Loading summary
Transcript173 lines
- [00:00]
Tracy Thomas
Hey y', all, it's me back with another book to tell you about. If you love contemporary retellings of classic novels like James by Percival Everett, then let me tell you about your next favorite book. It's called the Great man and it is a retelling of the Great Gatsby, but it is set among the black upper class of post war Los Angeles and is inspired by real life historic events. It follows Charlie Tramiel, a young veteran who is lured by his cousin Marguerite to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Louisiana's newly rechristened Sugar Hill, a place for black elites. As Charlie navigates a landscape rife with ambition, betrayal and societal turmoil, he soon finds himself beside the dazzling James Reaper man, facing a pivotal decision that could end in tragedy. Whether you've read or not read the Great Gatsby, you're gonna like the Great Man. The Great man is out now. It is by Keira Davis Lurie and you can find it wherever books are sold.
- [01:08]
Alexis Madrigal
I didn't even know that bookseller is this like craft and yet it is. That's what I've learned over the last like, you know, four years of doing the show, that it's like it really is a craft and that hand selling books to people doing these kinds of recommendations are such a beautiful part of like our literary world. And they, and mostly they're like young people who are nerds and love books, you know, and that's like, that's the nerd book loving job out there, you know.
- [01:37]
Tracy Thomas
Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Tracy Thomas and today I am joined by Alexis Madrigal. Alexis is a journalist. He is also an artist author. His new book is called the Pacific Circuit, a globalized account of the battle for the soul of an American city. The book is all about Oakland, California. Alexis lives there. I am from there. We dig into the city and our love for it and also talk about how this book expands the lens on Oakland to tell a bigger story about the world. We also talk today about Alexis's other job, which is being a host of the forum show on KQED radio in the Bay Area. Here, his commitment to running an ultra marathon and of course, all of the books that Alexis loves most. Quick reminder, everything we talk about on each episode of the Stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. The Stacks Book Club pick for August is Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, August 27th with Alexis Madrigal. Quick reminder, everything we talk about on each episode of the Stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. If you love the Stacks, if one episode a week isn't enough, if you want inside access into the world of books and what I'm reading, I've got two awesome things for you to check out. One is Patreon. If you go to patreon.com thestacks you can join the Stacks pack. You get bonus episodes. You get access to our amazing Discord community. You get to be part of the Mega Reading Challenge if you are so inclined. If you want to hear more of my thoughts about books, pop culture and still get that bonus episode, head to Tracy Thomas substack.com to subscribe to my newsletter. Okay, now it is time for my conversation with Alexis Madrigal. All right everybody, I am so excited. As you all know, I am from Oakland, California and at least one once a year I read a book that is in Oakland about Oakland, something Oakland related. And I say, you know what? Everybody else gets to talk about Oakland this month with me. And so today I am thrilled to bring you the Oakland est of Oakland books. This isn't just set in Oakland. This is a book about the town. It is called the Pacific Circuit. The author is Alexis Madrigal. He is here today. Welcome to the Sex.
- [04:11]
Alexis Madrigal
Oh my gosh, such an honor. Big fan, first time guest. Thank you so much for having me.
- [04:17]
Tracy Thomas
First time, long time. So, okay, before we dive into the Pacific Circuit, let's talk briefly about you. What's your story? Where are you from? What is your relationship to books? And then for me personally, when and why did you go to Oakland?
- [04:33]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, so you know, I am, I was born in Mexico City. I grew up first in la, actually out in the Valley, Sylmar, beautiful Sylar, California, some may know it. And then we actually followed my Mexican grandma up to rural Washington State. And so I grew up in a little town of like 2,000 people called Ridgefield. I went to college. I wanted to be a fiction writer.
- [04:57]
Tracy Thomas
Okay.
- [04:59]
Alexis Madrigal
I mean I was a little football meathead for a little while in the early days of high school. And then I became a fiction writer. I wrote a novella for college, my thesis and thought I was going to go down that road. But eventually I went into journalism in my 20s largely, like, because it turned out that I liked reading nonfiction books. I liked reading nonfiction essays. I was really into Harper's Magazine back in the day and the New York Review of Books, which I'm actually still into the New York Review of Books. My relationship to books now, you know, I used to just, like, go into Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon, and I would just, like, go walk and smell and, you know, kind of imagine what it would be like to have my name among the spine. You know, I had a very dreamy, very romantic sense of what it was to be an author. Now I have a slightly grimier, more practical sensibility, in part because, you know, my day job is. I host this show called forum on KQD. It's been on the air for 30 years. The Colin Talk Show. It's super fun. I love it very much. And a lot of what we do is we interview authors, you know, and so I talk to all kinds of people all the time, whether it's like, Washu, and it's someone who's, like, about to win a Pulitzer Prize, or it's like, a person who wrote a. You know, like, today there was a lady who wrote a book about escapes from Alcatraz, you know, who grew up on the island as the daughter of a prison guard, you know. So I end up reading a ton of nonfiction, mostly now, but, like, some fiction. And Oakland, the story there is. I really love the Bay Area. And the second I hit the ground after college in 2004, with the ability to go somewhere, I went to San Francisco. My wife and I went to the East Coast. I was working for the Atlantic magazine. And when we came back, we settled onto a little street in North Oakland, and we've never left. That was, like, 15 years ago almost. We know all of our neighbors, all the intergenerational connections, the whole kind of community here. And Oakland is really the only place that's felt like home to me. Of all the places I've ever lived, I love the people most especially. I love all the different types and feels of the neighborhoods. Yeah, I love just being able to go to all kinds of places and knowing people, you know, I mean, when people call it the town, you know, I personally think that should be reserved, you know, for, like, special occasions. And people who really grew up in Oakland can call it that. But I think, like, thinking of the town is, like, why do people call it that? It is that, like, you know, anytime I go out in Oakland to dinner or a drink or to the library or anything, I always run into people I know. And I love that. It feels like. It does feel like living in a little town.
- [07:44]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, just on that point. But then I want to go back to. To Your radio show. In reading your book, one of my dear friends from high school, his dad is mentioned in your book. David Glover.
- [07:58]
Alexis Madrigal
Oh, yeah. Oh, man.
- [08:00]
Tracy Thomas
And when I was reading your book, I text my friend Drew, his son, and I was like, I'm reading a book, and they keep bringing up your dad, and he's like, what's the book? I'm like, it's about Oakland. Blah, blah, blah. And it. It was actually the day that I text Drew about it, it was the day before David's birthday, and David since has passed away. So it was sort of like this moment. He was like, that's so crazy that you text me, like, this thing out of the blue. So. But I do feel like Oakland is one of those places, like, I could go. Like, I was at the Mississippi Book Festival, and a girl walked up to me and was like, you're Brady Thomas's little sister. We went to Montera together. And I'm like, what? Oh, my God. Like, Oakland is certainly. I feel. Considering, like, how it is a pretty major city. It definitely does feel like a town.
- [08:44]
Alexis Madrigal
I mean, part of it is. I always think San Francisco is, like, a city of the world. You know, it's like, part of the Pacific Rim. It's part of, like, the cosmopolitan archipelago of cities of the world. Oakland is, like, part of California. It's part of the West. It's part of the Bay. Like, it is this. I do. I think it's like, it's a different organism from the organism of San Francisco, which I feel like is, like a place people pass through. And Oakland is a place I think people want to stay, and if they're lucky, do get to stay.
- [09:18]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. Okay. We're going to come back and talk a lot more about Oakland, but I want to talk about. Because I never get to talk to people who also interview authors. How do you pick or how does the show pick what books you're going to cover? What's the process there? How involved are you? And then, you know, you work for a major radio station, not a small little backyard podcast. How much. How are you doing? Questions? How much is it you. How much is it a team? Just. Just let me fantasize about having a real job.
