695. Holiday Wishes III with Garlic Knitter, Claudia, Christine, and Jo

[intro]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, happy holidays, and welcome to episode number 695 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. My name is Sarah Wendell, and my guests, once again, are all of you! Are you ready for more recommendations, more kind and generous wishes, more bad jokes? I definitely am. This week my guests are garlicknitter – yes, the garlicknitter – [waves excitedly – gk] – Claudia, Christine, and Jo.

A few notes: first, my voice is really not good on these. I’m so sorry. They were recorded when I had a really bad cold, and after the last recording I was on vocal rest for almost a week, so in some of these recordings I’m a horse, or a little hoarse? Or whichever. My apologies. Second, if you are a sympathetic crier like I am – you know, if you’re driving – please note that when Christine and I are talking we both get a little choked up while talking about grief and the infuriating unfairness of the American healthcare system. It’s an emotional conversation and a beautiful one. Thank you so much for sharing so much of yourself, Christine.

And did you know that there are Smart Bitches candles this year? I collaborated with Wax Cabin Candle Company, an independent small chandlery, to offer Smart Bitches candles! Two limited-edition candles just for the holiday season, and holy cow, are they selling so fast! Oh my gosh, thank you! You can buy one or both in a gift set, and they will be available through early January. The Smart Bitches 20th Anniversary Candle is an eleven-ounce hand-poured soy candle with notes of sea salt, book pages, sandalwood, and jasmine! The Bad Decisions Book Club Candle, also eleven ounces, is designed to be the perfect pairing for late-night reading, with scents of sweet tobacco, book pages, leather, rose, and sandalwood. I had such a good time picking out the scents, y’all? I had so much fun. So if you are looking for the perfect gift for yourself or for the book lovers in your life, there is a link in the show notes for the 2025 Smart Bitches Candle Collection – oh, that’s fun to say. You can shop small and spread light and warmth this year.

I have a compliment this week!

To Muriel T.: If you hear birds chirping or cawing in the sky above you, they’re telling you what a nifty human being you are. It is a comprehensive avian endorsement, and it is one hundred percent accurate.

Thank you to our Patreon community. Our Patreon community is the reason there are no dynamic ads before or after the show! With listener support, I was able to turn off all of the dynamic insertions – those are the ones you hear before or after an episode? – to avoid ads for ICE and well-funded right-wing propaganda. So instead of Patreon offering ad-free episodes, our Patreon community made every episode free of dynamic insertion ads for every listener. Thanks, y’all.

In addition, Patreon support helps me procure more issues of Romantic Times, it keeps the show going, and it helps ensure an artisan, handcrafted transcript from garlicknitter. Hey, garlicknitter! [Hi! – gk] Your support means a lot. And if you’d like to see what the Patreon membership is all about, there is a collection at Patreon of our bonus content, and I will be adding new samples in 2026. You can gift a membership, too; did you know that? There’ll be a link in the show notes, but if you go to patreon.com/SmartBitches/gift, you can gift someone a membership of any length at any tier. It would be lovely to have you join us. Visit patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And if Patreon support is not in the cards, may I please ask that you leave a review for the show where you listen. It makes an enormous difference.

Most of all, thank you for listening. I’m really happy you’re here.

Are you ready to have some Holiday Wishes? I am so ready. Let’s do this. On with the podcast with garlicknitter, Claudia, Christine, and Jo.

[music]

Garlicknitter: I’m Chris Johnson, also known as garlicknitter –

Sarah: Yay!

Garlicknitter: – and I’m in Gilroy, California – used to be known as one of the Garlic Capitals of the World, but – actually, I think we’re bringing the Garlic Festival back, so.

Sarah: Ooh!

Garlicknitter: It, it, you know, the Garlic Festival is a very big deal, not just around here, but in many places in the United States. I’ve had so many people say, Oh, we came from Indiana to go to the Garlic Festival! I’m like, Okay. [Laughs]

Sarah: Garlic festivals are serious business.

Garlicknitter: Oh yeah! Anyway. So, and I’m your transcriptionist, which I love.

Sarah: You sure are! Thank you!

Garlicknitter: Thank you!

Sarah: Keep me from making a big old fool of myself. Sarah, there’s like twenty seconds of audio missing here? Oh crap! Hang on, I can fix it before anybody finds out!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So tell me what book or books rocked your world this year?

Garlicknitter: I have books, as you, you know, I bet everybody’s got books.

Sarah: It’s fine.

Garlicknitter: And I’m still having trouble getting into fiction that is new to me?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Garlicknitter: Which I’m a little sad about, but this year cookbooks have rocked my world.

Sarah: Oh, I love a good cookbook. Tell me everything.

Garlicknitter: Okay. I, I picked out three:

Lunchbox by Aviva Wittenberg? She’s in, I believe, Toronto, and I don’t even pack a lunch, but there’s so many great ideas in this – because I work from the most part – in this book, and the, there’s, there’s just this, she’s got this variety of not just sandwiches but soups, and she talks about the practicalities of if you are packing a lunch, here are the best ways to pack it in ways that are sustainable and easy to clean after and so on and so forth? And she talks about making hand pies – which I, you know, I love anything in pie form – using frozen puff pastry dough?

Sarah: Ohhh, mm.

Garlicknitter: My favorite that I have made so far out of this cookbook is Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich.

Sarah: Oh!

Garlicknitter: Through this book I have learned of the existence of yellow Thai curry paste and its usefulness in so many dishes, and it is delicious. So that’s one.

Sarah: That is incredible, and I am right now going to be asking my library to get me a copy of this. Oh my goodness!

Garlicknitter: Yeah, I, I got from the – I got all of these from the library. Go, library!

Sarah: I, I love cookbook borrowing from –

Garlicknitter: Yes!

Sarah: – from my library. I, I love it, because cookbooks are expensive, and so many times I’ve ended up getting a cookbook, like, buying it, and then I end up using like one recipe. I have this big old book, and I’m using one thing? I love borrowing from the library, and then it’s like, Oh, I’m going to make like nine things from this book; I better buy it!

Garlicknitter: Yeah!

Sarah: It’s a wonderful tryout method. Thank you for introducing me to this book. I am so excited. What else is on your list?

Garlicknitter: Next I have What Goes with What by Julia Turshen. And I checked it out thinking it’s going to be fairly basic. Oh, so you want to learn to cook; here are how you can combine some ingredients that they’ll taste good together. And it is that, but she organizes it in a way that I found even more accessible than usual. She likes charts.

