Need a break? I’m connecting with each of the Smart Bitches writing team from around the world to see how they’re doing, collect some comforting recommendations, and extend their good wishes into the world.
Cozy up and join us for part one with Carrie in California, Elyse in Wisconsin, Lara from South Africa, and Amanda and I from Boston and Maryland. We have books to read and re-read, recommendations for resilience, and familiarity, and absolute fun. And we have CRUCIAL QUESTIONS about mayonnaise.
We’re sending you good thoughts and many good book wishes from a safe and acceptable social distance.
…
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Transcript
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[music]
Sarah Wendell: Hello there, friend; how you doing? This is episode number 397 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and with me today are some of the Bitches. If you need a break, and I bet you do, we are connecting with each of the Smart Bitches writing team from around the world to see how they’re doing, collect some recommendations for comforting things to do, and extend their good wishes into the world. In this episode I’m connecting with Carrie in California, Elyse in Wisconsin, Lara all the way from South Africa, and Amanda and I chat from Boston and Maryland respectively. We also have some crucial questions about mayonnaise, and I hope you’ll let me know what you think.
This episode is brought to you by The Bachelor by Sabrina Jeffries, the second in a series about the grown children of a woman widowed several times, all of whom are on a quest to find the truth about their respective fathers. Lady Gwyn Drake has protected her family’s reputation by hiding an imprudent affair from her youth. But when her former suitor appears and threatens to go public with her secrets, her twin brother hires Joshua Wolfe, former soldier, war hero, and their estate gamekeeper, to keep her safe in London. Joshua is now monitoring her every move, and Gwyn must decide which is the greater risk: outwitting a scoundrel determined to ruin her or revealing her whole heart to the bodyguard she can’t resist. The Bachelor by Sabrina Jeffries is available now wherever books are sold. Find out more at sabrinajeffries.com.
This episode is also being brought to you by Lola. Lola is a female-founded company offering a line of organic cotton tampons, pads, liners, and all-natural cleansing wipes. Lola offers complete transparency about the ingredients, and their products are one hundred percent organic cotton with no added chemicals, fragrances, synthetics, or dyes. They will make your month a little easier. Here’s how it works: they send a subscription box that is fully customizable. You can choose your mix, you can choose the absorbency, you can choose the number of boxes and the frequency. I like knowing the ingredients, but I love the personalized assortment delivered exactly when I need it. For thirty percent off your first month’s subscription, visit mylola.com and enter SMARTPOD when you subscribe. That’s thirty percent off at mylola.com with SMARTPOD.
Hello, Patreon community! Have I mentioned how fabulous you are today? You are completely fabulous. If you are a member of our Patreon community, well, then I’m talking to you. If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge, you’re making every episode accessible, and if you would like to join our Patreon, your support would be very much appreciated. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar. They help keep the show going each and every week so that you can listen and relax. I hope you’re relaxing. Are you relaxing? You should be relaxing. If you can’t, I understand. These are strange-ass times. But either way, wherever you are, I hope you’re chill, and I hope we can help a little bit. So thank you to the Patreon community for helping me keep the show going each and every week and helping me connect with all of the writers for Smart Bitches all around the world.
I will have information at the end of the episode about what’s coming up, I have a really bad joke from a patron – thank you, Paul! – and I will have links to all of the books – [whispers] all of the books. [Quietly] It’s a lot of books – that we talk about in this episode.
But I love when I get to Assemble the Bitches, as I put in my show notes, so on with my episode with Carrie, Elyse, Lara, Amanda, and myself. We are sending you good thoughts and many good book wishes from a safe and acceptable social distance, and I hope that wherever you are, however you’re listening to this, you and yours are safe and sound, and I hope we can take a little bit of time to make you feel better or at least laugh a little bit, especially because Amanda reveals a deep and undying love for something I had no idea about, and I hope you find it as funny as I did. On with the podcast.
[music]
Sarah: All right, so tell me, amid the chaos of your home, ‘cause we are all home quarantining and, and practicing good social, safe social distancing, what comfort reading or, you know, television show if you really want to go that way, what item of comfort do you want to recommend to the universe this week?
Carrie: Ooh! Well, television show; that opens up a whole new thing. I am going to stick with reading, and I’m going to bring up the same three or four books that I tend to bring up over and over again. So I like books that are funny and feature resilience, and they have to be books that I have read five million times so that I can pick it up, read a page, and then wander off and not put a lot of thought into it.
So one of my go-tos is Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. That is one of my big go-tos. I love that book, it’s by far my favorite romance, and I, I read it over and over, and I just pick up a page or two and laugh, and it makes me happy.
Also A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I believe is by Betty Smith, and then that is not a romance. It’s a coming-of-age story, and it has quite a bit of tragedy in it, and it has happy things and sad things and funny things, but I think the reason that I pick it up and put it down so often is that the characters in it remind me very much of my own family, and I find the – [weird noise] – sorry – the theme of family resilience to be very powerful, and I relate really strongly to the main character, so it’s like revisiting a friend.
And then, of course, my third is Jane Eyre by Charlotte –
Sarah: Oh, I’m shocked, shocked to my core! Absolutely floored in every way!
Carrie: And I, I have always loved Jane Eyre, but the last two years have been quite challenging for me for a lot of reasons, and I have clung to Jane Eyre as I have never before in my life.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Because of her sense of self, because the, Jane Eyre is not really about this romance. What it’s really about is this person who has everybody telling her that her life is not important, and she keeps deciding for herself that her life is important. And it’s not that she’s selfish; it’s that she just val-, she values herself, and the more that other people devalue her, the more she values herself. So, and the book also has quite a bit of funny parts, although it is not a comedy book, and it has drama and all these other things, but there are definitely, just thinking about that book kind of calms me down, because she’s got that calm core that I lack often? And that helps –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: – stabilize me. So I would say Bet Me for laughs, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for my friend Francie and her aunties who are so much like my aunties – very much about community of women – and Jane Eyre for that sense of self despite external and internal challenges.
Sarah: That’s a solid list. That’ll get you through at least a couple days of having everyone in the house all together.
Carrie: Absolutely!
Sarah: Do you have any wishes for the universe as we head into another day of social distancing?
Carrie: Oh my gosh. Well, before I do that, I will say another, just a general comfort read is children’s books? So in that vein, The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Obviously, all of The Lord of the Rings is a great book to read in times of trouble, because it’s about rising to challenges that seem impossible, but The Hobbit, which is the, the first one and the one written for younger children, just something about the familiarity of it just is very soothing to me.
So wishes for the universe: I hope that we are all kind to each other, and I think we all need to have the mantra, it’s not just about me. And I think those of us like myself who are in an enormous amount of privilege need to be mindful of, of those who are not and try to keep things in perspective and try to be as helpful and responsible towards our community as we can be.
[music]
Sarah: So hey, Lara, how you doing?
Lara: Really good! I’m embracing the world of self-isolation. My fiancé and I have seen it as a way for us to get out in nature more, so we’re doing social, social isolation but nature exploration. That’s our motto.
Sarah: I think that sounds lovely, and you posted the most beautiful picture in our Slack that I want to kind of share in the, I want to share in the podcast show notes, because it looks really beautiful. So how are things in South Africa?
Lara: Well, we’ve just, on Sunday night the president declared a state of disaster. Basically just, that just means that they can make more funds available. It’s an administration shortcut.
Sarah: Yeah, it’s like a state of emergency. We have those in state and federal level here too, yeah.
Lara: So we’ve got that. Schools are closed until the 20th of April.
Sarah: Good God!
Lara: [Laughs] So people have got, it’s about, just under five weeks.
Sarah: And it’s, wait, it is – forgive me; I have to think through this, because I’m a northern hemisphere person and also American, ergo I’m the center of my world – so it is currently fall or about to be fall, right?
Lara: Yes. Yes.
Sarah: So you just went back, or the students just went back after holiday term.
Lara: Well, so we’ve had the summer term, and we would be having our little autumn break before we go back to school, and then we have our winter break in June, July for, well –
Sarah: Right.
Lara: – like three weeks. So essentially, I think, I don’t actually know how much teaching time we’re losing. It’s, it’s going to be a whole bunch.
Sarah: Yeah. It – [sighs] – for us in the States, it, there, it’s, well, first of all, it’s a hot mess.
Lara: [Laughs]
Sarah: But it’s also highlighting how little in the way of support we have on so many different levels. Is the same true for, for South Africans?
Lara: A hundred percent, and I think the reason that we’re being so –
Sarah: Ugh.
Lara: – proactive even though we have a relatively low number of cases is because we are such an – in terms of income – really unequal society. So in places, in our townships where people live really close together and in, essentially in shacks, many of them, if one of them contracts the coronavirus, they don’t have the access to healthcare that they need. They can’t be in isolation; it’s just physically impossible. So it’s really a lot about protecting that very vulnerable population.
Sarah: Are workplaces closing as well?
Lara: Quite a few, yeah. Lot of working from home places, but I’m not sure how, like, our small businesses are going to deal with this. I’m not sure how the kind of service industry is going to deal with it, because, I mean, someone has to be at the grocery store to sell people things.
Sarah: Right.
Lara: So how are we going to protect those employees?
Sarah: Right.
Lara: So there’s a lot of big questions, potentially scary questions, that still need answers.
Sarah: So what recommendations do you have for people listening who might want something comforting or soothing or enjoyable while we’re all at home?
Lara: Well, so I have two and a half, because –
Sarah: That works!
Lara: [Laughs] One is really dependent on where people live, and that is what Lunga, my partner, and I are doing and going out in nature as much as possible.
Sarah: Yes! Such a good idea.
Lara: Because it’s really shifting our understanding of, like, the world that we live in and, and how insular it can feel, and actually, you can still walk past people on a hiking trail safely. You can still be in public, but these kind of wide-open spaces, they’re a great place to be!
Sarah: Oh. I, I don’t remember the specific figure because it was a number, and I don’t remember numbers at all well, but I know that there have been studies about how much exposure of being in nature, how long it takes for the physical effects to lower your stress levels, and I think it’s like fifteen minutes or less.
Lara: Yeah, it was, I mean, it’s, it’s really been a game-changer for us. And then the other two ones I have are far more traditional Smart Bitches kind of area of expertise, and that’s books. [Laughs]
Sarah: Oh! Bring it on, ma’am!
Lara: So I have two genres that I go to when I need comfort. Number one is fantasy, because I need a world that is completely different from the one I’m in, and then similarly, for the same kind of reason, I go to cozy mysteries as well.
Sarah: Oh, you and me both! Please tell me your recommendations; I’m so curious!
Lara: So for cozy mysteries, there is a really curmudgeonly, frumpy, I just, and I just love her: Agatha Raisin, the star of the series by M. C. Beaton. I think there are like twenty-five, twenty-six, thirty-six – I mean, there’s a million books.
Sarah: Oh, that’ll do!
Lara: [Laughs] And she is this frumpy, angry fifty-year-old who, having been raised in a working-class environment, sees the Cotswolds in the UK as, like, that is her goal; that is where she needs to be. So she sells off her PR firm in London and moves there, only to find that, to her misanthrope, people are a disappointment everywhere. So she has a really mixed reception from the village that she moves to. Some, some love her; some loather her; some fear her; some respect her. There’s a little bit of a love interest mixed in as well, and it’s a really special series, because at no point does it ever become twee or, or kind of cutesy, but it still is this really comforting small world.
Sarah: Oh, I love that. You know, it’s a TV series too.
Lara: And I refuse to watch it because they’ve cast someone who is so thin and gorgeous, and –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Lara: – and in the books, like, she is a big old frump, and unashamedly so!
Sarah: So that casting has really pushed you off.
Lara: Yeah. So she’s, like, got this chic blonde bob in the promo, like the trailers and stuff, and I’m like, there’s no way; I’m not going near that. Where is my grey? Where is my cardigan? Where is my frump? I don’t see it; I’m not interested.
So the other work is a trilogy, the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness. Also a TV series; less disappointing as a TV series than the Agatha Raisin series.
[Laughter]
Lara: But I love the relationship between Diana Bishop, witch, and Matthew Clairmont, vampire. I w-, I mean, I was raised on Twilight, I’m a sucker for it, and anytime that the genre gets kind of a fresh energy to it, especially if you chuck in a witch, I am committed a hundred percent. I love the, the mystery elements; they’re really strong. Like, the plotting is super tight, at least as far as I can tell, and also I have no memory for plots, so I completely forget how it all gets resolved, so I can reread endless times and be delighted! It just, it keeps hitting that, that, that good book space in my brain and in my heart, and it just sort of like pushes that button for me every time I read any of the three books.
Sarah: Do you have any wishes for those who will be listening to you all the way from South Africa – or Sith Ifrica; am I saying that right?
Lara: [Laughs] It’s, it’s so close. It’s so close! First of all, I wish everybody health and wellness and love and kindness, both for themselves and for the people around them. I hope that we’re able to respect and care for each other the way we have the potential to do, so I hope that this helps us see the best in each other and in ourselves, rather than anything negative or hurtful.
[music]
Elyse: So I got shitfaced this weekend and did sticker art.
Sarah: Nice! Like the gemstone stickers I see on Instagram, or like filling in a picture stickers?
Elyse: Like filling in a picture, like a kind of, what would you call it?
Sarah: Like paint by numbers?
Elyse: Yes, but with stickers. So that’s what I did this weekend.
Sarah: So that is excellent. What other recommendations do you have for comfort in addition to sticker art?
Elyse: So other than don’t watch the news if it’s going to completely freak you out, don’t go on social media, I think one of the things that I’ve had to remind myself of is that we are in an environment where the information that you get, you have to be very suspicious of.
Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah, just, just a bit, right?
Elyse: So I don’t know if this is going to make anyone feel better, and I’ll share it ‘cause I hope it does: so working in transportation and logistics, most of your, if you are living in the United States, most of your staple goods – so your paper towel; your toilet paper; canned soups; boxed, you know, like, Kraft Mac & Cheese type of stuff; pet food: all of that is manufactured domestically, and, like, we’re not going to run out of Campbell’s soup – [laughs] – we’re not going to run out of toilet paper. We can make that stuff really, really quickly, so I understand the panic-buying mentality, but it’s, it’s not going anywhere. I promise you there will never be an asswipe shortage in this country.
Sarah: [Laughs] Yes, except that they’re all on Twitter, and I’ve met them.
Elyse: Right, no, yeah, that’s, we – it’s not going to happen.
I organized my bookshelf today, which was actually extremely therapeutic. We got a new bookshelf, put it together over the weekend, I put all my books on there, I organized it by color. Like, that put me in my happy place.
Sarah: That is so interesting. I’ve been doing something similar: I’ve been cleaning out closets and cleaning out drawers, because I know that making decisions makes me feel like I’m in control – or at least more in control – and I can decide what do I need, what do I not need, and then arrange donations.
Elyse: We had to clean out our pantry, and it was like a Bad News Bears situation.
Sarah: Oh no! [Laughs]
Elyse: Like, I’m like, when was the last time we bought salad dressing? Oh, 2015 apparently. Jesus Christ.
Sarah: And the back of the pantry is like a, like a no-man’s-land where things go back there and they never come out! Like, you find them years later.
Elyse: It’s the same, like, no matter how frequently you clean out your freezer, you will inevitably find, like, bagged frozen vegetables from ten years ago.
Sarah: [Laughs] Yes!
Elyse: They just live there permanently.
Sarah: Adam and I are reasonably certain, actually, that a manicotti, a frozen manicotti that we bought when we moved in together in 1997 and has since moved with us to five different locations is what’s actually holding our relationship together, and that if the manicotti is ever thrown away, we are in very, very big trouble.
Elyse: Years ago we bought a car from my husband’s aunt, who was retired and didn’t really want to drive anymore, and we open the glove box, and there’s this plastic Jesus in there. We were like, what do we do with it? Because you can’t, you can’t throw out plastic Jesus. Like –
Sarah: No, you cannot!
Elyse: – I don’t know, I don’t know the correct disposal for that, so plastic Jesus has moved through pretty much every car we’ve owned. He’s still in the glove box. Like, we don’t know – we’re stuck with him forever now is what I’m getting at.
Sarah: [Laughs] So other than keeping Jesus in your glove box – which are not words I ever thought I’d say in a row – what else are you doing or reading to take care of yourself right now?
Elyse: So I’ve definitely been turning back to kind of older favorite authors. I shouldn’t say older, but, like I’ve been reading Tessa Dare’s backlist, going down, like, my comfort read rabbit hole. So I’ve also found that books that normally I would criticize for not having enough conflict in them? I’m like, I am a hundred percent here for, like, no conflict. We’re just going to fall in love, and it’s going to be awesome!
I just read It Starts with Scandal by Julia Quinn. So the Bridgerton prequels so far have not really worked for me. This one did. It’s very, very trope-y. We have friends to lovers, marriage of convenience, virgin hero, and slow burn.
Sarah: Ooh! Well, hello there!
Elyse: Many tropes.
Sarah: Yes!
Elyse: There is, like, no conflict in this book whatsoever. She, her reputation was ruined by a guy who was going to basically kidnap her to Gretna Green, get married, then he could have her inheritance. She was like, no, and kicked him in the balls, but now no one else will marry her because she was stuck in a carriage with this guy. So her next-door neighbor, like, does the right thing and, and, and marries her; it’s a marriage of convenience. They grew up playing together as kids, but there’s no, initially there’s no feeling between them other than friendship, but it really develops from there. Super, super light on conflict; super, super heavy on tropes; very, like, very calming, restful brain reading.
Sarah: Oh yeah. I think restful brain reading is vital right now. What do you think?
Elyse: I agree totally. Like, I normally read a lot of creepy shit –
Sarah: Yeah.
Elyse: – and I can’t do that right now.
Sarah: [Laughs] Oh no! Did you see the cover reveal for Alyssa Cole’s thriller coming out this summer?
Elyse: Yes!
Sarah: Oh my gosh! It looks so good; the cover looks so good! I am really too scared to read that; like, really too scared.
Elyse: So –
Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah!
Elyse: – I, so I recommend that book, and I, I apologize, because I think that one actually comes out in April, so I’m kind of a dick in recommending stuff you can’t necessarily read right away.
And then I, let’s see, have read a couple books by Kylie Scott, and again, fairly light on conflict. Kylie writes these books that are like, guy who’s rich or famous or secretly a spy or something totally falls in love with, becomes infatuated with, like, normal, everyday girl. And so the book that she just released is called The Rich Boy, and it’s about this woman, she’s working at a bar, they have a new busboy, they kind of hit it off, sort of maybe talking about starting a relationship, and then she finds out that he’s secretly, like, a bajillionaire who got pissed off at his dad and just walked out on the family and has been making a living, you know, as a, as a barback, basically, and his father has passed away, and so he’s been asked to come back and deal with his family that he hates, and while he’s there kind of figure out what he’s going to do with his inheritance, because he thinks his family are pretty awful people, and he doesn’t want to be like them? But he brings her with him, and she kind of becomes immersed in his life, and there’s this element, I think, to when you have a really wealthy hero that normally I’m very kind of leery of, but right now I’m like, oh, that’s just one less thing to worry about. Like, yes, I would be fine with that.
Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah, sure, why not, right?
Elyse: If any billionaires want to marry me, you know –
Sarah: Yeah, right, sure!
Elyse: – yeah! I would describe this book as Knives Out without a murder if Chris Evans’ character wasn’t a douchebag.
Sarah: Oh! Well, hello there! Really!
Elyse: Those are my two recommendations for right now. And right now I have a kitten sitting next to me, and I’m petting his nose, and that is also very reassuring.
Sarah: Aw! Hi, kitty! So what wishes do you have to send out into the universe as I edit these together?
Elyse: You know, I’m really concerned about, I think, the small businesses in my area? So even if you’re not going out, if you can get carryout or delivery, or if there’s, like, a small retailer you usually go to and you can buy a gift certificate to kind of help float them through this, just to support our communities. Now would be, if you had wanted to learn how to knit or crochet, I know our, my local yarn store, if you buy from them online, she will deliver it to your house and leave it on your porch.
Sarah: Oh! That is so cool!
Elyse: And there are lots of, if you don’t have a yarn store by you, you can get kits on Amazon, or I know there are lots of tutorials on YouTube, so if it’s something you’ve wanted to learn how to do or to pick back up, like, that’s a good anxiety-buster too. And if you’re stuck inside but you’re an extrovert, unlike me, a lot of places will do virtual knit nights, and you just Skype in, and so you can still, you can still visit and see what other people are working on, but you don’t have to leave your house.
[music]
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And now, back to the rest of the podcast, this time with Amanda and me and some very shocking revelations about the things that Amanda loves that are getting her through this time.
[music]
Sarah: So what’s up with the bookstore, Amanda?
Amanda: Sorry, I’m, I’m getting my charger. So the bookstore has closed; I think Sunday we made the announcement we’re temporarily closed for two weeks, for right now, but we’re still doing, we’re still taking online and phone orders, so we’re closed to the public, and then for those online and phone orders, you can do curbside pickup, so you show up to the bookstore, you tell us we’re here, and then we will run your book or books out to you. And then we also do, like, free delivery to the local area, so, like, the local three towns, has been doing free delivery, and it’s just mainly our store owners on their bike or in their minivan. It’s – [laughs] – really cute!
Sarah: Holy crap! You’ve become like a takeaway bookstore!
Amanda: Yes, and, so three doors down from us is the craft beer seller, and they’ve been doing local deliveries in their van, and they’re so nice, so if you have a, a book order waiting and you place a beer order, they will deliver your books and beer order together.
Sarah: Oh. My. Gosh.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: That is, that is brilliant sel-, cross-promotion! How, how, how did I not know that this could be a thing? This is amazing! Books and beer –
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: – delivered to your house. That’s incredible!
Amanda: And then, you know, a lot of people are buying full series for their children, so, like, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Wings of Fire. I just feel bad for the kids whose parents are like, what kind of math workbooks do you have in store? [Laughs] We’re like, oh no! But it’s been actually, like, very busy. And some people don’t want to come in, which is totally fine if they have, like, an immunocompromised person they’re living with or they’re worried about their own health. So we’re just really running on, like, a skeleton crew right now. I think on Saturday I go in from like eleven to five or something like that, and it’s just me, Gail, who I’ve mentioned in a previous podcast, and her daughter Sophie. Just the three of us handling everything!
Sarah: Wow! Are you getting a lot of orders?
Amanda: Oh yes, so many orders. Yeah, we did a lot of business Friday, which is even before we closed? And so far it’s, just online-wise, it’s shown no signs of slowing down, so. Our, our bosses are like, we will pay you for the hours that you’re supposed to work this week, whether you come in or not.
Sarah: Wow, really!
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: That is so great!
Amanda: And, like, the café can’t stay open, and so they’re like, we’ll pay the café staff for the hours they’re supposed to work this week, even though you can’t be here.
Sarah: Right. I know a lot of different places, and I think this is true for Boston, have the prohibition where at a certain time you have to switch to all takeout and delivery or you can’t host people in a space; you can only do takeaway? I know that’s definitely true here in the metro DC area.
Amanda: Yeah. I think some places are doing that? So for example – or some places, some places are, one of my favorite restaurants – or restaurant groups; they have a Mexican restaurant called Lone Star, and they have a, like, a regular, like, American-style restaurant called Deep Ellum – but they’re not doing takeaway? They’re using all of the extra food they have on hand to kind of like feed their employees that are out of work right now ‘cause they can’t keep the doors open.
Sarah: Oh, that’s lovely!
Amanda: I know!
Sarah: That is really lovely!
Amanda: Yeah, so I mean, you have some shit heels out there, but you also have, like, really nice examples of community and support and, and that sort of thing.
It’s a weird time. My, you know, my parents, they’re not super worried ‘cause they live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and no one goes anywhere or does anything, but, like, you know, my parents are worried about me. They’re like, we think you should get a gun. I was like, I don’t think I need a gun, but –
Sarah: What are you going to do, shoot the virus?
Amanda: [Laughs] I don’t know!
Sarah: Wait, is there corona target practice that I don’t know about?
Amanda: I don’t know!
Sarah: Not the beer, the virus?
Amanda: I’m – my parents’, like, solutions to a lot of things are like, you should probably have a gun. I was like, I don’t need one. Like, I’ve never felt unsafe in the seven years I’ve lived up here. But no, my dad’s like, have you thought about, you know, getting a, getting a gun for your home? I was like, no. I haven’t thought about it, and I don’t need it.
Sarah: Wow.
Amanda: Yeah. So that’s my, like, parents’ way of looking at things. [Laughs] It’s like –
Sarah: We need more firearms. No!
Amanda: – you need a gun! I don’t need one.
Sarah: No.