- [09:47]
Alexis Madrigal
Well, I. Your job seems extremely fun, for what it's worth, but I would say that having a team is by far the best part of it. I have such a smart, cool, interesting.
- [10:01]
Tracy Thomas
Team.
- [10:03]
Alexis Madrigal
And we all. I mean, every book that comes on the show, like, two people have read it. Like, that's kind of amazing, you know, And I Love that we do get the time and space. We make the time and space to read all the books. I mean, being it's my second book that's come out and having been on shows where it's, like, clear the host has read, like, four questions from a publicist and then just recites those to you, you're kind of like, what is the point of this? You know, how do we select them? You know, it is. Because it's broadcast in the Bay Area. That is like, the number one kind of filter. Not every single book has to pass through that filter, but most of them do. So that's kind of like number one. I think I have, like, a real soft spot for histories. I just. It's kind of the way my brain works is, you know, I see something and I go, well, where did that come from? You know? And I think there is something really. I think Oakland is a place that has really drilled that into me because. So, like, the city doesn't make sense unless you have, like, this historical grounding of what happened over there, particularly the 20th century. And so we do a lot of that. We're also looking for talkers. You know, we're looking for people who you could put on the air, and they're gonna, like, be funny and say stuff, and, you know, they're gonna be a little looser maybe than some others. And we actually have struggled with some fiction writers in particular. Cause you're like, no, you're right. The best of you is on the page. You know, it's hard to drive conversation. But I think some of my favorites that we've had aforementioned Washu, Ingrid, Rojas, Contreras, I think is amazing. Yeah, I love when we have on San Francisco writers, especially, because I do feel like the Bay Area scene of writers, we all know each other, and it's very supportive. And it feels almost like the opposite of what I think about the New York literary world.
- [12:03]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, I. I mean, we've had, obviously, a handful of Oakland and then broadly, Bay Area writers on this show, for obvious reasons, but also because the work is good. Like, some people I've had on have been like, oh, I didn't even realize you were in the Bay. Obviously, of course you are. Okay. Can you. This is what I struggled with. I've been telling all the people in my life in Oakland about your book. My mom, my brother, my best friends. And then they're like, well, what's the book about? And I'm like, well, it's sort of about Oakland, but also it's about the. It's called the Pacific Surrogate. So it's about the portal. So can you do a really good job of telling us what the book's about, not only for my listeners, but also so that now when I tell people about it, I can just, you know, plagiarize your words?
- [12:46]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah. It is about Oakland's role in the development of the global economy and the impact of that economy on the people of West Oakland who are physically attached to the port through 7th street, which is a historically incredibly important place and was the seat of, you know, black life in East Bay. So has. It takes sort of the spine of the book as Margaret Gordon's life, who's an environmental justice activist in West Oakland and kind of uses both her family's story of migration, you know, from the kind of Southwestern parts of the south to the Bay Area, as well as her subsequent life and activism as a frame for trying to understand Oakland's importance in the development of all these things and why it would be that, you know, the. It would have this incredibly important container port in the 1960s and be the place there was the stronghold of Black Panthers. Like, those things are actually related as well as. It's the way that it acts as kind of this shadow of both, like, San Francisco as well as Silicon Valley, this place where those places are devoted to the future and developing this global economy. But, like, where do those impacts actually land?
- [14:03]
Tracy Thomas
Right.
- [14:04]
Alexis Madrigal
And so that's what the. That's the story that the book tries to tell.
- [14:09]
Tracy Thomas
What is the Pacific Circuit for people who don't know? Because that's the title of the book. If the book is not called, like, Oaklandish or something. Right. Like, you're gonna see this book and be like, oh, and also, the subtitle doesn't have the word Oakland in it, which I thought was really interesting. So what is the Pacific Circuit for folks who have read the book yet?
- [14:25]
Alexis Madrigal
Set of relationships that have really come to exist across the Pacific Ocean between basically these cities that are on the west coast of the United States that have become fabulously wealthy. You know, San Francisco, Seattle, these places and their technology companies which control all of this production in Asia and then ship it back through the ports of America. And that is a complex and really, like, productive system that essentially produces everything that is Target. You know, like, you go into Target, you pick up some other shit. It's like, that came. That is a. That is from the Pacific Circuit. Right. And so the things that I found really interesting about that is you kind of need these, like, three elements that exist in the bay. You need all this technology to control that stuff. But it also is sort of where a lot of this stuff is produced. That's why, like, you know, when Donald Trump starts talking tariffs, Tim Cook is like, hey, Donald, let's talk about China, you know, because they're. That's where all their manufacturing is. And it's important to know that, like, Silicon Valley grew up with. By building that manufacturing model, you know, where a few white guys in Silicon Valley essentially control hundreds of thousands of workers spread across Asia. You know, like, that is what technology companies that make any kind of hardware, that's what they do. And that's how the. The whole place started. This fountain of wealth which continues to spill out all over everywhere. And it also requires. Yeah, they're kind of like banks and capital represented by San Francisco. And it also requires the actual physical stuff to come to port. And that's what happens in West Oakland at the Port of Oakland.
- [15:58]
Tracy Thomas
And the Port of Oakland, for people who don't know, is like, the biggest port.
- [16:03]
Alexis Madrigal
Well, l. A Long beach is now the biggest.
- [16:05]
Tracy Thomas
Long Beach.
- [16:06]
Alexis Madrigal
First port of this kind.
- [16:08]
Tracy Thomas
First of its kind. But it's major. It's not just like some little.
- [16:12]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, no, it's a big deal.
- [16:13]
Tracy Thomas
Like, Port of Oakland is, like, a big deal. I didn't. I actually didn't know that until, like, relatively recently. You grow up in Oakland. You grow up with the cranes, like the dinos. That's what we call them. And, like, one of my dad's best friends worked at the part. Like, I just did it when he. He said he worked at Sealand, I thought he worked at Sea World. Like, I didn't know. I'm a kid.
- [16:34]
Alexis Madrigal
Sealand is like the. The company that creates global shipping in its current form.
- [16:39]
Tracy Thomas
Some of the, like, social, political history. I knew, like, the Black Panther stuff. I feel like if you're a black kid from Oakland, like, that's like, you're born knowing that, like, you come out, you're like, mommy, Daddy, you know, Black Panther's free breakfast. You know, like, that's like, what you're like, so. But for people who aren't from Oakland or the Bay Area, why do you think this book is something that they should read or care about? Like, what is important for them to get out of this or to understand?
- [17:07]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, I mean, this is the. To my view, this is the world. Like, this is how all of this, like, commerce works. You know, I mean, take. Take a place like Dallas, right, Very far from the shore, but basically, all of these goods, they come through, like, L. A Long Beach. They get put on TR trains and they get shipped right to the logistics centers of, like, Dallas, right? There's a kind of concept that scholars have floated of this kind of second self, right? So you got one self that's going around and it's doing podcasts, you know, alphabetizing your books, whatever you're doing. At the same time, there's this other self that's out there scavenging goods from all around the world, using labor from people all around the world in order to kind of create the things and products and services that we use to live our lives in this kind of modern technological society. And I think it's worth kind of like, knowing the biography of that second self. Like, what's it doing out there? You know, Oakland is a particularly charismatic place to tell this story from. But, like, you could do the same thing in Newark. You know, you could do the same thing in Long Beach. You could do the same thing in Seattle. Tacoma, you know, you could do the same. I mean, it's all over the world. You do the same thing in Singapore. You know, the reason, probably the core reason to do it out of Oakland is that the first person to really see the interconnection between technology, industry and logistics and the way that people would actually live their lives was Huey Newton. And Huey Newton's a very complicated figure. Co founder of the Black Panthers with Bobby Seale. There's a lot of things to say about him, but one thing that I think is wildly underrated is that he was essentially a prophet of globalization. He didn't want it to happen in a way that was happening, but he recognized that it was happening. And one reason is that stronghold of Black Panthers is literally on the same road as the Port of Oakland, which was the biggest at the time, most important and first container port in the world. And so you have, you know, this incredible intellectual heft coming out of the Panthers. And you also have, like, the reality of the port. And that's why. That's why it's grounded there. But it goes from there to the world, you know?