Sarah: Ohhh.

Garlicknitter: Like, for each category of food she makes up a chart of, like, you want to make a sandwich? Here are the, the components that make a sandwich go, go together well. Like, you know, these are some kinds of breads that are good sandwich bread, and then you want to put some form of protein in your sandwich, probably, and a sauce to, to add certain kinds of flavor, and these are the kinds of fruits and veggies that are good on a sandwich. And she’ll make a chart of, if you want to make this kind of sandwich, you know, put some of this and some of this and some of this on this kind of bread and enjoy it. And same approach to, say, pasta dishes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Garlicknitter: You know, combine this and this and this and this. Add, add all these components to your dish and it will be good. And she seems to be pretty much right about that. And so far – she likes meatballs?

Sarah: Oh!

Garlicknitter: So my favorite recipe that I’ve made so far is Braised Lamb Meatballs.

Sarah: Oh dang, that sounds good!

Garlicknitter: It, it is good! And she’s got like five different meatball recipes, and they all sound good.

Sarah: The nice thing about meatballs is they’re easy to, you know, reheat and do things with!

Garlicknitter: Yes! She –

Sarah: Lots of purposes.

Garlicknitter: Yeah! She’s a big fan of being able to, you know, use your leftovers? She’s very much, if you want to, you know, like, have the absolute gourmet food, food experience, yeah, get the fresh stuff and prep it yourself and so on, but, you know, if that’s, for whatever reason, too much for you?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Garlicknitter: Go ahead and get the, you know, Better Than Bouillon from the grocery store and instead of making your own stock every precious time, just stir some of that in!

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Garlicknitter: It’ll be good!

Sarah: You know, this, both of these books that you’ve talked about – and I’m very looking forward to the next one – both of these are books that are very casual about cooking.

Garlicknitter: Yes!

Sarah: You know, they’re, they’re very informal.

Garlicknitter: This, this is how they have rocked my world.

Sarah: Yes! That, I was just going to say, that makes complete sense.

Garlicknitter: Yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m like Anthony Bourdain: I like, I do like high-end, you know, gastronomic cooking, the specialty stuff, but that’s not always accessible to me. These days –

Sarah: No, not at –

Garlicknitter: – it’s pretty, pretty much never accessible to me. My next favorite category of food is grandma’s cooking.

Sarah: Yep!

Garlicknitter: So.

Sarah: Stuff that freezes well, makes leftovers, is easy to reheat.

Garlicknitter: Yeah.

Sarah: And is casual, and you can, and it is adaptable to what’s – I love cookbooks like this. I am so excited –

Garlicknitter: Yes.

Sarah: – thank you. What else did you bring?

Garlicknitter: The last one is not so – you know, it is still pretty accessible. So far this is aspirational for me; I’ve not actually made every-, anything out of this cookbook, but when I checked it out of the library I thought of you, because this book –

Sarah: Aw.

Garlicknitter: – is called The World Is Your Dumpling. And I thought, It’s the universal language of love!

Sarah: It really is! Oh my gosh! I’m so excited.

Garlicknitter: And it’s by Emily Roz, and she talks about easy ways to make dumplings and more diff- – you know, like, get yourself some wanton wrappers and make your dumplings out of, you know, premade wrappers. Or harder ways to make dumplings? Here’s how you make the dough.

Sarah: Yep.

Garlicknitter: Do you need gluten-free dumplings? You know, here are some gluten-free options. She talks a lot about different kinds of, different ways of making dumplings that can, you know, if you can’t eat this, try it with that.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Garlicknitter: So –

Sarah: Gosh, this looks –

Garlicknitter: And it’s worldwide.

Sarah: Ooh!

Garlicknitter: Part of her thing is she grew up in a lot of different places, and she likes dumplings from all of those places. So the world is your dumpling.

Sarah: I love this so much, ‘cause as you know, the universal expression of human love is to take a food, put it in a dough, and cook it! We all –

Garlicknitter: Yes!

Sarah: – every culture has one; every location has one. I am so excited to look at this cookbook; thank you! Oh my gosh!

Garlicknitter: You’re welcome! So that is my, tho-, those are the cookbooks, some of the cookbooks that have rocked my world this year.

Sarah: Fantastic! Thank you! You have opened my eyes to good things, and also deliciousness, which I am always appreciative of.

Garlicknitter: Yes. You know, you have – I remem-, still remember when you recommended the Chicken Bacon Lentil Stew?

Sarah: Yeah, I made it last week!

Garlicknitter: Yeah! It’s – I’m like, oh good, Sarah’s a foodie! So yes –

Sarah: Ha!

Garlicknitter: – I still, I still make that from time to time, so.

Sarah: It’s a great use of, it’s a great use of a bunch of very simple ingredients, and gosh, does it make a lot.

Garlicknitter: Yeah! So good.

Sarah: So good. Now I’m hungry.

Garlicknitter: Yeah.

Sarah: What are your wishes for everyone in 2026?

Garlicknitter: My wish, it, it’s, there’s an overarching wish –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Garlicknitter: – with three components, at least three components. Healthcare: I want –

Sarah: Mm.

Garlicknitter: – everybody to be able to get good healthcare –

Sarah: Yes.

Garlicknitter: – this year. You and I have both been on healthcare journeys in this past year.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Garlicknitter: It has been eye-opening for me. Prior to that I was, I, I come from a long line of people who only go to the doctor when something is obviously wrong.

Sarah: Right.

Garlicknitter: So I went to the doctor, and, eh, bunch of things are wrong, but they’re manageable! So I’m learning to manage them, and man, that’s a journey. It’s like having another gig – not as fun as –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Garlicknitter: – transcribing podcasts for Sarah.

Sarah: [Laughs] Looking after your health is the worst part-time job. Any kind of interaction with our healthcare system is a, is a part-time fucking job, and it’s so infuriating, because it doesn’t need to be this way.

Garlicknitter: Yes. Although I have to say, I feel very fortunate in the healthcare I have received –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Garlicknitter: – now that I’ve gone looking for it, because –

Sarah: Yeah.

Garlicknitter: – every time I see a, a healthcare provider, I feel like they’re listening to me, which I know is not always the case. And they hear my concerns, and they address my concerns, and if I say, I looked this up on the internet, they’re not like, Oh, Dr. Google. They’re like –

Sarah: Mm-mm.

