We Explore How to Write a Book

Summary

The Book Case: Episode Summary – "We Explore How to Write a Book"

In the January 2, 2025 release of The Book Case, hosts Kate and Charlie Gibson delve deep into the intricate world of writing a book. This episode serves as both a guide and an exploration of the diverse methodologies employed by successful authors. Through insightful interviews and engaging discussions, the episode offers aspiring writers a comprehensive look into the craft of writing, highlighting key aspects such as overcoming self-doubt, character development, plotting strategies, dialogue creation, and the importance of editing.

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1. Introduction: Setting the Stage for the Year Ahead

The episode kicks off with Kate and Charlie celebrating the New Year, expressing their excitement about a full year of programming. Charlie remarks, "We got a full year of programs planned out" (00:37), setting a positive and enthusiastic tone for the discussions to follow.

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2. Evolving Into a Masterclass in Writing

Kate reflects on the podcast's journey, acknowledging its transformation into a comprehensive masterclass on writing. She states, "There is no single way to go about writing a novel or even a work of nonfiction" (01:43). This realization underscores the podcast's role in showcasing diverse writing styles and techniques from various authors.

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3. Confronting Self-Doubt in the Writing Process

A significant portion of the episode addresses the pervasive self-doubt that writers face. Jay Ryan Straddle, the podcast's writer-in-residence, shares poignant insights:

"There are three major moments of self doubt when you're writing a novel. I would say, one, the very, very beginning, two, the very, very end. And three, every single moment in between, it's impossible to write a book and not constantly be telling yourself what a fraud you are." (02:35)

Kate offers encouragement to aspiring writers grappling with self-doubt:

"Even the best of the best question whether or not they're very good." (02:09)

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4. The Primacy of Character Over Plot

One of the central themes discussed is the importance of character development over plot intricacies. Jay Ryan Straddle emphasizes:

"Character, character, character. Why do I care? Why do I want to keep reading?" (05:02)

This sentiment aligns with Richard Osmond's perspective, reinforcing the idea that compelling characters drive a story's emotional resonance, making plot details secondary.

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5. Approaches to Writing: Plotters vs. Pantsers

The episode explores two primary writing methodologies: plotting and "pantser" (writing by the seat of one's pants). Authors Niall Williams and Amor Towles provide contrasting views:

Niall Williams – The Pantsing Approach:

"I think that for me, the fun of it is that the pleasure is in feeling that the story is out there and it's coming toward me as I'm doing, going toward it." (11:24)

Williams describes his organic process, allowing the story to unfold naturally without a rigid outline.

Amor Towles – The Plotter’s Blueprint:

"When I'm writing a story ... I have a sense of the scaffolding of what the longer story would be." (12:44)

Towles details his meticulous planning, sketching out characters, settings, and philosophical components before penning the narrative.

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6. Crafting Meaningful Dialogue

Dialogue emerges as a critical element in character development and storytelling. The hosts discuss how dialogue not only conveys information but also reveals character nuances. Joseph Cannon emphasizes:

"The moment somebody opens his mouth, he's beginning to reveal his character." (16:11)

Elizabeth Strout adds depth to this discussion:

"Good conversation is one of the major forms of currency and it is great to be around." (16:14)

These perspectives highlight the role of dialogue in building believable and relatable characters.

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7. The Value of Short Stories in Developing Craft

The conversation shifts to the merits of writing short stories as a foundational step for aspiring novelists. Ben Shattuck shares his philosophy:

"Short stories ... mirror what lives are like ... that incomplete quality ... mirrors ... my life." (17:29)

Amor Towles complements this by explaining:

"Short stories are like, here we go ... we are willing to see what happens." (18:28)

The consensus is that short stories allow writers to hone their craft, experiment with styles, and explore the human condition without the commitment of a full-length novel.

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8. Writing Routines and the Editing Process

Understanding the discipline behind writing, the hosts explore various authors' daily routines and approaches to editing:

Niall Williams on Writing Routines:

"I have a young son who has to be put to bed before he writes." (19:13)

Williams also shares his unique method of writing one page a day, stopping in the middle of a sentence to maintain momentum.

Editing Practices: Authors like John Irving and Anna Quindlen discuss their iterative editing processes, while Thanh Thuan Ng provides a glimpse into a more solitary and meticulous editing routine, emphasizing the importance of refining each word and sentence to perfection.

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9. Final Insights: Embracing the Joy of Creation

The episode concludes with heartfelt reflections on the joy and fulfillment that writing brings to authors. Ann Patchett articulates:

"It means to be a novelist, to be able to make things up and be convincing and to be profoundly interested." (23:24)

Louise Penny encapsulates the essence of writing:

"We can do anything. It's the best job ever." (23:40)

Kate and Charlie echo these sentiments, urging listeners to embrace their stories and engage in the creative process despite its challenges:

"If you have stories to tell, tell them, write them, do it." (24:06)

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10. Recommendations and Closing Remarks

To aid aspiring writers, the hosts recommend essential readings:

• Stephen King’s On Writing – A timeless guide that elucidates the craft with clarity.
• Ann Patchett’s The Annotated Bel Canto – An introspective look into her acclaimed novel, offering critical examinations and insights.

In homage to Louise Penny's final thoughts, the episode wraps with an inspiring quote:

"Reading the Bookcase is a production of ABC Audio..."

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Key Takeaways:

• Self-Doubt is Universal: Even renowned authors experience self-doubt, which is a natural part of the writing journey.
• Character Trumps Plot: Engaging characters are essential for compelling storytelling, often more so than the plot itself.
• Two Paths to Writing: Writers may choose between meticulously plotting their narratives or allowing the story to unfold organically.
• Dialogue is Crucial: Well-crafted dialogue reveals character depth and drives the narrative forward.
• Start Small: Writing short stories can be an effective way to develop writing skills before tackling a novel.
• Establish a Routine: Consistent writing habits and disciplined editing practices are key to producing quality work.
• Embrace Creativity: Writing offers unparalleled opportunities to explore, experiment, and express the human experience.

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This episode of The Book Case not only demystifies the process of writing a book but also serves as an encouraging beacon for writers at all stages of their creative journeys. By sharing authentic experiences and diverse perspectives, Kate and Charlie Gibson provide valuable insights that inspire and guide aspiring authors toward achieving their literary aspirations.

Transcript

[Kate]

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[Charlie]

Well, welcome bookcasers. It's a happy new year. Happy new year. And we're gonna be with you all year long. We got a full year of programs planned out.

[Kate]

Wow, is he peppy.

[Charlie]

It is.

[Kate]

It's 2025. We're apparently very excited about it. No, we're always excited as the new year begins that you continue to welcome us into your listening library. We are the bookcase and I am the Kate part of the Kate and Charlie part.

[Charlie]

And we have often said in the two and a half we've been doing this podcast that when we set out, we knew we wanted to talk about books that we admired, talking to first rate authors, and that our purpose was hopefully, hopefully to encourage people to read and read books that both of us could endorse. We are not literary snobs. I think we proved that week in and week out, we're just a father and daughter who love to read.

[Kate]

And so what has become an unintended consequence is that the podcast has become sort of a masterclass in writing and to some extent a masterclass in reading as well. We feel as if at this point we have a good idea of how some of the best authors approach their craft. And among other things that we probably should have known from the start, there is no single way to go about writing a novel or even a work of nonfiction.

[Charlie]

So we might call this week's podcast how to Write a Book. Although we won't presume to tell anyone how to do it, we've let the authors with whom we have had the pleasure of talking, even just in the past year, give us their thoughts and describe their best practices. So even if you have no ambition to do what they do, and believe me, Kate and I don't, we find it really interesting to delve into their methods and to read a book with those methods in mind.

[Kate]

And I hope, I hope in the back of my mind that we have aspiring writers who are our listeners and if you approach the task with some self doubt, with the question of who am I to write a book? Who am I to write Anything anyone might write a read, take heart, because even the best of the best question whether or not they're very good. And example A is Richard Osmond, who's written the four books about the Thursday Murder Club. And these are wonderful books that have legions of fans. And he still has doubt.

[Jay Ryan Straddle]

There are three major moments of self doubt when you're writing a novel. I would say, one, the very, very beginning, two, the very, very end. And three, every single moment in between, it's impossible to write a book and not constantly be telling yourself what a fraud you are.

[Kate]

Our writer in residence, Jay Ryan Straddle.

[Charlie]

I still feel like every time I sit down to write a novel, I'm writing my debut novel over again. You sit down and you look at Microsoft Word document 1, that blank paper, and you go, wait a second. How do I do this again? Now, some writers have told us, not in a boastful way, that good writing is a gift. It comes naturally, and you have to be driven to write. Danzi Senna, who's author of the recent bestseller Colored Television.

