649. Kindness Everywhere: New Year’s Recs & Wishes from Claudia, Carisa, Verity, Colleen, and Elyse

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 649 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and one more time, all of my guests are all of you. We’ve got one last set of interviews, and we are going out with a banger of a book list. We’re going to talk about YALLFest, about koalas, how terrifying David Tennant is, bonkbusters, Taylor Swift lyrics, and pop culture portal fantasies in romance.

I do have a CONTENT and TRIGGER WARNING for this episode. As part of my conversation with Carisa, who’s the second interview, Carisa teaches history, and as part of our conversation we mention police violence, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and discussions of depictions of assault. This is at about twenty-five minutes [25:00] into the podcast, and you will hear me ask about it specifically. You should probably skip ahead about one minute, thirty seconds.

I also have a compliment this week, which is so fun! This compliment is for Talby M.

You are the human personification of fiery sunsets, warm blankets, and the very best kinds of pastry. Thank you for being a wonderful person!

If you would like a compliment or you would like to support this here show, you know where to go: patreon.com/SmartBitches! Monthly pledges keep me going, make sure that every episode has a transcript hand-compiled by garlicknitter – hey, garlicknitter! – [Hi! – gk] – and we have fun stuff. We have bonus episodes, we have a Discord, and it will soon be time for the great Valentine’s Day card exchange, so if you’d like to join the Patreon and get in on all the goofy fun, patreon.com/SmartBitches.

Support for this episode comes from Lume Deodorant. If you have not heard the hype around Lume, I will fill you in right now. And – stay tuned to the end – I have a coupon. Lume is a game-changing, whole-body deodorant powered by mandelic acid to control odor everywhere, which means it’s safe to use anywhere on your body. And they have three product options now, too. There’s the solid stick deodorant, which is formulated and powered by mandelic acid. There’s sweat control deodorant, which comes with seventy-two-hour odor and sweat control. And a spray deodorant, which is aluminum-free and ideal for hard-to-reach places. The thing that I like most about Lume is that I don’t have to think about it. I know it works, I put it on, and I don’t worry about it anymore. And I know in my household, the minute a new Lume package arrives it is pillaged by my teenager, who loves the body wash. It’s fine; I order it for them. Lume is baking-soda-free, paraben-free, and there are terrific scents like Clean Tangerine and Lavender Sage. I have the Toasted Coconut, and when it’s winter, like it is now, I love the fact that it smells like summer. Lume’s starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant; cream tube deodorant; and two free products of your choice, like a mini body wash and deodorant wipes; plus free shipping. And those products last a really long time. As a special offer for listeners, new customers get fifteen percent off all Lume products with our exclusive code, and if you combine the fifteen percent off with the already-discounted starter pack, that equals over forty percent off the starter pack. Use code SARAH15 for fifteen percent off your first purchase at lumedeodorant.com. That’s code SARAH15 at L-U-M-E D-E-O-D-O-R-A-N-T dot com. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you! You can stay fresher, stay drier, and boost your confidence from head to toe with Lume.

All right, are you ready? We have so many fun interviews in this episode, and this is our last one. Thank you for making this so much fun. On with the podcast with Claudia, Carisa, Verity, Colleen, and Elyse.

[music]

Claudia Rollins: I am Claudia Rollins. I am a little bit of everything, and I have known Sarah for like most of our lives…

Sarah: Yeah, since college!

Claudia: Yes, college!

Sarah: Yeah, you, you graduated a year ahead of me, right?

Claudia: I did, I did. And I am in the midlands of South Carolina – [laughs] – red state – and I am on my next career now, in my fifties, which is social work.

Sarah: Fantastic!

Claudia: So – in a red state. Yes! [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s, that’s, that’s got to require a lot of energy.

So what books – or book or books; you can bring more than one – do you want to recommend to everyone that you read this year?

Claudia: Well, two authors, actually.

Sarah: Perfect!

Claudia: The first being Tracy Deonn. She wrote the Legendborn Cycle, or is writing the Legendborn Cycle. I got to meet her at YALLFest, which is in Charleston, South Carolina, every November.

Sarah: Yep.

Claudia: If anyone listening has a chance to go, please go. It is a community that is kind and diverse like you would not believe. I, I love her to pieces anyway, but she took a very, very white legend – [laughs] – which is the legend of Arthur –

Sarah: Yep.

Claudia: – and flipped it on its side with Black girl magic.

Sarah: Yep!

Claudia: I talked to her for quite some time, and I was, I told her, and she said she has, she actually was awarded the Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award, but – something that I looked up, but cannot find, but that she told me was that there is a society that deals with author-, Arthurian books and projects, and I think it’s international, and they’ve invited her to be a part of their archive.

Sarah: Ohhh, that is –

Claudia: Yeah.

Sarah: – cool!

Claudia: Right? I said, Oh my –

Sarah: Holy cow!

Claudia: – God! It’s time! It’s time for, what is it, not white, not dead men being in that cycle of storytelling. She’s also a huge geek. Star Wars, she’s written a bunch of Star Wars anthologies for Tor.com. Like, she’s done so much, if you go look at her, and I hadn’t – I hate to say this – I hadn’t looked at her, like all of her information, until today? She’s been a K through twelve educator, a videogame producer; she’s done live theater. Like, she is just an amazing human being, and I, last – this is from last year; I’m still reading the series – I decided, like, I was going to read Black girl magic, both metaphorical and literal, and she was one of the people that I came across. So I talk about her quite a bit.

Also Ashley Poston?

Sarah: Oh yes!

Claudia: Have you had her on the podcast yet?

Sarah: I have not! Do you recommend?

Claudia: I recommend one million thousand trillion times. Please –

Sarah: Perfect!

Claudia: – put her on your podcast.

Sarah: Yes, ma’am!

Claudia: She has done, she did some YA stuff that was kind of a sci-fi thing, but what she’s been known for more recently are three books: The Dead Romantics –

Sarah: Yep!

Claudia: – which is set in South Carolina –

Sarah: Yep.

Claudia: – I believe –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Claudia: – if I’m right about that. The Seven Year Slip and A Novel Love Story, and she finds a way with her books to surprise me every time, and I, you know I read like I breathe.

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: So I’ve – [laughs] – read a lot of books, and she’s this redheaded Charlestonian; she’s from Charleston. She actually shares a tattoo artist with me. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, nice!

Claudia: Believe it or not! So yeah, I flipped out when I saw that. So she is just perky and this amazing writer, but The Dead Romantics is my favorite out of that trilogy?

Sarah: It’s so good. So much behind-the-scenes knowledge about publishing and how messed up it is? Like, wow!

Claudia: It’s so crazy, and also she surprised me; it was one of those, How is she going to get out of this situation? And she did it brilliantly.

Sarah: Yep.

Claudia: And The Seven Year Slip was the same. I, all three of them were; I have to say that. And again, I’ve been lucky enough to meet her – she’s a YALLFest person – and I have to slip this in: I got to meet V. E. Schwab.

Sarah: Aren’t they amazing?

Claudia: I wasn’t even supposed to meet her, because we didn’t get tickets. That was a whole messed up thing, but she was kind enough to say hello to us at the end of – and then she was like, Get your books out; I’m going to sign them. And I spoke to her about how she speaks to her audience about mental health.

