Episode 58 - Challenges My Expectations with Jess Abra Sandy

On this episode, Jess Abra Sandy, a self-described lapsed opera singer and cyber security expert talks about how poetry has provided for her in different ways as her seasons of life change. We also talk about books that make us want to throw them across the room, how her reading life has changed as her kid has grown, and Jess shares a lot of very insightful thoughts about the reading life.    Books mentioned in this episode:    What Betsy’s reading:  Devil House by John Darnielle Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capó Crucet  Lost Man’s Lane by Scott Carson   Books Highlighted by Jess: What Narcissism Means to Me by Tony Hoagland Priest, Turned Therapist, Treats Fear of God by Tony Hoagland Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek The Ocean in the Next Room by Sarah V. Schweig Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss  The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones East of Eden by John Steinbeck My World - And Welcome to It by James Thurber    All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.   Other books mentioned in this episode: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin  Nancy Drew #1: The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene The Wasteland, Prufrock, and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot  Fox by Joyce Carol Oates  The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop & Amy Sherman-Palladino  White Teeth by Zadie Smith  Midwest Shreds by Mandy Shunnarah  Good Bones by Maggie Smith  Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson  Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña & Christian Robinson  Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado