← What Should I Read Next?
What Should I Read Next?
Ep 521: Everything L.M. Montgomery and how to build a deeper reading roster
01:05:37
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- [00:00]
A
You know. And again, you know, not everything has to go back to Ellen Montgomery. But I can't help it.
- [00:05]
B
But it might. In this episode, it might. Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogle and this is what should I read Next? Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader. What should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest. Readers, I'm so excited to tell you about a live event happening this spring. On May 7, I'll be joining Laurie Frankel in conversation at Parnassus in Nashville on tour for her new book Enormous Wings. I'd love to see you there. Get all the information at the link in our show notes or@parnassusbooks.net we love to tell you about new additions to the calendar on the podcast, but if you want to make sure you don't miss any news, be sure to subscribe to our email list@modernmrsdarcy.com subscribe so you'll be the first to know all our what should I read next? News and happenings. That's modernmrsdarcy.com subscribe readers. I don't mind paying monthly subscriptions when it's for a service I value, but sometimes it feels like there are more and more fees and ever increasing rates for for so called perks that I didn't ask for. That's where turning to a company like Mint Mobile makes a big difference compared to big wireless carriers. Mint Mobile helps you keep your money in your wallet. They don't overcharge for your wireless service, which for most of us is a non negotiable monthly subscription. 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Readers Finding a replacement for a beloved piece of clothing can be tricky. Poshmark makes it easy to find the right fit, the right fabric and the right price. When I first started shopping on Poshmark, I was thrilled to find such a vast selection of new and pre loved items. There's nothing quite like finding exactly what you're looking for, whether that's a new pair of running shoes or a special occasion outfit and knowing you're getting it at a fraction of the price. And Poshmark's not only a place to buy, it's also a place to make money by selling the well kept items you no longer wear. With more than 80 million users on the platform, you're sure to find the pieces you are looking for or a buyer for nearly anything that you are ready to sell. Poshmark has come through for me lately when I've been searching for items that are sold out in stores or sold out in my size. I fell in love with an out of stock anthro sweater and was overjoyed to find one in my size on Poshmark. And I recently misplaced a beloved vintage J. Crew shirt no longer made by the brand, but I found one in about three minutes on Poshmark. Poshmark' filters make it easy to shop by brand size, color and more, and I was thrilled to find exactly what I was searching for. I could not hit the order button fast enough. New deals and styles are listed every day, so don't wait. Download the Poshmark app and use code READNEXT when you sign up to get $10 off your first purchase. Or shop now@poshmark.com READNEXT and get $10 off your first Purchase. That's P O S H M A R K.com READNEXT readers, I'm sure many of you will well understand our team's excitement when we saw today's guest submission land in our inboxes. Today I'm talking with Kate Scarth, Chair of Ellen Montgomery Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island. We're going to talk more about Kate's work today, but in addition to her academic role, Kate has partnered with the L.M. montgomery Institute, which she describes as a hub of the international Montgomery community and was part of the advisory committee for the Green Gables Interpretive Center I was so interested in hearing more about Montgomery's life and work, and also Kate's life and work, and about some of her favorite Montgomery retellings and homages. But our main focus today is on Kate's reading life. She's interested in building out a deep reading roster for the kinds of books she especially enjoys. Books featuring literary women, books where an investigation or detective work is a big part of the story, books that center on a house, and nonfiction about creative and artistic women in history. She's also very interested in finding more books with magical realism and ghosts, and had some interesting thoughts to share in this vein, connecting Steve, Stephen King and Ellen Montgomery, if you can believe it. Stick around to hear more. Let's get to it. Kate, welcome to the show.
- [05:10]
A
Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation. I've been a fan of the podcast for years, so it's such a delight to be here.
- [05:17]
B
Oh, well, thank you. I'm so excited to chat. And I have to tell you, when you wrote in to our submissions inbox about your work as chair of Ellen Montgomery Studies, which what I. It makes me happy to know I live in a world where such a role exists. Our team members who review those all said. Hey. Hey. I think now's a good time for a conversation about Anne. Not just about Anne, but I'm happy to talk a little bit about Anne of Green Gables today. I've been looking forward to this.
- [05:46]
A
Well, I love how often you mention Ellen Montgomery on the podcast and on the blog. Yeah. You do? Yes.
- [05:52]
B
Have I said out loud how much I've been wanting to reread specifically the Blue Castle recently? But I'm sure that's just gonna set me down. All of them. But I have to finish my summer reading guide reading first. That's where I am right now at the moment we're recording. I was not aware I did that though.
- [06:06]
A
Right, well. And if you need an added incentive to read the Blue Castle this year, it is 100 years since it was published, so it's a good year to read it in.
- [06:14]
B
Is it really? Okay, well, I have a beautiful edition in my library. I was gonna say with my name on it. Not literally, unless Anne counts.
- [06:22]
A
Yeah, that's right. But yes, no, you absolutely, you are a good booster for Ellen Montgomery. And yeah, the position, I mean, I went to P.E.I. for the first Prince Edward island where Montgomery lived and the place she mostly wrote about. And yeah, eight year old me was so excited to go to the land of Anne. But yeah, I definitely could not have conceived that the chair of Ella Montgomery Studies was the job that existed or that I would be that person one day.
- [06:49]
B
So if you visited P.E.I. when you were eight, where did you grow up?
- [06:52]
A
I grew up in Newfoundland, so another island province on the east coast of Canada, but very different. So if PEI is like gently rolling hills, very pastoral, agricultural. Newfoundland is rocky and has mostly relied on fishing and now oil and gas, but very much a study in contrast, even though they're kind of all part of Atlantic Canada. So it really felt like a different world to me.
- [07:22]
B
Oh, I love your introduction. Was so young. Okay, Kate, tell us a little more about yourself. We always want to give our readers a glimpse of who we're talking to on the podcast.
- [07:31]
A
I am a professor at the University of Prince Edward island, and as the chair of Ellen Montgomery Studies, I work closely with the Ellen Montgomery Institute. And we kind of have two main goals. One is to support research into Montgomery's life, work, legacy, context. And we do that through a journal of Ellen Montgomery Studies, which is online, and then a conference every two years. And one thing that's really exciting about the work with the Montgomery Institute is how international it is. So we usually have about 15 different countries represented in the presenters at the conference. And we're very focused on public engagement as well. So whether that's like, locally with the national park, where there's the Green Gables house that you can visit, or with some of the international scholars or tourism operators or, you know, just any of the many people who have an interest in Montgomery.
