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- [00:00]
Kate Gibson
Imagine being 12 years old, already having.
- [00:03]
Leigh Ann
30 bone fractures and wondering, why can't I just play like other kids? I'm Leigh Ann and I was diagnosed.
- [00:09]
Kate Gibson
With brittle bones disease. Now I'm running the bank of America Chicago Marathon for Lurie Children's.
- [00:15]
Leigh Ann
So every kid can just be a kid.
- [00:18]
Kate Gibson
Join bank of America in supporting Leanne's cause. Give if you can@b of a.com supportleann. What would you like the power to do? Bank of America references to charitable organizations is not an endorsement by bank of America Corporation.
- [00:37]
Charlie Gibson
Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back to the podcast the Bookcase with Kate and Charlie. We're happy to have you with us. Hope you can stay with us for the. For the rest of this podcast.
- [00:48]
Kate Gibson
Yes, we do. Hope you can stay with us for the rest of the podcast. And it takes three welcome backs to welcome you back or welcome you for the first time. We would love to welcome you for the first time. We welcome any and all listeners. And I am the Kate part of the duo.
- [01:02]
Charlie Gibson
If you can't stay with us, what's the whole point of this? But we will hope you stay with us.
- [01:07]
Kate Gibson
You know, it's funny because the last show you said, you know, you hear the theme music and it's a Pavlovian response. And so I was listening to the podcast and I was picturing listeners all across the country hearing the music and then instantly starting to drool.
- [01:23]
Charlie Gibson
No, no, no, no, no, no. Anyway, we honor each one of you who are listening. We have been doing this podcast now for more than three years. I mean, this is year number four. And while many of you are kind enough to listen, we still get asked by people when we run into, what should we read next? Well, are you listening? But I get the question. I mean, we hear the shows, but what did you really like? And to go back over our philosophy, Katie and I have a one house veto on this show. If one of us doesn't like a novel, we don't feature it. Now, there have been some exceptions, and I won't go into which ones they were, but at least one of us is back to be very enthusiastic and. And then we'll do it. So today we're going to go back over the summer and tell you which of the books we really, really liked and hope you'll read.
- [02:11]
Kate Gibson
Yeah, there's no constitutional guide to the veto process. We just want you to know that. And I would say we've only pushed maybe like a handful, like maybe five books. Have one of us said we're going to do it. And I don't care what you think. I think it's. There's really only been five in four years. Because we really do feel strongly that by putting a book on the podcast, we are making a recommendation. We are telling you to go out and find the book or find the author because we believe in their talent and we believe that you won't be sorry if you give your valuable time to whatever book or author we are discussing. We feel very strongly about that. We feel that we have a relationship of trust with our listeners. And so we try to avoid the schlock. If we can avoid the schlock.
- [02:57]
Charlie Gibson
And we don't follow the bestseller list, we really pick out books that we think would be interesting and if we both like it, it'll appear on the show. This is sort of the best of the summer. So we thought we'd each take three books and then of course, we wound up agreeing on one of them.
- [03:11]
Kate Gibson
Yeah, but only one. We don't agree that often. For those of you following along at home, we really don't agree that often. But the first book, which is the one we agree upon. Is that where we're opening up the book, as it were?
- [03:22]
Charlie Gibson
Oh, yes, sure. Let's open. Let's open the book there. Turn the page.
- [03:26]
Kate Gibson
So chapter one to our Best of Summer book. Chapter one is going to be Virginia Evans and the Correspondent. I was introduced to this book by a friend of mine who runs a bookstore and she handed it to me and said, you gotta, you've gotta, you gotta. And I promise you gotta get it now because it's gonna be sold out by the time we get back from lunch. And it was the Correspondent by Virginia Evans. And I cannot speak more highly of this book. It's taken her a long time to get published. I assumed she was perfecting her craft because I think this book has a lot of perfection in it. I love epistolary novels. I loved 84. Charing. Crossroad is one of my all time favorites. And the Correspondent was inspired by that book and the writing in it. The distinct voices that she creates in the correspondence between the protagonist and the other characters is just, it's masterful.