- [19:17]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, I think what's really cool about this book and something that I actually struggled with, when you and I were trying to pick what we would do for book club, we decided on braiding sweetgrass, people. So be sure to read that. But, you know, I was. As I'm reading your book, I'm like, oh, like, Alexis could probably talk about the Color of Law, because this book has a lot to do with redlining and gentrification. Like, he could probably talk about, you know, there's a book you mentioned that's like, all about the shipping stuff. It's called, like, the Box. And I was like, that would be, like, a weird, interesting thing. There's a book you mentioned that's, like, American Apartheid. Like, there's all these different kinds of threads that are running through this book in a way that to me, I'm like, oh, right. This city, Oakland, is, in a lot of ways, a microcosm for the rest of most American cities. Maybe you don't have a port in your city. Maybe you don't have, you know, these people. But so, like, if you have black folks in your city, this story, I feel like, fits into all of it. And. And it is this, you know, and. And of course, there's, like, the story of the Great Migration is also part of this book. And the story of, as you mentioned, the Black Panthers. And it's just like, to me, it's, like, about so many pieces of the American city story, right? Like, this is, like, a city book. This is a book for city people about city life. And, like, there are rural elements, but so much of America is also about the city. Like, we rely on rural places and all of this, but, like, the story of the city. City feels so, like, American, maybe air quotes on that.
- [21:00]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, part of the reason for that is that, you know, I basically wanted to tell a story about what happened to 7th Street. Like, that was kind of this, like, core motivation to this book. The main character lives on 7th Street. You know, Hugh Newton gets into this gun battle on 7th Street. The container port, you know, begins literally down. Down the road of 7th Street. And there's a, you know, massive BART station. You know, that's our public transit system in the Bay Area that gets plopped on 7th Street. All these, like, elements, you know, urban renewal, the kind of. I almost feel like redlining undersells, like, you know, the variety of tactics that were used to, like, both hold black people there as well as, like, disinvest from those places. You know, the Pullman porters said, you know, had a big outpost there because the railroad station, which is the end of the transcontinental railroad, this stuff is like, all, like, right there. It's all, like. You could walk from one end of this book's main setting to the other in, like, 20 minutes, you know, and yet all of those stories kind of pour out of that. You know, it's the story of American race relations, the story of, you know, logistics, the story of kind of radical politics, and the way that it sort of is able to observe American life in different ways. You know, it's the story of, like, the way that American society has viewed black women. You know, I think, like, something that I think is so for me was horrifying in this book was like going back through different ways that people talked about leadership in black communities during this kind of 50s and 60s era where community leaders, largely black women, were just absolutely vilified as being the problem with the black community, as opposed to like a set of folks who were looking out for this community matched up against, like, a power structure that's really. Is destroying these neighborhoods. I mean, that is what it is. Does, and that's what was happening. So I don't know. I mean, I didn't intend to write a book that had quite this sweep, to be honest with you. Like, that was not really what I was after, but it's what happened, and it's kind of the small version of it in a horrifying to contemplate way.
- [23:12]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, well, that's sort of what I wanted to ask you about. So I think in your acknowledgments or your notes or somewhere at the end, you talked about how this book. Book you've worked. Been work. You were working on it for like nine years. And you also mentioned that there was a time when your book was on the rails and George Saunders gave you some advice. So I'm curious about the rails. Well, off. Was going off the rails. Sorry, Going off the rails. I want to know about that. But I want to know, like, what did this book start out to you as? And like, how did you get it to be this other thing? And also, maybe this is a separate question, but I'll throw it out now because I think it's part of the story. How did Covid impact or change what this book is. Was. Was going to be?
- [23:52]
Alexis Madrigal
I mean, Covid was bad for every single in progress book, I think that's for sure. There's no doubt about it. I mean, that's part of how the book was off the rails. You know, this book started out as like. Yeah. Trying to figure out the relationship between, you know, the Port and 7th Street. That was kind of it in part because I had gone out on a ship and, you know, you have to imagine you're kind of clanging up the gang way. You know, it's like the metal and Stu and I got up into this ship and I was There as kind of a media person. And I'm sitting in this little tiny room. Keep in mind containers are being loaded and unloaded. These cranes are swinging up these 50,000 pound containers like a tote bag. All these things are happening all around. And then you go into the little tiny human space on this massive ship and everyone in the room is Filipino. There's all the workers are Filipino, all the captain and those folks are Eastern European. And you know, it's just this wood paneled room. It's like the only place dedicated to humans. I just was so taken by the strangeness of this world that we've built to deliver ourselves target, you know. And then like a ship captain came into the room. You know, he's a big Russian guy, you know, he's got his Marlboro Reds and he sits down across the table from me. Cause he's heard there's like a journalist on board, you know, and he just like looks across and he goes, what is your intent? And I was just like, oh my God, I don't know. I don't have an intent. I've never even been on a ship before. You know, this is like more than 10 years ago. And I just, I was just like, this world is crazy. The fact that this workspace, this workforce, the port itself, and all the longshoremen, you know, who do have this kind of rich interracial history in the Bay Area as one of the earliest integrated unions in the country, also very far left, you know, the joke being that the east coast is controlled by the Mafia and the west coast controlled by communists. This is kind of like, this is ILWU. The union is like super powerful in the 20th century in particular. And so there was just all these elements that I wanted to tell that story. The relationship between that world, which felt like such a world apart, that like people in Oakland, unless you're a longshoreman, never Visit. And then 7th street, you know, this place, which I knew had this incredible legacy and also kind of sad current state, you know. And so Ms. Margaret ended up being the thing that tied all those things together. And that's sort of where the book went. Then of course, I wrote like whole histories. I realized that like people would want to know about Silicon Valley. I wrote a whole, whole history of Silicon Valley up through the 1960s. Most of which got thrown out of this book because I didn't really want it to be a shadow history of Silicon Valley. I wanted to tell this story. And what Covid really did is I ended up working on a thing called the COVID Tracking Project. Hundreds of volunteers generating data for all these things. And I really. The book was just like on the shelf for. For a couple of years. And during that time, there were all of these logistics snafus which kind of revealed the weaknesses of the system. People may remember there are all these ships piled up out to the port of La Long Beach. There were shortages of various goods. All these things were happening in this kind of logistics world. And so it just, you know, the book was changing and moving. And most importantly. This is a long answer, but most importantly, Oakland had been rapidly, rapidly gentrifying. It was like a bomb was going off that was draining black people out of Oakland, out of West Oakland. And after, through and after Covid, Oakland had a lot. We've just been in a hard place. You know, I feel like there's been a, you know, if you thought gentrification was bad, don't worry, it could get worse. You could sort of maintain the high housing prices, but lose all the stuff that people thought was gonna come with gentrification. And so the book has to reckon with the fact that Oakland both is like a poster child of gentrification, but also a poster child of the failure of gentrification and also poster child of the failure of anti gentrification efforts as well. You know, like, we somehow ended up in this place where we've displaced so many people, and yet the city is not a crime free, sparkling, happy place. You know, it still is struggling with, you know, just a variety of budgetary public safety and other social problems, you know.
