Like It Dropped Out Of The Sky (Right Book at the Right Time)

Sometimes the universe provides a perspective change right when you needed it. On this episode, Nicole, Drew, Killian, and Amanda discuss books and media that we discovered at the right time in our lives, and the ways they helped us.

The Distracted Librarians can be found on Podbean, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and PlayerFM.

Want to join the conversation? Email us at [e-mail]

Many thanks to BCTV for their support in recording, editing, and releasing this podcast; and to the Friends of the Library for sponsoring closed captioning on every episode.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
- (Nicole) Hey there!
Welcome to "The DistractedLibrarians" podcast.
We're your friendly neighborhood bookworms
with a penchant forall things pop culture.
- (Drew) Picture thisas our digital campfire
where we dive into our latest obsessions,
analyze our favorite distractions,
and rediscover the joy of reading.
- (Killian) Whether you're amedia enthusiast, a book lover,

(00:21):
or just need a break from the daily grind,
you've come to the right spot.
- (Amanda) So kick back, relax,
and get delightfully distracted with us.
- (Nicole) Hey, everybody.
On this episode of "TheDistracted Librarians,"
we are going to talk about theright book at the right time.
This is kind of an odd phenomenonthat happens sometimes.

(00:44):
What do you think that, like,
what does that mean to you guys?
- (Amanda) To me, it is finding a book,
like it dropped out ofthe sky, into your hands
and the universe is saying,
"This book is for you right now."
- (Nicole) Yeah, totally.(speakers laugh)
That's, like, a really gooddescription of what this is.

(01:06):
- (Amanda) To help you deal or guide you
through whatever you'regoing through at that moment.
- (Nicole) Sure.
- (Drew) Yeah, I thinkthat's the answer for me,
is that I never realize in the moment
that it was a book thatI, quote-unquote, needed.
But, like, I read a fairnumber of books in a year.
I've read a fair numberof books in my lifetime,

(01:27):
and they're the ones that, you know,
I'll finish and immediately change, like,
a thought process or, like, a life path
or that I look back on years later like,
"Yeah, that was correct."
- (Nicole) Yeah.
- (Drew) Like I almost never know
it in the moment.
- (Nicole) Totally.
In the book that I'mgonna talk about today,
I absolutely knew it in the moment.

(01:48):
- (Drew) Oh, yeah?- (Nicole) Like it'll hit me
over the head, but we'll talk about
that a little bit later.(speakers laugh)
Okay, so, right book at the right time,
but there are also thebooks that are like,
"This is the absolute wrongtime to be reading this too."
Which we will talk about that as well.
And I think it's interesting
'cause I think that mostpeople that read have had

(02:09):
this sort of experience at least once,
whether it's good orthe bad side of things.
Definitely.
Okay, well I'm gonna share my story.
- (Amanda) Yes.- (Nicole) First.
- (Amanda) Please.- (Nicole) Okay.
So, I broke my wrist about two months ago,
and it's my dominanthand that was affected.

(02:32):
So, I had never hurt myself
to the extent of what this injury was.
And I had to go through surgery
and there was rehabilitationand blah, blah, blah.
So, my mom was, like, tryingto make me feel better,
so she said,
"Let's go to a bookstore together
and, you know, we can just browse around

(02:54):
and get you out of thehouse for a little bit."
So, we went to a metaphysical bookstore
and it is an absolutely wonderful place.
I love it.
So, I was very excited tobe going somewhere special
with my mom and get outof the blasted house
for a little while.
(Killian chuckles)
So, I went to go look at the books.

(03:15):
And usually, I am lookingin a very specific area
of that bookstore, and Iwas browsing in an area
I would've never lookedat in a million years.
And I looked down and there was a book
called "The Power of Your Other Hand"
(speakers laugh)

(03:35):
by Lucia Capacchione.
And I was like,
"You have got to be kidding me right now."
- (Drew) That's amazing.- (Nicole) Like, I was like,
"What?
This can't be real!"
It was the weirdest thing.
And so I pulled it off the shelf,
and I'm looking at it and I'm like,
"No, this is absolutely the thing."

