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📚10 Nonfiction Books That Will Stay With You Longer Than Any Novel · Friday Night Readers: Gilmore Girls Inspired Book Club

0:05
SPEAKER_00: Hello, Friday Night Readers, and welcome to November,
0:08
SPEAKER_00: the third month of the Gilmore Girls Trifecta.
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SPEAKER_00: Although I still say that December should probably be a bonus month because of all
0:17
SPEAKER_00: of those wonderful Christmas episodes and smelling stuff.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, November is not just the month of Thanksgiving,
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SPEAKER_00: or if you are a Gilmore Girl for Thanksgivings, it is also nonfiction November.
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SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to talk about 10 nonfiction books that will stay
0:33
SPEAKER_00: with you Longer than any novel.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm confident I can deliver on it for you.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: People have to say that truth is stranger than fiction.
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SPEAKER_00: And they're not totally wrong about that.
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SPEAKER_00: But what I say is that the best known fiction is harder to forget.
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SPEAKER_00: It's unforgettable.
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SPEAKER_00: And when I think back to the 1000 plus books I've read in my lifetime,
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SPEAKER_00: I think I'm close to about 1500 now.
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SPEAKER_00: It's actually the nonfiction that stayed with me the longest.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm not just talking about their general stories or the names or the people who are in them.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm also not talking about the fact that I love them.
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SPEAKER_00: What I am talking about are the details.
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SPEAKER_00: There's something about real stories that remain in our minds.
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SPEAKER_00: It's the things that shocked me.
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SPEAKER_00: It's things that absolutely broke my heart.
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SPEAKER_00: Lessons I'd learned.
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SPEAKER_00: Or even just something new.
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SPEAKER_00: And the little things that actually changed my way of thinking.
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SPEAKER_00: When you think about it, this is the reason we can't quit reality TV.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, I have been around reality TV since its early days.
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SPEAKER_00: At Anne-Marie Gilmore's age, I did grow up with The Real World, The Osbournes,
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SPEAKER_00: and even John and Kate Plus 8, which is pretty trending right now.
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SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times I have looked over at my husband
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SPEAKER_00: as we watched either a shocking episode of Dateline Which is part of my Friday Night
1:47
SPEAKER_00: with Tea or an absolutely hilarious episode of Vanderpump Rules and said to him,
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SPEAKER_00: there is no writer on earth who could have scripted this.
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SPEAKER_00: What happens on reality TV astounds me as a writer myself.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: And speaking of the real world,
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SPEAKER_00: I can tell you exactly what caused a fight on an early 2000s episode.
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SPEAKER_00: With precision, that is actually kind of alarming.
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SPEAKER_00: And what I mean is this.
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SPEAKER_00: There are fiction books that we love,
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SPEAKER_00: but we can't exactly remember what happened or why we love that.
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SPEAKER_00: Even just recently, I watched the Netflix adaptation of East of Eden,
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SPEAKER_00: which I have called my favorite classic And the blood twists felt new today.
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SPEAKER_00: Nonfiction is not like that and the unforgettable details are what we crave
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SPEAKER_00: as readers, isn't it?
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SPEAKER_00: It's not just stories that everyone is talking about right now—it's the facts
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SPEAKER_00: that linger and seep into our lives forevermore.
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SPEAKER_00: So that is exactly why we are celebrating nonfiction November
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SPEAKER_00: by reading nonfiction books from Gilmore Girls
2:43
SPEAKER_00: for our Rory Gilmore reading challenge this month.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: If you're new around here, I am Jules and Friday Night Readers is
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SPEAKER_00: a virtual community that reads, lives, and writes like the Gilmore Girls.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is our book club that is loosely inspired by the show
2:57
SPEAKER_00: because book clubs are just about books after all.
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SPEAKER_00: And we have been reading the books from Gilmore Girls since 2021.
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SPEAKER_00: Every month I pick a prompt.
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SPEAKER_00: And you pick a book from the show.
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SPEAKER_00: If you need the list I have gotten covered,
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SPEAKER_00: just head to the show notes and subscribe to my email newsletter.
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SPEAKER_00: You will get a printable PDF checklist of the 475 plus books on the show,
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SPEAKER_00: which I have personally verified over years for my unofficial guide to the books
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SPEAKER_00: on Gilmore Rose, which I just self-published this fall.
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SPEAKER_00: You can certainly buy the book if you'd like, and I will leave that in the show notes as well.
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SPEAKER_00: And if you upgrade your email subscription to become a paid number,
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SPEAKER_00: you will get a checklist of those 475 plus books on Gilmore Girls
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SPEAKER_00: with the episodes listed after them.
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SPEAKER_00: What's the difference between that and the book?
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SPEAKER_00: Well, the book goes episode by episode and gives you far more details.
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SPEAKER_00: All of those options are in the share notes for you if you want to continue reading
3:50
SPEAKER_00: with us this November and moving forward.
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SPEAKER_00: There will be a 2020 Summit Reading Challenge.
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SPEAKER_00: Released in December.
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SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait to do this again with you.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: So with all of that said, if you want to beat the blues of fiction books
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SPEAKER_00: with us this month, then join me in this episode celebrating
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SPEAKER_00: the most impactful true stories that I have read,
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SPEAKER_00: which were also featured on Gilmore Girls.
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SPEAKER_00: These are some of the most impactful old and modern nonfiction classics of all time.
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SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, they just may change you.
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SPEAKER_00: First up is Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.
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SPEAKER_00: This book is a Pulitzer Prize winner, a number one New York Times bestseller,
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SPEAKER_00: and one of the best audiobooks I have ever read.
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SPEAKER_00: It is a memoir, and memoirs are often better read on audio,
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SPEAKER_00: especially when they are narrated by the author themselves.
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SPEAKER_00: And here, yes, it is narrated by Frank McCourt.
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SPEAKER_00: And what makes it so special is that it's his very Irish voice.
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SPEAKER_00: He blends darkness with humor in recalling that the worst kind of childhood is
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SPEAKER_00: the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.
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SPEAKER_00: As he looks back, he wonders how he even survived it all.
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SPEAKER_00: It's set in both New York where he is born and Limerick, Ireland where his family is from.
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SPEAKER_00: His mother struggles to feed the family,
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SPEAKER_00: particularly since his father is not the most responsible worker and uses his money
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SPEAKER_00: on alcohol.
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SPEAKER_00: You do get a first-hand account of what it is like to be raised in poverty.
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SPEAKER_00: Which helps you walk a mile in his shoes.
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SPEAKER_00: But again, what made this one a classic was his Irish charm and his humor in talking
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SPEAKER_00: about it all. His Irish sperm really shines.
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SPEAKER_00: And in spite of all the darkness, he also captivates you with perky Irish traditions.
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SPEAKER_00: As he says, this is a story of survival.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's without question one of the most beloved memoirs On Gilmore Girls,
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SPEAKER_00: you will find it in Season 6, Episode 11, The Perfect Dress.
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SPEAKER_00: This is when Lorelai comes to visit, worried in her apartment with Paris,
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SPEAKER_00: and compares it to this book.
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SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about one of my all-time favorites,
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SPEAKER_00: The Diary of a Young Girl by Pierre Frey,
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SPEAKER_00: but another one of the most iconic and widely read nonfiction books of all term.
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SPEAKER_00: 35 million copies have been sold today.
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SPEAKER_00: A book that was never meant to be published,
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SPEAKER_00: This was Anne Frey's journal as she lived her life in hiding during the Holocaust
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SPEAKER_00: in Amsterdam.
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SPEAKER_00: And wow, she was someone so wisely entre yours.
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SPEAKER_00: I find it so remarkable that an adolescent girl had the maturity
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SPEAKER_00: to write quotes like, it's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals
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SPEAKER_00: because they seem so absurd and impassable to carry out, yet I keep them.
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SPEAKER_00: Because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at her.
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SPEAKER_00: This was one of believe the people are really good at heart." This was one
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SPEAKER_00: of the most influential books I have ever read,
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SPEAKER_00: I first read it as an adolescent myself and think its like The American Girl Books
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SPEAKER_00: where I learned about history on my level There's something about the voice
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SPEAKER_00: of a teen that is talking about boys while also recounting Very harsh realities
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SPEAKER_00: of the war and the fact of her fighting.
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SPEAKER_00: Not to mention the fear that she could die at any moment.
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SPEAKER_00: Later, I read it again as an adult and it really blew me away.
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SPEAKER_00: Her worldview was just so much more advanced than the average person than being able
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SPEAKER_00: to find the beauty that still remains.
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SPEAKER_00: And truly, sometimes this is all we have.
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SPEAKER_00: I figured to be so wise that many years ago I had one of these quote
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SPEAKER_00: of the day calendars where you rip out the cloak every day.
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SPEAKER_00: And hers was one of only two that I saved on my desk for years to come.
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SPEAKER_00: It's just one of those books that everyone has to read.
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SPEAKER_00: There is also a Pulitzer Prize in the New Play,
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SPEAKER_00: so if you don't want to read the full text, you can go to that.
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SPEAKER_00: Or the Academy Award winning movie, It Is Older,
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SPEAKER_00: that I remember appreciating it even as a child.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, Anne wished that she would go on living even after her death,
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SPEAKER_00: and this really is one book that everyone should read, and it's either number right,
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SPEAKER_00: I believe it was her father that brought it to publication.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, on Gilmore Girls, this is in Season 4, Episode 1, Ballrooms and Biscotty.
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SPEAKER_00: This is right after Lorelai and Rory get back from the Yardhian trip,
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SPEAKER_00: after Rory's Chelsea graduation,
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SPEAKER_00: and Subki asked if Lorelai and Rory visited this house in Amsterdam.
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SPEAKER_00: I think it just goes to show how culturally astute all three of these women are
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SPEAKER_00: and that this would be something that would be on their list.
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SPEAKER_00: And it is on my list as well.
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SPEAKER_00: It is actually number one on my literary travel bucket list.
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SPEAKER_00: I just can't imagine anything more immersive than walking through that actual location.
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SPEAKER_00: Where this book that shaped my life as a reader took place.
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SPEAKER_00: What any of us can do is go and visit the Anne Frey house or mine.
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SPEAKER_00: I have done this before.
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SPEAKER_00: There are Readers, there is 3D that you can walk through, and even virtual reality.
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SPEAKER_00: Super immersive for any reader in life where I go more.
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SPEAKER_00: I did also learn recently that the suspect who likely out
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SPEAKER_00: of the Frey family's Friday slot was only just identified in 2022.
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SPEAKER_00: He was a Jewish man.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's believed that he gave up the Franks to save his own family. How about that?
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SPEAKER_00: When we talk about nonfiction and it stays with us,
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SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine anything that will stay with you more than this one.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: On a lighter note, let's talk about Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
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SPEAKER_00: This book is a modern smash hit.
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SPEAKER_00: I have it listed as a 2006 novel.
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SPEAKER_00: It is a number one bestseller.
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SPEAKER_00: It was turned into a movie starring Julia Roberts, and it follows Elizabeth Gilbert,
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SPEAKER_00: a writer who has since become white-collar controversial,
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SPEAKER_00: as she made a kind of crazy choice to leave America behind,
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SPEAKER_00: leave behind your marriage, leave behind your house, leave behind your career,
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SPEAKER_00: and go on this journey of self I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: there's something romantic and aspirational about that without even getting
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SPEAKER_00: into her story.
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SPEAKER_00: But on this year-long journey, she feeds in Italy, prays in India,
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SPEAKER_00: and falls in love in Indonesia.
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SPEAKER_00: While people love a good second chance romance,
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SPEAKER_00: all that was well and did not end well, but that's a story for another day.
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SPEAKER_00: The book really made people dream about where they would go on such a journey
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SPEAKER_00: and what they would find if they had the courage to just leave it all behind.
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SPEAKER_00: We all know that trouble can change us.
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SPEAKER_00: And this is an absolutely transformational tale of furrow.
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SPEAKER_00: It really makes you want to grab a hold of your one precious life.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think that is what makes it one of the most iconic,
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SPEAKER_00: one of the most beloved and one of the best selling books of all time.
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SPEAKER_00: I personally did enjoy the movie, maybe even more than the book.
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SPEAKER_00: Both were just such massive successes.
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SPEAKER_00: And at Gilmore Girls, we see this in A Year in the Life's Fall,
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SPEAKER_00: where it's mentioned as an alternative to moralized hype in Wild,
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SPEAKER_00: which we will also talk about later.
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SPEAKER_00: I would read this one if you're feeling stuck and rethinking your next steps in life.
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SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of book that will inspire you.
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SPEAKER_00: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, one of my favorite authors,
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SPEAKER_00: this book is considered to have defined the true crime genre
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SPEAKER_00: and narrative nonfiction.
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SPEAKER_00: What happened was that in real life, In 1959,
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SPEAKER_00: two men brutally murdered a Kansas family, quote, in cold blood.
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SPEAKER_00: What makes it interesting is that the killings really made no sense.
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SPEAKER_00: So what Capote did was really dive into the psyches of the two murderers.
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SPEAKER_00: As the reader, you'll experience the family themselves.
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SPEAKER_00: The approach of the man that killed them, the investigation into the case,
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SPEAKER_00: and the hunt for the killers.
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SPEAKER_00: I actually found this particular book of Capote's to be slow.
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SPEAKER_00: That said, it is still very much worth it.
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SPEAKER_00: And what I would recommend to you is to watch the movie Capote.
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SPEAKER_00: And you can definitely do so either before or after you read the book.
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SPEAKER_00: Philip Seymour Hoffman, who I personally believe is one of the greatest actors
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SPEAKER_00: of our time, won the Oscar for Best Actor in 2005,
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SPEAKER_00: which was right around that time of Gilmore Girls, for portraying this author.
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SPEAKER_00: And the movie is not really about his whole life.
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SPEAKER_00: It is about his writing of this novel.
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SPEAKER_00: So you're able to see exactly how he was able to reconstruct it in so much detail.
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SPEAKER_00: Even how he bonded with the killers in order to write the story.
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SPEAKER_00: I thought it was absolutely brilliant and super insightful about the book.
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SPEAKER_00: If you are a true crime junkie, This is the book that started it all.
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SPEAKER_00: It will stay with you for that reason.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: I have it listed as in Lorelai's lip pile and I believe This is when she was going
11:55
SPEAKER_00: through Luke's stuff. I don't want to spoil anything else about why.
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SPEAKER_00: If you know, you know.
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SPEAKER_00: But I think this was a book that was in the piles,
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SPEAKER_00: but I cannot confirm for sure whether it was hers or Luke's.
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SPEAKER_00: So I just noted that it was at her house in her pile.
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SPEAKER_00: It may have been Luke's though.
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SPEAKER_00: Personally, I can see both of them reading it.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a very masculine-feeling novel and Luke does read a lot
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SPEAKER_00: of those really masculine type stories.
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SPEAKER_00: That said, it is very much a pop culture book.
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SPEAKER_00: That more lively.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, hey, maybe that's why they were together after all.
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SPEAKER_00: Speaking of Lorelai, let's check it out Kitchen Cognitial by Anthony Bourdain.
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SPEAKER_00: This is another round freaker.
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SPEAKER_00: He's a bestseller.
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SPEAKER_00: And it did catapult the famous chef's career.
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SPEAKER_00: It all started with an article which was titled, Don't Eat Before You Read This.
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SPEAKER_00: How's that one for a cook?
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SPEAKER_00: It was in The New Yorker and boy did it hit.
