The Book Dialogue

S7 E4: The Happiness Cure by Anders Hansen

What if our brains aren’t designed to make us happy?

In this episode of The Book Dialogue, we discuss “The Happiness Cure: Why You’re Not Built for Constant Happiness, and How to Enjoy the Journey”, by renowned psychiatrist and well-being expert Dr. Anders Hansen. Blending cutting-edge neuroscience with real-life stories, Dr. Hansen takes us on a fascinating journey into the evolutionary roots of happiness — and why it often feels just out of reach.

We explore why our modern quest for constant happiness clashes with how our brains are wired, and how understanding this can actually empower us. From the science behind our moods to practical steps that lead to lasting joy, this episode unpacks Dr. Hansen’s groundbreaking guide to mental well-being.

If you’ve ever wondered why happiness can feel so elusive — and what you can do about it — this book may be one that should be added to your TBR stack of books!

Thank you for joining us on The Book Dialogue. We are glad that you are here.

Rebecca & Sarah

Music by Epidemic Sound

“Catharsis” By David Celeste

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/7Y8Il1GyZs/

S7 E3: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr 

Welcome to The Book Dialogue, where thoughtful reading meets lively conversation.

In this episode, we dive into The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr — a provocative and timely book that challenges us to think deeply about how our digital habits are shaping our capacity for attention, memory, and reflection. Carr’s central question is one we can’t afford to ignore: as we become more connected, are we also becoming more distracted?

Sarah brings her eloquent insights to this conversation, highlighting the essential role of critical thinking in navigating our technological world. With the brain’s remarkable neuroplasticity – its constant capacity to reshape itself, comes both potential and vulnerability. Are we training our minds for speed and skimming at the expense of depth and understanding? Together, we explore what it means to reclaim focus, restore our inner lives, and engage more consciously with the tools that surround us.

Thank you for joining us on the Book Dialogue. We are glad that you are here.

Sarah and Rebecca

Music by Epidemic Sound

Admitting the Truth By Trailer Worx https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/wyeQ8OerS5/

S7 E2: The Stories We Carry: The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson

In 1627, hundreds of Icelanders were taken from their homes and carried across the sea into slavery in Algiers. Among them were a Lutheran minister, his wife Ásta, and their children.

In The Sealwoman’s Gift, Sally Magnusson enters one of the silences left behind by history. While the captivity of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson was recorded, far less is known about what his wife experienced. Through imagination grounded in historical events, Magnusson gives Ásta a voice—and places the stories of women, mothers, and captives at the centre of the narrative.

Separated from her homeland and confronted by unimaginable loss, Ásta carries one precious inheritance with her: the Icelandic sagas and stories held within her memory. They become a source of courage, connection, and survival in a world she could never have imagined.

In this episode of The Book Dialogue, Sarah and Rebecca discuss The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson—a novel of resilience, love, displacement, hope, and redemption. Together, they reflect on the power of storytelling to preserve identity, the complicated meaning of home, and the human capacity to endure circumstances that cannot be changed.

Their conversation also turns to Viktor Frankl, who wrote:

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Ásta cannot return to the life she once knew, nor can she remain untouched by the world into which she has been carried. Her story asks whether adapting to survive means surrendering the person we once were or discovering a self we could not have known under different circumstances.

The Sealwoman’s Gift leaves us with profound questions about captivity and freedom, exile and belonging, and the redemptive possibilities of love and hope. When every possible choice carries loss, where does freedom truly reside? And when our circumstances cannot be changed, how might we find the courage to change while still holding fast to who we are?

Sarah & Rebecca

🎙️The Book Dialogue Podcast

Music by Epidemic Sound

"Watercolor Fountain" by Trailer Worx

https://www.epidemicsound.com/music/tracks/e178eaee-b7b1-3436-beef-a2ddb6e602be/

S7 E1: The Launch of the Letters to Vincent Podcast

Welcome to The Book Dialogue!

In this special episode, we open the first letter in a new series that invites quiet contemplation and creative connection: Letters to Vincent. Inspired by the life and art of Vincent van Gogh, this project uses his profound, deeply emotional paintings as a form of meditation—a visual gateway to introspection, beauty, and the enduring human spirit.

This journey begins not alone, but together. We have come together in the launch of “Letters to Vincent” to reflect on Vincent’s world and open the door to a new way of reading, seeing, and feeling. Through these letters, we step into the colours and textures of Vincent’s canvases and ask: What would we say to him now? And what might he be saying to us?

Join us as we begin Letters to Vincent, a shared meditation across time, guided by brushstrokes and spirit.

Thank you for joining us on The Book Dialogue. We are so pleased that you are here!

Sarah and Rebecca

Music by Epidemic Sound

Friend of Mine By Johannes Bornlöf

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/W63NlXY6F3/

S6 E10: Into the Unknown: A Book Dialogue on Mystery, Wilderness, and Wonder

Featuring “The Whisper on the Night Wind” by Adam Shoalts and “In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond” by John Zada

What draws us into the forest, beyond the last known path? Why do we seek the places where maps grow vague and stories grow strange?

In this episode of The Book Dialogue, we delve into two compelling narratives that explore our human longing for the unknown: Adam Shoalts’s The Whisper on the Night Wind, a chilling true tale of an eerie legend deep in Labrador’s wilds, and John Zada’s In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond, an evocative exploration of the Sasquatch mystery in British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest.

At the heart of both books lies a profound question: Do we need the unexplained in our lives? Might mystery itself be a kind of nourishment for the imagination—and a compass for the soul?

Join us as we journey through landscapes where myth and reality blur, where silence is thick with possibility, and where the search for truth often reveals more about ourselves than the world we wander.

Sarah and Rebecca

Music by Epidemic Sound

Forest Trekking By Adriel Fair https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/M...

S6 E9: Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick

Welcome to The Book Dialogue, where thoughtful reading meets lively conversation.

In this episode, we dive into Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick, bestselling author of Genius and Chaos. With his signature wit and clarity, Gleick invites us to explore what it means to live in an age defined by speed.

“When every moment is measured, time seems to vanish.” James Gleick, Faster

We’ve entered what he calls the “epoch of the nanosecond”—a world where time-saving devices multiply and yet somehow, we feel we have less and less time. Hurry sickness, microwave moments, and the quiet erosion of simple pleasures all come under the microscope.

Sarah brings her brilliant perspective to this conversation, offering a thoughtful lens on how Gleick’s insights connect to our everyday lives—how we eat, relate, love, and slow down (or don’t).

Whether you’ve read Faster or are simply feeling the rush of modern life, we invite you to pause with us for a while. Take a deep breath, settle in, and listen. The pace may be accelerating, but here, reflection still matters.

It seems that we are in a rush without knowing why—saving seconds only to lose whole seasons.

Thank you for listening in,

Sarah and Rebecca

Music by Epidemic Sound

Solitude in Motion By Golden Age Radio

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/L1wFapK56R/

S6 E8: Celebrating Helen Hoyt: A Summer Conversation between Sarah and Rebecca

It was a golden afternoon in the heart of summer when we met to celebrate a quiet but powerful voice in American poetry—Helen Hoyt. As sisters and co-hosts of The Book Dialogue, we’ve often found ourselves drawn to poets who speak across time, whose words seem to reach out and take our hands. Helen Hoyt is one of those voices.

Our connection began months earlier on Rebecca’s Reading Room, where we recorded a joint recitation of Annunciation—a poem that shimmered with quiet awe and grace. That reading opened a door into Helen’s poetic world, one marked by restraint, dignity, and deep interior vision.

What followed was something we never expected.

Rebecca received a handwritten letter from Helen Hoyt’s granddaughter, Lulii Lyman, who had listened to our reading. Enclosed with her note was a rare copy of A Girl in the City, a collection of Hoyt’s poems written between 1912 and 1919 during her years in Chicago, and published decades later in 1970. Lulii’s words have stayed with us.

“Rebecca, I know my Grandmother would love for you to have one of her poetry books. She would also appreciate that you have kept her name and writings alive. Love, Lulii.”

That generous act became the seed of a new conversation. On a sunlit day, we gathered again—this time to read Ellis Park, one of the poems from A Girl in the City. It was a deeply personal moment for Rebecca. She was living in Edmonton at the same age Helen was when she wrote this poem, and she found herself walking the same emotional terrain described in the poem. Helen’s voice, so clear and interior, mirrored feelings Remember remembered from that time in her life.

Our conversation, captured in this latest episode of The Book Dialogue, is not only about poetry—it’s about memory, legacy, and the invisible threads that connect us across generations and geography.

This post marks the beginning of a new series where we’ll continue to explore Helen Hoyt’s work. Through her poems, we are reminded that even quiet voices carry forward, shaping lives and lighting paths long after they are written.

Stay tuned for more reflections and episodes. We are honoured to walk alongside Helen Hoyt’s voice, one poem at a time.

Ellis Park

Little park that I pass through,
I carry off a piece of you
Every morning hurrying down
To my work-day in the town;
Carry you for country there
To make the city ways more fair.
I take your trees,
And your breeze,
Your greenness,
Your cleanness,
Some of your shade, some of your sky,
Some of your calm as I go by;
Your flowers to trim
The pavements grim;
Your space for room in the jostled street
And grass for carpet to my feet.
Your fountains take and sweet bird calls
To sing me from my office walls.
All that I can see
I carry off with me.
But you never miss my theft,
So much treasure you have left.
As I find you, fresh at morning,
So I find you, home returning —
Nothing lacking from your grace.
All your riches wait in place
For me to borrow
On the morrow.

Do you hear this praise of you,
Little park that I pass through?

Sarah & Rebecca

Music by Epidemic Sound

Our New Home By Sleeping Vines

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/ReJuTi457q/

Smell of Morning Coffee By Franz Gordon https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/f1gXJ8DevC/

S6 E7: Sarah and Rebecca on Exploring the Depths of Poetry

Welcome to another episode of The Book Dialogue Podcast!

Poetry, with its rhythmic cadences and vivid imagery, speaks to the very essence of human experience. It captures our joys, sorrows, hopes, and dreams. When we read poetic words, we are moving beyond absorbing text. We are being energized by a melody of emotions, a symphony of thoughts that resonate deep within our souls.

Join us as we share two favorite poems and explore the layers of meaning that make poetry a captivating force in our lives. From the delicate whispers of nature to the loud echoes of our inner battles, poetry weaves the fabric of our shared human story. How easy it is to get lost in the beauty and depth that poetic words provide. In so doing, we find a little piece of ourselves along the way.

Sarah & Rebecca

A Grain of Sand

by Robert W Service

If starry space no limit knows

And sun succeeds to sun,

There is no reason to suppose

Our earth the only one.

‘Mid countless constellations cast

A million worlds may be,

With each a God to bless or blast

And steer to destiny.

Just think! A million gods or so

To guide each vital stream,

With over all to boss the show

A Deity supreme.

Such magnitudes oppress my mind;

From cosmic space it swings;

So ultimately glad to find

Relief in little things.

For look! Within my hollow hand,

While round the earth careens,

I hold a single grain of sand

And wonder what it means.

Ah! If I had the eyes to see,

And brain to understand,

I think Life’s mystery might be

Solved in this grain of sand.

April Song

by Sara Teasdale

Willow in your April gown

Delicate and gleaming,

Do you mind in years gone by

All my dreaming?

Spring was like a call to me

That I could not answer,

I was chained to loneliness,

I, the dancer.

Willow, twinkling in the sun,

Still your leaves and hear me,

I can answer spring at last,

Love is near me!

Music by Epidemic Sound

“In This Moment” by Gavin Luke

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/dzkDVIYmbC/

“We Live On” by Gavin Luke

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/etnNrkEl7I/

S6 E6: Embrace the Magic: Why Fantasy Literature Inspires Us

Welcome to our latest discussion on The Book Dialogue where we dive into the enchanting world of fantasy! From mystical realms filled with dragons and wizards to epic quests that captivate the imagination, fantasy literature and media have a remarkable way of transporting us to extraordinary places.

Reading fantasy offers a unique escape from reality, allowing us to venture into worlds where the impossible becomes possible. This genre stimulates our imagination, encouraging creativity and critical thinking as we navigate complex narratives filled with rich characters and intricate storylines.

Fantasy often addresses universal themes such as good versus evil, friendship, and personal growth, which resonate deeply with our own experiences and struggles. By immersing ourselves in fantastical tales, we not only find solace and adventure but also gain new perspectives on our lives and the world around us. 

In the end, fantasy literature expands our understanding of what it means to be human, making it a vital addition to our reading repertoire.

Thank you for joining us on The Book Dialogue,

Sarah and Rebecca

“Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.” J.R.R. TOLKIEN, TOLKIEN ON FAIRY-STORIES

Music by Epidemic Sound

Reunited We'll Prevail By Kikoru

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/GP9JmaEeQ3/

S6 E5: Sarah and Rebecca are in the Studio

Welcome to The Book Dialogue Video Podcast!

We are thrilled to welcome you to The Book Dialogue “Studio”. We are now embracing a vibrant new chapter as we launch our video podcast series! This initiative enhances our commitment to bringing you deeper insights into the world of literature.

In each episode, we will explore the pages of our favourite books and engage in meaningful conversations about our reading adventures. Our hope is to illuminate the unique perspectives that make books a profound part of our lives.

Whether you’re a longtime listener or new to our community, we invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the visual journey as we celebrate the power of books. Thank you for tuning in to The Book Dialogue podcast, where every book tells a story, and every dialogue opens new horizons!

Sarah and Rebecca

Music by Epidemic Sound

We Need Air By Sleeping Vines

https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/8Bbwx1vMdK/