Week One: I Capture the Castle CBBC

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Welcome to the first week of the Cool Bloggers Book Club (CBBC) where we will be discussing I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith! CBBC makes it sound like this is some exclusive club, but anyone can join, blogger or not, cool or not. I'm happy you are here and making this journey with all of us. As always, the ground rules for CBBC are:

1) Don't apologize. Don't apologize for having a lot or a little to say in the comments. Don't apologize because you're not an expert on something. Don't apologize because you don't have a doctorate in English literature. Don't apologize if you fall behind or can't keep up. Have fun and say what you have to say. You and your thoughts are important.

2) Feel free to come back and respond to comments more than once! I love it when there's a dialogue in the comments.

3) Have fun reading, thinking about the book, and discussing it! Don't feel limited to my discussion prompts - talk about whatever you feel like talking about.

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Who is Dodie Smith?

I Capture the Castle (ICTC) came on my radar because the folks over at Slate's Culture Gabfest podcast LOVE this book. It recently came to my attention again because Stephen on the Culture Gabfest mentioned reading an article called "The Small Girl's Proust" about why ICTC is something beyond a mere romance novel. Dodie Smith was an English novelist and playwright and her most famous book was a children's novel called The Hundred and One Dalmatians. The critics of the time suggested ICTC was trifling and unimportant it made Smith very unhappy. But the book was listed as one of the BBC's Big Reads and has had a lasting impact on its readers. 

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What happened in these chapters?

This is Cassandra Mortmain's journal. She's a seventeen-year-old growing up in poverty in the ruins of a castle. She lives with her older sister, Rose; younger brother, Thomas; the son of their former maid who is sort of a man of all work, Stephen; her father, a man who wrote a semi-successful book called Jacob Wrestling and has since been suffering from writer's block; her stepmother, Topaz, an artist's model who fears that as she ages she'll get less and less work; Heloïse, a white bull terrier; and Abe, a pale ginger cat. They live off the royalties from Jacob Wrestling, but that amount is dwindling every year. 

They have no furniture, very little in the way of clothing or food, and haven't paid the rent in years on their 40-year lease of this crumbling castle. We spend the first few chapters learning how they live their day-to-day lives with little contact with the outside world except for a librarian who stops by once a week. Rose is very unhappy with her lot in life because she never meets eligible men and knows her only way out is through marriage. 

The Cotton brothers arrive, though, from America. There are two brothers and the oldest, Simon, is the heir to the very estate where the Mortmains lease the castle. Rose sets her hopes on Simon, but Cassandra overhears the brothers talking smack about Rose after a visit. 

The girls' Aunt Millicent dies and leaves her clothes to Cassandra and Rose and they take a train trip to London to pick up the clothes. They soon learn that Aunt Millicent has also left them furs and then there's a weird scene about the fur coat and getting off the train and it seems like Rose is going to be able to catch Simon Cotton as a suitor after all. 

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Hat mentions (why hats?):

And though I can still see the shape of her that day huddled on the steps, her back view when we were in the car, her brown tweed suit and squashy felt hat, I can't visualize her face at all. (page 33, Chapter III)

Topaz came downstairs just then, in her black oilskins, sou'wester hat and rubber boots, looking as if she were going to man the lifeboat. (page 47, Chapter IV)

I looked this up for all of you. A sou'wester hat is a waterproof hat with wide, slanting brim. These folks don't have dresses suitable for being in public, but they have this type of hat? 

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Lines of note:

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cozy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. (page 3, Chapter I)

What an opening line! Can you even imagine it? Also, gross to put your feet in the kitchen sink! I love that this lets us learn a little about our narrator and how funny this book is going to be from the very beginning. 

I like the idea of a lute, but not the noise it makes; it is seldom in tune and appears to be an instrument that never gets a run at anything. (page 13-14, Chapter II)

LOLOLOL. I thought these chapters were very funny.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing. (page 25, Chapter II)

Is this the most famous pull quote from the book? Or is the first sentence? Hard to say. 

She had been too busy to cook, so we had cold Brussels sprouts and cold boiled rice - hardly my favorite food but splendidly filling. (page 54, Chapter V)

Gross. Brussels sprouts are gross. Imagine cold ones. I'm gagging over here. 

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle. (page 74, Chapter VI)

This is so smart. When things are hard, you really need to double down on love and kindness. 

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Things I looked up:

Auto de Fé (page 13, Chapter II) - From Portuguese auto de fé, meaning 'act of faith'; Spanish: auto de fe was the ritual of public penance, carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries, of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning.

By Pedro Berruguete - [2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=279413

The Lancaster Witches (page 33, Chapter III) - The only one of William Harrison Ainsworth's forty novels that has remained continuously in print since its first publication. It was serialized in the Sunday Times newspaper in 1848; a book edition appeared the following year, published by Henry Colburn. The novel is based on the true story of the Pendle witches, who were executed in 1612 for causing harm by witchcraft.  The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history, and some of the best recorded of the 17th century. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft.  Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty. (I might have really gone down a rabbit hole on this.)

Home Chat (page 48, Chapter IV) - a play by Noël Coward, written in 1927 and presented in London in the same year. It depicts the domestic affairs of a married couple and their family and friends, and revolves around an unjustified suspicion that the principal female character has committed adultery.

...and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park...(page 55, Chapter V, bolded mine) - I didn't know the word raven could be used as a verb. It means to seek plunder or prey.

catkins (page 71, Chapter VI) - a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated but sometimes insect-pollinated

squashed-fly biscuits (page 83, Chapter VI) - also known as Garibaldi, it's shortbread biscuits with currants

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Questions to ponder (as always, feel free to answer as many or few of these as you'd like - talk about what you want to talk about!):

1) Do you like the framing device here that Cassandra is writing a journal? What are the advantages and disadvantages to this? 