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SPEAKER_00: Next came this book where America was more fully introduced
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SPEAKER_00: to Bourdain's signature voice, particularly as it pertains to food.
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SPEAKER_00: Here he went behind the scenes of what it was like to be a chef in New York And all
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SPEAKER_00: of the craziness.
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SPEAKER_00: Not just the food, but also the drugs, the sex, and wild nights.
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SPEAKER_00: In an age of AI, Bourdain's voice totally shines.
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SPEAKER_00: Only he could write these words the way he writes them,
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SPEAKER_00: which is really what makes humans so special, isn't it?
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SPEAKER_00: This is exactly why years later,
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SPEAKER_00: I am able to tell my favorite lessons from the book as if I had read them yesterday.
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SPEAKER_00: A few little teasers for you.
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SPEAKER_00: He says that Chilean sea bass is usually frozen and not fresh.
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SPEAKER_00: Keep that in mind when you're at a restaurant.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: There are also particular days on which you should not order fish at a restaurant.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, as someone who does not like to cook with butter,
13:36
SPEAKER_00: I have never forgotten that he has said that everything and he means everything
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SPEAKER_00: at a restaurant starts and ends with adding butter.
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SPEAKER_00: And yes, this does also include times when you request no butter, which we have.
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SPEAKER_00: One thing I love about his tips is that even Ari is a very beginner level chef.
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SPEAKER_00: Can follow his advice.
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SPEAKER_00: He says that you only need one good multipurpose knife and I do have one that I love
14:01
SPEAKER_00: so I'm thrilled about that.
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SPEAKER_00: He claims it should actually be Japanese and not German but fortunately mine is German.
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SPEAKER_00: He really thinks that there are not many more tools that you need to be a good ship
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SPEAKER_00: and I love that about him.
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SPEAKER_00: There was a stage in my life Where I couldn't get enough kitchen tools.
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SPEAKER_00: I had an ice cream maker.
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SPEAKER_00: I had an Inspiralizer.
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SPEAKER_00: All kinds of little earth cutters and earth keepers. You name it.
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SPEAKER_00: It drove my husband absolutely insane.
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SPEAKER_00: Oh, and did I mention the Jaser that has approximately 10 different verts to clean?
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SPEAKER_00: I have since left behind this way of thinking, so I am glad I'm lined with Anthony Bourdain.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, beyond the tips, we gotta talk about his voice.
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SPEAKER_00: I mentioned it a little bit earlier, and here's the thing.
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SPEAKER_00: You or I might say that garlic must be handled with special care.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Here is how he says it.
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SPEAKER_00: And I quote, garlic is divine.
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SPEAKER_00: Few food items can taste so many distinct ways handled correctly.
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SPEAKER_00: Misuse of garlic is a crime.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Please treat your garlic with respect.
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SPEAKER_00: Avoid at all costs that in bio spew you see rotting in oil and screw top jars.
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SPEAKER_00: Too lazy to peel fresh?
15:05
SPEAKER_00: You don't deserve to eat garlic.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, do you see what I mean?
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, with bold and non-mythalve knees, how could TV not get him a show?
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Of course, he went on to host Severin over many years.
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SPEAKER_00: We still watch him tonight, especially when I'm looking to trap us somewhere.
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SPEAKER_00: He is how I understand what a place is like.
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SPEAKER_00: Not just what food they serve, but why.
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SPEAKER_00: The stories and the people behind them.
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SPEAKER_00: And this is even as a vegetarian who doesn't eat most of the stuff that he does.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, that's another story for another day.
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SPEAKER_00: He also hates vegetarian like me.
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SPEAKER_00: So it just goes to shout how much I love his writing.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: I will give you one more fun fact.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: When we went to Italy on our honeymoon,
15:44
SPEAKER_00: I had recalled that there was an episode in Rome where he said that he had
15:48
SPEAKER_00: the best Cascio Pepe He has ever had, but he would not say the name of the location.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, I reverse engineered it and I wasn't the only one because we went there
15:57
SPEAKER_00: and I counted that at least 90% of the dishes coming out of the kitchen
16:02
SPEAKER_00: while we were there were cross here with Pepe.
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SPEAKER_00: And this was almost a decade after that episode aired.
