Transcript

[00:00:00] Nicole: Welcome to another edition of The Readerly Report. Today, Gayle and I are here with our 2022 fall book preview. I found quite a bit. So I’m interested of course, to compare notes with Gayle and see if we have any in common. I think we have somewhere between 16 to 20 books, a share with you, depending on where our final list make.

And then we haven’t been on for a while. Like, we’ve been a little bit sporadic. We’re trying to get back regularly. I had some like health stuff pop up, so we haven’t been able to find as much time, but , I was just talking to the woman who edits the podcast this morning. And she’s just like, you keep mentioning your book club and doing it next week.

That book club. We’re not gonna have time today cuz it’s the fall preview show, but next week definitely Gayle and I said we were gonna discuss memoirs and we’re gonna finally do this book club. I mean, we have to, that has to be the next thing we do. Yes. I agree. So Gayle, why don’t you start us off with.

What you’ve been reading, you say you’ve been reading quite a bit and why don’t we do some fun? You’ve read some, some high profile books, right? Did you like them? Were they

[00:01:15] Gayle: worthy? A couple were and a couple were not. So I went on vacation. I took a big stack of books with me and I had, I’d say, mixed success with the ones I brought.

I’ll start with the ones. I really like. I liked French braid by aunt Tyler, which is her latest release came out this year. And I really liked that one and I, I feel like, you know, aunt Tyler is general generally pretty dependable. You kind of know what you’re gonna get. It’s usually a family drama it’s usually said in Baltimore.

I’ve had kind of mixed luck with her. Sometimes I’ve really liked it. Sometimes I haven’t, this one I really enjoyed. And, you know, once again, it’s a story of a family three kids and it just tracks them over time. Not a lot of, you know, dramatic plot twists, not a lot of big reveal moments, but it’s just, you know, one of those deep character studies that she’s so good at and she delves into family relationships.

So well, So I just I really like this one. I actually gave this one five stars, which as you know, I don’t do very liberally. And this one, this one was really good. So if you’re an aunt Tyler fan, you’ve read her stuff in the past and you have been curious about this one. I would definitely recommend going for it.

Then was another one that I read that was really weird. In a good way. Weird. It was called one’s company by Ashley Hudson and it’s about a woman. She’s in maybe her twenties and she’s had a lot of trauma in her life and her parents have died. And then she was kind of adopted by, into her best friend’s family by her best friend’s parents.

And then they died and she kind of witnessed some trauma. And as a result, she’s just very withdrawn. And very you know, she’s, she’s traumatized, like that’s the best word word. I know how to describe it. And she wins the lottery, like some insane payout, like the one that was kind of recently in the news, over a billion dollar payout and one winner and one winner.

And she does something kind of crazy. She. Moves to this extremely remote location. And she has an obsession with the sitcom threes company and she recreates the world of threes company within this like apartment building or this complex. Okay. You’re right. That is weird. It’s weird. And she lives there alone and she basically.

Wants to retreat to this, you know, retro seventies, nostalgic world, cuz it’s simple and it’s uncomplicated and you know, everything wraps up in a half an hour and it’s just kind of the creativity of this author to come up with this world and you know, to come up with this, like all of the things she does to get, to make it like, you know, authentic to the seventies.

But then of course, you know, it’s not gonna. End. Well, like you can’t go move to some remote location by yourself for years on end and pretend that you’re living in threes companies. So, you know, there’s a resolution that happens. So it’s, it’s dark, it’s a debut. I thought it was, is she

[00:04:19] Nicole: interacting with.

Other characters in threes companies. She’s just living

[00:04:23] Gayle: in the house. And she, okay, good question. Every year she becomes a different one of the characters. So like the first year she’s Janet, and then the second year, I think she’s Chrissy and she’s got like a whole wardrobe so that she can become Mrs.

Roper. Like, I mean, I don’t know how familiar you are with three’s company. I used to watch it quite a bit, so it’s no, it’s really weird and it’s really dark. It’s bizarre and creative, but really well written. And like, if this is remotely appealing, like I would say pick it up. I liked it. The end is a little weird.

I wasn’t crazy at the end.

[00:04:59] Nicole: Wild, that

[00:05:00] Gayle: complete thing. It’s wild. So that’s a new release as well. So those are two of the ones that I liked the most. And then. I’ve also read and I’m about to finish a second. One of like, kind of like hot summer books and, not a fan. And I figure I should mention those too.