- [04:17]
Charlie Gibson
Sybil Van Antwerp is her name. She's in her, what I think upper 70s. And just in the first page, which is the only page that is not a letter or when Katie says epistolary novel, some people look at you think, huh, it's a novel that is totally composed of letters or emails or all kinds of correspondence. Thus the name of the book the Correspondent and Sybil van Antwerp is the correspondent and she's a delightful character. And Virginia Evans, as Katie just said, amazingly, amazingly, has never been published before. She'd been writing for a long time, all of her books had failed and sort of she did this epistolary novel as a lark and it's wonderful, it really is wonderful. As I say, Virginia Evans was surprised, I think, by the success of this book. So we talked to her about how you use an epistolary form to flesh out a character like Sybil van Antwerp.
- [05:12]
Virginia Evans
I had been writing for 20 years and I had never had a successfully published novel. And so I had just had a book out on submission and it was not selling again. And I was pretty gutted and in a, you know, kind of in a, it was, you know, Covid and my book wasn't selling. And you're sort of starting to think like, what am I doing? What am I doing with my life? And obviously this isn't working. And so I started writing this book really as an exercise. I did not think I was going to show it to my agent. So I think I just wanted to play, I was playing, I think it was a playful experience of. I liked reading that book in letters. I liked the Color Purple, I liked the Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society, I liked Dracula. I like the letter form. So let me see how I can, what can I do with that? I always think this is a little bit of, like a madness of, of an artist and this is my particular madness. But I'll read something great like east of Eden and I'll think I can do this. So I think I read, I read some of those books and I thought I can do this. And so the letters was really what I wanted to do. I wanted to try letters. But I, I, I have found in reading epistolary novels it's hard to get, I don't know, like a full 360 degree view of something. And so I was really trying to do that. I thought, how far can you take this, this form? Could you really do a good portrait of someone's life? And so the letters were really kind of the mainstay.
- [06:41]
Charlie Gibson
So both of us felt that the Correspondent by Virginia Evans would be one of our absolute favorites of the summer. And we've given it to a number of people and they all say, oh, this was great. Really, really surprised by how much they liked it.
- [06:55]
Kate Gibson
I passed a neighbor of mine, Molly, who was out on an exercise walk with somebody else. She was just walking past the car and I Literally pulled the car over, rolled down the window and yelled, the Correspondent by Virginia Evans. You don't wanna miss it. So. And it made me wish that I. It sort of filled me with regret that I have not spent my life writing letters. That I have actually, really, since I graduated from college, have been in the world of emails and not of letters. This made me wish that I had written letters my whole life. The way that Sibyl Van Antwerp takes stock of the touchstones of her life and her biography is through her letters. And what a great way to see your life through your own letters.
- [07:34]
Charlie Gibson
So we promised three of three books for. What's your second?
- [07:37]
Kate Gibson
Kate I have to say, before I wanted to do a book that was fun to read. You love that adjective fun. That's fun to read. And I fell in love with Leigh Bardugo. Now, I'm not a big fantasy reader. I love NK Jemisin and there are some other fantasy writers that I've picked up. And I'm not gonna lie, some of it's not very well written and some of it's too violent for me, which is amazing cause I'm a horror fan. But Game of Thrones, the series was too violent for me. So when these books were sent to me, I sort of went, oh, fantasy, that's gonna be tough to get my dad to read. And then I'd pick them up and I couldn't put them down. They were amazing page turners. Once she sucked me into her world, I did not want it to let go. I loved the characters in this book. They're all deeply flawed. And it's a heist novel, which I think is terrific. The idea of a fantasy heist novel had never occurred to me. But it's scrappy, it's funny, there's great dialogue in this book and the characters will stay with you. And for those of you that are worried about, I don't have time in my life for a series if the books don't end. There's only two of them. There's only two. The Crooked Kingdom and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. And I loved our conversation with her. She was a lot of fun to talk to. I just love setting your teeth on edge.
- [08:52]
Leigh Bardugo
The question I get probably the most.
- [08:54]
Kate Gibson
Other than where do you get your.
- [08:55]
Leigh Bardugo
Ideas, is how do you world build?
- [08:58]
Lauren King
Right?
