Two Book Nerds Talking

We discuss the stories in Exhalation, Ted Chiang’s latest short story anthology, and touched on all sorts of sci-fi malarkey from virtual pets to robot nannies, from time-gates to intelligent parrots. What makes him such a story-telling rockstar in the genre of speculative fiction? Expanding on his time travel story within the collection, we delve deep into Diana’s latest literary obsession- time travel books. Do you too want a time machine? We give you some great reads and TV shows to sate your inner time-lord.

Emily A. Sprague - Float
Ann Annie - Long Stream
Topher Mohr and Alex Elena - Space Coast
KYLE and Amine Type Beat - Lemonade
Kevin Macleod - Bossa Antigua
Music from https://filmmusic.io:
"Bossa Antigua" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

We discuss Samantha Shannon's doorstopper epic fantasy Priory of the Orange Tree. A stand-alone that is a feminist reimagining of St. George and the Dragon as well as Japanese mythology The Luck of the Mountains. This book has magic! Political intrigue! Dragons! It pits western dragons against eastern dragons and takes the belief system from different canons in one hefty book. You can seriously curl up to this one. It is July already! Fancy that? So Break Your TBR has some exciting reads for you...

Our first PG-rated episode. We tear through EL James' The Mister with guest, Irene.

The front cover says that this book is a user manual for your own head. Matt Haig's Notes on a Nervous Planet will make you take a second and examine just how intact your mental health is in an overly connected world. And oh, reading is one of his surefire ways to stay centred! Huzzah! We also dig deeper into responsible reading.

We are back with a killer new season of book nerdery. First up, Good Omens, we talk book, TV and, friendships- between an angel, Aziraphale and a demon, Crowley plus that of co-writers Pratchett and Gaiman. It's a heart-warming tale filled with answerphone messages and the antichrist. Also June's book picks for Break Your TBR. Ah... we missed filling up your shelves...

Book of M, an exploration on the questions of humanity linked to the power of memory. All over the world people are loosing their shadows and eventually their memories in exchange for transformative power. What kind of world would that be? And how can love survive when you are fighting daily for survival? We discuss Peng Shepard's intriguing debut novel with Tina Isaacs who runs a speculative fiction discussion group. And being a writer of the genre herself, we also picked her brain on how to start writing in this vein.

Hiro Arikawa's wildly popular book The Travelling Cat Chronicles has been a hit since it was translated into English. People love cats, the story of a young man taking his kitty on a roadtrip around Japan (even on a ferry!) to find a new home for her has hit a lot of people in the 'feels'. We talk pet's intuitions, human relationships and the poignant/ transient feeling you get from Japanese literature, what they call Mono no aware. Our bookish topic today is on what to consider when you write book reviews and of course further reading if you like cats in your books.

The hottest memoir in the market atm is Michelle Obama's Becoming. What is the story behind the hugely popular former first lady? We talk about her girlhood and the journey to BECOMING the person she is today. There is plenty in this book to inspire, ponder and celebrate. It's also the first week of April so as usual BYTBR comes back with books you want to check out this month.

You asked for it and here it is! The Live recording of TBNT's interview with Zen Cho when she swung by Lit Books on her last trip to KL. We talk about her new book, The True Queen, learn about her writing life and even got her to recommend some books for us!

In honour of World Poetry day, we bare our souls with an in-depth poetry discussion- I mean we go stuck into it making this our longest episode yet. We celebrate the moving poems of Mary Oliver who left us last year and celebrate her mind and words. We get stuck into Instapoets with Norman (who is one himself) and talk about inclusivity in poetry and how poets like Rupi Kaur have brought poetry to the mainstream. We even touched on Spoken Word poetry and how it represents the present generation. We discuss books with Norman and get his 5 Tips on how to be an Instapoet.