- [28:39]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, yeah, I was. I. I'd never kind of connected the link between the end of redlining and gentrification, like, and you do that in the book. And that was a moment where. That was actually the moment where I was like, okay, I think Alexis should come on the podcast. That was. I was like. I was like, okay, I'm in. I. He's got me. He's got me. I won't spoil that for people, but, I mean, it's not a spoiler, but just like, it's just an interesting moment in the book. Okay, what did George Saunders say to you? What was his advice?
- [29:06]
Alexis Madrigal
Well, you know, I was interviewing him for a thing in San Francisco called City Arts and Lectures. And, you know, he'd been on the show and, you know, had kind of. I mean, it would be a stretch to call George Sanders friend, but he was like a guy that I had, like, friendly relationships with in this sort of host, guest kind of format. And I was reading back his first book. And I think it's at some point in that, maybe it's in the acknowledgments or something. He says something about before that book was published. He was like, watching his writing career drifting away into the horizon. And my book had been really stuck at the publisher. Covid was a big part of that. There was a big backup of books. All these things were happening, but also it was a big book. And I think it was like the editor was kind of having a hard time getting his arms around it. And I was really worried that it just wasn't gonna get published. And so, you know, we were kind of sitting there before the show in this big empty auditorium, and I was like, man, you know, I'm going through this thing. Sorry to dump on you, George Saunders, you know, but I was really. When I read this part of your book, I was really feeling it. I feel like I'm watching my writing career. 10 years of work are just like, drifting away into the sunset, and I don't know what is gonna happen, you know? And he was like, tell your editor I want to read the book. And I was like, okay. It sounded like a ploy from like a George Saunders novel, you know, But I did, and it helped redirect the attention of my editor back to the book. Things started to really get back on the rails. Things started to go along. I got to send George Saunders happy updates about all the things that were going on. Eventually sent him the book and all that stuff. And it was. It was just, you know, kind of. He's like, known kind of universally as like a kind person. You know, you hear that from. From everybody, but also, like, you know, at the. After the show, I wasn't actually going to take him up on using this ploy, but at the end of the show, like, he literally gave me a hug and was like, do the thing. Come on, it's going to help, you know, And I was just like, man, what a guy. You know, like, just. What a. What a.
- [31:22]
Tracy Thomas
Just. That's actually such a great story. I love that. Yeah, that's very cool. Okay, we have to transition from talking about the book to talking about your reading taste. So we're going to take a quick break. I'm going. Be right back. Hey, everybody, it's Tracy. And it's time for a take home test for all of you. Raise your hands if you've been enjoying the snacks. Okay, I can't see your hands, but I am feeling the vibes. Like, it's definitely raised. And if it is I've got two places you can go to keep keep the book vibes going, the Stacks Pack on Patreon and my newsletter Unstacked on Substack. The Stacks Pack is where it's at for listeners like you who want to join a bookish community. We've got book club meetups, a private discord, our year long mega challenge to help you push your reading goals. Because not everyone is reading on a deadline for their podcast like I am. Plus, members get new bonus episodes every month. It's a great way to support me and the crew and also to connect with other readers. Now over on Unstacked, I keep the conversation going twice a week with posts to cover everything from mini reviews, rankings, pop culture, hot takes and rants, a little bit of shade, and whatever's on my tbr. There's a free option over there. Or you can subscribe for even more content, including those bonus episodes I mentioned before. Plus, from now until September 22nd, if you join the paid tier on either platform, you have access to to my annual nonfiction reading guide. So if you're looking to meet other book lovers, support this Black woman run independent podcast. Come hang out with me on Patreon or Substack or both. I would love to see you in the stacks. Okay, turning the stacks from an idea into a reality is one of the things I am the most proud of. But listen, it was extremely hard for even me to believe in this idea 100% of the time. I remember thinking to myself, what if I can't find the right guest? Or what if nobody listens to the podcast? I still have that fear. Or how do I sell merch? Or a million other things. Turning your ideas into actual things is so incredibly hard, but that's where finding the right tools like Shopify comes into play. It can make this doubtful process into something that maybe you can feel a little bit more confident in. Shopify powers 10 of all E commerce in the United States, so it's safe to say they know a little something about business. Stressed about designing your website? No worries. Shopify's got you from the get go with beautiful ready to go templates to match your brand and your style. Stress about getting the word out about your business. Shopify helps you with your customers with easy to run social media and email campaigns. And if you ever get stuck, Shopify's got award winning 24. 7 customer support and they're always there to help turn those business dreams of yours into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com the stacks go to shopify.com thestacks shopify.com thestacks planning a summer Getaway the App Store has everything you need to elevate your travels and outdoor experiences. Start with ChatGPT to plan the perfect itinerary. From destination recommendations to unique activities. Learn the local lingo with duolingo and organize your trip with Tripsy. Your all in one travel planner for nature lovers. All Trails is your personal guide to hikes and secret spots. Impress your friends with Night sky by identifying constellations and track every step of your adventure. With Strava. Turn your journey into a cinematic story with relief because that epic mountain view deserves a soundtrack. And for those long flights or spotty connections, don't worry. Download offline games like Farm Hero, Saga, Wordscapes or Retro bowl before you go from planning to exploring. The App Store has apps and games to make your summer unforgettable. Download them today and let the adventures begin. Okay, we're back. Before we get to your answering all of my Stacks questions, we do something here called Ask the Stacks where someone has written in for book recommendations and I'm going to read what they wrote and then you and I are going to come up with a handful of recommendations.
- [35:55]
Alexis Madrigal
Oh, I love this.
- [35:57]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, so this comes from Annalise and they say, I'm hoping you can help recommend some reads for my husband. He's a non fiction reader that loves books. Books that dive into niche or specific topics and processes. Processes. I don't know.
- [36:10]
Alexis Madrigal
Why'd you give me this one, Tracy? I'm just kidding.
- [36:13]
Tracy Thomas
It actually was the top on my inbox. I try not to tailor them too much to the guests, to be honest, because I also don't know. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I used to tailor them. And then sometimes person be like, oh, I don't read those kind of books. I'm like, you literally wrote that. And they're like, yeah, I don't really read it though. Anyways, so here's what only this is end of it. She says. Some recent faves include the Barn, Charlie Hustle, the Pardon, Shine Bright, Five Days at Memorial, Monsters, and Into the Raging Sea. He's open to anything but is interested in whiskey, basketball, music and any sports or sports adjacent scandals. So that's kind of a lot of things. Do you. Does anything popping to your head or would you like me to go first?
- [37:01]
Alexis Madrigal
You know what I was gonna recommend to this person? I was gonna recommend other minds oh, the John Rosenberg. It's got octopus in it. It's about the sea. But also the guy is like, you know, has this kind of. Peter Godfrey Smith is his name. This kind of Australian, you know, scuba diver, swimmer kind of guy. Has all these little encounters. So it has like a little bit of that sport short edge or that like embodied sensibility. But also it does get into all this wonderful niche stuff like what the cuttlefish is thinking and how different brains work. And I, I think this guy would like that one. That'd be my. That'd be my. Right off the top. And I have one other.
- [37:43]
Tracy Thomas
One other minds. I, I actually that mean, I was thinking of the best minds. Do you know that one?
- [37:49]
Alexis Madrigal
No.
- [37:50]
Tracy Thomas
It's. It was like, it came out maybe two or three years ago and it, it's. The guy's name's gonna be like Jonathan Rosen. And it's about his friendship. I wasn't prepared to talk about this, so I don't have notes, but it's about his friendship with a guy in college. They maybe went to Harvard or Yale or something. And eventually the friend ends up killing his girlfriend. And so it's about like schizophrenia and mental illness. But also it does have this sort of crime element. Not a sports scandal, but it is definitely a scandal. But it's like a big chunker of a book that kind of does a lot of the weeding, braiding stuff. The original book I was going to recommend though was Love and Whiskey. And it's. The subtitle is the Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniels, His Master Distiller Nearest Green and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest by Fawn Weaver. And this is a book about how Jack Daniels had a black guy who was the mastermind behind all of the distillery and made Jack Daniels, Jack Daniels and the uncle nearest brand. Yeah, exactly. And the uncle nearest brand of whiskey came from this guy nearest Green. So it's the story of these two people who work together and obviously the black person nobody knows. And Jack Daniels is, as you're familiar. Jack Daniels.
