RAD Reading
Roni Loren and Dawn Alexander
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Top 10 RAD Reading Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best RAD Reading episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to RAD Reading for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite RAD Reading episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
They All Float - Our Best Halloween Recs
RAD Reading
10/29/21 • 96 min
Happy Halloween! This week Roni freaks out Dawn with her scary book and movie picks (and episode title) and Dawn offers recommendations for those who prefer their Halloween on the gentler side. It’s a long one, y’all! We’ve got a pile of recs for you, including suspense, horror, true crime, and paranormal romance. Grab a bag of Halloween candy and join us!
Highlights:
- The controversial episode title
- Our best suspense recs
- We can’t pronounce author names
- Roni’s crush on a loveable (fictional) serial killer
- Our favorite paranormal recs
- Dawn’s trauma from The Exorcist
- Roni realizes she still has a thing for hot vampires
- Stephen King and peer pressure
- Roni tries to sell us on a lizard hero
- Our true crime recs
- The “Scooby-Doo” recs for those who don’t like horror
- Roni’s scary movie recs
- The Lost Boys and why Dawn would happily get lost with any of them
- The movie Roni won’t watch alone
- Our Halloween TV recs
- Podcast recs for the horror and true crime lover
- Our RAD Reading Recs of the week
Full show notes and book links:
We have so many recommendations that we couldn't fit them all here! So we've gathered the full list with all the links for you in one click.
Find us online:
- RAD Reading Facebook Page
- RAD Reading Website
- RAD Rec Master List
- Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
- Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/05/21 • 80 min
Do you find yourself picking up your phone instead of picking up a book or your e-reader? Yeah, us too. Today we tackle how to tame all that screen time so we can get more reading time, especially during the busy holiday season. We’ll also discuss how the type of book you pick up can make all the difference. And as usual, we’ll have a pile of reading recs for you!
Highlights:
- This is our reading brains on smartphones
- The power of Do Not Disturb
- How to reclaim reading time in a screen time world
- Roni’s haunted moaning window makes a cameo
- The types of books that are better suited for distracted minds
- Fast-starting book recs
- Recs for short and snappy reads
- Short story/essay collections that you can tackle in bite-sized bits
- Page-turning memoirs
- Some of our favorite binge-worthy book series
- Roni is horrified to realize she’s read books two and three of a series and not book one
- Roni’s favorite doorstop length books
- Our RAD Reading Recs of the week
Show Notes/Book Links:
Click here for full show notes, which include links to every book we talked about and the links to all of Roni's articles on distraction.
Find us online:
Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/19/21 • 56 min
This week we’re talking about dropping reader shame and reading what you want to read. Plus, we’re giving our top shameless reading recs! Make sure the kids aren’t in the room for this one, y’all. ;) Join us and read shameless!
Highlights:
- The language/terms used to shame readers about certain types of books
- Roni gets on her soapbox about the word “cheesy”
- How genres read primarily by women are often shamed the most
- Shame about book covers, titles, taboos, and uncomfortable topics
- Self-help books and why they shouldn’t be shamed
- Graphic novels count as reading
- Romance novels and mental health
- People who watch romance on the screen but won’t read a romance novel
- Ways to keep things private if you really can’t been outwardly shameless
- Finding your people
- Our shameless book recs including Dawn’s blue aliens and Roni’s kinky picks
- Our RAD Reading recs of the week
Find us online:
Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12/03/21 • 56 min
The What to Read decision fatigue is real, y’all. Join us today as we talk about some practical (and some bonkers!) ways to pick your next book, how to choose what's next if you’re a mood reader, and what to do if you keep picking up books you don’t like. Also, we’re giving you insider tips on how to read those Amazon and Goodreads reviews because all is not as it seems at first glance! Oh, and there’s an incident with an umbrella.
Highlights:
- The decision fuel tank and Roni melting down over a Christmas tree
- The teetering TBR and the Why did I buy that again? brain fog
- Roni loves a spreadsheet as long as there is no math (and you can download a blank copy of her TBR spreadsheet for yourself!)
- Your taste and how books go stale
- Dawn and The Umbrella, you’ll just have to listen to understand
- Reading challenges and our opposing views
- Using “best of” book lists for inspiration
- Strange Facebook recommendation groups
- Some bonkers options for picking your next book
- Wrapping books? Um, what?