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: And she and I spoke about that for a little bit, but yeah, she’s one of, she’s one of my heroes. So I, I’m really glad I got to meet her again at YALL – I keep talking about YALLFest, but that’s where I meet authors?

Sarah: I get it!

Claudia: ‘Cause, you know, when people down there write a lot of, the variety down there is insane, so even if your listeners don’t get a chance to go to YALLFest, you can go look through the authors?

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: That’s what I usually do, and pick out a couple new authors each year.

Sarah: Did you know that V. E. Schwab has a new book next year?

Claudia: The toxic lesbian vampires – [laughs] – is what she refers to it as.

Together: Yes.

Claudia: It’s, I’ve got it preordered. Did you know that she is signing the front page of every single hardback preorder copy from everywhere?

Sarah: Ohhh – that has to be a tip-in. Holy shit!

Claudia: If you go, go look at her Instagram, because she’s been notating how many boxes of copies she’s going through.

Sarah: Oh-ho, yes.

Claudia: And plus, she was doing a couple of things, and she, she says she limits her, she’s taken to limiting how many people she’ll sign for because she has learned that she doesn’t get as good of an interaction when she’s just sign-and-go, sign-and-go, sign-and-go and…

Sarah: Yes.

Claudia: – fans. So –

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: – I appreciated that. But I, I was just kind of gobsmacked that she was doing that with this book. But she refers to it as her toxo, toxic lesbian vampire novel. It’s, what is the name of it? It’s Bury –

Sarah: Bury Our Bones –

Claudia: Bury My Bones?

Sarah: – in the Midnight Soil.

Claudia: Yes. And I am so excited for it. I, I’ve got both the Kindle – she’s one of those authors that I’ll get the Kindle and the hardback just ‘cause I’m that geek.

Sarah: Yep.

Claudia: And you know I would talk all day about authors if I could.

Sarah: What are your wishes for people in 2025?

Claudia: My wishes for people in 2025 – the world is on fire.

Sarah: Little bit.

Claudia: Little bit. Little, little more fire than we had in…previously. Two wishes specifically: one is, we’ve got to learn to be kinder to ourselves, because we’re all in fight or flight syndrome, I feel like.

Sarah: Yes.

Claudia: We’re in the middle of that, so we’ve got to learn to take a beat and say, It’s okay that I didn’t get all fifty of these things done today; let me find some time for myself. And I don’t care what it is you’re doing. You could be staring at the yard and the birds and whatever. I think we’ve got to learn to, to kind of cut ourselves off from the fire for a while in order to rebuild our mental health, and I don’t know – I would also encourage people, please take care of your mental health.

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: And, and I know I work in mental health, but everybody needs someone to talk to, and also there’s that quote by Mr. Rogers, and it’s look for the helpers?

Sarah: Yep!

Claudia: I would wish for everyone in this world that’s set on fire, that if they can find, not even a person but a way to help, be, be kind to someone that is not you? Finding the kindness within yourself to help someone else in some way is going to make you better, more aware of your community, and right now we need that.

Sarah: Yeah. We read a lot of hero stories where it’s like, One person will save the world! And that’s not actually how it works. It’s never just –

Claudia: No.

Sarah: – one person that saves the world. And that, and that they, there are processes to care for people, and we can find them, and we can join them, and we can work with them.

Claudia: Well, I always say find a social worker!

Sarah: Oh yeah! They’ll know!

Claudia: And, and say, Hey, guy – [laughs] – who needs what?

Sarah: I need to do this, I, I’m interested in doing this thing. Oh, well, there’s like nine different places for you to do that.

Did you bring a joke? And it is okay if you did not.

Claudia: I actually googled koala jokes – [laughs] – this morning!

Sarah: Ohhh! Koala jokes! You are going for a retro vibe. The, for those of you, those of you who will be listening, Claudia and I went to the same women’s college in South Carolina, and our mascot was in fact the koala.

Claudia: Koala –

Sarah: Koala jokes: that’s awesome! They’re slow-moving and their brain is like a tiny little peanut.

Claudia: Well, and they’re slow-moving because – because, because, because – the eucalyptus takes so long to digest.

Sarah: Yes, they have to, they are eating a food that is nearly impossible to get nutrients from, but that’s their main food source because, you know, if you’re going to be stubborn, go all the way.

Claudia: I tell you what, I have so much love for koalas. They’re so cranky. They’re fabulous.

Sarah: Yep.

Claudia: So the joke is:

Why don’t koalas like fast food?

Sarah: Why don’t koalas like fast food? Why?

Claudia: Because it’s too hard for them to catch.

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s true! Slow-moving is the operative word! That’s a good one!

Claudia: I will tell you, I will tell you, though, before they get fed they’re pretty damn fast.

Sarah: Yeah, well, you know, and they’ve also got those claws that are, like, frighteningly big.

Claudia: I worked at Riverbanks for over a year, and my friend Aaron, who I met there, he and I never could finagle our way into touching one of the koalas. We begged –

Sarah: Aw!

Claudia: – from the day we started until the day we left, and neither one of us ever got that chance, so I’m holding out that one day I will get to actually pet a koala, but we’ll see.

Sarah: You might have to, you might have to go to Australia, ‘cause when we went to Australia about ten years ago, we went to every zoo that had koalas. Like, we went to the Sydney Zoo; we went to the Brisbane Animal Sanctuary; we went to this animal sanctuary away from Brisbane; like, we were koala obsessed. There was one place where they took pictures of my, of my kids holding koalas. Like, you got to hold them for a minute, and they’re just, they’re just fluffy. They’re just very fluffy.

Claudia: I just, everything in Australia wants to kill you?

Sarah: Yes, everything in Australia would like you to die. That is correct.

Claudia: I am terrified of Australia. Like, I literally –

Sarah: Fair!

Claudia: – would love, legitimately would love to go, but I’m like, there’s legitimately, everything wants to kill you! Except for the koalas who just are high and don’t care. Yeah, maybe one day. May-, maybe, maybe one day. Or maybe one day I’ll just break into Riverbanks.

Sarah: Why not?

Claudia: So hopefully, probably right before I get committed for dementia, but hey…

Sarah: That’s fine.

Claudia: [Laughs]

Sarah: Go out, go out in a blaze of glory, grabbing a koala’s ass.

Claudia: Well, I will have been a true Columbia College student if that were the case. [Laughs]

[music]

Carisa: My name is Carisa, and I am in the very rainy state of Washington in the Pacific Northwest, and today it is really showing us its rain. I am a history teacher and political science teacher and psychology teacher, so I am doing the, doing the job. [Laughs]

Sarah: You are! That’s a lot of fields! Do you teach at a school, or do you do multiple schools?

Carisa: I do teach at a school, but yeah, I, I split myself between a few different things.

Sarah: That’s very cool! Well, I mean –

Carisa: Yeah.

Sarah: – teachers have it very hard, so thank you for what you do. It is –

Carisa: I love it!

Sarah: – it, it is interesting to me how many teachers I have met who love their jobs and also can give me an alphabetized, bullet-itemed list of everything that is wrong with the education industry, and yet –

Carisa: Oh, absolutely!