- [08:21]
B
Kate, I'm so curious how your reading life is impacted by the work you do by day.
- [08:26]
A
Yeah. So I've always been a really big reader, and I definitely return to Montgomery's. I mean, one of the things that's been really exciting for me about the role is just learning about what an artist Montgomery was. So she kept scrapbooks, she was a photographer, she kept journals for decades. So there's a lot to read that either she produced or has been written about her. I've gotten really interested in books that are adaptations of her work or homages in some way to her writing and even to books that just reference Anna Green Gables. Once I'm really interested in kind of the cultural shorthand that novel represents. So certainly some of my reading is Montgomery focused. I've never been a collector, but I think for the first time in my life, I am going to start collecting books that have some link to Montgomery. And there's a local kids bookstore in Halifax, Nova Scotia, called Woozles, and they're kind of helping me get set up there. But in terms of other reading, I mean, I certainly think that there are links back to Montgomery in terms of a lot of the things that I enjoy. So I love books about houses, for example, example women's stories. So I, you know, you can see that there were. There are links back to Montgomery, and I was reading her at such a young age and loving her at such a young age that probably those influences were inevitable.
- [09:48]
B
Ooh, that's so interesting. We are going to get more into your specific loves and make for better or worse listeners non Montgomery recommendations at the end of this episode. But I feel like it's our responsibility to ask you some Ellen Montgomery related questions while we have the opportunity. I would love to hear more about how Anne of Green Gables is used as cultural shorthand. Now, you and I were just talking about how Anna Green Gables is mentioned often in literature. I almost said fiction, but it may be in literature. And it's meant to convey a certain something about a character in the book. I imagine that that's what they're reading. But would you. Would you take it from here? What do you observe readers to be using that as shorthand for?
- [10:34]
A
Yeah, so some of the things are, you know, what you might expect. Like, it's meant to emphasize that someone is, like, bookish or studious or imaginative or maybe, like, you know, a bit hyperactive or chatty. So these characteristics that we might associate with Anne of Green Gables, but sometimes the references are negative as well. So I recently did a post on Instagram about references to Anne of Green Gables by writers from Newfoundland. So the island where I grew up, and in some cases, it's very much like we're from the same part of the world. And of course, Ella Montgomery influenced me. Like, Lisa Moore, the novelist, talks about that. But then sometimes it's like, well, you know, it's real life here on Newfoundland, like, where it's harsher, and Prince Edward island, like, life is easy. And so Anna Green Gables is. Yeah, associated with, like, tourism and summer. And so it can be very dismissive as well to kind of show like, well, what we're doing over here is, like, gritty and real life. And that's kind of interesting, too, actually, because it goes back to how in the 1920s and 30s, modernist critics started to be very dismissive of Montgomery's work. And they wanted, you know, they wanted to be producing their own F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and showing that Canadians could do modernist, too. And that was not what Montgomery was doing. And, and so she was really used as, like, almost like the punching bag for, like, this is not the direction we want Canadian literature to go in. We don't want it to be sentimental and for children, and we want it to be real life.
- [12:13]
B
I imagine you have some thoughts about the enduring appeal, though.
- [12:17]
A
Absolutely. And I think that readers and fans always loved Montgomery's work, you know, no matter what these, these critics were saying. And people continued to read Anne of Green Gables and other books by Montgomery, but it was very distressing to her. Even though, like, she had a lot of success, was a celebrity in her lifetime, and was very interested in promoting Canadian writers, she helped establish a Canadian Authors Association. So then for these modernist writers to turn around and exclude her from the national stage in many ways was very difficult. But, yeah, we remember her name now when we don't remember many of her.
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B
Critics you mentioned one of your interests right now is tracking down books that are adaptations or homages. I imagine readers would be interested in hearing a standout or two, whether or not that's a personal favorite for you that falls in that category.
- [13:14]
A
One of my absolute favorites is Heather Fawcett's the Grace of Wild Things, which is just, I think, an amazing work of art itself, a middle grade book that is Anna Green Gables meets Hansel and Gretel. And I like. I mean, I like it as a book in itself. It's a great story and great characters and a great sense of place. But I love that she draws out the dark elements that are present in Montgomery's writing. I think, you know, they're there in terms of Anne's backstory as an orphan. But in other books, she explores that dark side in more detail. Like in the Emily of New Moon series, Emily has the sixth sense, for example, so there's that kind of Scottish, like, supernatural element at play in some of her work too. So I like the. Heather Fawcett draws that out. I love Anna James book Tilly and the book Wanderers, until he actually gets to jump into Anne of Green Gables and go to the Avonlea schools. And that's a really fun one, I think that highlights the magic of books. And actually in terms of just like a book that references Anne of Green Gables briefly, Kate Quinn's new book, the Astral Library, allows people to ascend, escape their very difficult lives into a book of their choice. And there's this one little girl who's been abused and her choice is to go into Anna Green Gables, which is very powerful. Right. Like that book as an escape, which it has been for so many people, kind of metaphorically. And then for this little girl in Kate Quinn's book, Anne of Green Gables is a literal escape from her life.
- [14:52]
B
Thank you for sharing those. Now, Kate, what do you like to read for your own sake? I certainly hope you enjoy your work reading, but I imagine not all of it, not all your personal reading has to do with Anne or Pei.
- [15:05]
A
That's right. Yeah. So I read really widely. I really enjoy reading the classics. My PhD was on Jane Austen and writers of that period. So I love anything like 18th or 19th century. I love a mystery, mystery novel. I've been doing some challenges on Instagram, like the Dickens, December last December 2025. I love a Christmas Carol. Like, I love reading that every December. I'm doing a new challenge, 26 classics in 26. And I do like reading nonfiction and like, and listening to nonfiction works really well for me. So, you know, stories about women, again, the 18th and 19th century. I like to have multiple books on the go at the same time. So, you know, I can have options according to how I'm, how I'm feeling.
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B
Kate, you mentioned your submission that there are a couple things that really keep you on track in your reading life. Anything you want to tell us about?
