On this episode, Blake Chastain, author and podcaster, talks about how reading has helped him slow down through the difficult times we live in now, how technology helps and hurts his reading life, and some really excellent book recommendations. He will likely make you want to read comics and if that’s new for you, go for it!!    Exvangelical and Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement that’s Fighting Back  Find Blake on Substack  Hear me on Let’s Talk About Text on Apple and Spotify   Books mentioned in this episode:    What Betsy’s reading:  Phantasma by Kaylie Smith What Happened to Lucy Vale by Lauren Oliver    Books Highlighted by Blake: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers  A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart  Females by Andrea Long Chu Devotions by Mary Oliver  Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer  House of X/Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman  The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson  Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting by Shannon Vallor  The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking by Shannon Vallor  Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz   All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.   Other books mentioned in this episode: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien  The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien  Fantastic Four: Solve Everything by Jonathan Hickman  Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman  God Is Disappointed in You by Mark Russell & Shannon Wheeler Apocrypha Now by Mark Russell & Shannon Wheeler  Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer  The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers  The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams