2025 Moms, Dads, and Grads Recommendation Show, Part 1

Summary

Book Riot - The Podcast
Episode: 2025 Moms, Dads, and Grads Recommendation Show, Part 1
Release Date: May 5, 2025

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Introduction to the Recommendation Segment

In this episode of Book Riot - The Podcast, hosts Jeff O’Neill and Rebecca Schinsky dive into their beloved segment: the Moms, Dads, and Grads Recommendation Show. Launched as a platform to respond to listeners' book recommendation requests tailored for parents and recent graduates, the segment showcases the hosts' expertise in curating diverse and meaningful reads.

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Listener Recommendations and Host Suggestions

1. Laura’s Midlife Milestone (00:49 - 07:59)

Listener Profile: Laura, turning 40, seeks books that provide perspective on entering midlife. She’s already read All Four Winds and is considering Women Were Birds and Gilead.

Jeff’s Recommendation:

• "4,000 Weeks" by Oliver Burkeman
  Jeff describes it as a "swift kick in the pants" that encourages readers to reassess how they spend their limited time, aligning daily actions with personal values (04:17).

• "Life in Three Dimensions" by Dr. Shigehiro Oishi
  This book explores living a meaningful life through happiness, meaning, and psychological richness—a concept Jeff refers to as "living an interesting life" with diverse experiences (04:40).

Rebecca’s Perspective:
Rebecca echoes Jeff’s enthusiasm, emphasizing how both books complement each other by providing frameworks for thoughtful living beyond conventional checklists (04:10).

2. Nikki’s Husband and the Love for "Project Hail Mary" (07:59 - 11:15)

Listener Profile: Nikki is looking for a book similar to Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir for her husband, who has recently developed an interest in reading.

Host Discussions:

• Jeff: Points out the unique challenge of finding a comparable read to Project Hail Mary, praising its blend of hard science, humor, and humanity (08:10).

• Rebecca’s Recommendations:

  • "Long Way to a Small Angry Planet" by Becky Chambers
    Described as a "celestial romp" with a found family dynamic.
  • "Dark Matter" by Blake Crouch
    A hard sci-fi puzzle box that delves into multiple realities and the protagonist's journey (08:32).

Jeff humorously notes the absence of perfect comps for Andy Weir, declaring Weir the "King of Weird" in modern sci-fi literature (10:43).

3. Elizabeth’s First-Time Mom Recommendation (16:35 - 19:44)

Listener Profile: Elizabeth, a first-time mom with a four-month-old, seeks books that can keep her engaged during middle-of-the-night feedings.

Jeff’s Recommendations:

• "Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennett
  A multifaceted novel that intertwines family drama, mystery, and historical elements, making it a versatile choice for varied tastes (16:36).

Rebecca’s Suggestions:

• "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain
  A gritty, humorous memoir that offers an unfiltered glimpse into the culinary world, perfect for someone needing engaging and relatable content during sleepless nights (16:35).

Jeff praises Vanishing Half for its broad appeal, while Rebecca highlights Bourdain’s "pure, uncut" narrative as a compelling read that holds up over time (17:35 - 19:44).

4. Ally’s Mom Seeking Similar Vibes to Specific Books (19:55 - 28:21)

Listener Profile: Ally is looking for books with a similar vibe to The House in the Cerulean Sea, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, and Under the Whispering Door, preferably with excellent audiobook narration.

Rebecca’s Recommendations:

• "Here We Do Not Part" by Han Kang
  A beautifully written, dreamlike novel that maintains clarity even in its ambiguity, perfect for fans of wistful, introspective narratives (22:16).

Jeff’s Suggestions:

• "Legends and Lattes" by Travis Baldry
  A cozy fantasy about an orc opening a coffee shop in a medieval setting, blending whimsical elements with heartfelt storytelling (20:10).

Jeff also recommends "John Dies at the End" by David Wong, noting its humorous yet scary narrative as a suitable alternative for a sarcastic, funny narrator (14:30).

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Unique Book Recommendations for Specific Needs

5. Rachel’s Graduation Into Midlife (35:06 - 39:34)

Listener Profile: Rachel, graduating into her late 40s, seeks highly literary speculative fiction that challenges her intellectually while maintaining a strong plot.

Jeff’s Recommendations:

• "Victory City" by Salman Rushdie
  A rich, imaginative narrative that weaves supernatural elements with the power of language and storytelling (35:08).
• "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
  A compelling story that explores human connections and ethical dilemmas through a speculative lens (33:34).

Rebecca’s Suggestions:

• "Clara and the Sun" by Kazuo Ishiguro
  A near-future tale from an AI’s perspective, emphasizing empathy and the essence of humanity (35:08).
• "The Fraud" by Zadie Smith
  A profound character study that delves into literary disputes and moral complexities (45:18).

Jeff and Rebecca emphasize the literary prowess of these authors, highlighting their ability to blend complexity with engaging storytelling (35:32 - 44:10).

6. Melissa’s Advocacy for Public Libraries (49:02 - 52:26)

Listener Profile: Melissa, a nurse and library enthusiast, seeks guidance on saving her local public library without venturing into public office.

Hosts' Advice:

• Jeff’s Idea:
  Recommends "The Proactivist" by Dan Chiarello as a guide to activism, encouraging practical involvement like forming a Friends of the Library group (50:35).

• Rebecca’s Guidance:
  Suggests volunteering with local political groups, particularly the Democratic party, to channel efforts effectively without running for office. Emphasizes reaching out to library boards and leveraging volunteer networks for support (51:38 - 52:26).

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Audiobook Recommendations for New Parents

7. Rachel’s Request for Compelling Audiobooks (52:26 - 56:59)

Listener Profile: Rachel seeks a well-narrated audiobook for her new dad partner who enjoys investigative and tech-related histories.

Jeff’s Recommendations:

• "Midnight, Chernobyl" by Adam Higginbotham
  A harrowing account of the Chernobyl meltdown, praised for its detailed and engaging narration.

• "One Giant Leap" by Charles Fishman
  Chronicles NASA's journey leading up to the moon landing, suitable for listeners who appreciate comprehensive historical narratives (53:02).

Rebecca’s Suggestions:

• "Blood, Bones and Butter" by Gabrielle Hamilton
  A classic food memoir that offers a deep dive into the culinary world with engaging storytelling.

• "Black, White, and Gray" by Masha Mbailey and John O. Morrisano
  A dual memoir exploring the dynamics of a black chef and her business partner, highlighting unexpected friendships and the intricacies of running a Michelin-starred restaurant (53:02 - 56:28).

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Excerpts and Additional Content

Towards the end of the episode, Rebecca and Jeff share excerpts from upcoming books, including "The Amalfi Curse" by Sarah Penner, providing listeners with a taste of the narrative style and engaging content awaiting them.

Notable Quote:
Rebecca enthusiastically endorses The Amalfi Curse, highlighting its "spellbinding tale" set against the Amalfi coast, filled with magic, peril, and romance (57:45).

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In this comprehensive episode, Jeff and Rebecca demonstrate their knack for selecting books that resonate deeply with their listeners' varied needs. From midlife reflections and sci-fi adventures to culinary histories and advocacy guides, the hosts ensure that every recommendation is thoughtfully curated to inspire and engage. Their insightful discussions, coupled with memorable quotes and timestamps, make this episode a valuable resource for book lovers seeking their next great read.