- [16:04]
A
Yes. Well, I really do like keeping track of the books that I read on Goodreads. I find having the challenge number and watching the number creep up because it's funny. Like, I've always been a reader. I played hockey for one year when I was in grade four and like for decades after parents of the other kids on the hockey team would like, I'd run into them in the supermarket and they'd be like, talking about me and all my hockey gear reading in the hockey dressing room. So it's like I never needed motivation to reading. But somehow the good read, the good read challenge does really, does really help. And of course, it's just nice to be able to go back, like, especially when I'm recommending books to people. I can never remember the titles, but there they are. So that helps. And I'm really enjoying doing the challenges on Instagram. There's just something about reading with, with other people that's, that's really nice and seeing what other people think about books. One thing about Goodreads that I like too is I love reading one star reviews even, you know, whether or not I liked the book. I think they can often be really insightful because you get a sense of like, oh, yeah, that's true. That didn't really work with that Book that can be fun.
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B
Is that guidance, entertainment or both for you?
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A
I think both. And I mean, sometimes it makes me really angry because I'm like, no, they totally miss what this book is trying to do. Right?
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B
Yes, that or I feel like this is happening less. But UPS delivered it to the wrong house. One star.
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A
Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. I think. And particularly on Amazon. Right. That happens. It's like, yeah, that's not really about the book. But
- [17:40]
B
I'm so curious to hear how your professional work might inform your reading life. What I'm imagining is you are very steeped in the life and work of one of our major artists of the 20th century in Canada, widely read in the US and widely read around the world. I really loved especially the international tidbits in your great course. Actually, would you tell everybody about that for a moment? I'm so glad I listened to the life and Work of Ellen Montgomery lecture series that you did for the great courses before we spoke today. Because it was pure fun. Mostly, Kate. But I do feel like I have a better handle on what you do. What I'm really curious about, not so much as what they will find there. Cause those who want to find it will certainly find it is what are some of the misconceptions? What are some things that people are often shocked to learn as you see it, or that you find that we get wrong or that the culture gets wrong about the artist and her works? Because I've said Anne as shorthand many times. But Ellen Montgomery wrote many books besides the Anna Green Gable series.
- [18:39]
A
Absolutely. Yeah. So that would definitely, I think, be one of the misconceptions, is that people think that she just wrote this one novel, Anne of Green Gables, and that people have misconceptions about that book. Right. Like, it's beloved by many. And yet I think it's easy to dismiss, especially if you just have, like, kind of a superficial understanding. Whether you've, you know, gone to Pei and just seen people running around with the straw hats and the red braids. It's easy to have misconceptions about the character. And then just to think that that's Montgomery's own lane creation. And something that I have just found, found so interesting about being in this job is learning about what an artist and creator she was across her life. So she had a camera in the 1890s in Cavendish Prince Edward island, which would have been really unusual. So she was. Really had a powerful visual imagination. She was kind of a conscious magpie. Like, she loved to collect tidbits about her life. She kept scrapbooks, she wrote poems, she wrote 21 novels. She wrote, wrote hundreds of short stories. Very astute businesswoman, you know, knew what publications would want to publish what kind of stories. And so, you know, she would be very strategic about that. She loved fashion. She liked to be the best dressed person in a room. She took great pride in her household management as well, and baking and cooking and loved to eat. And so, yeah, I think that, that, that is something that's just so fascinating, fascinating about her. It's so much more than Anna Green Gables.
- [20:09]
B
I think also that people make a lot of assumptions about Montgomery herself.
- [20:14]
A
Yeah. So in the 1980s, her journal, so her diaries, which she kept for decades, started to be published. And there's a lot, there are a lot of challenges in those. You know, her marriage was at times difficult. She and her husband both had mental health issues. You know, there was, there, there was a lot of anguish, especially as her life went on. And so people were kind of shocked that the author of this sunny story could have had such darkness in her life. I mean, I would say that, and you know, scholars have talked about this, that one of Montgomery's strengths is that she balances the darkness and the light and the lightness works so well. Like, you know, Anne transforms this community and Marilla and Matthew. But, you know, there's this darkness in her past and, you know, and that darkness and light's more apparent in other books. So people were kind of amazed at learning about this complex woman behind Anna Green Gables. And then it also just allowed people to kind of see that complexity in the books as well. And in her journals are in many ways creative works too. Like she went back and copied them out and re edited them. So we can see them as kind of a great kind of literary output as well.
- [21:28]
B
And she was very much on board with them being published one day. Do I remember you saying that?
- [21:34]
A
That's absolutely true, yeah. Because she was a celebrity pretty much as soon as Anne of Green Gables was published. She did a lot of public speaking because of her books, got a lot of fan letters, so she knew there would be interest in her journal, so she went back and wrote them. But, you know, sometimes she leaves things in, like nasty things she says about people. And you think, oh, you know, why didn't she edit that out? Laura Robinson, a Montgomery scholar, you know, says, you know, we don't know for sure. Sometimes if a description, say, of a sunset that appeared first in the novel or in the journal, you'd assume what was in the journal and then she put it in the novel. But maybe she liked it so much in the novel that then it ended up in the journal. So. Yeah, so they're not exactly. I mean, I guess diaries are never, you know, it's a person's version of reality. But, yeah, they're kind of this great literary work themselves. I mean, I do find that there can be a bit of titillation around, especially in terms of how her life ended. That when I was doing the Audible, the Great Court, the Life of Mark of Montgomery, I wanted to make sure that that wasn't too central. Like I, you know, obviously, and we have such better understanding of mental health too. But I really. The interesting thing about her is, is what she created. And of course, I mean, it's all the more powerful because she dealt with such hardship in her life, but I think it's really important not to lose track of the fact that she was this amazing artist.
- [22:58]
B
I appreciate you speaking to that. And it's so interesting to hear you talk about the way she edited her journals, because when I had heard her journals referred to as literature in the past, I took that to mean quality and purpose. I was not at all thinking about the process by which they were written. That's so interesting.
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A
It really is interesting. And in the audible that you listened to that I did, you know, I talk about, for example, like, her experience of hearing about the Halifax explosion, which was this really devastating collision between two shows ships in World War I, and how even that, like, she kind of, you know, she's able to turn an event like that into this very personal psychological experience of how she coped throughout that day. But, yeah, so they are a literature absolutely in, like the, in the, you know, the way that you were thinking about them in terms of her crafting place and character. But yeah, there's also this, I guess, imaginative editing at work as well. And they're also just really interesting because you can almost think of them as kind of experimental because she'll do these long diary entries where it's her kind of revisiting the Cavendish of her past. So Cavendish is where she grew up and dreamt up Anne of Green Gables. And it's kind of the real life counterpart, we could say, to Avonlea in the Anne books, but she'll just kind of recreate with words, like every turn in the road and the tree and who lived here. And so she had this amazing imagination and that you could almost see it's like she's creating this map with words. So she's doing a lot of different kind of interesting things in the journals.
