Catherine Raynes: Lula Deans Little Library of Banned Books and Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

Lula Deans Little Library of Banned Books by Kirstein Millar  

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need. 

What Lula doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets, and restocked Lula’s library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor. 

That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. That's when the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever. 

 

Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan 

For decades, the Kennedy name has been synonymous with wealth, power, and—above all else—integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the Kennedy men's legacy of physical and psychological abuse of women, part of a tradition of toxic masculinity that spans generations and has ruined untold lives. Through scandal after scandal, the family and their defenders have managed to keep this shameful story out of the spotlight. Now, in Ask Not, bestselling journalist Maureen Callahan reveals the Kennedys' hidden history of abuse and exploitation, laying bare their rampant misogyny and restoring women to the center of the dynasty's story: from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Mary Richardson, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren't nearly as well known – but rightfully should be. 

Drawing on years of fierce reportage and written in electric prose, Ask Not is a long-overdue reckoning with this fabled American family, showing how the Kennedy myth and their raw political power has enabled the clan's many predators while also silencing generations of traumatized women and girls. At long last, Callahan also redirects the spotlight to the women in the Kennedys' orbit, paying homage to those who freed themselves—and giving voice to the countless others who could not do the same. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from newstalk STB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Twenty to twelve on News Talks. He'd be Katherine Rains
is here with her book picks for us this week.
She is our reviewer. She always has great recommendations. Morning Catherine,
Morning Jack. So let's begin with lou Laeden's Little Library
of Banned Books, which is a fantastic title, and it
is a great title is by Kirstine Miller.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
So this book is actually about and it senends a
message of torrance and understanding and about being judgmental when
you don't actually know the true facts. And so it's
in the set in the Sound of Troy and Georgia
and lu Ladin. The main character is this characterture of
a town busy boy. She's a widow, she's an empty nester,
she's a the local busybody, and she's taken this quest

(00:54):
for attention and focused to her and she has this
crusade against what she terms woke lifestyles and values. And
she's the founder and leader of the Concerned Parents Committee.
So she pulls books that are supposedly filled with pornography
and propaganda out of the schools and libraries and so.
But she also wants to ensure that the town of
Troy has better ready material, so she sets up the

(01:17):
little free library in her front yard and stocks it
with what she terms wholesome books, with things like Chicken
Soup for the Soul, The Southern Bowels, Guide to Etiquette,
our Confederate Heroes, and for her neighbors to borrow. But actually,
unknown to her, the daughter of her arch Emily, Beverly Underwood,

(01:37):
takes those books out and replaces them with ones on
the band list, hiding them under the dust jackets. And
that's when things start to get really interesting because via
the box you see the spotlight on this town and
it's different inhabitants and the divergent views and lives. And
there's a huge cast of characters in this and some
of the stories are really funny and make you laugh,
and some are the complete opposite of that. Instead of

(01:59):
shen shivers down your spine, and it exposes the hypocrisy
and the misogyny and racism and anti seminism and all
all the affiliations that people have, and it just carries
this very interesting and timely message through each character's story
and you know, the author, at the end of the day,
is trying to illustrate how books don't hurt people. People
hurt people, but books give access to new ideas and

(02:21):
thoughts and perspectives and role models. And it's a story
that actually stays with you for quite a while after
which you kind of think through the messages and yeah,
so great. It's a really well written book, but yeah,
has a pretty serious message behind it.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah that sounds great. Okay, that's lu Laeden's Little Library
of Banned Books by Christine Miller. You've also read Asked
Not by Maureen Callahan.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
So Maureen Callahan is actually a journalist for The Daily Mail.
So there's a style of writing that's quite gossipy and juicy,
and she rehashes some very well publicized scandals involving the
members of the Kennedy family, but she still tells it
in a very interesting perspective. And you know, lots of
accounts of serial cheating, but also some much more serious

(03:03):
crimes and rape and sex with miners and murder, and
it's a pretty grown roll full of things that have happened.
You know, Mary Joe who's suffocated below three feet of
water and chapiquitic in nineteen sixty nine when she could
have been saved, and Pamela Kelly who was thrown from
a geep and she ends up paralyzed for life and
the driver, who's another Kennedy, walks away with one hundred

(03:24):
dollar fine. But she also talks about the family's woman
like Joan Kennedy who was in and out of rehab,
and lots of DUI's and Rosemary who was the daughter
of the matriarch and patriarch Joe and rose Kennedy who
was whose life was destroyed by our family authorized lobotomy,
and you know, and much newer kind of parts of

(03:46):
the Kennedy family as well, like Mary Richardson Kennedy, who's
the second wife of Robert F. Kennedy, who's the current
presidential candidate, you know, who took her own life in
twenty twelve. But she tells it from the sort of
multi generational family legacy which begins with Joe Kennedy, who
built the family fortune and a family to go with it,
and his Catholic wife Rose of blind eye to his

(04:07):
sequence of mistresses, and so his habit of treating woman
as accessories passed down to his sons and you know
John Kennedy's white house. You know, an age called it
a conveyor belt of young woman. And so she paints
this picture of a very toxic, narcissistic, cruel, snobbish, entitled,
an extremely unpleasant family and the fact that the Kennedy

(04:29):
men have got away because of this sphere of influence
with you know, some very serious crimes and really no
serious accountability and they're still admired and referred to as
America's royal family and press courage has kind of protected them,
what has protected them as they've gone along, And it's
just fascinating because she sort of redirects the spotlight back

(04:49):
to the woman and the Kennedy, Kennedy family and you know,
puts them much more at the center of the story
and how they should be. And yeah, it's interesting when
you kind of put everything together and you look at
you know, what's gone on in the family over the years,
got away with a lot.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, it sounds really intriguing, even if you're not you know,
super into the into the Kennedys, it sounds like there's
still a lot to learn here and told in a
really compelling way. So it sounds intriguing thank you that's
asked not by Maureen Callahan. The first book is Lula
Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirstine Miller. Will
have all of the details for those books, just along
with everything else from our show up on the News Talks.

(05:27):
He'd be website for more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame.
Listen live to News Talks I'd Be from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.