2) Did you find this book as hilarious as I did? What amused you the most (I loved how they made Miss Blossom talk)?

3) What's up with the father here? Do you think he's depressed? Secretly somehow getting his hands on booze? Is he just lazy? Too scared to write another book?

4) There is a little room between them and us which we call "Buffer State"; Topaz uses it as a studio. (page 13, Chapter II)

After my husband watched too many episodes of The West Wing, we started calling our living room "The Situation Room." Do you have a fun name for a room in your house?

5) I have rarely heard such rain as there was during the meal. I am never happy when the elements go to extremes - I don't think I am frightened, but I imagine the poor countryside being battered until I end by feeling battered myself. Rose is just the opposite - it is as if she is egging the weather on, wanting loud claps of thunder and positively encouraging forked lightning. (page 40, Chapter IV)

Are you a fan of extreme weather or does it put you out of sorts?

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Homework for you:

How are you reading this book? Paperback, ebook, audiobook? Where are you reading it? If you have a photo of your book (maybe in the cozy chair where you read!) you'd like to share with the rest of the group, send it in and I'll make a collage for next week.  dominique100 @ hotmail dot com

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Upcoming CBBC schedule:

August 12: Chapters 7-10
August 19: Chapters 11-14
August 26: Chapters 15-16
September 2: Wrap-up

Podcast Roundup Week #7

This week I listened to 41 episodes. It was a light week because most of my free time was spent watching the Olympics, so I felt kind of like a normal person who watches television.

I'm going to give you the best three episodes of the week here.

 1) "The B-Sides Edition" of Slate's Hit Parade - I don't always like podcasts about music. But Chris Molanphy's Hit Parade is a veritable treasure of musical history. He looks at the musical charts, but always with a theme, sometimes even I theme I don't think I care about until I listen. This live version of the podcast comes complete with trivia and then trivia within trivia. I didn't care for the actual musical interlude, but I just fast forwarded until the musical guest was done. If you haven't listened to this podcast, but you like history and pop music and the intersection of the two, you should totally listen.

2) "Live from Sundance" from Slate's Culture Gabfest - It's all live Slate shows up in my picks this week.  The three hosts from Gabfest and Aisha Harris of the Represent podcast team up for this live show. But the best part of the entire thing was at the end when Julia Turner, EDITOR of Slate, cracks up attempting to explain the bullet journaling phenomenon and has to say Huhuhero Pens multiple times because she is laughing so hard. I laughed out loud, while walking on a sidewalk.  People looked at me, me! inconspicuous middle-aged lady,  because I was clearly overreacting.

3) "Ghost Snakes" from You're the Expert - I've recommended this pod before and I will again, I'm sure. Chris Duffy hosts an incredibly funny AND education panel discussion with some scientist. In this case, the expert, Sara Ruane, tries to get people to stop being so paranoid about how dangerous snakes are and comes to a rousing defense of the study of non-human species at the end of the episode. It was brilliant.

Troubles of Modern Life (spoilers for The Good Place)

In terms of parasocial relationships, I think the peak of my own is my pretend friendship with Dana Stevens, one of the panelists on the Culture Gabfest podcast from Slate. Dana (and let's be honest, I think of her by her first name) is a movie critic and while I don't usually care for movies, I love Dana's obsession with them. I love how she loves and hates wholeheartedly. I love her knowledge about the details of movies that go completely over my head. She's just a nerd about what she loves and I love that about her.  Someone who has great enthusiasm for something is so exciting, even if it's not enthusiasm that I share.

Dana has been somewhat obsessed with the story about Alec Baldwin fatally shooting someone with what he says he thought was a prop gun. The first time she talked about it on the Culture Gabfest, you could tell it had sort of made her rethink her entire career based on the film industry. She's calmed down some, but you could tell based on her recommendation for this past week that she's still not over it.  Multiple things went incorrectly on that film set and people died. Is her entertainment worth that?  Is any product of an industry that puts output over the rights of human beings worth it? Should her work be supporting an industry like that?

It's a tough question. I've gone around this with authors who write books I love. The Mists of Avalon is a true masterpiece, I think, but Marion Zimmer Bradley has a troubled past. The less we speak of Orson Scott Card and his horrible racist, homophobic, anti-human rights campaigns is probably for the best, but Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are amazing novels. I've settled on the idea that I can only read books from questionable authors from the library, so I'm not directly contributing to their income, but I still do engage in the art.

It's troubling for me with fashion, too. I've written about this topic before, but buying clothing and home goods is so fraught for the likes of me. How do I know when I buy an article of clothing (or a piece of furniture, rug, pot, etc.) that the materials were sourced in an environmentally appropriate way and that the workers who made the product were treated humanely? How much research am I willing to do for every single item I purchase?

You want other examples where I debate myself to death?  Well, when the Olympics came around over the summer, I was super torn. Do I watch? Do I not watch?  On one hand, the athletes worked so hard and the constant shifting of start dates must have been so difficult for them. On the other hand, it was irresponsible to hold an event like that in the middle of a global pandemic.  On one hand, my individual decision isn't going to matter in the grand scheme of Olympic planning or coverage. On the other hand, if lots of people like me decide to make the same boycott decision, it will make a difference.

We were driving to the grocery store once to buy eggs and we got behind a giant tractor-trailer filled with chickens pressed together in tiny cages. We could see their feathers flying off and hear them squawking.  As we got to the egg aisle at the store, Dr. BB and I just looked at each other in absolute shame.  What were we even doing?  As I plunk down $6/dozen for free-range, organically fed chicken eggs to feed my dog, I wonder if I'm overreacting to life.  