Sarah: – they still love it! [Laughs]

Carisa: Yes, absolutely. [Laughs]

Sarah: I feel that way about the internet, so I get it.

Carisa: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: So what book or books did you read this year that you would like to tell everyone about?

Carisa: Oh my God, how I could stick with just one? I read some amazing books this year.

Sarah: Awesome!

Carisa: I, I read the Lyla Sage books Done and Dusted and Swift and Saddled? Western, modern Western kind of, you know, set in small town romance. What I loved about Lyla Sage is she deals with mental health issues in such a seamless way, about trauma and, and how that, that affects people’s relationships and working through depression and OCD. Like, it’s amazing; you would not have expected it from that, that, like, genre, but she is brilliant. I loved every minute of her books. She has a third one, and I haven’t got to it yet; just came out in December, or no, November.

Sarah: Yes, Lost and Lassoed?

Carisa: Yeah, I don’t have that one yet, but I, I definitely will get that one.

Sarah: Oh, and then there’s a fifth, a fourth one, rather, called Wild and Wrangled.

Carisa: Yeah, that one’s not out yet, I don’t think. It’s probably…

Sarah: That, that’s April, April ’25.

Carisa: Yeah. Yeah. So she’s wonderful. I recommend her for anyone. Don’t, don’t, like, stereotype the genre of Western. It’s really good.

Sarah: That’s so excellent. It’s funny; later today I am recording with Amanda to do one of our two-part bonus episodes. We made a bunch of predictions about what would happen in publishing in 2024 –

Carisa: Uh-huh?

Sarah: So the first bonus episode is going to be playing back those clips and talking about what we thought was going to happen, and then the next one –

Carisa: Right.

Sarah: – will be us making predictions, and one of my predictions – I’ll give you a little spoiler – one of my predictions is that Westerns, like historicals, will be reborn into a new form. They will be in the same field as older Westerns, but they aren’t going to be the same.

Carisa: Exactly! Exactly, yes, and, and I agree with that. I, this series definitely shows that.

Sarah: Right.

Carisa: Yeah. Yeah, and I have another set. This was, I read this during the election, and I needed something to really, like, lift me up and make me feel like the world was going to be okay, and I read Lana Harper’s Payback’s a Witch, From Bad to Cursed, and Back in, Back in a Spell. That’s one through three of her series; I haven’t read the other two books that she has. But Back in a Spell is such an excellent story of winter. Lana Harper has such a fabulous descriptive prose, and her characters are, are, you know, queer and funny, and each one is, like, lovely and different. I just think that they’re wonderful couples. She has, like, a pansexual character in the last book I think I read. I mean, there’s just, like, she’s, she’s really pulling it in with nontraditional couples, so that was really good. But her prose is absolutely divine, especially in Back in a Spell. It was beautiful, so.

Sarah: That’s excellent! You are –

Carisa: Yeah.

Sarah: – really cleaning, cleaning up serious here.

Carisa: [Laughs] Yeah! I do, I think you asked for some wishes, too?

Sarah: I do! That is my next question. If you –

Carisa: Yeah, I have a book set with my wishes wrapped into it.

Sarah: Sounds good, so tell me! Tell me everything.

Carisa: …I hope, I hope I can get political here.

Sarah: Oh, are you kidding? I do it all –

Carisa: I know!

Sarah: – do it every day, all the time.

Carisa: All the time!

Sarah: Yeah!

Carisa: So I read We Could Be So Good and You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian, and I think what Cat Sebastian does kind of wrapped around my wishes. She set the book in his-, history in 1959 and 1960.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Carisa: I think she really intentionally did that because that’s the cusp of change in the US that, that we are, we’re in this ‘50s stereotype of, like, not making progress, sort of enforcing these coded stereotypes about relationships and genders and things, and she’s on that cusp of, she writes it right set in there where people are still closeted or hidden, and yet they’re making these relationships that are beautiful, and they’re finding family, and she sets it so seamlessly in the history that you’re there, you’re at the, you know, making the payphone call to your loved one at midnight and sitting in the, you know, payphone and, and you can’t hang up, and you keep putting coins in, and she just does it so well. And I think the message is that we need to spread that to the three hundred thousand kids, the trans kids living in – excuse me; I’m getting emotional – living in states with laws that prevent them from living.

Sarah: Yes.

Carisa: And I think we need to show them that they can live –

Sarah: Yes.

Carisa: – in relationships and find their family. So, sorry. That’s a personal wish.

Sarah: I was thinking today about what my wish would be, ‘cause, you know, I’ve been doing these interviews for like three weeks now.

Carisa: Oh sure!

Sarah: And I was like, Oh, I should probably, I should probably have a wish, and it is very similar. I just, I want people to be with people who welcome them the way that they are and the ways that they are going to become.

Carisa: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely!

Sarah: Because, I mean, I, it, it’s very weird to me, and I’m sure, you’re a history teacher, so this is weird to you too, we have done this before! We did this –

Carisa: Oh!

Sarah: – in the Gilded Age, when labor uprising meant coming in the house and beating the owner of the mill to death in front of his family. And –

Carisa: Absolutely.

Sarah: – now we have CEOs being shot on a street in the middle of the night.

Carisa: Yep.

Sarah: In the ‘50s and ‘60s we had uprising and violence because the harder you try to squish people into a narrow conf-, a, a form of, you know, conformity –

Carisa: Uh-huh.

Sarah: – the more the rage is just massive when people are like, No! That doesn’t fit me and I refuse. So you look at, like, the grand scale, just, just even in the US – let’s just, just look at the US and labor movements and political movements. How are we not bored of doing this?

Carisa: Well, how are we not looking at our fellow humans and saying, Why, why can’t, why am I doing this to you?

Sarah: Right! Like, why do you care?

Carisa: Yeah. We, in my classroom we do a mock trial, and we do it about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire –

Sarah: Ooh.

Carisa: – and one of the witnesses that comes up to talk is a woman, and I think it’s Dora Maisler, and she has recordings of her talking about the fire – I think it was Dora – and she talks about how she was every day out on the protest lines before when the shirtwaist workers were walk-, marching out –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carisa: – and she talks about every day getting beat up by the police and getting hurt.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carisa: She got her teeth kicked in, so she didn’t have –

Sarah: Ah!

Carisa: – teeth, and, you know, she was a young woman, and she talks about kind of getting, you know, being familiar with the judges at the courthouse because they knew her ‘cause she got arrested every night. I mean, she was a firecracker; I mean, it was amazing. So I don’t know how we can keep doing that, you know, and, and, and hurting people in the way that we do.

Sarah: It’s staggering.

Carisa: It is.

Sarah: I, I look at old things like anti-Semitism and racism and, I’m like –

Carisa: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – How are you not bored?

Carisa: Yeah! Yeah.

Sarah: Like, how are you not over this?

Carisa: Yes. Yes, absolutely. It really is, and, and I think, Why would I want to meddle with the way someone else lives their life necessarily? Why would I want to say to you, You can’t express yourself as a human being in a relationship with someone you love and, and, you know, and is consensually –

Sarah: Yeah.

Carisa: – you’re together? Why would I want to control that?

Sarah: What is that? I have much better uses for my energy.

