Transcript

[00:00:00] Nicole: Welcome to another edition of The Readerly Report. Today, Gayle and I are going to be talking about some literary adaptations, but also series that are literary in nature, that function like a novel will function. I’m excited about that because I find a lot of times when things are just a little bit too busy for me to settle down and focus on a.

I love a long series to kind of like give me that feeling of having things unfold chapter by chapter. We figured we’d discuss some of those today. Before that, of course, we are going to get to what we have been up to in terms of reading. So Gayle, why don’t you kick us off and I say kick us off or maybe carry us through because I am in much the same place as I was last week.

[00:00:50] Gayle: This is very unusual for me, but I’m reading two books back to back by the same author. Oh, okay. Yeah. Almost never do that. 

[00:00:59] Nicole: Are they part of a series? No.

[00:01:01] Gayle: Oh, okay. Completely unrelated. I was pitched a book that I had not read before, but which has been out for a while, and that is the Storied Life of AJ Fiery.

I think you and I talked about it briefly last week. Yep. So there is a movie coming out, so there’s an adaptation right there, or I think it’s actually already out. And it is the adaptation of that book, The Storied Life. And you, I remember you looked it up and said it was, had not done well on. I was

not

[00:01:24] Nicole: getting good critical attention.

Not sure about whether readers or regular moviegoers liked

[00:01:30] Gayle: it. I haven’t really done any research into that yet, but I read the book because I had never read it and I was interested in the author Gabrielle Ze, and so I finished AJ Fiery and. You know, it started out for me a little bit too cutesy to like, oh, you know, heartwarming, quirky characters, but it got a little more dark as it progressed, which made it much more interesting for me.

I found that I liked it better as I proceeded through the book. Okay. It has a trope in it that I. Did I, Did we talk about this last week? The abandoned baby trope? This is about the children. Yeah. So I hate abandoned baby tropes cuz I just think they’re completely unrealistic. Right? We talked about that.

Like plopping a baby into someone’s life is a massive, massively like disruptive thing. And I think sometimes, We act like books and even movies, they don’t really, Yeah, they kind of gloss over that part.

[00:02:26] Nicole: People are all good with, everyone’s up to the challenge and love it, and they want the baby,

[00:02:31] Gayle: right? And it just unearths things in them that makes them different.

But you know, as the book went on, like I liked it better and I do like her writing. I think that. Her characters might be quirky sometimes, but they’re not unrelatable. They’re not like so offbeat or you know, she doesn’t throw in so many like strange references that you don’t know what’s going on. I finished that and then I started reading like the book that’s been all over the place this year, which is tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and you know, it kind of, for me, it had suffered from that thing where like, I think you and I have talked about this.

When a book gets super hyped or like everyone loves it and says, Oh, this is the best book ever, then I’m kind. Not as excited to read it, but I had picked it as my book of the month many months ago, and my in Real Life book club is reading it and you and I are reading it for the next regionally report book club.

I started it and I’m maybe a hundred pages in and I really like it so far. Okay, good. It, I’m, it’s, it’s, it’s different from AJ fy. It’s really different from AJ Fery. Like it’s not, Do you feel like she’s grown as an author? I do think so. I think that it’s like, Quirky cutesy and more just interesting. It’s reminding me a little bit of Meg Walzer maybe.

I’m trying to think what it’s reminding me of. That seems to be so far it’s reminding me a bit of the interestings in part because it’s about these kids who basically meet in high school and then, and I’m not far enough into it really to. To do that, to make that comparison yet, but that’s the initial vibes I’m getting, which is a diff, I think, a different feel than AJ Fickery, which felt to me more fabulous, like almost like a fable.

I don’t know. This one just feels more realistic and and I’m liking it, so I’m glad to say that so far it’s, it’s living up to the hype. That’s what I’ve been reading. I don’t think I missed anything. I’m just taking a quick poke peek in my blog to make sure that I didn’t miss whatever I read before AJ Fiery.

Make sure that we have talked about it. Oh yeah, I read, did I? We talked about the making of her by Bernadette jwa, which I think, Did we talk about that one? That doesn’t sound, Oh, maybe we didn’t, Yeah, maybe we didn’t. The making of her is a book that is set in Ireland and I really like this one too, so I’m glad to give it a little bit of air time cuz I don’t, I don’t not seeing this book anywhere.

It’s set in Ireland in the sixties and then basically the nineties, like 30 years later, 25 years later. It’s about a woman who grows up poor. A town in Ireland, and she meets this guy who’s like rich and you know, rich and handsome, and they fall in love. But his mother’s very disapproving because she’s like from the wrong side of the tracks.

And he’s very, you know they’re very established in the community, but so they decide. So, so basically they get together and she gets pregnant. And this is in the sixties in Ireland. And you, you know, abortion is, Completely off the table. So they moved to England briefly so that she can have the baby.

He kind of, they kind of both, you know, he’s moving to England anyway to go to take a academic course. So she comes and joins him there, has the baby. They give up the baby for adoption because it would be completely unheard of for them to have had a baby out of wedlock. But they did. But they intend to get married, so they moved back to Ireland.