Because this is what it's like to live in the modern world, isn't it?  We are forced into a series of impossible quandaries. How I spend my money directly influences other people, but my money is such a drop in the bucket compared to the global economy. How I spend my time also influences other people, but I'm not an important world leader.  Who cares if I wear a mask to the grocery store when no one else in my community does? (You guys. The numbers in my county are the same as they were here last year at this time - pre-vaccines. It's terrible.)

I'm enough of an anxious person that each of these decisions can make me spiral.  I will wait with something in my cart at Chewy for days, just trying to think of a more ethical way to obtain food for my dog.  I will dilly-dally at the car wash, wondering if the environmental impact of both my car and the water I'm using to wash it is worth it to extend a nice looking finish on my car for another month.  I am, as you can imagine, a joy to be around.

I feel like I'm basically just reiterating the premise of the last season of The Good Place. There's nothing new here, but the way that Dana keeps spiraling, talking about this terrible news story and the death on a movie set, has sort of set me to spiraling as well. I mean, if it's a good enough mental state for my best friend Dana, it's good enough for me, right?

Podcast Roundup August 2020

Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman were guests on the Longform podcast. They are co-hosts of the popular podcast, Call Your Girlfriend.  I listened to CYG for a brief period many years ago, but the sound quality was pretty terrible and I didn't enjoy their takes on people who didn't agree with them 100% of the time. But I always admired their openness about their friendship and how difficult forming and maintaining adult friendship is, especially cross-cultural friendships.  Sow and Friedman have recently released a book about this very topic and that is what the focus of the Longform interview was.  I thought that the interview was absolutely fascinating - how does a writing partnership work? what are the nuts and bolts of their process?  how much money did they get paid for the book? what were the costs associated with writing it?  

So even if you're not a fangirl of the CYG women, you might find this interview to be useful, particularly if you're interested in what it's like to do projects with people when you can't always be with them in person, which is a lot of people right now, you might find this interview useful.

The podcast Verified came out in early 2020, but I'm just now getting to listening to it.  This is an utterly befuddling case in which women use an app called "Couchsurfing" to find places to stay for free while traveling.  We listen as woman after woman uses the app to find someplace to stay near Venice and they get put into touch with a man who claims to be an Italian police officer with room to spare.  These women later report being drugged and sexually assaulted.  Who's to blame?  How do these women manage to find one another and begin an international investigation?  It's all in here.

It does have explicit discussions of sexual assault and rape exams, so it might not be for everyone.  On the other hand, maybe it should be for everyone so we can discuss the ins and outs of technology and how much faith we put in it and how people are the biggest weakness in technological security.  Or maybe we should all listen because we need to know that men like Dino Maglio exist and have a discussion on how best to punish someone like that.  Or maybe we should all listen to this because the victims have a real voice in this podcast and it's important to listen to their stories so that we'll all know what impact sexual violence has on women.  

LBJ became president after Kennedy's assassination. He immediately passed the Civil Rights Act and started his War on Poverty. Despite these massive federal projects, the summer of 1967 was a violent summer filled with race riots in over 150 American cities.  The folks at Planet Money walk us through the federal response - "The Kerner Commission" was convened and its report became a bestseller.  That report suggested, among other things, a complete overhaul of policing in the United States. More than fifty years later, that report still speaks some important truths.

The Slate Culture Gabfest has been one of my go-to podcasts for years. I've only mentioned it here a couple of times, but I listen to every episode and generally find it to be a comfort listen. Julia Turner, Dana Stevens, and Stephen Metcalf are not my friends, but I feel like I know them and would absolutely be starstruck if I ever saw them.  Every year since 2011, they put together a "Summer Strut" edition of the show, in which they ask listeners to send them songs that put a little zip in their steps while they are walking the dog, walking to the train, or just walking anywhere.  

This year their Strut episode was a bit different because the world is so different. The songs sent in were less strut-y and more contemplative.  But I still liked it because, as someone who rarely listens to music, I am always amazed at what people will voluntarily listen to.  I believe Dana, Stephen, and Julia when they say that the songs they pick are songs they listen to repeatedly, but I find myself constantly amazed that any of the songs are actually songs that stick.  I always tell myself that I'll listen to the Spotify playlist of the songs sent in, but it rarely never happens.  BUT! What a great way to try to understand what's going in the world.  

I also like that in the last few years, they've had Chris Molanthy on to talk about the song of the summer. Molanty hosts Hit Parade, which is a great podcast on the history of the music charts. I have a great deal of affection for Hit Parade and Molanthy, despite the fact that he doesn't enjoy the music of Bon Jovi. I was a bit bummed out earlier this year when Hit Parade became an exclusive Slate Plus podcast, so I can no longer listen.  The Culture Gabfest also went from weekly to bi-weekly, so I'm a bit concerned for the long-term health of my beloved Slate shows.  Regardless, my favorite part of the song of the summer bit is how the four of them talk about how certain songs are UBIQUITOUS and EVERYWHERE and it is exceedingly rare that I have heard any of them.  It's just really indicative of how easy it is to become so enmeshed in your own cultural bubble and never leave it.

Kathy Kenzora used to call her podcast The History of 1995, but within the last year renamed it History of the 90's (or History of the '90s - the apostrophe is in different locations).  She's a Canadian reporter and many of her episodes deal with issues that were quite big in Canada, but that didn't trickle down to me as a teenager in the 90s.  She had a recent episode called "L.A. Riots" that covered the buildup to the riots (protests?) after the acquittal of police officers who were accused of beating Rodney King. It was the best synthesis of the conditions that led to the event. If I were still teaching, I would replace all of my Rodney King material with this (although I'm super partial to the fourth segment of the Reveal episode called "Law and Disorder 2: Citizens, Cameras, and Cops" that tells the story from the perspective of George Holliday, who was the man who caught the King beating using his fancy new video camera).  Anyway, Kathy Kenzora should be applauded for this episode that just was so concise and yet engrossing.  Huge thumbs up.