Garlicknitter: – Oh! What did you find out?

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Garlicknitter: So I feel – and, and they have been giving me the care I need, and I feel so fortunate, because I know not everybody gets that, and that is why this is my wish for everybody. I want everybody to get at least as good of healthcare as I have, if not better! Because we all deserve that. We all need that, you know?

So my components: number one, access. I hope everybody can get the appointments they need when they need them with the people they need them with.

Sarah: Yes.

Garlicknitter: And places they can get to. Number two, listening with intelligence and compassion.

Sarah: Oh goodness, yes.

Garlicknitter: I wish that when everybody shows up to their convenient appointment at the right place with the right person, that person listens to them and hears what they’re saying and responds intelligently and with great compassion. And number three, affordable, affordability.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Garlicknitter: When you get the bill, if there’s a surprise in your bill, I hope the surprise is that what, the care you just received is low or no cost –

Sarah: Yes.

Garlicknitter: – and you can cover it all. So that is my wish for everybody for 2026.

Sarah: That is such a thorough and well thought out list, wish, and thank you.

Garlicknitter: Thank you! I did think about that.

Sarah: You are absolutely right. And it’s, and it sucks to know, like, Wow! My doctor listened to me! Like, the bar is in hell!

Garlicknitter: Yeah!

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s incredible. Thank you for that wish. I hope it comes true.

Garlicknitter: I, yeah. For everybody. I, you know, for me, for you.

Sarah: Everybody.

Garlicknitter: Spreading out in all directions. And everybody gets good dumplings after their –

Sarah: Yes! Oh my God, good dumplings for all.

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

Garlicknitter: I looked up a bad joke.

Sarah: Oh, I love it even more!

Garlicknitter: How do you – it’s a cooking joke!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Garlicknitter: Because we got a cooking thing going on.

How do you keep Canadian bacon from curling in the pan?

Sarah: How do you keep Canadian bacon from curling in the pan? How?

Garlicknitter: You take away their little brooms!

Sarah: Oh no! [Laughs] Excellent! Well done! Thank you!

And thank you, thank you for all the transcripts. It is a wonderful service, and I very much appreciate it.

Garlicknitter: I appreciate it too, because, you know, I, I – not everybody wants their podcasts hand-transcribed, and I’m glad that you do, because it’s so fun for me and – yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a good part of my life.

Sarah: I’m really glad to hear that. Thank you. And I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Garlicknitter: Thank you, you too!

Sarah: Thank you so much for doing this interview, and again, apologies for my absolutely incredible voice right now. [Clears throat]

Garlicknitter: Yeah, I hope you feel better soon, but in the meantime you sound –

Sarah: I should definitely do something with this, shouldn’t I?

Garlicknitter: Something like that, yeah. You should read a scene, find a scene –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Garlicknitter: – and read it aloud for –

Sarah: Creepy, sexy, you know, I’ll find something.

Garlicknitter: Yeah! Both, yeah! That’s the way!

Sarah: His member was turgid. That’s just what everyone wants to hear.

Garlicknitter: [Laughs]

[music]

Claudia: Yes, I am Claudia! I am from, originally, Summerville, South Carolina, and currently Irmo, South Carolina, which is in the capitol. Which was probably more info than you wanted!

Sarah: That’s fine!

Claudia: [Laughs]

Sarah: And you and I have known each other for a long-ass time.

Claudia: We’ve known each other for thirty…three years.

Sarah: Not the math! Oh, you did the math!

Claudia: It was my thirtieth anniversary this year; that’s why I knew that.

Sarah: Ohhh, that makes sense.

Claudia: …you know.

Sarah: So tell me about some book or books that rocked your world this year.

Claudia: So you know it’s always books with me. I’m going to mention the, the hardest one first, which was Babel by R. F. – and I looked it up, and I still don’t think this is the right pronunciation – R. F. [Kun-fang]? [Ka-fang]? [Kun-fang]? She also wrote Yellowface? That book was unexpected.

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: It takes a look at the idea of, the, the idea, the original idea of the tower of Babel, set in an alt, we’ll say an alt universe, because it’s very similar to ours. But it looks at it through the etymology and breakdown of language, and that’s how they actually power the magic?

Sarah: Yes.

Claudia: And they are, of course, stripping the language from other countries. I just was like, this, I still, I need to do a reread on it probably at some point. I just, I know it hit me pretty hard. It was brilliant. I have, out of the 318 books I’ve read this year, the majority of them have been male/male hockey books. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh my!

Claudia: Yeah. Which is weird for me, as you would know, because I’m not a sportsball girl. I know more about hockey – [laughs] – than I ever thought I would learn in my lifetime! But you know me; I’m like, I don’t care! Whatever! Information’s information. Love is love! Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry and The Long Game, which are two and six in her Game Changers boo-, series. This is Ilya and Shane, who I love with all my heart. I have read that ser-, those two books probably ten or fifteen times already this year? They are my comfort books. T. J. Klune’s The Lightning-Struck Heart series, if you’ve not read, you need to? It’s similar to comforting for me. First of all, they’re just great characters; she writes great characters. If anybody’s going to go with that series, they can be read as a standalone, but I would recommend reading the first book, mainly because it really gives you the story of what starts the domino effect in the rest of the series, which is support and outing –

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: – of gay men and bisexual men and pan men and hockey! And I was lucky that all the books had been written by the time I got to it. I didn’t have to wait for book six. The fans were so, clamoring so much for the end of their story, the second book is the second book into their story.

Sarah: Right.

Claudia: I just, the mental health and the treatment of people, and it just, they’re so rich with character and – and a lot of people are…they’re romance books, as you well know, which is how you got your career –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Claudia: – still props, still proud of you for getting that –

Sarah: Thank you.

Claudia: – things having you loved and, and going out and challenging the world. But it’s just something about those two characters, and they actually are doing it on the Canadians’ Crave?

Sarah: It’s very likely that it would be picked up by Hulu, because there are two Crave shows that are written and directed by the person who’s directing the Heated Rivalry –

Claudia: Okay!

Sarah: – adaptation? You would actually like these. The first one’s called Letterkenny, and the second one is Shoresy, which is a spin-off.

Claudia: Well, and I, I trust you for recommending shows. We have a sense, similar sensibility, I think, about a lot of things.

