Mostly Fictional
Ep. 68: Pam Doesn’t Like Reading Her Name in a Book
In this episode, Pam has a book haul for her May book, and Hallie isn't sure what she's reading.
Books mentioned, in order:
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Seasonal Fears by Seanan McGuire
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree
The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Seanan McGuire links: https://thecityvoice.org/2022/05/12/qa-with-seanan-mcguire-hugo-award-winning-author-of-middlegame-and-seasonal-fears/
https://x.com/seananmcguire/status/1428028180917407744?lang=en
Find Pam and Hallie online!
Follow Hallie’s Substack at wordsmithreads.substack.com
Pam can be found on Youtube and Bookstagram at @pams_inkheart
- Duration:
- 50m
- Broadcast on:
- 26 Jun 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Mostly Fictional, a podcast about the books of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, I'm Haley. - And I'm Pam. - And it's grossly hot. It's so grossly hot here. I know we talk about the weather every time, but it just, last time you said it was 26, which was, I think it was something around 26. And so it was like 84. And I haven't looked up the Celsius conversion yet, but it's a hundred degrees Fahrenheit here. - Ew, ew. - So it's much hotter than it was when you said, "It's really hot outside." - Yeah. - So it's been lots of inside time. - I went and looked at the conversion. A hundred Celsius is a hundred Celsius. We'd be dead. A hundred Fahrenheit is 37 Celsius, which makes sense with like body temperatures. And I just need to say, like, is that a hundred, like with humidex or something, or it's a hundred, like, it just feels like a hundred, or it is actually a hundred. - No, it's actually a hundred outside. - Oh, ew. - But we don't have any humidity. We have the real dry heat. - Ah, yes. I live near-- - Like you're a lizard. - Yes. I live near a fairly big river. And so I have constant humidity pretty much. We have a dehumidifier in our basement, and it runs constantly during the summer. And it rained this morning. So yeah, it's been humid where I live. It's not too hot yet. It's gonna get hot again. - It's a rough summer. - It is. - Already. - Only just started. To me, June is like the beginning of summer. Like, I'm not excited either way though. Why don't we get onto some books? I love books so much. There's something about the summer, though, that reading is just extra fun. I don't know what it is, but I'm just feeling so invigorated by my reading. I am having a grand time. - I feel like it's that nostalgia of when you would get out of school and you're like, wait, I have my free time. I could do whatever I want now. I feel like that carries through the rest of your life even when you don't continue to have school breaks. - I'm in full agreement. I'm has to be it 'cause it's just something. Like, even last week, I think I spent a few minutes in my backyard reading until the mosquitoes came and tried to eat me alive. They're the worst. - They are, and I have hedges in my backyard, so they're just constantly, it's constant. Oh, well, okay. Whoo, where do we wanna start on the reading journey? 'Cause I have literally all four categories of things. Oh my goodness, well, I guess we could, why don't we start with, I see you have a book haul. - Oh, yes, why don't we start that? It's very exciting. Okay, so it was not the thing that just flashed over the camera, I ignore that. That was so different. So I hinted at the last book haul that, oh yeah, I got to visit my favorite bookstore for my birthday. I picked up Tidal Creatures as my June purchase, made a few, got a few gifts for my birthday at this bookstore. And then I said, I had also ordered what my May book purchase was going to be. And I said, oh, I'll haul it when I actually have it in my hands, and I have it in my hands, and I'm, oh my goodness, I have been thinking about this book since January, so that to me is going with the ethos of my book buying journey of one a month this year, that if I've been thinking about this book for a long time, it's not an impulse, it's not just going with the whims of my desires, I thought about the one in this book for a long time. And I now own Emily Wild's Encyclopedia of Fairies by Heather Fawcett in the beautiful naked hardcover that it is, like there's no dust jacket, it's printed like this, it's so soft and matte, and I just can't stop touching it. The cover is like the, it's black, but when you look at photos of it, it looks green. So I don't know what they're doing over there, but it's black and it's got like a frame of vines, twigs, ephemera, mushrooms, I think antlers, maybe two, and a few flowers, and just has this big beautiful script to fill out the name, Emily Wild's Encyclopedia of Fairies. And I'm just so excited. I read the back to my husband in a very dramatic voice and he was like, "Hmm, I'm betting that's gonna happen." And so he's, I think he's always excited that I'm excited for books, that's the point of it, that's the point. That is a good thing about having a good partner. - Have you read this one? - I don't know. - I was just saying, I don't remember you talking about this one. - No, I just heard so much about it. Kayla from Books and Lala, whose reading tastes really aligns with mine, read it and quite enjoyed it. And I have a friend who has a fancy like fairy loot or some book box fancy edition. And I just love the look of the No Dust Jacket hardcover. It's just something so nice. It did arrive, unfortunately, a little damaged. It's not too bad, but like once you get past the end pages, there's just like a bit of something going around with the seeming here. Like if I were to crack this open too much, it might snap, which would be very devastating, but it's holding together. So I'm just going to take care of it. And I am just, okay, I'm excited to jump into this because it's like cozy fantasy. So I've heard with a hint of romance and enough people have talked and raved about it that I was just like, I want to give it a shot. And I want it in hardcover. I don't want the paper back. I want it the nice, while I could still order the hardcover I wanted to give it in this nice format. Because if I love it, book two is already out. And also still in this beautiful hardcover format. Okay, what was the last thing I wanted to say about this? Oh, okay, yes. So we're