Reading Stats 2023

Last year I did a post about reading stats, so of course I have to do it again. I don't think I'm going to finish another book in 2023, so this should be relatively accurate. Everyone should account for the fact that this 100% assumes my spreadsheet is correct, so....who knows?! Stephany sent me her spreadsheet template and I have been following it ever since, so blame her for the nitty-gritty details below. Feel free to skip this if the numbers bore you! 

Total number of books: 182 (15.2/month)
Total number of pages: 63,602 (5300/month) - If I take out audiobook pages, this number goes down to 56,715 pages. 
Average star rating: 3.56/5
Format: I'm still mostly reading physical books because the ebook selection at our library isn't as robust as the physical book collection. I would love to mostly read ebooks but that is not meant to be.  

Audiobook stats: I listened to 20 books this year for a total of 198 hours, 49 minutes of listening. I mostly listen to podcasts when I walk the dog, so I was surprised that this was so high, to be honest with you.

Book source: I don't think this will come as a surprise to anyone paying attention, but I got 96.2% of my books as loans from the public library, three additional books as loans from the university library, one book from a neighborhood Little Free Library (I returned it after I read it), and three books were books I owned. 
Recommendation sources: I did not track who or where I got book recommendations from for all books because I frequently forget by the time I read the book and put in on the spreadsheet. However, for those that I did track, here are the biggest sources.

    Pop Sugar Reading Challenge (35 books)

    Reddit list of best fantasy books by women authors (27 books)

    Blogs (many recs from Lisa, Stephany, Suzanne, Kim, Diane, Jenny, Anne, and Birchie) (25 books)

    Podcasts, including Sarah's Bookshelves, Books Unbound, and Culture Gabfest (12 books)

Special note that my IRL book recommendations was only four! I need to start asking people in my life for book recs!

Big four genres:

Genre	Percentage	Average star rating
Romance	26.4% (48 books)	3.2
Fantasy	24.7% (45 books)	3.7
Contemporary fiction	12.1% (22 books)	3.6
Historical fiction	12.1% (22 books)	3.7

I read a lot of romance novels and I think the reason that the average is so much lower than other genres is because I carefully curate the other genres pretty carefully. I'm mostly reading fantasy that is on a list of best fantasy books, so it makes sense that those books are really good. Likewise, I don't actually love historical fiction, so I'm pretty careful that if I'm diving into one of those books, it's going to be something I like. I'm much more likely to just read any old romance novel, even if I end up being pretty harsh about it later.

Star rating breakdown (out of five stars):

I know I have a reputation as someone who has harsh star ratings, but the majority of the books I read this year were 3.5 or higher! That's relatively successful, right?

Money spent: I bought two books this year. One was a Kindle book when I ran out of ebooks from the library when I was out of town and the other was my new copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I spent $25.30 on books this year.  The last time I checked out books from the library, my receipt told me that I saved thousands of dollars by borrowing books this year.

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You can seriously track my SAD with this, can't you? September through December is rough, my friends. I will rally in January with my new goals and the excitement of a new Pop Sugar Challenge, but there needs to be more light for me to love reading, I guess.  

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Bits and Bobs

• Debut novels: 12.6% 
• Part of a series: 36.3% 
• 90.1% were written by women, 8.2% by men, and 1.5% by a woman/man pair
• Fewest number of pages: Dear Ijeawele by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (63 pages - should this even be called a book?)
• Most number of pages: For the second year in a row a Robert Galbraith novel takes this category with The Running Grave (945 pages)
• Oldest: Leaves of Grass, first edition by Walt Whitman (1855)
• Newest: Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker (published 10/3/2023)
• Published in 2023: 12.6% 
• DNF:  28 books this year, from a high of five in September to none in April and June
• LGBTQ+: 12.6% had main characters and/or authors who were not cishet and another 6.6% had some representation, but perhaps that wasn't the main character or main storyline. This could use some work on my part.
• Nonfiction: One of my goals has been to incorporate more non-fiction into my reading diet and I've read thirteen non-fiction books this year, which is great because I'm reading at least one a month. Yay!

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Do you keep reading stats? What's your favorite stat of the year?

October 2020 Podcast Roundup

While I constantly refresh the electoral map, I thought I'd do a quick podcast roundup, although to be honest it's a bit of a copout because there's not much to report since my last roundup.

The only episodes I flagged as of note were both 99PI episodes. This podcast is consistently solid at taking topics that I think will be super boring and bringing life into them.  

Episode #1: "The Address Book"

So, I thought this was going to be about actual address books, but it's really about the role addresses play in modern society. There are places where there aren't formal addresses and how did more industrialized places go from "the house behind the big elm tree" to 16834 Kendaville Road in Coral, Michigan?  What does it say about the modern United States that knowing someone's zip code gives you an automatic stereotype of them? What about how necessary an address is to obtaining a job?  Being homeless is already hard enough, but there's no way to get out from under it if you can't even fill out the "address" portion of an application.  

As a rootless young adult, going from college dorm to summer apartment to my parents' house for some breaks, answering "address" was a fraught decision.  But now that we're settled here in our own house, this seems like so far in my past. This episode was a reminder for me of how lucky I am. It's also just an interesting look at logistics, which is always my favorite thing.