- [24:35]
B
What would you say to anyone contemplating a trip of their own to P.E.I. and surrounds?
- [24:42]
A
Well, there is an online literature that you can follow. There are many sites tied to Anna Green Gables. So, yes, I would definitely encourage anyone who's enjoyed the books and to, you know, make sure go to Green Gables. The interpretive center has been recently, recently redone, and there's a lot of information about Montgomery and her world. You can visit the house that has been known since Montgomery's lifetime as Green Gables. You can go to the site where she grew up, where she wrote Anne of Green Gables. And there are sites all over the island, in Bedeck and elsewhere where she taught school. There are many sites to explore. And then that's kind of nice, too, because, you know, if you're dragging along family members who might not be, you know, sure, if Anna Green Gables is fit to eat, there might be, you know, ways into it for them. Beautiful beaches and P.E.I. and really good food as well.
- [25:34]
B
And, you know, we should tell readers that in March 2023, we hosted an episode with Roslyn in which she had recently returned from an intergenerational book pilgrimage to P.E.I. that was motivated 100% by Anne of Green Gables and her and her daughters love for it. Yeah, listen, in readers, that's called books. So nice you'll want to read them twice.
- [25:56]
A
That's great.
- [25:57]
B
Okay, are you ready to get more into the books that you love and don't?
- [26:01]
A
Sounds good.
- [26:03]
B
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A
Great.
- [29:15]
B
How did you choose the ones you brought to the show today?
- [29:17]
A
I just chose them really quickly. I think that that was important not to overthink it. I, I chose them and I like thinking about them before coming on here. I can see that there are quite a few links between them which I think will be, will be good for a conversation.
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B
Ooh. That maybe you didn't realize at first.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
Well, I'm excited to hear it. What's the first. First book you love?
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A
The Postcard by Anne Baret. So in this book, a woman receives a postcard with four names on it. And then 15 years later, her daughter decides, with the mother's help, to track down the people who are listed on the postcard. And they travel to many places in Europe. And it turns out that these were relatives of theirs who were victims of the Holocaust. And I think one of the, the things that I love about this book, I guess the main thing is this honoring of people whose lives were taken from them. And it's this honoring through the book and through the search for them and recuperating their lives and their stories and, and their names. And I, I've realized that, and this is true with all of the books that I've chosen today, how much I enjoy when that search, like the research or the. An exploration of, of the material that becomes the book when, like, it's foregrounded in the book itself. Like, I really, I really, I just find that really compelling.
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B
Duly noted. I'm also interested in hearing what the emotional experience was like for you. I'm wondering what kind of timber we're seeking out or what range, what different kinds may appeal to you.
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A
Yeah, I mean, that is, it's such a good question because I listened to this book on audio. My daughter was only about a year and a half old. And you know, there are some absolutely excruciating moments involving children separated from their parents. And I'm not sure how I was able to carry on with this book, but I did like, I did really just find it so compelling. And maybe because like, there is, there are all these terrible things, but the book is always focused, like on the ties that bind, like the family, the love and recuperating these people's stories. And so maybe that's a reason why. Because I know, for example, I tried to read Maggie o' Farrell's Hamnet. I couldn't read Hamnet in that moment. Or Colson Whitehead's book, the Underground Railroad. That's when I couldn't read. When my daughter was small. But. Yeah, but the postcard, for some reason, I don't know, it doesn't necessarily make sense because it is harrowing emotionally.
- [31:56]
B
I'm thinking now about how it's not just the reader is at a remove from the characters, because that is how books work, but also the investigator. I feel like that should get air quotes in the postcard is also removed from those that she is researching.
- [32:15]
A
Right.
- [32:15]
B
It's a little abstract to her. I wonder, is there something there?
- [32:19]
A
Yes. Whereas in. In Hamnet is. Is direct experience. Right. What is happening? What happens to the child? Yeah, maybe that is true. That in some ways, like me as the reader and the investigator were like on the same side of the fence. Right. Like looking over at something that's already happened a long time ago, maybe. Yeah. That. I don't know if. Because I listened to it in audio, that helped create some distance as well.
- [32:48]
B
Oh, that's interesting. I was just thinking that does create a sense of immediacy, perhaps.
- [32:52]
A
Yeah, those things are funny. Like, it's hard to put my finger on it.
- [32:57]
B
I will pay attention to what the emotional content and weight is of the books that we end up recommending to you today. And if necessary, we can explore how they're gonna feel. And if that's actually a good pick for you at this season in your life.
- [33:12]
A
Right, Yes. I feel like I'm at a season in my life where I think I can handle weightier emotional things. But, yeah, sometimes, you know, sometimes it's. Maybe it's a day to day or week to week thing. Right.
- [33:27]
B
And it also might depend on the balance. Just thinking of what you said about the content of Montgomery's fiction.
- [33:34]
A
Yeah, that's right. Yes. Because certainly, you know, going from Anne of Green Gables to, you know, some of Montgomery's final diary entries, which are just very bleak, maybe that contrast can be helpful. But you're definitely in two different worlds.
- [33:48]
B
Okay, well, pay attention, Kate. What's the second book you love?
- [33:52]
A
Ghost in the Throat by Doraine Griefen. And I also love this book because we have an investigator narrator. And I listened to this one, which was great on audiobook with the Irish accent. So good. And then immediately read the book in paper copy. Cause I just loved it so Much. I love the language of the. This book. The author is a poet and the narrator is a new mother. So my daughter was about a year and a half when I read it. And so that part really appealed to me. So this, the narrator, mother, investigator character is translating from Irish into English a poem by an 18th century noblewoman, the King of Ard O'. Leary. And it is about. This was a morning poem when she finds her husband murdered. And I loved that the narrator trying to learn more about the woman behind this poem was such a central focus of the book. And our narrator, yeah, she talks to people, she visits sites. She does lots of reading. And again, yeah, I just found that really compelling, as well as the beautiful language. And the focus, of course, too, on this is a female text is kind of the mantra of the book. Right. Repeat it again and again. And it points to my. My interest in stories about women and the stories that women create.