- [08:59]
Leigh Bardugo
And I think we have a misconception about that. We have this idea that world building just belongs to science fiction and fantasy and it's about magic and it's about creatures and about no world Building exists in every book we read. And if I point to the influences on Six of Crows, I would point to movies like the Untouchables.
- [09:15]
Lauren King
Right.
- [09:15]
Leigh Bardugo
That have nothing to do with magic, but have a very specific sense of place and a sense of how power operates in that world. What does that. We just rewatched this movie. Amazing. But what do we have to establish if we're going to take you into a world? How the power works there and what the place and how the sense of place impacts that power. If you're writing about a spy thriller that's set in Washington, D.C. or a murder in a small Southern town, you're still giving your readers those signposts. So what I always say to authors is that's your job to establish sense of power and sense of place. And it is okay to build those worlds iteratively. You can write that first outline and then do a whole bunch of research and start layering things in, start moving things around. You're gonna realize that there are real world things and ideas that are gonna impact how you want to shape that world to make it feel immersive. If you're just throwing nonsense at your reader, they're gonna check out.
- [10:13]
Kate Gibson
They're going to check out.
- [10:14]
Leigh Bardugo
And you know, when you're in the hands of somebody who really knows the world and knows what's happening off the page and knows what happened 10 years before and 10 years after. But I think it's so easy, particularly for young authors, to get overwhelmed. And so it's important to say everybody has a different strategy and you don't have to know everything all at once.
- [10:35]
Charlie Gibson
Yeah, that's interesting. It's a very good point about a fantasy book. One of the problems I have with fantasy in that it's a world and I'm not sure I understand the world and all the different terms that are used. And why can't you write, you know, just about put your plot in a. In a regular everyday setting? But her point, I think, is very well taken. Every single book, every single movie basically creates a world, and you're in it. So fantasy is not so much different in that regard. Let me give my second book. Sophie Elmhurst wrote a book called Marriage at Sea. I wanted to include one nonfiction book. This is about Maryland and Maurice. Maurice pronounced Morrison in this country, who in, what was it, 1973, I think, scrapped their life in England, spent a couple of years building a boat, outfitting a boat, and intended to sail to New Zealand and settle there in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Somewhat off the coast of the Galapagos, a whale reached up and smashed their boat. I think the whale had been injured in some way.
- [11:40]
Kate Gibson
Yeah, I think they imply that there is a whaling boat that is nearby that may have taken a shot at this whale that caused it distress. Because most whales don't go that boat. I'm going to go take it down. Watch me, boys.
- [11:53]
Charlie Gibson
Well, just totally destroyed the boat they were catapulted into. If you see it, it looks like a kiddie pool with a, with some sort of a roof on it. And they existed in this thing for 118 days. No food, no communications. They didn't take a phone or radio rather. So it's a great adventure story in the. How do you survive 118 days when you're basically stranded at sea in a boat that you don't think could survive a single wave? But more than the physical problems that they faced, Sophie Elmer writes about their emotional struggles, about how, how do you exist with another human being in that concise a setting when you have to figure out what you're going to eat every day and how you're going to bail the boat. And fascinatingly, one of them survived very well, handled it emotionally very well. The husband, Maurice, did not. I was very struck by how practical they were about things. If I were in a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and a whale reared up and destroyed my boat, I'd panic right away. But it was amazing how cool headed they were.
- [13:00]
Kate Gibson
Well, and Marilyn did some things that I think, you know, on land would be considered whimsical. She made cards, she made dominoes out of paper, she planned menus for future meals. And yet there's a practicality in that because in some ways that probably stopped them from, from their mind snapping in a way. I mean, was there a practicality to that?
- [13:20]
Leigh Ann
Totally, no. I think she realized very early on, once she realized that Maurice was sort of having the reaction he was having, it was a lot of self blame, a lot of guilt. He, you know, and clear sort of depression, you know, despair and into depression. And she realized that the task that lay ahead of her, the sort of greatest task that lay ahead of her was trying to keep his mind occupied to try and ward off those sort of circling negative thoughts. And what he was very honest about in the aftermath, you know, very, you know, quite sort of specific suicidal thoughts as well, you know, he was thinking how, you know, how do we end this? Is there enough gas in the canister that we can, we can just end this now? But she knows the truth, which is like you've got to do anything you can to keep your mind sort of feeding on something apart from itself. Because there's nothing that's worse for a mind than when it turns on itself.
- [14:10]
Charlie Gibson
Marriage at Sea is the book.
- [14:11]
Kate Gibson
It's a beautiful story. And she even follows this couple, once they get rescued, she follows as to how they get reintroduced to society. Because to say it's a culture shock to go from eating raw shark and shark eyeballs to being lauded and going to the ticker tape parade of the whatever is also really interesting. So it's a terrific psychological study, and Sophie Elmhurst writes it just beautifully.
- [14:35]
Charlie Gibson
And so, Kate, your third book.
- [14:37]
Kate Gibson
My third book, I just. Any occasion that I can have to throw to Dave Barry, I will take. If Dave Barry writes about the rise of the American bedbug, I will read it. I will basically read anything that he writes. He writes just. He's.
- [14:52]
Charlie Gibson
He's funny.
- [14:53]
Kate Gibson
He's funny. He's page to page funny. And it's. And it's very much in keeping with my sense of humor. And I think he gets a kick out of his life and is fascinated by his own life as much as anybody else is. And so he wrote a book this summer called Class Clown about how he got to have the job that he has and how he's reached so many people with this humor. And, and it's just, it's. It's a wonderful read. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you think. It'll tell you where Dave Barry gets all of his wacky ideas. But it also, we are. We live in an establishment society that is quick to offense. It's real easy to offend people these days with a misstated word or, you know, the wrong opinion in their minds. And Dave Barry talks beautifully about that in this book, about how he handles his haters and manages sometimes to convert them to just to love him. So here he is, the great Dave Barry, talking about how he ended up with this very weird, amazing job that he loves.
- [15:55]
Charlie Gibson
This book is a celebration of an unlikely life. Even as a kid, did you ever think my sense of humor might sustain me in life and I'll never have to grow up?
- [16:06]
John Irving
No.
- [16:07]
Dave Barry
And that is. Thank you for that is really kind of the ultimate message of the book is that I had the most ridiculously wonderful life. I really have. It's been absolutely amazing. I have not done anything important with my life for the last 50 years. Just basically do whatever I want, write about whatever I want, meet wonderful People like you by making jokes. And if you had asked me when I was 10, you know, is that what you'd like to do? I would say yes. But When I was 10, it never occurred to me that you could do anything like that. I didn't know anybody who did anything like that. So until I was in my 30s, I really didn't think that was going to ever be me. I, you know, I was always doing something else, you know, as in the newspaper business, whatever. But I could just be funny. I could just make, make jokes. But it's just the way it worked out kind of organically. That's what I ended up doing. I, I ended up being able to joke my way through life, which I.
- [17:00]
Kate Gibson
Think that's great, by the way. They don't say that at career day. They don't say you can just be funny and someday somebody will give you the keys to the Oscar wiener mobile so that you can pick up your son in middle school. Like, nobody does that.
- [17:12]
Dave Barry
Nobody ever says, I was explicitly told multiple times as a young man because I was a wise ass in school. You cannot joke your way through life, you know, but you can.
- [17:24]
Charlie Gibson
Yeah. He's written thousands of newspaper columns which were circulated around the country. Wrote basically for the Miami Herald, but the. I think there were hundreds of newspapers that had syndicated his column. And if you go on, where do you find it? You find it, I guess on YouTube. His end of the year summation when he writes about what the past year has been like. You gotta Google Dave Barry and year end reviews, because they are.
- [17:55]
Kate Gibson
It's become sort of a Gibson tradition that my father reads them to us.
- [17:58]
Charlie Gibson
Yeah. Oh, they're so funny.
- [18:00]
Kate Gibson
Mostly because he reads them and then he starts cackling like a fool and then we all go, wait, what, what, what? And then he starts reading it to us. And I think it happens almost spontaneously every year that he reads it to us. But that's become part of the Gibson family New Year's tradition.
- [18:15]
Charlie Gibson
So now Dave are writes books, having written hundreds, as I say, newspaper columns and wonderful, wonderful year end reviews that you need. You must read Joanne Harris, who wrote such a wonderful book 25 years ago, Chocolat, about the character of Vienne, Vienne Rocher and her adventures in creating chocolate delicacies. And the new book is called simply Vienne V I A N N E. I guess you'd say Vianne here, but it's Viej in the in or Vail.
- [18:50]
Kate Gibson
If we're going to get Cajun with it. You know, there's so many ways.
- [18:53]
Charlie Gibson
So the book is a prequel to Chocolat. You don't have to have read Chocolat or seen the movie to enjoy Viand. There's a wonderful lightness of being to her writing. It floats above the ground. It's. It is, as I say, it has a wonderful, wonderful effervescence to it. And Vienne comes to. Her mother dies. A terribly influential mother. Her mother dies. Vienne comes to Marseille and has to find her way with a mother who tried to inculcate in Vienne the idea that you never want to be in one place for too long, that society will sort of catch up to you. And yet Viana is pregnant with her own daughter and wonders whether she should adopt the same kind of lifestyle, sort of nomadic, or whether she should settle down. It's a lovely, lovely book. So as we talked to Joanne Harris, one of the things we asked her is, well, you'll hear Katie's question. She's created this character. Can the character surprise her?
- [19:50]
Kate Gibson
Joanne Harris, you've spent so much time with this protagonist. You've written in her voice. As a matter of fact, this is not a novel written from multiple perspectives. This is Vianne and her voice from sort of start to finish. And so you spent so much time with her. Does she still surprise you? And how did she surprise you in this book?
- [20:08]
Joanne Harris
If so, I think people always surprise us, don't they? It doesn't matter how long we've known somebody, they always have the potential to surprise. And I think this is true of fictional people just as much as it's true of real people. And it has to be, because if we are to believe in these characters, then we have to believe on some level in their reality, in the world that they inhabit. And, yeah, I was quite surprised by a lot of Vian's backstory, because I didn't plan it out. 27 years ago When I wrote Chocolat, I just thought, right, this is a story, basically, this is a western. This is a story about a woman with no name who comes into a village, picks a fight with the man in the black hat, creates a showdown, and then leaves. There will be no other stories about her and we will never know where she came from. End of it didn't quite work out that way. Over the years, I found that Vian kept returning to me with other stories and more details of her life until eventually it wasn't tenable anymore for her to have no past. But, yeah, I mean, that's basically how it happened. So, yeah, a lot of things surprised me about Fian. Initially, what really surprised me was the fact that she knows nothing about chocolate. When the book starts, I'd always kind of figured that maybe her mother taught her about chocolate and that maybe that was something in her mother's story. It turns out that it was somebody else completely.
- [21:35]
Kate Gibson
Vianne or Vayan or Vienne or however you want to pronounce it. It's a lovely book. It's a cozy book. Normally, books that are attempting to be cozy fail for me. There's a certain coziness to Louise Penny's writing that I find very appealing that I think of a little bit when I think of Joanne Harris's writing. Cause, you know, these books are a little bit like a cup of hot cocoa on a cold day after you come in playing from the snow. I have to say, like, usually when I read books like that, I'm like, oh, but this book really was. It was a warm book. That's the best way I can think of how to describe it. Plus, you'll want to eat all the chocolate in the world after you read it.
- [22:15]
Charlie Gibson
And I think Van is a wonderful, wonderful character. So those are the books we agree on. Virginia Evans and the Correspondent. I would recommend to you Sophie Elmer's book Marriage at Sea and Joanne Harris's Vion and Kate would recommend Leigh Bardugo's.
- [22:31]
Kate Gibson
Duology, the Six of Crows and the Crooked Kingdom about to be re released. Because they are 10 years old. I would highly recommend checking them out all ages.
- [22:40]
Charlie Gibson
Just wonderful fantasy that I even liked.
- [22:45]
Kate Gibson
Which is saying something that is a big bar, a huge bar, giant like long Jump bar. And then the other one that I would recommend is Dave Barry's Class Clown. Because like I say, if Dave Barry doesn't make you laugh, I don't think I want to know you.
- [22:59]
Charlie Gibson
So we have. And we have good authors coming up. I want to make one mention. John Irving has a new book coming out. It'll come out in November. So this is way premature, but we have already talked to John about Queen Esther, which is his new book. And one of the things he told us that I thought was really interesting, Kate, was how writers and people who know they want to be writers are sort of detached from the world.
