Women’s Prize shortlisted author, Lily King, and previous Women's Prize winner, Tayari Jones, join Joe for this week’s Book Off!

They discuss their new novels, co-parenting Koalas, Ann Patchett, lovers, desire, chosen family, female friendship, mothers, Oprah and the many many forms of love.

We LOVED this chat - and hope you do too! 

THE BOOK OFF

'The Transit Of Venus' by Shirley Hazzard

VS

'Song Of Solomon' by Toni Morrison

And here's a little more info on our guests' new novels:

'Kin' by Tayari Jones

A yearning for their missing mothers pulls Vernice and Annie apart. It will take a devastating tragedy to bring them back together.

Vernice and Annie are 'cradle friends', born days apart in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, both destined never to know their mothers. The girls are inseparable, bound by a friendship far deeper than sisterhood. But this is the American south in the 1950s. Black girls like Vernice and Annie have to fight for every opportunity they can, and neither one can build the future they hope for in Honeysuckle. 

Gradually, inevitably, the girls drift apart. Vernice pursues her education; Annie is lured by the promise of a heady first love affair and a growing obsession with finding her mother. But her search pulls her even further into a world of danger that soon leaves her oldest friend battling to save her.

'Heart The Lover' by Lily King

Our narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules.

She was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. Their lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love.

Decades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth.

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