now halfway through the year. We're going to get into more halfway through the year things, but I just wanted to say that like my book purchasing habit has been going very well this year. And I have read all, now counting this guy, all but two of my one per month purchases. So like this and one of the books are all the books I've bought this year that I haven't read. That was a complicated sentence. Either way, I'm very excited to go put this on my shelf and then stare at it and hopefully pick it up at some point. I don't know where it's going to slot into my reading plans, but it's at least, it's a new acquisition. It was very fun to get book mail and be able to open it and be like, pretty book. So I'm having very good feelings. I feel like, I don't know having, I don't know anything about this book, but it feels like since it's magical, I would think maybe it's more like a fall book unless it's supposed to be springy in which case. I don't know, you're right that the cover's very springy, but I think it's formatted as journal entries. Oh, 20th of October, 1909. You're right, it's a fall book. Okay, so if the title was not enough of Emily Wild's Encyclopedia Fairies, the star's Emily Wild who is a genius scholar writing the world's first encyclopedia of fairy lore. She loves her work so much, she's a workaholic it seems. She prefers the company of her books, her dog and Fair Folk to other people. She arrives in a tiny little village far north. She really only wants to focus on her research and whatnot, but she doesn't have, and she's like, oh, she certainly doesn't have time for another new arrival. Her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival, Wendell Bambelbee, which is the most fairy name ever. If I've ever heard that and that's what my husband bets on. He's like, that person's gonna be a fairy, it has to be. But with a name like that, Bambelbee, Wendell Bambelbee, exactly. And this Wendell manages to charm the townsfolk, Muddle Emily's research and utterly confound and frustrate her. So then there's gonna be some, some scuvery and discovery about other things and, oh, and just, and apparently this author lives on Vancouver Island, which is in Canada. But I could not find from this little descriptor if Heather Fossett is Canadian or not. But either way, fun. - I'm excited for you. That feels like a really fall book. - Yes, oh, I think it will be a really, really good fall book. But the problem is I have a lot of fall books and only so much fall time. So I have to be careful. Anyway, great way to kick off the episode. A beautiful book haul. - Well, speaking of like summer fall books, I feel like maybe this is a good time to talk about title creatures, which both of us finished. The majority of it is set, not just the majority, all of it is set, it's supposed to be set in August, right? - Yes. - It felt hot, it's supposed to be set right before a, an eclipse is going to be happening. I know that you and I kind of talked about this off, off the pod. And I was ultimately, I really liked it up until like, the last 10, 15 pages. And I was like, what? What? - All that? - Yeah, it felt like the ending felt a little abrupt for me based on all the different world building that I was reading some other reviews of, I try to read reviews of people who love it, people who hate it, people who are in the middle to be like, okay, where do I kind of fall? And as I was reading reviews, my thoughts on it were dropping a little more. I would still say that I liked this better than I liked seasonal fears. - Agreed. - But I, that doesn't touch middle game for me, but I also am like, maybe I need to go back and read middle game. - Yes, I fully support this. Now I'm like afraid, but I'm also afraid to do that 'cause I'm like, what if it doesn't hold up in my mind as being as good as I remember it being? So that's kind of where I landed on title pictures. I'm glad for the reading experience. I will read more of this series, if there's more. It kind of feels like there will be more. - I think there has to be more. I, as someone who habitually re-listens to the audiobook, almost constantly, I fully support a re-read of middle game. I think it holds up as it's so in stand-low. And it is a very well self-contained story. And like, did it need more? Shana Maguire sure wanted to write more. So we got more. I agree that it was really fun to do it as a buddy read. And I agree that the ending definitely felt abrupt, but it was so fun learning more about the world that Shana Maguire created with this. And on your point, I'm like, are we gonna get more? I did some digging. This is gonna be a five book series, people. One for each of the four elements, and ending with Ether. Or Ether, depending on how you want to pronounce that. But basically, Shana Maguire said, let me get the right to quote. I have, I'm reading from an article on the website, thecityvoice.org. So there was an interview with Shana Maguire, where she got to say, she's like, "Ah, in my perfect world, da da da." Where I get everything I want, I would want to write five books total. Middle game was the Fire Book, seasonal fears is Earth, title creatures is water. Ink pot gods is air. - Oh. - And then, what is the title? - She has a title for book four. So ink pot gods, I don't know how I feel about that. Either way, that's gonna be the air book. And then she does not have a title yet for book five, the book of Ether, or Ether. It's 'cause it's A-E-T-H-E-R. So. - What's the meaning? - Yeah. Basically, this interview was done around the time that seasonal fears was either announced or coming out. So this was for promo for that. But also around the time of seasonal fears, release or fun news and stuff. I want to share a really funny tweet because it just really cracked me up. Where Tor, the publishing house for, for most of Shana Maguire stuff, but specifically middle game seasonal fears and now title creatures. When the cover was announced for seasonal fears, Tor just posted a tweet to say, "Can you imagine these books next to each other on your bookshelf?" And then Swoon and some emojis. And it's not, and it's middle game, next to seasonal fears. And they do both look really cool. Middle game, if you're not sure listeners, is a white waxy looking hand with fingertips that are like little wax candle tips. That he did not explain that very well. But either way, the