Amanda: Thank you, though.
Sarah: No. No, I just need to wash my fucking hands, that’s what I need.
Amanda: [Laughs] I want to wash my hands and my gun.
Sarah: Well, you’ve got to keep it clean.
Amanda: Got to keep the gun clean!
Sarah: Oh my gosh. Okay. So what are your recommendations for people who are listening who want something comforting?
Amanda: So originally this started as comfort reads, which I only really have two ‘cause my brain is not about that reading life at the moment.
Sarah: Oh no, it’s hard!
Amanda: I know!
Sarah: It’s so hard! And I have a theory about that.
Amanda: Okay.
Sarah: Here’s my theory: I notice this when I am tired and my brain doesn’t have quite enough energy to read, and I start thinking about nothing but video games. I start thinking about, wonder what I should do with Dragon Age: Inquisition –
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: – that I haven’t played or, you know, Stardew Valley.
Amanda: I was playing Pokémon Shield till 1 a.m. last night.
Sarah: Exactly, exactly. My theory is that with a video game, all of the visuals of the world are already created for you. You’re in a story, you make decisions that influence the story, you’re being told a story, but that work is all done. Whereas when you’re reading –
Amanda: Yes.
Sarah: – your brain has to do all of that construction work. With a video game you’re entering a world that is already built, or I found I can reread things, because I’m reentering a world that mentally I’ve already created.
Amanda: Yeah, my –
Sarah: You know?
Amanda: My two books that I have are rereads. They’re not, like, books that I’m currently, you know, are new to me. So I have Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen, and that is, like, my go-to comfort, turn-your-brain-off, you know, like – the book, to me, is the epitome of, like, a warm hug.
So I love that one, and then I’ve been turning to one of my favorite manga series, Ouran High School Host Club. That was made into a super cute anime, and a scholarship student kind of disguises herself as a boy and joins, like, the host club on campus, and then of course all the other host club men discover she’s a woman, and then, like, completely, not, like, baby her, but, like, protect her and love her, and it’s super cute. But, like, manga is visual.
And then the rest, I’ve just been, like, watching a lot of stuff that enables me to just have my laptop in bed with me, and I can just doze off and then, like – [laughs] – come back to it? So a lot of, like, napping and watching things.
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: Labyrinth, I’ve been watching Labyrinth a lot with David Bowie.
Sarah: Balls.
Amanda: [Laughs] The Tigers of Scotland on Netflix? It’s like a nature documentary about the endangered wildcats of Scotland. A lot of, like, peaceful imagery of, you know, gorgeous cats wandering around the Scottish Highlands.
And, let’s see, Kim’s Convenience, which is such a cute, funny kind of, not like a sitcom? I guess it would be a sitcom – about a family who runs a convenience store. I believe they’re a Korean family. It’s super cute. I would liken it to, if you like Schitt’s Creek, I would say Kim’s Convenience is a good one to pick up next.
And then I’ve been watching a lot of, like, Asian dramas, ‘cause I feel like I’m reading and watching at the same time!
Sarah: Oh, that’s really interesting!
Amanda: [Laughs] So there’s – let me, I have a list. Well, it’s a pretty short list. So one of them is called Bring It On, Ghost!
Sarah: I’m sorry. Bring It On, Ghost.
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: I did not know that those are the words that I needed this morning, but those are the words I needed. Bring It On, Ghost.
Amanda: So it’s –
Sarah: Please, please tell me, please tell me this is about rival cheerleading squads with a ghost. Right? That’s what I want right now.
Amanda: [Laughs] It is, it is not –
Sarah: Okay.
Amanda: – but –
Sarah: I’m sure it’s still excellent, because that is exquisite titling.
Amanda: So Bring It On, Ghost is about –
[Laughter]
Amanda: – this college student has, like, psychic abilities, and he unexpectedly gets an amnesiac ghost roommate.
Sarah: Of course he does. Right. Naturally.
Amanda: [Laughs] The ghost is a woman and he, he is a man, and she’s like, he’s, like, brushing his teeth, and she’s like, I know you can see me! I know you can see me!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Amanda: It’s really funny, and they kind of like team up to hunt down, like, bad ghosts?
Sarah: Of course they do.
Amanda: It’s –
[Laughter]
Amanda: – it’s just like really cute?
Sarah: It sounds cute!
Amanda: The other one is Perfect Match, where it’s a, kind of like a, a foodie challenge, a culinary challenge between, like, a stuck-up celebrity chef and a woman who runs, like, a night market? She’s like a street, a food street vendor? Street food vendor? So it’s also very good. I think that one is Taiwanese, if I’m remembering correctly.
And then I’ve been watching the adaptation of The Ghost Bride, which is a fantastic book if you haven’t read it. They made it into a Netflix series, and the visuals are beautiful, and the, the settings and, like, the set dressings are just fantastic. So I, that’s a good one to read and watch?
Those are my recommendations. I mean, Netflix is killing it with some really good Asian dramas right now. There’s a lot to choose from. Happy to, to do a whole separate podcast about K-dramas. I mean, Netflix has some really cute rom-coms we’ve been missing. Like, there’s one called Falling Inn Love, I-N-N, which I’ve watched recently. That one is super cute. So if you just want feel-good, you know, smoochy romances –
Sarah: Visually, visually beautiful, trope-heavy, fluffy smooching.
Amanda: Yes! And –
Sarah: It sounds good!
Amanda: – it lets me just, like, fall asleep, ‘cause I, I listen to stuff while I sleep, so I’ll just lie in bed, watch something, doze off, come back to it, you know, start from where I remember last, and rinse and repeat –
Sarah: Wow.
Amanda: – and just spend, been spending a lot of time in bed. [Laughs]
Sarah: Well, look, this is, this is really hard! I keep telling people when I speak to them, and when they’re like, oh, this is really stressful and wow, I’m like, yeah! Well, this is really hard. This is hard stuff to do. You do whatever it takes to get through and take care of yourself and the people around you. This is really difficult stuff, especially ‘cause we lack consistent guidance.
Amanda: And it’s kind of like unprecedented.
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Amanda: This is not something that we can, where we’ve experienced before?
Sarah: It’s weird, right? Like, there’s pieces of things we’ve experienced before, like going to the grocery store and seeing it out of milk and cereal and pasta and sauces, kind of like a snowstorm, you know, right before a big blizzard, especially where I live now. People panic about snow, but right now it’s sunny and about sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: So can I tell you what I’ve been reading the past week or so?