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Notable Quotes:

• "4,000 weeks is about how you get 4,000 weeks on average in your go round on this planet, time is a non-renewable resource." — Rebecca Schinsky (04:17)

• "Andy Weir shows up and I think we have some good comps for that." — Jeff O'Neill (08:10)

• "Anthony Bourdain wrote this book and made the world of food interesting and exciting and accessible for people who haven't worked in kitchens." — Rebecca Schinsky (16:35)

• "This is a zero cost program to create and share your audiobook directly with their 11 reader app." — Jeff O'Neill (46:57)

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For those who haven't listened to this episode, Book Riot - The Podcast continues to be an invaluable source for diverse and enriching book recommendations, ensuring every reader finds something that speaks to their unique journey.

Transcript

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Kevin Wilson]

If you're planning on cooking out this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Season, head to the Home Depot so you can fire up the grill with deals on charcoal.

[Kevin Wilson]

Right now, get two 16 pound bags.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Kingsford Charcoal for only $17.88 was 1998. Don't miss spring deals under $20 now through May 7th at the home Depot. Subject to availability. Valid on select items only.

[Kevin Wilson]

This is the Book Riot podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[Kevin Wilson]

And it's time once again for moms, dads and grads. Recommendation request time. This is how it works. People have emailed in with their recommendations for their moms, dad's, grads and a lot of eyes in there, which is absolutely fine. Welcome even. In fact, maybe we prefer that. Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We love a person who's looking for a recommendation for themselves. Everybody deserves good books.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah. And we both have a couple ideas or sometimes if one of us are better than others or, you know, it's a Jeff joint or a Rebecca joint, we'll take over from there. But we're going to run through them. We'll do some today and then we'll mop up on Thursday. The other thing that's happening Thursday is we're gonna check in on Kevin the Lumberjack Wilson's new book, Run for the Hills in a mini book club there that comes out, I guess next Monday.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

On Monday the book comes out the 13th.

[Kevin Wilson]

So it'll be available right when the book comes out. So if you don't want to do spoilers, we'll, we'll be careful in that episode to talk about a review and impressions and then maybe there are some more substantive discussions that people might want to miss. But anyway, that's coming soon. Let's see, everything else is a little bit. And oh, on the Patreon coming tomorrow, the summer draft is here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Summertime. And the reading is good.

[Kevin Wilson]

A very strong lineup as it is generally for the summer in which Rebecca and I compete to win. And that's for Patreon members. There'll be a trailer so you can hear the setup of the show there. But go to Patreon to everything else that's going on there. And it is the time of year. If you are looking for a gift for mom, dad or grad who is a reader or you'd like them to be a reader, there's a lot going on there. But check out MyTBR Co, our customized book reading service and also for the all the out there Book Riot All Access that's separate from Patreon, but this is from Book Riot Mothership. You can level up your reading life. Explore our full library of members only content, must reads, Deep dives, reading challenge recommendations and right now the first 50 new All Access annual members get a free copy of Automatic Noodle by Annalee. Now it's courtesy of Tor Publishing. So this is what's going on there. A crew of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen and decide to do what they know best. Make incredible hand pulled noodles for the humans of a post war San Francisco A charming and thought provoking story. Get Automatic Noodle by Annalee Niwitz by Signing [e-mail] AllAccess Cozy Sci Fi Is that a thing? Sounds like it might be.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it is a thing. I believe some cozy sci fi gets brought up later.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah, that's a great point. They may they want to check out Automatic Doodle. All right with that, Rebecca. I guess I'll go and do the first read because you have the the ones that I was thinking of. We can consider this a joint recommendation and maybe get both of these off the board because we may have a new entrant into the BR POD Recommendation hall of Fame coming up here. So this is from Laura. I'm turning 40 tomorrow. Congratulations. You've already 40 because this email came before today. I'm hoping to read a few books that help me give perspective on entering midlife in the year ahead. I've already read All Fours. Sorry, Rebecca wink emoji, Glynis McNicol looks like a good direction, but I'm not sure how much will resonate since I have two little kids. Is now the time for Women Were Birds, Gilead? Other ideas please?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I mean I don't think you'd go wrong with When Women Were Birds or Gilead, but I think the two books for the job are the combo pack, and these books should just come shrink wrapped together at this point of 4,000 weeks by Oliver Berkman and life in three dimensions by Dr. Shigehiro Oishi. You've heard us talk about both of them, so I'll just do short pitches. 4,000 weeks is about how you get 4,000 weeks on average in your go round on this planet, time is a non renewable resource. And especially once we hit midlife, really thinking about are you spending your time in a way that is aligned with your values and what matters to you, it is time to do that. It's a good swift kick in the pants. I think it's a philosophy of thinking about how you spend your time. This is not like checklists and stuff, steps you take, but I think it's a framework for approaching how you think about how you want your time to go for the rest of your life. And the reality that like sure, you can spend another hour sending emails on a Wednesday afternoon, but there will always be more emails. The emails are bottomless. The emails will never stop. And so what happens if instead of sending more emails, you went and walked your dog or hung out with your kids or cooked a great meal or whatever it is that gives your life meaning and joy? You want to take life in three dimensions because we do both love.

[Kevin Wilson]

Both of these go together. They're not sort of lock and key in this regard because 4000 weeks is. It's largely about not doing things that you mistake for being valuable when you actually kind of know they aren't or you don't want to be doing them. Life in three dimensions is a little bit different in this regard, which is okay, how does one live the kind of life one wants to live? And historically there's been two kind of paths, right? Happiness and meaning. This suggests a third thing which Oishi calls psychological richness. But we might call it living an interesting life, having diverse and interesting experiences. And that doesn't necessarily mean they're all comfortable. In fact, there's some argument to be made that discomfort can lead to more memorable, more interesting and more richness. But I think taken together, they offer a way forward that answers this question is like, what do I want to do with what I've got left in the tank? And it is so easy for the first 10, 20, 30. I even think, frankly, Laura into having two little kids is a really interesting moment because there is a path that's pretty well trod even for those of us that want that thing that kind of start the path kind of starts to wander off in multiple directions once you actually have the kids and they're grown up a little bit and they're starting to have lives of their own. I'm feeling this very much now with a 14 and 12 year old, which is their directionality isn't really it's that arrow of direction is not inward towards the family as much it used to be. And you can kind of feel the weather vane like in Mary Poppins twirling around, right. Like some days it's really back towards us and some days it's totally friends in the future and what they're working on on themselves. And that is a time when then that whole narrative for you and I'll throw myself in with you, Laura, if you don't mind, is an inflection point. And maybe you have some experience, autonomy and life lessons, even if they're negative ones that you can use towards say, okay, here's how, with some kind of attention, intention, I want to take a crack at whatever pinatas the next years hold. So those are 4,000 weeks of life in three dimensions intentions. All right, I guess you're the next read then.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right. Yeah, Next one is more Jeff Core. This is from Nikki, whose husband has recently started reading and his absolute favorite so far has been Project Hail Mary. So she's looking for something similar to give him.