- [35:20]
B
I enjoyed this one so much myself. Now, it sounds like this fits into one of the categories of books you really enjoy reading about, about creative and artistic women in history.
- [35:31]
A
Absolutely.
- [35:32]
B
Would you say more about that?
- [35:33]
A
Yeah, it's something that I'm drawn to. I mean, especially, like, the 18th and 19th century. I had really great professors teaching in that area. And I think it's probably. We can blame Jane Austen, really, who kind of hooked me into that time period. Yeah. So I'm just. Yeah, I'm really interested in, well, fiction, but then also nonfiction that kind of has that individual human element at the center of women who are creating. So writing in particular. But then. Yeah, but then all kinds of art. I think it's just. It's a really interesting way into the past because it's about when women start. Are creating things. It's about them reacting to the world around them, shaping the world around them.
- [36:26]
B
Kate, what's the third book you love?
- [36:28]
A
So the Five by Hayley Rubenhold. And this is the story of Jack the Ripper's five canonical victims. So the five victims that they're pretty sure were all murdered by the person called Jack the Ripper. And this book is amazing for a few reasons. It's nonfiction, and Rubenhold is not interested at all, really, in Jack the Ripper and what the identity of that person is, which there's, you know, there's a lot of speculation and titillation around the identity of that murderer. So Hayley Rubenhold is recuperating the names, the stories, the lives of the women who were Jack the Ripper's victims and really, you know, honoring Them as human beings and putting their lives in the context of late 19th century London. So it's just learning about these women in and of themselves is like. It's so powerful. And again, another thing I love about this book is that we did get such a sense of the research that Ruben Hole did and how, you know, the lives of working class women who were often illiterate is not hard to piece together. But Ruben Hole does it. She goes into, like, workhouse poor house archives, and like, it's such an honoring of these people whose lives have been dismissed really.
- [37:48]
B
Now, Jack the Ripper, on the surface, doesn't quite fit with the other books that you've brought today. And yet the way you're describing it, I get it, but I'm still struggling to articulate it. Can you say more about what lands it as? I mean, you only got three favorites, and this is one of them. Can you say more?
- [38:07]
A
Yes. So I think that these are stories about women's lives, women's lives in the past. They're stories that all have kind of an investigator character who narrating them. Even if Hayley Rubenhold's not a character in her book, like, you do get just such a powerful sense of her research. So I think that that. That part really I find really compelling. You can kind of see that act of creation happening on the page, I think the honoring of people's lives. People who. Well, I guess in all of them there's. I didn't really think about this until right now. There's murder happening in all of these. I do like detective mystery novels. So there's, you know, these horrible acts of violence that are being not like, maybe rectified. In a way, it makes me think of Ian McKeown's atonement. Right. And how what's little girl grows up and she writes the sister and Robbie's story so that they get that happy ending. And so in some way, I think these books are all doing a similar thing in terms of the postcard and the five it's with. Well, no, it's actually. They actually all have real people at the heart of them. Right. They're all rooted in historical figures who have been involved in an act of violence. And it's all about how creativity and storytelling can honor people and their lives. Does that make sense?
- [39:37]
B
It does. It does. And I'm taking notes.
- [39:40]
A
Yeah. And there's also just something about the connection between humans and that that is clear through like a storytelling having that curiosity about other people that you want to tell their stories and write it down so that they're not forgotten. But family connections are also really strong here. Like in Ghost in the Throat, it's a mother caring for her young children as she researches a mother from, you know, 250 years ago. And the postcard is about finding family who were lost in the Holocaust. And the five, like Hayley Rubenhold, shows that, you know, often these women were kind of dismissed while they were, you know, just in quotes, prostitutes. But, you know, in the five, they come alive as mothers and daughters and friends. And so it's about people being in connection with each other as well. And I think that's. I really love that. Like stories about individuals, but also where you get a sense of the historical moment, whether that's 2020 or, I don't know, 1750.
- [40:40]
B
Kate now would you tell me about a book that was not a good fit for you? And I would love to hear why not what you expected, Bad timing? What did you choose?
- [40:52]
A
So the book I chose was All Fours by Miranda July. I was recommended this book by a bookseller at this, like, lovely bookstore in rural Nova Scotia. And so my expectations were high because the bookseller was so excited about it. I think what I didn't like about this book, like, I just found it really self indulgent. So the stakes seemed like very individual and that people in the main characters lives kind of just felt like props in terms of this performative art that she was making her life into, even though it was her real life, but she was kind of acting like it was a performative art piece and that people were just props. And I really, I think as, you know, as we were just talking about with the three books that I chose, I, you know, I like books that are about, like, well, say, strong female characters, strong characters. Like, I want a compelling story about an individual, but I want to know about that context, like their connections with other people, about the place, about the historical moment. And I just don't think, like, all fours had that, like, I. The stakes needed to be higher for me.
- [42:06]
B
And there's not that sense of community that you really enjoyed in the, the ones you loved.
- [42:12]
A
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and again, you know, not everything has to go back to Ellen Montgomery, but I can't help it. But it might.
- [42:18]
B
In this episode. It might.
- [42:20]
A
But I can't help but think of Anna Green Gables, like, her name is in the title of the book, like, this is her story. But we care as much about, you know, Marilla's development. And Margaret Atwood wrote a piece of When Anne of green Gables turned 100, about how Marilla is perhaps really the heroine of the story. She's the one who changes the most. And we get such a. Yeah. Which I love as a reading. And we just get such a sense of, like, Rachel Lynn and Matthew Cuthbert and Diana Barry and Josephine. And it's as much about how Avonlea responds to Ann as it is about her development. And so. Yeah, so that sense of community is really important for me. That. Yeah, community in terms of people, but also place. And. And I love, like, part of what I love about, say, Anna Green Gables or, like, the Five is just getting a sense of the different ways that people can live and the different ways that societies have been put together. Right. Like, there's not just one way of doing it.
- [43:21]
B
Okay, that sounds lovely. Also, I want to read that piece about Marilla as heroine.
- [43:25]
A
Yes. Yeah, you can just Google it. There's a version of it in the Guardian, the UK Guardian online.
- [43:33]
B
I will track that down and we will put it in show notes. Kate, what have you been reading lately?