They get married. She is haunted by this baby that she gave up. She’s always, you know, thinking about it, she feels guilty and awful and sad and her husband meanwhile has completely moved on. So it’s about like the way that this secret really corrodes their relationship and also impacts her relationship with.

Her eventual daughter that she has with her husband, so the sister of the, the baby that she gave away. And then, you know, many, many years later the, the baby has grown up and has been adopted that that daughter finds her and writes her a letter and has kind of her own ulterior motive for reaching out beyond just, I wanna meet my birth mother.

And so it kind of, it does this dual timeline thing between. When she gave the baby up in the sixties, and then, you know, exploring why and what was going on through her mind, and then going to present day with her daughter, her two daughters, and how she relates to them. So it was, I, I actually really liked it.

It, I thought it wrapped up a little bit too quickly, a little too neatly. But other than that, it was a good, you know, immersive Family Secrets read, which, So that one is Bernadette Gwa, and that is spelled j i w A. And I’m sure I’m pronouncing that wrong. . It’s an Irish name. It’s probably, you know how Irish names are often pronounced?

Nothing like how they look. Yes, it’s probably like Smith, but Right. Anyway, so that was the making of her and I can’t remember where I read about it, but somehow I read about it. It ended up on my library hold list. It came in and I read it. So did you say that came out this. I think it did. Yeah. Okay. I think it’s a pretty new book.

So that’s what I’ve been reading. And then as far as what I’m listening to, I, and I’m curious to know whether you ever read this. Apparently it is the 10th anniversary of the book, Dear Sugar, which is Oh no. Okay, so you never did. So it’s a collection of. Advice column questions and answers from Cheryl Straight.

So, Cheryl Stra is probably best known as the author of the book Wild, which was made into a movie with re Reese Witherspoon. I never read the book. I did see the movie. She’s also the persona behind the advice column. Dear Sugar, Which appeared initially on the Rumpus, and I don’t know if it still does, I don’t actually read it regularly, but it’s the 10th anniversary of that book, which is a compilation of qu of you know, questions people have written in.

And then the answer she’s given. I’m a total sucker for an advice column. Like I read , I read Carolyn Hacks, I read, Ask Amy, I read the one in Vulture. Was it Vulture that I, the one that I read all the time? It’s, I’m just, Oh dear. Pretty. I don’t remember what, what column that one’s in. And I just like, I love, so I’m actually listening to that one on audio.

So I, they’ve re-released it 10 years later and I think they’ve added some new questions to it and updated a little bit. They gave it a new introduction. I I really, I am enjoying it. It’s a good audio thing cuz it’s, they’re short, the chapters are short cuz they’re just different questions and. I’m enjoying it.

Her answers are a little bit wordy and sometimes they’re a little bit too much about her, but I’ve, I’ve started to appreciate that and now I’m starting to enjoy it more. I remember

[00:09:17] Nicole: when that book came out and I think it, it predated wild, right?

[00:09:20] Gayle: Yes. Actually, yes, I think it did because I think

[00:09:24] Nicole: it did because I remember Dear Sugar and everyone was talking about it, probably because it was a column.

Did you say it was on the ru? Yes, so I remember everyone talking about it, and I have no, having no idea of who she was or why, you know, like wasn’t, right. I’m not, I don’t read a lot of advice columns, even though lately in Newsweek, like in the Newsweek feed, the, you know, who’s the asshole? ?

[00:09:48] Gayle: Oh, I don’t know that one.

Showing

[00:09:50] Nicole: up. Well, it’ll basically tell you like some kind of contentious topic where you have to decide like who. Oh, it is not being right in this situation. Like, it’ll be like, I think one of the recent ones was this woman moved in with her boyfriend and he like makes $500,000 a year and she is a student, she’s in social work school, you know, everything is paid for through loans or whatever, and he, her lease is up for whatever reason and they are gonna move in.

But he won’t move to a more inexpensive neighborhood. And he says that, you know, move in with me. I will pay for everything until you finish school. And then we can split expenses or whatever. So she moves in with him. Two months later, his friends make some kind of comment about, Oh, she’s a gold digger, or whatever.

And then he starts asking her to pay like half of this very substantial amount of rent . Wow. And like, you know, so who’s, who’s the bad guy?

[00:10:47] Gayle: Yep. Got it. Oh, I gotta start reading that . I just like, Yeah, I can’t get enough of it. The best one is,

[00:10:54] Nicole: spoiler, earlier they thought it was him. It was just like, he’s weak.

How could he just listen to his friends? You guys had an agreement, he didn’t wanna move to a cheaper neighborhood, et cetera, et cetera. So I guess she, she like moved out and just got her apartment. Cause Did they stay together? No. I think he’s like in the, when they left it, he was calling all the time and trying to get her.

Trying to get her. And then I think he was trying to get her to stay for whatever, like the $800 apartment she found. He was like, Just give me $800. And she’s like, No. Got it. Because who knows when he’s gonna like have a conversation with his friends and change his mind again.

[00:11:33] Gayle: All right. So the one that I love the most is, Dear Prty, also called Dear Prudence.