- [39:08]
Alexis Madrigal
Yes, unfortunately, familiar with Jack Daniels. Yeah. You know the other book that I'm gonna recommend, this is a good one. This is right on the. This is right on the nose. I think the book is called the Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City. Its Chaotic founding, It's purloined basketball team and the Dream of Becoming a world Class Metro by Sam Anderson. That book is super fun. And also maybe one of the greatest crimes in NBA history is stealing the Seattle Supersonics and Sending them to Oklahoma City. So that is. That would be. That would be my other recommendation.
- [39:48]
Tracy Thomas
That's a really, really good one. Okay. My last one is that book Born to Run. Did you ever read that?
- [39:53]
Alexis Madrigal
Mm, no, I didn't.
- [39:55]
Tracy Thomas
Okay. So it's about running.
- [39:57]
Alexis Madrigal
I am a runner. Yeah.
- [39:58]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, I loved it. It's about running, and it's about this, like, guy, and he goes to run with ultra runners, and he learns about, you know, it's a little bit, like, white savory. He, like, goes to this community, and they're indigenous people and they run and they're barefoot, whatever. But also he does the history of, like, the running industry. So how Nikes became Nikes and running shoes and, like, being a jogger and that whole thing and how that rose culturally. And this is actually the book that I read when I started running, because I'm the kind of person that will get an idea and be like, I'm gonna run a half marathon having never run more than a mile. And I was like, okay. Mr. Stacks was like, that's my husband. Mr. Sacks was like, you should read this book. It's so good. And I read it and I was like, I'm a runner. I'm locked in. But it's really entertaining. I do think, and I've never gone back, there might be some scandal or something weird attached to the author now. So if he. He sucks now, I'm gonna use my recommendation. But when I read it in 2010, I loved it. I have not revisited. So if he sucks, if he's a monster, like, I'm. I'm not team. I think his name's, like, Chris McDougall. I'm not team. That guy. Okay, so those are our recommendations for your husband, Annalise. If he reads any of them, let us know. Everybody who wants a recommendation email, ask the stacks. The stacks podcast.com chain gang, all Stars.
- [41:21]
Alexis Madrigal
That's the other one.
- [41:22]
Tracy Thomas
If you want fiction, non fiction. But that book is so.
- [41:24]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, that's true. I know, know. I know. But that one's so good and has. And has a. It's a sport book.
- [41:30]
Tracy Thomas
It is sport. It is the worst sport ever. And we love Na Na here. So we're changing All Stars. All time recommendation anyways. Ask the Saxpodcast.com. email us. We'll do this for you. Okay, Alexis, you're back in the hot seat. Two books you love, one book you hate.
- [41:46]
Alexis Madrigal
Okay, one book I love. Oh, boy. This is. I knew it was coming. I should have been prepared more. I can do my My book that I ha. And it came out of my book research, Tom Wolf's book of essays called MAU Mauing the Flat Catchers. I absolutely despise this book. It is wildly racist. Tom Wolfe is an amazing prose stylist, and it makes it worse, not better. When you're that good of a prose stylist and you're being racist. I tried to re report some of it for the book since a lot of it is set in. These are supposedly nonfiction essays. That war on Poverty stuff is set in San Francisco. And it's just racist about everybody. Samoans, black people, everybody. It's just like the. And I. And also when I was trying to re report it, I discovered that I more or less, like, could not find any of the facts. I couldn't fix any of the facts that he supposedly had for these different organizations that were involved with War on Poverty. I went to archives all over the state. It was just. It was so annoying. So it's not only that I racist, but also I think some of it is made up. That's a. That's my theory. I'm. You know, I love.
- [43:04]
Tracy Thomas
Before you go to the two books you love.
- [43:06]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah.
- [43:06]
Tracy Thomas
Did you read the Power Broker as part of your research for this?
- [43:10]
Alexis Madrigal
Because it feels like that would be like everyone else. I read the first two chapters of the Power Broker. I think I got up through maybe when he was in college. I don't know. That's a long book. I did think about it, but, you know, I. I cannot claim to have read the entire Power Broker. Definitely not.
- [43:26]
Tracy Thomas
I can't do it. I want to do it. I want to be a person who's done it. I can't do it.
- [43:31]
Alexis Madrigal
I. I cannot do it. I cannot. I. I'm just. Yeah. I cannot do it. I cannot do it. Okay, so I'm gonna give you okay books I love. This one is like, maybe too obvious, but it is my favorite book. Parable of Sower Octavia Butler. I've gone back to it over the years about every couple of years. And every time I'm just like, like, damn, this book. You know, it is so good, so interesting. And I always find new elements of it. And I actually, weirdly. The Earthseed components. You know, this is the religion that's invented by the main character in the book. I actually find it like an actual spiritual credo for myself. Like, I think I might be an actual adherent to it. Both, like the simple parts about it, about how God has changed. It's all that exists. Which I think is actually a really deep, deep insight about what it is to be alive in all living things. And also the parts about sort of no matter how hard and post apocalyptic the world is getting, you kind of do have to keep yourself focused on, like, what is the point of humanity? What's the point of being alive, you know, and what is the point of like trying to do some massive collective enterprise which in that book is, you know, going to the stars. But I don't think it has to be that, you know, and people always, you know, people in that couple of books think it's so crazy that, you know, in this post apocalyptic world, you know, Lauren is like, no, let's go to the stars. You know, but she sticks with it. You know, she's like, no, this is actually part of it. And I find that part of Earthseries really beautiful. So that'd be it on the other book. And I feel like all of Ross Gay's books, like the Book of Delights and Inciting Joy and all the, like, all those little essayette kind of books, I just love them all so much. I listen to him on Running Sometimes and I just laugh out loud. And he's such a great reader, you know, when he's reading those. And the audiobook, the Book of Delights and the Book of Even More Delights or whatever it is. That would be my other one.
- [45:42]
Tracy Thomas
I love it. We've done both. We've done a book by Ross Gay and Parable of the Sower for Book Club here. So, yeah, I mean, but we did it. One of his poetry books, which I really struggled with because it was not short and delightful. His poems are long. That is hard for me. I was struggling. No lie, no secret here. People know. I was like, I don't get it. These poems are eight pages. Like, what am I supposed to do with this information?
- [46:09]
Alexis Madrigal
That's so funny. I mean, kind of.
- [46:11]
Tracy Thomas
But I did read the Book of. Of Delights that. What's the first one? The Book of Delights.
- [46:15]
Alexis Madrigal
The Book of Delights is the first one.
- [46:16]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, that's the one I read. And that is delightful. And he's so good.
- [46:21]
Alexis Madrigal
It's so human and lovely. You just want to live in that. I just want to live in that world, you know?
- [46:26]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, no, I get it. What's the most recent book you read? That was just great.
- [46:32]
Alexis Madrigal
Well, you know, it's a book that I'm reading actually right now and I'm really loving Gary Steingart's latest book. Book is fantastic. It's called Vera. I'm loving that book. And I just. Yeah, and I would say that it's just great. Like great in that way where I'm just like, ah, this is just so nice to read a book that is a novel that's well constructed, that feels really wonderful, you know? So I would say that one.
- [47:00]
Tracy Thomas
Okay. And are you a person who can read multiple books at a time or are you just reading this Vera book?