So the first one is the measure by Nikki ick. And this is the book about this phenomenon that happens where one morning, everyone in the world wakes up and on their doorstep. There’s a box. And inside the box, there’s a, a ribbon. And, or a thread and or piece of string . Yeah. And it turns out that the piece of string correlates to how long the rest of your life is gonna be like how many years you have to live.

And so, you know, it’s. The first half starts out really strong. Cause it’s kind of all about like this day that this happens and, and the reaction and how people respond to it, their deniers and the people who trust it, the people who do open their boxes, people who don’t, and then it kind of devolves into like this sort of political thing where, you know, people start using the short stringers for political gain or, you know, they, they want to.

there’s discrimination against people who have short strings. I think it’s actually just a big allegory for like either racism or COVID. I can’t quite figure out like what she was trying to like analogize, but it felt like very familiar to like what we’re living through right now. Mm-hmm on the one hand.

And on the other hand, it was really schmaltzy, like the characters that she did follow. Mostly this support group of people who have short strings, it just like, I felt like this was such a deep topic and it, I think it was, it felt kind of shallow. Like it felt really schmaltzy and simplified and stuff.

So I was pretty frustrated this one with this one by the end. And I know people have loved it. It was a read with gen pick tons of people like are like, oh, this is great book. I just, I don’t know. It did not work for me. So I think I gave it like a three and a half stars. And then the other one I wanted to mention is the one I’m almost done with.

So I caveat that I still have maybe 40 pages to go. It’s called when we were bright and beautiful by Jillian Madoff. And, oh, I was thinking of reading that. Okay, well, this is about a very, very wealthy family in Manhattan and the there’s three kids and one of the kids has been accused of. By his Princeton classmate.

So ostensibly, it’s a story about this rape. Did it happen? Did it not? He goes on trial. What’s gonna happen? I don’t know yet what happens, but it’s told really from the point of view of his sister who is actually adopted into the family, she’s not a blood relative and it’s just pretty messed up. Like she.

Has a lot of issues. And a lot of them have to do with things that happen in the family and you know, her relationship with her brothers. But like I find it impossible to relate to her in any way. Like I just have, I can’t, I don’t understand her. I can’t really she’s cl contradicts herself all the time.

She’s not terribly Reliable as a, as like a, a narrator. And I just, I don’t know. I’m like, I can’t wait to be done with this book. I just, I really, really have not enjoyed it at all. Okay. This was like my, my book of the month pick. So again, this is like another hot book of the summer. It just did not work for me at all.

So that’s two successes into that. I wasn’t as crazy. And then a few other dishonorable mentions. I wanna just say on the show, cuz I think since it’s been a while, since we talked, I just wanted to give them some props. One is zip book called home stretch by Graham Norton, which is written by an Irish author who happens to be, I had no idea like a really well known talk show host.

He’s like sort of like a Jimmy Fallon type in Ireland. Graham Norton mm-hmm he wrote a family drama that takes place in Ireland actually takes place in Ireland and New York. and again, five stars for me. Like I’m just really enjoying these like family dramas. They are working for me a lot this summer, and it just is about this boy who there’s a car accident in the beginning.

And if a couple people are killed and this small town and the person who was driving the car was this, you know, boy who was about to embark on his life. And he. disappears. He takes off and just leaves and never comes back. So you follow his story, then you follow back what was going on in the city, in the, the town where they left and then the ultimate, you know, reconciliation that he comes home and, and sort of has been, you know, decades and, and everything that’s happened in between.

So I really liked that one. And I also want to mention a book called we do what we do in the dark, which is another summer book that came out. About a woman in college who. Has an affair with an older professor, another woman. And and there’s a few books. There’s another book of very similar title for this summer.

Like things we do in the dark, don’t confuse that with this one, this is called, we do what we do in the dark. And this is also a literary fiction, very character focused story about this relationship and how this relationship with this older woman, you know, affected her for the rest of her life, because she was so impressionable and young when it happened.

And she’s only like 18 or 19. and I’d like that one as well. So just wanted to give props to those two. That’s interesting.

[00:10:42] Nicole: I, so the one book that I’m gonna mention that I read is called little secrets by Jennifer Hillier, but I think it’s an older book of hers and there’s another book of hers that came out this summer and it’s called things we do in the dark.