And I was wrong. It’s on Slate, it’s not on culture. Oh, okay. I totally read some

[00:11:41] Nicole: of those I like. .

[00:11:42] Gayle: The problem with it is that if you, it, I think it comes out like twice a week and. If you click through to slate too many times , they start asking you, you’ve run out of free articles and I don’t feel like spending the monthly, you know, amount to subscribe to Slate.

So I have to like, go to an incognito browser and open it and try to trick slate into thinking I have not already been there eight times this month, or I have to do it on my phone. I know, but it’s, I never think of, I never think of stuff like that, . Oh. I’m always like, Oh, you know, I love, like when the month starts over again.

Cuz then I get like a clean slate and I can go and, and access it and not worry about it. So I apologize to people who perhaps write for Slate and are mad that I won’t pay the monthly amount anyway. So that’s what I’m listening to is dear.

[00:12:31] Nicole: Okay, so I think since last week when I told you I was reading More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierez, I have probably read an additional one

[00:12:38] Gayle: page

Oh boy. One of those weeks. One of those. I’m seeing that book every everywhere though, so I’m very excited to have you finish it and tell me what you think of it.

[00:12:48] Nicole: The interesting thing about it is like a week ago when I looked at, you know, just pulled it up on Good Reads or whatever, it had a much higher rating and it’s like, I guess more people have read it in this.

And it’s down to like 3.9 stars from the four point whatever it was before. So I’m like, I need to finish it quickly. . Yeah. Before I lose motivation. Right. All right. So

[00:13:14] Gayle: I have a few other things to tell you. Okay. The first is that today I’m going to book reading by Matthew Perry. Yeah, I’m kind of excited.

He’s at the Warner Theater in DC. I bought these tickets like, What’s these tickets? This ticket? Cause I’m going by myself. I bought it like months ago and at first I was super excited to read his memoir. Then I started reading all the excerpts from the memoir that came out like last week and, Oh, I was

[00:13:38] Nicole: about to say, I only heard about the excerpts and how he apparently hates the leaves and which

[00:13:42] Gayle: he had died.

Yeah, so. So then I was unexcited to read the memoir cause I was like, first of all, I’ve already heard all the juicy parts and secondly, people are sort of not giving it the best reviews. But then people are now, I’m now starting to see it pop up in like my books to Gram feed or Facebook or places where I tend to see reader reviews.

Yeah, people seem more, they said it’s pretty good and I’ve also seen one or two people post about seeing him cuz he’s on this book tour. I’m, I’m intrigued. I’m excited. I think it’ll be, it’ll be. and then well, you’ll have to report back. Yes, I will definitely report back. And then I also wanted to rant about something, which is, Oh yeah, we haven’t

[00:14:25] Nicole: had a rant in a long time.

[00:14:27] Gayle: Okay, so here’s my rant. I. Was pitched a book a couple, like last week by a publicist, not a not a publishing house publicist, but like a PR firm publicist and, Okay. It was a book that I was interested in and so like a little background for people who are not like, you know, book bloggers is that you knows pitches come in first of all, all the time from either self-published or.

PR firm publicists, and oftentimes they’re books I’m not at all interested in. They’re not up, you know, not in my wheelhouse or, you know, I can tell I’m just on some, like, massive mailing list, and so I delete most of them. I don’t really get pitched books by as much, by publishers anymore. I think there’s a couple things, a couple of of factors at work.

I, I’m definitely not a big, you know, big name like on Bookstagram or book talk or whatever, and so I’m just not like, In like the upper echelons of like outlets that people pitch. And I also think that with the pandemic and supply chain, I just think that publishers have fewer books to send out. And so they can be, they don’t need to.

Do these mass mailings anymore. But I do, you know, I would say like somewhat regularly, I get pitched off and then usually the stuff that, and especially if it’s coming from a publisher, they’ll offer me like a net galley download. And I don’t really read on e-reader. It’s just not my thing. I don’t, I don’t like it and I don’t.

Think of it. So I, I’m not organized that way. I don’t have a whole list of review copies in on my Kindle. And so if somebody sends me something on iRead, you know, a down digital download, it’s much less likely. I’m actually gonna read it. But, so this publicist reached out. From a PR firm, and she, she reached out to me, sent me a long email about this book, and it was one that, that I actually wanted to read.

And it had been on my, as you said, I’d been giving it the I, and I think I even have it like on the library hold list and I have it on audio. So I was like, Oh, perfect. Like I would love to get a copy of this book. And she offered it to me in print or in PDF format. And like I find PDF format even. Less user friendly cuz that’s not even like a, I dunno, unless there’s a way to move PDF to e-reader.

PDF is like basically sending me something I would have to print, right? It’s just like pages. You

[00:16:50] Nicole: can use it on your e-reader, but I don’t like to do it that way’s just cuz it doesn’t have the nice

[00:16:55] Gayle: turn feature. Oh, got it. Right. It’s cumbersome. So, but she offered it to me in print or in pdf. So I wrote back and I said, Oh yes, I’d love to read this book in print.