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SPEAKER_00: This, this is what it means for nonfiction to later,
16:12
SPEAKER_00: longer than any fiction book he'd ever read.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: I will note, just in case you're wondering, that restaurant is Roma Sforita in Rhone, Italy.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: It was the experience we still talk about today,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: not just because the food was so good, but because it was so over the top Italian.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Whereas a lot of the other restaurants and places we visited in Italy were very Americanized.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk
16:40
SPEAKER_00: about one of my secrets,
16:45
SPEAKER_00: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: While he is more known for his fiction, I actually like this book,
16:51
SPEAKER_00: a collection of essays about struggling as a writer in 1920s Paris.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Best of all, nothing against his fiction, but there is something about this time,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: this location, These people, including F.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Scott Fitzgerald, who was writing Brigadier design and is a minor character
17:09
SPEAKER_00: that really transports you there.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: When I went to the Hemingway house for the second time in Key West,
17:14
SPEAKER_00: just earlier this year, this is the book that I came forward to keep
17:18
SPEAKER_00: on my shelf forever.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: I think it's great for any creative.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Along with any fan of Hemingway and or F. Scott Fitzgerald.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: If you're wondering why it's called a movable feast, it's because of this iconically.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man,
17:33
SPEAKER_00: then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: For Paris is a movable feast.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: And I really say that line ties into the aspirational nature of Paris,
17:43
SPEAKER_00: as well as the romanticism of what it means to be a writer.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Whenever I think of this book, I think of The O.E.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Wilson movie, Midnight in Paris, it is exactly like that.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: And now that I'm saying it, I think I may watch this tonight.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: I love a good movie night.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: In the movie, he is actually transported back in time with people like Hemingway
18:03
SPEAKER_00: and A Stop at Cheryl.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: So it couldn't be more similar.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: You'll also hear about other fellow writers and artists like Gertrude Stein,
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Ezra Pound, and James Joyce.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: So truly, this is very Rory Gilmore.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: And speaking of Rory, I love that this is a book that she shared with Logan,
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Season 5, Episode 17, which was titled So Good Talk.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: I am Team Logan, and I think this shows the very highbrow, intellectual,
18:30
SPEAKER_00: cultured lifestyle that both of them represent.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do think Froy represents that kind of lifestyle.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: She's filled with the Lorelai, Ian's and Emily, and I Will Die on the Hill.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: If you want to make this one last even longer,
18:43
SPEAKER_00: I would pair it with The Great Gatsby because there are great stories
18:47
SPEAKER_00: about that novel in Immovable Feast.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Or you could also watch the artist's Hemingway documentary.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: I believe it was on PBS and I believe it was maybe two or three parts
18:55
SPEAKER_00: and it was called Hemingway and I thought it was very interesting, very well done,
18:59
SPEAKER_00: well worth watching.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now let's talk about Nickel and Dined by Barbara Furneray.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: In this book, She Goes Undercover, Which feels very low to Ann Marie.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And maybe even Paris and Doyle as a low-wage worker in America.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, she is able to expose the untold stories.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: What it is really like to survive on a minimum wage job.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, she fundamentally changed how we see poverty in America.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: What's crazy about this is it was a 2001 award winner.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And I did read it right around my turn.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: I believe it was on a college brief that I picked it up.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Because I had heard so much about it, but it still very much rings true today,
19:40
SPEAKER_00: if not even more so.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Getting by in America has never been further.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Some of the jobs in which she worked was a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman,
19:49
SPEAKER_00: a nursing home aide, and even a Walmart sales clerk.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Now she didn't just work in these jobs, she also lived in trailer quirks and crumbling motels.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: I can actually still recall those passages about how destitute the motels were
20:02
SPEAKER_00: to this day, two decades later.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is really a meditation on the American dream,
20:08
SPEAKER_00: the hope that we have, and the realities of actually attaining that dream.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: She showed not just how hard these jobs were mentally and physically,
20:17
SPEAKER_00: also how little they did to actually improve your life,
20:20
SPEAKER_00: and that one job was rarely enough.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I think this is even more true today,
20:24
SPEAKER_00: as most people are balancing multiple streams of income.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Even as a lawyer myself for many years in a big city,
20:31
SPEAKER_00: I started my book blog in 2019 to pay off the student debt that was plaguing me
20:36
SPEAKER_00: for over a decade.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: The description for this book says that you will never see a loads of bathroom
20:40
SPEAKER_00: the same way again, and I absolutely agree about that.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: On Gilmore Girls, this is a really, really smart reference.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: It is in Season 3, Episode 13, Dear Emily Richard.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: This is when Lorelai reads it at the hospital when Sherry is going into labor
20:57
SPEAKER_00: and Lorelai is thinking back through flashbacks about the time that she went
21:01
SPEAKER_00: into labor. Now, of course, she was a teen mom.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: She left home shortly thereafter and she had to start over beginning as he made herself.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: I only just put those pieces together recently and wow,
21:13
SPEAKER_00: this is what I love without Gilmore Girls.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about A Room of One's End by Virginia Woolf.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the most popular titles in our War Gilmore Reading Challenge.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's true for many reasons.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: It's a very short essay.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a famous classic author and it has feminist themes.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Here, she argues almost an entire century ago for the right of creative women.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Of course, she believes that women need a room of their own to write,
21:39
SPEAKER_00: and what she means by that is space.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: She also argues that they must have a steady income.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: The crux of her argument relies on Shakespeare.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: She imagines that he had a sister, someone equally as talented as him.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: But because she does not have the opportunities that new writers had,
21:56
SPEAKER_00: she would have died without never writing a word.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: And I still find it so true today.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Again, just like a niggle and dined, if not more so.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: But women's rights have come a very, very, very long way.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Our sense of balance has never been more unaligned.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Today, in addition to writing,