wick, wick is the word I was looking for. There are five wicks coming out of the five fingertips and they are on fire. And this hand looks like it's made out of wax and it's like just a hand. And then seasonal fears is a leaf that goes from green to brown, pretty much. And it's like sliced up. And the tip of the leaf that's brown is on fire as well. And so imagining those two next to your book. Wow, imagining these two books next to each other on your bookshelf is a lovely thought. And I do like having them next to my, next to each other on my shelf. And then Sean unquote tweets this to say, I mean, really, you should all buy seasonal fears in the like hyping up. Please everybody out of this book, you should all buy seasonal fears. So they'll let me write title creatures. And we can watch the cover designers try to figure out how to set the moon on fire. And what do you think? On a scale of one to five or 10, depending how you feel. Do you think that the cover designers accurately set the moon on fire? I mean, it looks, it looks, the moon is on fire. That's, that is the whole cover is the moon is on fire. Exactly, it's very simplistic. So that tweet really made me laugh. Just like, oh, can we watch the cover designers try to set the moon on fire? Crack me up. Anyway, so we're now in the thick of it. We're now in the middle of the series. And we got two more books to go. And I'm gonna assume they're gonna be similar 400, 500 page size. Anyway, oh well, we did it. It was so fun to read it together. I love that part of the experience. As you can see, I have tabbed this. I have my black sticky notes and white gel pen far less tabs in this than in middle game for sure. I tabbed the heck out of that book. So yeah, I enjoy a song on my choir's voice. I enjoy this world. So I will certainly be coming back to it. Right now, we gotta wait a few more years, I think. I know. I think that's all right though. Yeah, a break is good. I'm good to take a step from it. Yeah. Okay, I also finished two more things. I finished one more thing. Okay, so I'll go, I'll go first. Yes. I still have until the end of the month to finish it, but I was just having such a great time. I decided to just read the whole thing and finish it, which was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I have read this before once or twice. I can't remember, but I haven't read it for years. And Pride and Prejudice, this is part of my readathon with my friend where we're reading all of our, all of Jane Austen's novels, completed novels this year. And it was so, I mean, I talked a little bit about Pride and Prejudice on the pod because I've been reading this for a month, month and a half now, because we're doing it in two month increments. But I really, really, gosh, especially having just read the other two Jane Austen books that I read this year. And then coming to this one, I see why this one is so much more popular than a lot of her other works because the relationship that she sets up between Elizabeth Bennett, and I don't know if we ever get Darcy's first name, Mr. Darcy is so, is so good and so fun. And I actually, because all the Bridgerton shows, the like Bridgerton season three has been out and that's set in the Regency era and people have described it as like sexy Jane Austen. I like have all that in my head and I have, you know, I've watched the Bridgerton series and the Bridgerton series, as well as many other romances, do the third act breakup, which is the, you know, to use a heterosexual example, boy meets girl, boy, boy and girl fall in love, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Like, this is a very clear setup. And that is not how Pride and Prejudice works. I was really thinking about this, that that's not the structure of the novel of Pride and Prejudice, that the bulk of the novel, they are at odds with each other. And she slowly comes, it's kind of a slow burn, I suppose, but she slowly comes back around to him, but she never has feelings for him until after the fact, until after his first proposal. So I was just thinking about that, especially in juxtaposition to Bridgerton, since Bridgerton is obviously also set in the Regency era and they all wore the outfits and the calling, calling hour and whatever. And anyway, I, yes, Pride and Prejudice is just so good. And I was also just so charmed by, 'cause I remember the 2005 movie very, very, I know it very well because I have seen it so many times. And I was charmed by how well they adapted it. There's a very few things that they changed or, I mean, yes, of course, they adapted it and they took things out and they moved things around, but the soul of it and how witty and how kind of snarky and sassy it is, that's all there in the movie. And also, I know the dad in that movie, Donald Sutherland plays Mr. Bennett and he just passed this last week. So I thought that was apt to mention it. Anyway, I haven't watched the movie again. I'm gonna be watching that with my friend when we have our, we have like a little book date. We talk about the book and then we watch the movie. - Love that. - And yeah. I was just, it was so fun to come to this Jane Austen having read now some of her other works and be like, okay, now I see. - This is the good stuff. - I mean, of course her other stuff has been great too, but this one is definitely, I understand why it's the most popular of the bunch. - Well, it turns out Wikipedia has Mr. Darcy's first name, which we like to hear. - Is it Fitzwilliam? - It's Fitzwilliam. - Yeah. - I thought about, I think I knew that, the reason that it's confusing is that he has a cousin who's also named Fitzwilliam as one does and reaches the England. So I'm like, that's weird. Now why did they do that? Why did Jane Austen, but I guess no Jane Austen, it puts like a Jane character in so many of her novels. So there's only so many names back then. - Okay, well, I'm glad that was such a good reread 'cause it is a reread for you, right? You've read it for and seen the movie many, many times. Well, now you get to re-experience that movie. Okay, was it your friend's first time reading Pride Preges? And is it gonna be your friend's first time watching the movie? - No to the book, she's read the book before. I want to say that she's seen the movie. I would be shocked. I would be shocked. - I haven't seen it so. - I am shocked by that, honestly. It's a masterpiece. It