Episode #2: "Goodnight Nobody"

When the New York Public Library released its list of the most checked out books in its history, most were children's books. But Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown was mysteriously left off the list.  As someone who has a billion issues with Goodnight Moon, I was unsurprised by this, but it turns out that it was because there was this All Powerful Librarian named Anne Carroll Moore who didn't like the book and the movement behind the book.  The whole saga was fascinating and who doesn't love a story about feuding librarians?  

My main gripes with Goodnight Moon (many based off Dana Stevens' gripes from a Culture Gabfest episode from 2014.

1. Who the hell paints their kids room that shade of green? And don't get me started on the blood red carpet?

2. Those fucking rabbits are huge. My antipathy towards rabbits is not small and this world seems quite scary to me. 

3. What's going on with scale here? That dollhouse is almost the same size as the bed? It's basiscally the same size as the creepy adult rabbit knitting.

4. The tiger skin rug?! Enough said.

5. Who has a telephone next to the kid's bed?

Moving on.

Most of my podcast listening last month was binging Let's Go To Court. Like I wrote last month, I find the banter between the two best friends of Brandi and Kristin to be quite comforting in a time when I can't be with my friends.  I'm listening to the back catalog, too, so it's like living in a time capsule, what with them going out to eat and to concerts and living like it's 2019.  

So we still don't have an official winner of the presidential election and now I'm going to load up some LGTC episodes and pretend that all is well.  Now you know more coping strategies.

Dark Night: A True Batman Story by Paul Dini

Glen Wheldon recommended Dark Night: A True Batman Story by Paul Dini (illustrated by Eduardo Risso) on Pop Culture Happy Hour earlier this summer. It's a powerful autobiographic graphic novel in which Dini recounts an attack in which he was mugged and horrifically beaten and then the rest of the novel untangles his physical and emotional recovery.

In the 90s, at the time of the attack that forms the backbone of the book, Dini was a writer for Batman: The Animated Series and the movie Mask of the Phantasm.  I thought that his honesty was brave and compelling in this book. It not only details how traumatic his recovery was, but it was unflinching in Dini's portrayal of his low self-confidence in personal matters and just how his escape into his own imagination impacted his day to day life that really kept my attention. The rawness with which Dini admits to his own failings was painful, but wonderful.  

I also really appreciated this novel for such an intense look into a creative mind. In a recent episode of Slate's Culture Gabfest, the panelists were discussing how you can read biographies or study an artist's or writer's work and still not really understand the artistic process (but where did the art COME FROM?). Their claim was that it was nice to see tangible things that the artists interacted with, like homes and handwritten pages, and that those things help to make the artists more human.  I think that this Dini book, with its deep dive into how imaginative elements are constantly swimming through his thoughts, and with its incredible illustrations to help those of us with less imagination visualize all this, did more to help me understand the thought process of a writing and what's going on in someone's head than any visiting of a house has ever done for me. Maybe because I lack imagination!

It's not an easy read and it's not really a Batman story, but it's important and fascinating and gritty and mendacious and I highly recommend it.

7.29 Song - Riding a Turtle

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the twenty-ninth day of the month is "Song."

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I was recently listening to Chris Molanthy, host of the podcast Hit Parade, talking with the hosts on the podcast Culture Gabfest about Morgan Wallen and the ubiquity of his song "Last Night" even though he was supposedly canceled in 2020 for going to a party unmasked before he was supposed to perform on SNL and then using the n-word in a casual way.  ANYWAY. I missed the memo on his un-cancelation because I don't listen to music on the radio and I don't understand how songs become viral (TikTok? YouTube? am old), so it's not like I'm getting suggestions from Spotify for new music.

I digress AGAIN.

I want you to know that even if I did listen to terrestrial radio, I would not listen to Wallen because I am literally offended (OFFENDED) by his 2020 hit "More Than My Hometown," in which he basically sings to a girl that he loves her a lot, but "I can't love you more than my hometown." What sort of message is this? It's better to be miserable in your hometown than with the person you love in another place? WTF? I can't even with this guy. My husband and I heard this song when we were driving to the compost one day and we both stared at each other in horror. 

That's all. Also, I don't listen to Chris Brown, Michael Jackson, or R Kelly, either. I really try not to be too much of a hypocrite.

As a palate cleanser after discussing Wallen, I wanted to show you the cover of Sam and Dave's Hold On, I'm Comin' album, which was on a playlist curated by my husband and made me laugh and laugh when it came up on our drive over the weekend. They're on a turtle! Such bad 1960s photo splicing! What is going on with those poses? It's fabulous.

What's the best musical cover art you have come across?

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

In April of this year, Dana Stevens recommended the audiobook of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders as an audiobook on the podcast Culture Gabfest. I have literally been waiting for it to come in since then (almost eight months!).  

In this book, Saunders uses his decades of teaching short stories to MFA students to put together an absolutely fascinating little workbook for the rest of us. We hear seven short stories by Russian greats narrated by delightful actors, including Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, Glenn Close, and Rainn Wilson, and then Saunders walks us through a close reading of the text - why is this a great story? what is the author doing with this technique? how is it organized? why do you want to continue reading each sentence? 

Now, I did not love all the stories from the Russians. The Nikolai Gogol story "The Nose," "Gooseberries" by Anton Chekov, and "Singers" by Ivan Turgenev were very snooze-inducing and I had to keep rewinding to see if I had missed something. But! I was always very eager to get to Saunders' defense of the story and to see what his direction would be for me to see what did make the story a worthwhile addition to this collection. 