- [47:07]
Alexis Madrigal
No, I have to. In fact, I'm almost always reading multiple books. So I am reading that book. And I am also about to start as soon as we get off this call. Mary Roach's new book, Advanced Reader copy of that book.
- [47:23]
Tracy Thomas
And how do you divide your reading for work versus reading for pleasure? Is it like I read certain things.
- [47:29]
Alexis Madrigal
During this time or I try and just read it. Honestly, I try and make all the books that I really want to read books we do on the show same. And then for other things that I'm researching, like my next book is a book about running in consciousness. So I have a whole bunch of things in that realm. Those are the things that I separate out because they can wait. You know what I mean? I don't need to be reading them at any one time. And so I tend to stockpile those. And then when I have a little bit more free time or I don't have books to read for the show, then I go back into this.
- [48:05]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, got it. Got it. A running book. Okay, well, now you have to read.
- [48:11]
Alexis Madrigal
I know, I know. It's on my. It really? That is on my tbr. And I've read a bunch of other running books. I just don't like them very much. I don't either.
- [48:20]
Tracy Thomas
That was the only one I saw I bought or someone bought me the like Murakami and I just never wanted to pick it up.
- [48:26]
Alexis Madrigal
Only. You know what? I'll give you the tip. Hot tip on Murakami. Just read the Ultra marathon chapter out of the that read chapter one where he's talking about running Jazz bar and Tokyo. And that's like very charismatic. And then the ultra one is the only good chapter about running. Actually, I think in that book.
- [48:44]
Tracy Thomas
Thank you. Honestly, that's it.
- [48:46]
Alexis Madrigal
I'm saving you. That's the edit. That's the edit.
- [48:48]
Tracy Thomas
I don't even really run anymore like that. I'm like an indoor treadmill sprinter type person now.
- [48:52]
Alexis Madrigal
Like I play peloton treadmilling.
- [48:55]
Tracy Thomas
I do Orange theory. So that's all like the max you run is for 23 minutes. So it's all like Speed work. It's. No, I don't go outside and do. I did one marathon and now I'm like, great. Did it. Done.
- [49:07]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, I did it. Yeah. Check that off. Yeah. You know, I'm actually preparing for my first ultra marathon right now.
- [49:12]
Tracy Thomas
Ultra. What is that?
- [49:13]
Alexis Madrigal
I designed myself. I think they call ultra anything that's more than 26. But this is going to be for Bay Area. Anybody. The top of Mount Diablo to the top of Mount Tam.
- [49:24]
Tracy Thomas
And how many miles it's going to.
- [49:26]
Alexis Madrigal
It's like 50 some.
- [49:28]
Tracy Thomas
Holy. Yeah.
- [49:29]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah. I'm like, definitely feeling. I'm feeling it. I've been running, like seven.
- [49:33]
Tracy Thomas
What do you listen to on your runs? Playlist, Audiobooks, podcasts, a combination. How are you training?
- [49:42]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah.
- [49:43]
Tracy Thomas
For that?
- [49:44]
Alexis Madrigal
Well, I listen to a lot of the books for the show on it, but on all my long runs, this is. This is freak shit. Sorry. Can I swear on this? I don't know. I decided because I'm trying to. This is. This is a book about running. This is a book about consciousness of, like, look. What does it feel like inside when you're running?
- [50:02]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, you're not listening.
- [50:03]
Alexis Madrigal
I'm going to raw dog the long runs. So nothing. No audiobook, no music, Just me and the open road. And it is occasionally. I love it. Sometimes I'm like, I'm tired of myself. I don't want to be in here anymore. Get me out of here. Get me out of here.
- [50:25]
Tracy Thomas
That sounds so horrible, Alexis. Like, truly, in a way, to me, that sounds like punishment because it is just running. And like, the. Honestly, for me, the first two miles were always the worst. And the thought of, like, the first, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes, just me being mad that I'm running. I don't think I'm running an Ultra. I think I'm running two miles maximum for the rest of my life because I'm not getting past. Like, I'm not getting past it. I can't even imagine. Oh, my God. Nothing. Just nothing.
- [50:59]
Alexis Madrigal
But I'm doing it for you. I'm doing it for you and all other runners to observe myself. Like, my. What's happening in my brain? What's happening in my body? I'm commun. You know, I have some, like, somewhat out there biological theories about our ability to communicate with the different systems of our bodies. And I actually think there's gonna be science about this eventually. So I'm, like, checking in with all the different parts, and I'm doing all this stuff. I love this part, but it is. It's insane. It's insane.
- [51:26]
Tracy Thomas
Wow. I'm. I'm obsessed with this now. I'm like, oh, should I start a podcast that's about running so we can keep doing this and stop talking about bugs? How long does it. How long does a race like that take you? Is it like 8 hours, 10 hours? 15?
- [51:38]
Alexis Madrigal
It's going to be like 15, 20 hours.
- [51:40]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, my God.
- [51:41]
Alexis Madrigal
And you know the other weird again? More freak shit. You have to learn all this stuff about yourself, like in particular, your sweat rate, how many liters of sweat per hour you lose while running. And so you have to weigh yourself at the beginning, weigh yourself at the end, subtract out any water that you drank and all this stuff. Because if you're going to run for 15 hours, think of how many liters of sweat that is. Because it varies among humans between a few hundred milliliters and like me, one and a half to two liters per hour. So you've got to ingest gallons of water during a run like this. It's got to have tons of electrolytes in it. It. You know. Cause you're losing about. I went and got my mineral content of my sweat. Feel free to cut all this from the podcast.
- [52:26]
Tracy Thomas
No, I love this. This is all I want.
- [52:29]
Alexis Madrigal
Okay, but we have mineral. I got the mineral content measured first and foremost.
- [52:33]
Tracy Thomas
How are you transporting gallons of water while you're training? Because obviously, like on the race, they're going to hand you things.
- [52:40]
Alexis Madrigal
Well, I'm self crewing, so my neighbors, again, I'm deep in this Colby verse of that's on my street in Oakland. My neighbors are crewing it for me. I'm doing it slowly, so I'm going to be carrying 3 liters of water on my back at any given time. I've built some refill points in. They're going to meet me at certain spots with some more. Because you're eating a ton too. Just for. For those who've ever dieted. This is insane. You're in a lot of these races. Ultra runners are putting between like sixty and a hundred grams of carbs in every hour.
- [53:13]
Tracy Thomas
Whoa.
- [53:13]
Alexis Madrigal
So you're just pounding carbs in the form of whatever your stomach will accept.
- [53:18]
Tracy Thomas
I'm also putting sixty to a hundred grams of carbs every hour. Reading books. I just want people.
- [53:23]
Alexis Madrigal
That's right. Well, that's work too.
- [53:24]
Tracy Thomas
Carb loading. Because at any moment I might need to run an ultra marathon, so I need to be carb ready.
- [53:32]
Alexis Madrigal
Infinite breaks.
- [53:33]
Tracy Thomas
What are you eating? What are you eating?
- [53:35]
Alexis Madrigal
What are you eating mostly these weird gel things. This is Brand Martin's, but there's a gel that exists for everyone's taste. And I'm starting to work on eating other stuff. Stuff because over 18 hours, I think it can be tough. So you wanna. I'm gonna eat some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I've tried, which I really liked. Although a lot of real ultra runners would be like, no peanut butter. Leave that out of there. Just eat the. Just get the carbs in there from the bread and the jelly. But mostly it's these packets. Do you ever see the movie Snowpiercer? You know, it's like about the end of the world. It's the last train on earth, and then they turn all these bugs into this, like, slurry that all the poor people get. That's kind of what it's like.