- Mood reading struggles
- Contagious bookish excitement and where to find it
- Book monogamy not required
- What to do when you keep picking up books you don’t enjoy
- Deciphering the gold in book reviews
- When “adorable” and “hilarious” are bad words
- No, Roni doesn’t have a chip on her shoulder about reviews, shut up
- Weird s*x reviews
- Our RAD Reading Recs of the week
Find us online:
Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
*Note: all book links are affiliate links which means the podcast makes a small commission if you make a purchase, but there is no extra cost to you!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12/10/21 • 70 min
Books can make fantastic holiday gifts (obviously!) but knowing how to buy the right book for someone in your life can be harder than it looks. Today we’re tackling the challenge of buying books for others and sharing our best tips. And we also have a Santa-worthy list of our favorite bookish gifts. Oh, and you’re totally allowed to buy all of these things for yourself if you have no bookish person to buy for in your life. We won’t tell. ;)
Highlights:
- Gift-giving is a love language and one of us doesn’t know how to speak it fluently
- How to know if Roni loves you and what she hasn’t done with her husband in fifteen years
- Dad books
- The key to the “also boughts” on Amazon
- When that person in your life only reads one author or one series exclusively
- Dawn is a fail at hiding gifts
- Making a book gift feel extra personal
- Roni can’t seem to conjugate a verb
- Buying for the non-readers in your life
- A good ebook reader’s power to reignite a reading life
- A drool-worthy list of bookish gifts (no, we weren’t putting stuff in our carts for ourselves as we recorded, hush.)
- What gift makes Roni feel like she has a little taste of the library in her office
- Dawn gets attacked by a fly
- Out of town library cards
- Don’t put your address in a used book or Dawn will stalk you
- The joy of bookmail and our favorite bookish subscriptions
- We have feelings about the Amazon First Reads
- Go for the gold type gifts
- Making it easier for your family and friends to buy the right gift for you
- Our RAD Reading Recs of the week
- Stay tuned for bloopers at the end
Find us online:
Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12/31/21 • 51 min
It’s one of our favorite times of the year—time to set new reading goals and challenges for 2022! Roni is sharing the many nerdy reading challenges that she’s tackling this coming year, and Dawn is firmly anti-challenge but has chosen some goals to enhance her reading year. Also, as always, we have our RAD reading recs of the week!
Highlights:
- One of us declares New Year’s their favorite holiday
- The difference between a reading challenge and a reading goal
- Can you count a DNF in a reading challenge?
- Dawn’s audiobook goal
- Roni’s book subscription addiction & Dawn tries to stage an intervention
- Reading goal suggestions
- The pros and cons of reading challenges
- The personality type that fits best with reading challenges
- The book Dawn flat out refused to read in school
- The Pizza Hut Book-It Challenge was our 80s jam
- Roni’s experience with her Read Wide challenge
- One of us has strong feelings about the randomness of some reading challenges
- Roni talks about the personal growth of not finishing one of her reading challenges this year (Update: since recording, she finished it because...personal growth is hard. :) )
- How to choose the right reading challenge for you
- Creating or customizing your own challenge
- Read Your Way to 10k (words not kilometers)
- Dawn’s reading goals
- The Bookish Subscription challenge
- The Indie Author challenge
- The Romance Roots/Fated Mates challenge
- Roni’s reading goals
- RAD Reading recs of the week
Find us online:
Roni's Happy for Now newsletter
Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
01/07/22 • 62 min
It’s that time of year, and we’re so here for it. Join us as we get all ourselves together for 2022. We’re sharing which planners we’re using to set goals and organize our year, and then we’re recommending our favorite self-improvement books for improving your home life, reducing distractions, getting control of your time, and boosting your creativity. We've got a long list! Plus, as always, we’ll be sharing our RAD Recs of the week.
Highlights:
- We’ve both ditched the planners we’ve used in the past and switched to new ones
- Which planners we’re using this year – and yes, there are multiple planners because we contain multitudes, okay. No one planner can contain us! ;)
- Roni’s a pushy planner person
- How Dawn lost many hours of her life...planning her planner
- A "happy life" planner
- Dawn made a stencil journal
- Roni is learning to “use the things”
- Roni apparently needs a lot of self-help while Dawn only needs a little
- Books really can fix things
- Books for improving your home life
- Pondering deep questions like “why am I folding my underwear?”
- Books that helped us reduce distractions and tame social media/staring at our phones all the time
- Books that help you take back your time
- Books that give you a creativity boost
- Our RAD Reading Recs of the week
- We still can't say “RAD Reading Rec” without stumbling on our words
- An important change to the podcast
- Listen all the way through the end for bloopers ;)
Click here to get the full show notes, including links to all of our recommendations and anything else we mentioned in the show.
Find us online:
- RAD Reading on Instagram
- RAD Reading Facebook Page
- RAD Reading Website
- RAD Rec Master List
- Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
- Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
01/21/22 • 66 min
Episode Summary:
This week we’re chatting about how books can help our mental health, the kinds of books that work best for us when we’re feeling anxious or down, and we’re discussing the practice of putting trigger warnings in books. Also, we have our RAD Reading Recs of the week plus a few bonus picks!