I am not the intended audience for this book. I am not a writer. I am not a creative writing teacher. But I am a reader and I like to think that I am a critical reader, so I found this sort of teacherly criticism to be so helpful, especially when it comes to thinking about what I did and did not like about writing. I imagine that it was like what it would be like in a really excellent writing workshop in college, only you're reading really great works of writing, not the substandard story Chris dashed off last night to meet the deadline. 

I also like that Saunders doesn't act like this is a handbook of how to write. His teaching philosophy seems to be about helping students discover their own style, rather than imitating others. Also, in a bit I've heard a lot in the past, the only way to get good at writing is to do writing!

I really enjoyed Saunders here, too. From his casually calling Tobias Wolff Toby to his self-deprecating bits about how his writing can't compare to the Russians to his own admission of having to rely solely on translation because he doesn't speak Russian, you really get the feeling that Saunders enjoyed writing this book. He loves the stories, he loves teaching, he loves seeing students develop their own styles and voices. Listening to someone talk about something they are enthusiastic about never goes wrong in my world. 

4.5/5 stars - Half a star docked because some of the stories were hard for me to get through. Huge recommendation for the audiobook, though. It's wonderful to hear Saunders talk about his writerly voice in his actual voice. 

Lines of note:

Why do we keep reading a story? Because we want to. Why do we want to? That's the million dollar question. What makes a reader keep reading? (timestamp 17:03)

Seriously, that IS the question, isn't it?

When we find our voice, what's really happening is that we're choosing a voice from among the many voices we're able to do and we're choosing it because we've found that of all the voices we contain it's the one, so far, that has proven itself to be the most energetic. (timestamp 3:45:16)

Do you associate good writing with energy? I've been pondering this ever since I listened to this book.

I like the person who I am in my stories better than I like the real me. That person is smarter, wittier, more patient, funnier. His view of the world is wiser. When I stop writing and come back to myself I feel more limited, opinionated, and petty, but what a pleasure it was to have been on the page briefly less of a dope than usual. (timestamp  4:05:13)

Do you have a separate Writer You and Actual You? I don't write fiction, so the Writer Me IS Actual Me. But if I wrote fiction, maybe this would be more distinct?

What transforms an anecdote into a story is escalation, or we might say when escalation is suddenly felt to be occurring, it is a sign that our anecdote is transforming into a story. (timestamp 4:52:16)

Saunders is apparently resistant to the word plot and talks about escalation a lot. I guess I never thought about plot = story, no plot = anecdote. This is clearly an indication that I should have taken some creative writing classes in college!

Of all the questions an aspiring writer might ask herself, here's the most urgent. What makes a reader keep reading? (timestamp 5:47: 56)

Back to this again. As much as Saunders tries to answer this question, it feels like the answer must be pretty ephemeral. 

But anyone can google how to hit a curveball and be informed that a hitter must identify the spin and hit the bad ones but let the good ones go by and so on and we can all be yapping about that on our way to the batting cage but once we get there we'll find that, nevertheless, some of us can hit the curveball and some of us can't.  (timestamp 12:45:00)

I generally like the way Saunders uses extended metaphors, but I was puzzled over this one. Is writing a physical skill like baseball? I mean, I could work forever and never be able to be a major league pitcher, right? But presumably I could become a better writer? Or do you think there is some innate thing that separates bad from good from great writers? 

If we decide that the story supports cheerful obedience, it does. If we decide that it opposes cheerful obedience, it does. Both readings feel radical. Both pose the question of how to deal with oppression. Then and now, in a world divided into haves and have nots, the most urgent one of all. But the story, in declining to answer, in obscuring the place where it might have answered, feels like it's not avoiding the question but irradiating it with increased intensity. (timestamp 13:53:21)

This is in defense of an ambiguous ending. I think ambiguous endings can be great, but not always. I wish he'd spent more time trying to create more generalizable lessons from the stories because while it may have worked in the story he was talking about, sometimes it wouldn't and what makes the difference? How do you articulate that difference?

Hat mentions:

Do we have to know about his one-sleeved coat, his pointed hat, the shape of his lips and nose? (timestamp 3:26:46)

He was wearing a straw hat and a white waistcoat... (timestamp 4:20:58)

...gave up wearing hat and gloves for good...(timestamp 4:29:02)

..with wide sideburns, wearing a three-cornered hat and with a sword... (timestamp 9:14:22)

He remembered quite well that the latter had a plumed hat...(timestamp 9:26:11)

...and his three-year-old son was reaching for his redoubtable three-cornered hat...(timestamp 9:38:37)

Podcast Roundup May 2025

If I'm searching my own blog correctly, I haven't done an official podcast roundup since LAST AUGUST. How is that even possible? Let's do this. Here are some of the best episodes I've listened to recently. 

1) Slate Culture Gabfest "Meghan Markle Sprinkles Potpourri on You" episode from March 12. 

The hosts have Dan Kois on as a guest to talk about the scourge of giant white houses in modern houses. I enjoyed greatly from the comfort of my giant white house. 

2) Sarah's Bookshelves Live, episode 193: Clare Leslie Hall (Author of Broken Country)

I think Sarah from Sarah's Bookshelves is sometimes too focused on what she's interested in during her interviews (I, for my part, am not interested in the finances/business aspect of the book world, but Sarah is and that's fine, but it's also why I don't usually listen to her author interviews). I was vaguely interested in reading Hall's book Broken Country, though, so I listened to this episode. It both convinced me that I don't need to read Broken Country AND that Hall is a wonderful person and I would both like to have coffee with her and let her watch my puppy. (Lonesome Dove is an amazing book and if you haven't read it, you should.)

AND I also learned that I need to cut Sarah some slack because she asked some really interesting questions. AND shoutout to the way the podcast episodes are organized on the website and that Sarah links to every book they so much as mention, good or bad, in the episode. 