You know, if you can send me a copy i’d, I’d love it. And I think, I don’t think I sent her my address, but I said, Yeah, I’d love to read this in print. And then she writes me back and says, Well, what are your, what are your follower numbers? She goes, Because for the smaller blog. We’re sending out PDFs and I was really irritated cuz I was like, you pitched me.

Like if, if I had reached out to her and said, Hey, I’d love to get a copy of this book. I could see her being like, Well, we have a really limited supply. Can you tell me what your numbers are? But she pitched me and offered me a print copy. I said yes, and then she asked me for my numbers, which I thought that was in bad form.

Yeah. And just gotta suck

[00:17:50] Nicole: it up for that one,

[00:17:51] Gayle: not. So I wrote back and I told her what they were and I said, Well, I have this, I have a blog and I have Instagram and I use Twitter and I’m on Facebook and I have a podcast. If you combine all that together, it’s probably X number and. I was trying not to be snarky about it, but then I just was like, If I make the cut, here’s my address, and I put my address on there and she wrote me back like very quickly and she said, Here’s the pdf.

Download, Here’s the PDF file and I’ll, I’ll put a print copy in the mail to you too. So I don’t know if she like backtracked and felt kind of embarrassed that she had done that, or if my numbers did make the cut, maybe I guess it was enough over the threshold of what they had, but it just kind of like left the bad taste of my mouth.

Like I understand that that’s sort of where this industry is heading. I’m totally fine with that, and I’m fine with my download numbers or my, you know, follower numbers. Like this is like for you and me both. This is a hobby. This is, Something that we, we both have day jobs that take up a lot of time, and this is something we love to do on the side, but it’s like, I don’t think you and I are expecting to be monetized.

We’re not monetizing it. We’re not expecting to be in like the top echelon of book bloggers, book podcasters, but I just, I don’t know. The way that she handled it sort of like left a bad taste in my mouth and I checked out her PR firm. Yeah, that was really awful. And she was, she’s like the head of it.

Like she’s, you know, she’s like a. Like runs the place. So I just was sort of like, huh. But anyway, but hopefully the book will actually show up.

[00:19:28] Nicole: Okay. And if it doesn’t, then you just won’t read it. Yeah, Or I’ll get it from

[00:19:32] Gayle: the library, which is what I expected to do anyway, so. Oh, I think I said, I think I said to her it was a little passive as, Or you won’t read the PDF anyway.

Yeah, I’m not gonna, I’m definitely not gonna read the pdf. I think I. If I don’t make the cut, I’ll just wait for the library to hold or something like, and I wasn’t trying to be like snarky, but I just like, that’s, that’s the real, you know, that’s the reality of it. So anyway, that’s my, that’s my rant. Yeah.

That

[00:20:00] Nicole: was awkwardly handled. Yeah. Maybe she doesn’t do

[00:20:03] Gayle: that on a regular basis, I’m guessing. No,

[00:20:09] Nicole: All right. So literary. Literary series. What have you

[00:20:15] Gayle: got? Well, so I approached this a little differently than you did, which I, Which is good cuz then we’ll have a nice mix. I actually just focused on stuff that’s coming. in the next maybe like six months. I, I just don’t wa as much as I really want to watch all these literary series, I just tend not to watch a lot of tv.

I didn’t really have anything that I had seen over the last couple months that I thought fit the bell. So I focused on stuff that’s upcoming, that I’m excited about and would be intrigued to watch. So maybe we can kind of Okay. Go back and forth. Stuff that’s out and that you’ve watched or been interested in watching, and I can talk about some stuff that’s coming out, which looks pretty good to me.

Sounds great. All right. Why don’t you kick us off? So what’s coming out? Oh, okay. Well I was going to, Let’s see. All right, so some things that are coming out. All right. I’m gonna start with the one I’m the most excited about and I think this is a movie, so not not in tv, and it is the adaptation of, Are You There?

God, it’s me, Margaret, which is. Judy Bloom’s book from the seventies that I think everybody read back then, and probably people have read since then. But it’s definitely like a Gen X mainstay from our childhood. And I don’t know whether it’s going to be set in 1970, which is when the book came out, or if it’s going to be updated for current.

But this is about a That came out in the 1970s. Yeah, it came out in 1970. Isn’t that crazy? Oh, I didn’t read it. You didn’t read? Did you read any Judy Bloom? Not really. No. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, this was, Judy Bloom for me was like everything. She wrote this one, she wrote blubber, she wrote forever, which is like most people’s, most people I know, their first like exposure to.

Like sex in a book and it was, you know, sort of scandals like a lot of our parent, like the parents didn’t realize that there was sex in the book. People would sort of like have their like covert copy of forever. Yeah. This is coming out as a movie with Abby Re Fortson. I don’t know who that is, so I’m guessing she’s gonna play Margaret and Rachel McAdams, who might play the mom.

And it’s about a girl. She’s in sixth grade. She’s navigating friend. Getting your period and religion, cuz she’s like half Jewish and half Christian. So she’s sort of dealing with that. I’m very excited about this one. So it’s coming out at the end of April as a movie.