Carisa: I do too! [Laughs]

Sarah: So when you do the mock trial for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, is the, is the Triangle Shirtwaist owner, is the building owner? Who, who –

Carisa: Yeah, that’s –

Sarah: – who are you putting on trial?

Carisa: We put on trial, yes, it’s the two owners –

Sarah: Right.

Carisa: – and we put them on trial, and, and they have charges against them. Of course there was a real trial, and they, and they weren’t found guilty of, of the things they were. I, I give the kids the charges, and then they have judges and the, the witnesses, and they have to, you know, convince each other. And, and this year, I think, kids were just really angry about, about the abuses that these women suffered, so the, the, the Shirtwaist owners ended up being guilty. But that doesn’t play out every year, but this year it did.

Sarah: Good for them!

Carisa: Yeah! Good for them.

Sarah: It’s, it’s also, it’s a very, it’s a very, I think, very clever exercise, because I’m assuming your students are middle or high school, and –

Carisa: Yep.

Sarah: – most of the people who died were like between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five! Like, that’s their age!

Carisa: Yes. They’re really struck by how these kids were working in the factories –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carisa: – and, and really, you know, that is a very powerful part of the exercise. Yeah. I always tell kids they’re so powerful. They keep fighting for progress in our society and, and, and I, I don’t, I want those kids that are in those states to, you know, I’m, I’m so proud of them for going to the Supreme Court –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carisa: – or arguing their case with the ACLU. Like, I’m so incredibly proud of those kids for stepping up for themselves.

Sarah: Yep. Well, I think this is not only really good recs but a really, really good and kind wish, so thank you for being so generous.

Did you bring a bad joke? It is okay if you didn’t.

Carisa: I struggle with bad jokes, but I went looking for a Christmas joke, ‘cause ‘tis the season.

Sarah: It is indeed.

Carisa: I think you’ll regret – Yule regret – my choice that I made – ba-dum-boom.

Why are Christmas trees bad at sewing?

Because they always drop their needle.

Sarah: [Laughs] I was just thinking it has to do with needles. That’s a good one! Thank you!

Carisa: Thank you. Well, that took some searching. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. Well, sometimes, sometimes I’ve got to hunt for the good ones, ‘cause some of the really bad jokes are, like, visual? Like, the way the word looks or something, and so I can’t use that on a podcast? So I do have to search sometimes.

Carisa: Yes.

Sarah: That’s a good one, though! Thank you! And thank you also for what you do. That, that we have a generation of young people who are considering history, and looking at history, as much of it as possible, instead of this narrow, conformed version of history that we’re told to present. That’s –

Carisa: Ugh.

Sarah: – that’s really important work. Thank you for doing it.

Carisa: Thank you very much. I love expanding kids’ view of the world. It is gratifying to put stories in front of them of different people.

Sarah: Yeah!

Carisa: Like, these are the people you don’t hear about.

Sarah: And just because the pictures were in black and white and there wasn’t sound in the –

Carisa: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – in any video that we have of these people –

Carisa: Right.

Sarah: – doesn’t mean that they weren’t loud and fierce and ferocious. This sort of docile image of, you know, these, you know, women with their hair up and always wearing a skirt, like, that’s not actually the case. They were kick-ass. They’d kick your ass.

Carisa: Yeah.

Sarah: They’d definitely kick my ass.

Carisa: Oh yeah, absolutely! Dora Maisler could kick anyone’s ass. She was a badass.

Sarah: Absolutely. Well –

Carisa: [Laughs]

Sarah: – thank you for this! It has been really lovely to talk to you, and I so appreciate your taking the time to be part of the show! Thank you for, thank you for signing up!

Carisa: Well, I appreciate you so much. You’re in my ears, and you inform my reading, and I just love it, and thank you very much.

[music]

Verity: Hello, I’m Verity, and I join you again from the Midlands in the UK, where we have just had a storm and flooding and ninety-mile-an-hour winds.

Sarah: Oh, big fun for everyone!

What books or book – it can, you can be more than one; you can just be one – have you read in this year that you want to recommend to people. Oh no, you’re laughing. Did you bring twenty?

Verity: There’s a few.

Sarah: Okay! It’s fine!

Verity: And…decide what to go with first. Twenty, thirty years late, I read the Rivals by Jilly Cooper, because I watched the TV series. And it is ‘80s-tantastic bonkers, and I sort of loved it!

Sarah: Oh, that’s excellent!

Verity: Like, the sexual politics are problematic, but it’s the ‘80s, and it’s the UK.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Verity: So I watched it having watched the TV series. Have you watched the TV series?

Sarah: No, I have not. Do you recommend it?

Verity: Yes.

Sarah: Okay!

Verity: It is delightfully trashy nonsense. Do not watch it with your children; there’s, there’s a, lots of tits and bits and –

Sarah: Oh! So there’s, like, full nudity!

Verity: Full nudity. Oh yeah, there’s a naked game of tennis early on, and literally the opening shot, the Concorde flight across the sky, you cut to a man’s bum as he’s having sex in the loos of Concorde, so.

Sarah: Okay! This sounds like the start of, I remember the first season of Bridgerton at like in the first five minutes there was an ass. There was like a whole ass. Like, Oh, we’re getting bum in this show!

Verity: You’re getting everything, yeah. They were always called bonkbusters over here at the time.

Sarah: Yes. I love that term, by the way.

Verity: Yeah. And they have leaned into that. They’ve gone right, This is what the book is; we’re not going to take any of this out. We’re going to leave the sexual politics as it was, ‘cause it was the ‘80s and it was the UK and, you know. And we’re just going to lean into it. So they finished, the, the first season is eight episodes, and they only get about two-thirds of the way through the book.

Sarah: Oh God. [Laughs]

Verity: And they leave you on a cliffhanger. So I went –

Sarah: Not fair.

Verity: I was like, I can’t cope with this, you know. We watched My Lady Jane a couple of months ago, and that promptly got canceled, leaving you on a cliffhanger.

Sarah: I loved that show so much. I loved it; I loved it; I got my whole family into it. I’m so mad about that.

Verity: So I was, I was not counting on the second season, although they have now said there will be a second season, so they will finish the book, so I went and read all seven hundred and seventy pages to find out what happened! [Laughs, speaks indistinctly]

Sarah: And it was just, it was a lot of sex, right? A lot of sex was happening?

Verity: You know, no, nobody’s a good person. Oh no! Maybe one, one person is a good – by the rules of romance, everybody is doing things that would not be redeemable in a romance book, I think.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Verity: No one’s, almost no one is faithful. By the end of it you find yourself rooting for a twenty-year-old and a forty-year-old to be a thing.

Sarah: Oh sure! Okay!

Verity: Also for two people that are married to other people to get together. And I was fine with that! Like, I don’t know why? Wouldn’t be in a book, but actually – well, no it was, ‘cause I read the book and I was fine with it. Who knew? But it, it’s trashy, it’s delightful, and it is very clever if you’re interested in sort of class in the UK. It’s very good on that. There’s all of sort of little bits in there about how you can tell that people are posh and not posh –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Verity: – so that’s quite fun, and, like, levels of it.

Sarah: Yes.