[Elizabeth Strout]

Yeah, I mean, it's a compulsion to be a writer. And I've done it since I was very little. And so I think part of it is that I love stories and disappearing into stories, because you sort of live two lives when you're a writer. You get to be thinking about the family in this book, even as you're dealing with your real family. And that's a kind of release. But I think also just the sense of erasure, the sense of invisibility that was always there for me growing up was part of the inspiration to be a writer.

[Charlie]

Or Louise Penny, the author of so Many Great Gamache Mysteries set in Three Pines, Quebec. And she looks at writing a little bit like composing music.

[Elizabeth Strout]

I think of it as a symphony, which I do, but there's also a lot of similarities to art, to painting. And so it's very hard to say where a book starts, because I have notebooks and sometimes I just make notes. Sometimes it's a word, sometimes it's a phrase from poetry, sometimes it's a clipping from a newspaper. And I just make notes of all of these things, and it becomes like a pointillist work of art. And then eventually an image begins to appear, and I can begin to see it and imagine the conversations. And little by little, it. It gels, it comes together. So rarely is it one single thing.

[Charlie]

If you asked us two years ago what we thought authors would say is the most important thing for their writing, they'd say Plot. And a few have, but the vast majority say characters. Again, Richard Osmond.

[Jay Ryan Straddle]

And as always, when I start writing books, to me, characters are the only thing. Plot is kind of fine, but plot is secondary. It's character, character, character. Why do I care? Why do I want to keep reading? Why do you know, you can put characters in all the jeopardy you want, but if you don't care about them, where's the jeopardy? There isn't any. But honestly, when people worry about plot, if people are sitting at home writing a first novel or something now, I think we fetishize plot, and I think it's much less important than character, characterization, people's motivations, believability of a world, all of those things. And a plot can plot along underneath that. As long as you've got a resolution at the end of it, it doesn't have to be the be all and end all. If I said to you, the last 10 mystery novels you read, tell me about the plot, I can almost guarantee you would not be able to tell me the plot, even the killer, in a lot of them. Whereas you would be able to tell me how they made you feel, and you would be able to tell me a favorite character or a favorite scene in those books. And so I think that plot is one of those things that it's lovely to have, but it's meaningless without people you want to be spending a journey with.

[Kate]

One of the things I'm always fascinated by in our conversations is authors get to know their characters. I mean, you can describe them all you want, their physical features, how they smell, but that doesn't convey really who they are on the inside. Ann Patchett here is talking about Roxanne in Bel Canto.

[Elizabeth Strout]

It's not that I'm thinking, what detail can I show about a character to make sure the character is believable to the reader? It's, I believe in this person and their humanity, and I see the smallness of their gestures. There's a moment in which Roxanne is walking down a hallway and she just holds out her hands. I don't even know who it's to, but she sees someone and reaches forward with her hands, and I think that's who she is. It's expansive and it's warm, and it's not the other person coming towards her saying, she's expansive and she's warm. It's that she's holding her open hands to them.

[Charlie]

Or again, our writer in residence on the podcast, Jay Ryan Straddle. Because if a character doesn't have Consistency, you know, the reader's going to lose focus. The reader's going to start asking questions you don't want them to ask. And you get consistency through knowledge, through educating yourself about this character and knowing within yourself as the writer what their boundaries and inner workings are, whether or not you ever express them. I think as a writer I can sometimes be a little guilty of wanting to over explain when I think. At my best, I realize the benefit in using the reader's imagination to my advantage.

[Kate]

And finally, Elizabeth Strout, who's written of Olive Kittredge and Lucy Barton in her new book Tell Me Everything, and she makes it clear that it's not just characters, gestures that show you who they are, but it's also about how they engage in relationships.

[Elizabeth Strout]

I think for me, what I'm trying to uncover is more and more the central question, not only how well can we know other people, but how well can we know ourselves? Because we are in relation to other people and other people are going to see us in a certain way, and that's not necessarily how we see ourselves.

[Kate]

So how do they make it all come together to make the prose flow, keep the reader engaged and have it all seem natural? Well, we thought Kaveh Akbar had a unique insight on that. Akbar is a much published poet who recently wrote his first novel, Martyr, and did so to great acclaim. We loved it. So what factors does a poet have to keep in mind as he writes a novel? Well, this is good first advice for any novelist.