[00:22:39] Nicole: Okay. So it’s not in pre-production anymore.

It’s been filmed, it’s ready to come out. Looks like it is. Yeah. Some of these we hear about so far in advance. Or you hear they’re making a movie and it’ll be years and years before it turns out, right? Yeah. But I think they’re getting a little bit quicker on some of them. Like, when I think about Celeste Ins, what is it?

The fire book? Little Fires Everywhere. Little Fires Everywhere. I think that, Did that come out in like 2017 or something? Yes. I felt like it was fairly recent. Yeah. I felt like it was a, a pretty, pretty quick turnaround in terms of film. Yeah. So on Amazon Prime right now, there’s a series called The Peripheral, which is based on.

A novel or a series of novels by William Gibson, and I guess he’s been writing kind of science fiction since maybe. The Peripheral is a series on Amazon Prime, and I think it’s one of those shows that they are going to give you a couple to binge in the first go around. You know that they’ll give you two to three to watch and then it’ll come out every week.

And it is about this young woman and her brother, like I think she used to like play virtual games or some very kind of violent games that she has to stop. She’s, it doesn’t say why she has to stop playing these games, but. I can imagine cause they’re not good for you. She’s a teenager and she lives with her brother.

He is sort of like getting into these military light games and sometimes he has his sister play for him, even though she’s not supposed to do that. But he tells her, you know, like they, there’s, they’re not shooter games, so she should be okay. But she starts going into this game and she’s like witnessing this, this alternate London, which seems like it’s.

80 years into the future, and she’s making all of these discoveries, so like she’s witnessing crime. It’s not true to crimes, but the things that she’s witnessing are still having an effect on her. And then she kind of meets someone who brings her further into this world. And of course it’s about like what are they involved in?

It turns out that when you’re in this virtual game, like some of the effects, some of the things that happen to you, you carry over into your normal life. So that streaming. Like I said, that’s on Amazon Prime. William Gibson wrote two novels and I guess this is supposed to be a trilogy, so there must be one more book coming.

The first one was actually called A Peripheral and the second one was called Agency. And I actually remember this cover cuz it was one of the books, like one of the last bas that we went to. This book was out and I think I had a copy of it at one point, but it, it was kind of science fiction. So that’s probably why I didn’t read it.

But I will see cuz I do wanna, I dunno, the series looks a little good, so I’m gonna watch a few episodes and then possibly read this book. But he’s been writing science fiction specula fiction for a really long time. They say he’s credited with coming up with a term cyberspace and envisioning the intranet and virtual reality before they actually existed.

That was kind of

[00:25:41] Gayle: interesting. Okay, so I wanna talk about one that is out now, or it says November, 2022. So my guess is if it. Right. The second it will be by the time this airs, and maybe we’ve talked about this before, but it’s the adaptation of Fleishman is in Trouble. The book by Taffy, Esser Ner, and this is on Hulu and it is a TV series and it has Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, and Lizzie Kaplan playing the main three roles.

This one I definitely wanna watch because I’ve read the book and I’m so intrigued to see how they turn this into a.

[00:26:16] Nicole: Do you think that it’ll translate into a series? Probably.

[00:26:19] Gayle: Did you read it or you didn’t read it? It has a per a perspective shift about three quarters of the way through the book, and I’m curious to know whether they incorporate that perspective shift into a TV series or whether they sort of decide they’re just gonna.

From both perspectives from the start. So I’m, I’m intrigued by that cuz the perspective shift I thought was an extremely important part of the book. So, I don’t know. I, I’m curious, but I, I think I will watch this one. And this is on Hulu. Okay.

[00:26:59] Nicole: I might check that out. I have to, I’ll have to look. And just quickly also on Hulu, because we’ve discussed these before, a lot of times are little fires everywhere.

Nine perfect. Stranger. Which is a Leanne Mo adaptation, and then also conversations with Friends and Normal People by Sally Rooney. Yes,

[00:27:20] Gayle: I highly, highly recommend the Normal People series, but I’ve talked about that a million times. Okay, the next one I have is a movie. It is coming out in December, and it’s a book I did not read, and it’s the adaptation of a man called Ove by Frederick Bachman.

I could have sworn you at that. I

[00:27:40] Nicole: thought you went through an older people

[00:27:42] Gayle: phase . I don’t think so. I never, I’ve even read anything by him before. This one is now called a man called Auto Americanized it, it’s Stars Tom Hanks. I think I’ve watched a trailer this recently, and so this is a movie about like a grumpy man.

A grumpy and depressed and lonely man who like has, you know, sworn off any sort of like human connection and then a family moves in next door to him who ultimately, you know, pull him out of his hibernation, both physical and emotional. I don’t know. I never read the book. I, I know people love the book.

People love his books. Beartown anxious people. This. I know there’s other ones and I’ve just, I’ve never read any of them, so maybe this is a good way for me to,

[00:28:32] Nicole: I don’t know what series I thought you were reading. I thought you had maybe read those. No. Is there a Bachman author that you read? Is he the Bachman author?

