Latest / The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast / Episode 79: Rediscovered Gems

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Episode 79: Rediscovered Gems · The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: This is the Mooks and the Gripes podcast.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, everybody.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: This is Trevor and unearthed on the spring day, Paul.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: Paul, how are you doing?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: I am doing very well.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like we said, spring around here is continuing to throw some curveballs.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's snowing again.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: So apparently every time we record a podcast, it's going to snow.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: But no, it's been lovely.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm having a wonderful spring.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: And how are the birds?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like because we're getting to be older men,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: we really do have to hit the weather,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: which I think we've done great on that over the course of the whole podcast.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: But
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe not so much the birds.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: The birds are becoming an increasingly large part of my life.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, no, they're doing well.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was checking on them this morning.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: They've got plenty of seed.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're used to the snow.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: They're Colorado birds, so they're pretty birdy.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: They're hanging in there.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: And we are so excited to be joined once again by our good friend, Jackie.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: Jackie, thanks for coming back to the show.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, Trevor and Paul.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's lovely to be back on the show and thank you so much for inviting me again.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: an episode that a lot of our listeners bring up quite frequently and that still
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: sticks out in my mind when I'm talking to people just in general about books.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: It was our episode on hotel novels.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: We have a book club coming up here in a few months where we're, you know, we got to pick Paul.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: So this won't surprise you, but we chose and then there were none.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I was, as I was putting together my thoughts, I thought,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: I should just play our hotel episode and remember all,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: because there's so much of that going on there,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: the different demographics,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: the different classes of people coming together in a way that allows for that.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, oh, that episode just keeps on going for me.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: That keeps on giving.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: We're here today to talk about another topic that Jackie chose for us,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Rediscovered Gems is I think how we're talking about, you know, kind of titling this.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: Is that fair?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess by that,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean books that fell out of print for whatever reason,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: but have now been republished because they speak to the readers of today in some
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: way and deserve to be widely read.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: I like that so much.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very excited to get to that part of our conversation.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: We'll be focusing on a couple of publishers.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, a few publishers.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: We'll probably bring up who knows how many.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: But we each have chosen a publisher to highlight their exceptional work in this
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: area in a couple of their books.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: We'll be going through that.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: But before that,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: we did get a little bit of listener feedback from our Great American Novel podcast,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: Paul.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Our friend Audrey...
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: said that the book I think should be on the list that isn't is Hernan Diaz's In the Distance.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Do you agree with that?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: When she brought that up, I was like, yes, why did I not think of that one?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a great candidate.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I agree too, and I haven't even read the book, and I'm surprised that it's not on there.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: I do have the book.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: I did buy it, but...
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a bit of a surprising one.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: She says it plays off the classic American bigger than life story,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: like Paul Bunyan,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: et cetera,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: while also telling an immigrant story and the story of the West.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: It is so good, but I 100% agree that there is not and cannot be a single great American novel.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: And then she says also nothing to see here by Kevin Wilson is wacky and funny and poignant.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that the audio book,
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: by Maren Ireland is perfect.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks for that feedback, Audrey.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: There is another part of her that we'll put in the show notes.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Another part of her email was pointing out something that I had seen before,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: but that had kind of lost the thread of.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: And that is Susan Strait's 1001 Novels, the Library of America website.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: that she kind of did as a COVID project.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: She,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: it's a beautiful website with maps and,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: uh,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: book covers and information about all of these books,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: but it's divided by region.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: So if you go to, and she has them in, in, in really clever names, um,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just like the Midwest, the Northeast.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: They're really great names.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: And if you click on that region,
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: it'll blow up that part of the map and show you little stars where each of the
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: books takes place.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's a really, really cool website.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: And as Audrey says, this is not about best literature, whatever that means.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: It is about place and culture, and it is fantastic.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: So that's something that I think that I'm going to spend some more time with.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: And Audrey did send over a spreadsheet she had made for it.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much, Audrey.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's going to be a lot of hours and time spent not only digging through that,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: but then it's going to send me on all kinds of rabbit trails,
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: And we'll put that in the show notes so people can see that.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: Now, she also did call us out, Paul.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know if you were going to mention that part.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think we have to in order to keep our integrity going.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think so.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: Might as well confess.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: This is about our Canada episode.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: So, Jerry, this is also, I think, for you.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_03: We'll share the blame a little.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: She says, I cannot believe no one mentioned Anne of Green Gables.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: Someone even said most Americans are introduced to Canadian lit through.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: Margaret Atwood, I think.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think that might have been you, Paul.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'll take that one.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: She said,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: I would argue that most people worldwide are introduced to Canadian lit through Lucy,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: Maude,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: Montgomery,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: and Anne.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of the best-selling books worldwide.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: Also TV and movies, etc., etc., etc.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: I am guessing because the episode was all men, you guys are all out of the loop.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: But I am telling you, Anne of Green Gables.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: Fair criticism.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: I will take my blame even further and admit I've not read a single one of those,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: although I did watch the miniseries and loved it.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: I've watched that several times.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's where I am too.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: I have watched and loved the miniseries, but I've never read the book.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: But I guess the weird thing is I know it's a Canadian book and it should have come up.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: It really should have.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't even cross my mind though.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: Just full blame.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't know either.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Jackie, have you read any of those books?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have read some of the Anne of Green Gables books when I was young.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I definitely remember those.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: Was that your introduction to Canadian literature, do you think?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: It probably was, yeah.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I have read some of Margaret Atwood's short stories and obviously The Handmaid's Tale.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, is Mavis Gallant, is she Canadian?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: She is.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now I really love her actually.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to thank Dorian for introducing me to her.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So he encouraged me to kind of get going with Mavis Gallant a few years ago.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a couple of books by her on the shelf.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I definitely want to pursue her in a bit more detail.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, we'll just keep our,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: We apologize, and we appreciate you bringing it up, Audrey.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: Very much so, because, yeah, you're right.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: Unfair.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: Unfair of us to leave her off the discussion entirely.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: She sent us the spreadsheet and the links and stuff, so she must not be too upset.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: She put that at the end of her email.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I will note that that was an older episode than the Great American Novel episode,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: so she didn't unsubscribe to the feed.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good sign.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good sign.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_03: And speaking of supporters, you know, we always appreciate it.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: We do have a few more Patreon and Substack supporters that I would like to thank.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: Mary Feather, Lara Zinn Fromm, and Catherine Berta.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much to all three of you.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: I hope that you have figured out how to download the bonus episode that was released last week.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: where Anthony rejoined us from our poetry episode to talk more poetry and
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: specifically to read some poems.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: That was fun to record and fun to edit and listen to.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll probably listen to it again shortly because it's nice to hear the poems.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: But if any of you who are on Patreon or Substack subscribers
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: don't know how to find that, let me know.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: I want to make sure that you can.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think that the emails and things that these programs send out just help with that.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: But if you can't figure it out, let me know.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: We'll get it to you.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: Let's go to our, what have you been reading recently?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: And Jackie, are you interested in joining us for this and telling us what you've been reading?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want me to start or do you want to go first?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: No, go ahead if you're okay with that.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's fine.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I guess the book that I've been spending some time with recently is Things We Lost
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you've probably talked about her in the past on the podcast.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, I have a feeling that you may have been reading this one recently.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that book is translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's my first experience of Mariana Enriquez's work,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: but I definitely would want to kind of read more based on,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: my experience so far.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So they're kind of quite an interesting bunch of stories,
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: really blending elements of Gothic horror and surreal kind of imagery with very sharp,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: penetrating social critique.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So very much kind of set in Argentina and there are echoes back to past atrocities
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: such as Argentina's dirty war and also kind of atrocities and horrors are happening
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: in the present,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: but it's
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think a very intriguing and compelling blend of the sort of everyday reality and
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: the kind of surreal and very strange kind of otherworldly imagery and gothic horror
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: elements that she pulls in.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so that's what I've been reading recently.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a great description.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: I really was captivated by that book and I want to read more of hers and especially
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: her new newest one is our share of night,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: which is a big book with that really,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: at least in the U S a really fascinating,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: like red hand with long claws on the end of it.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that one captures my attention and I definitely want to revisit her.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: All right, Paul, how about you?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: I will talk about what I'm reading now,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: but I can't not mention you had your big war and peace announcement.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: So this week I had something similar where clear back in January,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: as I've talked about over and over again,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: a group of us bravely set out on a mission to read Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Rebecca West.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: And the organizational queen, Kim,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: set up this nice way of doing it as she always does.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're all finishing right here in this stretch of a week or so.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I did finish it earlier this week and just wanted to thank Kim again for
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: setting all that up and to all the other readers.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was so fun to do that.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Just an amazing, fascinating book.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like 1200 pages, so it's huge.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: And as I mentioned,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: it has echoes of like Patrick Lee Fermer for me and some really great travel writing,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: but also just a fascinating book.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: look at that part of the world right on the cusp of more big changes with World War II.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: And,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: it's got everything you could ever want,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: just history and lots of really interesting profiles of the people who live there and,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: some great nature writing and all kinds of things.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's like you, Trevor, I have kind of a big hole in my reading life now.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And in some ways it's kind of nice, you know, to have like,
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: what we've talked about that look at the shelf and you can kind of pick anything
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: you want to,
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: but it's also a little sad because it's been,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: just this daily thing that I've done for all of 2024 so far.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like a big,
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: not,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: I won't say it like a holiday or vacation in a way,
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_03: but it is like a trek or something that you guys all took together walking,
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: spending all that time in that region.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: And now you're home again.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe missing it a little.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now you have to do the laundry and clean the kitchen.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, but it was a wonderful experience.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to mention that.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then I will bring it up,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: even though we've talked about this book and this author a lot,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: but Mark Haber,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: as we mentioned,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: he sent us his,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: his arc of lesser ruins and,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: I had dipped into it a little bit, but this past week I've really had some time to dive in.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the kind of book that you just want to read in big chunks because it's propulsive,
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: not very many paragraph breaks and just,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: it's got that Thomas Bernhardian kind of rant sometimes to it.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, it's wonderful.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: I really love it.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's, um,
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's addictive, I think, is the best way to say it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Every time I read it, I don't want to put it down.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the topics covered in this book are so fascinating.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: it's a lot about creativity and artistic drive because this author keeps,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: or this narrator keeps circling back to this idea of this book-length essay on Montaigne.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: But it also ties in the distractions of regular life.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: he has a lot of rants about smartphones and things like that that are interrupting
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: his creative drive and his concentration.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And he also has these wonderful parts where his son will call him and leave these
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: rambling voicemails about he's like a wannabe DJ somebody who's working on being a
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: DJ and so there's these really funny rants about,
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: house music and all these different like types of dance music that are out there
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: that's that are really good but
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: underneath all this is the fact that he recently lost his wife.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so he gets distracted and he's talking about all these other things,
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: but it keeps coming back to this loss in his life.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, I'm finding it very powerful.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to read a couple of really quick excerpts just to give a little bit of a feel for it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: it's kind of hard to know where to dive in because like many of these,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: there's not a lot of sentence breaks,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: but I'll,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just start here.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: A frustrating quandary,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: one which could only be solved,
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: I realized,
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: by reading more,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: reading incessantly until one died.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: and Montaigne solidified this obsession,
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: gave his posthumous blessing on the unwavering belief that the most worthwhile life
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: was the one dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so behind their backs, I plummeted into literature.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, plummeted, because literature, I'd felt, was the highest form of expression.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: literature like hieroglyphics fossilized in stone,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: literature like damnation and self-destruction and the sole reason for existence.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually I escaped,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: went to college,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: studied philosophy and ethics,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: read Diderot and Descartes,
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: eventually discovered Montaigne,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: which changed everything for better or for worse,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: oftentimes worse.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Nonetheless, my love and ardor for Montaigne was the catalyst for writing