[Kaveh Akbar]

I can't speak for all poets, but I can say it was extraordinarily difficult for me. You know, the fact that there's 85,000 words in this book compared to, you know, 10,000 or 20,000 in a book of poetry, doesn't mean that I can care eight times less about each word. In fact, every word reverberates and has to have a relationship to every other word. You know, what you say on page 50 still matters on page 250 in a way that is not one to one with poetry. And actually, for what it's worth, I think that writing poetry is. It feels to me. Again, I don't mean to make like sweeping generalizations or pronouncements about the nature of poetry, but to me it seems more akin to dance or to statuary than to writing fiction. And I think that fiction, because I can write interesting sounding sentences and put them in the mouths of people and have them, you know, volley them back and forth forever, right? But figuring out how they got into the room together, figuring out what they're doing with their hands while they volley these sentences back together, you know, figuring out how they paid for the meal, right. You know, and introducing that information in a sort of organic way that doesn't feel like, you know, I have this conversation and then like two blocks of exposition before and after it. You know, if you read Nabokov or Morrison or you know, when you read the real Titans, right. All of that stuff is utterly invisible. You know, you're just so swept along, right. By their propulsivity and by the enchantment of their language, right. You know, you can be swept along rhythmically or narratively, but one way or the other or both, and the greats do both. And all of this labor is completely invisible. But when that labor isn't done, it's the most obvious thing in the world. You're just reading this starchy dead fish paragraph, right? And so I didn't assume the hubris of knowing that because I had spent my life learning how to write poetry, I would immediately be able to write a novel. You know, I read two novels a week and watched a movie a day to just sort of ivy drip narrative into myself through the duration of working on this novel, right? To just understand how people buy their plane tickets and how that information is given to the reader in a not ham fisted way, right? Figuring out how people walk through doorways and what people do after conversations. And you see what I'm saying, like, this was the stuff that one never has to think about in a piece of lyric poetry.

[Kate]

But the novelist does have to have that kind of stuff very much in mind.

[Charlie]

And so over the two years, we got to know a question that we'd never thought of particularly, are they plotters or do they make it up as they go along?

[Kate]

Niel Williams, one of our favorites is a Seat of the Pants Writer. And he says he starts with a simple sentence and looks at the process as if he were putting a thread through a needle. And then each day he draws that thread a little further through until he has a novel. Well, I'll just let him say it.

[Niall Williams]

I think that for me, the fun of it is that the pleasure is in feeling that the story is out there and it's coming toward me as I'm doing, going toward it. I think primarily I am writing to tell myself the story. I'm writing the kind of book that I want to read and I'm the first reader, and I'm also the first writer. So therefore there's a sort of I'm in the world of the book completely. And I'm in the shoes of each of the characters and in their skin and trying to be the other person. So for me, that's the joy of it. I trust that the story is there and that I just have to stay true to each sentence and try to write a good sentence each time and that I will get there. So no, I know there is trepidation for sure. I am constantly full of doubt. Is it any good? Is this working or not? I don't know, but I'm interested to see what happens next. And so that's how I write it.

[Kate]

A famous detail plotter, Amor Toles, who wrote the Gentleman in Moscow, the Lincoln highway, and most recently, Table for Two. He has it all in mind before he writes word one.

[Amor Towles]

When I'm writing a story or when I have an idea for a story, when I have an idea for a novel I've been writing since I was a kid, it comes very fast. It's very simple premise. A guy gets trapped in a hotel for a long period of time. You know, that was the sentence I started with, for a gentleman in Moscow. That was it. But when I have an idea like that very quickly, I have a sense of the scaffolding of what the longer story would be. So in that case, having had this sort of idea of a guy trapped in a hotel within, I don't know, two hours, I was like, okay, could be set in Russia, he's an aristocrat, he's sentenced to house arrest, he'll become a waiter, there'll be a young girl he befriends in the hotel. The story will last from the revolution up to the Cold War and all that is kind of really rapidly. But then I'll spend a couple of years designing the book before I write it, where I start to imagine all of the story and all of its intricacy. The settings, the people, the events, the tone of it, some of the philosophical components. That's all being sketched out by hand in hand and notebooks over a period of years before I write the outline and start chapter one. You know, that's tends to be the way I work.

[Charlie]

Let's pause for just a moment, take a break, and we want to come back and talk to you some more. Oh, such a clutch off season pickup, Dave. I was worried we'd bring back the same team. I meant Those blackout motorized shades.com made it crazy affordable to replace our old blinds.

[Kaveh Akbar]

Hard to install?

[Charlie]

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[Ben Shattuck]

And get up to 40% off select.

[Niall Williams]

Styles plus a free professional measure. Rules and restrictions may apply.

