I opened my email about an hour ago and noticed a trend. Small businesses and charities are running out of money. I read two emails back to back- one from Page 1 Books, an independent bookstore that I follow on-line and one from the 92nd Street Y. Neither of these emails took time to sugar coat their situations. The emails were flat out calls for financial contributions to help these organizations stay afloat. I know this is only the beginning of the emails that will flood our inboxes as small business and charities struggle to stay open, to pay employees, to imagine a future where they have weathered this storm. 

As a family, we are thinking through how we will support the many businesses and organizations we value. Over the weekend, I took one small step to help our favorite local bookstore, The Curious Reader. And I am even more glad to let you know that near or far, you too can support either The Curious Reader (please!) or any other independent bookstores that you love. 

I have been an Audible subscriber for as long as I can remember. While I don’t listen to a ton of audio books, I listen to enough that having an Audible subscription made sense. But this weekend, I switched my audiobook subscription to Libro.fm and now all of my audiobook purchases will benefit The Curious Reader, who desperately needs our support to get through this time instead of Amazon who will come out of this crisis without our help. It was super easy to sign up for Libro.fm and their platform seems very similar to Audible so there wasn’t much of a learning curve to get started. 

Please click here to learn more about Libro.fm and if you are interested in helping my friends at The Curious Reader, please do! 

And if you are curious to know which books I have enjoyed on audio lately, here are a few suggestions…. 

Know My Name by Chanel Miller- This book is phenomenal and truthfully I think it should be required reading for all college students. I think MIller’s writing is just about the best that I have read in a really long time. 

Fractured by Karin Slaughter- Karin Slaughter is a new to me author. For years, if I needed something that would be an easy read, Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson were my go to authors. I have been on the lookout for a new author in this category for a long time and Karin Slaughter is it! 

All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg- My mom came and stayed with us for a bit after my last eye surgery and her book club had just finished and really loved All Over But the Shoutin’. I accidentally listened to the abridged version but it was so good that I would definitely recommend the full book if you can find it. 

The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup- This was another post surgery listen. Well written thrillers like the Chestnut Man are among my favorites and the pace of this one was so fast that it was extra fun on audio.

The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich- For a long time, true crime was the only type of book that I would listen to on audio and this was a great one. The Fact of the Body was a ‘true crime memoir’ which was a really interesting concept.