Oh

[00:10:57] Gayle: yeah. That’s the other

[00:10:58] Nicole: one or that, that might be the other one. Yeah. So I read Little secrets and I really enjoyed it. And I read it fairly quickly. It is about a successful woman. She owns three salons. She’s married to a wealthy man. They have a happy family. And then one day when she’s out in the market in Seattle, her son goes missing.

It seems like he’s been kidnapped. You know, they don’t hear of a ransom note. She is attending these. Support groups and like the back room of a donut shop with other grieving parents or other parents who are, have missing children in the world. So she is kind of at the end of her rope when she discovers that her husband is having an affair and she feels like, you know, she’s been through it.

Everything has happened to her. Even though this woman is kind of young, maybe naive doesn’t seem to know that her husband has a wife. She is intent on like, not losing anything else. So this woman has gotta go. And at first, I, I didn’t know how I was gonna about the book because you know, it’s, her anger seems really misplaced on this young woman.

Like what her father. Or not her father, her husband has done, you know, he’s the one who’s responsible in driving the affair. You know, they’ve, they’ve drifted apart in their grief, but there are some twists that definitely make you want to. Figure out, you know, like what is going on? What is the dynamic between the three of them, you know, is any of this connected to her missing son?

You know, who can she trust kinda thing? So I’m still very much in my thriller phase. I really enjoyed this one. So I’m looking for my next one that I’ll read by her, you know, maybe not right away, but she has several, like we just mentioned things we do in the dark and she’s just written a. Of suspenseful novel.

So I really enjoyed the one I read. So I’m gonna check out the others. And I guess I should mention this thunder to you. It was like a storm going on. It’s thundering. There was such heavy rain a little bit earlier. Oh, in New York. Yes. So hopefully it’ll hold off until our call is over. Cause when I say heavy rain, it’s just, it was really loud.

[00:13:28] Gayle: A little aside, I’m gonna be in New York tomorrow to move my daughter into college. Is it supposed to clear up by then?

I’m just imagining moving in the rain. I thought it was gonna be sunny and bright tomorrow. So hopefully this is a passing thing, hopefully. Let’s make this all

[00:13:44] Nicole: about me. It’s hurricane season though. So I think tomorrow it’s partly cloudy. Not as much chance of rain. So you might be. Oh, man. Okay, good.

[00:13:54] Gayle: Alright. Okay.

[00:13:55] Nicole: So that, yes, that was the book that I read and we probably have quite a few books to get into. I’m just thinking, is there anything else that we need to. Talk about before we get into the fall book guide?

[00:14:09] Gayle: No, I mean, I think I just wanted to say, you know, to our listeners that I’m sorry that you and I have been so sporadic this summer, and I don’t want anyone to misinterpret that as a lack of, you know, sort of commitment to the show we’ve just had each of us have just had a bunch of things that came up, either health stuff or family stuff, or travel or kids or whatever.

There’s just been stuff going on this summer has been a lot. It’s been a. So we are, you know, committing to getting back to regular recording for the fall and you know, thanks for sticking with us, those of you who, you know, had like dormant readerly report feeds in your, whatever your podcast listen, app of choice.

So thank you for sticking with us. And we are we’re. Yes. Thank you very

[00:14:55] Nicole: much. Yale’s daughter is off to college. right. My situation is clearing up. Hopefully we will have more time. In common yeah.

[00:15:07] Gayle: Yes, exactly. And also we’ve decided that if we are really having trouble finding a mutually, you know, convenient time for us to record, then we’re gonna just do some solo shows.

So we’ll just hopefully have much more content more regularly for you, even if it’s just one of us, instead of both.

[00:15:25] Nicole: All right, Gayle. So what do you think about the fall? What do you think about the fall schedule of books? Are you excited? Did you find a lot? Are you kinda like, eh,

[00:15:34] Gayle: Great question. There’s lots of books out by authors. I love so that’s always fun when you, someone that you have a good tracker record with has a new book out, but it was kind of funny that sometimes even the books by authors, I loved.

Didn’t look that appealing. I had that

[00:15:52] Nicole: issue. I don’t have a lot, like I did see like, oh wow. She has a new book. She has a new book, but when I looked, they weren’t anything that I was necessarily excited to read right

[00:16:01] Gayle: now. Right. Well, so then I have a little mix of stuff. Some new authors and some are veteran authors that I know.

I like, but yeah, no, I think I found a few. There’s a, there’s a couple of books here that I feel like I. Research them, but I still don’t really understand what they’re about. So I may just be kind of vague when I describe them and just say, you know, just note the titles, but I won’t be able to get into it too much just cuz I’m not really sure what they’re about.

