Book Chat

It's episode 3 of Book Chat! And this month we are travelling hundreds of years back, to a book Pandora's always wanted to read (Orlando, by Virginia Woolf) and one of Bobby's all-time favourites (Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte.) Last episode, Pandora groaned at the prospect of Wuthering Heights, which she read - and loathed - for GCSE. So has she changed her mind? We discuss the two books and also the culture around the two authors: the upper-class, sexually liberal art collective, the Bloomsbury group, which Virginia Woolf was part of, and 'the Bronte myth' which has become part of the Wuthering Heights lore. How were the books received at the time - and do they stand up as modern reads?

Other books/ articles mentioned:

You Be Mother, by Meg Mason

Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

Mrs Dalloway, Jacob's Room, A Room of One's Own, The Waves and To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

Terrible literary wigs that I have known and loved, by Maddie Rodriquez for Book Riot https://bookriot.com/terrible-literary-wigs-i-have-known-and-loved/

Who's Virginia Woolf afraid of? by Stephen Unwin for Byline Times https://bylinetimes.com/2022/12/22/whos-virginia-woolf-afraid-of/

Emily, 2022 film https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.985aca68-2553-4b7e-83de-1b6465a3a8e4?autoplay=0&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb

Orlando, a play directed by Michael Grandage, on now at The Garrick

Our books for Episode 4 are:

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid

All That Man Is, by David Szalay

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a bumper episode 8, with Pandora and Bobby tackling two million-copy-bestselling, much-loved-movie-inspiring titans of the nineties. In Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding, Pandora finds a surprisingly feminist heroine who’s no less funny 25 years on. And in Nick Hornby’s beloved High Fidelity, Bobby meets his match in a perpetually depressed man-boy who needs to love himself before anyone else can love him back.

Books/articles mentioned:

Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

High Fidelity, Fever Pitch and About a Boy by Nick Hornby

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

A Life Of One’s Own by Joanna Biggs

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

One Day and Us by David Nicholls

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel

Books for episode 9:

Augustown by Kei Miller

Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After last month’s crowd-pleasers, Bobby and Pandora sink their teeth into two very different, equally meaty books. In Augustown by Kei Miller, a “dismal little valley” in Jamaica becomes a boiling pot of tension when a young boy’s dreadlocks are cut off. And in Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, the boiling pots are a little more literal – and Pandora shares an all-timer of a kitchen horror story.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Books/articles mentioned:

Augustown by Kei Miller

Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin

The Pisces and Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà

Good Material and Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

Big Fish by Daniel Wallace

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

The Bread The Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger

Takeaway by Angela Hui

PRE-ORDER SMALL HOURS by Bobby Palmer

Augustown by Kei Miller Review by Natasha Tripney for The Observer

“Augustown”: A Novel of the Sacred and the Profane in Jamaica by Laura Miller for The New Yorker

Scalding oil, racist prank calls and endless ‘lid duty’: growing up in a Chinese restaurant by Angela Hui for The Guardian

Find out more about the ShelterBox Book Club

Books for episode 10:

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Book Chat, a new monthly books podcast brought to you by novelist Bobby Palmer and journalist Pandora Sykes, which does what it says on the tin: we each bring one book, and we chat. Our one rule? The books have to be more than 2 years old. NB: this is a meaty book chat, not a book review show, so if you have not yet read the books, there will be spoilers.

For our second episode, Pandora brings White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000) and Bobby, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (2016, trans. 2019). Both books were huge bestsellers and launched each woman as a "literary sensation". We discuss this tag as well as the books themselves: our favourite bits, how they've aged, and what we'd change.

Other books/ articles mentioned:

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald

Darling by India Knight

On Beauty, NW, Intimations, Swing Time and Grand Union by Zadie Smith

Life Ceremony and Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

White Teeth seemed fresh and optimistic in 2000 - how does it read now? by Sam Jordison for The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/jul/14/white-teeth-2000-how-does-it-read-now-zadie-smith

Generation Why? by Zadie Smith for The New York Review of Books https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/11/25/generation-why/

In Defence of Fiction, by Zadie Smith for The New York Review of Books https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/zadie-smith-in-defense-of-fiction/

Zadie Smith interview: On Shame, Rage and Writing, for the Louisiana channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LREBOwjrrw

For Japanese novelist Sayaka Murata, odd is the new normal, by Motoko Rich for The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/books/japanese-novelist-sayaka-murata-convenience-store-woman.html

The future of sex lives in us all, by Sayaka Murata for The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/future-sex-society.html

A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham

Darling by India Knight

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

White Noise by Don DeLillo

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Luster by Raven Leilani

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

On Beauty, NW, Intimations, Swing Time and Grand Union by Zadie Smith

Earthlings and Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

You can get in touch [email protected].

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We bring two books both published in 1970 to the table. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by “the poet laureate of puberty” Judy Blume, and The Bluest Eye, by the legendary Toni Morrison.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Books/articles mentioned:

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Forever and Deenie by Judy Blume

The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Tar Baby and Paradise by Toni Morrison

Mona of the Manor by Armistead Maupin

First Love and My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Books for episode 10:

Stoner by John Williams

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.