22:12
SPEAKER_00: women are also juggling an array of real-life complexities like marriages, children,
22:17
SPEAKER_00: jobs, caretaking, and all of this on a level far greater than ever before.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Everything has to be perfectly optimized.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: We're inundated with countless emails and text messages a day,
22:29
SPEAKER_00: a zillion messages on social media,
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Along with the need to build our own personal brands,
22:34
SPEAKER_00: children whose schedules look radically different than mine,
22:37
SPEAKER_00: which was to go outside and play.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Rather, they are incredibly structured and their hobbies are incredibly competitive.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: All of this would have any female writer bursting at the seams.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: And we haven't even talked about the fact that most writers barely spray minimum wage.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: So I guess perhaps Nick Horn Dine And A Room of One's Own may actually make
22:58
SPEAKER_00: for a great book pairing.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: If you read A Room of One's Own,
23:02
SPEAKER_00: I definitely think it is one that A will make you look smart, but more importantly,
23:06
SPEAKER_00: has themes that you will constantly go back to.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Mention them in your real life conversations, just like the Gilmore Girls.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Worried did read this one in season one, episode five, Cinnamon's Lake on the bus.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: This is when she is reading and Dean gets on the bus and surprises her.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Those very early days where she's still sort of scared of him.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Next up is Wild by Cheryl Streed, one of the most popular memoirs in recent times,
23:30
SPEAKER_00: and one of the most iconic references on Gilmore Girls.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: I'll just get right to it.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: This, of course, is the book that Morley attempts to recreate as a hike
23:39
SPEAKER_00: on the Pacific Crest Trail.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: In A Year in Life, Summer, and Fall.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: The book was published in 2012 and that is why you don't see it until the reboot.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: This was a number one New York Times bestseller and Oprah's book club pick.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: I can still remember Cheryl Strayed talking about this book with Oprah and a winner
23:56
SPEAKER_00: of multiple awards.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, this isn't your average story of personal healing and self-discovery.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Much like Eat, Pray, Love, it is something that resonated far more deeply.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: The way Cheryl Strayed writes is absolutely lyrical.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like listening to that radio talk show, Delilah.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: It does poetic.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: We're even looking at meditation on themes like grief and healing and nature.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: When I read her words, I feel like I am just a mere mortal who is working
24:24
SPEAKER_00: through life, seeking to feel seen and comforted.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: And she is that balm for my soul.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: And another great one to do on audio.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: I also recommend Tiny Beautiful Things that she wrote.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Which reads even more like that radio talk show
24:38
SPEAKER_00: because it actually is her giving advice on various life issues.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: While Elizabeth Gilbert traveled around the world in many famous settings,
24:46
SPEAKER_00: the fact that Cheryl Shreed is alone in the harsh realities of nature
24:51
SPEAKER_00: in Muslim actually gives it this sort of thorough like solace.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: That said, it is nature.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: A lot of bad things do happen.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who's read the book or saw the movie will never forget about her losing her toenails.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: That said, she made the impossible feel possible.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: And this was true after a string of difficult days in her life,
25:11
SPEAKER_00: particularly The grief of losing her mother in a breakup,
25:14
SPEAKER_00: which I believe was a divorce.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: But don't quote me on that.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: This journey was absolutely right for a book.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Imagine over a thousand miles of hiking with no experience.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: What she learned was the power of letting it be.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: That is what was so wild for her.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: This notion of being present in whatever occurred in her life.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: It is no wonder that so many women like Flora and I felt inspired to attend
25:38
SPEAKER_00: the hike themselves.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: How else could one find peace?
25:42
SPEAKER_00: We are on our final fiction book that will last in your reading memory
25:46
SPEAKER_00: and it is none other than the ever popular The Year of Magical Thinking
25:50
SPEAKER_00: by Joan Didion.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: This is another Greek memoir.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Here's what's interesting about Islam.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: She and her husband sat down to dinner one night and he died.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Life as she knew it was completely changed.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: This is not a spoiler, it happens in the very beginning.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: And it is actually the premise of the entire book.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: She does actually start it.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Life changes fast.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: You sit down to dinner and life as you know it gains.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: It's blunt, it's directs, and yet somehow you can feel the shock and the pain in her voice.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Next, her daughter also experienced a devastating illness that left her unconscious
26:25
SPEAKER_00: in intensive care.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: These events absolutely change her.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Particularly after four decades with her husband.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: The coming year, she says that she'd cut loose any fixed idea she had about death,
26:36
SPEAKER_00: about illness, about probability, and even luck.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Revisiting this now myself in a time of grief and in a time where more
26:44
SPEAKER_00: than one very bad thing happened at the same time, including a very swift tragedy.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: I can totally relate to what she's saying.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Even more deeply than when I first read this book years ago.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: If you're wondering what magical thinking is,
26:58
SPEAKER_00: it's this idea that if you just hope for something hard enough,
27:02
SPEAKER_00: or if you do enough things the right way, you can avoid a terrible event.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Of course, this was anything but true for her.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: I do think that you need to be in your right headspace to read this book.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: It has an incredibly dark and sad tone.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: That said, I do think That if you are grieving or are interested in the topic
27:20
SPEAKER_00: of grief, you can look more closely at it and see if it is right for you right now.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those books that just comes up everywhere.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: It did win the national book award for nonfiction.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: So don't just take my alert for it.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Now what's interesting about this is that at one time I did find
27:37
SPEAKER_00: an entire production of this book on the stage on YouTube.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: That would be a great way to consume it.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: I believe if I remember right, it is a one limit show.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And of Gilmore Verles, Rory read this book in Season 6,
