Ah, the bliss of childhood ... before life got REALLY scary. In today's episode, we're packing our literary first aid kits to survive those pre-teen years (which becomes a great excuse to talk about our favourite books we read as children).

Jump to:

00:00 - Intro & what we’re reading; Nicola’s reading Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen and Angela’s reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; we also chat a bit about the 2020 Booker winner & shortlist!

08:49 - ‘Adaptation Station’ - today we’re talking about The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix

12:12 - We share our first aid kits!

Angela’s kit:

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Nicola’s kit:

The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton

The Bed and Breakfast Star by Jacqueline Wilson

Vinegar Street by Philip Ridley

Other resources / books we mention:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (again!)

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

The Problem of Susan by Neil Gaiman

Bright: The Apotheosis of Lazy Worldbuilding (video essay) from Lindsay Ellis

The Naughtiest Girl in the School by Enid Blyton

Interview with Jacqueline Wilson (British Library)

Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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It's a challenging existence and it comes in many forms. Good thing there's plenty of literature to guide us through the nuances and celebrations of being a woman. We talk about what books we might give to our daughters.

Note - this episode was recorded when it was (briefly!) legal for two members of different households to mix indoors.

Angela's first aid kit:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Nicola's first aid kit:

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

The Bell Jar by Syvia Plath

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

Other resources/books we mention:

Everything Under by Daisy Johnson

The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

How 'The Bell Jar' Became Pop Culture's Code for Female Sadness (Nylon)

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly

Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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Just in time for Halloween - we're off to a haunted house with our first aid kit packed with books to keep us sane while things go bump in the night. Will our books keep us safe from ghouls and poltergeists? There's only one way to find out...

Note - this episode was recorded when it was (briefly!) legal for two members of different households to mix indoors.

Angela's first aid kit:

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire by Arthur Conan Doyle (you can read it online here)

Nicola's first aid kit:

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Other resources/books we mention:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward

A Rather Haunted Life: Guardian review

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilmour

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Bram Stoker Claimed That Parts of Dracula Were Real. Here's What We Know About the Story Behind the Novel (Time)

Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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It's the most relatable feeling in the world: we've all had a period of time where we've felt lonely, even when surrounded by people. Whether for escapism or inspiration, what books have helped us survive that rubbish feeling of being alone? We've packed our first aid kits.

Angela's first aid kit:

The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

Red Dust: A Path Through China by Ma Jian

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Nicola's first aid kit:

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Other resources/books we mention:

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

Forgotten Women: The Leaders by Zing Tsjeng

Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie

Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move by Reece Jones

Poorna Bell on Instagram

dear juliet... from Jessie Burton's blog

Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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It's episode 2 and we're hopping in our time travel machines, taking our literary first aid kits with us to guide us through the mind-boggling concept of being some-when else. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads! (But we do need books.)

Forgive a mild tech issue on Nic's side in this episode - there's a little bit of static feedback. Promise it's a one-off.

Nicola's first aid kit:

A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Angela's first aid kit:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Other resources/books we mention:

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

The British History podcast

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

Until the End of Time by Brian Greene

Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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For our VERY FIRST episode, we're packing a literary first aid kit for surviving (and solving) a murder mystery! Will our books spare us from becoming the victim of a most grisly murder? Let's hope so...

Angela's first aid kit:

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Nicola's first aid kit:

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Other resources/books we mention:

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

CBC IDEAS podcast: 'Reading with a Grain of Salt' (3-part series)

@ferguscraig on Twitter - 'Detective Roger LeCarre' (Dad reads from his crime novel)

Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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