[00:16:31] Nicole: Hmm. Intriguing. Yeah.

[00:16:34] Gayle: Okay, so hold on one second. I’m gonna my door, I just noticed the door to my dad is open and I hear voices. Let me go shut it.

[00:16:44] Nicole: You stay here, you stay here, but you’re the one who opened the door. It’s

[00:16:50] Gayle: okay. Sorry. I just don’t want the, I don’t want those voices to get picked up on here. I think Hobart came in and he

[00:16:56] Nicole: opened the door. Okay.

Okay, so what’s your

[00:17:05] Gayle: first book. All right. So my first book is September 6th, release the marriage portrait by Maggie O Farrell. So Maggie O Farrell is an author. I have really enjoyed in the past, both for fiction and her nonfiction. She’s just a beautiful writer. And this one is historical fiction, which I think is maybe a little different for her.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything that she has done. That was historical fiction in the past that historical fiction. Oh, that might have been too right. And I didn’t read that one. Okay. Okay. So she’s doing more historical fiction here. It takes place in res Renaissance Florence, a young girl named Lurek is abruptly thrust into royalty when her older sister dies on the Eve of her wedding.

Leaving her to be the terrified replacement. And I also read somewhere that I think that the young girl, the terrified replacement is maybe also sort of destined for like, not a great, like like maybe there’s a potential that she might die as well. I don’t know whether like murder or I, I don’t know what it is, but it sounds like it sounds ominous mm-hmm but I thought that the.

Just the setup sounded really interesting. And I do really enjoy her writing. I just didn’t read Hamnet I heard it was amazing. It just, for whatever reason didn’t appeal to me. And so I thought maybe I’d sort of see what the reviews were like of this one before

[00:18:28] Nicole: I jump in. Isn’t Hamnet sort of Shakespearean,

[00:18:31] Gayle: I think so maybe.

[00:18:33] Nicole: Yeah. I’ve heard amazing things about it too. It wasn’t anything that grabbed me, but yeah. Now I’m thinking maybe I’ll read it. Oh, 1580 black. Okay.

[00:18:47] Gayle: Yeah. So that was my first one. I’d love to hear, you know, love to see what the response is to it.

[00:18:57] Nicole: Okay. So my first one is called, tell me an artist by Chelsea Martin. It is. About a young woman named Joey in art school. I believe in San Francisco, she is escaping a troubled life. She has troubled relationship with her mother and she really wants to be an artist, but she really doesn’t feel like she fits in her.

She has a roommate sues who seems like she’s more together. She’s dedicated with her art. And of course she’s had the support of very wealthy. So while she is trying to figure out and kind of find herself in the art world. And she has this project that she has to work on, where she decides to do a remake of a Wes Anderson movie.

And it’s a film that she hasn’t seen. So the backdrop of this also is that her sister. Drops her daughter off with her troubled mother and she goes missing. And so there’s all these questions about like, who gets the right to pursue their life. And when do you separate yourself from your family in to form identity?

So it’s that you really interesting to me being that it delves into the art world. Hmm.

[00:20:16] Gayle: And when is that coming now? September 20th. Okay. Yeah. September seems to be, I had five for September and then only three for after September. Yes. Most of mine

[00:20:28] Nicole: are for September and towards the end, I added some that were in October, but yeah, September they’re.

Yeah. All right,

[00:20:36] Gayle: so what’s next. Okay. So my next one is another author. I really like it’s Ian McEwen and he has a new book out called lessons and it is about a man. His name is Roland bans and the book spans across decades, including historical events, such Ascher noble disaster, the fall of the Berlin wall.

And those events align with moments that come out of Roland Bain’s life, including some of his early relat. So it sounds like this is, you know, probably gonna be intensely personal the way a lot of his books are. I think about on Sheel beach, I think about atonement. These are books. I, I really enjoyed.

I love his writing and, you know, probably delving into the family and times of. One man. The publisher claims that this book is inspired by McEwens own life. And he says it’s not entirely or not even completely autobiographical, but that there are parts of his own life that he has borrowed from for this book as well.

My call being an author, exactly like how does one write a book that does not involve parts of their life? I mean, I guess that one’s company book, like clearly , that’s one of the things I thought was so admirable about it is. It was obviously not borrowed from the author’s life, but like, it just seems like it would be really hard to, I mean,

[00:21:57] Nicole: something like you, it’s not like you’re taking your life and putting it out there, but it might be like the experience that you had in college or how you talk about dorm rooms or right.

