Four Books a Fortnight

Following up on the big Nor'easter, Sam and Hannah chat about "Powder Days," a new look at the future of ski culture, then talk about Hannah's exploits with newly minted Hall of Famer Big Papi, who's cool, but not as cool as Pedro. After that, we hit Jennifer Egan (her first book is actually called "A Visit from the Goon Squad" not "Welcome to the Goon Squad"), "The Last White Man" and comma usage, how Hanya Yanagihara has pushed the boundaries of just how miserable you can make your fictional characters, and much, much more. Also, we looked it up and Mozart lived in the 1700s, which we totally knew. Oh, and Heather Hansman edited "Powder" and "Skiing," but not "Ski." Oh well. Something like 21 books discussed, in all. Whew!

Recording during a snowy MLK Day, Hannah and Sam are in a loquacious mood, covering a lot of ground with many asides. However, we open with the 2021 Shop bestsellers, talking about how Hannah's tastes influence what gets sold, how we see local authors with great success in the Shop, and how Sam's tastes don't necessarily align. Then we move into Led Zeppelin and Duran Duran (shoutout to Ryan Abernathy), Joan Didion (RIP) and memoirs in general, the practice of guilt reading, the YA title "Elatsoe" (actually pronounced "ell-at-so-ay," we have since discovered), Sam's joy at discovering a Jane Austen mystery series, and some discourse on audiobooks vs. audio dramas and the evil of space tourism. Also, the famous cat Rabbit makes a brief appearance. And it's unclear why Sam's voice is so low. He did not spend the whole night previous smoking butts.

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.

In this episdoe, just back from the New England Crime Bake, Hannah and Sam discuss the mysteries they're reading (not "sexy mysteries"), Sam's dip into "The Lincoln Highway," the new Louise Erdrich (Hannah's first!), romance novels set in the Indian Diaspora (with a segue into "Never Have I Ever"), the new Ann Patchett, and then a bunch of stuff about why there aren't any big Thanksgiving books or really any cultural artifacts.

Oh, and Ursula Le Guin's book is called "No Time to Spare" and Louise Erdich's is called "Future Home of the Living God" (which Sam was not even close to getting right in real time).

Sam and Hannah kick things of with an extensive discussion of why John Updike is the patron saint of the Book Shop of Beverly Farms, then move into thoughts about intimidating big books, Christmas books, authors you discover way after they were popular, and just which kind of weird is appreciated. 

Note: Hannah and Sam for sure know the book is called "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," but Hannah was apparently having a stroke and Sam was stoned. 

Also: Sam doesn't really hate "A Peculiar Peril" as much as it sounds. He DID read the whole thing, after all.