Shows / Ren Reads Too Much Podcast
Ren Reads Too Much Podcast
A podcast for readers who feel a little too much about books…and don't ever want that problem to ever go away. I’m Ren, and I talk about the stories that stick with us, the characters we can’t move on from, and why the books we love are usually telling us something about ourselves. Expect short, honest episodes about reading, identity, comfort re-reads, emotional damage, and the occasional spiral over fictional characters. If you’ve ever reread a book instead of moving on, you’re in the right…
Episodes
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastThe Surprising Connection Between Cults, Community, and Choosing Joy
This week’s episode is a wild ride! I’ve been bouncing between books about cults, propaganda, childhood trauma, capitalism, and why it’s so damn hard to build…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastEmbracing the -Ber Months with Cozy Stories and Self-Care Reads
Full disclosure, I recorded this a few weeks ago, and I’m just now getting the chance to post it! So if it seems like I’m all “Hooray! Fall is finally here in…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastReading for Joy: Yaga, Community, and Unconventional Self-Care
It’s officially cardigan season, and I am fully leaning into the cozy vibes. But this week, my reading life has been a mix of comfort and challenge. While I’ve…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastBuilding a Joyful Home: My Go-To Books for Parenting (And Homeschooling!) Differently Wired Kids
This week, I took a detour from my usual “what I’m reading” updates to talk about homeschooling: the messy, creative, deeply imperfect way we’ve done it for…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastWhy Nothing Works, Drama of the Gifted Child, and Choosing Joy Anyway
August is traditionally a challenging month around my house, and this year was a double dose whammy…It’s been a couple of weeks since my last podcast update…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastHeated Rivalry, Divorcing While Going Viral, and the Magic of Finding the Right Book
The past few weeks, things got a little bit spicy off the podcast too. One of my videos went pretty freaking viral (it’s now at over a million views, which is…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastFifty Books Later: My Ultimate Book Nerd Challenge Reading Recap
I did something a little wild this episode: instead of breaking down a couple of books I’m currently reading, I walked you through all 50 books I finished for…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastJoyful Resistance and Spicy Reads: Embracing the Power of Smut
This week, my reading life has been all over the place! From comfort to transformation, and sometimes right back to comfort. I bounced around between a few…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastReading as Joyful Resistance (And a Coping Mechanism)
This week, I’m leaning all the way into what reading looks like when your brain and your body aren’t always on your side. After a June full of burnout and…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastWhy You Should Make Art, Read More, and Share It With Others
This week I’m living for the way reading has completely cracked open my creativity, especially the kind that’s shown up in fandom spaces lately. My reading…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastBurnout Survival Mode: Reading What Brings Joy When Life Gets Hard
This month was a crash course in burnout, resilience, and remembering how important it is to let books and small routines take care of you when real life feels…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastThe Magic of Parallel Perspectives in Series Like Game Changers and Twilight
This week, my brain latched onto something it really loves: books that happen on the same timeline and let you see a story from multiple angles. There’s…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastFrom the Pivot Year to Game Changers: Why Some Books Just Feel Right This Week
This week was a strange one for my reading life…total hodgepodge energy, hopping genres and moods by the day. I tried (and gave up on) a Booker Prize winner…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastDopamine, Smut, and Self-Help: Curating a Reading Life That Feels Good
This week, I leaned in hard to that belief that the book you need always finds you, right when you need it. My reading life has been shifting alongside…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastRereads, Revelations, and Reading Joy
I'm changing my mind on Tough Guy and switching podcast day to Thursday because Tuesday is just not the day I can make this happen anymore! Some weeks, it…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastLegends, Librarians, and Sir Reginald: Finding Joyful Community in Your Reading Life
Okay, sometimes you go on a tangent about your all-time favorite books, but this week felt like a return to the usual rhythm. I’m deep in my Heated Rivalry…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastCreating Joyful Reading Rituals and Crafty Comforts: Stories that Soothe and Spark
This week, I had to pivot a little: less reading, a lot more creating. Getting my pop-up merch shop together turned out to be a much bigger project than I…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastFrom Big Magic to Badass Habits: Life-Changing Nonfiction for Real Life
This week, I’m channeling all my energy into the books that have changed my reading life, not the ones that kept me up crying at 2 a.m. (though shoutout to…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastCrappy Podcast, Great Books: Joyful Reading and Imperfect Progress
This week was…a lot, and honestly, I don’t have the energy to pretend everything is polished or perfect, or worse, try to actually make it be like that. So I…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastStay Feral for Fiction, Not Real People
Some weeks, my brain is like…yeah, we’re not doing anything new right now. I reread Role Model this week, and knowing what’s happening in The Long Game at the…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastSome Weeks, You Don’t Need a New Book
Some weeks are not “try something new” weeks. And I feel like we don’t talk about that enough. This has been a low-capacity week for me. The kind where…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastYou’re Not Stuck. You’re Returning to Something That Feels Safe
There’s a difference between being unable to move on and choosing to stay somewhere that feels good. There’s this boring narrative floating around that…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastYou Don’t Have to Outgrow the Books You Love
This week felt a little off. Not in a bad way, just one of those weeks where I really wanted to curl up with a book and disappear for a bit. And instead, I was…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastThere Are 83-Year-Old Elder Loons, and I Need You to Know That
This week felt like one of those moments where I zoomed out a little and realized, oh, there are a LOT of us out here. I had someone comment that they were 83…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastThis Isn’t a Slump… It’s a Reread Loop
This has been coming up a lot in my comments and messages lately: people saying they’re in a reading slump, they can’t get into anything new, nothing is…
Ren Reads Too Much PodcastWhy I Read Too Much (And Why I’m Not Stopping)
I’ve been a reader for most of my life…until I wasn’t. College kind of knocked it out of me, as it does for many of us. Reading became something I had to do…