Now, the other series that I’m obsessed with is the Puckboys series by Eden Finley and Saxon James? With a queer collective. [Laughs] To the point that, you know, I tell Jimmy, who is my husband, who you’ve known for the same amount of time –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Claudia: – as you’ve known me, he knows, like, the whole – he could sit down and talk to you about these books, and he doesn’t read. Although ACOTAR probably his strongest point. He could sit down – he knows all of it.

Sarah: I mean, I know a lot about Game of Thrones, and I’ve never read the books nor watched the show, so I completely understand how this is possible.

Claudia: Yet – well, and it’s int-, sometimes it’s more interesting when you’re talking to someone about it than it is actually watching it or reading it?

Sarah: Yes.

Claudia: But I loved Puckboys for the same reason. Eden Finley just in general, I also loved her Famous series –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Claudia: – which I just read. I want to say that was her first series, but those, that’s what I’ve been reading. I mean, I’ve been reading some, like, you know, male/female rance, romances in between, some plus-sized books, some – oh God, I can’t remember the name of the author. The last book in the trilogy is Things We Left Behind.

Sarah: That’s Lucy Score.

Claudia: Yes, Lucy Score! I’m obsessed with Lucy Score books! And her raccoon! Oh my God, the raccoon; I’m waiting for that second book. But just for some reason – and I haven’t read romance in a very long time. I’ve been mainly, you know, YA.

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: And I still have a ton of YA to read, but I think I got like almost all the way done with the third – I think it was the third – Fourth Wing book, and I went, my brain went, Put it down. You’re stressed out; put it down. I still haven’t finished that. I have been trying to, anytime I get anxious, anytime I start to kind of be like, Stop caring about – I, I read. I read, I read, I read, I read, and I know we don’t all love the Amazon, but trust me, they’re not getting a deal with me with Kindle Unlimited. I am using and abusing them.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Claudia: That’s my book list, and I actually already have, with two exceptions, the email to send you with the stuff, links and stuff –

Sarah: Thank you!

Claudia: – which you probably already – but I’m going to do it anyway.

So my wish for everybody, the – is that the second question? I sent you a photo on that. About halfway through my MSW, which was a few years back, but this is still my wish for people this year, ‘cause it’s still sitting on my computer monitor: I saw, on Instagram, someone post a graphic, and it was the word WANT, and then a line, and then FEAR. WANT over FEAR. And I have left it on my computer monitor, because that’s – whenever I start to get overly anxious about anything, that has kind of been what has stuck in my head, and I want that for everybody this year. I want everybody to get a sticky note and write that down and put it where they can see it every day, because even if it’s the smallest thing – and a lot of times now the smallest things can be insurmountable –

Sarah: Yep.

Claudia: – they can feel insurmountable.

Sarah: It’s true.

Claudia: If, if you want something, don’t be afraid to go for it, even if it’s not something you can do right now.

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: I would like everybody to consider Want over Fear –

Sarah: Yeah.

Claudia: – this year, because I think that’s empowering.

Sarah: And you don’t have to be afraid of wanting things; you don’t have to wait to be worthy of the things that you want.

Claudia: My, my mom always said, I have to do this; I have to go do this; I have to go do this. I rarely ever heard her, if ever, say, I want to go do this.

Sarah: Yep.

Claudia: And I’ve tried to not – I have to pay my taxes, but, you know, I want to clean up my office so I can do some cosplay stuff.

Sarah: Right.

Claudia: And that, that’s challenge for me, so.

I took a picture of a joke. We met this guy this year – and I’m skipping ahead; I’m skipping ahead of, of, of the question asker! I’m sorry; I know the third thing…

Sarah: It’s totally fine! You’re saving my voice!

Claudia: And that’s part of the reason I’m doing it. [Laughs]

We ran into, at the state fair this year. There was a, a bee guy there, and he told us all these bee jokes, and I couldn’t remember any of them, so I looked up some. I’m going to give you the one. It’s:

What animals are smarter than talking parrots?

Sarah: What animals are smarter than talking parrots? I give up.

Claudia: Spelling bees.

Sarah: [Laughs] Well played!

Claudia: Play-play for two English majors!

Sarah: I love it! It’s perfect!

[music]

Christine: I’m Christine, and I am in Boston, Massachusetts. I work at the university in Boston?

Sarah: Well, that’s cool!

Christine: On the IT desk?

Sarah: Oh, that’s not, that’s less cool.

Christine: It’s okay.

Sarah: It’s okay.

Christine: It’s surrealistic, but it’s okay.

Sarah: Yeah, I used to work in IT repair in New York, and I would go to people’s houses and remove malware from their computers and stuff for private clients? That was a weird job.

Christine: We mostly do password resets –

Sarah: Fair.

Christine: – and getting people on wireless and do some simple software repairs.

Sarah: Makes perfect sense.

Christine: Yes.

Sarah: So thank you for doing an interview. I’m really, really happy to talk to you.

Please tell me about a book that rocked your world – or books. If you brought more than one, totally cool.

Christine: The first one is For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn, which is about an IT help person who was in customer service, gets cancer, dies, and goes to the afterlife, where she sets up a help desk in Hell.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Christine: There’s a ton of BookToks on it, which is how I found it, and it was a great book, and I hope she writes more? It really touched me in very unusual ways. [Slightly choked up] It made me realize – I didn’t expect this! –

Sarah: It’s okay. Take as much time as you need. Books make us emotional.

Christine: – how lucky I was when I got sick –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Christine: – my husbands, my first husband and then my second husband got sick, and how we, my insurance was so good I did not suffer that bad financially.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Christine: The heroine, Lily, in For Whom the Belle Tolls, she has no insurance, and she doesn’t want her parents to beggar themselves, so she doesn’t get treatment and dies, and that’s the first part of the book. In fact, my entire second marriage was because I had good insurance, and he needed (a) good insurance ‘cause he had cancer and (b) as a single guy with almost no family, he needed someone to be there to take him to appointments and talk to the hospital, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to do that when you’re a legal –

Sarah: Yes!

Christine: – and married. So we got married!

Sarah: Wow!

Christine: Yeah, it’s kind of weird.

Sarah: No, it’s actually incredibly compassionate and kind!

Christine: I’ve known Mark forever; we had been friends since college, for thirty years; he knew me. He and my first husband were best friends! He had helped me through my first husband’s, Russ’s death to cancer. Also, he had pancreatic cancer –

Sarah: Oh.

Christine: – and he went very fast. Unfortunately, Mark, I managed five years for multiple myeloma, and I had had breast cancer in ’04, so I thought I could handle it, but it was really weird and very strain-ful. Reading this, it’s just like I am reinforced about how lucky I am with having decent health insurance, and I understand why an entire government would shut down to make sure people had decent health insurance.

Sarah: Yes! Absolutely true.

Christine: Yeah.

Sarah: I have a guest review for this book that I am working on with a, with a new reviewer, who said, I love this book so much, I need to tell people about it, and I was like, Tell me everything! Which is my favorite kind of…

Christine: Oh my God, it is the lovely – and the BookToks are great. She worked very, very hard on the BookToks, which is mainly the whole reason I, I read it.

And then another book, which I just finished on the same view is Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan?

Sarah: Love that book!

Christine: Oh, it is great! It is very great. I read her first book ages ago.

Sarah: Mm.

Christine: I think it’s The Demon’s Lexicon, and I never got the rest of the books ‘cause I wanted to shop for them in person, but trying to find anything at a Barnes & Noble –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Christine: – in YA was incredibly hard. I’m going to have to order them off the evil empire or through Barnes & Noble.

Sarah: You might find them on bookshop.org.

Christine: I will write that one down.

Sarah: If bookshop.org has it, you can designate an independent bookstore to benefit from your purchase. There are also Friends of the Library groups that are connected to bookshop.org, so you can designate which one you want, and then they get, they get a portion of the profit.

Christine: That is very good!

Sarah: I’m a big fan.

Christine: And then I have a third book which is very pretentious. It’s very, very pretentious.

Sarah: I’m excited; tell me everything.

Christine: [Laughs] It’s the second book in a series, and I don’t know how long the series is going to be, but it’s called – and it’s also on my list – it’s called the Hakkenden or the Eight Dogs, which is a translation of a Japanese classic work of literature called Nansō Satomi Hakkenden – I can’t speak any – samatomi? And it is about eight men who are drawn together through the mystical bonds of their mother, who’s really not their mother. It’s two books now, and I don’t know when the third book is coming out. The person, Glynne Walley is translating it; he’s doing a great job translating it for the, from Japanese for an audience who’s willing to sit there and read it? It’s kind of long. But this is what Games of, Game of Thrones wanted to be.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Christine: Magic; you’ve got derring-do; you’ve got mysticism; you have, Oh, I need to do this because I am bound by my honor to deliver this sword to the shogun. It’s not a, it’s not the Tokugawa shogun; it’s the earlier shoguns from the four-, 14th century, from the warring states era?

Sarah: Yeah.

Christine: You, you have entirely book one, which is An Ill-Conceived Jest [An Ill-Considered Jest], which starts everything going is the heroes’ mystical grandfather rises through the strength of his arm to be a warlord in medieval Japan in the Chiba area, which is sort of outside Tokyo. He goes into a place where they had, the good lord had been overthrown by an evil person, and he kills the evil person, but the evil person had a mistress, and he’s about to let the mistress go when someone talks him into saying, after he said, No, you can go. I, I forgive you; you can go. You just said you were an innocent woman, and you’re crying, and you may be evil, but you’re crying. Someone said No, we have to kill her, and he changes his mind, saying, Oh, okay, no; you’re bad, and we’ll behead you now as a common criminal. And as she dies she said, Because you’ve betrayed me and you’ve gone back on your word, your children and your grandchildren will be beasts of the passion of the world.

Sarah: Oh, oh boy.

Christine: Very angry. She’s very angry, and so this is the curse. The warlord Satomi falls upon hard times; he’s being attacked; he’s being starved out of his castle. As a joke he asks the family dog to go kill the head of the enemy army, and if he does he’ll give him the hand of his daughter? And the dog’s like, I’ll do it!

Sarah: Sure!

Christine: Goes, he gets the enemy, the guy goes back on his word, his daughter’s horrified, and she goes off, she marries the dog, and she goes off to live with the dog platonically – [laughs] – and they’re in a, a remote mountain cave, and her ex-boyfriend shows up, who everyone thought was dead. He gets angry she’s living with a dog and tries to kill the dog. Kills her instead, and as she dies her Buddhist prayer rosary with eight virtues, Buddhist virtues, falls apart, and then a year later boys are born with the last name of dog, all with these Buddhist spheres in their hand.

The first book is up to the daughter’s death. The second book you meet six of the eight guys. I’m waiting for the third book ‘cause it’s going to be really crazy.

Sarah: That sounds incredible, honestly.

Christine: It’s, it’s, this man works thirty years on it. It’s pretentious, it’s on my list, but it’s, I want to push it because I want it to be appreciated that someone has taken the time as a passion project to translate this.

Sarah: That is fantastic.

Christine: It is!

Sarah: I also have loved a lot of books in translation recently? I’m really glad that more is being translated into English.

Christine: I am so excited about that, because I am child of the ‘80s and ‘90s –

Sarah: Me too.

Christine: – and…anime before anime was popular? Like, you’d go to a science fiction convention and there’d be a screening, and it would still be in Japanese, and someone would be explaining what’s happening, which isn’t kind of hard in some of them, ‘cause if they’re the giant mecha ones –

Sarah: Yeah, you can kind of figure it out.

Christine: You could figure it out, but – and then you, the ‘90s, you had all this anime, and then I talk about the old days to the student workers at the IT help desk, and they’re like, What do you mean?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Christine: I was like…You, you, you used to not have a lot of stuff.

Sarah: No, it was rare!

Christine: None of this translated, and you used to get stuff that was not translated, and you try to figure out the story as you’re watching it.

Sarah: The community of people who love a thing so much that they want to share the thing with other people? Those are generally very generous people.

Christine: They are, and I’ve run into so many passion people over the years that it’s been wonderful.

Sarah: I love passionate people.

Christine: The, the Hakkenden thing is also, is like an anime, which I don’t know if you can get anymore.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Christine: You might be able to get it on eBay, called The Hakkenden, and you get eight thousand words, eight thousand pages in thirteen episodes. It’s from the ‘90s; it’s good. I don’t – but Pioneer brought it over, and they are out of business, so I don’t know if you can find it any place?

Sarah: I just found the VHS, volumes one through seven, anime, subtitled in English, for thirty-five dollars!

Christine: Yes, because in the bad old days you either got subtitled or you got dubbed.

Sarah: Yeah. And you have to find a VCR, but, you know, some people have them. [Laughs]

Christine: Well, they also offer the laser discs.

Sarah: That’s true. Oh, laser discs! I remember those.