is a masterpiece. - So I've heard. - I mean, it has all the GAC, and we don't want this. This is a book podcast and a movie podcast that every actor in it is like a big name. It's a flawless movie. It's a comfort movie, for sure. - I am really looking forward to watching it at some point. Maybe I wrote my husband into watching it with me or maybe I'll just have a quiet night by myself and watching. - So it's definitely like on my radar, it's something I do want to watch. But to bring things back to books, if you're finished talking about Pride Preges, I can tell you. - I'll be done. - I can tell you about my other book that I finished this week. I pulled yet another book from my yogurt cup TBR jar filled with little paper stars. I remember exactly where I was when I bought this book. I got it second hand in a maze of a messy bookstore. And this is one of the shortest books that was in the yogurt cup, which is feels like a good accomplishment. I read Tin Man by Sarah Winden. Apologies if you can hear it. - Shutting, my father. That was like perfect timing though. - My father and brother are watching the Stanley Cup Finals, which is happening the day that we're recording this. So I definitely thought that was your dog being like, ow, no, it was my father and brother. - That's even better. - Human Halloween. So for Tin Man on the other hand, I did snag the audiobook to have the immersive reading experience and it's narrated by the author, which is really fun. It is a, the author has a soothing British accent, which is not quite the same accent as my relatives, but it was still really nice to listen to. But it was also funny hearing differences between the audiobook and the physical book. For example, pruning shears was printed in the book and secateurs was in the audiobook, which is the exact same thing as like eggplant versus aubergine. Sorry, eggplant is more of a North American term, but in Europe or in England specifically, they'll say more aubergine because that's just the word that they're used to from the South pruning shears. More North American, secateurs were in England, which I just thought was really funny. Speaking of England though, this book has no quotation marks and it was so irritating the whole way through it. So five-hour audiobook that I was listening to pretty fast, it's 200 pages and the no quotation marks was irritating, but the audiobook's narration did help me out, help me make sure I was keeping straight who said what? The cover, I'm getting to the plot too, trust me, okay? - The cover, I don't know what this book's even a mess. - Oh, sorry, the cover is sunning blue and yellow and sunflowers and a bit of gold. And I only clued in after glancing at the copyright page or the page that has the author's bio. It's a close up of Van Gogh's flowers. Sunflowers, I missed a word there, sunflowers. So of course I had to use my sunflowers matching bookmark that I got recently, it was just perfect. So this book has a vague synopsis. You have Michael and Ellis who were young love as teenagers, but years later Ellis is now married to Annie. Michael is nowhere in sight. What happened in the years between that kind of vague synopsis? I remember people pitching it as Aristotle and Dante discovers the secrets of the universe by Benjamin Alire's science, but this book Tin Man being like an adult sad version. Yup, I'm in agreement. That book, this book has two deaths in the first 50 pages. They are unrelated deaths and they're during different life periods, but still that's quite heavy. So yeah, this was quite a heavy read and I remember mentioning it in a Discord server at some point being like, hey, I'm thinking about reading this or this soon and people were like, Tin Man is sad. And I get it now, I'm in on the no, it is sad. It's a very quiet book, that's my best description. It's just very reflective on Ellis all these years later, what happened with Michael, all that. I do wanna share like one really beautiful quote that I liked where Ellis is saying, he remembered how Michael had bragged that he could swim, but he couldn't. He said that he'd read everything about swimming, firmly believing he could trip across words like stepping stones to the bank of experience. I just, that metaphor was so pretty, I really liked it. I also remember really liking the final two pages. Those were truly beautiful. It, to me, it tied everything together, but I actually really wanna compare this book a little bit to Aristotle and Dante discovered the secrets of the universe with a little bit of Giovanni's Roo by James Baldwin, which is a book I read in New D for a queer literature class and I haven't reread it since. I want to, I haven't done it. So I think those two kind of meld together really nicely into Tin Man. So I wanna recommend this to people who want something sad, who want something introspective, and who like short books too, 'cause it just packs quite a punch in 200 pages. They're definitely where passages where I was like, I am uncomfortable with the discussions we're having here. Or just like characters talking about romantic interests who are like 20 years younger than them. That's just a little, it just like 40 to 20. Like that's, it's a gray line, you know? So this definitely tackles some difficult topics, but the sunflowers, like Van Gogh sunflowers have a significance in the story. And I really like that. So I really felt like it was a thoughtful cover design. As we were talking about setting the moon on fire with title creatures, this was also a thoughtful cover design of how sunflowers the painting was important to one of the characters in this story. And so they're like, let's put it on the cover too. Let's add little gold waves to really highlight the beauty of this painting, which has been around for a super long time, obviously. So like I said, very quiet book. I think I enjoyed it. I think, like I finished to be like this afternoon before recording this. I think I need to think about it a bit longer. I'm like, okay, is this like, how does it sit on like my future reflection of one of my keeping on my shelf? Like, is this something I'm gonna want to revisit in the future? Do I just want to keep it because it's pretty? Ooh, many factors. So I had an uncomfortable good time. Ah, my short word choice for this is a little muddled, but those are all I wanted to say for Tin Man. - And how do