(03:56):
And I showed it to my mom.
My mom started laughing.
She's like, "That is just ridiculous."
So, I ended up grabbinga copy of it from Hoopla
and I started reading it,
and it is absolutely aboutusing your non-dominant hand
for drawing and for writing because, like,

(04:18):
it inspires your brainto think differently.
- (Amanda) Hmm.
- (Nicole) So, like, we all have
this idea of, like, the leftbrain and the right brain.
When you use your non-dominant hand,
you're using parts of your brain
that you don't use as often.
So, like, it's great ifyou have writer's block.
It's great if, like, you'rehaving a creative issue,

(04:40):
where you're just notfeeling terribly creative.
And there could not have beena better book at that time.
Like, because here I am,I'm stuck with my left hand.
What am I gonna do with this left hand?
I have to be able to write.
And I am an artist, so I dolike to draw and do things.
And it was just such a perfect, wonderful,

(05:01):
and absolutelyhit-you-over-the-head kind of thing.
It's crazy, absolutely crazy.
- (Amanda) Brilliant.
- (Drew) The timing of that is wild.
- (Killian) I love that for you.
(speakers laugh)
- (Amanda) I also love that in pro tip,
if you do want an obscure book,
especially in the realm ofself-help, alternative medicine-

(05:24):
- (Nicole) Metaphysical stuff.
Yeah.- (Amanda) Metaphysical,
check out Hoopla.
They have a surprisingly good selection.
It's great.
- (Nicole) Yeah, absolutely.
That's why I was like,
I didn't know if I wanted to buy the book.
'cause I wasn't sure, like,
do I wanna make thisinvestment into this thing?
But I absolutely have to,
so I checked Hooplaand it was right there.

(05:45):
I'm like, "Yes, this is just for me."
So, what about you guys?
- (Amanda) So, a bookthat came across my path
that I thought was reallyright time, inspiring,
maybe just the best book forme, and this was years ago.

Quiet (06:06):
The Power of Introverts
in a World That Can't Stop Talking
(Killian chuckles)
By Susan Cain.
Definitely New York Times best seller.
It is a nonfiction bookabout being an introvert
and maybe some of the advantages of that,
or even just some of the quirks.
But for me, I know I'm on apodcast right now and talking,

(06:30):
however, (chuckles) itreally goes against my nature
'cause I am an extreme introvert.
And so, it sort of felt likethis breath of fresh air,
really validating, like,be-free-to-be-you attitude

(06:50):
with all this reallyinteresting research behind it.
- (Killian) Cool.
- I think I found it atthe library, naturally.
(Drew chuckles)
I know I didn't buy it.
It (chuckles) was from the library.
But definitely at the time,
I was dating someone who is, like,

(07:13):
definitely more extrovertedand charismatic,
and I remember being on this vacation
with his family who are also all, like,
more extroverted people,and just being like,
"Okay, I need a break."
So, I took my book(speakers laugh)
on introverts and, like,went into my corner

(07:37):
and, like, just nerded outin my own introvert world,
and it was really wonderful.
- (Nicole) Perfect.(Drew chuckles)
Yeah, that's great.
- (Drew) Mine that I, processing,
was "Every Day" by David Levithan.
- (Nicole) Oh, okay.
- (Drew) If anyone has-- (Amanda) I haven't read it.
- (Drew) Okay.
The book is about a main character named A

(08:00):
who, every day, wakes upin a new person's body.
- (Nicole) Whoa.
- (Drew) And they really didn'tdefine the rules of this.
For the purposes of this,
this is not that good a book,
(speakers laugh)
personally, but it justhit at the exact right time
where, like, they don't definethe rules of the fantasy

(08:22):
of, like, how he chooses the body
or how fate choosesthe bodies or whatever.
But the whole exploration ofgoing into someone else's life
for a day and living it for them,
not really wanting toscrew it up for them,
but just getting a glimpseinto all of these other lives,