Christine: Still have a laser disc player.

Sarah: No way!

Christine: I have to hook it up again, but yeah, I still have it.

Sarah: I love your list! Thank you! Turned me on –

Christine: You’re welcome!

Sarah: – to a whole new bunch of things! And you are the second person to tell me how much they loved For Whom the Belle Tolls!

Christine: I am in awe of the BookTok she does, and I’ve never, I never really got into the BookTok community, and I only found it because it was on Facebook, and I spend far too much time on Facebook now?

Sarah: What wishes do you have for everyone in 2026?

Christine: Oh, I hope everyone just survives 2026. I hope to get my writing career started again? I was writing up into 2019, 2020, and then sort of stalled out.

Sarah: I wish you creativity that is easy and delightful in 2026.

Christine: Thank, thank you very much, and I wish you would rest your voice.

Sarah: I’m going to.

Christine: Okay.

Sarah: One last question: did you bring a terrible joke? It is okay if you did not.

Christine: I did not bring a terrible joke, ‘cause I’m a person who does not understand humor very well.

Sarah: I understand completely! No worries at all!

Christine: But your terrible jokes are usually very good!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Christine: And other than that, I don’t understand American humor that much.

Sarah: You don’t understand American humor? We are very strange.

Christine: Yeah, I know! I can laugh; like, I go to the Japanese comedies and I laugh, but I do not get what’s funny on an American comedy? I never understood what was funny about – oh, God. It was the one with the terrible mother-in-law that lived across the street. Ray Romano was in it.

Sarah: Everybody Loves Raymond?

Christine: Everybody Loves Raymond: I did not understand that one at all.

Sarah: No, that never made me laugh either.

Christine: Yeah, no, I never understood that, and I don’t know!

Sarah: I understand com…but I’m glad the jokes that I select make you laugh.

Christine: They do! They do, they do.

Sarah: Yay! Thank you so much for doing this, and thank you so much for tolerating my raspy voice. I’m –

Christine: Your raspy voice is excellent!

Sarah: Oh, thank you.

Christine: I just worry about you hurting it.

Sarah: Oh, I won’t, I won’t hurt it. I know exactly how far to take it, and I’m going to drink a lot of tea.

Thank you so much for doing this, and if no one thanked you, thank you for looking after people who were important to you and making sure they had dignity and care. That is a –

Christine: Thank you.

Sarah: – truly selfless and wonderful thing to do, and I am in awe of your generosity.

Christine: Thank you very much. It was – I knew they’d do it for me, so it was not a burden; it was not a sacrifice? The hospitals were wonderful for the most part, ‘cause they were both at the same hospital different times? Supported a hospital, not so much for the, like, the social worker support at times. I, I wish they had reached out more, or I was more aggressive?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Christine: But the nurses were so good, and the doctors were so good? Very good.

Sarah: You are also very good.

Christine: Thank you!

[music]

Sarah: So how are you? How’s Spain?

Jo VanEvery: Spain is lovely! Spain is lovely. The weather is sunny, which is the main reason I came here, and it’s sort of like, sort of between eighteen and twenty-two degrees –

Sarah: Perfect.

Jo: – every day.

Sarah: Perfect!

Jo: Absolutely! [Laughs] Like, and – yeah! So yeah, it’s great! And this, this apartment is nice. So, like, we’re both working, and then on the weekends – so we went into Barcelona on Saturday to, and went to the Fundació Joan Miró, and they have this fantastic exhibit on about Joan Miró and the United States, and it’s sort of like him and sort of colleagues that he worked with and people that were, especially Americans, that were influenced by him, and was like this massive exhibition. It was, and it was really, really interesting. Like, really, really –

Sarah: That is so cool!

Jo: Hi! I’m Jo VanEvery. I live in England in, around the Peak, Peak District. I’m Canadian, but I live in England now. That’s kind of usually where I am. Right now, I am in Spain because I decided to escape the gloom of northwest England – [laughs] – to a sunnier clime for the month of November!

Sarah: I cannot imagine why! I told you about my husband studying abroad, right? I was in Spain. He studied at the London School of Economics, and it falls, and, and I was in – where was I? I was in Salamanca.

Jo: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: So we came to visit each other, ‘cause back then there were super cheap airlines? There was this one airline –

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: – it was called Spanair. There was a flight attendant whose job it was to bake bread on the planes and offer you fresh bread. It was amazed. Like, why we don’t have fresh bread on our airlines I don’t know; it was great. But I went up to see him, and I was like, Oh! I can understand and read all the signs, and it’s kind of cloudy and rainy, but that’s fine. He came to see me after several months in London and just stood and looked at the sky. Like –

Jo: [Laughs]

Sarah: – I haven’t seen the sky in like two months. There’s no clouds. Like, no! Hardly ever. He was in shock by the amount of sun that he got in three days. [Laughs]

Jo: Sad, November is particularly grim usually, though. This year I noticed the Met office said that October was the gloomiest in the UK for sixty years.

Sarah: Oh gosh! No, thank you! And it’s just the start? That’s not fair!

Jo: It’s not fair, no.

Sarah: It’s not – so I think you’ve made great decisions here. Vitamin D is important!

Jo: Vitamin D is important; it makes me happy.

Sarah: Yeah, right?

So please tell me about a book or books that have rocked your world this year.

Jo: So I thought a lot about this – I’ve read a lot of books – but the one that kind of stood out for me was the Taylor Jenkins Reid Atmosphere.

Sarah: Really! You are not the first person to tell me about this book!

Jo: [Laughs] So I’ve read all of the ones in that sort of – it’s not quite a series, but it, they’re very similar, right? In a sort of stylistic way. And I, so, and I’ve liked all of them, and so I was just kind of looking – and I’m not particularly interested in space or anything, so it wasn’t like I was super excited for this one. It was just like, oh, I have really enjoyed her books; I’m looking forward to the new one. And then I read it, and it exceeded my expectations.

Sarah: Oh wow!