- [54:19]
Tracy Thomas
Okay. I used to do the like, goos or the gels or whatever that like, whatever.
- [54:23]
Alexis Madrigal
The, you know, for gross Are like toothpaste. I just can't even handle them. Yeah.
- [54:28]
Tracy Thomas
So I, I was like, oh, this is what I'm going to do. And then I realized that they were giving me intestine issues. Like, it was making my bowels not great. I'll leave it at that. But I have heard recently one of my favorite candy snacks, tracks, is really big with runners. Nerd clusters.
- [54:46]
Alexis Madrigal
No. Really?
- [54:47]
Tracy Thomas
Yes. Because it's basically the same as like a goo or a gel. It's a good sugar. It just tastes good, Whatever. And if you're not running, like, you need a certain level of nutrients that most people don't need for a three to five hour run. Like if you're running a marathon and you're in that range, you don't really need a full whatever. It's fine. You'll be. You'll be fine. And so these are, I guess, and they're easy to pop, they're easy to pack. You don't. Like, you can just throw them in your pocket or whatever. So apparently this is the new running sack. And I was like, I'm gonna get back into running so I can eat.
- [55:19]
Alexis Madrigal
Even more just so you can pound some nerd clusters. Yeah. Nerds are one of those things that I so deeply, deeply associate with middle school that actually I'm. I think my armpits are starting to sweat just thinking about nerds. Just because I'm thinking about the social shame of seventh grade, you know?
- [55:37]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, my God. Well, nerd clusters, they're the new generation and it's time for you to own your shame. And step into your confidence and eat those and feel proud. And if your customers. I'm available for any product.
- [55:53]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah. Nothing. Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me. Right? A little Audre Lorde defense for seventh grade. Yeah, you're right.
- [56:00]
Tracy Thomas
I think she actually wrote that. Thinking about nerd.
- [56:03]
Alexis Madrigal
Thinking about how I.
- [56:05]
Tracy Thomas
That's how I read it the first time. Okay, we gotta go back to books.
- [56:09]
Alexis Madrigal
We gotta go back to books.
- [56:10]
Tracy Thomas
Everyone listening. I'm sorry, but you listen to this podcast because, you know, I'm gonna get to snacks. And so we had to get there. What is a book that you love to recommend to people?
- [56:23]
Alexis Madrigal
I really have been having fascinating time recommending this book is a River Alive by Robert McFarlane? And I like recommending it in part because I actually struggled with it. I also interviewed him. I really. It's. It kind of changed me. Me a little bit in a weird way. Like, it reconfigured something inside me. Even though I didn't love every part of the book in an interesting way, it's because it's basically about how to think about what a river actually is and the relationship between environments, like, you know, like, a river and the life around it and human beings as part of all that. And I thought I knew enough about that that I wouldn't enjoy the book. But, you know, then after I read the book, with my one little tiny vacation sans kids, I, like, went to visit the Klamath river because these dams had just come down and I wanted to see the river. And I was like, where did that come from? You know, that's from this book. You know, the other book. You've had them on already. But the other book I love to recommend to other men is Carva Wallace's book, Another Word for Love. I think it's. It's so hard to find books about masculinity that say anything interesting at all. I mean, literally at all. I'd take anything. One nugget, just a paragraph, you know, and, like, Carvel's book has, like, 30 things like that in it. So I love recommending that. And I'm just. I'm just cheating by keeping going. Italy. Mon's poetry books, I love. For people who think they don't like poetry. Boom. Italy. Mon, you're gonna love it. You have to. It's required. It's like, stipulate. It's like just a contract with a marriage. America.
- [57:59]
Tracy Thomas
I love that. Okay. Do you have a favorite bookstore?
- [58:05]
Alexis Madrigal
Oh, boy. I. So I know a lot of bookstore people here in The Bay Area. So this is tough, but my wife and I are opening up a little community space that is next door to East Bay Booksellers here in Oakland on College Ave. So I, I would say East Bay Booksellers, I, I. But you know, here's the thing that I would say. There's so many fascinating types of bookstores in the Bay Area that I like. It's why I couldn't leave, like our bookstores, you know, you want feminist reading, we got Wombhouse Books, whole feminist bookstore. You know, you want sort of like a big cavernous kind of bookstore. You can go down to like, Kepler's or whatever. You know, there's like all the Point Rey's Bookstore if you want to get into some nature writing, you know, Marcus Books, you know, one of the oldest black bookstores in the country. There's all of these different, different places that are all doing different stuff and they're all. But they're like booksellers. You know, I do events all the time with Green Apple Books. You know, they each like, take. I didn't even know that bookseller was. Is this like, profession, this craft, and yet it is. That's what I've learned over the last, like, you know, four years of doing the show. That it's like, it really is a craft and that hand selling books to people, doing these kinds of recommendations are such a beautiful part of like, like our literary world, you know, they make it worth being a part of the world of letters, you know?
- [59:24]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. I mean, bookseller is, I don't know, it's not the exact same, but I feel like they're like nurses in some ways. Like, it's like they're the people who are on the ground taking care of you, listening, responding to your desires and your needs and your anxieties and whatever it is in the way that like, the doctor's just not doing that, you know, like, the doctor might show up and hear you out, but the nurse is like, like, oh, I'm so sorry. You want red jello, not orange jello. And like, I am listening to you and I care enough to help you. And it's like a certain, it's like takes like a kind of person. I, I big fan of booksellers around here for obvious reasons. What's the last book that made you laugh?
- [60:06]
Alexis Madrigal
I'm gonna say, what is Queer Food by John Birdsall?
- [60:10]
Tracy Thomas
I just saw this in the bookstore for the first time the other day.
- [60:13]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, I thought, I thought it was really, it was really funny. Really an unusual kind of book, you know, as maybe the title kind of gives away, you know, it's this, you know, a guy who'd worked in kitchens but also has written about food for a long time, really trying to make sense of kind of like the relationship between, you know, hospitality and cooking and food with this kind of queering of culture as a gay man, it's just, but it's just, you know, he's just a funny writer. You know, it's like one of those things where it's just some people are just funny and that's it. This Gary Steingart book is pretty funny too. And actually in a totally different vein. Casey Johnson's book had some funny moments too. This is a book called A Physical Education, which is sort of about her journey to getting swole. And I thought that was. It had some good moments too.
- [61:08]
Tracy Thomas
What's the last book that you read where you felt like you learned a lot?
- [61:13]
Alexis Madrigal
Oh, this is a. I feel like this happens a lot. But I'm going to shout out this particular book, How Infrastructure Works Inside the Systems that Shape Our World by Deb Chatra. Such an interesting book. They're an engineering professor, so smart, so interesting. And it's just a lot of stuff that you just kind of like, oh yeah, how does a water system work? You're just like, you don't necessarily think of all those things. And so that, that is one where I feel like I learned a lot and I feel like I knew about some of those things and I still, it was still amazing.
- [61:49]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, I want to read this. This looks like a book I would love. I love like a micro, like deep divey. Oh yeah. What's the last book that made you angry?
- [62:00]
Alexis Madrigal
Oh, there's so many things to be angry about these days.
- [62:04]
Tracy Thomas
I know you could really, you could take that question in any direction that sparks joy for you.
- [62:12]
Alexis Madrigal
You know, I think the book that I'm gonna say here is a book called Sex is a Spectrum by Augustine Fuentes, who's an American anthropologist. And the reason it made me angry is not just because I sort of have a non binary kid in my life, but just a sense of how much scientists, while posing as completely objective observers of the natural world have been shaped their times and circumstances to kind of weed out all kinds of queerness and non binaryness of different kinds across. Across scientific disciplines. And that this queerness, it's just left out in ways that are, that are invisible unless you really, really deep inside it and can sort of demonstrate that. And so I would say that is that would be a book that the book itself didn't make me mad, but that what it was pointing towards was very upsetting. I mean, I could also. All of Rebecca Solnit's books, they're good for this too.