- [43:38]
A
All right, so on audio, I've been listening to Rebel of the Regency by Anne Foster, which is about the Prince Regent's wife. And so the Prince Regent, who would have been acting as king, as regent during some of Jane Austen's life. So, you know, again, that real interest I have in that time period, but the Prince Regent and his wife were estranged, and, you know, she met all kinds of people, like Napoleon, but had a very difficult time in England because she was ostracized. And. Yeah, it's just. She's a really interesting person who's been kind of misunderstood or not given that much attention. And one thing that, like, you get so much historical detail, but Ann Foster's really also like, uses a lot of early 21st century language. So. And she actually draws parallels to the present moment and, like, influencers, and you just. You kind of. So you really get the sense of, like, the connections between the early 19th century and the early 20th century. So. And it's also just. So it's just very fun as well. The Prince Regent was very criticized for how he treated his wife, and people would, you know, boo him in the street and stuff like that. And Jane Austen said that she would be on Princess Caroline's side because she's a woman. Princess Caroline's a woman, and I hate her husband. But he was a huge fan of Jane Austen's work. He kept copies of her books in all of his houses and kind of, through his librarian, kind of bullied her into dedicating Emma to him. And so I know some scholars read kind of Frank Churchill as potentially like a version of the Prince Regent. Who doesn't. Doesn't go kind of uncriticized in that book.
- [45:26]
B
Sounds good. What else have you been reading?
- [45:28]
A
So my friend Sarah Emsley wrote a book called the Austens, which is about Jane Austen and her sister, Fanny Palmer Austen, who was born in Bermuda and spent time in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I am today. And so it's really interesting because it shows those kind of international links that Jane Austen had, her links with Canada across the Atlantic world, in this case through her two naval brothers and then her sister in law. And just gives you a sense of what like, you know, Mrs. Croft's life would have been like aboard a naval ship. And we can see. Yeah. So Fanny's letters back to Jane Austen would have influenced Austen in particular when she was writing Persuasion.
- [46:07]
B
And Kate, you were just telling me that you were really enjoying classics on audio lately.
- [46:13]
A
Mm, yes. And I was Inspired by episode 510 of what Should I Read Next. Next in for that, I've had a few false starts with Tom Jones. I was really enjoying it, but I. It's a huge book and I never got that deep into it, but I am loving it on audio. Henry Fielding is very funny. He breaks the fourth wall. You know, he can be very chatty. So it really works on audio. But I'm really excited now to read more classics on audio. I think it could be a real game changer for my reading life.
- [46:43]
B
Okay, well, I'm happy to hear that for you. I've never read Tom Jones, or at least I haven't yet read Tom Jones. Why this book?
- [46:51]
A
Well, I did an 18th century fiction course, and one of my favorite university professors, Don Nichol, is an 18th century lit Prof. And Tom Jones is always a favorite of his. I know he's given me at least a couple copies of it over the years, so it just, it felt like I've been waiting to read it. It.
- [47:12]
B
All right, well, I'm glad that it was ready for you when you were ready for it. Kate, what are you looking for in your reading life right now? Now, of course, some things have stood out to me from our conversation, but I, I'd love to hear you say more.
- [47:26]
A
I definitely, in my, you know, application to be. How much should I read next? I had many, many ideas. So I feel like maybe, maybe it, it comes down to like, like ghost stories. And so, I mean, like both kind of, I guess as a metaphor Like, I'm thinking about books like the Postcard, Ghost in the Throat, the Fog. There's the ghosts, right, of these people whose lives are being investigated. Right. And being recuperated. And that's really true. Like, I mean, Ghost in the Throat, it's right there in the title with the 18th century poet who's very much like, haunting the narrative, even if she's not kind of. Of necessarily, you know, an apparition. And I am more and more interested in stories that have, well, actual apparitions. I was going to say literal ghosts. Can you have a literal ghost? But an Instagram reading friend of mine had recommended Stephen King's the Reach, which is about an elderly woman who's never left this island in Maine where she's. So she's lived her whole life there, and it's just separated from the mainland by a body of water called the Reach. And as she's kind of getting closer to the end of her life, all these people from her past start appearing to her and saying, it's time to cross the Reach. And one thing I loved about. I think Stephen King is so brilliant, but also, it just felt like the kind of story that Ella Montgomery could have written. She did write some ghost stories, but it just feels like, you know, it's all part of this Atlantic Northeastern world, a focus on women and the past kind of always being with us. So ghosts in different forms is, I think, what it all boils down to.
- [49:09]
B
I love this. And also that's quite. Well, you know, there's overlap, but it is a different direction from the investigator stories.
- [49:18]
A
Yes, but the investigators are. They're kind of haunted right, by these ghosts because they. Like in Ghost in the Throat, like, she just wants to learn everything she can about this 18th century poetry, so is haunted by her and is trying to give voice to this ghost, the Ghost in the Throat. So, yeah, I think there are. There are connections there. One book that I really liked was. Is it J. Courtney Sullivan, the Cliffs?
- [49:46]
B
Yes, it is.
- [49:47]
A
And I was. And I was reading it and I just thought, oh, my goodness. Like, this book has so many parallels to Montgomery. Like that focus on women's stories and the focus on one particular place, like the area on the top of the cliff. And there's no direct reference to Montgomery or Anne of Green Gables, but I Googled it after, and sure enough, she had written the introduction to a recent Penguin edition of Anna Green Gables. So that was kind of fun. I guess that was me being the investigator, but it just seemed like, oh, my goodness, there's felt like a lot of influence there.
- [50:20]
B
I was so intrigued when you mentioned Ellen Montgomery could have written that Stephen King story in your submission, and I'm really glad you told us more just now. Thank you very much.
- [50:30]
A
It's a great story. I really recommend it. And it's not horror. I mean, there's a ghost and there's some dark things, but nothing that wouldn't have happened in kind of a rural community in the 20th century.
- [50:43]
B
That sounds delightful. You know, I have enjoyed the Stephen King I've read on the whole, but I never thought an Ellen Montgomery reference would add another story to my list. My King reading list.
- [50:56]
A
I know. I just can't resist making that connection because it seems so unexpected.