[Kevin Wilson]

So we need to have a quick meta conversation about Project Hail Mary because I put it's an impossible comp, which I mean is I agree it is singularly pleasurable and has a really high Q rating amongst the people that I read it. You read it, my son. Like everyone I know, it shows up later in this document, I think multiple times, right? Rebecca? I can't remember right now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Andy Weir shows up.

[Kevin Wilson]

Andy Weir shows up and I think in a Project Hail Mary, look, the Martian is the Martian, but Project Hail Mary some doing some other things that like really builds on the Martian. The setup is very similar and the character could be in fact, if he wanted to, we could have made it the same character and would have been kind of funny. There's some things that you would get if you read that makes that cool, but there's just not a lot out there. The voice, the hard science, the humanity. All those things together make this a really impossible comp. Because it's not cozy sci fi because there are real stakes and things can go wrong. But it's also not, I don't know, grim, dark or just space stuff. So it's really hard to do. In fact, I think I may have a may do something with this idea of this. This is a new impossible comp. So I'm going to pick a couple of threads is what I did here. Do you like this space voice? Entertaining, kind of having a good time. Looseness to the narrative quality then Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers is a lawn Rating series called the Wayfarers. There's a group of. I'm now doing this from memory, so this is probably 70% right, the synopsis here. But they're on their way somewhere and something happens and they all wake up in the middle of their hyperbaric whatever. And it's sort of a found family. We're gonna tumble through space in a. In a celestial romp. So if you like that piece, if you like the plotty, hard sci fi piece Dark Matter by Blake Crouch is about. Is it. There's the multiple reality. It got made into a TV show that I heard wasn't very great. Even though they're making season two. Whatever. I don't care. I don't know anything about this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like a string theory metaverse kind of.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah. Basically. The main characters has an opportunity to go through multiple doors that go through multiple kinds of existences. He has to navigate himself. But Crouch does as well he can to make it grounded in some kind of science with rules. So, like, it's not Bill and Ted's where, like, you just go into the phone booth and there's the circle K. Like, there's reasons for things just to navigate and figure it out. So if you like this sort of hard sci fi puzzle box. Not puzzle box, but puzzle mystery quality that a main character is navigating, figuring out. But I do not have one. Rebecca. That is a comp for comp. Andy Weir. Right now. He's one of one. And long may he reign as the.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

King of weird in that pantheon with, like, the Night Circus of books that we just don't have good comps for.

[Kevin Wilson]

And it's gonna get worse when this awesome movie comes out, that apparently the footage is really good. Starting up Ryan Gosling in the fall, or I think maybe it's spring of 2026. It's gonna get worse before it gets better for us here, but I might.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Have to bring myself to Portland for an afternoon at the movies for that day.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah, I mean, there's. Well, anyway, we'll talk about that later. All right, My read. Oh, let's do a quick sponsor break here while we're at it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Today's episode is brought to you by Grove Atlantic Publishers of Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata. Set in an alternate version of Japan, sex between married couples has vanished, and all children are born by artificial insemination. As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents, quote, unquote, copulated to have her as an adult, result in an appropriately sexless marriage. Amane and her husband Saku decide to go live in a mysterious new town called Paradise Eden, where all children are raised communally and men get pregnant using artificial wombs. Is this strange new world one where Amane will finally fit in? Vanishing World is perfect for fans of dark weird fiction by authors like Agustina Bastarika, Ottessa Moshfeh and Sarah Rose Etter. Sayaka Murata is one of the most exciting chroniclers of the strangeness of society. X raying our world to bizarre effect. Make sure to check out Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata and thanks again to Grove Atlantic for sponsoring this episode.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This episode is sponsored by the Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook Powerful Witchcraft A hunt for sunken treasure Forbidden love on the high seas Beware the Amalfi Curse. Haven Ambrose, a daring nautical archaeologist, arrives in Positano to investigate mysterious shipwrecks and search for the treasure her father once glimpsed. Strange storms plague the town as she uncovers a centuries old tale of sorcery, forbidden love and ocean bound magic. With the deadly Amalfi Curse threatening all, Haven must unravel the mystery before it's too late. Amidst the dazzling Amalfi coast, this spellbinding tale brims with magic, peril and romance. Again, stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook edition of the Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Today's episode is brought to you by 11 reader. If you read a lot, you may have noticed there is simply too much content sometimes to read for just laptop driven consumption. And if you've been on the hunt for years for the perfect reader app that puts AI audio at the center of its design, I've got something for you. With the advances in AI11 reader, it's just that Apple over the past few months the 11 reader app has made it onto many an iPhone home screen and easily gets 30 minutes of use a day. With it you can import articles, PDFs and ebooks and select from thousands of 11 readers. Beautiful and multilingual AI voices shout out to George and Lily. Try George and Lily. Check out the 11 reader app. If you're looking for the best mobile reader on the planet, it's yours entirely free from the good people at eleven Labs. Thanks again to eleven Reader for sponsoring this episode.

[Kevin Wilson]

Okay, do you have any recommendations for sci fi fantasy books with a funny sarcastic narrator? I've already read Gideon the Ninth by Tasman Muir and Murderbot by Martha Wells and love them. I would love Something else in this vein. I also wasn't a big fan of Hitchhiker's Guide. Sorry, do you have to apologize? There's a lot of parenthetical apologies. Keep thighs to thyself. We don't need this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You're allowed to not like things.

[Kevin Wilson]

That's just data. That's not a judgment. That's just data. So I prefer. Probably prefer something scary over scary or dark over silly. Thank you for reading. Love the show. That's Amanda. So the darker. Oh, you go first because that's.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, yeah, I'm just gonna connect us up to the previous question. I think this is Andy Weir. If you have somehow made it to the Murderbot Gideon, the ninth part of your reading life and you're not already familiar with the Martian or Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir's voice is a great place to go there. Now we're outside of my realm of reading. But the Internet says if you like Andy Weir, you might like John Scalzi. You might also like the Lies of Locke Lamour, which on this round through Google was pitched to me as Ocean's Eleven but medieval and speculative. And I would have read that book like 15 years ago if someone had pitched it to me that way. So that's what I've got.

[Kevin Wilson]

I went way back into my bag from 2012. This is. We were just doing BR and this got passed around amongst us. It's a movie that I never saw too. It's called John Dies at the End and it is humorous. So these two guys, I think they are in college or dropped out of college. They have to save the world from supernatural invasions and it does the thing where it's really funny but also pretty scary. I'm a coward. So you may not feel the Scoville score of scares like I do because my palette for horror is pretty sensitive. But this is the one that came to mind for me of being funny, having a good narrative voice and then you can do the thing, if you like it, of checking out the movie and saying it sucks or it's great or sort of doing the thing. But that's John Dies at the End by David Wong is my pick.

[Sarah Penner]

There.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Good one. Okay, I will read this next one from Elizabeth who is a first time mom with a four month old at home. Congratulations and lots of middle of the night feeding time with the Kindle and that's all the information we have. And I was like, I don't know.

[Jeff O'Neill]

What to do for this.

