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On this episode, Charlie, Jami, and Joel discuss The Water Dancer, the debut novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Along the way, they discuss magical realism, slave narratives, the differences between the printed word and audiobooks, and much more! (Please note, this episode was recorded remotely using Zoom - you may notice some slight audio imperfections, which were inherent in the source.) Listen to their conversation in the player below:

Continue Reading "Miner Recs Episode 69 Now Available!" →

This week on The Great DPPL Bake-Along:

We bake coffee cake inspired by Chava's first foray into baking in The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker.

We’ll share our results, our recipes, and a little bit about our chosen stories on this blog.

AND we invite YOU to bake along with us.

Share what you make by tagging us with #DPPLBakes, send us your favorite recipes, or just enjoy reading our entries.

Continue Reading "Chava’s Coffee Cake from The Golem and the Jinni" →

We’re still in the midst of a pandemic so it should come as little surprise that Halloween celebrations and trick-or-treating will look different this year.

Do not let this stop you from getting into the Halloween spirit though!

Check out one of these spooky titles to get the adrenaline going and give you those frights you are looking for, all from the safety of your home.

Costumes optional.

Continue Reading "Creepy Reads for Teens to get into the Halloween Spirit" →

October brings many things—the changing of the leaves, pumpkins, new latte flavors… but one facet of October that sometimes gets missed is LGBTQ+ History Month.

This month commemorates National Coming Out Day on October 11th, as well as the first and second marches on Washington for LGBTQ+ rights in 1979 and 1987.

It’s also interesting to note that LGBTQ+ History Month directly follows Banned Books Week, the last week of September.

LGBTQ+ books are some of the most frequently challenged books in schools, from Captain Underpants to The Color Purple.

Continue Reading "Read With Pride" →

Even if you've never read Proust, you might have some inkling that there's a strong association between madeleines, a small rich cake, typically baked in a shell-shaped mold and often decorated with coconut and jam, and memory. 

About 50 pages into the 3000 page behemoth of the novel Remembrance of Things Past, the author describes a flood of memory coming back to him with the first bite of this little scalloped French pastry.

Who doesn't have sentimental taste memories?

Continue Reading "Marcel Proust’s Madeleines" →