- [23:24]
John Irving
When you know you want to be a writer and you're only a teenager, when you're already trying to be a writer of fiction, you're living at a formative age. You're living more in your imagination than you are in and of the moment. I take myself as an example that writers in their own lives, certainly in my case, often feel they are more of an observer than they are a participant in the time they live. You feel that you are standing back and watching something and taking it to mind and holding it more than you are participating in what is going on. Your job is to see what's going on, to retain it, to mull it over even before you know it's a job, even before you're writing. Every day you're not quite there. Wherever there is, wherever you are, there's a part of you that isn't there. There's a part of you who's more interested in him or her because they've been there longer, they know where they are. And so you're kind of a bystander. You often feel like you're a bystander to your own life or I did.
- [24:38]
Kate Gibson
You know, that John Irving clip reminds me of one of the first times we talked to him, and he talked about the fact that for the first few weeks of writing, all he really does is stare out a window and think and think and think and think. And then that reminded me a little bit of Leigh Bardugo. When we talked to her, she said, your job is to write while you're doing other things. Set up a question that you can think about throughout the day while you're doing other things, that you can start there when you sit down to write. There's no one way to do it. But I like John's way and I like Lee's way.
- [25:08]
Charlie Gibson
But it brings back the idea that there is no cookie cutter way to write a novel. And we have had so many different approaches outlined for us by the writers that we've talked to. The second thing I would mention, I can't get over how smart writers are. I think everyone that we've talked to, I've been really impressed. For Lee, you just mentioned Leigh Bardugo. As you know, I'm somewhat skeptical of fantasy. She convinced me a lot in what she talked about. And I thought, my goodness, she's smart. I've really enjoyed talking to her. So we've had treats in that regard.
- [25:47]
Kate Gibson
When she talked about world building in an article that I read, she rattled off all this terrific literature. The Midnight of the Garden of Good and Evil, the Annie Prolux book, the Shipping News. She's right. Great novels create worlds. And actually it's something that, now that I think about it, it's something that John Irving does. You know, he's got such quirky characters and strange situations, and yet somehow when you're reading about them, you're like, oh yeah. And then the bear walked into the scene and he had some bacon. Like you'll buy it because he's done such a fantastic job of building this sort of strange, quirky world and basing it in real human emotions. In reality, it takes a lot of talent.
- [26:25]
Charlie Gibson
So anyway, those are the recommendations that we would have for you. Great books that we think have come out of the summer. We don't necessarily follow the best selling lists. We find books that we just think look really interesting. As I say, if we like them, we do them on the podcast. The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie will take a break. When we come back. A Bookstore.
- [26:50]
Dave Barry
The holidays can get hectic and having Omaha Steaks in my freezer has been a total game changer. I recently cooked up their filet mignons, incredibly tender, juicy and packed with flavor. From weeknight dinners to holiday hosting, Omaha Steaks makes it easy. Right now. During their early Black Friday sale, get 50% off site wide plus an extra 20% off select favorites. Save big with Omaha steaks. Visit Omaha steaks.com for 50% off site wide and an extra 20% off select favorites during their early Black Friday sale. And for an extra $35 off use promo code Flavor at checkout Term supply. See site for details. That's 50% off at Omaha steaks.com promo code flavor@ checkout I'm John Quinones. Vanessa Guillen, a 20 year old soldier vanishes while on duty at an army base in Texas. Her family demands answers.
- [27:44]
Kate Gibson
How can she go missing on a military base? That's too ridiculous.
- [27:48]
John Irving
The search goes on for months.
- [27:55]
Charlie Gibson
And.
- [27:55]
John Irving
A dark story starts to unfold.
- [27:59]
Kate Gibson
She told her family that she was being sexually harassed and wasn't reporting it.
- [28:04]
Lauren King
Out of fear of retribution and retaliation.
- [28:07]
John Irving
What investigators finally uncovered is horrifying.
- [28:12]
Dave Barry
Find out how one soldier, a beloved.
- [28:15]
John Irving
Sister and daughter ignited a movement and sparked a reckoning in the US Military. Listen to Vanished what Happened to Vanessa, a new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Listen now wherever you get your podcast.