[Kevin Wilson]

It's too much. So I went to blank check recommendation and I had exclamation points and question marks. And this is a time to steal from my previous work that hasn't been in the main feed, which was what we did for the most recommendable so far. I was like, I'm just going to pick my number one pick. And my number one pick there was the Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, which is a little bit of everything. It's a bit of a family drama, it's a bit of a mystery, it's a bit of historical novel. It's about a pair of sisters in Louisiana who are light skinned and that affords them choices about whether or not to pass. And one of them makes one decision, one doesn't. And they go through the world and they separate and come back together and satisfying and in interesting ways that I don't want to spoil too much here. But without knowing much about anyone except that they listen to the Book Riot podcast, I think that's as good of a straight up. I, I think there's going to be some part of this that's going to connect with most readers. That's as close as I could because a guarantee is what I say.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I respect your courage here. I'm going to piggyback on your move and just pull from my bag of most recommendable and say Kitchen Confidential Anthony Bourdain. It's 25 years old this year and I don't know how old you are, Elizabeth, but there's I think a good chance have not read this, this swaggering, fun voice of a young Anthony Bourdain who stumbles into working in kitchens and finds them to be like pirate ships and just cannot resist it. And we have all the food writing and really like the culture of food TV today that we have because Bourdain wrote this book and made the world of food interesting and exciting and accessible for people who haven't worked in kitchens. I mean, if you have ever enjoyed like one hour of Anthony Bourdain on tv, you need to go read Kitchen Confidential. Like the Voice is all there. All of the things that we came to love about him over time are there. And you know, it's 25 years old as well. So some of the perspectives he endorses in this book, he was not endorsing by the time his career was over and by the time like MeToo had hit and the restaurant culture had changed. But it's a, it's an incredible read, it's super fun. He would keep you good company in the middle of the night. And we're going to get a Bourdain biopic in the next year or two that I, I think is largely grounded in the stories and Kitchen Confidential. So you can prep for that as.

[Kevin Wilson]

Well for the other stuff that he did. I like it all, but he never quite hit the heights of Kitchen Confidential again because it was revelatory and it holds up like we read a couple years ago. As Rebecca said, there are some parts of it that I don't know land quite the same way today. But the underlying Bourdainness is pure, uncut, unfiltered, like it is the real McCoy. His sense of adventure, play bodiedness, respect, subversiveness. His literary, his literate and literary swagger is on full display sort of right out the gate, which is sort of unbelievable and hard to imagine.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It just kind of grabs you by the throat.

[Kevin Wilson]

It really does. And on the sentence level too, I think is underrated. It's fun to read on a sentence level. It's a good one. Which you can't say about all food writing.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No, you can't say it about most food writing.

[Kevin Wilson]

I didn't want to say it. I. I teed you up to be the.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The jerk, the Jeff O'Neill.

[Kevin Wilson]

Not the worst.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right, all right. This next one is Jeff Kaur also, so I'll read it. This is from Ally. They are looking for a book for their mom who loved House on the Cerulean Sea, Somewhere beyond the Sea and under the Whispering Door. Looking for any good books with a similar vibe and preferably a killer audiobook reader.

[Kevin Wilson]

I don't have a lot of experience with this, which is cozy fantasy. We're talking with Automatic Noodle, Cozy Sci Fi, though Automatic Noodle might be interesting if you have an audiobook preview selection and whatever your audiobook of choice is, I would try that one too. You could also. And I didn't do this because I would just be doing the googling for you. Like cozy fantasy is a established genre now and I'm sure we have some stuff on Book Riot or you can stuff. But the one that I have read and I have read under the similar the Cerulean Sea and Somewhere Beyond. I'm screwing these up. I've read the Clunes and the one that's really close to Me. And if it's just me, if I'm perfectly honest, I think my family preferred the Clune. But I like Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldry a little bit better. It is found family with a speculative hook here. It's like a DND ish world, right? There's knights and magic and you know, everything. But the main character is an orc who's just coming off a big quest and she wants to retire. And what she wants to do she discovered this gnomish invention called coffee. And so what she wants to do is go to this little fantasy medieval town and open a coffee shop and get away from the slings and arrows of the questing life and meets with remnants of her past and new friends and challenges. Opens her heart and doors and wallet and mine to a cozier existence. There's like one or two little action scenes. They're bigger, but most of it is. How does one set up a coffee shop in a medieval fantasy village? Where do you get the espresso machine? How do you explain coffee to people who don't know it? They call it bean water for a while, which is funny, but it's also a really good audio. And then there's a sequel called Bookshops and Bone Dust, which is a prequel about that same character kind of getting the idea for running a small shop when she helps out in a medieval D and D bookshop at the same time. So that's a pretty checker on a checker. I think a lot of people would agree. Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldry.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This reminds me, my mom drinks her coffee so watered down with cream that my dad calls it scared water.

[Kevin Wilson]

Scared water? Yeah, milky bean water is what the latte is before they. I'm not even sure they say the word latte in the course of the book. Okay, the mom in question is me. I'm in a reading slump. Nothing I've read recently has made me want to shout from the rooftops. I read mostly classics, literary fiction and short stories. I love risky experiments that work so well they blow my mind. Think complex structure blending fact and fiction, unusual narrative voices, etc. I enjoy magical realizing realism, especially Salman Rushdie, Helen Oyemi, Janet Wooderson, Jeanette Winterson and Richard Powers. The last few books that hit every mark for me were the Old Drift by Namwali Serpell and When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labetowood. That book was awesome. Recently excited about but didn't quite love yes no by Esther Yee, which is a very strange book. The Girl I Am Was and Never Will Be by Shannon Gibney. My love of experiments applies to classics too. If you want to go there. Gertrude Steiner leaves me. But favorites are Erewhon by Samuel Butler, the Master in Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, and the Pillow Book by Sei Shunagan. All right, Rebecca, what do you have?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm going with a couple of our recent reads that we enjoyed. Here We Do Not Part by Han Kang. Opens with a woman getting a call from a longtime friend who is in the hot hospital and needs her to come immediately. And then kind of sets her off on this quest to go to the woman's house and maybe take care of her pets. But it quickly enters a sort of dreamlike state where we're not totally sure what's actually happening to the narrator. Hong Kong does not want you to be totally sure what's happening to the narrator, but it's beautifully written. And even when you are suspended in that place of not knowing what's happening in the story, you know that you're in really good hands with the writer. And that's the feeling you're supposed to be having is just really pleasurable and masterfully done. Like, oh, there's a reason she has a Nobel Prize. And all things Katy Kitamura. You could start with her debut if you wanted. Go to a Separation Intimacies is the second novel. And then of course, we both just read. Audition. All of them play with structure, with voice, with perspective, with what characters understand about themselves and what we do or don't understand about them and what's real or not. Audition more than any of. Than either of the previous two. But they are both are. All three of them are really wonderful and they are tight. Since you like short stories. Like these are books that are under 200 pages and she accomplishes a whole lot. They don't read like a short story, but her just like economy of language feels like a short story vibe to me that there's not a word out of place. All of the sentences serve important purposes. It's enjoyable to read on that level as well. Like you can just enjoy what Kitamura does with language, but the impact of the language and what it feels like to read her, I think is the kind of feeling you're going for here.

[Kevin Wilson]

Look, there's one answer here for me, and I. I think, Cara, you invited it, so I'm doing it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Go for it.