Verity: So I enjoyed that. It’s old, but I think it’s fairly discounted at the moment, and even if it’s not, you should be able to get a secondhand copy from somewhere. And David Tennant does a delightful sort of Machiavelli, kind of turns on a dime, goes from, like, cheerful and sunny and like, Oh yes, I quite like this guy; he’s the coming man, to, like, Oh my goodness, I think he’s evil.

Sarah: Oh no!

Verity: Oh yeah!

Sarah: He does evil extremely well in that he is fucking terrifying.

Verity: He really is, and he’s bad. There is two bits in it that are really bad, and he’s involved in one of them.

Sarah: So it’s like, in terms of the things that are really bad, do you need like a content warning before those parts?

Verity: In about episode, one of the early episodes, Rupert, who’s the hero, does a grope which these days would be sexual assault.

Sarah: Wow!

Verity: Like, full on sticks his hand – she’s wearing a very short, Taggie’s wearing a very short maid’s outfit, ‘cause she’s been asked to, she’s catering this dinner, and –

Sarah: He just –

Verity: – you don’t, you don’t see what he does, but he goes for her from behind, like…and she spills a dessert everywhere, and you’re like, Yeah. [Sputters] Would not fly today.

And then in episode six there’s a rape.

Sarah: Okay, good to know.

Verity: The – yeah. And obviously, problematic ‘80s sex, but those are the two most egregious bits. One of my colleagues at work, she’s like, I can’t get past that grope.

Sarah: Yeah.

Verity: And I’m like, Yeah!

Sarah: I mean, let’s, let’s be honest, though: sexual politics in the UK are very weird?

Verity: Very weird. Our culture is weird.

Sarah: I know, and we’re related to you, and every time I see similarities I’m like, Wow! Our parents are weird! [Laughs]

Verity: Due to very strange things.

Sarah: I do want to show you something? I put this in the chat.

Verity: Okay.

Sarah: So I looked up Rivals on American booksellers, and the new cover has a Disney logo because it’s a Disney+ program, but you have this shot of Jilly Cooper and these sharp red heels and then this big Disney logo, which is just so wrong. [Laughs]

Verity: …tie-in cover, we’ve got a tie-in cover which has got – hang on, let me find it for you – we’ve got a tie-in cover that’s got, would have solved that problem for them. Genuinely, guys, it would have solved your problem.

Sarah: Yeah, we, we have a lot of the original covers, including –

Verity: …they changed the cover again.

Sarah: Oh God.

Verity: They changed the cover for Chris- – all right, okay. Last week the cover for this – I’ve got the screenshot on my phone, I think –

Sarah: We don’t even have a tie-in cover on the paperback from what I’m seeing? On the paperback there’s a Hulu logo, but on the eBook it’s a Disney logo! [Laughs] I’m never going to stop laughing about this! Oh wow!

Verity: Okay.

Sarah: Disney, your brand has cha-hanged!

Verity: So, like, literally, less than a month ago, that was the cover.

Sarah: I saw that one! It’s everybody standing and kneeling around David Tennant looking real hot in a suit. Not that it –

Verity: Yeah.

Sarah: – not that he, it’s hard for him to look hot; it’s like a default state.

Verity: Now allow me to put the current cover in the chat for you. Just click on that link!

Sarah: What the hell is that?!

Verity: Rupert Campbell-Black, who’s the hero – nominally one of the heroes. But that’s from a scene in, like, one of the early episodes, where he’s just called his ex-wife who wouldn’t let him speak to the children. He’s really sad, he does his miserable face, he turns around, and he’s got a hot model in bed and they have sex. And he’s dressed as Santa. There’s a joke about stuffing her chimney.

Sarah: This is amazing, and he looks stoned. He looks really, really high. Like, extremely. Okay, and this also has a Disney logo, by the way, which is –

Verity: …changed their cover in the last week, I swear.

Sarah: – hilarious. No wonder they’re marketing it – also, they’re doing the thing – ‘cause I love, this is so common, especially in the UK listings of books? The title will be Rivals: The Steamy Romance from Sunday Times bestseller 2024, Now on the Hottest Series on TV, Cover May Vary. Like, like, bro!

Verity: [Indistinct]

Sarah: Bro, you don’t need all that in the title! That’s not necessary!

Verity: They’re doing that because they know that when people buy the eBook they’ll open it, and they’ll want to look at the Rupert Campbell-Black cover with the hot Santa on it, and it will be the cover with the, the shoes and the legs instead, and people will be disappointed.

Sarah: Wow. This is incredible. So now I have to read this. I did read some Jackie Collins before. I’m just calling this file –

Verity: Yeah.

Sarah: – RupertSanta.jpg. Like, Lucky and mafia wealth and fucking. Like, all of the, just boinking everywhere. So I imagine this is very similar only with British people and a, and a, you know, natural obsession with class.

Verity: In the Cotswolds. In the Cotswolds, where it’s like new rich people, old rich people, not rich people. You know, it’s, it, it’s all, all life is there. I didn’t read them at the time; I didn’t read them when I was younger. I didn’t read Jackie Collins, either. What I did read was Barbara Taylor Bradford –

Sarah: Oh yes!

Verity: She died the other week, and the thing I learnt that day was that she was in the same class at primary school as Alan Bennett, the playwright.

Sarah: What?!

Verity: I know! In a tiny school in Yorkshire, and they’re both in the same class. So I read her –

Sarah: Wow!

Verity: …of the very, what was it? The woman, A Woman of Substance…

Sarah: A Woman of Substance? Yeah, it’s a very specific, like, women having lots of sex and having sexual autonomy and agency books, but they’re still mired in a really sexist, hierarchical group of people.

Verity: They were probably the first things I read that had ex-, specific, explicit sex scenes in it, and there was some traumatizing there, like orgasms being described as like falling backwards into pools of warm water, which is – [laughs]

Sarah: There was a car commercial featuring Matthew McConaughey doing that; it was for Cadillac, and he would fall backwards, fully clothed, into a pool at night, and this was for a car commercial, so maybe what they were referencing was Barbara Taylor Bradford’s orgasms. Not her orgasms, her written orgasms.

Verity: Yeah, it’s in the book.

Sarah: Wow.

Verity: So I think that’s why I missed that one in the Jilly Cooper at the time, ‘cause my mum read the sagas, and I was obviously borrowing her, her bookshelves.

Sarah: Obviously, yes.

Verity: So I, I did the sort of – and there were three-book trilogies where the same story happened in each generation, a bit like the Sweet Valley, if you read the Sweet Valley twins history books where basically it was the same story every generation. They were like that but with sagas and Concorde and stuff.

Sarah: Wooow.

Verity: Continuing my ‘90s obsession – because this is what I do on here: I come and I tell you about books that I read that remind me of stuff from the ‘90s – I read The Rom-Commers the other week by Katherine Center –

Sarah: Oooh!

Verity: – and that’s really good. That’s a sort of, she’s a, she wants to be a screenwriter, the heroine wants to be a screenwriter, but her father, she’s her father’s caretaker, essentially. He’s disabled…to look after her, so she put her life on hold while her sister goes to college to look after her dad, and then she gets the opportunity to go and work on a screenplay with…hotshot screenwriter who’s won all the awards. He’s just written a rom-com and it’s terrible.