Spoiler Alert: Spoiler for the book The Push by Ashley Audrain at 42:55, skip ahead one minute to 43:55 mark if you don’t want a spoiler.
Highlights:
- Roni got a puppy and is feeling loopy from lack of sleep
- Why waiting rooms can be a gift
- Reading and health
- Goat yoga but with teeth
- Calgon, take me away reading moments
- Dark stories in dark times
- Bibliotherapy is a real thing and a cool word
- Someone send Roni recs for dog-themed essay collections!
- That “this is me” feeling when reading
- How A Wrinkle In Time found Dawn at the exact right moment
- Romance, weirdness, and acceptance
- Thoughts on menage and laundry
- The beauty of the guaranteed ending
- Dawn throws shade at Nicholas Sparks (do people still say “throw shade”?)
- Romance vs. “a love story”
- Genre mystery vs. literary mystery vs. cozy mystery
- Dawn’s Apollo 13 anxiety
- Sometimes sad moods and happy comedic books are a bad mix
- What is a trigger warning?
- Are trigger warnings spoilers?
- Transcending our GenX-ness (but Roni’s not giving up her Doc Martens)
- Our personal experiences with triggers in books
- Roni wants a “Does this book have...?” database
- Different ways authors handle trigger warnings
- Roni let Dawn down by not giving her a trigger warning for a movie
- Bonus books recs
- The RAD Reading Recs of the week
- Stay tuned for bloopers!
Find us online:
Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
02/04/22 • 57 min
It’s all about book series today! We're defining the different types of series, talking about why we love reading them, and then we’re giving our favorite series starter books. Let’s do this!
Highlights:
- To series read or not to series read
- Connected series vs. continuing series
- Duets and trilogies
- Shared world series
- Roni remembers a book she forgot she wrote
- Dawn makes friends in parking lots with people pulling things out of their trunks
- Series and fandoms and which fandom Roni was googling a decade ago
- Why we love series
- Why not waiting for a whole series to be written before buying can be important
- RIP one of Roni’s series
- Relief from decision fatigue
- Our favorite series starters recs
- Our RAD Recs of the Week
- How Loren is pronounced
Find us online:
Connect with Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
Connect with Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/15/21 • 66 min
We love upgrading our reading lives, so this week we’re talking about one of our favorite ways to enhance the reading experience--creating our own reading journals! Plus, as always, we’re giving our RAD Reading Recs of the week.
Highlights:
- Why Dawn’s teen journals got her grounded
- The basics of a reading/book journal
- Private journals vs. Goodreads
- Roni avoiding awkward book signings
- What Dawn said that made Roni clutch her pearls
- Unexpected benefits of a reading journal
- Dawn’s epiphany about stencils
- Putting together your journal
- What Roni wishes she’d put in her journal from the start
- Rating systems
- Finding your style
- Digital options
- Dawn’s signal that she’s been kidnapped
- Journaling tips
- Our favorite supplies
- Our RAD Reading Recs
*Note: all book/product links are affiliate links which means the podcast makes a small commission if you make a purchase, but there is no extra cost to you!
Supplies recommended;
- Leuchtturm1917 Journal
- Stabilo Fineliner Pens
- Zebra Mildliner highlighters
- Staedtler Ergosoft colored pencils
- Staedtler Template, Geometric Shapes & Symbols
- Plum Paper Notebook
- Frixion pens
- Prisma Color Pencils
Other resources mentioned:
- Roni’s free Romance Reading Journal
- Rock Your Reading Tracker by Sarah’s Bookshelves
- My Reading Journal by Anne Bogel
- Pensieve app
- Book of the Month club
RAD Reading Recs of the Week:
- Dear Writer, Are You In Burnout? by Becca Syme (Dawn’s rec)
- Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (Roni’s rec)
Find us online:
Find Roni on her website or @roniloren on Instagram
Find Dawn on her website or @dawnalexanderbooks on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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FAQ
How many episodes does RAD Reading have?
RAD Reading currently has 37 episodes available.
What topics does RAD Reading cover?
The podcast is about Fiction, Bookish, Reading, Writing, Writers, Author, Podcasts, Books, Arts, Suspense and Romance.
What is the most popular episode on RAD Reading?
The episode title 'The Life-Changing Magic of the DNF (Did Not Finish)' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on RAD Reading?
The average episode length on RAD Reading is 56 minutes.
How often are episodes of RAD Reading released?
Episodes of RAD Reading are typically released every 13 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of RAD Reading?
The first episode of RAD Reading was released on Sep 21, 2021.
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