[Kevin Wilson]

This is what you wrote us and this is true. And you have not read 2666 by Roberto Balano. This is your K2 to climb. This is the book I would recommend. I have Kane by Jean Toomer, which is a short novel experimental of the Harlem Renaissance. Really cool short with poetry and passages that link together in a really interesting way. Ted Chiang Short stories I could Recommend. But all of that is me being a coward and not just saying to get thee to the 1100 page behemoth Goliath magnum opus. Mind bending, frustrating, beautiful work of not mystery, not thriller, but all genres wrapped up into one that was published the year after Bologno died. The capstone work to a monumental career and sits comfortably aside I think the Ulysses of the world, the Moby Dicks of the world and all the pleasures and frustrations that are attend upon those books will be found in 2666 by Roberto Balano. So there it is. Go for It's a bold move. Conquer.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Good luck to you. It's a big one.

[Kevin Wilson]

Okay, here we go. Oh, look at this. Praise for me. For me.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I know. Let me. Let me read the praise for you. Just sit over there and bask in it. From Alana, who will be buying their dad Jeff's favorite phosphorus book, which is a real book. So Jeff, take credit for at least one sale.

[Kevin Wilson]

It's going to register in the Amazon rankings. This. This conversation right here. White Light is what it's called.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Also, thanks in general for all we do for championing books and providing a temporary distraction from the world. We are happy to be here for you.

[Kevin Wilson]

Not the only ones being distracted when we do these.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We are looking for further ideas for dad who has enjoyed some of our frontlist foyer picks in the past. Got him. Foundry side, Infinity Gate and all systems. Read the Murderbot Diaries. A lot of action for Murderbot in these recommendations. And as I should mention that the Apple TV adaptation drops next week.

[Kevin Wilson]

I read the first one a long time ago and remember really liking it. But I don't do long running series. That's. I've got things to try.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm gonna read the first one this weekend and then we're gonna like I am compelled by Alexander, by the Br.

[Kevin Wilson]

Rank and file Jupiter Core, I would say.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, so dad loved all of those wrecks and now Ilana's at a loss as to what else he might like. We're also looking for stepmom who is 80 and has read extensively her whole life. All the classics and a lot of current releases too. Is there anything I can get that's under the radar enough that she won't have come across it already?

[Kevin Wilson]

Well, here again we find ourselves. We used the One Bullet project. Hail Mary for Dad. This is the easiest one and we're gonna have today. There's no question there. In terms of underrated things, this is where I get a chance to talk about the Orchard by one Adele Crockett Robertson here for stepmom because it's under known. There's no way she knows this book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You have gotten so much unexpectedly wonderful mileage out of the orchard.

[Kevin Wilson]

You know what? Oy should be so proud of me. I picked up a book I didn't understand and I'm like, this seems wrong, but I'm going to continue through. And here I go. Life in four dimensions. That's what's happening right now. Going one above. This is non fiction. The setup here, if you haven't heard me rave and rant about this book before, is that Adele Crockett Robinson's daughter, Betsy, I believe her name is, was going through her mom's house after her mom had passed and found this manuscript under her bed. Her mom had been a journalist and a newspaper writer for a long time, so writing wasn't unexpected. But this memoir of her time as a younger woman trying to keep the family apple orchard alive during the Depression was in it. And it's beautiful and moving and it has. It has sort of a Steinbeckian quality to the writing that Adele Crockett Roberts himself does. It's not dissimilar of time, of course, it is the 30s, but people and the land and trying to make it work against all odds. It's beautiful and wonderful. And I think especially an older person might have some appreciation for the layers of this memoir and the daughter finding it and this mother daughter sort of relationship that is between and around the pages as well. And then one that I often mention for under known classics is Oreo by Fran Ross. It was re. Released by. I'm looking it up right now, the publisher. I should have done this before. I think it was Gray Wolf a few years ago. It came out of. Yeah, 2015. Wow, it's been that long. That's amazing. But Fran Ross is multiracial and this is a satire about being a biracial black girl from Philadelphia who goes to look for her Jewish father in New York City. And it has a New York sort of mid century feel of it. Like you could imagine like. Like this standing alongside, maybe above some Philip Roth kinds of works, right? Because it has ultimate is different kinds of dimensions, a different personality, different perspective. Not above, but I think it. It sits right outside those things. So if Philip Roth is now classics, right, we're now looking at 50 years since his. The height of his powers in the 70s. I think this came out in 1974 or 1975. It got great reviews when it came out. Feels ahead of its time. Again, it's been 10 years since I've read this, but I feel like if this came out today, it would be like picked for book clubs and like it would be talked about. Like, it's a terrific book. So that's Oreo by Fran Ross. And funny I should say at the.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Same time, I have nothing for dad here because Project Hail Mary is the perfect recommendation. Number one with a bullet for your stepmom. Stoner by John Williams under celebrated kind of classic from New York Review of Books. When I was early blogging, it had it's Stoner seems to have a renaissance like every 10 years, and it had one in my early blogging days. I had never heard of it, but it's set in Columbia, Missouri at the University of Missouri about a literature professor who has worked there his entire life. And it's just a, it's kind of in the old men waiting to die genre. Just the quiet novel about an older person who's had an academic life. And it's just lovely. But you don't encounter it on a lot of like big lists of classics. And so if your stepmom has been reading her way through the kinds of things that are on, you know, like a college syllabus, she just might not have come across it. I also think Passing By Nella Larson might be a good under the radar pick here. Just a really phenomenal novel if your stepmom has read Brit Bennett, like talking about the vanishing half. That kind of story has its roots in what Larson does in Passing. It's set out, I think, the 1920s in Harlem. The two main characters are light skinned black women. One of them is married, has kids, living in Harlem as a black woman. And she reconnects with this old friend and discovers that her old friend has been passing as a white woman. And each woman admires and is scared of something in the other woman experience. They're very curious. Like the the woman who is living as a black woman is intrigued by what it might be like to be able to walk through the world and have the privilege and experience of being perceived as white. And the woman who's passing wonders what it would have been like if she had accepted her racial identity and had that like, connection to the black community that she sees in her friend. It is as complicated and difficult and beautiful and challenging and just layered and complex as, as it sounds like it would be. And I think most of us come across this later in our reading lives. Like I did not encounter this on a list of classics or syllabi in school. So it's more under the radar than it should be, certainly. So I'll just take any opportunity to recommend it.

[Kevin Wilson]

I'll throw a hat on the hat here and you can kind of see what we're doing right is like these writers from an earlier time that maybe didn't get the due that they could have. I'll put one more the Living Is Easy by Dorothy west came out in 1948. She was the youngest, really, of the Harlem generation. Harlem Renaissance generation. This book, the main character, whose name, excuse me, I'm sorry, was a sharecropper and then ingratiates herself into the elite of Boston society and black Boston society specifically, and then gets her sisters to come along and her kids, but maybe not their sisters husbands and sort of like. Like Trying the Living is Easy is an ironical title, like trying to find a way to an easier quote, unquote life. But then the costs of that. So it's a bit of, you know, I think a comp might be like Edith Wharton of. Of black Boston in the 40s is not the worst way to describe it there. So it's going to feel like a classic because it's almost 100 years and is of a time and a place, but still reads quite well, I think. It's been. It's been sometime. Okay, I'll do the next read. I have graduated into my middle age. Pickleball playing, early bird dining, watching birds out my kitchen window, drinking coffee in a bathroom at sunrise. Air. I love it. My most recent favorite books are Sunrise on the Reaping, all the Colors of the Dark and the new John Boyne Element series, Fire Was Dark. Help me. Help me buy myself a graduation into the laters 40 present the way that you have.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I love everything about this question.