Sarah: Oh boy.

Verity: And it turns out that it’s terrible ‘cause he doesn’t really want to write a rom-com. He’s writing the rom-com to, for the, I think the mistress of a studio head so that he can get his mafia movie made, but she’s determined that if he’s going to write it, it’s going to be good –

Sarah: Yeah.

Verity: – and it’s a romance. And it’s nice. I liked it; I really liked it. I was worried that it wasn’t going to have a happy ending for about thirty pages at the end, but it sorted itself out, so it was good.

And I think it was a lot…we seem to go in phases, don’t we, romance? And it, I mean, we’ve got a lot of sort of movie-adjacent –

Sarah: Yes.

Verity: – like, screenwriters, former actors, wanna-be actors. The other one I liked this year, I’ve read The Reunion, which is kind of former teen stars getting a reunion for their TV show, which was kind of Dawson’s Creek-y. There’s quite…and the other thing I’ve got at the moment is Taylor Swift titles from romance novels coming out of our ears.

Sarah: Oh my goodness!

Verity: And then, what’s the other thing? We seem to have pairs of stuff coming around as well. So I read, oh my goodness, last week, I read…I think Prime Time Romance, where someone’s transported into the, the TV show that they loved with, in another sort of Dawson’s Creek-y type TV show, and has to try and get the happy ending that the TV show didn’t get ‘cause it was canceled.

And then the latest Ashley Poston is kind of transported into a magical kind of world type thing as well, so we’ve got a lot of sort of – it’s not like romantasy, but it’s like magic bleeding into real life type novels coming, like romances coming through at the moment, which –

Sarah: Oh, is that called –

Verity: I –

Sarah: – por-, it that a por-, is that called a portal novel? No, it is; it’s portal fantasy; that’s what it is. They portray a person –

Verity: Yes.

Sarah: – from the real world being transported to another world. So now we’re getting pop culture portal fantasies. That’s the words I was looking for. Good job, brain! I’m proud of you!

Verity: It’s just amazing! And you made it sound much more fantasy than me, which is like, we’ve got these things with magic and romance and TV shows.

And then the other one that I read a lot this year was Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell, which doesn’t have A Novel on the front, but maybe sort of should in that some people, some of its readers are really not going to like it, because both of them are with other people at the start of the novel.

Sarah: Oh, that’s going to piss people off, yeah!

Verity: They’re being cheated on by the other people. Essentially, they, they think they’re both being cheated on. They, they meet up because their part-, partners are cheating on them with each other, if that makes sense.

Sarah: Yes, totally. There’s a whole movie about that with, it’s an older movie with Meg Ryan trying to be edgy and weird instead of cute and adorable, but it was two people whose partners were cheating on them with each other, yeah.

Verity: Talking of Meg Ryan, it’s a sort of, it was, the tagline for this says You’ve Got Mail for a new generation.

Sarah: Yeah. Oh God!

>> Set in the days of AOL and instant messenger banter.

Wow, that’s really funny, because Amanda and I were also just talking about how we were thinking at the beginning of 2024 that we would see more social media portrayed in book plots, and we saw some. There were some that had, you know, text con-, conversations or whatever, but, like, going back to AOL and IM, that’s a whole other thing! Very smart choice.

Verity: Yeah.

Sarah: It does limit their communications possibilities.

Verity: Yeah. I liked it a lot, and it’s set in 1999, and I sort of remember that sort of era, and it was, it’s nice and it’s fun and it’s sort of, it does feel like, I mean, it has, it is building towards now and kind of everything changing, but, like, you know that it’s there, if that makes sense. You’re like, Ah, yes, carefree New York is delightful and charming and everyone’s happy. And, like, the world will change.

Sarah: Yes. 1999 is right, right, right before things got real different.

Have I what?

Verity: Have you…oh, I’ve got to find out where his…Henry the cat on Instagram? @henrysthoughts on Instagram. He’s a cat, and he reads books. He has Cozy Moments, and he’s done a couple of Cozy Moments for romance books, where he’s…

Sarah: Oh my –

Verity: – where he –

Sarah: – gosh! Oh my God, this has made my entire day!

Verity: I cannot actually read this book, so I’m a cat. And then he predicts what the book’s going to be about – [laughs] – by the cover!

Sarah: I have to share this immediately! What clothing famine that sweeps through the town of Mistletoe Heights. Oh my God, I’m, I’m going to lose like so many hours to this; thank you. Okay.

Verity: You’re welcome.

Sarah: Thank you for this.

Verity: My Christmas gift to you.

Sarah: This is such a nice gift. I’m so excited. I’m going to get nothing done; I’m going to watch this cat.

So what other books do you want to recommend?

Verity: Because my thing – well, my thing?…last year I recommended some English stuff, so I have two more English things for you.

Sarah: Sure!

Verity: First of all, Richard Osman, who wrote The Thursday Murder Club, has a new series that he started this year. It’s called We Solve Murders. It’s a bit like The Thursday Murder Club meets Steph Plum, if that makes sense.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Verity: It’s got some sort of adventure, thriller-y hijinks; it’s got a younger character. I’m still not quite sure if Janet Evanovich is quite the right comparison, but it is in that sort of crazy caper going around all over the world sort of vein, and it’s lots of fun. Like, I’m…sad he took a break from the Thursday Murder Club for a year, but I enjoyed it a lot and read it in an afternoon on the sun lounger, so I can’t complain too hard.

Sarah: I saved the audiobook for We Solve Murders for election day in the United States, where I got my work done for the morning –

Verity: Yeah?

Sarah: – I turned on the audiobook, and I was, I made, I stress-baked babka; I had three big-ass babkas by the end of the night, and I listened to that whole book on election day. It was perfect. It was exactly what I needed.

Verity: And the other one I read this year, which, you know, might tap into something for some people is Death at the Dress Rehearsal, and I just need to check who that’s byyy: Stuart Douglas.

Sarah: It’s a – oh gosh! It’s a cover like The Thursday Murder Club!

Verity: Yeah, but –

Sarah: I’ve been collecting these!

Verity: It’s the 1970s, and it’s based – did you ever, did you get Dad’s Army in the US?

Sarah: No.

Verity: Okay, so Dad’s Army was this sitcom that we had with a bunch of aging actors who were playing members of the Home Guard in the second world war –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Verity: – back in the ‘70s. It’s basically two OAP actors in the ‘70s on a TV series that I think, the TV series is called Floggit and Leggit, which I think is meant to be Steptoe and Son, which was Sanford and Son where you guys are, and they stumble across murders, and one of them’s terribly posh and the other one’s a little bit sniffy, and it, it’s lovely. If you did watch Dad’s Army, it is Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson solve a murder, or the actors who played Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson solve a murder. And there’s a sequel coming, and it was quite fun, and I liked it quite a lot.

Sarah: I love this. I also love that it has a Thursday Murder Club-style cover? I –

Verity: We’ve got a lot of those now…

Sarah: I’m collecting them. I’m collecting them in a folder, and I’m going to put them in a blog post where there’s just, it’s just nothing but the, the Osman cover.

