Isn’t it Lovely to Fall in Love with Reading? Special Guests: Ashley Holen and Alli Veldhouse
“…it’s something that brings me so much joy. It’s something that I can just take time for myself…the older I get the more pleasure it brings me…”
Grab a coffee or a glass of wine, your current Kindle read or favorite paperback, and pull up a chair - it’s time for Season 3’s BONUS episode: a book club party of four as Tracy and Rachel welcome real life book group soulmates and resident bibliophiles Ashley Holen and Alli Veldhouse to discuss their shared passion for all things literary, covering everything from reading as self-care (and how to carve out the time!) to books being used as catalysts for deeper connection, conversation, and education. Ashley confesses to keeping a book on her person at all times, à la Rory Gilmore, while Rachel makes accidental book puns and pleads her case for Ashley to have her own podcast based on her soothing radio voice. Tracy and Alli discuss the merits of having multiple books going at the same time and submit that audiobooks enhance a book’s impact (collective swooning over Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights ensues). Packed with tips, stories, suggestions, and more, this episode will inspire you to channel your inner Belle or Bilbo Baggins and fall in love with reading for the first time - or all over again.
Episode Mentions:
Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa TerKeurst
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
You Are Special by Max Lucado
Letters to My Son: A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Life, and Love by Kent Nerburn
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Simmer
Home Body by Rupi Kaur
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Ashley Holen is a full-time nurse practitioner, but her proudest accomplishment is raising four boys. She loves to be around people, but also savors quiet moments alone to read, exercise, and look through recipes. She is the most alive when she’s gotten six to seven hours of sleep and spent any amount of time outside. Each day Ashley is learning to understand that the only way not to be crushed by what happens on the outside is to have the greater force of Jesus living on the inside.
Alli Veldhouse is a wife of 12 years to the wonderful Caleb and mom to three energetic boys: Pierce, Judd and Teddy. She loves all things design, travel, and reading, of course. She bounces between being a social butterfly and being a home body.