you decide when you choose from your, we gotta find another way to describe your yogurt jars with paper star. We gotta think of another phrase for that. - You could just, well, I wanna just say TBR jar. That's what everybody else calls it. So, or calls their version of having a bunch of pieces of paper in a cup in a jar for their TBR. I think it's just a, I've been feeling a, ooh, I've been reading a lot of library books. Maybe I should read something that I actually own. And ooh, one of my goals is to read things that I bought in the last two years. And I just, I was feeling very inspired to make this TBR jar. And I really just pull from it when I'm not feeling drawn to anything else in my shelf or really just just like, incite some chaos a little bit in my life. Like, if it's too much mentally to try and pick something from my shelves, then it's more fun to just pull something out of a cup and see what it is. I haven't always read everything, sorry. If I've pulled something out of the cup and I don't like go, ooh, I wanna read that right now, I put it back in the cup. Like, I'm not forcing myself to read it, but I enforce myself. I can't pick another one out of the cup until I finish whatever I have just last pull. So, based on the things I'm currently reading, I'm probably not gonna pick one from the cup for a hot minute, but not a hot minute. For like the next couple of weeks, I'll say, like, I'll pull one here and there as we go. So, there is no true method, really. It's mood reading is what it is. - Well, I'm glad that this one that you chose, it sounds like you maybe think you like it. - I think I like it. - I think, yeah, it sounds like a-- - The vibe is positive. - Good, that's all we can ask for, really. - Yes. - Okay, my third and final thing that I finished this week was private rights by Julia Armfield, which-- - I'm so excited for you. - It had just come out and it's actually not even out in North America, United States yet. It's only out in, I don't wanna say only. It's out in the UK, so I had pre-ordered it and was like, I want it over here. And actually, one of my friends who also loves Julia Armfield from her debut, our wife's under the sea, when I put online that I was reading it. She's like, I didn't even know this was out yet. And I said, it's not, I got it. I pre-ordered it from internationally. So, the plot of this that's on the inside flap, I actually think does a disservice to what the book is actually about. And I think that people are going to go in expecting this to be one book. And it's kind of not that. So, it's not Julia's fault because she wrote a, I loved the book, I loved it, I thought it was gorgeous. But I think the flap tries to make it too supernatural and it's mostly a family drama. It's not really a supernatural, there's a couple horror elements to it, but it's all kind of right at the end. It's mostly, so the plot of it are these three sisters, Isla, Irene, and Agnes. And their father was this architect and the book opens with he dies. And they're being, they call Isla and they tell Isla, hey, your dad has died and then she gets in contact with her sisters and it's kind of goes from there of like, okay, what do these women's lives look like now that their father who we learn was like, not a good man, not a good father, not a good dad. What does their life look like now that he has passed? And it's really just like the, oh, and also the world that they live in, it is just raining constantly. Everything is flooded. It's like living in the apocalypse and it's just, okay, well, you still have to go to work. Like instead of driving, now everyone takes boats and jetties and oh, we can't go that way. There's a tree fell so we have to try to float a different direction and the mundanity of living in like an ongoing disaster. And there's the middle sister, Irene, she had studied a lot about the Bible and faith for her PhD and she turns to her sisters at one point. She's remembering this quote. She's remembering this thing that she said that her one of her sisters and I wrote this down 'cause I thought this was a really good line basically of what the book is mostly about. She says, people think, she's like, oh, have you ever read? She said something to the back of like, have you ever read the book of Revelations? And then she says, people think it's just hellfire and brimstone for horsemen and out, but actually the end times go on and on and on. And that's what you're in. It's like the everyday of disaster. There's hints of supernatural, like I said, but it's mostly just these, they're, everything is drenched, everything is leaking, everything is underwater. People are like barely staying afloat. Literally and-- - Literally. - Literally and metaphorically, you know, people are trying to, you know, so many times, they're like, well, there's no power. So I guess we'll just sit here and eat a piece of bread with some cheese on it. And it's, yeah, it's, I really, really liked it. The prose is absolutely gorgeous. It's very Julia Armfield. Her, I think the cover quotes is like her prose sparkles, which I very much agree with. But I think if you-- - Good descriptor. - I wanted to tell you this because I know you loved, we both loved our wives, but if you go in expecting it to be supernatural and speculative, it's going to feel like a letdown because it's much more family drama based. It's also on the longer side. I think it's like 370 pages, something like that. - Yeah, and I think our wives under the sea was maybe just exactly three, not exactly, but I think it was on the shorter side. - It was on the shorter side, yeah. Okay, well, it's really good to hear this, not vibe check, that's what I want. I don't want reality check either, but expectations check to know. So if I do read this in the future, to keep those expectations in check, I think is where I was ending up on how I can't be expecting the horror supernatural that came from our wives under the sea, which is definitely something I really loved about this book. So I think I really appreciate hearing this that I'll keep in check that it is family focused first. - Yes, like I said, there is a supernatural element, especially as you later in the novel, you're starting to get tense, you're starting to be like, "Uh-oh, something is coming, "something is coming, something is coming." But it's first and foremost, the sticky situation