(08:45):
at the time I read it,
I was probably about a yearand a half out of undergrad.
- (Amanda) Okay.
- (Drew) I was working at Target.
- (Nicole) Yeah.- (Drew) I had zero plans
for my life.
I was still dating my firstboyfriend who, decent guy,
but, like, I learned more things
that I didn't want fromhim than things I did want.
- (Amanda) True. (laughs)

(09:05):
- (Drew) Just who we were at the time.
And very much, like, in this rut
that I wasn't processing as a rut.
I was just like,
"Oh, well this is what the next 40 years
are gonna be like, I guess."
- (Nicole) Oh geez.
- (Drew) But, like, not negative about it,
it's just, you know, where I was at.
- (Nicole) Yeah.- (Drew) And then as soon
as I finished this book,I was negative about it.

(09:25):
- (Nicole) Okay.
- (Drew) Because Irealized all of the things
that I, like, wasn't doingwith my life. (laughs)
- (Amanda) Sure.
- (Drew) And I didn'tfollow along any sort
of path that that bookspecifically showed me.
But just, like, there's moreto life than this revelation.
Kicked off a lot of things.
- (Nicole) Do you thinkit, like, lit a fire

(09:46):
under you to just change- (Drew) Yeah.
- (Nicole) Some things?- (Drew) Mm-hmm.
- (Nicole) Cool.
That's crazy.
Even for, like, a not great book.
- (Drew) Yeah.
- (Nicole) Like, I love that too,
because sometimes, it's not a great book
that really makes a difference.
Sometimes, it's just whatever'sgoing on in it or whatever.
Like, the character does something

(10:07):
and then suddenly you're like,
"I'm inspired.
Wow, this is crazy."
- (Drew) It has two sequels.
And, like, five or six years later,
I went back to reread the first book
to read the two sequels, and I was like,
"Oh, I'm not doing this."
- (Nicole) Okay. (laughs)
- (Drew) This is not how I'm spending
the next week of my life.
And in terms of the individual books,

(10:27):
I probably shouldn'tsay they were bad books,
but they were very much not for me.
- (Nicole) Okay.- (Drew) But in that moment,
it was exactly what I ended up needing.
- (Nicole) Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
- (Killian) So, I knowI have had some books
where I've had like the,
"Oh my gosh, this isthe most important thing
to me right now and this is
so the right book at the right time."
Can I recall any of them right now?

(10:48):
No, of course not.
They were very monumental in that moment
and then, clearly, they havenot stuck with me to today,
but one thing that does happen a lot,
and I don't know. (laughs)
I play "D&D" on a regular basis,
and the number of times I willread a book that I'm like,
"This matches a thing from this'D&D' game that I've played,

(11:12):
this 'D&D' plot line thatI've played so well."
And it's not just in a, like,well, yes 'cause it's a trope
and we play into tropes in"D&D" and things like that,
but it's like,
"No, this is these characters.
Like, this is the same thing."
- (Amanda) Mm-hmm.
- (Killian) And that'salways really jarring,
but also very cool because I'm like,
"Okay, so, like, we aretelling a good story

(11:32):
'cause it's also good to read it here."
Like, this is a goodstory, no matter what.
- Sure.
- (Killian) But that'salways really wild to me
and always has that like,
"Huh, cool."
'Cause it's usually something that, like,
just happened, so.- (Nicole) Yeah, totally.
- (Amanda) That's a lot of fun.
- (Nicole) All right, well, let's see.

(11:53):
Ooh, I have a nice littlequote that I can mention here,
"Books don't change people.
Paragraphs do, andsometimes even sentences."
That's by John Piper.
I find it interesting that there's, like,
the serendipitous thing thatKillian is talking about,
and that also happensquite a bit sometimes too.
It's like I just...

(12:14):
I was reading severalbooks, like I usually do,
and then I picked up a new book
looking for that next great thing.
(Killian chuckles)
And it just so happens thatthe character in the new book
has the same name as one of the characters
that I just read about, and I'm like,
"It's not even a common name.
What's that all about?"(speakers laugh)
It's bizarre.
Anyway, so, when doesn't it work?

(12:36):
Like, let's give an exampleof, like, a book that we read
that we were just like,
"Oh my gosh, I cannot do this right now.
This is not the thing."
But typically, it probablywould've been the thing.
Have you guys ever had that before?
- (Drew) Constantly.
- (Nicole) Constantly?
- (Drew) Saturday, thathappened with three books.
- (Nicole) Oh no! Three?

(12:57):
- (Drew) Where typically,what it ends up being is,
it isn't the book's fault.
I'm just not in the moodfor, like, that genre
or that trope or to-read period,
and I'm just fighting against the grain.
But yeah, Saturday.
Saturday, I read the first, like,

(13:18):
chapter, chapter and a halfof three different books,
and was like, "This is notthe vibe at this moment."
And, you know, theywere authors that I like
and genres that I like.
And, like, the first book, I was like,
"Okay, maybe this just isn't
what I was hoping it was going to be."
And by the third book I was like,
"No, I'm the problem."
(speakers laugh)

(13:38):
- (Nicole) "I am beingdifficult right now."
- (Drew) Yes, I am being hard to please.
There is nothing that this book could say
in the next paragraph or two
that is going to turn me around.
So, in each of those, I just closed them.
Again, tried to move on to the next one.
And I did, on the fourth book,
pick up a reread for a bookthat had a later book come out.

(14:00):
- (Nicole) Okay.
- (Drew) And rereading thatwas, you know, fine for me.
It was engaging enoughthat I could give myself
the leeway to get into it, I guess.
- (Nicole) Sure.
- (Drew) But yeah, thathappens to me constantly.
And every single time, I amthe problem, not the book.
- (Nicole) Okay, that's fair.(Drew laughs)
- (Amanda) That's bigphenomenon that I see

(14:21):
with patrons at the library,
is when things in the atmosphere, meaning,
let's say 2020 lockdown or 2024 election,
things are stressful.
- (Nicole) Mm-hmm.
- (Amanda) Definitely,the desire for fantasy,

(14:43):
beach reads, easy stuff-
- (Nicole) Yeah.- (Amanda) I think comes in.
- (Nicole) Sure.
- (Amanda) A really good example was,
I was doing a book club,
and I wanna say this was2022, and the selection
was Emily St. JohnMandel's "Station Eleven,"

(15:03):
which is a book where the whole plot
is based off of a global pandemic.
- (Nicole gasps) Oh my Goodness.
- (Amanda) And everyone was like,
"Too soon, too soon."
- (Nicole) Yeah.- (Amanda) And I was like,
"But it's brilliant writing!"
And they're like,
"Doesn't matter." (laughs)
- (Killian) Okay, so this is funny.
There is a kids series that I adore
that currently has three books out.

(15:23):
The fourth book is coming out soon.
It's been a long way, I'm so excited.
It is the Morrigan Crowseries by Jessica Townsend.
The third book of thatseries came out around 2020.
I don't remember exactly when it came out.
I bought a copy of it.
I read it in December of 2020.
And it deals with this, like, pandemic

(15:46):
among animals in that world.
And I was reading it and,like, I had started it
before I actually read it atthe end of 2020, and I went,
"Absolutely not."
- (Nicole) Yeah, yeah.(speakers chuckle)
- (Killian) And I had to go back
to it and read it later.
And I love this series,I love these books.
I've been waiting for thisfourth book for so long.
But I was like,

(16:06):
"Oh, you have to be kidding me."
'cause, you know, thetimeline on writing that book,
it wasn't written from that.
It was just words.
It was not written
from that happening.
It had to have been written before it.
- (Nicole) Yeah, absolutely.
- (Killian) But for it tothen just tie it, it's like,
"Oh, this hits differently
than it was ever intended to hit."
- (Nicole) Sure, sure.

(16:27):
- (Drew) Oh, there'sa trilogy by TJ Klune,
his only YA trilogy,
that had that exact issuehappen where it was a kid
with a cop for a dad andwas dealing with, like,
corruption in the police department
as a subplot of what was going on.