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Episode 15 of The Yard Ballonsvery, on the couch in the Hunsforder home.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: And I find it quite ironic.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: I think that Rory would have read it because it was so popular at the time
27:59
SPEAKER_00: and because Joan Didion's work was so well regarded.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: But the book doesn't totally make sense for a Martha's Finger vacation.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: And I can't help to think about how this is also an episode that does not align
28:12
SPEAKER_00: with fans generally.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: Many consider it to be the worst episode in the whole show.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would go that far,
28:19
SPEAKER_00: but being a Martha's Finger regular myself I don't think it feels anything like
28:23
SPEAKER_00: The Island. And I don't like it for that reason.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: So there you have it.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: 10 books that will stay with you longer than any novel.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and test the theory.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Pick any one of these that appeals to you most.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Read with us this month and let me know anytime in the future
28:40
SPEAKER_00: whether you're still thinking about it.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't just want to talk about books on Gilmore Girls.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: I also want to talk about some of your favorite nonfiction books.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: So I Placed a few reds onSubstack and here is what you said.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: DJ Weiss recommended Say Nothing,
28:56
SPEAKER_00: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keith.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And my comment to him was, I am so curious about this one
29:03
SPEAKER_00: because I have seen this book everywhere for so many years.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: My friend Lori Gammon, she does the What to Read Next blog and podcast.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: She is very into millennial pop culture, like us.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: And what an ode to Dave Rogowski.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: She recommends Welcome to the OC, which is in oral history.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: About the show, she says it is just an excellent read, and the audio has a narrated multicast.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: In our chat, we have another recommendation for Patrick Raddenhe.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: Zianat recommends anything by him, but especially House of Pain,
29:37
SPEAKER_00: and this one is about Perdue Farna.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: That was a very popular nonfiction book.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: I'd say probably about four or five years ago.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, Karen Ho, she picked one of my favorite nonfiction books,
29:49
SPEAKER_00: The Only Play in the Sky by Garrett Graff.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: She calls it a sad yet important read. I agree.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: This is a minute-by-minute account of 9-11 and it is told through Hundreds of points of views.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: It works absolutely perfect on audio because it's sort of like a documentary.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: You get all of those different voices,
30:08
SPEAKER_00: yet it's researched so meticulously that it still reads in a very narrative way.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: This is definitely one of my top nonfiction books and one
30:17
SPEAKER_00: of the best audiobooks I've ever read out of hundreds of audiobooks.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: She also recommends The Art Thief by Michael Feigl.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: This is another one that I have heard a lot about over the past few years.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of book I have debated giving to my father-in-law as a gift.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a historic or heist kind of thing.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: Alessandra recommends all of Nora Ephron's books and audiobooks
30:40
SPEAKER_00: and I agree there are in fact two on our list.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: It broke my heart not to be able to put them in our top 10.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: I remember nothing and I feel bad about my neck.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: They are very Lorelei, humorous, and very much on the theme of aging.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: So I think if you are Maybe over 40 or so, you will appreciate these more.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: And Amanda Ferrara recommended The Glass Castle and Educated because she loves a good memoir.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: I read both of those.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: And Educated is also one of my favorite memoirs of all time.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: This is a story about a girl who grew up in a survivalist family.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Without a formal education and then went on to Harvard.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: It's just the type of book where your jaw is on the floor the entire time.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: And she has a new book coming out in 2027.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: I can't recall the name off the top of my head,
31:27
SPEAKER_00: but it is on my most anticipated books list and you will definitely be hearing
31:32
SPEAKER_00: about it more for me around here.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: I'd also love to recommend to you Matthew McConaughey's memoir Greenlights.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: Hear me out. It is an absolute hoot.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: You have to listen to this one on audio.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: He is so wildly entertaining and such a storyteller.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: I was laughing out loud to myself in an airport.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: He gets points from me for creativity in the age of AI.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Kind of like how Irving Bourdain is so uniquely himself.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And this is also a book that appeals to everyone.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's the type of audiobook that if you're going on a road trip with a group,
32:06
SPEAKER_00: with your spouse, it's one that everyone will enjoy listening to.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: One more memoir I will recommend is When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: This was actually the first audiobook I ever listened to.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: It is a Pulitzer Press finalist and it is about a 36-year-old neurosurgeon
32:21
SPEAKER_00: who was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's got that whole vibe of the doctor becomes the patient.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: And he's so philosophical when he questions the meaning of life in the face
32:32
SPEAKER_00: of his own mortality.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And in those two roles as doctor and patient,
32:36
SPEAKER_00: the title is perfect because it did actually take a breath away. All right.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to read off of the Gilmore Girls list,
32:43
SPEAKER_00: those are several more options for you to tap on nonfiction November this month.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about some footnotes.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: This is a new segment I'm testing around here.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Just some casual notes on what is happening in my literary life.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: So first on Halloween, I wasn't going to dress up,
33:02
SPEAKER_00: but my husband left out his Toy Story costume, which she wore to work the prior day.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I simply had to put it on to greet trick-or-treaters.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: And what was funny about it is that as I read it,
33:13
SPEAKER_00: I did in fact sneak some pages in on the couch in costume.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what's so funny about people who read a lot of books.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: There's this notion that we sit down with hours of time,
33:24
SPEAKER_00: but now me on the couch with a chapter or so of a book.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Fully a costume head to toe from a hat to gloves to giant Disney character feet.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: That is what being an avid reader really looked like.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: So what was I reading?
33:37
SPEAKER_00: I was reading The Three Graces of Pearl Street, which I'm still reading right now.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: This is a new release and the author pitched it to me as Gilmore Girls, but Italian.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Now being married to an Italian man myself, how can I say no to that?