Jo: And I think there was something in particular that I really liked about it. So I’m only, I’m a little bit younger than the characters in the book, but not that much – like, probably five to ten years – so a lot of the kind of cultural stuff, I kind of remember, but I was just a little bit younger, and so that sort of felt a little bit familiar. But also I remember, so one of my friends, several years ago, when she got married – and she’s sort of a similar age, right? Late fifties, early sixties, and she got married in her fifties, and, to her wife – one of the things she said at the time – she was really excited about it – [laughs] – and she’s still really excited about her marriage – one of the things she said at the time is this was something she never ever expected she would do. Right? Like, it’s not like she grew up thinking, you know, she would get married and then, and you know, or, and then it wasn’t – it was like it was just something that was never on her radar as something that was going to happen for her –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: – because she was a lesbian. And, and then when she met her partner and they decided to get married it just was, like, so amazing. And there was, reading Atmosphere, there were a couple of points where, I think there might be a point where one of the main characters actually said something very similar? But also it just struck me that for the, for the main character in this book, none of it, it wasn’t like she had goals that she pursued. [Laughs] It was more that she was good at stuff? Like, she was good at math; she was good at, you know, whatever. She was good at stuff, and she found opportunities where she was able to do the stuff she was good at and earn a living –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: – and, and, you know, when, when there was this opportunity to apply for the, this particular space program she, it wasn’t like she’s like, Oh my goodness, that would be – she was just like, Oh, that’s really interesting. I don’t know if that’s something I want to do or not, but it’s not that difficult to apply for, so I’ll apply, and then I’ll just carry on doing what I’m doing. [Laughs] If it comes up I’ll decide then. And so it was almost as if there was this, like, whole narrative that is really just driven by being aware of what the opportunities are around you; not necessarily being completely invested in pursuing a particular track –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: – but nevertheless taking opportunities that present themselves and then making the most of them. And she ends up being quite successful, both in her career and in her relationship, although, you know, it is at a historical moment where that doesn’t lead to marriage or anything else, but she’s able to have this relationship, and, and it just kind of feels like, I mean, and that was just like a really, I really liked that element of the storytelling, right? Because, ‘cause our culture has just such a strong emphasis on you need to set a goal, and then you need to, like – [laughs] – work really hard to get it! And she absolutely did not do that, and she was still successful. She mostly was like, Oh! I could do this. I would be good at this. I am going to put myself forward for this, and if people accept that I’m good at it and offer me the position, I will do my best at what I’m doing. And, you know, and I will meet these people, and I will, you know, develop relationships with them or whatever.

Like, so, it, I, I think that was one aspect of it that just really, really struck me? But also it was just so well-written. I just really, really liked how well she just captured all of that, you know? ‘Cause it is quite emotional.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely!

Jo: There’s some, there’s some – [laughs] – there’s some awful things that happen in this book, but yeah. It, I, I thought it was – anyway, I just really liked it, so.

Sarah: That’s excellent!

Jo: But that’s, that’s my pick.

Sarah: That is a very good pick! You are not the first person to pick this book. I should run a tally, but this book definitely has two votes so far.

Jo: [Laughs]

Sarah: One thing I find so interesting about characters like that is that, like, you’re right: especially in North America, we are, we are ears-deep in a culture – I mean, I remember – I’m a little younger than you; I’m fifty – and I remember, I read a book called Do What You Are, or something like that, where you figure out who you are, and then you tailor your job around it, and I look back on that, and I’m like, Okay, well, I kind of did that, ‘cause I kind of made my job out of the books I like to read, but for a lot of what I have done professionally, I, I sort of joke that I’m sort of standing in a field with a lot of grass and a scythe, and no one has done what I do, so I’m just like, Oh, that looks good; I’ll go over there! Chop-chop-chop.

Jo: [Laughs]

Sarah: Ooh, what’s over there? Chop-chop-chop. And so I really relate to the idea that the book isn’t full of this imperative: you must identify your core competencies, and then you must level them up! And then you must do a vertical and a synergy and all that other crap! Like, it’s really easy to fall into that and think that that is how you must be as an adult who is self-sufficient, and it doesn’t have to be that way in many circumstances.

Jo: I mean, my own career, I think, is very similar to yours. It’s just like, I did some things. It was like, Oh, here’s a good next thing to do –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Jo: – and then –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Jo: – then you’re just like, Oh, okay; now I’m here, and what am I going to do now? And, you know, and I’ve been very lucky to have some financial stability from other people when I’ve needed it, but –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: – but I think, yeah, there was very much that thing. And I think, and the advice I’ve been giving people for ages, and –

Sarah: Ooh!

Jo: – my kid then gives to her friends, so – [laughs] – I think, I think that’s about, like, that’s my big parenting win: I gave my kid advice and they give that same advice to their friends – but my main career advice is that you never have to work out what you’re going to do with your life. That you only have to work out what you’re going to do next. And a lot of what –

Sarah: That is such good advice.

Jo: – you’re going to do next is going to help you gain some skills or some networks or something, then there will be other opportunities and you will get an opportunity to, like, make another, you know, another choice. And I think that is really, in Atmosphere that’s really what the main character kind of does, right? She’s, she’s got this opportunity, so she takes it. There’s this opportunity – she applies for this thing, doesn’t know if she’s going to get it, applies anyway. Then gets the opportunity, takes it, does a good job, right? [Laughs] And keeps an eye out for what opportunities that leads her to and builds the networks and the skills and whatever, and I think, Yeah, yeah. It’s just, I don’t know how I came up with that, but I came up with it a while ago, and it works remarkably well and is much less stressful than – because especially now? There’s, you know, like, everything is in, there’s so much uncertainty that it’s really hard to know if that thing you’re like, Oh, but I could be really good at that job. It’s, like, really hard to know if that job’s ever going to exist, and even if it does, when you get there, like, there’s so many things out of your control. But if you’re just kind of like, Okay, this is what I’m good at; here’s, here’s the, here are the opportunities in front of me right now. I’m going to take this one and then do what I can with that and sort of move towards a place where there might be new opportunities and kind of be open to whatever happens from that. And sometimes what comes from that is some really good stuff.

Sarah: Absolutely true!

Jo: Mm!

Sarah: And one of the best pieces of infor-, or advice that I ever got was that if you don’t know what to do next, if you don’t know what decision to make, it means you don’t have enough information.

Jo: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: But I love the idea that you really only have to work out what you’re going to do next. It’s really not possible to predict the future that far. Especially not right now –

Jo: Yeah, exactly.

Sarah: – holy crap! I can’t predict crap!

Jo: [Laughs] No!

Sarah: I don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of this week! Let alone, like, today! Who knows what’s going to happen? Shit’s crazy right now! How do, how the hell do I know?

