About
About the Podcast
In each episode, we cover one book. We want our listeners to relive the joy of reading that book, particularly the joy of reading it for the first time. Each podster recommends a book to the pod that they have read and enjoyed. We read it together over a few weeks and get together and talk about it.
If you liked the book before our podcast, we hope you will like it even more after. We aren’t literary critics, just literary enthusiasts. We talk about everything from themes to favorites passages to who would be the best villain if we could cast the show ourselves. There are tons and tons and tons of spoilers – be warned.
About the Podsters
How did this happen?
Josh proposed the idea to Jack and Lusu in a text after a) discovering there were things called podcasts and b) listening to The Rewatchables. Josh and Jack had been talking about books for almost 30 years, and Lusu was added to their discussions over 10 years ago. A common friend Jason mentioned Maureen as a book nerd, and the suggestion was enthusiastically backed by Lusu. After Josh mistakenly brought up the Wheel of Time to her, where she talked about the whole series from how at least one scene in every book had merit to defending The Great Bloat, he invited her to join. Hence Book from Earth was born.
Josh
Josh likes books that come from Earth. He finds alien literature a bit complex and doesn’t appreciate how humans are portrayed as a land-grabbing, anxious, war-mongering, nervous species by the many alien authors he’s read. Plus we don’t have the tech they think we have.
Josh’s first dip into fantasy literature were the Jim Kjelgaard books, where Josh lived like a dog in many different settings including one where he battled a wolverine. It was a short leap from there into Tolkien’s story.
Fantasy, sci-fi, space opera, apocalyptic stories – Josh likes them all. He’s grateful the podcast gives him an outlet and for the fellowship of the Books from Earth podders.
Jack
Jack is the cool one of the group. He appears very normal. In fact, based on the way he carries himself, nobody can even tell he digs sci-if.
He has very low standards for comedy … enjoying irony, high-brow, satire, screwball, situational, etc. He can even tolerate a laugh track.
When not reading post-apocalyptic fiction and space operas, Jack enjoys spending time with his awesome wife and two kick-ass daughters, defending the planet form extraterrestrial threats and playing-out “end of the world” scenarios in his mind.
You can find Jack on Twitter @jackfelder
Lusu
Lusu, Stranger in a Strange Pod, hails from the warm heart of Africa — Malawi. Though he does not have super human ability or telekinetic powers, he loves reading about people, aliens, or creatures who do.
He entered the realms of science fiction reading Ender’s game and the realms of fantasy through David Eddings. Fellow podder Jack introduced Lusu to post-apocalyptic worlds, and shared the same books with Josh. Maureen and Lusu geeked out on the reg over the Wheel of Time series as well as the works of Jacqueline Carey. Thus the Pod was born yet unborn, a being only of thought.
Lusu now resides in sleepy Silver Spring, with his partner Harrison and their beautiful puppy, Suzie Q (Oh! How we love you!). He asks you to join us as we relive our favorite Books from the Earth.
Maureen
Maureen is a desk jockey by day, and an excited puppy by night. She tries to channel her excessive amounts of energy into Good (such as reading, artistic(ish) projects, and friends), but sometimes uses her superpower for Evil (such as long distance running, home improvement, and, once every year or two, spending hours setting up her siblings into asking “what time is it?” so she can send them videos of her doing “The Percolator”).
Maureen was introduced to the Fantasy genre by her mother, who gave her the first Harry Potter book for Christmas one year. While feeling lost waiting for the fifth book to come out, a friend told her she would love The Wheel of Time, and thus Maureen discovered the delicious world of Fantasy. Growing up on Ray Bradbury, Steven King, Madeline L’Engle, and Douglas Adams she was shocked that she missed it. But the public school system did a pretty good job anyway (see: above, re: Ray Bradbury & Madeline L’Engle).
Maureen’s dad instilled a deep love of Star Trek: TNG by letting her watch it with him after he watched The Muppet Show with her. At first it was a way to stay up past her bedtime, but she thinks her dad had a Grand Master Plan to turn her into a Nerd. He succeeded.