Amanda: Yes!
Sarah: I have been very happy far outside of romance, reading mysteries all set in 12th-century Wales.
[Laughter]
Sarah: I am as amused as you! In the thread that we did recently about mysteries with crossover romance appeal, Random Michelle and –
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: – Sandral both referenced the Cadfael series, and I remember thinking, oh, that was a television series when I was a kid! I think it was on PBS. They’re all on Kindle Unlimited, and I have a trial of that right now. They’re really, really fun! I am extremely happy in Wales, in the 1100s. Well, may-, you know, they’re not exactly in Wales. They’re in England right next to Wales, but you ever see one of those, you know, screensavers or videos to help you re-, relax, and it’s a field, and it’s gold, and little dust motes float in the air, and it’s quiet and soothing? That’s kind of the atmosphere of these books. There’s always a dead person –
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: – ‘cause it’s a murder mystery; there has to be a –
Together: – dead person.
Sarah: Well, I mean, how else are you going to solve a murder unless there’s a dead person to solve the murder of? So sometimes it happens right at the beginning, and sometimes it happens in a later chapter, and we have Cadfael mucking around with his plants for a couple of chapters. It’s the 1100s; nobody gets very far very fast. They’re in a monastery most of the time. He’s got a garden. It’s just very, very soothing to read about it. There’s also a certain amount of competence, because Cadfael is very competent, and then there’s bureaucratic dumbassery and terrible leadership and shitty humans, and he has to outsmart people. There’s a romance in almost every one. Michelle and Sandra were both right about that! I mean, not that I doubted them. I am extremely happy hanging out in the 1100s right now!
Amanda: [Laughs] How many books are in the series? You said there’s a lot, right?
Sarah: There are twenty-one.
Amanda: Wow!
Sarah: Yeah. And I have read three, and you know I’m not really a series reader? I’m kind of curious when I’m going to be like, all right, that’s good; I’m, I’ve, I’ve had enough. I finish one, and I just go right into the next one. Sometimes they start a little slow, and sometimes I get a little bored, and then by maybe chapter three I am in. I am totally in. And the minute I finish one I want to go hang out. It’s almost like rereading because I’m revisiting the same world over and over, and it’s a very simple world that is internally quite complex, but it’s just, it’s just so soothing. I can’t even tell you. It’s just, it’s just really lovely, and I’m very pleased that if I have to escape into a world, hanging out in the 1100s with Cadfael because he’s solving murders and helping people run away together ‘cause they deserve a happy ending! Yeah. I love this plan.
Amanda: Let’s solve murders.
Sarah: Yeah, you know, let’s solve a few murders!
Amanda: [Laughs]
Sarah: If that’s what’s getting me through the day, solving fictional crime in fictional worlds, I’m totally okay with that.
Amanda: We were supposed to go out to dinner tonight –
Sarah: Yeah?
Amanda: – like a girls’ dinner? And obviously we’re not.
Sarah: Oh, the, the publishing group? The publishing girls group?
Amanda: Yes, but we’re not –
Sarah: Right. So what are you doing?
Amanda: [Laughs] Nothing? Like, one of the women was like, we should, like, have a Skype dinner, and I’m like, no. I was telling my roommate, I was like, no one wants to see me eating microwaved hot dogs in my pajamas. So –
[Laughter]
Sarah: Why not? I mean, why not?
Amanda: I don’t know! It’s, I mean, people think my hot dog makings are gross.
Sarah: What are you doing to your hot dogs?
Amanda: [Laughs] Well, I put –
Sarah: Is there some kind of hot dog scandal here?
Amanda: I put mayo on my hot dogs.
Sarah: That would explain it!
Amanda: Yeah, and people, I have yet to meet a person up here who enjoys mayonnaise as much as I enjoy mayonnaise. [Laughs]
Sarah: So you’re a stan for mayonnaise! I’m just learning so much about you!
Amanda: I am a mayo stan! Stephanie hates it; Eric hates it; no one enjoys mayo, and I put mayo on my hot dogs. So.
Sarah: I am texting Adam this right now, just to see what his reaction is.
Amanda: [Laughs] But, like, when you’re making a grilled cheese, instead of buttering the slices of bread, use mayo, because the extra fat in the mayo will get the bread nice and crispy? That’s a little hack.
Sarah: [Gasps]
Amanda: You add mayo to a chocolate cake to make it more moist. Mayo is the unappreciated kitchen hack, in my opinion.
Sarah: [Laughs] Oh no! Adam says I need to fire you, possibly out of a cannon.
[Laughter]
Amanda: Hey, I, this is going to be disgusting, but I will, you know –
Sarah: Oh, well, you know, don’t let that stop you! [Laughs]
Amanda: I won’t! I will put mayo on like a sandwich, like a turkey and cheese sandwich and put it on the bread, and then I will lick the knife.
Sarah: [Laughs] Oh no!
Amanda: Like it’s fucking, like, peanut butter or, like, Nutella.
Sarah: Oh gosh! You have a deep love affair with mayo, huh?
Amanda: I love mayo. I love Miracle Whip, which my dad introduced me to, which is like a tangy mayo? I love mayonnaise! I feel like any sandwich can be im-, improved with mayonnaise. When I get, like, an Italian sub and I ask them to put mayo on it, I feel like they’re going to tell me to get out.
Sarah: [Laughs] Oh no!
Amanda: No one wants to see me eat my microwaved hot dogs just laden with mayo. I’ve been putting mayo, bread and butter pickles, and onions –
Sarah: On a hot dog.
Amanda: Those have been my – and I don’t have any hot dog buns, so I’ve just been using a slice of white bread. Like, that’s what we’re working with here. [Laughs] It’s not for everyone.
Sarah: Yeah! Wow! So, so do you like, do you like sour candy?
Amanda: I love sour candy.
Sarah: So you like sour, tangy things.
Amanda: I do!
Sarah: Like pickles and –
Amanda: Yeah. I love salt and vinegar.
Sarah: Right.
Amanda: Young, when I was younger, I would eat a bowl of bread and butter pickles, and then I would drink the pickle juice.
Sarah: [Laughs] I can just picture people listening to this and just screaming aloud!