Verity: But he’s really clever. Like, I, I read We Solve Murders, and I thought he’s, he’s being really clever writing this, because he’s, it’s fast-paced, it’s got loads of action, it’s got interesting characters, but it is written in language and sentence structure that, even if that’s the only book you read this year and you are not a big reader, you will still be able to follow it. He’s doing that thing where he’s, it’s not, it’s not lit fic. He knows exactly who he’s writing for, and he’s tailored his word choice and his writing style to work for the maximum amount of people who – I mean, he was a TV producer; he’s really smart like that.

Sarah: Yeah.

Verity: But he wears it really lightly, and it’s only this latest one where I’ve been like, Oh yeah, he’s really smart with this writing thing.

Sarah: Yeah.

Verity: This is why some people are snooty about it, because it’s not high art and, you know, and they sell a, a gazillion. But he’s doing it deliberately. He’s made a choice here, and he’s like, I am writing accessible detective novels with fun characters that people will read, even if they don’t read a lot. And anything that makes more people read –

Sarah: Yes, and he’ll sneak little moments of emotion in there, like the lead character of We Solve Murders taking dictation to talk to his late wife. Just all –

Verity: Yeah.

Sarah: – through the book he’s processing his thoughts by talking to his wife, even though she’s no longer there, and that is such an emotional resonance that so many people experience. Like, everyone knows what that loss is going to feel like or has felt like?

The other, the other thing about Osman, I think, is they are what I call a tablespoon plot deliverer? Some people will deliver plot developments like in a big pile; be like, Here’s a big dump of exposition. And then there’s some people who are like the tiniest, tiniest little spoon at a time, and you really have to persevere to put all these little bits together. He’s just going to give you a nice tablespoon-sized dollop, move along, have another one, so you can keep up, but you’re still discovering things? He’s got, you’re right, he’s got that balance perfectly.

Verity: Yeah. He has a podcast as well; it’s called The Rest Is Entertainment, and he does it with Marina Hyde, who is –

Sarah: Oh, I love her!

Verity: She’s a writer on The Franchise. So they did an episode a couple of weeks ago where they dissected what it’s like to work on a big adaptation of a show –

Sarah: Oh!

Verity: – a, a big, a big show like The Franchise, and when Rivals came out they did a whole episode about how that came to happen and what they’re doing there, because, fun fact, the agent for the Rivals, who manages Jilly Cooper, is Felicity Blunt, who is married to Stanley Tucci.

Sarah: And is Emily Blunt’s sister.

Verity: And is Emily Blunt’s sister, yeah! And apparently Felicity Blunt has been working for years to get this going, ‘cause it’s like the Jilly Cooper Cinematic Universe almost. She’s been gathering all the rights to all the books, so if it does well they can kind of steam on and do more of it and, you know, all the ducks are in a row and, you know – very clever!

Sarah: And you know what, the timing is really good for that, because we are looking again at the ‘80s and ‘90s as a nostalgia factor, and there’s a certain fascination with weird rich people having rich people problems?

Verity: Yeah. I love the rich people problems, but something where, like, they’ve got ridiculous amounts of money and it’s not really life or death, and nothing’s going, they’re not going to end up destitute on the street, but for them it’s like the biggest possible thing. I love, the, the stakes, could the stakes mean nothing to me. Like, there’s nothing there that has any resonance to my actual life, so all these rich people can be getting their knickers in a twist over whether Tarquin’s going to get The Franchise for the TV’s, you know…

Sarah: Right. All of that.

What wishes do you have for 2025?

Verity: I would just like it to be a good year? Like, 2024 has been a bit ropy at my end of things? I’ve hit the age where the older members of the family are starting to get ill and die off.

Sarah: Yeah.

Verity: And I, I’d like it not to be another year of that, so I’d like everyone to have a better year next year than we’ve had this year and, you know, transfers of power to happen peacefully where –

Sarah: Oh God…

Verity: – transfers of power are due to happen.

Sarah: Yeah. We’re not having a lot of those internationally.

Did you, did you bring a bad joke? It is okay if you did not.

Verity: [Laughs] …joke! I was going to take one from Popbitch this week, but this week’s Popbitch is a Gregg Wallace special, because, again, we have people doing bad things in the media in the UK.

Sarah: What? No! Never! Really? [Gasps] I’m shocked!

Verity: …at the bottom? Was there a joke at the bottom of Popbitch? [Laughs] There is.

My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We’ll see about that.

Sarah: [Laughs] Nice! Thank you for the reminder to subscribe to Popbitch, by the way.

Verity: Oh, you’re welcome! It, yeah, it, I’ve, don’t know how long I’ve been subscribed to it; a very long time. But yeah, it’s media, insider media gossip in the UK in a very retro format. It’s like Courier New. Very sort of original, pre HTML…

Sarah: The logo is ASCII art?

Verity: Yes, exactly. I…

Sarah: That’s fantastic.

Verity: But they’ve done really good investigations into things like the National Enquirer and, you know, they actually do some proper journalism, as well as the bits about, you know – [laughs] – which newspaper’s got a phantom poo-er that’s blocking their toilets at any given time.

Sarah: Not a secret pooper! Nooo! Oh my gosh. I love it!

Verity: Yeah.

Sarah: Well, thank you for the reminder. I’ve been meaning to do that, and then when I’m at my computer I never remember.

[music]

Colleen: My name is Colleen, and I am in Silver Spring! Maryland.

Sarah: Oh! Everyone is in Silver Spring, including me.

[Laughter]

Colleen: You know, it’s the place to be.

Sarah: So what books do you want to recommend to everybody that you read this year?

Colleen: I think I want to do two, a reread and a new to me?

Sarah: Please do!

Colleen: If that’s cool.

Sarah: Please do.

Colleen: So I’ll do the reread first, which is The Fellowship of the Ring.

Sarah: Oh! I’ve never heard of that book!

Colleen: I know! No one’s ever heard of that book. [Laughs] But I, it’s a huge, like, nostalgia book for me? My, my dad read it to me when I was a, when, when I was a kid, and so when I was visiting them about a month or two ago I reread it, and it was just like, it was like coming home.

Sarah: Aw! I love that! I love the idea –

Colleen: Yeah.

Sarah: – of rereading it? And I love the idea that it’s still comforting and that it, that it still, like, gives you that feeling of nostalgia and comfort.

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: It’s, it’s, sometimes I feel like it’s a, a lot for me to ask for a book to always work on me, so when one does when I reread it, I’m so grateful?

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah, like, the last time that I reread it was in college, and I don’t think I actually finished reading the whole series, ‘cause it was just, wasn’t working for me at that time?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Colleen: So being able to come back and it, you know, the story moves faster, and it was just like feeling like I was returning to old friends. So.

Sarah: That is so cool.

Colleen: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s a, that is a great recommendation.

Colleen: Yeah.

Sarah: What was your new-to-you book?

Colleen: The new-to-me was Ana Maria and the Fox by Liana de la Rosa?

Sarah: Ohhh, that’s a good book!

Colleen: It was so good. I loved the setting and just the story it was telling, and I, yeah, I just think, I really like some of the trends in, like, historical romance and doing, you know, you know, more unusual settings, more diversity in characters. So it’s just been, it was just a really, really fun book. I liked that it was dual POV?