You know, you worked a job and met someone. That’s really interesting. I was reading about that too. I love Ian mccuen’s books. I think the last one that I read was the weirdest one, which is kind of about this in utero baby. Oh yeah. Who is trying to help his father survive like attempted

[00:22:28] Gayle: murder.

Isn’t that supposed to be handled?

[00:22:30] Nicole: Yeah. So yes, it was based on that. So what they said about this book also is that it is his return to long form. Cause when you think about it, he writes these really almost novel like novels, you know, They stretch being a, you know, they’re not short enough to be a, so just slightly longer than that.

Just not really long books, but this one’s supposed to pages. Oh boy,

that for you.

So what’s your next one? Just in case you need something to prop up your door. Yeah, exactly. My next one is a book called runaway by Erin keen, and it is a memoir of sorts. She is writing about her mother’s experience as a runaway. I think she first starts to run away when she’s 13 and then she eventually ends in new when she’s 15 marries a much older man.

And it’s just talking about like, I guess the different cultural influences and. and what, you know, marrying someone older, how that shapes your upbringing and how it shapes, you know, how she raises her daughter. And it’s supposed to be really in investigative in the way that Erin goes back and she searches in her mother’s history just to find the details of, you know, how it turned out, that she ran away from home and how she ended up in the circumstances that she did.

So I dunno, that sounded really good to me. It’s coming out September 20.

Okay.

[00:24:03] Gayle: My next one is called how not to drown in a glass of water by Angie Cruz. That was

[00:24:08] Nicole: on my list. It was, or it is, I mean, yeah. OK.

[00:24:12] Gayle: This one. Looks like it’s told through it’s about a woman’s life told through, I believe like maybe some therapy sessions. So it says over the course of 12 sessions, this woman talks about what’s going on in her life. So she’s lost her job at her mid fifties. She worked in a factory and now she’s forced back into the job market for the first time in decades.

Oh, sorry. It’s not a therapy. It’s a job counselor. She’s set up with a job counselor to help her find a new job. And I guess while she’s talking to this counselor, she starts to talk about all kinds of other things. Love affairs, her relationship with her sister, her struggles with debt, gentrification, and loss.

and what really happened between her and her son. So it sounds like it’s, you know, a woman in her fifties looking back on her life and trying to understand, you know, various things that happened to her. So that sounds pretty irresistible to me. Yeah. Yeah. What appeals to you about this one?

[00:25:11] Nicole: Oh, well I read Dominican.

By Angie Cruz. And I really liked it. That was her debut. So when I saw that she had a new one out, I was excited about that. And I just thought that this was like really inventive, you know, like someone who maybe has to go in for these required interviews or to prove that she’s looking for a job. And, you know, you start talking about different things and maybe choices that you made.

I just thought it was such an interesting frame.

[00:25:37] Gayle: Mm-hmm. So, what was Dominican about

[00:25:41] Nicole: do was about a very young girl. I think who moves from the Dominican Republic. Like her parents, really, everyone really wants to come to the United States. So she marries this much older controlling man, and she’s able to bring her mother over, but it’s set in, I wanna say the 1960s, cuz some of it centers around the assassination of Malcolm X.

So it’s kind of like, you know, her coming of age and her. Just meeting other people and being exposed to different things and just how that shapes her relationship with her husband.

[00:26:19] Gayle: Okay. I never read that one, but I wanted to. All right. Well, I know I just took one of yours, but what’s your next one? Oh, that’s fine.

[00:26:28] Nicole: So my next one is called the furrows it’s by Nalley. Elle is his name. I think it is about this young. Girl, Cassandra she’s 12 and her brother, Wayne he’s seven and one day they’re at the beach and she sees him and he just disappears into the water.

So he is presumed to have been drowned, but he never, you know, his body is never found and the family is in grief and they basically disintegrate like the father leaves and he starts a life with another, you know, he just starts another life and has a different family. And. I think it just kind of wanders through a lot of the memories that people have about this

later when Cassandra is older.

Okay.

[00:27:56] Gayle: All right. So my next one is called best of friends by Camila. Schey the H a M S I E to talk about is best, best friends. It is about Camilla. Oh, did I well tell you what, why don’t you present this one then? Because then we’ll be more balanced out. Two best friends. They I’ll skip one and then you can come back and do this one.