- [51:02]
B
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A
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A
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B
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A
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- [52:03]
B
What are we going to talk about today, Kate? We have good options. I mean, I feel like every week we have good options. Yeah, but it's possible. Some of these are so on the nose you've already read them, and that will definitely help me narrow it down. But to recap, you loved the postcard, A Ghost in the Throat and the Five not for you, all fours. And lately you've been reading Revel of the Regency by Anne Foster, the Austens by Sarah Emsley and Tom Jones on audio. And you're looking for ghost stories. But also, we know that you love tales of literary women, books where detective work is a big part of the story. You love an investigator, nonfiction about creative and artistic women in history. Also, I think I remember reading that you love. Oh, you said specifically books about houses.
- [52:56]
A
Yes, love Books about houses.
- [52:58]
B
And I have like novels of a certain era in my mind. Or am I making that up like 19th, 20th century?
- [53:05]
A
Yeah.
- [53:07]
B
I would like to jump in with a book that I haven't talked about on the podcast, but I feel like I've been talking about a lot lately because we just hosted the author Sarah Johnson and podcast book club, but that is Grown Women by Sarah Johnson and this is a debut. It's a multi generational family saga that doesn't feel entirely unlike some of the issues we see in Ellen Montgomery. But this does not have a balance of heavy and light. There's not as much light to outweigh a lot of heavy. This is very much about the ghosts of the past and how they haunt us both in the form of of just embodied generational trauma. But also there is a very specific literary ghost I'm going to tell you about in a moment. So this is a depiction of four generations of black southern women. The story takes place in Atlanta, Nashville and surrounds and D.C. predominantly and how they interact with each other as mothers and daughters. Some of the mothers know they're terrible mothers. Some of the mothers know they received bad mothering and wants to do better by their daughters. Their attempts to correct and do better by their daughters sometimes backfire, sometimes don't succeed at all, sometimes cause harms that they did not remotely foresee. But it starts when we see the second generation fleeing Atlanta where she's clearly left behind a life of at least financial privilege to arrive in Nashville to start a new life with a soon to be daughter that we know she does not want to have, but she has decided to have. And in the next 300 something pages we learn more about why and her reasons are good, make a lot of sense, feel a lot of empathy for this character. But she has a daughter who also gets pregnant while still in high school and has a daughter who the whole family, including the estranged great grandmother who's brought back into her life, who's a renowned literary scholar, all try to do their best by this baby girl who grows up and we leave her in the story at the age maybe 17. But lots of thorny mother daughter relationships and lots of questions about how or is it even possible to right the wrongs of the past and what might that look like. But this book does interrogate the painful, traumatic things that have happened in our past and how those how the impacts of that play out. And it would be really easy for this book just to be very on the nose and feel heavy handed like a textbook and it does not as well the way that Johnson explores race, class, ambivalent parenthood, resentment, redemption is so good, so good. But it's hard and heavy. Readers should know that going in. But something I was especially charmed by and that felt so. I mean, it was just the right amount. Is the literary scholar who is the first generation in this book takes pride in her house. She loves her neighborhood, even though it's not. Not particularly fashionable because it has this literary history that means a lot to her and the character. Now this isn't like a major plot thing in the book, and I don't mind that a bit, but I love that it's in the book and the author keeps coming back to it. But that house is haunted and it is haunted by this past owner, this literary figure. But sometimes it takes the form of the. The home's owner leaves the room, she comes back, things are not where she left them. And sometimes that's pretty tricky when she's working on a manuscript. But sometimes she'll come back from working on a manuscript and there will be handwritten notes and red pen all over the pages that are not in the owner's handwriting. Like somebody else has been there and left her thoughts. And I just thought those details are so fun. So you get literal and figurative ghosts in this book and we're just going to stipulate that we both know what I mean when I say literal ghosts.
- [57:23]
A
Yes, exactly. This sounds amazing. Like so many intersections with my interests and what we've been talking about.
- [57:31]
B
I am glad to hear it. We have another book about a ghost for you and this one is set in western Massachusetts and it goes from the Puritan era forward to the present time. It's by Daniel Mason. It's called Northwoods. Is this one. You're familiar with this?
- [57:50]
A
Yes, I have it on my shelf and I again, it's one of these books I read the beginning, loved it and then for whatever reason didn't keep reading it. But yeah, it's one that I've, I, I have on my TBR for sure.
- [58:01]
B
Did you get to the wronged in a past life? Spinster sisters whose ghosts come to haunt the house. That is the setting of the story. Owner after owner after owner after owner.
- [58:16]
A
No, that doesn't sound familiar.
- [58:19]
B
Okay, well, that is going to happen.
- [58:21]
A
Okay.
- [58:22]
B
Early in the book you meet a pair of Puritan lovers. Then there's a soldier turned farmer determined to grow the best apples of the world. Those apples keep showing up in the pages for centuries. You get spinster sisters and it's their ghosts who will come to haunt the property. And they are accidentally summoned by a charlatan who is conducting a fake seance. That turns to everyone's surprise, except perhaps the ghosts themselves. Very, very real. There's a pair of star crossed lovers, a participant in a prison pen pal program. Not all the characters whose minds we get inside to get their perspective on this house and this place are human. So for you, I was thinking it's a book about a house. It's also a book with ghosts. No investigator to run you through the years like in some of your favorites. But how does that sound to you?
- [59:18]
A
That sounds great. Yes. Yeah, a haunted house. And I just, I love a story like the cliffs where we follow a house through centuries or generations. So that sounds great.
- [59:31]
B
All right, I'm glad to hear it. I don't know about this next one, but it feels worth mentioning as it is a Jack the Ripper Medusa mashup by Julie Berry. She was on the podcast, I think last fall and we did talk about this book. It's called if Looks Could Kill. Does this sound familiar?
- [59:51]
A
It doesn't.
