone less and read more. But it is certainly a real phenomenon. , and we also have talked about how publishing as an industry is constricting, it's getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

And so that means, by definition, that there are going to be, there's going to be less variety in books, because as it just gets Do you think that's part of what's happening or is it something else?

Nancy: No, in a way I would disagree and say that, yeah, the big five publishing is getting, you know, Simon and Schuster wanting , to be part of Penguin Random House. And, you know, that that's getting smaller. But what I'm thrilled about are these small [01:04:00] publishers who are publishing both reprinting older titles, which I just love that they're doing that.

And then, So many independent, small independent publishers doing such interesting work, bringing out, so in a way, the problem now is for librarians to, to tap into that much wider world and , make those books available to the public. , I'm excited about that,

Liz: yeah, that's a really good point because it also is there's more representation of different types of people and different types of lives and different types of experiences now than there ever has been in books before.

Nancy: totally.

Liz: So that adds to the variety as Well, 

Martha: Well, I know it's different than. How you've read before but I love that you're in your audiobook era Nancy and I would be So curious to know what audiobooks you love [01:05:00] So keep tweeting share share what you're 

loving because you know, you'll help

other people find them 

Nancy: one of the things that I just loved about writing, my novel, George and Lizzie was that I got to do the audio book for it. And I just thought I loved doing that. Um,

Liz: was actually just going to bring up George and Lizzie because you were saying that you don't find as many books that you want to read. And I was going to say, well, you wrote one once that I really loved. Are you ever going to write another novel?

Nancy: no, probably not. , but I have to say, I'm so glad you love George and Lizzie because I really think I wrote it because I wrote a book that I would love. That's what I did. , it has everything that I love. It has that little bit of quirkiness and, you know, , but I don't know if I, I mean, I was saying to my husband yesterday, I just wish there were some characters in my head that I could, love as much as I love both George and Lizzie.

And

yeah, [01:06:00] 

Liz: did really love that book. If you haven't read George and Lizzie by Nancy Pearl you should read it.

Martha: i'm gonna put it on my tbr now I have an idea for you nancy not that you need another job but Since you liked narrating George and Lizzie, maybe you could narrate those books that you wish were on audio. Yeah.

Nancy: I do wish that. , Noel Streetfield, the British children's author who wrote ballet shoes. Some of her books are on audio, but not skating shoes, or which is called white boots in England. And, , Gosh,, I'm dying to listen to that, 

Martha: well, thank you so much for joining us today, Nancy. We were just so thrilled to have you and to talk about all of these concepts that you've developed and to get your perspective to know that, , we were sharing them with everyone and in the way that you imagine them.

That makes me feel good that we're getting it right

Nancy: Well, thank you for having me on the show. It was really, it just [01:07:00] was a delight. And anytime you want me to come back on and natter on about books and reading, I would try not to be so depressing about it. Okay.

Martha: Oh man, that was so great. Thanks again, Nancy, for joining us.. If you want even more bookish content, make sure you Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at allbooksaloudpod. If you want to send us any feedback or have any questions for Nancy, we can relay for you.

Send us an email to allbooksaloudpod at gmail. com and read on my friends. 

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