[00:28:40] Gayle: He wrote these. Bachman wrote these, but I never read any of ’em. Okay. I have some of them on my shelf. I just never read ’em. Him .

[00:28:48] Nicole: Okay. So you’re collecting and you will see if you’re gonna read any action you

[00:28:53] Gayle: watch. I guess so. I mean, I watched the trailer, it looked very hollywoody like, it, it, it looked kind of predictable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean bad.

It just looked

[00:29:03] Nicole: Well, it’s a Tom Hanks movie, right? So he tends to do that well, like big Hollywood movie, but also kind of endearing and heartwarming and worthwhile. So

[00:29:12] Gayle: maybe like sleep? No, Not sleepless in Seattle. What’s the one about the oh, you’ve got mail, The Beach Mall. No, you’ve got mail. Which was an adaptation of, well, I guess that was an adaptation of a, an earlier movie.

Are you talking

[00:29:25] Nicole: You know, I’ve read Never. I’ve never seen that movie.

[00:29:28] Gayle: Oh, you’ve never seen you got mail. It’s cute. It’s cute

[00:29:31] Nicole: or sleepless in Seattle, I don’t think.

[00:29:33] Gayle: Yeah, you’ve got mail. It’s cute. Yeah, it probably feels hopelessly outdated. Like he owns like a big bookstore on the Upper West Side. Meg Ryan’s character owns a little bookstore on the Upper West Side.

It’s kind of like supposed to be like, you know, Big Barnes and Noble coming in and wiping out the little cute mom and pop shop, which of course, you know, if it, and currently they would both be wiped out by Amazon, so it’s, you know, totally out of date. But it’s yeah, it’s cute. And they communicate by, by email, like AOL

It’s extremely dated, but it’s, it’s, it’s very cute. that’s, this is probably like a feel good holiday movie that. We’ll hit it big.

[00:30:11] Nicole: All right, so this isn’t based on a book. It’s probably based on the New York Magazine article that was in the cut called the Watcher. The true story of the haunting of 6 57 Boulevard.

I talked about this a little last week. It was mentioned in my book club. I read the article, it was super creepy. These people buy this house. You know, someone sends some creepy letters about people watching the house and like wanting to, I don’t know, sacrifice their children to it or whatever. Weird.

These people never move into the house. They. For a loss, like a $400,000 loss, and I guess other people have since moved into this house. They say they don’t have any problems with it, but now when I pulled up the address of the house to like refresh my memory about the article, it says that the cops have visited 58 times since the current mover owners moved in.

And I looked at the article on New York Magazine and it looks like it’s been updated, so I have to read that and see what’s going on. But anyway, this is on Netflix right now. It’s called The Watcher, and it is about basically this family just buying this house. And there are some echoes of it, of whether they’re affected by greed.

Like some of the letters kind of reference the fact that they, you know, this house is just like this huge, beautiful house with all of these, I guess kind of antique vibe or just very period style. Other people don’t want modified. So there’s seven different episodes and each episode kind of looks at who could be sending these letters to get these people out of the house.

And it’s basically about this dissolution of the family because they’ve kind of bought this house, they’re over their means, you know, like the husband is stressed at work, he is having issues with his teenage daughter and how she dresses. So it’s almost like more so about the dissolution. The American dream or whatever.

They’ve tried to buy this house to get out of the city. You know, they live in New York and they feel like this is just like gonna be safe and just better for them. And just taking a look at like, what kind of weirdness goes out on the suburbs and is that really true?

[00:32:20] Gayle: This sounds scary.

[00:32:22] Nicole: Eh, it’s a little, I don’t know.

I’m not, I, I know my sensitivities for creepiness, but you’ve intimated that you’re a little. Frightened of stuff, so probably would be too creepy

[00:32:33] Gayle: for you. Yeah, probably My next one is supposedly coming out in December. But I don’t have, I don’t know if I have a release date. I can look it up, but it’s the flat share adaptation.

And this is also going to be a series and on Paramount Plus and the Flat Share is a sort of a romance book about two people living in London who share an apartment, but they never meet because one of them works nights and one of them works days. They’re never there at the same time. And yes, that’s totally unrealistic, but the book is by Beth Leary and it is, it’s very cute.

I did this one on audio a couple years ago and I liked it a. It, it’s cute, but it also has some darkness to it too. It’s not just, you know, light and fluffy. And they, they, of course, become friends by writing each other notes that they leave for each other during the period when they’re, you know, he’ll leave a note for her that she reads in the morning.

She leaves a note that he reads at night. And it’s cute. So I’m, I’m intrigued to. I’m intrigued to see how they do this one.

[00:33:41] Nicole: Okay, so my next one is based on Emma Donahue’s novel Call The Wonder, and it came out in 2016, and it is about this Protestant nurse who goes to Ireland, I believe, in the late 18 hundreds or maybe early 19 hundreds.

I’m not clear on the period, but she goes there to investigate the case. This young Irish girl who has supposedly been able to keep herself alive without eating or drinking anything. And of course the child is like basically to the point where it seems like she’s wasting away and she is assigned to just kind of like go and see what’s happening in this village.