Amanda: [Laughs] I’m so sorry to everyone who’s getting, like, the full-body cringe, like.
[Laughter]
Sarah: So in terms of your wishes for the greater universe, do you wish for everyone to just have more mayonnaise, pretty much?
Amanda: More mayonnaise. When in doubt, more mayonnaise. I just love, I love mayo! I can’t think of anything that I don’t enjoy mayo with.
Sarah: Chocolate chip cookies?
Amanda: I haven’t tried it, so I can’t speak to that.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Okay, sure! I love that you’re open to the possibility here.
Amanda: You know, as times get desperate, why not? And it’s so weird that, like, I have food in my house, but, like, I feel like I’ve already reached, like, quarantine scavenging eating?
Sarah: Oh no! [Laughs]
Amanda: You know, with, like, microwaved hot dogs. I put chocolate frosting on, like, toast yesterday.
[Laughter]
Amanda: I was eating peanut butter out of the jar, like.
Sarah: Well, that’s just normal; that’s just normal, everyday behavior.
Amanda: But, like, I –
Sarah: That’s normal!
Amanda: – I have stuff I could make, but I just, for some reason I’ve turned into, like, a rabid animal in my own home.
Sarah: [Laughs] So what wishes do you have for people in addition to mayo?
Amanda: Oh boy. Stay safe. Try to not beat yourself up about I’m not getting anything done, I’m not reading, I’m not being productive. I feel like that’s the biggest complaint I see, especially on social media, is, like, I thought I would be able to use this time to be productive.
Sarah: No. No, you’re using this time to handle the incredible emotional and mental load of a global pandemic. It’s a lot, right?
Amanda: Yes. There’s so much stuff going on in the background that we’re all processing emotionally and psychologically that you’re probably doing that kind of work without even thinking about it?
Sarah: Oh yeah. It’s really good advice –
Amanda: So –
Sarah: – not to be so hard on yourself.
Amanda: Yeah, don’t be so hard on yourself. Take as much time for yourself that you need, especially, I don’t have children? I just have a, a noisy cat – [laughs] – so I don’t know what it’s like living with kids who, you know, get bored easily and, you know, aren’t in school, so just try to be gentle with yourself during this very strange, unprecedented time.
[music]
Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode, but I am connecting with the rest of the Smart Bitches team throughout the week, and I will have more episodes from different parts of the world, collecting what should be an excellent assortment of comforting recommendations.
What about you? What would you like to recommend? I would love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected]. You can find all of us at Smart Bitches. You can comment on the entry for this podcast, but we would love to know how you’re doing and what’s getting you through? Is it mayonnaise? If it’s mayonnaise, then, you know, you know who to talk to, right? [Laughs]
I will have links to all of the books that we mentioned, as well as some of the fun things that we talked about like sticker art, and I will link to the cover reveal, ‘cause if you missed it, it was really something!
Coming up on Smart Bitches this week also, not only are we going to have more episodes featuring the Smart Bitches team, but we are going to have reviews of new books that you are definitely going to want to read, plus Help a Bitch Out, Books on Sale, and more. Come hang out with us. If you’re bored, we would love to hang out with you.
As usual, I close with a terrible joke. This joke is from one of our patrons. This is from Paul. And this is as close as I’m going to get to a religious joke, but this joke made me snort so hard. Are you ready? All right, here we go. [Clears throat]
A priest, a minister, an imam, and a rabbit walked into a bar. What did the rabbit say?
The rabbit said, I, I think I’m a typo.
[Laughs] It’s so dumb I love it! Thank you, Paul! If you would like to send me bad jokes, you know I would love to hear them. You can email me at [email protected] or Sarah with an H at smartbitchestrashybooks.com [[email protected]]. I think I’m a typo. [Laughs more]
Wherever you are, we wish you the very best of reading. We hope that you and yours are safe, and we hope that we have provided a few moments of amusement today. And we will be back next week with more. On behalf of all of us here, have a wonderful week, stay safe, and we’ll be back next week.
Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.
[pretty music]
This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
I’m so looking forward to listening to this! Honestly, I don’t comfort read a lot b/c I have a hard time rereading, but there’s always fanfiction. That I can reread. I read “The Wedding Party” by Jasmine Guillory lately and that was delicious and fluffy for people who are looking for that right now.
I also plan to rewatch “One Day at a Time.” Kindness, family, laughter.
This is probably going to seem like a weird choice to a lot of people, but I also re-read parts of “Doomsday Book” by Connie Willis. This is *not* a happy book. At all! It is about a young woman who time travels back to the past to find herself in the midst of the Black Death. So yeah, for some people it would be exactly what you do not want to read about right now.
And I will be honest. The ending is very sad. But it’s also one of the most emotionally moving, cathartic books I’ve ever read. I always end up sobbing and feeling calm afterward. It’s really about being responsible for your fellow human beings and having faith. Connie Willis is a Christian and I presume at some level in her book it’s about faith in god, but I don’t thinks she leaves you with any easy, pat answers to what that means. To me it’s more about the faith that when humans reach out to each other and help each other, we can feel comforted even in very difficult circumstances.
Honestly, a lot of books in Willis’s time travel series are good comfort reads. She writes about decent, hardworking people who are doing their best. “To Say Nothing of the Dog” is good if you want pure silly comedy and “Black Out” and “All Clear” is good if you want more good people striving in difficult circumstances (the Blitz). Those last two are honestly a little bit overlong and could have used some editing, but I’m a bit of Connie Willis fangirl and I don’t think any writer else gives that gut punch of deep emotion the way she does. Her actual sci fi is pretty shaky, but I’m personally not bothered by it. Someone who is more of a sci fi reader might be disappointed.
I love rereading Victoria Holt books as a comfort read. I’ve also been really enjoying rereading some YA books from my youth. Johnny Tremaine was absolutely fantastic the second time around! Also Jane Austen never fails to soothe the anxious mind.
Some of my favorite comfort reads are SK Dunstall’s Linesman series, Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, Lyn Gala’s Claimings series, and some old original series Star Trek novels.
Thank you for an enjoyable series of interviews and for the joke.
The Connie Willis I tend to use as a comfort read is Bellewether with its fads and romance.
I do find it funny Sarah is reading the Brother Cadfael series since it’s set during a period of political tumult (nicknamed the “the Anarchy” in places).
