This episode, we welcome our first-ever guest on the "John Updike's Ghost" podcast: Alena Dillon! The author of "The Happiest Girl in the World" and "Mercy House," and resident of Beverly, MA, has a brand-new memoir, "My Body Is a Big Fat Temple," about her experience of pregnancy and birth, which we manage to compare to hiking Mt. Everest and a car crash. She talks about why she wrote the book, what the barriers were to getting it published, and then joins Hannah and Sam in talking about weird stories, why it's hard to find small-press books but we need to read them, Lauren Groff, rom-coms with lots of swears in them, the epic Canadian band Rush, and why Facebook is evil. Oh, and then there's a quick hit at the end with some great kids' books recommendations.  Listen to the podcast and then join us for Book Club with Alena on January 11, 2022.