That makes sense. And is

[00:28:20] Nicole: that okay? Come from different backgrounds, but they’ve always gotten along even though oh, okay. Sometimes their families don’t share the values.

[00:28:30] Gayle: but good to know they are. So I’ll do my next one. And then you’ll come back and do best of friends. So my next one is called the old place by Bobby finger.

And this is one of those ones that I didn’t really successful. Like I kept kind of reading the description and I’m not entirely sure that. Just, I truly understood, but it’s a a debut novel about a school teacher living in Texas who decades old secret threatens to come to life and sends shockwaves through the small Texas town.

And it just goes back. I don’t, it seems like it was like, One of those small town quirky character thing, but it usually, I don’t like ones where they have quirky characters and everyone’s like off beat and zany, but lovable, this one actually seemed a little more substantive than that. And, and I don’t know, every time I read a description of this book or I saw it on another preview list or anything, it appealed to me.

So I, I, I don’t know much beyond that. I don’t anything about this author. I just think that it sounded good. So it, I, I flagged it. But I don’t profess to really know much about it out and read

[00:29:36] Nicole: the best of rooms first. And it comes out September 27. No. So the next

[00:29:45] Gayle: book on my list. Oh, and I always drop, I always have the cover look so pretty and I always thought it looked good, but I never read it.

[00:29:50] Nicole: Short stories. It can be rather hit or miss. But what I really do, like in short stories is yeah. When. They are more linked stories. So almost like chapters of a novel, or just about different people in a different neighborhood or living in the same town, or maybe it’s like point of view of people who are friends and you get to see the different perspectives.

So things like that I’m really into. So this next book is. If I survive you, it’s by Jonathan ERY. And it is about a family that in the 1970s leave Jamaica to go to Miami. Cause there’s lots of political violence in their hometown of Kingston. So they go to America or United States, Miami in particular, believing all of these things about what the country is going to have to offer.

And who they will now get to be in the country, but of course they are challenged at every turn by just the

[00:30:58] Gayle: different things. Yeah. It did look really

[00:30:59] Nicole: good struggling with financial disaster, you

[00:31:02] Gayle: know the friendship element of it. I just thought I like the fact that it’s a friendship story, but not necessarily told from an American perspective, you know, like that it didn’t, it doesn’t start out with.

So necessarily Western in particular on this route? Yeah, I don’t know. I looked, I liked it a lot, but again, I haven’t read home fire, so I don’t have really any precedent for it have impacted

[00:31:24] Nicole: him and just who he, as, as a person and as a. So I’m

[00:31:31] Gayle: okay. So my next one, we’re starting to get into October now.

So this is October 18th. For some reason I wrote Nove September 18th, but then I stuck it under October. So I’m assuming that this is October, this is a repeat author for me. It’s signal fires by Danny Shapiro. So she’s kind of best known now for her memoir inheritance about discovering that the man that she thought was her father turns out was actually not her blood father was that she had a, another.

You know, her DNA was actually contributed by somebody else. And I’m kind delving into the mystery of that because this happened a long time ago before that was kind of as common as it is now. But she is also a fiction writer. And I have read a lot of books of by her at least a couple that, you know, some many years ago, maybe even before I was blogging, but I, I always had known her as a fiction writer before I discovered her memoir.

So she’s come back to fiction with this one and the only. Description I know is a car crash reverberates through several families, transforming a community for years to come, seems to be a common theme. That was kind of the premise of the book that I talked about at the beginning of the show. Homestretch, this one’s called signal fires.

She’s probably an autobi for me. So I will definitely pick this one

[00:32:44] Nicole: up. What she had grown up to experience and she’s able to do this because of these

stories.

[00:32:51] Gayle: Oh,

[00:32:52] Nicole: right. She writing stuff, you know, it’s like there’s darkness and compulsion and obsessiveness also in this story. So I think that yeah.

Different perspective. Yeah. Of what it was like. So writing

[00:33:07] Gayle: these stories, I like her a lot. She’s also a really good narrator. Hope that she narrates the audio though. When maybe I’ll do that on audio. You know, it’ll be

[00:33:15] Nicole: interesting to discover exactly what is the truth between these two friends. Now that one feels that she can live fully fully as herself at the other’s day.

