Do you think you know Los Angeles? Beyond the fantasy images that television and movies have fed us for decades, there is an even more magical city that lives with the people and places outside the media view. In this episode, my marvelous guest shares the book that showed her THIS Los Angeles: Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat.

We took the podcast on tour, and we learned so many things about the state of reading! In this episode, we report back from the inaugural Enchanted Realms Fantasy Book Festival in Los Angeles. DJ Diego Dela Rosa and I discuss what we learned about fantasy readers and the community they create, we share some interviews from the folks who attended, and I talk with Brooke Cantrall, the creator of the festival (which is now a rebranded fantasy events business called Dragons and Dreams).

We mention a fun personality quiz that we set up for the event, where we asked folks to choose the fantasy character archetype that best describes them. And DJ Diego curated a bespoke playlist for each! You can play along at home: choose the archetype that fits you best, and then mosey over to Spotify to hear your playlist. Here are your options:

The Crown, The Shadow, The Pen, The Rose, The Sword.

You can find these links, as well as book recs from the Enchanted Realms attendees, at our Instagram. As always you can contact us directly at ThisBookMadeMe@gmail.com

Why do we read hard books anymore? Is it worth the time and effort? My guest is here to make the case for how hard books make us better readers, and help us connect to other books and other people. (In fact, a book can read us. Yep. You heard that right!)

Bill McDonald grew up in SoCal, where both his parents and most of his relatives were teachers, and he was not a rebellious child. More-or-less educated at Colgate and The Claremont Graduate School, and then by four years of college teaching in downstate Illinois, Bill and his wife Dolores came back to California to help found Johnston College at the University of Redlands in 1969, where his interdisciplinary training in religion, philosophy, and literature proved to be of maximum utility. He's now twenty years retired from U of R's English department and the Hunsaker Chair in Distinguished Teaching, and sort of retired from Johnston. He says: "Retirement's a military trope: I've stepped away from the front lines but continue soldiering on with alumni and development work and teaching one-two courses a year." He's written a couple of books, including one on Thomas Mann, and co-authored, edited/co-edited several others with Johnston alums and colleagues, but at heart he's a co-learner who has taken delight in sixty years in "unsolitary reading" with generations of college students.

Don't forget this month's mixtape, courtesy of DJ Diego Dela Rosa, titled: This Mixtape Made Me Ponder. As always, you can find more about the podcast and host at our Instagram, or contact us directly at ThisBookMadeMe@gmail.com