And it’s kind of like a child welfare case. So it was this really interesting exploration of. The troubled relationship between Ireland and England and how this Protestant nurse comes into this Catholic community and basically has her own views about the situation that’s going on and trying to intervene on behalf of the welfare of this child in juxtaposition to an Irish culture who kind of has their own reasons and has their own beliefs, and which one is right and what’s actually going on.

I don’t know if originally they were gonna be calling this the Fasting Girls. I think that was one of the names that I had heard of it. But it looks like they settled back on the Wonder and Florence Pew is in it and it’s gonna be coming out on November 16th in,

[00:35:08] Gayle: in like another week. I never read that book.

Did you? Yes, I read

[00:35:13] Nicole: it. It was, It was so good. Oh, she’s so good. She is really good. I think it’s so interesting because I feel like. I didn’t read room, so you can speak to, I guess whether you feel like, was it more commercial like, I mean, this is, I guess someone being held cap in captivity like that. I can see how it would be just something that people are, are interested in.

Like what is that experience like or whatever. I feel like with each book that sometimes she writes about completely different things. The writing is. Beautiful. And the story’s always so well told, but it just too is really gonna depend on if you feel any kind of resonance with her subject matter. Right, because she, She does not write the same book.

No, not at all. And I think she has a new one that’s coming out or not out and I can’t remember, but it was one of those, it’s just like, I really like her, but I wonder if I would be interested in the subject.

[00:36:08] Gayle: Yeah, no, she definitely goes all over the place and is certainly not, she doesn’t seem to be concerned with like commercial appeal.

[00:36:16] Nicole: Yeah. Right. Which is why I guess I was kind of asking you if you saw the commercial appeal of rude.

[00:36:22] Gayle: Yeah. My guess is that, do

[00:36:23] Nicole: you feel it was written that way or, Well,

[00:36:26] Gayle: I think, I’m not sure she wrote it for commercial appeal. I think that it probably coincidentally had commercial appeal. Like I, I think it was such a well told engrossing book.

I mean so disturbing, but, so I don’t know. Some of our other books have been, have, have seemed to me to. Less accessible. Not that, you know, being locked in a garage for years is necessarily an accessible story, but it just, I think it’s maybe just easier for people to somehow picture or understand than maybe some up farther books I get.

[00:36:57] Nicole: I mean, the Wonder is not, it has a 3.63 rating on Good Reads and Room has a 4.07. Mm-hmm. , I think Pull of the Stars did better, which is. The book, Her last book, which got a 3.97 came out in 2020. I mean, I thought the wonder was fantastic, but I can see how it is a very specific book, so I can see how it would not have light appeal.

Yeah, I was kind of, I was shocked that they’re adapting it, so

I

[00:37:25] Gayle: was happy about that. What was that one that she wrote? I, I think you and I both read it, or at least I started it after room. It’s about like a prostitute, I can’t remember the name of it. Did it have the word frog in the title? I don’t know.

Does that make any. Oh, Frog music. Frog music. Frog music.

[00:37:42] Nicole: I remember I didn’t read that one. Okay. I wonder if, I think the only thing I read by her is The Wonder. Okay. Did I read Asray? Yes. With her, like I said, very good writing and I think I, I’ve read one of her other smaller books and the name escapes me, but I read like little pieces of all the ones that come out, and it’s just that, it just

[00:37:59] Gayle: depends on the subject matter.

Okay, so my next one is a book that I have not yet read, but a million people have. And this is the movie Adaptation of Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I have not read this book. I ha It’s so funny, like, you know, we talk about like my blow dry book. I also have an emergency book that’s stashed in my car so that if, God forbid, I find myself someplace that I don’t have a book with me and I need a book, it’s always there, but I’ve never needed it cuz I always have a book with.

So, but it’s sitting there ready at the ready if I need it. And that book is red, white, and royal Blue. So I haven’t read it, but I know a lot of people have. And this is about, it’s an L G B T Q romance between the son of. The first or a candidate to be the first woman president and the Prince of Wales.

They meet obviously through their political connections, through their political STA status, and then they develop like the steamy but secret of romance because they need to keep it a secret. And everyone I know who’s ever read this has loved it. It is coming out in a movie format. I can’t seem to get an actual release date.

It started filming in June of this year, so it probably means it wouldn’t be out until the first half of next year, but people seem to be very excited by it. And there’s two hot guys who are casted it, who I’ve really never heard of either one of them before, and I’m trying to see where it will be access.

It’s going to be on Amazon Prime video. Sounds good. Yeah, I think that does sound good. I’ll try to read the book before that comes out. I need some like long baseball game somewhere for my son to drive him someplace far away and to forget a book and then I will, you know, resort to the book in the

[00:39:46] Nicole: car.

So I can’t find the release date for this, but Daisy Jones in the six is gonna be a series that’s out this year.

[00:39:56] Gayle: I had that on one of my lists as well, but it looks like it doesn’t have a release date. It says filming wrapped in May. Oh,

[00:40:02] Nicole: okay. Yeah. So maybe then they will, Yeah, it’s listed on I m DP as 2022.