3) The Indicator from Planet Money's episode "When Do Boycotts Work" from April 28. 

Many of you may know that I have a lot of personal boycotts going on. There are a number of small businesses in my town I boycott because of how they handled COVID. I have not watched a Superbowl game in about a decade now. I don't shop at Walmart. We have recently limited Amazon purchases and I haven't been to Target yet this calendar year. 

But do boycotts work? That's an interesting question and I found this episode fascinating personally. It's less than ten minutes long. Give it a try!

4) Pop Culture Happy Hour's episode "The TV show I'd Like to Live In" from May 1. 

No one said Gilmore Girls (which is MY answer), but Glen Wheldon's methodical voting of people off of Gilligan's Island was hysterical. This is old skool, but if you have not listened to Wheldon's defense of Rowlf on "Our Favorite Muppets," you have to listen. Glen Wheldon is a comic genius.

5) 60 Songs That Explain the '90s: The 2000s - The episodes on "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" and "Jenny from the Block"

I can already hear some of you rolling your eyes RIGHT NOW.  I know, I know. If you asked me, I am not sure I'd say 60 Songs That Explain the '90s is my favorite podcast (The Memory Palace or Let's Go to Court (RIP) or Petty Crimes or Pop Mom! or Books Unbound would probably win, but DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE), but I end up thinking about and talking about this podcast more than any other I listen to. And boy do I talk about it a lot on this blog.

I've already written about the "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" episode, but I feel like I need to expand a little bit here. I used to listen to country music. I had all the ladies ranked (LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride, Shania Twain, Lorrie Morgan) and adored The Chicks. In the 1990s, we also had Jo Dee Messina, Lee Ann Womack, Terri Clark, Patty Loveless, and Pam Tillis. Add in Reba and Dolly and WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR? I mean Garth, of course. But what I'm saying is that these were the days before bro country. 

And I was a fan of Toby Keith. I remember saving my pennies in college to buy a CD because I wanted "How Do You Like Me Now?!" But "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" really changed things for me. It turned country music mean. So many male voices. So much sexism. So much anger. When country music blacklisted The Chicks and suddenly there was no more Shania and even Garth was being replaced by the likes of Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen, I just stopped.

Toby Keith was such a good song writer and his early stuff was so good (and, frankly, so was some of his post-"Courtesy" work), but his legacy is SO COMPLICATED. This podcast episode grapples with this and it made me feel SEEN. I basically stopped listening to new music at that point - maybe I would have anyway because I was at an age when that happens - but this really was a turning point for me.

I mostly want you to listen to the episode about the Jennifer Lopez song because it's clear that Rob (Harvilla - the host of the podcast) really wants it to be about Paula Abdul and he kept singing Paula Abdul songs and I was jamming to MC Skat Kat and if none of these references mean anything to you, just move on.

6) Ear Hustle - The duology of "Slam That Door" and "No Other Word for It."  

San Quentin has dismantled its death row and those inmates are now integrated into the general population of the prison. In "Slam That Door," they take some of those inmates back to their cells on death row and it was a hard listen. In "No Other Word for It," they go to women's prisons in California to talk to women who have been imprisoned because of drunk driving. It was a very different tenor - the women seemed almost cheerful about their lives. Putting them back to back was super interesting. 

It was also a bit of an eye-opener for me because the host Nigel Poor, kept talking about how "everyone" has been behind the wheel while intoxicated and...look, I was upset by this. It's not true and it sort of made me respect her a little less, even though I guess I should have been grateful she was just being honest about. I don't know. I have complicated feelings about it all.

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What you might notice is missing is that I don't have a limited run podcast series. It's because I haven't really listened to a decent limited run podcast in ages. When I last asked for podcast recs, people recommended me some and I added some to my app, but they just didn't appeal to me (look, people adore Sweet Bobby, but I was twenty minutes in and nothing had happened, so...). I'm happy for any recs if you have them!

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Have you listened to any good podcasts episodes lately? 

Podcast Roundup, July 2022

Bill Woodrow, Listening to History

I'm going to shout out a few long-running podcasts today. They do good work and I rarely acknowledge them, but I still listen to most of their episodes.

The first thing I want to talk about is Planet Money's ongoing series about the Beige Book. The Federal Reserve publishes the Beige Book eight times a year and it's just a series of anecdotal information gathered from the twelve districts across the country on economic trends and conditions. PM takes the Beige Book and makes an episode about the report, awarding Beigie Awards to the Fed district that they consider the best or most telling anecdote.  In recent episodes, "LIVE from New York, the Beigie Awards" and "The Beigie Awards: The Gallon is Half Full," the Fed workers who have "accepted" the Beigie Awards have been so pleased that their work is being acknowledged and just so excited that someone is reading the Beige Book.  If you want to hear some underappreciated bureaucrats get giggly, the Beigie Awards series might be for you.

Yesterday, Slate's Culture Gabfest released its 2022 "Summer Strut" episode in which they crowdsource songs from their listeners that you could strut to walking down a city sidewalk. I wrote about their Strut episode in 2020 and the songs in 2020 were contemplative and less strut-y than in previous years. Last year one of the hosts was on maternity leave and didn't participate, but she's back this year and she really brought the chaos. She picked this weird song called "I Am Steve" by the band Hey Steve and one of the hosts, whose name is Steve, started get a bit defensive about it and the byplay among the three hosts was making me audibly snort while I was walking the dog.  

Edited to add: I added "Birding" and "I Am Steve" to my Earworms playlist. I think it's the first time I've ever actually added songs thanks to a Strut episode.  I am loving this chaos-inducing Julia Turner. 