I grew up on my Mom’s mayonnaise chocolate cake and still love it. If you look at homemade mayo ingredients, it’s mostly eggs, oil, and an acid, so it’s not really a weird ingredient for a cake (Coca-Cola, on the other hand…ok, it actually makes a good chocolate cake, too). And my partner has taken to using mayo on the grilled cheese sandwiches (mostly, I think, because he never remembers to take the butter out of the fridge far enough in advance) and while I prefer butter, it’s pretty good. When I used to eat hot dogs, I also would use mayo except with Kosher dill pickles. However, I have never licked the knife (but my partner does even though I always grimace at him about it).
I don’t reread books but I remember A Tree Grows in Brooklyn fondly from reading it at age 7 (I only remember her aunts and a couple of other things and I know I didn’t understand quite a bit of it because of my age).
Thank you for this podcast and the jokes! I chuckled throughout the whole thing. I agree on the video-game reasoning – I cant seem to focus on words but I find the repetitive tasks (and completions!) in video games calming.
I’ve def not been reading and been spending whatever spare time I have to playing video games. If you like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing: New Horizons just dropped for the Switch and its very soothing.
When I am reading and am anxious – my go to reads are kids books. Mr. Poppers Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer(books 1 and 2, forget the rest of the series), and my hands down all time favourite: Dealing with Dragons and Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. I love how absolutely playful and clever Dealing with Dragons and its sequel Searching for Dragons are. And Searching has a fun romance!
Is it possible to show the lipsticks? I really need a good purple red lipstick right now.
Oh man – that was the last podcast! My life is a jumble.
Amanda!!! My soul mate! I too put mayo and Miracle Whip on my microwaved hot dogs (with my honey wheat bread when out of hot dog buns) and sandwiches. Today’s lunch, lol – I’m here for ya girl 🙂
@ShellyE: YESSSS!! Virtual high five for living that mayo life!
I love mayo on fries. I typically eat my hot dogs with mustard only, and my hamburgers with mustard and mayo.
@Stefanie Magura: Yummmmm!! Mayo on fries! I like my hamburgers with mayo and ketchup. Don’t hate mustard, but grew up on Miracle Whip and started buying regular mayo when I got married, hubby was baffled by Miracle Whip, lol – it’s a southern thing I guess!
@ShellyE:
I grew up in the south and did not grow up on miracle whip. We always have mayonaise in our house.
I forgot about mayo on fries but it is yummy! I first tried it at a Belgian fries restaurant in Los Angeles (it’s apparently a thing there). I grew up on Southern food, too, and we always had mayo (my favorite salad is Honeymoon Salad, or “lettuce alone”-really iceberg, mayo, salt, and pepper). It was my Midwestern ex-husband who introduced me to Miracle Whip, but that is too sweet for me.
I love Connie Willis, but I would pretty strongly advise AGAINST reading her book “Passage” right now. Read the one about the Black Death before you read that one.
@Stefanie: huh, I guess I assumed it was mostly a southern thing. Born and raised Texan, but my mom grew up in Iowa, so maybe it is a midwestern thing, since she did the grocery shopping.
Connie Willis is one of my favorites, but i agree some of her books are too anxiety inducing for these times.
Heartily recommend these fluffier ones by her:
To Say Nothing of the Dog
Bellwether
All Seated on the Ground (novella)
Thank you thank you!!
@ShellyE @KarenH:
I don’t have any idea what miracle whip tastes like, so it must be a Midwestern thing.
Rural North Florida girl here! My mom is from New York and hates the stuff. My dad is definitely what I’d call Southern. He’s the one who swears by Miracle Whip.
So who knows.
My rereads are all angsty with emotional roller-coasters, devastating break-ups, and joyous reconciliations. I think I gravitate to those types of books because my emotional life is on a pretty even keel and isn’t reflected in anyway by the books I turn to for comfort: TIME SERVED by Julianna Keyes; AFTER WE FALL by Melanie Harlow; GOING NOWHERE FAST by Kati Wilde (in fact, almost all of Kati Wilde’s catalog fits my comfort reread criteria); and any HP by Caitlin Crews.
Miracle Whip is waaaay too sweet for me. I like to mix mayo and yellow mustard to use as sandwich spread. The sharpness of the mustard cuts some of the cloying elements of the mayo.
As for comfort watching, our family (husband, three adult kids, and moi) is going through our entire dvd collections of Poirot, Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett as SH), Midsomer Murders, Inspector Lewis, and Inspector Gently. We’re also rewatching all of the “30 Roc” episodes in order.
We’re also trying to walk a mile a day around our neighborhood (waving from across the road and keeping our distance from anyone we pass) because we have to get out in the fresh air occasionally. There’s only so much time you can spend eating, watching tv, and reading (although I never thought I’d reach a point where I’d find I had “too much time” for reading).
I totally squeeeeed and texted my good friend when I heard that Sarah was reading the Brother Cadfael series.
That is such a lovely series.
Right now I’m re-reading some favorites, including Michelle Diener’s Regency London series. The middle book (Banquet of Lies) has the heroine taking a job as a cook while she hides from the man who murdered her father. It’s lovely and delightful and the whole series is one I enjoy rereading.
I’m also borrowing Jennifer Ashley’s Kat Holloway series from the library, which has another heroine working as a cook, and is full of lovely food. But I admit I don’t like it as much as Michelle Diener’s Regency London series.
And when I’m short on podcasts, I’m listening to Robert B Parker’s Small Vices, which is narrated by Burt Reynolds, and is probably my favorite Spenser book.
And now I must go back to my lair where I am working from home. (Husband has the guest bedroom for his office. I think I have the better space.)
I watched those old Cadfael shows on PBS. I loved them. (My parents had them on VHS!) I never thought to go back to 12th Century for some comfort reading, but now I just might. I always thought murder mysteries were comforting because bad things happen for a reason, a reason that’s more specific than “people lack compassion” or “capitalism is ruthless” or “epidemics happen.” It’s sad that the idea of evil being logical is, in itself, a cozy fantasy.
@Karelia: HA! I have been thinking of trying the tv adaptation, as I devour the book series. I’m glad you recommend them – thank you!
A fluffier Connie Willis is the rom-com “Crosstalk”, a hilarious take on an IT firm trying to sell the first telepathic communication between a couple–only the more likeable and not involved couple of people who aren’t looking at all get it.