We have talked about dinner parties in literature before, but none have been quite so much of a struggle to sit through as this one! Happiness and Love by debut author Zoe Debno is a treat for the senses … in quite a different way. And via this book, and the conversation it sparked, we experience how appetites can be lost and food can be nauseating depending on the company we keep.

This is about becoming curious about our reactions to a book, how food creates atmosphere and adds to character and how wealth, class and education can be a cover for the emptiest of internal lives. As ‘the actress’ says in Happiness and Love;

“You act like all you want to do is have serious conversations about art and about literature, and that only a select group of people who have studied enough, who have the credentials you think are important, are smart enough to engage with you, but what is even inside of a book but people’s thoughts and feelings. Everyone can understand thoughts and feelings. Everyone can read a book and understand it.”

Bibliotherapy in action! We hope you enjoy this conversation as we join our narrator on the “white linen sofa” for a long night ahead.

Show notes are coming soon, featuring lists of all the books and topics we discuss.

In the meantime, thank you for listening, and thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

Get full access to Something to Eat and Something to Read at somethingtoeatandsomethingtoread.substack.com/subscribe