Jo: It is, it is particularly volatile right now, but yeah! There’s all kinds of – and you think, like, you know, when I was, you know, I’m probably ten years older than you, and, like, you know, so, like, when I was in high school there were no compu- – I mean, there was a computer, I guess, when I was in grade twelve. There was like one – I don’t know. When I started university, the first year? I took a first-year computer science class; we learned to program using punch cards. Now, I’m – [laughs] – in the last cohort to do that –

Sarah: Hot damn!

Jo: – and it’s like – right? –

Sarah: Wow!

Jo: – my roommate was a computer science major, and at some point during that year, or maybe the next one, she bought a personal computer, and they were just, like this was before Macs existed. They were, like, there were, like, a whole bunch of weird things. It was very early in that market. That little computer didn’t even come with a fan. Like, you had to buy a fan separately to –

[Laughter]

Jo: – cool it, like – so it’s, like, you know, in my adult life, from going to university to now, I do something I couldn’t even do without the internet, right? Like, the, the, you know, my plans for my business are sort of all over the place, and I do everything online, and – as do you. It’s just like, podcasts didn’t exist –

Sarah: Nope!

Jo: – like, back in the ‘80s. Right, like, none of this existed, so we couldn’t possibly, you know, as young adults, gone, Oh! That’s what I want to do when I – because – [laughs] – it just wasn’t possible, right?

Sarah: No!

Jo: We didn’t…and at some point we got to a place where it’s like, Oh, I could be doing this! And Ooh, look, I can make some money doing this. And here, and then here we are, right? However many years later still doing, doing this thing that just was not even imaginable. You know, which I guess is the thing about the, you know, Atmosphere, the book is that it wasn’t even imaginable that you were going to – [laughs] – ever, like, a shuttle program, like a space shuttle program. Like, what was that, right? But, you know, so it’s just, yeah, I think that it is, it’s kind of interesting. And right now, I don’t know; it’s like I – what’s, what, what are things going to be like in ten years? Who knows?

Sarah: I’m very tired of living in interesting times. But I saw, I saw a joke – I don’t even remember what context. I mean, honest to God, Jo, it might have been a Tumblr post that was screencapped and put on Reddit and then went to like, like Bluesky.

Jo: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: Like, I don’t even know where this came from; someone’s going to tell me. But there was this, like, dialogue between somebody who – [laughs] – like, resurrected, I don’t know, Isaac Newton or somebody, and they’re, like, trying to get him to, like, So we went to space, and we found this, and now we’re back, and we’re trying to do this other planet, and we, we have to figure out whether or not we go to Mars, and the response is, You went to space? Like in the sky? You went to space in the sky? Like, the – so Atmosphere is when I was, is set when I was a kid, and, like, you know, Atmosphere’s a set, and I’m, like, watching space shuttles in elementary school thinking, like, This is amazing! Like, what happens when we can’t see them anymore? Are they just gone? Like – ‘cause you can’t see things orbiting in space on your TV screen. You just watch it go, go-go-go and go away! Like, it’s incredible to look back on that just in our lifetime? So much has changed!

Jo: Yeah, yeah! I know, like, for me, in kindergarten, I remember they brought a TV in, and we watched one of the Apollo moon launches.

Sarah: When they rolled the TV in for a news event it was a good day. Whoo! That was fun.

Jo: [Laughs]

Sarah: Except, except in ’86 when it was Challenger; that was bad. That was not so great.

Jo: No, and I was, I was, I was a university student then, and yeah.

Sarah: That is such a great rec. I think this book had an impact on a lot of people, which is very cool.

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: And I also think it’s very interesting to read stories about people who are just sort of ordinary but interesting people in truly extraordinary events.

Jo: Yes!

Sarah: Because every extraordinary event is just made up of rando people doing something together.

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: Nobody looks at somebody when they’re born and be like, Oh, you, you, you’re going to be the one! You’re going to be the one to go to the Moon. Like, I wouldn’t do that!

Jo: No! No.

Sarah: So even though things are unprecedented and turbulent, it, it is also kind of hopeful to think, Well, we’re all just randos at a weird event too.

Jo: [Laughs] Exactly. It is quite hopeful.

Sarah: Speaking of, what are your wishes for 2026?

Jo: So what I realized is that that makes a pretty good wish, right? So what I wish for people for 2026 is that there are opportunities for them in all of this to do something that they’re good at and that they like doing, and that it leads to new opportunities that give them some kind of hope. That’s basically my wish.

Sarah: It’s a really lovely wish. I love the idea of linking opportunity to hope.

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: That’s fantastic. What a great wish!

Now, did you bring a terrible joke? It is okay if you did not.

Jo: I didn’t. I shared one with you on Blue- – [laughs] –

Sarah: Yes, you – yes, you did!

Jo: – [still laughing] – but it was a bit of a visual joke!

Sarah: It’s a bit visual, but I love it!

Thank you so much for signing on to do an interview and connecting with me this year. I really appreciate it!

Jo: And thank you so much for, like, sharing all that you share on the podcast and in the website and for the Discord community, which is fantastic. It’s such a good group in the Discord, and I’m really happy to be part of that group!

Sarah: Truly some of the loveliest humans.

Jo: Yeah!

Sarah: And so many cat pictures. Like, that’s –

Jo: [Laughs] And dog pictures!

Sarah: – that’s, that’s –

Jo: People have good dogs too, but yes.

Sarah: Dog pictures, cat pictures, random bird pictures – it’s fabulous!

Jo: Yeah.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to our guests, and thank you to all of the people who connected with me for the next few Holiday Wishes episodes. These episodes are so affirming and inspiring for me, to have you tell me how much you like the show, how we helped you discover a new book or find a new author and that you’re sharing recommendations of books that I now want to read. It is the greatest feeling in the world to know that we have made a difference in your life, so thank you for that.

As a reminder, you can gift a Patreon membership to the show at patreon.com/SmartBitches/gift – there’ll be a link in the show notes, of course – and you can check out the Smart Bitches Candle Collection at Wax Cabin Candles. I will also include a link for that.

I end with a bad joke, even though we had so many. I have two more. One will be in the show notes as a visual – also from Jo – and this joke is from Jo, who’s quoting Chad Loder:

When I worked at the factory assembling Dracula toys, it was just me and one other dude on a very fast-moving assembly line. I had to make every second Count.

[Laughs] Every second count! Ah-ah-ah! Thank you, Jo, and thank you, Chad.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading and a wonderful, relaxing December. We will see you back here next week with more Holiday Wishes. And in the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, thank you for listening. You’re welcome for talking!

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