[Kevin Wilson]

Did I write this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Pave the way.

[Kevin Wilson]

It's your name, but I could have written this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Pave the way for me into the later forties. From here in my early forties. I'll start with Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, which came out earlier this year, set in Australia, about a woman who is at the same time of life. And all we understand is that she has left a successful career and a marriage and moved into basically a convent, a monastery of sorts. She is not religious when we first meet her. She has gone on a retreat there. And then the book comes back several years later and she has moved there. She has not taken vows, but she has become a part of this community. And it's a lot of her sitting around thinking about her life and observing the people around her. Not a lot of like big philosophical questions written directly onto the page, but as she observes the women around her and observes herself in those, in the interactions and the situations she has and drops little reflections about the life she had before. I think it just has a midlife flavor to it. I really loved it. It's just a great, quiet novel. This is the place where I have to ring the bell and recommend when women were Birthed to Terry Tempest Williams. Yeah, if you have not heard me talk about this before. Terry Tempest Williams mother died at the age of 54 and left behind her lifetime's collection of journals. They come from the Mormon tradition. Where this is a thing that one does is women collect journals about their lives and they pass them down to their daughters. The year that she is 54, Terri Tempest Williams goes finally to read her mother's journals and discovers that they're all blank. True story.

[Kevin Wilson]

One of the more indelible images of our sort of reading career so far. Like a memorable hook book and scene. Really totemic in its way.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It is, and that's the pitch is inherits her mother's journals and finds out that this lifetime collection of journals is blank. Which begs the question, why keep a bunch of journals if you're never going to write in them? And so the book is 54 Variations on Voice. It's 54 little vignettes. It's a slight book where Williams is wondering, like, why? What is my mother saying to me by choosing not to say anything? Is this about what she kept for herself? What does it mean to have a voice and to choose not to use it in this particular way? What are the duties of having a voice? How might I use my voice? I mean, this was one like this book did me in when I read it. I read it like four times in a row. I think about it constantly. Still, it's been about a decade. I just can't recommend it enough. And then since you did talk about, you know, some more genre tinted things here, I thought I would toss in Never Let Me Go by Caswell Ishiguro, about kids who are growing up at a boarding school in Britain. And they, they and we understand that something is strange about their lives, something sinister is maybe going on. I'm not going to spoil what that thing is, but it's about connection and empathy and the value of human life and the relationships that we have with each other. And it's just the kinds of question questions that we're asking in midlife. I Think Ishiguro really lingers on those and manages to tell a really compelling story while he's doing it.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah. Very good picks. So I can't believe that Annie Dillard was only like 35 when she wrote the Pilgrim at Team. It's incredible because a it feels like the kind of book and thing you do when you're older which is this she goes and lives on a creek and writes about what happens there and that sounds boring. It is not. It is not. It's like the Mary Oliver of prose is not the worst way to describe what Annie Dillard is doing of like looking at nature but also connecting it to life, the universe and everything and doing it in scintillating, accessible, spare and exciting sentence level and revelation and micro revelations and moments. It's really terrific stuff. Stuff. And then from there you could go pick up some of the other books if you like it. But I think the Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for me I'm not sure is it their best selling book. This is the kind of thing you could go look at Goodreads I guess and see which has the most shelvings even for a book like this. Do you think this is a tick tock sensation waiting to happen? The work of Annie Dillard? Rebecca, wouldn't that be I wish I.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Thought this was a tick tock sensation. I would have a little more faith in what social media is doing to us if we could make Annie Dillard go viral.

[Kevin Wilson]

It's a good Patreon episode TikTok sensations that would surprise and delight us. The moat Annie Dillard would really be I cannot besmirch anyone's hobby. Both. Both. It's not my nature nor do I have any grounds to do so because I will read about even the the hobbies I would find the most mind numbingly boring and I would include bird watching in that. Not for me. I'm glad everyone's having a good time. But what I will do is read a book about bird watching and be delighted by Amy Tan's the Backyard Bird Chronicles, which is about her, let's say ramping up of her hobby in life pursuit of watching and cultivating a bird watching environment in her backyard. If one can be extra about bird watching, Amy Tan is what a great blurb and it's delightful and satisfying and she applies her considerable observational and literary skill to what seemed to me a just a bunch of air trash in your backyard eating seeds. But I will read it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Shots fired. The birds are taken strays. Air trash.

[Kevin Wilson]

They just to Me, it's just a group of birds. My joke when we lived in New York and would know what birds was like. There's two kinds of birds. There's a greater brown bird and the lesser brown bird. And they fell into two categories.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Man, you're gonna get some emails.

[Kevin Wilson]

That's fine. I'm so happy for you. And this is my mea culpa as I love this book and I think you will too, Rebecca, because you already like doing boring shit, which is watching birds out your window. But this is fun. This is a fun book. It sold quite well from what I've been told it did. It sold quite well. The physical version has some nice illustrations. I think Amy Tan's own drawings are in it. But I did on audio, which was also delightful. So the Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan is my. There's no backhanded compliment. That's a forehand. The two double forehand. Like a high ten for the Backyard.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Burner Chronicles by Amy T. All right, this next one is from Lindsay looking for books for herself so she can tell her partner what to buy her for Mother's Day. Recommendations for highly literary speculative fiction. The kind where I feel like I need a dictionary on hand. But there is also a strong plot and imaginative elements a la Cloud Atlas, the Luminary Memories, Hyperion, the Seven Moons of Molly Almeida, Cloud Cuckoo Land and Playground. Give me a puzzle box of a book. It can be a doorstopper as long as it's really well written. I love Ted Chang and Nanakwami Ajay Brynya, but I'm not looking for short story collections.

[Kevin Wilson]

So I first my first thought was Cloud Atlas, but then I realized I thought that Cloud Cuckoo Land was the only cloud based literary experimental doorstopper ebook that you got. So I say get thee to Salman Rushdie. This also for whoever I recommended Bolano to above. If you have not encountered Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, of course a Satanic Verses. I like Midnight Children a little bit better myself. I think that's. That's maybe a majority opinion amongst the minority of us that have an opinion about which of those two books might be preferable. But Salman Rushi's Victory City, which came out a couple years ago that I talked about on the show a couple times, is quite accessible. If you haven't done Salman Rushdie before, this is a really good entry point. It was it he did not promote the novel because he had been attacked as as chronicled in Knife. So I'm not sure it got the push that it could have, but it is a. It does all these kinds of things that Rushdie does. It has a supernatural element. It's about east and west. It's about the power of language and story to literally have magic be brought into the world. I'm not going to read the synopsis because that's beside the point. You should do so. I think this is a good place to start if you're like, you know what? I want to Rushdie on my belt and you're gonna do one. I would think I would make it Midnight's Children, but I can recommend this a little more full throatedly because it's been, you know, less than the two decades since I read it, which is a very careful thing I want to do here. But Rushdie writ large, Victory City in specific, and Midnight's Children sort of always for. For Rushdie there. That's my choice, right?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The phrase highly literary speculative fiction puts me immediately on Ishiguru.