- [28:40]
Kate Gibson
So our bookstore this week comes from an unusual source. We have a terrific producer at gma. If you've ever seen our pieces on gma, and really you should because we're amazing. We're probably the reason that their ratings are so good. But one of the reasons we are so good on GMA is Amanda McMaster, who is a very talented tape producer and she wrote me and said, I have a bookstore opening in my town that I would like you to look into because it has now become my local and I often do what Amanda McMaster tells me to do. So we reached out to the two owners, Lauren and Kate, and they are terrific. And they've just opened and they don't seem to be a deer caught in headlights. They seem to just be really excited to be on the scene.
- [29:24]
Charlie Gibson
The name is the Cranford Bookstore. It's in Cranford, New Jersey. Kate Lyden and Lauren King. They've taken the leap. They opened in early September and so far things seem to be going well. Lauren King, Kate Lyden, it's good to have you with us. We wish you well. This is a brand new bookstore, the Cranford Bookstore. When did you open? How's it going?
- [29:50]
Lauren King
We opened September 6th. It is going really well. We have a phenomenally supportive local community in General, which is 100% why we wanted to open a bookstore here.
- [30:06]
Charlie Gibson
Why did you think there was a need for it and what kind of a goal did you set for yourself in opening it?
- [30:12]
Kate Lyden
Kate, good questions. Yeah, we set a goal for fall in terms of time frame and opening it. Really trying to push to start selling books. I have had experience volunteering at the Asbury Park Book Cooperative. I was a treasurer for them for a few years, helped get them off the ground. So then went into this eyes wide open in terms of the money. And you know, as soon as we could start selling books, we, we wanted to. So we really kind of pushed through. We didn't have a ton to do in this space.
- [30:44]
Kate Gibson
Which one of you talked the other into doing this?
- [30:48]
Lauren King
Well, I think it's something that we all have kind of talked about in our circle of friends, of doing. And it was daunting. And last, I guess it was last summer we were chit chatting with the owner of a local coffee shop and he said, you know what Cranford needs is a bookstore. And we were like, yeah, we've been saying this for seven years. We want one too. There's an independent theater here that sells thrives. There's so much foot traffic and Kate and I kind of just, we're like, let's, let's do this. Let's try it. We started online and doing popups. We did story time popups and book sales on Saturdays at a local bakery. And the owners were so kind and were like, please use our space. Which just epitomizes the type of town.
- [31:39]
Kate Lyden
That this is doing pop ups. We, like Lauren said we did them in a bakery pretty regularly with a story time. And then we also did A Christmas market in 2024 and we didn't know what to bring and sometimes just buying things because they want the bookstore to thrive. And so, so our, our need for inventory will change over time when people are like, oh, I actually just want this book. But that went well and the pop ups enabled us to establish our branding, our logo, the feel of the book we wanted to sell and to understand that people really, there was a demand for it. So yeah, that would be advice for someone who's looking to do probably any open any thing. Just try to like get going as much as you can.
- [32:32]
Lauren King
We really rely on our community because we don't have like a corporation telling us what we need to have. So this summer we spent a lot of time asking people like at the pools, on the street, at parties, and what are you reading? What do you like? And you know, true crime, fantasy, romantasy, nonfiction, fiction and then in those different genres, what people are looking for. And then our middle grade readers are so super voracious. Our we, our YA oh my gosh, we have these groups of kids who come in after school because that's the type of town and they're already, you know, they come in and given us lists of books to order and here's what we like and here's what's on booktok and we love it and we need it.
- [33:20]
Charlie Gibson
We talked to the owner of the Andover Bookstore in Andover, Mass. Which is the longest independent running bookstore in the country going back to 1809. And he, he said his father told him when he took over the store, owning a bookstore is a great life. It's not a great living. What is your expectations in terms of what you want the bookstore to be able to do?
- [33:40]
Lauren King
I was a New York City public school teacher, so I don't think I've ever been in a business where I think going to earn generational wealth.
- [33:51]
Charlie Gibson
Tell me about opening day.
- [33:52]
Lauren King
Oh my gosh, it was incredible. We had people waiting outside, which was so sweet.