33:51
SPEAKER_00: And I've got some great news for you.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: I actually have multiple collaborations coming up with her next week.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm also still working my way through Jane Eyre.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And in case you missed it, the way I'm doing this is just about one chapter a day.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: And I tend to listen to the audiobook as I read at the same time.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: And then every few chapters,
34:10
SPEAKER_00: I will go to Sparknotes just to recap them and to get them added concepts.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: This is generally how I approach the classics.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: I am also about to pick up on writing well.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Which is a book that is on the Gilmore Girls and is nonfiction for our reading challenges now.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: I really don't know what to expect.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: I simply found it at a library sale.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: I knew that it was on our list.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: And I do also enjoy reading writing books.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: So that is that.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: I did visit a place called Terrain, which is located here in Philadelphia.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: It is the garden center chain associated with Anthropology, and I love visiting.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: They had a greenhouse, and then they also have this store
34:49
SPEAKER_00: that is pretty much exactly what you would imagine
34:51
SPEAKER_00: an Anthropology-owned garden store to be like.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: I love to go to terms of the year like this because the decorations
34:57
SPEAKER_00: and the curations are absolutely unparalleled.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: As soon as we walked in, and this was November 1st, so mere hours after Halloween,
35:05
SPEAKER_00: I said to my husband, it looks like Buddy the Elf was here last night.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Christmas, every square inch around you.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: And very much those elf vibes where it was very like green and white
35:16
SPEAKER_00: and paper cutouts and fake snow.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: Two of my favorite things in mind are ornaments and candles.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: And boy, are they abundant at this store.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how my husband chooses which ornament to get me
35:27
SPEAKER_00: for Christmas every year because I remark on how much I love every single one
35:31
SPEAKER_00: of them. One that I did leave a hint on this time was a Pop-Tart.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Because it is also Delmarveros,
35:37
SPEAKER_00: but it is also hard for me to resist those little felted ones
35:40
SPEAKER_00: that are like little felted mice in various holiday scenes.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: Very Wind in the Willows, if you know what I mean.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: And I do also have a habit of spilling every single candle and a candle aficionado.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: I did not find any that I would approve for Friday Night Readers this time.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: But I did enjoy testing some salt and stone hair lotion.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: This is a brand that I've wanted to try for quite some time,
36:02
SPEAKER_00: especially because it is still a Sephora sale.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: I can leave my picks for that for you in the show notes.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: They just came out last week.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: And I've really focused on things that work for cozy herbal bodies who are reading
36:14
SPEAKER_00: during their self care times.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: So things like eye patches and face masks, handles.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: My favorite products to use while I'm reading in the back, that kind of thing.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: And then another thing to note is that I got a call at the last minute yesterday
36:28
SPEAKER_00: to go out to dinner with two of my local book blogging friends, Beyond the Book Ads,
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Kirsten and Jackie.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: They are OG book bloggers.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Now I started in 2019 and they probably started in something like 2017.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: And it was really only them and Modern Mrs. Darcy that I knew about and aspired to be like.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, it just so happens that they are local and they did become friends over the years.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Truly two of the nicest, best humans you will ever meet on the planet.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: What they are experts on is celebrity book clubs and they do now have a podcast as well.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: One thing that's cool about following them is they have sources
37:02
SPEAKER_00: that give them celebrity book club spoilers.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: And for years we have collaborated between the scenes.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Now we are technically competitors,
37:10
SPEAKER_00: but what's fun about the book blogging space It's
37:12
SPEAKER_00: that we don't really handle it like competition.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: We handle it like their coworkers.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: So we're always stopping business.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: As you can imagine, business has been very hard in the space of article writing
37:23
SPEAKER_00: since AI came out.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: But on this particular occasion, we were able to share some hope with each other.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: This is because there is some indication that Google is going
37:33
SPEAKER_00: to slow down their AI overviews and start putting those links back
37:37
SPEAKER_00: to our websites again.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: I can't stress this enough.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: If you don't visit websites, we writers cannot earn money.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: This is for a variety of reasons,
37:46
SPEAKER_00: including the fact that we have display ads on our websites, affiliate links,
37:51
SPEAKER_00: we're able to get you our email lists, I can advertise my book to you.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: None of this is possible if you only read those Google AI overviews.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's not more than half of the time.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: I found them to be wrong.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Just the other day, I Googled Bray picture of Rory reading and an AI overview came up without.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: We asked me for it as first, it got the number of books on the list wrong.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: And then even in just listing 10 books from the list, some of the books were wrong.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: This is why it is so important for you to trust human subject matter experts.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get too much on the soapbox about that.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: The point is that we had a lovely evening catching up over hummus
38:31
SPEAKER_00: and all other kinds of Greek goodies.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: And as hard as the past few years have been for us in our writing lines,
38:37
SPEAKER_00: and frankly, they still are and still may be for some time to come, if not forever,
38:42
SPEAKER_00: we do currently have some hope.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: So that's what's happening here.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: As you head into the weekend, remember to pick up a nonfiction book.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: It is Nonfiction November, and these books can linger in your minds longer
38:54
SPEAKER_00: than any fiction book that is hyped on TikTok.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: I would personally promise you that.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: See you next time.
39:05
[music]