[Kevin Wilson]

It's like saying the Candyman three times. It's just like Clari. This is like Ishiguro is here with us now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like also there's a reason that he has a Nobel. I would go, go to Clara and the sun, which is set in a near future where people have robots that companion robots basically and Clara is a companion artificial intelligence. We experience the whole story of the book through Clara's eyes. And it, I mean it's just really something. I remember reading it together and book clubbing it for the show or maybe for the Patreon and both just being like, well, you know, on the first page that you're all the way in here. It's incredibly human and empathetic. Ishiguro is just magisterial and putting us into the feelings and perspective and also the distance that an AI being in this story has to observe humans and humanity and wonder about what it is that we're doing and what we're trying to do. Just really incredible. The fraud by Zadie Smith that I.

[Kevin Wilson]

Didn'T thought of that for this, but that's a nice pick.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Thank you. And I feel like I just have to mea culpa forever because I thought I was going to be out on.

[Kevin Wilson]

The fraud by Z prejudging this like a boss. It was really something to behold.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, I think I still think this like the slug line on it is bad that it's about a like dispute, literary dispute about and a fraudulent story, like a public fraud in a politician situation. And then a bunch of Victorian novelists and like what Zadie Smith does with.

[Kevin Wilson]

That, with that character study with some other.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. It's incredible. It's just incredible. And the synopsis almost made me not read it. But I know better than to question the queen.

[Kevin Wilson]

Now you see the Z, you buy the book. That's what you've learned, right?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We'll never. We'll never question Zadie again. And I think Rachel Kushner's creation lake might be a place to go here. Not as much plot, not quite speculative, but it feels that way because. Because she is kind of a spy, kind of an operative that's. That gets hired by these, like, kind of shady, big corporate people that she doesn't even totally know who they are. And in this book, she is infiltrating a group of environmental activists that are trying to block some big thing, this project that's happening that would damage the environment, but that would further business interest, interests for people. And she has feelings about her being a spy. She has feelings about the people that she interacts with. It's just kind of unsettling the whole time. The writing is phenomenal.

[Kevin Wilson]

There you go, a couple more for today.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Should we take another break?

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah, let's do one more sponsor. Yeah, let's do one more break and then we'll do a couple more. We'll catch the rest of the next episode.

[Jeff O'Neill]

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[Kevin Wilson]

App?

[Jeff O'Neill]

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[Kevin Wilson]

Okay, please tell me a book that will teach me how to help save my local public library. It was my childhood library and I love it so much. I'm a nurse so I've already found my vocation and dream job and I have no plans to consider running for public office. I also have some well, I'll keep it here and say there's some things that make a poor candidate it so it's not a run for something situation. Melissa News knew what we were going to say first, didn't she? Melissa listens to the show, so I think we're both on the same tip here, which is this is not there's not a book here to read. I did find one that is a path to the thing that you're saying, which is go be an activist in some regards. Here's what I think the book is called the Proactivist by Dan Chiarello. You can find it in Amazon or Thrift Books or wherever. It doesn't look like it's in print necessarily right now, but that is just an arrow pointing towards get involved and stay involved. And money is a super way to good that for someone who doesn't want to be in front of a mic. I also would go talk to the head of your library system. Ask them what would help them the most. It might be maybe you could form a political action committee. There could be a Friends of the Library group already that's involved and you could start there. There. A lot of those are non political in terms of yeah, they're more about helping the library raise money for its current operations and less about the meta protection of the library. But it is going to come down to fortunately and unfortunately who gets to say what the library can and can't do in your locality and then support someone who's going to support what you want that person to say. Right Rebecca? I mean that's kind of the game.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, that's basically where I was going to. I don't think there is a great book here, but there's a lot of space between. There's nothing to do and I don't want to run for something and or just read a book and I don't want to run for something because all the people who do run for stuff and get elected into these offices or even who get elected to like your local library board, which you might look and see who's on your library board and do they need volunteers for things. Like all of these political groups function on volunteer energy and none of them ever have enough of it. Like there is just never enough volunteer resource. And my experience at least I volunteer with my local county Democrats. Is that there you can really get in where you fit in. Like do you have two weekends a month where you can spend a Saturday morning doing something? Do you want to knock on doors for people? Are you a good fundraiser? Do you just want to write a big check? Like there's can you make phone calls but you don't want to knock on doors. Like are you really connected to business leaders in your community and they might be willing to come out in support of something or sponsor an event or maybe you plan an event like local.

[Kevin Wilson]

Chapter of the ACLU was an interesting idea.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. There really and truly like is some way to get involved. And I know folks have all kinds of feelings about different political parties but like the apparatus to do this in most places is likely to be your local Democratic party.

[Kevin Wilson]

Really good point.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And so if you're thinking in terms of being practical here, I would start there. How can you get plugged in to volunteer? And I guarantee you if you type in your county and Democrats you will find a website that has get involved and that someone will email you back very quickly about how you might be able to be connected. So I would look at that and at your local library board as well and just see they they likely already have opportunities where you can just be of support in some way. But this is a boots on the ground situation.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah. There's some place for you in the streets or spreadsheets in this whole thing to go help out. Okay.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Your read last one. This is from Rachel. Looking for a compelling and well narrated audiobook for a new dad who needs the distraction while rocking the baby to sleep. He loved Challenger. Thanks to Jeff, Good job, Kitchen Confidential and the Go to contemporary biographies of the Big ten tech giants. Do we have any recommendations for books in the culinary tech or compelling history space? In other words, not the standard World War II stuff and ones that we enjoyed the narrator of. Thanks so much.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah, Mukherjee. Yeah, Emperor of all maladies tech. The best written popular science book of all time. It's not. It's not close. I don't think it's particularly close. Email me [e-mail] if you've got a contender I can say is inferior to your email face. So that's an easy one. You know, I've seen a lot of Challenger love recently, and the easiest thing then is Go look at Midnight and Chernobyl by one Adam Higginbotham, which I think is a superior book to Challenger, but it's because I knew less about is about the meltdown of Reactor 5 in Chernobyl and got turned into an unbelievably harrowing nerdy series on Apple tv. Is that Chernobyl? I think so. It's up. Anyway, so that's 2:1. The last one to me is along the Challenger vein, One Giant Leap by Charles Fishman, which is about NASA up until the moon landing, which I think there is not as many comprehensive stories of NASA that aren't the right stuff by Tom Wolfe or a memoir. I'm sure there's been others, but this one leapt out to me one day when it was new and I listened to it all and it's quite long and well narrated, which in my memory of rocking a baby to sleep with my AirPods in is exactly what I'm looking for. So those empire of all maladies, Midnight, Chernobyl and then One Giant Leap by Charles Fishman.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

As you were talking, I wonder, is this the place where we drop the works of Patrick Radden Key like this feels like he might be in the zone to do some say nothing.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yeah, I mean, if he's ready to make the switch, you know, fatherhood changes a man and he might be ready to go. New Yorker writer book and I think the kitchen conventional butch Challenger if you kind of hold them next to each other, books by newer Yorker writers sort of appear like it's an emergent property of those two poles.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

If you cross pollinate, yeah, that's what you get. But I think that's right. So for the food writing tip, I'll go on Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton, one of the sort of early aughts. Classic food memoirs. Really love Her Eat a Peach by David Chang more recently and this book came out after the reckoning with kitchen culture had really taken hold and Chang was part of that, but also reckoning with his own Nita Peach and contrabandicial.