of navigating these sisters and the relationship when they all kind of hate each other a little bit, but it's because their dad was so toxic and so abusive and thinking about what do you, at one point, do you become responsible for your childhood and for the way that your parent acted? And, you know, 'cause when you're a kid, it's not your fault, but at some point, it becomes your responsibility. So I thought it was really vulnerable, I thought a lot of the dialogue feel like there's this one part where they're on a boat and Julia is describing, or the author, she's describing all the different things that people are doing. And I was like, this really feels like she was on a train and was just writing down what every person was doing because it feels so true and vivid. Anyway, that's enough me gushing about, right? But I really liked it, but I do think you have to kind of go in knowing that it's not gonna be super supernatural. It's like a little supernatural, mostly family drama. - Okay, I have a very silly comparison. As my brain is always making connections in the weirdest ways possible. Have you ever watched Umbrella Academy on Netflix? - I would say, I understand where you see that, but it's just the father has died, siblings are coming together and have to deal with childhood trauma. - Yeah, that's a little more irreverent than this. This is like pretty serious, and I would say like dark, honestly, is the word that I would use. - Yeah. Okay, well, I'm glad that that was such a success 'cause like you don't pre-order a lot of books. - I know. - And so this, ooh, it was so exciting. - Oh, I love that. Okay, I, as usual, am currently reading multiple things, but one of them I'm very happy and excited about. One of them might be a DNF, and I wanna like, what, I want your help on like, am I gonna DNF this? - We're gonna kill it on the pod. - Maybe, oh God, I don't know. So what would you like to hear about first? The potential DNF or the thing I'm really enjoying right now? - I would like to be a judge. Please tell me what I am maybe killing. - I am currently reading from the library, Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll. I put this on hold like way back in like January, maybe February. So this has been a long time coming. It finally came a whole couple weeks ago. No, last week. And I just, ooh, I don't know. This is like weird true crime historical fiction. Weird is not the descriptor here, but it's like true crime historical fiction thing. The dust jacket slash the good read description kinda just does it best where this apparently is called an extraordinary novel inspired by the real life sorority targeted by America's first celebrity serial killer in his final murderous spree. So this is kind of a fictional spin. - Oh, about Bundy. - Yup. So Bright Young Women is the story about two women, again, I'm quoting from the description, two women from opposite sides of the country who become sisters in their fervent pursuit of the truth. It proposes a new narrative inspired by evidence that's been glossed over for decades in favor of more salable headlines that the so-called brilliant and charismatic serial killer from Seattle was far more average than the countless books, movies and primetime specials have led us to believe. And that it was the women whose lives were, he cut short, who were the exceptional ones. Okay, one of my issues with this is that I have too much of notes on an execution by Daniel Kukafka stuck in my head, which was another book that featured a serial killer, but instead of focusing on the serial killer, it focused on the women and the other victims and his, from his time. And this is just not the same vibe. It's the same, okay, vibes, not the words. It's not the same structure, of course. And the other thing that is like making me go, "He is the fact that one of the characters is named Pamela, and I just, I'm feeling so weird." Like, I wouldn't want to say freaking me out because like, that's just, I think too high bar, but I'm just feeling so, I get like a little weird feeling. Every time I see my name, her name on the page, so often, but I've read other books where Pam or Pamela appears, there's just something about this one. It just is unsettling me a little bit, maybe because this one's in first person and we're like really in her head. So that's one of my things towards maybe putting this back in the library box, I don't know. But one thing that keeps pulling me to it a little bit, and like, I put it down for a few days and then picked it back up just recently, it's nicely written. And like, each time we get a little line that's like, she didn't know that yet, or I didn't realize the significance until years later, I get hooked in, I love lines like that. I do have a specific one that I want to highlight where there's a point like soon after that the crime happened, where everybody's still frazzled, everybody's still really freaked out. And yet the men around Pamela and around these girls are kind of like saying, "If I get ahold of him, "I'm gonna do XYZ to him." And Pamela's then reflecting saying, "This became something of a war shark test over the years. "These were men who cracked their knuckles "while divulging to me what they would do to the defendant." He's never named, he's always referred to the defendant. So what they would do to the defendant if they got the chance, thinking this was somehow reassuring for me to hear, but all it did was make me realize that there wasn't so big a difference between the men who brutalized Denise and half the men I passed every day on the street. That's just chilling. And I really liked the writing of that, like tantalizing of, "I'm remembering the past, "but I can also see the future at the same time "or see the future of that past." So I'm at page 60-something, so-- - So just to clarify, the part that's making it hard for you to, that you're like maybe wanting to DNF, is just the fact that her name is Pam? - It's so petty, okay, I don't know what it is, but it's just one little thing that's making me go, "Ah, I don't know why I'm feeling so uncomfortable "seeing my name so much." So very, very petty reason DNF, I recognize this. This is very much a me problem. So yeah, I'm at page 65. I think I want to try to get to page 100. There's another POV based on my little peaking of the next chapter names, and I want to see how