Okay. So my

my last book that I’m gonna talk about. Is by Lori LICO Albanese and it’s called Hester novel. And if you can’t tell by the title, it is a retelling of it’s a retelling of the Scarlet letter. So it is said that the Scarlet letter was based possibly on a young woman that Nathaniel Hawk met. And it inspired him to write the Scarlet.

So this kind of weaves in the story of this woman that Ron supposedly met in the story, she is Isabelle gamble, and she’s a tres who is coming to the United or the new world with her husband from Scotland in the early 18 hundreds. And he’s nonprofit care. He becomes addicted to. Opiums a long story short when they get to their destination, he runs.

And leaves her there. So she has to make her way as best she can. She doesn’t have any money when he goes and

[00:34:38] Gayle: she’s okay. So my next one is I think the only non-fiction I have on here. And it is the memoir, the upcoming memoir from Matthew Perry played Chandler on friends. This is coming out November 1st, so I’m already getting into November for me.

I didn’t find a lot in October other than the Danny Shapira one. So I’m, I’m already into November here. I was flying home. From Europe, a couple like last week was there was a very, very wide selection of things to watch on the on the plane. And one of them was the friends reunion, which I’d actually watched the first half of, and then just never picked up again.

So I just watched the whole thing again, and I just was like completely wrapped for like really close to two hours. And part of it is. You know, on not airplane, I had nothing else to do, but I just am so intrigued by the, the actors on that show and the experience of being on that show. And, you know, Matthew Perry is obviously the one with, who seems to have had kind of the most troubled life since, you know, obviously there’s been addiction in his life and he also like, didn’t look great during the reunion.

Like. Clearly has been through some stuff. So I’m really intrigued to read this one. It says an extraordinary story that only he could tell Matthew Perry takes readers onto the sound stage of the most successful sitcom of all time, all opening up about his private struggles with addiction, candid self-aware and told with his trademark humor, Perry vividly details his lifelong battle with the disease and what fueled it, despite seemingly had it all, having it all.

And he definitely is, you know, a very entertaining. Actor. So I’m excited to read that one.

Yeah,

[00:36:22] Nicole: I will.

Hmm.

[00:38:14] Gayle: Okay. All right. My next book also November one is called Meredith alone by Claire Alexander. And it’s about a woman. Who’s very reclusive. She’s got a full-time remote job rescue cat. She’s got occasionally people who visit her, but she doesn’t really leave her place very much. She’s got an online support group, jigsaw puzzles and recipes, internet, grocery delivery, et cetera.

It sounds kind of familiar for anyone who lived through the pandemic. . But she’s also got memories of an unstable childhood estrangement from her sister in a traumatic event that sent her reeling. It kind of reminds me a little bit of the threes company book. But something’s about to change whether she likes it or not.

The world is coming to her door. Does she have the courage to overcome? What’s been keeping her inside. So I don’t know if this’ll be like super dark the way I felt like three’s comp the one’s company one was, or what was the one about, I’m gonna blank on the name. The one about the woman who has she might be autistic and she has had a lot of trauma in her life and she lives by herself.

I can’t think of that one that everybody read.

Yeah. I read it too. And everyone’s like, oh, it’s so it’s a hilarious book and it’s not hilarious at all. It’s very dark and sad.

Yeah, yes, someday. I’m sure as soon as we finish recording, I’ll immediately remember what it is. But this one just kind of feels like maybe it won’t be quite as stark as some of those other ones, but I kind of like the premise of it.

[00:41:23] Nicole: Okay.

[00:41:25] Gayle: That sounds like something you would. Yeah, no, just like the kinda mystery element to it. Okay. I have only one left. How many more do you have? Okay. That worked out nicely. Okay. So mine comes out November 18th and it is called. We all want impossible things by Katherine Newman and another friendship story about two women.

Who’ve been friends for over 40 years and one of them. Has cancer is dying of ovarian cancer. And so it’s all about their relationship and how they are there for each other during this, you know, with what’s gonna be the end of their friendship because one of them is going to die. But it just sounds like it’s a very poignant, but realistic.

And I think also. At times funny story about these two best friends and how they relate to each other over the challenges of their lives.

This one I’ve heard about like a while ago. And I think I tried to get my hands on a review copy of it, but I wasn’t able to do so. So I’ll have to wait for November for this one.

[00:42:42] Nicole: True.

You.

[00:44:23] Gayle: I think I looked at that one a couple of times. So when I was making this list, that looked definitely looked.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Yep.

Yes until then happy reading.