The First Rule of Diverse Books Club Is...
The Librarian Is In
The New York Public Library
4.7 • 595 Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2018
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
RuthAnn Deveney from the Diverse Books Club gives us a behind-the-scenes look at her group's themes and book picks, her love of spreadsheets, and her Philly-specific sandwich recommendations. Plus: What will Frank say (or not say) when he goes on The View?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Librarian is in the New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next. I'm Frank. I'm Gwen. |
| 0:13.9 | And today, we are going to be talking to Ruth Ann Devaney. I'm super excited to talk to you, Ruth Ann, partly because of the work that you do |
| 0:21.7 | with the diverse books club on Goodreads, and partly because you have given us much feedback |
| 0:27.3 | over the past couple of years. You are like a super awesome listener, Twitter person who has |
| 0:33.1 | interacted with us a lot. So it's really cool to actually talk to you. Thank you. I'm so excited to be |
| 0:39.6 | on the show. And as I emailed you, Gwen, I have no chill. So I'm like trying not to freak out right now. |
| 0:47.1 | Oh, that's adorable. Chill is highly overrated. I have no chill. Exactly. Enthusiasm is everything. Could we ask you to start with our sort of |
| 0:56.5 | basic question that we like to start interviews with, which is tell us a little bit about how you |
| 1:02.0 | got to this stage in your life and how you wound up working with this group of people and this |
| 1:06.6 | group of readers and why you like it? Sure. I've been a reader my whole life. And recently, |
| 1:15.5 | over the summer, I joined Instagram, which is very behind the times. I was like resisting it. |
| 1:21.4 | And I don't know why, because it's really fun. But I joined Instagram. And so, of course, |
| 1:26.5 | it started like recommending things that I should follow. |
| 1:29.2 | And one of the accounts was Top Shelf Text, which is run by Madeline Riley, and that is the founder of the Diverse Books Club. |
| 1:38.4 | So I joined right around the time that she was sort of putting out questions to her followers. |
| 1:45.6 | You know, I really want to read more diversely, who wants to do that with me? And the response was huge. So I got |
| 1:50.9 | involved right at the start, which was awesome. That is really cool. Tell us a little bit more |
| 1:56.0 | about the club. Sure. So, as I said, Madeline Riley is our founder, and it really was prompted by the riots at UVA last summer. |
| 2:06.5 | It just sort of opened up people's eyes to say, you know, gosh, what's really happening out there? |
| 2:11.9 | I'm not as well versed as I would like to be. But where do I start? I mean, there are so many, you know, lists out there online about |
| 2:18.6 | how to be an ally and, you know, 25 books you should have read, things like that. It can be |
| 2:24.1 | overwhelming. So Madeline and the rest of us on the team are kind of coming alongside this community |
... |
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