- [59:52]
B
Okay. Well, she is best known, I believe, for her book the Lovely War. Although my kids were assigned Passion of Dulce as school reading forever. Except. So maybe some people know her from that work that was widely read in school. But I love Lovely War and then if Looks Good Kill came out this past fall. And of course it's Hallie Rubenhold the five making me think of this one. And I'm not sure if your interest in retellings and reimaginings is limited to Anne of Green Gables or if you're interested in this kind as well. But in this story, which is written as her past works have been for YA read readers. But it's very hospitable to a wide audience as long as you're not going to be scared by the monsters. But it's set in, well, predominantly in 1888 New York City, with some flashes across the Atlantic to origin stories unfolding in London with Jack the Ripper. But in late 19th century New York, we meet a young girl named Tabitha who's left her home upstate for the city because she wants to join the Salvation army in the Bowery in order to start a new life, make some friends and also help humankind. But instead she ends up getting all mixed up with her roommate. So at least she has company. But they realize that something sinister is happening at a brothel in the Bowery. They see a teenage girl get disappeared inside its walls, and they feel compelled to try to do something. So when they seek to help out this young woman, they tap into a sisterhood of Medusas in New York City who are bent on justice for women that have been hurt by bad men, including Jack the Ripper, who is trying to hide out and stay beneath the radar. And in 19th century, late 19th century New York City, historical fiction with a strong mythical component. Not quite ghosts, but if we. If we broaden the heading to ghosts and monsters, then maybe. Mm.
- [62:07]
A
Well, that sounds really intriguing, and I. I think, like, kind of magical realism is definitely an area that I'm getting more interested in. Right. Because this book sounds like it's rooted in the historic reality. Right. Like, well, historical figures and places and then with a mythical twist.
- [62:25]
B
Yes.
- [62:26]
A
Yeah, that sounds really interesting.
- [62:27]
B
So this is carefully researched and also not all nonfiction.
- [62:35]
A
Right. But, yeah, still with that. Yeah. Serious focus on women's stories and historical events. Yeah, indeed. I haven't come across that at all, so thank you.
- [62:48]
B
Well, I wanted to put it on your radar and leave it up to you to decide whether or not it's a good fit. Now, I have an idea for you that is either going to be completely obvious or maybe not so much, but it's Sarah Pauley's memoir and essays Run towards the Danger. Is this one you've read or familiar with?
- [63:06]
A
I have read it, yes. And there is that whole chapter about her experience being on Road to Avonlea, which was a favorite of mine growing up in a spin off of the Story Girl. But of course. Yeah, as you know, it goes much beyond that as well. And, yeah, essays on many parts of her life.
- [63:25]
B
Yes. I wondered if that would count as metaphorical ghosts. But she does have an essay, I think it's called Dissolving the Boundaries, where she describes taking a trip back to Prince Edward Island.
- [63:35]
A
Oh, right. Yes, that's right.
- [63:37]
B
I mean, my first introduction to Sarah Polley was as the story girl in the Road to Avonlea.
- [63:42]
A
Yeah, but you're right, like, the ghost idea does kind of work, because when she goes back to Prince Edward island as an adult, like, she's very much haunted by that experience of being on Road to Avonlea, and in particular, like, herself as Sarah Stanley. Right. Yes, the story girl. Yeah.
- [64:02]
B
Okay, well, let's get you a new one. Let's get you one more. Kate, have you read possession by A.S. byatt?
- [64:07]
A
Yeah. You know what? I thought that. I was thinking, oh, I wonder if that book will come out when we're talking. I have not. And so you need to encourage me to read it, because I feel like, again, this is one of these books. Do I have a terrible habit of just, like, reading a little bit and then not reading books? And there was something about it I just couldn't get into, but, like, it really checks off a lot of my interest, doesn't it?
- [64:31]
B
It really does. And I will tell you, I wonder how much mood has to do with this. I inhaled it on my first read, and when I revisited it during a busy time in my life, maybe five years ago, I struggled. But I do think it's worth a try for you, just purely based on what you know about your own reading life. Because for those interested in interrogating the past books with investigators, or amateur literary investigators as they are here, it's an academic mystery. It does have that same. I mean, it has two characters who have teamed up to be investigators to the past. And her prose is very elegant, lyrical, vivid, and if you like that kind of thing, she has fictional letters and poems and journal entries in her books that are written by many characters, not just one. I think it could be a lot of fun for you, but. And it's also set during a time period that I believe you're interested in. So this is about two scholars who are researching the lives of Victorian poets, particularly Randolph Henry Ash, and also another named Christabel Lamott. And they are on a mission to discover the truth about these writers, because it's Ash they were first interested in. But then they accidentally stumble upon this evidence that makes them think, like, wait, was there an illicit love affair happening between these two Victorian writers? Because that would change what we understand about their lives. It would change the things we understand about their works and their meanings. So they embark on their. This quest to discover the truth. And they're. They're chasing this trail of evidence through the ages and through many a library. But also this quest calls them to examine their own personal relationships. So we've got that back and forth in time element happening here. I'm wondering how that sounds to you today.
- [66:43]
A
It sounds so good. Like, this is a book that I should have read years ago, right? Yeah. Like, then the 19th century, the literary mystery, the investigation, it's all there. So I'm really glad that you brought it up because I think that'll be incentive to finally read it.
- [66:59]
B
Kate, of the books we talked about today, they were Grown Women by Sarah Johnson, Northwoods by Daniel Mason. We talked about if Looks Could Kill by Julie Berry and then Run towards the Danger by Sarah Pauley. Wanted to recap those for our listeners and then also Possession by a Us by it. Of those books, what do you think you may pick up first?
- [67:21]
A
All right, so I'm definitely going to read them all. I think I'll start with north woods because I did read a bit of that and I have a copy, so I just need to pull it off the bookshelf.
- [67:31]
B
I'm happy to hear it. Kate. I enjoyed this so much. Thank you for talking books with me today.
- [67:36]
A
Oh, thank you so much.
- [67:37]
B
Yeah, it was a real, a real
- [67:39]
A
pleasure and I'm just so excited now to have more ghosty stories to read. So thank you.
- [67:49]
B
Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kate and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Connect with Kate at her website katesgarth.com we have that link links to the Ella Montgomery Institute, the first full list of titles we talked about today, and more at what Should I read next? Podcast.com follow our show on Instagram at what Should I Read Next? And please tag us when you share an episode or post with your friends and fellow readers. And make sure you're following an Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket, Cast Overcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, join our email list to get weekly updates on the show, upcoming events, and all the what Should I Read Next? News you will want to to know. Sign up at whatshould I read next podcast.com newsletter. Thanks to the people who make the show happen. What Should I Read Next? Is created each week by Executive Producer Will Bogle, media Production specialist Holly Wokachevsky, Social Media manager and editor Lee Kramer, Community Coordinator Bridget Mistlehorn, community manager Shannon Malone, and our whole team at what Should I Read Next? And Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D. Podcast production Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Reiner Maria Rilke said, ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading. Happy reading, everyone.