Do you podcast? I have started subscribing to podcasts. There's an app for that (there is an app for everything, right?). So, yes, there is an app on my (I use 'my' loosely since it actually belongs to my work but I have mostly appropriated it for bookish uses--libraries/books--it works, right?) tablet. Like most bookish resources they can be both wonderful and a distraction. For instance I love magazines, but when I have a spare moment and I want to fill it with some sort of reading I almost always reach for a book. I always think I could spend this half hour either idly looking at a magazine or reading a book. So, normally the book wins out and it makes me wonder just which one is actually the distraction . . .
The nice thing with podcasts, however, is I can multi-task. If I am stitching I can listen to a podcast, or cooking or doing some other mindless chore. The bad thing is while I am listening and doing something else with my hands I hear all sorts of good references to books that I want to jot down for later perusal, but my hands are busy with something else. Inevitably, if someone is talking about books I am likely going to be tempted by one or two or five or six.
At the moment my podcasts of choice are: Penguin's Beaks & Geeks where authors are interviewed about new and forthcoming books. I often will listen even if the book isn't something I am drawn to as it can be fascinating to listen to the authors speak about their work and their writing experiences and on more than one occasion I have requested a book from the library (at least to look at) that I might not have otherwise.
I think I must be on a million e-newsletter lists as I get a (large) variety of them in my email inbox every day. More danger as you will surmise, but all sorts of wonderful and helpful things, too. HarperCollins will often link to a podcast with in their Book Club Girl new releases newsletter. The current featured podcast is a serialization of the complete audiobook (eight parts) of After the Funeral by Agatha Christie as presented by Sophie Hannah. The first episode lasts an hour and half so I have yet to listen to it in full, but it looks quite promising. (By the way, I have yet to read Sophie Hannah!--must rectify that one--and am curious, too, about her Poirot novels which have been authorized by the Agatha Christie estate).
But my most recent (and if this last podcast I have listened to is anything to judge by) find is BBC Radio's Books and Authors. Actually I think you will only find clips at that link, but for full podcasts go to Open Book. Their June 12 episode had a segment by S.J. Parris who discusses the latest offering (women spies in fiction are on the rise--happily for me) of spy novels featuring women. The segment is a mere five or six minutes so if you have an interest do give it a listen, but here's my list of books (well, the list is longer but the books associated with this particular topic) that I have gleaned from it. Spy novels (a few anyway) I want to read:
Exposure, Helen Dunmore
Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan
Tightrope, Simon Mawer
I Can't Begin to Tell You, Elizabeth Buchan
A Quiet Life, Natasha Walter
Some of these books are older and a few new or forthcoming. Are they all British authors? Surely there must be U.S. authors writing female spy novels?
I am especially intrigued as she mentioned a reworking of John LeCarré's The Night Manager filmed using a female (and pregnant--at least the actress was at the time of filming) protagonist. I think it has already aired in the UK? I wonder if we will get it over here sometime soon?
Anyway, lots of interest to me (and maybe you, too?), and I had thought I might have a new 'summer reading project' in the works and now I am drawn once again to spy novels (an ongoing affair I guess).
So, do you 'podcast'? Listen to anything good? Bookish or otherwise?