But maybe they will push, either it’ll come out older or they’ll push the release date. But it’s gonna be on Prime video. Yep. And it’s gonna be 13 episodes I feel like. I don’t know. What do you think? . I mean, Taylor Jenkins re’s book always did. I think they were always doing really well. I feel like Daisy Jones in the six got an incredible amount of attention.

Yes. So that might be her breakout book. Yeah. But Daisy Jones in the Six is about it. It’s kind of like a retrospective, I guess, of the seventies band oral history from the. Oral history. Yeah. It’s toll from the perspective of the different band members. I don’t think they were together that long, but kind of like what led to their demise and what happened to, to the members.

We learn about them as they look back on what happened as they were forming the band. And in the first exciting year that all of this was going down and who is in it?

[00:41:08] Gayle: I have Riley Keo, Sam Claflin. Oh, you know who? Sam Claflin. He played, I believe he was in me before you. I think he played. Oh really? Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Right. That’s right. Yeah. He plays the, you know, the, the male lead, whose name I can’t remember. Yeah, Suki Waterhouse and Camille Maro.

[00:41:32] Nicole: So we have that to look forward to.

[00:41:34] Gayle: Yes. Okay. I’m just gonna mention a couple more quickly before we wrap up. Do you have any more after. No. So wrap us up. Okay. Alright, so I’m gonna wrap a few.

One of them is one of your favorite books is coming out in May, and that is Killers of the Flower Moon. Oh, you read that right? For some reason I thought that was, I did ones that you liked a lot. Yeah. And it’s got Leonardo DiCaprio. I did. Yeah. Robert De Niro. Jesse Clemens.

[00:41:58] Nicole: Oh, was that finally coming out?

I was just reading this article about how that, that movie seems to be like cursed

[00:42:04] Gayle: or, Well, it’s got a, it’s got a rumor of a May 23 premiere at Can Film Festival. Okay. So that’s a book that Nicole, so

[00:42:13] Nicole: that means we probably won’t see it until the end of next year probably.

[00:42:16] Gayle: Then there is lessons in chemistry coming out on Apple tv.

And I don’t know, did you read that book? I did. I did. And so I mean that’s so super popular book. And then the last one I wanted to mention was also on Apple tv. The last thing he told me by Laura Dave, which I read. Okay. Maybe last. Yeah. Yes. So yeah, just wanted to make sure we mentioned those as well.

I heard a rumor

[00:42:45] Nicole: of, Yeah, I was just thinking about it was the Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington was supposed to be in that book.

[00:42:51] Gayle: Oh, right. Leave. Leave the World Fund. Yeah. Roman Long Leave the World Behind. Yes. What happened to that?

[00:42:57] Nicole: I don’t know. I think I remember. Maybe an act they changed it. No, maybe that was No, I think you’re right.

[00:43:04] Gayle: There was a cast change. No, no. I think you’re right about Leave the World behind that. There was a cast change in. And I don’t remember, Is Julia Roberts the, the new one or is that, was she the original cast that got moved? Maybe she was

[00:43:17] Nicole: the original one. Was she gonna produce it at one point here? I’m looking it up.

I don’t know. It’s so hard when you hear about stuff close to release date because so many things can change. You know, when books get option it or bought it basically

[00:43:30] Gayle: means, oh it’s, here’s the cast change. It’s no longer Denzel Washington. It’s Mahershala Ali. Oh, and Ethan Hawk is in it too. And Kevin and Kevin Bacon is in it.

Yeah,

[00:43:44] Nicole: well we might like the movie a lot

[00:43:45] Gayle: better. Oh, I’m excited for that one, right? Oh he, that’s right. Marsh Ali replaced Denzel Washington in 2021, and it was started filming in April of 2022. Oh,

[00:43:57] Nicole: okay. Good. So we might get it soon. One other one that I will mention that I am in the middle of watching on Apple TV is five Days in Memorial, which is based on Sherry Fink’s book about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in this in Memorial Hospital where they had to.

Just triaged the patients who were going to be allowed to take the helicopters and the boats available out and just what happened to the doctors and, and the patients afterwards. Cuz they had like a high death count at that hospital. And it was in the news a lot and really in, you know, the conditions were investigated.

The fact that the hospital really had no plan for flooding or evacuating patients. That’s been really fascinating. You know, I mean, with Superstorms seemingly on the rise or them getting worse and you know, New York had its own superstorm, gosh, this is almost 10 years ago now. I think this is like the anniversary time of of Sandy.

So it’s just been like really interesting to, to watch and to consider. Definitely making me think about if my apartment is like in a low lying

[00:45:07] Gayle: area. Yeah. For flooding, which it kind of. So. All right. Well, that’s all. That’s all. We got a lot of good stuff to look forward

[00:45:16] Nicole: to. I know. Lots of good stuff to watch.

I think we’ll have to put this in semi regularly like we do paperwork. Yeah, exactly. We’ll check in on at least a couple times here. Check in on the release dates.

[00:45:29] Gayle: All right. Well thank you for listening and until next time, happy reading.