that voice is. I did see someone's review that really made me feel much better. This person gave it three stars on Goodreads, and they said men are effing infuriating, and they put little sparkle emojis around infuriating, and then they said, "This is obviously a five star book, "but full disclosure, I had zero fun reading it." And I was like, "Yeah, okay, I think I'm feeling that." So I, very silly feelings I'm having about the fact the main character has the same name as me, but also it's written really fun, but it's also, I don't know, I'm just, it's hard, it's hard to read. It's a hard to read though. - It's hard to read, it really is, so. - Okay, give me an ultimatum, no. - I think that you, I mean, especially now having the evidence laid before me of your exhibit one is, "Oh, she has the same name as me." I think you at least have to try until you get to the second point of view, because what did you get to the second point of view and Pam/Pamilla is never mentioned to get? So then you're through, then you're through. - I don't think how that's gonna go, but I do really want to get at least that second POV. I think that's good. It gives the book a fair shot, and I have a couple more weeks with it, and so I should say so many people. A lot of people have really liked and enjoyed this book, enjoyed as you can enjoy a book like this. And someone I follow who reads almost exclusively like thriller fiction books, this is one of her best books at the beginning of the year, and I'm like, that's some pretty high bar, high bar recommendation there, and I want to give it a shot. So I'm in agreement with your own judgment that I've also come to get this conclusion that I want to get to. The other POV, we'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll fly through it. I don't know, it's 300 pages, and it's one of those tall, hard covers. - Yeah. - Like 370 something pages, and it's a tall. Anyway, oh well, oh well. What are you currently reading? So we can move on from this. - Hi, let's do what you're reading, 'cause my currently reading is kind of a, a little bit of a question mark, which we'll get to. - Okay, well, my other currently reading is, it was another, I picked the book I want to read in a very random way, done in, so, okay, hmm. I chose this book and said, I need to finish title creatures before I can start this. And then I did do that. And then I also wanted to pick something from the Yo Group TBR Cup. So I do love picking books in totally random ways when I don't know what my mood wants. I had my husband pick the method because I had too many ideas. So he picked that I'm a random number generator type thing where I filtered my book database to only show me books. I haven't started in unfinished books. I randomly generated a number between one and the total. And the answer, it brought me to, was Bookshops and Bone Dust by Travis Baldry. Oh, I felt such joy immediately upon seeing that was the result. And I knew that was the right choice. I was like, this is what I'm gonna start after title creatures. And it's very cute so far. I'm attempting a buddy read with my friend who first introduced me to Legends and Lattes and this being the prequel. This friend also gave me their pretty UK copies of both Legends and Lattes and Bookshops and Bone Dust when they received their extra special editions. My friend is recovering from something. So I'm giving them like zero pressure to read this as fast as I might read this. And this is, like I said, a prequel. This follows Viv as well from Legends and Lattes. And I really wonder what Travis Baldry wants to do with this story, given it is a prequel. It's set 20 years before Legends and Lattes. Oh, wow. 20 years, yeah. What lessons does he want Viv to learn or what does she need to learn to not be young, harsh and brass? That's a lesson most people need to learn to not judge a book by its cover, given we're going to be in a Bookshop a lot. (laughs) I like it a lot. I'm just under 100 pages in, which is a fun moment to be. I don't know if it's gonna live up to Legends and Lattes, which is such a perfectly self-contained book. Like, how much was this prequel actually needed? Versus like, you could have explored more of the world or other characters. You couldn't really have continued the story 'cause Legends and Lattes, like I said, is so well contained. It would have been hard to give the coffee shop and Viv more obstacles. So instead we went back 20 years and are putting Viv in different circumstances. So I had lofty dreams to finish this in one weekend, but then I crocheted and played some video games. Both of those things were needed. So looking forward to a couple days off of work this week, making an extra long weekend for myself. I'm gonna read so much. I'm gonna walk my phone away so I don't scroll on YouTube and I'm gonna read so much. This will definitely be finished by the next time we talk. And I gotta point out that I really like the UK covers because this is just so sleek and navy blue and it's got a book opened up with a sword coming out of it. It's got ropes for that nautical theme because basically Viv gets injured because she's young, harsh and brass. And she is then forced to recover on her own in a little seaside town. And she meets this person who owns this person, this little ratkin creature who owns the bookshop and the bookshop's kind of like struggling a bit. So I think the story's probably gonna be a little bit of Viv maybe helping this bookstore while she's forced to sit still and heal. She also gets to sit still and read for the first time, but like read for pleasure for the first time, which has been really cute to see. This hardcover though is so stiff that like it wants to open wherever my bookmark is, like it doesn't wanna stay closed. So anyway, having a good time, still only like in the beginning, we'll see where things go. I don't know, I don't think it's gonna go off the rails because you know, this is not the style. The tagline underneath this is high fantasy, first loves second hand books. - Oh, that's cute. - That's just cute. It's so cute. And it's all this, like, Travis Baldry has nailed the cutesy high fantasy concept of like and cozy. Like he's the king of cozy fantasy. Funny thing I'm gonna point out though, there's a blurb in the back here from Heather Faucet who wrote Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia Fairy Festival. The worlds are melding together. - I think that, and this bone shop, bone shop, bone shop, bookshop sounds like a good counterbalance to your pretty rough grizzly, bright young women story. Like you have the stuff. - That's true. - So half true, I'll call it half true. Half true crime book, since it's based on a true crime. And then you have something that's cozy and fun and magic. - And yes, I think you're right. They do balance each other out quite nicely, which is typical in my reading. Okay, so those are the things I'm currently reading. We're bouncing on many ends of the spectrum, but I'm very curious now, what are you reading? I need to know. - So I finished, like I said, I finished private rights and I finished that yesterday and I was like, okay, what do I wanna read? And I was looking at my little list that I've made for myself. - Yes. - What do I have set up? And I've set up a bunch of things. I've like marked a bunch of things for July 'cause I'm gonna be traveling a good amount and so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna read on the plane and read in here. So I was going, okay, what can I read for the last week, essentially, of June? And I forgot that I had checked out the two library books a while ago. Remember that I checked out the two library books that I was not supposed to check out? And so I was like, okay, let me look at those again and see what I wanna read. And I opened the first page of one of them that I'm not gonna mention. What I read the first paragraph and the character's name was the same character's name in private rights. And I was like, okay, that's too confusing right now. Let me put at least one book in between this. So then I opened the other book that I had checked out, which was, and I'm like kind of reading this sort of. I don't know, I haven't decided if I wanna read it yet. I am eight, okay, ages, I am eight. That's pretty early. I'm being eight, and it's a long, oh my look. It looks like it's probably about 500 pages. So to be only eight pages, like I'm not really reading this yet, mostly I just wanted to see, okay, since I didn't do the PAM test, which was very smart, to read the book while you were still in the establishment before leaving with said book, y'all chies, what I should have done. I was like, let me see if this is even worth me reading. And I don't know, this is going to sound like an insult, and I don't mean it to be. But I can tell just from these eight pages, I was like, this is so written by a man. It's not, it's a descriptor. It's not like being, you know, he's not describing women like a breasting boobly or anything like that, but just the way that it's written, I'm like, this is so, I cannot, if you, like I literally cannot describe to you how, I can, how I feel this, but I just, that's not a bad thing. But I'm just like, this is like a very different voice than what I've been reading, which honestly is probably a good thing. Like all I've been reading has been, I've been only really, only really reading women. So I'm like, maybe I should throw, let me throw a guy in there and give him a chance. So I'm going to see if I still like this one. Did I stay at the title yet? It's called The Lost Time Accidents by John Ray. - Thank you. I was like, okay, we need the title, please. - Sorry, I got too distracted. But the plot on this one is the guy like falls. He just, he's been exiled from the flow of time. - Oh, and then some other stuff happens. But apparently his like a great, his great uncle or something, I was from the first eight pages, his like great uncle or someone was like, made some time discovery at some point in his life. And he's named after this great uncle. His name is Waldemar, which is quite, well his name is Waldemar, Tolliver. I mean, run for a money of what was the, the probably a fairy guy named? - Wendell Brambleby. - I mean, those are, or Bambelby, hold on. I would say those are comparable, honestly. - Yeah, okay, Wendell Bambelby. I threw an R in there by accident. - So I haven't totally decided, I do kind of need to decide what I'm going to read though, because my, I have on the story, on the story graph, which is great. I have my reading challenge set up for myself of how many pages I want to read this year, which is, I believe 45,000 was the number I set up for myself, which is a lot. But I'm basically on target, I'm ahead by 127 pages, but that's more, more or less what I have to read every single day. - Oh God. - So I'm like, oh no, if I get, which I have been behind, there have been a couple times that I have gotten behind my like 200 pages, which is extremely stressful, by the way. - Yeah, you can't, oh no, please don't get too stressed, but I'm not, I know that once I pick something up, I will probably, you know, get sucked into it. And I just am like, do I want to read that? You know, should I, what I'll probably will end up doing, in all honesty, is reading my chunk of chapters for this month of what I need to read for "Gum with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell, which I do need to read for the month of June. So that's probably where I'll end up, I'm gonna continue trying the last time accidents, just to see, you know, just to give it a good old one to try, the good old college try, that was the, that's the phrase. So that's why I was like, I'm kind of a question mark, I'm not, I don't know, I don't know what I'm gonna, which is weird, I don't usually have nothing that I'm really reading. - You've at least tantalizingly tasted the first few pages of something and you've got other things on your plate as well. So I think it's fine, I think it's, you've at least, you've got something to reach for. When you have, when you want that feeling of, I need to go escape in a book, you've got things you can reach for. So I think that's good. Oh boy. I am so excited to just go curl up in my bed and read it all. - Oh. - So excited, like, I'm also really excited for my reading plans in July. I don't want to give away too much, but I have big plans for myself. - I know, I know, especially, it's just, we're in the thick of it now, we're in the thick of the year. - All right. Okay, so this were all of my bookage updates, was that right for you? - That was everything for me. - So we will place the bookmark and pick it up next time. Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)