Book Chat

Book Chat is back, and episode 7 pits a Pulitzer-winning author against a Nobel-winning author. But not really: in the battle of the Annies whose name ends in ‘X’, both Bobby and Pandora are winners. Discussing Close Range by Annie Proulx, Bobby feels the need to make apologies for the unapologetic bleakness of rural Wyoming – while Pandora is transported back to the excruciating experience of Catholic boarding school girlhood in Annie Ernaux’s A Girl’s Story.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

Close Range and The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

A Girl’s Story, The Years, A Man’s Place, A Woman’s Story, Happening, Getting Lost and Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Ordinary Human Failings and Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan

Different Seasons by Stephen King

Stoner and Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

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

Welcome to Book Chat! A new monthly books podcast hosted by Pandora Sykes and Bobby Palmer, 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. For our inaugural episode, Bobby has chosen Tin Man by Sarah Winman, and Pandora has chosen Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin. So join us for a meaty book chat and beware for those who have not read the books: there will be spoilers.

Other books mentioned:

The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan

The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman

When God Was A Rabbit and Still Life by Sarah Winman

Further Tales of The City, Babycakes and Michael Tolliver Lives, by Armistead Maupin

Clip attributions:

Sarah Winman on Writer’s Bone podcast, 2018

Armistead Maupin on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, 2007

Ian McKellan reads Letter to Mama for Letters Live, 2017

You can get in touch with us at [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes.

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

Welcome to episode 5! On the menu today is Memorial by Byran Washington, which just slips over our '2 years old' threshold - the hype is arguably still hyping - and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, which was written 30 years ago and yet still, the hype hypes (StudioCanal just released a sparkly new version of the film.)

We discuss Memorial's literary take on the 'meet the parents' romcom, the 'traumedy' genre, and why Mitsuko is one of the best characters ever written; and why The Virgin Suicides' big themes - adolescent mental health, the male gaze, the American Dream - still feel as prescient today.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

Memorial by Bryan Washington

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Memorial review by Maria Marchinkoski for The Harvard Review

Memorial review by Tash Aw for The TLS

Memorial review by Ron Charles for The Washington Post

Jeffrey Eugenides interview at The Strand bookstore

Does The Virgin Suicides still hold up 25 years later? By Emily Temple for LitHub

Pre-order Isaac and the Egg in paperback

Books for episode 6:

When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

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

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.