Sarah: Isn’t that strange how so many books now like, dual P, dual POV is like a –

Colleen: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – like a new thing! And I’m like, What are you talking about?

[Laughter]

Colleen: I mean, it’s not new, but it’s really great to, to find ones that, that actually are still doing it, so.

Sarah: Oh yeah. I have people that I –

Colleen: Yeah, ‘cause –

Sarah: – make recommendations for, and they’re like, I don’t want first person, and I’m like, Well, you are out of luck.

[Laughter]

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: Have you read Isabel and the Rogue?

Colleen: Not yet. It’s on my shelf, my TBR shelf.

Sarah: The cover for the third one I think was revealed recently, it’s Gabriela and His Grace, and all of –

Colleen: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – the covers for the series are so beautiful.

Colleen: They’re so, so beautiful.

Sarah: Like, the illustrator has done such an incredible job, and there’s, like, motifs in the background that repeat, and they’re so lush –

Colleen: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and detailed. I love these covers.

Colleen: Yeah. I love the color, just how much color, and vibrant.

Sarah: Yes.

Do you have any wishes for 2025 for people?

Colleen: Yeah! I, mine, I was, like, trying to, like, think of this, and I was trying to, was reflecting on that idea of, like, more kindness to, to others and to yourself and just, like, more genuine, like, connections with others. Like, and just, like, being more genuine with yourself, being more genuine with others. So that’s what I was kind of like thinking about.

Sarah: I really like that.

Colleen: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And it’s interesting how hard it is to be kind to yourself sometimes.

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: I especially internalized a message of, No, you have to work harder all the time. And I’m like –

Colleen: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – but, but, like, why? This, I’m miserable and I’m tired! [Laughs]

Colleen: Yeah!

Sarah: I love the idea of wishing kindness for yourself and for others. Thank you.

Did you bring a bad joke? It is okay if you did not.

Colleen: I did. It is a joke that actually I, that my girlfriend came up with a little while ago and has been begging me to send in.

Sarah: Okay!

Colleen: So –

Sarah: Can I ask your girlfriend’s name so, so they can get credit?

Colleen: River.

Sarah: River, okay. River has, I am sure, excellent taste. Hit me.

Colleen: Oh yes! What do you call a group of gefilte fish?

Sarah: Oh God! What, what do you call a group of gefilte fish? What?

Colleen: A shul.

Sarah: NO! [Laughs] That’s so bad! I’m going to torture my family. Thank you, and thank, please thank River! Because indeed, they do have excellent taste. A shul. Okay. That’s just awesome. Thank you for that!

[music]

Elyse: I am Elyse. I’ve been with Smart Bitches for I think over a decade now, right?

Sarah: Holy cow. Yeah, I think so!

Elyse: Yeah!

Sarah: Damn!

Elyse: And I am in the wintery wonderland of Wisconsin.

Sarah: Fabulous! Land of cheese!

Elyse: Good land – I had so many conversations about cheese today for work.

Sarah: [Laughs] So what book or books that you read this year do you want to recommend to everyone?

Elyse: So I went with a different option for the post that’s going to be on the website, ‘cause I had two favorites this year. So the other favorite was Pony Confidential?

Sarah: Oh, I can’t wait –

Elyse: Which –

Sarah: – to hear all about it.

Elyse: So it’s billed as like a cozy mystery, and it kind of is, but I would argue it could also fall into the literary fiction category, because it’s less about the mystery and more about an adult woman and her childhood pony becoming reunited through this, like, crazy confluence of events where she, as an adult, is arrested for a murder she allegedly committed when she was like twelve or thirteen? Yes, it’s very –

Sarah: That’s weird! Okay!

Elyse: So it was, this death was like a cold case, and then they determined that she was the responsible party as a child, and it involves someone who was with her while she was riding her pony, and the book opens from the pony’s point of view.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: And I don’t, like, I was not a horse girl – well, how should I put this? I was a horse girl growing up but, like, we did not have the means for me to be a horse girl, if that makes sense? So I, the closest I got every summer was I could go to Girl Scout horse camp –

Sarah: Right.

Elyse: – and I distinctly remember my first pony, who was a black and white pony named Mr. Baseball, and, like, the bond you have with that animal, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: And so as she’s going through the process of being tried for this thing that she never thought, she, she’s had no involvement in, she never thought she would wind up in prison for, waiting a trial, it kind of goes into how messed up our criminal justice system is.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: She keeps mentally going back to those happy, like, girlhood memories of her being a girl at the stable with her pony and, like, how this was like the perfect time in her life.

Sarah: Aw!

Elyse: Meanwhile, you get the pony’s point of view. The pony is a very angry pony.

Sarah: Oh no!

Elyse: He is ungovernable. I love him. The pony wants to find her, because he believes his life went bad after her family sold him. The pony is out for revenge.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Elyse: So you get this story that, from the woman’s perspective, is really a meditation back to her girlhood, back to happier times, kind of reliving this trauma she went through, so you get a little bit of mystery of how the murder actually happened? From the pony’s point of view, it’s kind of like Homeward Bound if all of the animals also had rage. And it is, like, also so funny and so emotional, and at some point the pony realizes that he has to take accountability for his own, like, choices; that he can’t just blame everything on Well, I was sold by my first owner, and he has, like, an emotional arc as well. It’s a very strange book, but it works out wonderfully.

Sarah: That’s fantastic! That is a great rec, too; thank you. I know a lot of people are curious about that book.

Elyse: Yeah, the parts from the pony’s point of view – and he can speak to other animals – are very funny.

Sarah: I’m sure! If he can speak to other animals, that’s going to be a whole bunch of banter!

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: Mostly about how humans are annoying. [Laughs]

Elyse: A hundred percent, and dumb.

Sarah: Oh, for sure.

So what are your wishes for 2025?

Elyse: I just want everyone to have a peaceful, non-eventful 2025.

Sarah: Oh, I love the idea of an uneventful 2025; that would be great?

Finally, did you bring a bad joke? It is okay if you did not.

Elyse: I did.

What is a vegan’s favorite Christmas carol?

Sarah: What is a vegan’s favorite Christmas carol? Hm.

Elyse: Soy to the World.

Sarah: [Laughs] I would not have gotten that! It’s funny. Thank you!

Elyse: You’re welcome!

Sarah: Well done!

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I told you it was a banger of a book list, and I did not lie! I will have links to all of these books in the show notes; do not worry. You can find the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under the episode 649. I will also link to the different websites we talked about and show you some of the information from the Cornell University archive of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire case.

I am so grateful to all of you who signed up to do interviews. Thank you. It has made my whole end-of-year so bright, and I am deeply thankful for all of your recommendations, some of which I am now reading, and for your wishes, and most of all for your generosity in connecting with me and telling everybody in the community what made your reading year great. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We will be doing this again next year. I’ll probably have to start earlier than I did this year!

As always, I end with a terrible joke, and I’ve got one just for you.

How do astronauts host a New Year’s Eve party in space?

Give up? How do astronauts host a New Year’s Eve party in Space?

They planet.

[Laughs]

As always, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week.

And in the words of one of my favorite former podcasts Friendshipping, thank you for listening; you’re welcome for talking.

[end of music]