As always, the conversation about the song of the summer went over my head because I'd heard of none of the songs that they talked about, but it does remind me that there is a bit of a monoculture out there yet - I just don't really participate in it. Great episode and I highly recommend it. 

Glen Wheldon is one of the regular hosts on Pop Culture Happy Hour. In general, I like the same things he likes, but even when I disagree with him, I love his sheer enthusiasm.  I've written before in this space that his monologue on why Rowlf is the best Muppet in "Our Favorite Muppets" had me absolutely rolling on the floor. So his rant about what he deems as the best movie soundtrack of all time in a recent episode did not disappoint me. I mean, he's obviously wrong, but he's so positive and has such strong feelings and Aisha Harris is so completely befuddled that the whole episode is going on my list of the best moments in my podcasting listening career.

Other Top Podcast Moments:

1. The beginning of the "Missing Fathers" episode of Hello From the Magic Tavern when a famous voice from another podcast introduces the show. 

2. The Joe Thomas (ep. 50) --> Andi Oliver (ep. 70) --> Christmas Special episodes of Off Menu may be the best trilogy of podcast episodes in the history of podcasting. 

3. The moment in the "Tray, Tumbler, Spork" episode of Ear Hustle when one of the incarcerated men who works on the show was all "I don't deserve this empathy" to the non-incarcerated host and I almost cried.

4. The ending of "The Living Room" from Love + Radio. So haunting.

5. The answer to who was stealing the lady's identity in "Money Tree" from Criminal. I still think about this nearly every week. 

6. While I'm thinking about Criminal, the woman in "Final Exit" does such good work and yet I thought she came off as so terrible during the interview and I think about this episode all the time, too. 

7. One of the live shows of The Adventure Zone when they're doing a team-building exercise and they're all being giant jerks to the DM and boy does he pay them back. I laughed so hard. 

8. I can't get over how much the Song Exploder episode of "The Commander Thinks Aloud" comes into my brain on a regular basis. I don't listen to Song Exploder a lot and had never heard of this band or this song, but it lives rent free in my head.

9. The shock in the anonymous narrator's voice on the Casefile update about the capture of the EAR/ONS serial killer. I'll never forget the moment I heard it. 

10. I think about how many raccoons are in our yard every night after listening to the guest on the racoon episode of You're the Expert. 

Have you listened to any good podcast episodes lately? What memory of a long ago listened to episode has stayed with you?

10.17 Method - Finding Books and Podcasts

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the seventeenth day of the month is "Method."

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I get comments all the time about how much I read, which is a fair amount. I read every day no matter what. I can listen to audiobooks and podcasts when I walk the dog, which I do for hours every day. I rarely listen to music or watch television or movies. So that's how I consume media. The question I get less often is how do I find these books and podcasts!

Here are my main sources for finding books:

1) You. I read a lot of blogs and some of these blogs talk about books they're reading. Sometimes people do regular monthly wrap-ups, sometimes they just offhandedly mention this awesome book they're reading, and sometimes they write up entire posts devoted to a single book. Whatever method, I'd say this is a popular way for me to find books. (If you've ever recommended a book on your blog and I didn't say thank you on my own blog, THANK YOU.)

2) Lists. I am always trying to complete a list. Right now, I'm trying to read all the Women's Prize for Fiction Winners (only three left!) and I'm verrrry slowly working my way through Reddit's Top Fantasy Books by Women. I don't really know what I'm going to do after I've completed the Women's Prize for Fiction list, but I have some ideas. 

3) Challenges. I'm pretty dedicated to doing the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and I've had some good luck with the Read Harder Challenge (although this year's prompts look...not great). With the prodding of some of these prompts, I read much more broadly than would be my natural tendency and I've discovered some real jewels I would otherwise not have read. 

4) Friends. It is not uncommon for me to start a conversation with "what are you reading these days?" and I get fabulous recommendations this way. I also tend to eventually work my way to asking people if they have recommendations specifically for me. And, if you suggest a book to me, I promise to you that I will at least try to read it. 

5) Podcasts. I basically only listen to one podcast that is exclusively about books (Sarah's Bookshelves Live), but I regularly get book titles from lots of other podcasts, including Pop Culture Happy Hour, Culture Gabfest, 99% Invisible, and Fresh Air. 

Okay, great, you might be saying to yourself, but how do you know what podcasts to listen to? This is actually much harder. I have actually been listening to audiobooks more frequently these days because finding quality podcasts has become a bit of a challenge. Here are a handful of ways I find podcasts.

I'm an Android girl and Podcast Addict is my pod player of choice. 

1. Reddit. The podsnark thread in the blogsnark subreddit is where I've found the smartest talk of podcasts that is free online, but the vibe there is a little more music and pop-culture heavy than I am, so the frequent you must listen to Popcast or Who Weekly? recommendations do get repetitive. I am sure those are great podcasts for some listeners, but they don't really resonate much with me.

2. Newsletters. I'm subscribed to Nick Quah's 1.5x Speed newsletter, as well as Hot Pod (which Quah started before he left for Vulture). As far as I'm concerned Quah is the media's premiere podcast critic and I will continue to follow everything he writes. Quah's recommendations are hit or miss with me, but he's very clever in his selections.

3. Other podcasts. This is quite meta, I'm realizing. A lot of times podcast hosts will recommend other podcasts or a host will guest on a different podcast. 

4. Reddit. There's a spreadsheet of true crime podcasts, but there's no evaluation of quality of the podcasts, so you never know what you're going to get when you download episodes. Bear Brook, a very good podcast, is given equal weight with Happy Face, a dismal podcast. 

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What are you best sources for book and podcast suggestions?