[Kaveh Akbar]

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[Charlie]

Okay, so you have an idea for a book. You're either carefully plotting it out or you're going to trust yourself to follow your own narrative, wherever it may take you. You've got in mind all the necessary skills that were outlined by Kaveh Akbar. But what's next? Dialogue. Joseph Cannon his new book is Shanghai. You have to care a lot about dialogue, and I do. Some writers don't. Some writers find it's more easy to use prose to get across what they want. My own theory about this is that the moment somebody opens his mouth, he's beginning to reveal his character. And I I've just always been drawn to it.

[Kate]

Tana French, the great Irish mystery novelist.

[Elizabeth Strout]

Good conversation is one of the major forms of currency and it is great to be around. It's one of the things I love about being here. It's just the creativity as well with language, not just how much the banter has to be fast and flow and keep going, but. But also the insults here are incredibly creative.

[Kate]

I love them.

[Charlie]

Anna Quinlan, whose latest book is After Annie.

[Elizabeth Strout]

I'm not going to write a long, discursive, descriptive beginning. It's not how I Operate anyhow, you know, I like to get to dialogue pretty quickly because I feel like that's where a lot of the action is.

[Kate]

But.

[Charlie]

But I don't really think is this.

[Elizabeth Strout]

Going to grab the reader?

[Charlie]

Although if there's a first sentence that's.

[Elizabeth Strout]

Going to grab a reader or put a reader off, it's the first sentence of this book.

[Kate]

So many of our guests have said on the podcast that if you're truly starting out, rather than jumping right into a novel, it might be better to begin writing short stories. It's a good way to develop the craft.

[Charlie]

Ben Shattuck wrote the wonderful collection of short stories entitled the History of Sound, and he has, I think, a really great way of summing up the difference between long fiction, a novel, and short what exactly does a writer owe the reader, especially in an ending?

[Ben Shattuck]

I think I'm looking for a tie up that feels almost like if you're walking in a landscape and you pause because you're so overwhelmed by it. If this is an ending, if this is a very good short story, and it's not like you've ended the walk back at home, but you've ended by pitching your head back and looking at a beautiful cloud passing overhead, it feels like a moment of completion or a moment of reaching something. And you know, the short stories that I've written in them, I think that as I was saying, that incomplete quality, that quality of not having resolution really mirrors what lives are like. At least what my life has been like. You know, my dad, he's 73 and he always talks about that. He feels as confused now as he did when he was 25. He hasn't figured anything out. He says, you know, and I love that. And I think when you're writing stories, one of the things that I try to resist is to not make it feel too tied up and too complete because that doesn't seem. That's not my experience in life.

[Charlie]

And again, Amor Toles, another writer who writes great short stories and did so this past year.

[Amor Towles]

Novels are about preparing you, orienting you, informing you. Short stories are like, here we go. You know, the story has begun and now where am I?

[Kate]

Who is this?

[Amor Towles]

And you know, and I think that when a 15 page story, we're okay with that, right? We are willing to see what happens. And we kind of know we're not going to get the person's whole life. We're not going to get every explanation, we're not going to get tons of evolution. We're going to get a glimpse in the Human condition, a moment in the human condition which may resonate with us and sort of rhyme with something that's happened to us in our own lives, and that we can therefore imagine the bigger architecture that is around this little moment. And the author only gives us the moment. That's all they have to do if it's well rendered, because we can see the rest, you know, through the lens of our experiences.

[Kate]

So then there's the issue of how and when writers write. Each seems to have a distinct discipline and ritual. J. Ryan Straddle writes at the end of the day. He has a young son who has to be put to bed before he writes. So that's a proper priority, we think.

[Charlie]

But most writers we've spoken with write early in the day. Niall Williams, for instance, two pages early, no more. The story is with him throughout the rest of the day. But today and each day, just two pages.

[Kate]

But there are two authors who stood out as having rituals that fascinated us. This is Erik Larson, who writes nonfiction, including his latest, the terrific Demon of Unrest.

[Niall Williams]

I always start at the beginning, and I generally know what my beginnings are going to be, and I generally know what my endings are going to be. So, so, so I start at the beginning. I go into what I refer to as page a day mode. One page, that's it. The rest of the day is research and one page. But I always stopped that page in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a paragraph. Even if I know that I could go on for five more pages, I stop at the end of that page. That's another of my. My superpowers, is because the next morning when you get up, you pour yourself a cup of coffee and I get myself one of my Oreo cookies, and I sit down to write. I finish that sentence, and I'm instantly productive. But thanks to the magic of the human brain, you know, our brains, our minds hate to have. Leave things unfinished. So all night long, my brain has been mulling over how to keep that passage going, where that passage is going to go. So the next morning, not only am I productive in finishing that sentence in that paragraph, I'm productive in the sense that for the next, you know, I can perceive what the next four or five pages are. I don't write those four or five pages. Still do just one more page, but that's. That's how that works for me.