- [34:02]
Kate Lyden
Yeah.
- [34:02]
Lauren King
At one point like we peeked out and there was a pile of bicycles and strollers and I think we had 700 people in here on Saturday of opening day. Yeah.
- [34:17]
Kate Lyden
And it's a small space, it's only a thousand square feet. You know, we had a line all the, we frantically, all working to check people out. We had a line, a line all the way back to the back of the store. And no one was phased at, no one minded waiting. Everyone was just so happy to be in the store and so, you know, thrilled to welcome us. But in Terms of being prepared. I, I, we, we just. Again, advice to future new bookstore owners. Just more books.
- [34:48]
Kate Gibson
When I worked on the floor of a bookstore, there were two or three books that I would be so excited about selling that I would literally call home and say, I sold one of those today. So I was wondering if each one of you could give me the two titles that you get really excited when you get them off the shelves.
- [35:05]
Kate Lyden
You're going to be mad because I'm going to take one of yours. We both agree on Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goonspot Squad. Love recommending that one. Such a great book.
- [35:14]
Kate Gibson
Love that book. Love the candy house, too. Love the candy house too.
- [35:18]
Kate Lyden
There we are.
- [35:18]
Kate Gibson
We had her on the show for. We had her on the show for that. I love her writing. So innovative and interesting. Yeah.
- [35:24]
Lauren King
So cool.
- [35:25]
Kate Lyden
And then what would the second one be? I love Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. That book has really stuck with me. And I like a historical fiction, but I recommend that to anyone who I get the sense they like a historical fiction. The books stayed with me.
- [35:45]
Kate Gibson
All right, Lauren, yours.
- [35:47]
Lauren King
Okay. So I was an English teacher, so this feels like picking a favorite child. So it really does depend on the mood and what people are looking for. So for me, like, nonfiction is Patti Smith's Just Kids. I just feel like the way that she captures that moment in time in New York City is so beautiful. Beautiful and incredible right now. I just finished reading Rawls the Compound, and I've been describing it to people as the Bachelor meets the Hunger Games. And so when people are intrigued by that and buy it, it feels really good. I think for me, it's like, whatever. When somebody finds something that they're interested in reading, that's what excites me so much. And that's what I love about reading, because we all come with these different experiences, and then we're reading the same thing and building a community within that.
- [36:43]
Charlie Gibson
We thank you ever so much.
- [36:45]
Kate Gibson
Congratulations on the opening. Yay.
- [36:48]
Charlie Gibson
Gil.
- [36:48]
Kate Lyden
We appreciate you. Thanks for all you do.
- [36:55]
Kate Gibson
All right, so Amanda can stop being all pushy now. We talked to her local. She's so pushy and demanding. But we thank her for introducing us to Lauren and Kate of the Cranford Bookstore.
- [37:05]
Charlie Gibson
But, you know, it's nice the way you put that. People have their local, and I normally associate that with having a local bar, but it's also having a local bookstore as well. Yeah.
- [37:16]
Kate Gibson
Anyway, they feel possessive about it. They'll say, my bookstore.
- [37:19]
Charlie Gibson
Yeah, sure. The Cranford Bookstore.
- [37:21]
Kate Gibson
They'll say my bookstore where I shop. It's a piece of their community.
- [37:25]
Charlie Gibson
And if nothing else in this podcast over the four years, use your local bookstore. It's a really, really important asset to your community. We'll catch you up on the people who make this podcast possible and we'll end with that. Since we have no coda. We have no coda.
- [37:42]
Kate Gibson
We'll be codalist this week, but you'll.
- [37:44]
Charlie Gibson
Hear Amanda's name again in the credits.
- [37:47]
Kate Gibson
The book Case with Keaton Charlie Gibson is a production of ABC Audio and Good Morning America. It is edited by Tom Butler of T KO Productions. Our Executive producer is Simone Swink. We want to make mention of Amanda McMaster, Sabrina Kohlberg, Arielle Chester at Good Morning America, and Josh Cohan from ABC Audio. Follow the bookcase wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to listen, rate and review. If you'd like to find any of the books mentioned in this episode, we have them linked in the episode Description this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive. Com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.