[Kevin Wilson]

Together are quite a bookend of food right here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Bourdain was a good friend and mentor to David Chang, so those do really go together. If your partner here has not read Eat a Peach and then one that probably just hasn't made its way to him is Black, White and the Gray by Masha Mbailey and John O. Morrisano. Mashima Bailey is the chef behind the restaurant the Gray in Savannah, which is a wonderful Michelin starred restaurant. She is a rare black chef in the US who has that kind of acclaim and John Morisano is her business partner. He's a like media and tech money guy and the book is their dual memoir about starting this business, celebrating the restaurant together and a really as the subtitle of it gets to you, an Unexpected Friendship. Like these are kind of an odd couple that you would not expect to you might expect them to work together and do okay, but the way that their relationship unfolds is really cool and fun to hear. And the Gray is an amazing restaurant experience, so have to toss that one out.

[Kevin Wilson]

All right, so end of part one. You can email us podcastookriot.com Check out the Patreon because shortly today, tomorrow the summer draft will be there and ready for you to cast your votes on if you aren't a Patreon member. Thanks to our Patreon members who get to support us and let us do weird stuff like rate the Short stories of Marie Helene Bertino by how Marie Helene Bertino they are. And that was a ton of fun.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It was such a good time.

[Kevin Wilson]

I got to see it in the wild. There's a Literary Arts, which is a literary organization in Portland, has a new storefront and bookstore which I finally made it to on Sunday. And right up front we're audition and exit zero and I'm like oh my people, my people are here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

They're just like chat.

[Kevin Wilson]

There was something else there. Oh they had life in three dimensions out and I was like this is a very well, well curated bookstore. Which is kind of a self compliment but what else are you going to.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Do in that kind of a situation, you know? It feels good to be seen.

[Kevin Wilson]

That's right. Yeah. All right Rebecca, we'll talk to you later.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Thanks Jeff. Thanks so much for listening today we hope you'll enjoy this excerpt from the audiobook edition of the Amalfi Curse by.

[Sarah Penner]

Sarah Penner Along a dark seashore beneath the cliffside village of Positano, 12 women, aged 6 to 44, were seated in a circle. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, the waxing moon directly overhead. One of the women stood, breaking the circle. Her hair was the color of vermilion, as it had been since birth. Fully clothed, she walked waist into the water, a belemnite fossil clutched between her fingers. She plunged her hands beneath the waves and began to move her lips, reciting the first part of the Incantesimo Dirifluso she'd learned as a child. Within moments, the undercurrent she'd conjured began to swirl at her ankles. Tugging southward, away from her, she shuffled her way out of the water and back onto the shore. A second woman, with lighter hair, the color of persimmon, stood from the circle. She too, approached the ocean and plunged her hands beneath the surface. She recited her silent spell on the sea, satisfied as the undercurrent grew even stronger. She gazed out at the horizon, a steady black line where the sky met the sea, and smiled. Like the other villagers along the coast tonight, these women knew what was coming. A fleet of pirate ships making their way northeast from Tunis. Winds were favorable, their sources said, and the flotilla was expected within the next day. Their destination perhaps Capri, Sorrento. Mayori, some thought. Maybe even Positano. Maybe finally, Positano. Given this, fishermen all along the Amalfi coastline had decided to remain at home with their families. Tomorrow and into the night, it wouldn't be safe on the water. The destination of these pirates was unknown, and what they saw it was a mystery as well. Greedy pirates went for all kinds of loot. Hungry pirates went for nets full of fish. Lustful pirates went for the women on the seashore. A third and final woman stood from the circle. Her hair was the rich, deep hue of blood. Quickly she undressed. She didn't like the feeling of wet fabric against her skin, and these women had seen her naked a thousand times before. Belemnknight fossil. In one hand she held the end of a rope. In her other, which was tied to a heavy anchor in the sand a short distance away, she would be the one to recite the final piece of this current curse. Her recitation was the most important, the most potent, and after it was done, the ebbing undercurrent would be even more severe. Hence the rope, which she would wrap tightly around herself before Finishing the spell. It was perilous, sinister work. Still, of the 12 women by the water tonight, 20 year old Mari Deluca was the most befitting for this final task. They were Strega del Mare, Sea witches with unparalleled power over the ocean. They boasted a magic found nowhere else in the world. A result of their lineage having descended from the Sirens who once inhabited the tiny ligale islets nearby. The women knew that tomorrow, wherever the pirates landed, it would not be positano. The men would not seize their gods, their food, their daughters. No matter how the pirate ships rigged their sails, they would not find easy passageway against the undercurrent. The women now drew upward from the bottom of the sea. They would turn east or west. They would go elsewhere. They always did. While the lineage of the other 11 women was twisted and tangled, filled with sons or muddled by marriage, Mari Deluca's line of descent was perfectly intact. Her mother had been a strega and her mother's mother, and so on and so on, tracing back thousands of years to the Sirens themselves. Of the women on the seashore tonight, Mari was the only streca finissima. This placed upon her shoulders many great responsibilities. She could instinctively read the water better than any of them. Her spells were the most effective too. She alone could do what required two or three other strege working in unison. As such, she was the sanctioned leader of the 11 other women. The forewoman, the teacher, the decision maker. Oh, but what a shame. She hated the sea as much as she did. Stepping toward the water, Maddie unraveled her long plate of hair. It was her most striking feature. Such blood colored hair was almost unheard of in Italy, much less in the tiny fishing village of Positano. But then, much of what Maddy had inherited was unusual. She tensed as the cold waves rushed over her feet. My mother should be the one doing this, she thought bitterly. It was a resentment she'd never released. Not in 12 years. Since the night when 8 year old Mari had watched the sea claim her mother, Imelda as its own. On that terrible night, newly motherless and reeling, Mari knew the sea was no longer her friend. But worse than this, she worried for her younger sister, Sophia. How would Mari break this news to her? How could she possibly look after her spirited Sophia with as much patience and warmth as their mama had once done? She'd hardly had time to grieve. The next day, the other Strege had swiftly appointed young Maddie as the new strega finissima. Her mother had taught her well, after all, and she was by birthright capable of more than any of them. No one seemed to care that young Maddie was so tender and heartbroken, or that she now despised the very things she had such control over. But most children lose their mothers at some point, don't they? And sprightly Sophia had been reason enough to forge on a salve to Maddie's aching heart. Sophia had kept her steady, disciplined, even cheerful much of the time. So long as Sophia was beside her, Maddie would shoulder the responsibilities that had been placed upon her, willingly or not. Now, toes in the water, a pang of anguish struck Maddie, as it often did at times like this. Neither Mama nor Sophia was beside her tonight. Mari let out a slow exhale. This moment was an important one worth remembering. It was the end of two years worth of agonizing indecision. No one else on the seashore knew it it. But this spell, this incantation she was about to recite, would be her very last. She was leaving in only a few weeks time, breaking free, and the place she was going was mercifully far from the sea.