[Kate]

And then there's when to edit. John Irving does it rewrite after rewrite, and so do many others. Some enjoy rewrite number four, and some hate it. John Irving finds that's when he writes his best. Anna Quindlen wants to get it all down on paper and rush through the first draft and not start editing until the first draft is done. Ann Patchett reads every sentence aloud as she goes along. But one of the most interesting to us was Thanh Thuan Ng. He wrote the Great House of Doors.

[Niall Williams]

Normally I start with going through what I had written the day before and then just being appalled by how bad it is. And I start rewriting yesterday's word before I start today. So that's why it takes long. Well, you're basically stirring up yesterday's soup as well, trying to put in new ingredients. So it's very laboriously slow. And yes, I do test the meter, but I don't read aloud until everything's finished, the first draft. And I lock myself in the car in the garage because that's where it's completely soundproof and nobody can hear. And I'm not. It's the best place to read aloud. I'm telling you. Just don't switch on the engine or put a rubber hose into the.

[Charlie]

From the exhaust, you know, so that's pretty much it. Where the inspirations come from. How to develop character, plotter or pantser, when to write, when to edit, and some final words.

[Kate]

What to keep in mind while you write. While you write every sentence every day, almost without exception, we've been told. Think about the reader. Here's our writer in residence, Jay Ryan Straddle.

[Charlie]

I think, like, what sense do I.

[Ben Shattuck]

Want to have when I set this book down?

[Charlie]

How do I want to feel If I was reading this book and I completed it, I thought of that with each of my first three books. And that to me, goes hand in hand with the theme. Once I lock into that, I know what my theme is.

[Kate]

That. And I think we have the best jobs in the world.

[Charlie]

We do.

[Kate]

We really do. Talking to these authors who are so talented, who can take us out of their own comfort zone, who can dazzle us with a story, and who can put us into their worlds, and they.

[Charlie]

All say they love the job of creating. Rebecca Mackay said to us that it's such a treat to see the world through the eyes of her characters. For to see the world only through her own eyes, as she said, kind of sucks. Sue Miller told us all her characters are her employees, and she revels in taking them where she wants to go, with just her imagination as a guide.

[Kate]

But the joy of creating is expressed by all of our guests. Here's the great Ann Patchett that's what.

[Elizabeth Strout]

It means to be a novelist, to be able to make things up and be convincing and to be profoundly interested.

[Kate]

And a last word from Louise Penny.

[Elizabeth Strout]

I think that's what we do in fiction. We can do anything. It's the best job ever. It's just the most amazing thing to just be able to explore. We get to try things. We get to be wrong. We get to be wrong and go back and do it again. How often in people's jobs do they get to, in fact, not only get to be wrong, it's encouraged, because that's the only way you're going to get to where you want to be.

[Charlie]

And all of our writers say, if you have stories to tell, tell them, write them, do it. Writing is a difficult discipline, but it really can be rewarding.

[Kate]

The best book we can recommend for learning to write is Stephen King's On Writing. He does it so well, and in that book he explains how to do it so well.

[Charlie]

Yeah, that book has been around for a long time. It really is wonderful and it holds up beautifully. And we would recommend Ann Patchett's recently released the Annotated Bel Canto, in which she, well, she critically examines her writing in Bel Canto, the book that brought her to prominence 25 years ago.

[Kate]

So now the folks who work on this podcast. And then a coda from Louise Penny. Now, she wrote us that she didn't particularly like the coda she gave us originally and wished she'd used something else. So with her indulgence, we'll finish this with with what she wished she'd said with my father.

[Charlie]

Reading the Bookcase is a production of ABC Audio. We want to thank our executive producers, Laura Mayer and Simone Swink. We want to mention Taylor Rhodes, Amanda McMaster and Sarah Russell at Good Morning America and Asal Asanapur, Nania McLean, Josh Cohan, Vika Aronson and Brenda Salinas Baker at ABC Audio. And a special thanks to Tom Butler, our editor. Louise Penny told us she wished she'd quoted Toni Morrison. And I think it's a good way to end here. This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We seek, we write, and that is how civilization heals.