- [63:19]
Tracy Thomas
Sure, sure. Okay. What about. Is there. Do you have a problematic favorite book?
- [63:26]
Alexis Madrigal
I do. I like David Foster Wallace. I'm sorry, everyone. I do. We don't have to talk about it, I promise. I thought brief interviews with hideous men was totally brilliant. And I think about it, like, once every three days.
- [63:39]
Tracy Thomas
I've never read any David Foster Wallace. Not because I'm better than you, but just because it did not interest me. But now I'm like, maybe I should.
- [63:45]
Alexis Madrigal
Read it if you don't have to. I'm not trying to press it on anyone, you know? Yeah, I gotta. You know, it's like, hidden. It's like, you know, hidden inside the other books in the bookshelf. At this point, I feel like just because it's become known as a thing that, like, sad literary men like to detain people talking about.
- [64:02]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, no, no, you're right. You're right to hide it. No, nobody will know. Nobody.
- [64:06]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, nobody will know. Can just be my just. Just my me, you and all the stacks listeners.
- [64:11]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, the stacks. Packing us. That's it. Okay. If you were a high school teacher of any subject, want. What is the book you would assign to your students?
- [64:22]
Alexis Madrigal
I'm really torn. I'm torn between doing Leaves of Grass, but people already know that book, so I. But I actually went back to it recently after not having looked, you know, I. Well, women. I was like, you know, and I went back to it and I was like. I was struck by new things in it now. But I won't do that one. I'm gonna do this book by a neuroscientist called Searching for Memory, the Brain, the Mind and the Past. It's by a guy named Daniel Schachter, who's a cognitive neuroscientist. And here's why. I think people have weird ideas about what memories are like. I think people think of memory like computer memory, like it's something perfectly stored as opposed to something that's kind of generated, you know, like our memories use all of our sort of brain systems we use to create the world around us. And they use that to recreate what happened to us in the past so that we can learn from it and use it. I mean, I think that's its evolutionary purpose, at least. And I think particularly at that age where times are burning so bright and so many things are kind of getting fixed. And you're starting to believe that certain things about yourself, I think destabilizing that sense that we are some fixed person. Because at least in my experience, the worst people are those who stopped changing when they were in high school because they think it's cringe to be dumb, different at 40 than 18. And, and so I think that that would be my. That would be my, like, if I let's pretend I'm a high school biology teacher, I would go back and I would use that book to sort of like destabilize the idea of memory and self.
- [66:02]
Tracy Thomas
I love this. Okay, I have two more for you. Really quick. One is, and I only ask this question of journalists because they're the only people I actually care about this for. Is there, there, are there any books or is there a book that you feel like influenced your professional career or inspired you to want to be a.
- [66:22]
Alexis Madrigal
Journalist for better or worse? Evicted by Matthew Desmond. What a book.
- [66:29]
Tracy Thomas
God damn it. I mean, I feel like everybody says that book who it does. Like any narrative non fiction. And I just feel like, sure, I guess.
- [66:38]
Alexis Madrigal
I mean, it's, you know, why it's perfect. That's why. I mean, it is a perfect nonfiction book. There's almost no perfect nonfiction book. I mean, that's one thing that I really believe, having read many, many of them for my job now. But that one was the reporting, the content, the actual writing. That lady in the trailer park eating lobster with her last food stamp dollars. Like just every, every, every part of it I thought was. Was perfect and was at a point where I was considering doing this, this book, the book that ended up writing Pacific Circuit. And I think for better or worse, influenced how I did it.
- [67:17]
Tracy Thomas
Have you ever talked to him?
- [67:19]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah, I have. Yeah. I've been out drinking with Matthew Desmond.
- [67:22]
Tracy Thomas
I thought people really like him. He seems like a really. Everybody who has met him thinks he's very cool.
- [67:28]
Alexis Madrigal
He's very cool. He's like, you know, I think he was someone, you know, you're an academic writing a book about eviction. You do not think that's going to happen. And I think he's always kept that front and center, you know, like the American Lottery. Like, he's never been like, I don't think he's someone who believes I wrote the perfect book. And that's why it hit the lottery like this. You know, I think he knows it's good, but not. And it's not like false humility. I just think you Know, he's like, listen, man, I could have written that book and 20 people could have read it, you know?
- [67:57]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, totally. That makes sense. When I read the second book, the Poverty by America, I think in my review, I said, this book really smacks of someone who is using their previous book success to say the thing they actually wanted to say in the first book but maybe couldn't or shouldn't have said.
- [68:17]
Alexis Madrigal
That's really.
- [68:17]
Tracy Thomas
So here's what I've learned. Fuck you and your capital gains tax. And you can suck it. Okay? Like, he was like, I already have the Pulitzer. I don't fucking care. I don't. Does he have the Pulitzer? I think he won the Pulitzer.
- [68:28]
Alexis Madrigal
I think so. Or a National Book Award, or both.
- [68:30]
Tracy Thomas
I'm Matthew Desmond now. Like, capital I here. Now you're gonna get 200 pages from me directly.
- [68:37]
Alexis Madrigal
Yeah.
- [68:38]
Tracy Thomas
Which I.
- [68:39]
Alexis Madrigal
And I didn't even like the second book that much. Like I. But in part it was because, you know, when you've written the other book, this was sort of like policy implicit.
- [68:47]
Tracy Thomas
Knew people were gonna go out and buy this book no matter what was in it. And so he put in that book what he really wanted to make sure that everybody took out of evicted. He's like, I wrote this other book. That's great. You might have missed the point. Point. Here's the point. Yes, the system is bad. Okay, last question. I stole this from the New York Times. Buy the book. If you could require the President of the United States to read one book, this current president, what would it be?
- [69:13]
Alexis Madrigal
Oh, boy. All About Love by Bell Hooks. Take that, Trump.
- [69:24]
Tracy Thomas
Take that. That's a good one. That's a great one. Okay, party people, people, we're out of here today. We went long. I'm sorry, but. Hello. We had to talk about nerd clusters. You. Alexis Magical will be back on August 27th for our discussion of braiding sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Neither of us have read the book. Or you did read it.
- [69:46]
Alexis Madrigal
No, no, no, I haven't. I've read. I have read Gathering Moss also by. Okay, not that one.
- [69:51]
Tracy Thomas
So this is our first time. The episodes 27 August People who have not yet read the Pacific Circuit. You should definitely read it. I also am going to do a huge plug for the audio book because Alexis reads it. And as you've heard, he's got a great voice, high energy, really brings a lot to it. I had a great time with it. So if you wanted to know. Yes, both options are good, though the physical book has some pictures. So yeah, there's a map, blah blah blah. I'm sure you can get the digital stuff but you know, got to let you know Alexis, thank you so much for being here. This was awesome.
- [70:23]
Alexis Madrigal
Thank you. This is the most fun. Thank you so much.
- [70:27]
Tracy Thomas
I always want to be the most something. Everybody else, we will see you in the Stacks. Thank you all so much for listening and thank you again to Alexis Madrigal for being my guest. Alexis will be back on Wednesday, August 27th to discuss our book club pick Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall kimmerer If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com thestacks to join the Stacks Pack and subscribe to my newsletter@tracy thomas.substack.com make sure you are subscribed to the Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you're listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please leave us a rating and a review. For more from the Stacks, follow us on social media at the Stacks Pod, on Instagram threads and TikTok, and check out our website@thestackspodcast.com this episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Waikia Freelo. Our graphic designer is Robin McCrite and our theme music is from Tagirigis. The Stax is created and produced by me, Tracy Thomas.