(16:49):
And the book came out the Tuesday
after the George Floyd murder.
- (Nicole) Oh my goodness.- (Amanda) Mm.
- (Drew) And just landed so poorly.
- (Nicole) Yeah.
- (Drew) I've revisited it since,
and it's fine.
Like, if it had come out in 2019,
it would've been golden,but it did not. (chuckles)

(17:09):
- (Amanda) Yep.
- (Nicole) I wonder,like, how authors feel
when they worked sohard on a book and like,
is perfectly fine and everything's good
and it should be a bestseller,
but, like, the timing-- (Killian) The timing.
- (Nicole) Is just so bad thatit just gets shot straight
into the trash can, like-
- (Amanda) I am sure thatpublishers end up delaying many

(17:29):
books because of whateverworld event is going on.
They're like-
- (Nicole) Oh, sure.- (Amanda) "No, we can't-"
- (Nicole) Yeah.
- (Amanda) "You know, sell a bestseller
that is about maybe a tsunami
or, you know, earthquake or whatever
if it was just in the news."
I don't know, maybe something like that.
But definitely, the 2020 lockdown,

(17:51):
I'm sure dystopian booksthat had a global pandemic,
people were like,
"Can't read this right now."
- (Nicole) Mmhmm, Yeah, absolutely.
- (Killian) And it's interestingbecause I think sometimes,
it can be, like, world events happening
and reading somethingthat deals with that.
It can be the right book.
- (Nicole) Mm-hmm.
- (Killian) But then inother ways, it cannot.

(18:11):
It kinda depends on thereader and their own ability
to process what they're reading
and how they think through it.
So, it's interesting 'cause there's books
that I've read where I've like,
"This is so perfect forwhat I need right now."
And then I look at them and I'm like,

(18:35):
"If this had been maybe a month sooner
when something was a little fresher
or when I was in a different head space,
it would've beenabsolutely not the thing."
- (Nicole) Mm-hmm.
- (Killian) So, it's so personal-
- (Nicole) It really is.
- (Killian)That it's not somethingyou can really anticipate
or plan for a lot of the time.

(18:55):
- (Nicole) Totally.
- (Killian) Like, you canlook at something and be like,
"Oh, this is about this thing,
but is it gonna be the rightbook or the wrong work?
Who knows." (chuckles)
- (Nicole) Well, and Ithink maybe, you know,
there are also books
that you almost have toprepare yourself for, too.
- (Drew) Mm-hmm.
- (Nicole) Like when you know upfront.
I feel that way about TV showsand movies sometimes too.
Like, I know exactly what this is about.

(19:16):
I haven't seen it or I haven't, you know.
I don't know all the specifics,
but I know generally what it's about,
and I don't have thebandwidth, the handle,
whatever that is either.
So, yeah, that's an interesting thing.
Definitely.
All right, well,

(19:38):
I would love to hear from the audience
or from the audience,
(Killian laughs)from anybody listening
if they have a book that youfound just at the right time,
'cause I think this is areally, really cool concept.
- (Drew) Yeah, pleasegive us recommendations.
See if it's our right time.
- (Nicole) Yeah, totally.
- (Killian) I would also say,like, if you have something
that maybe it was thewrong time previously,

(19:59):
go back to it, see ifit's the right time now.
- (Nicole) Totally.- (Killian) Because-
- (Nicole) I think that-- (Killian) That happens.
- (Nicole) That does definitely happen.
Absolutely.
Well, thanks for listening,and we will see you next time.
- (Nicole) Thank you forjoining us for this episode
of "Distracted Librarians."
- (Drew) Many thanks to BCTVfor their support in recording,
editing, and releasing this podcast.

(20:19):
And to the friends of the library
for sponsoring closedcaptioning on every episode.
- (Killian) If you have anyquestions or suggestions,
feel free to reach out tous at [e-mail].
- (Amanda) Until then,keep those pages turning
and those screens lighting up.
We'll catch you in the next episode.
- (Emily) The views and opinions expressed

(20:40):
in "The Distracted Librarians" podcast
do not necessarily reflectthose of Bloomfield Township,
Bloomfield Township Public Library,
Bloomfield Community Television,
the Birmingham Area Cable Board,
or its producers or production staff.