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: montane and the lugubrious cherubs and kleist growing more cantankerous eyes
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: wizened by brandy weaved between the object and her collection so then he goes off
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: and he's talking to this person but it's just like that was just like this little
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: thing that's inserted this rant about literature you know right in the middle of of
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: this other conversation that he's having um which i just loved and then there's one
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: more little bit i was going to read about coffee so books and coffee i mean that is
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: probably ticking boxes for a
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: So he's just imagining he's running low on coffee and basically having a panic
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: attack because he drinks a lot,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of coffee.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: So he said, I felt trapped, cornered.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: I begin contemplating a future of coffee rationing like the survivor of some
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: catastrophic war,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: wandering the bleak and battered streets with a tin cup.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Agitated, I gazed at the last bag of beans, weighed it in my hands, felt its contents dwindling.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I thought of Constantinople and Mecca,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: considered their shameful histories of banning coffee,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: something I'd read in a book once,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: felt a camaraderie with their citizens,
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: because if the delivery of my coffee was halted,
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: my lifeline to art and philosophy,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: my entire outlook on humanism,
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: and the creation of my book,
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: I thought,
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: would be destroyed.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought those were just a couple of fun examples of,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: it's really smart and there's some really great thoughts on literature,
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: but there's also some humor to it and some,
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: some drama and some rants and things that make it just really easy to read.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I know we've talked about it a lot,
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: but I feel like it deserves one more shout out since I'm actually kind of far
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: enough in it to talk a little more intelligently about it.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mentioned this to Mark,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: but sometime after I read the opening bit of it,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: I had a dream that I had bought a really nice espresso maker and hid it from my
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: wife and the cost and all that.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, where did that... And then it dawned on me and I was like...
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: How did that, how did that happen?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: that,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: that little part of the book can always coffee obsession apparently bled into me a
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: little bit.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's really smart.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks a lot.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: I can see why.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: Could be worse.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: Could be worse.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: The dreams that I could be having from the books I'm reading.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I am reading A Strange and Sublime Address by Amit Choudhury.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: This is the recent,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: and I don't know if they're out yet or just about out,
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: but NYRB Classics is releasing his first three novels.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: And this is his very first one.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: This is his debut novel published back in the early 90s.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: So this is being released with a couple of his other books right now.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: And they just have these really, you know, this is an NYRB Classics.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's not an NYRB Classics cover, though.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, your typical one with the box and such.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: They've got these bespoke Amit Choudhury covers.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: They're really lovely.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: And they have released in the New York Review Books line a few of his other ones
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: from recent years,
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: like Friend of My Youth and Sojourn.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: and I'm kind of wondering and hoping maybe that they re-release them with these new covers,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: because they are,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: they do have on the title page here,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: forthcoming is Calcutta,
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: forthcoming is the immortals,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: forthcoming is a new world,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: forthcoming is Odysseus abroad.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: So they, you know, we're going to be getting Amit Chowdhury's work and NYRB classics line, uh,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: and I'm wondering if they'll move the ones they've already published into this kind of similar thing.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: I kind of hope so, but this is my first experience with him.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: I have the ones that they released cause they,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: they sent them to me,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: but I didn't get around to reading them.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'm definitely going to now, this is such a soft book.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: It is essentially a series of vignettes of a, of a 10 year old boy who,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: going to visit his uncle and aunt's family in Calcutta,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: where he goes every summer with his mom,
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: whereas he lives in Bombay.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just about these mornings,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: these afternoons,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: these times together,
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: some of the conversations he overhears,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: the busyness of his uncle who gets up in the mornings kind of loudly and gets ready
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: and then he's gone.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: and they can all kind of get back to their thing.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: But it's just very softly written, and it covers two such visits in the young Sandeep's life.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: But I'll read just a little bit from the start of chapter nine.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: It says, On Saturday, a cool breeze surprised them.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: It smelled of wet earth, sodden leaves.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: It had rained somewhere in the villages,
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: in groves and fields,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: and the breeze had traveled to this lane,
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: bringing news of rain from the far-off place of its beginnings.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: They had congregated after lunch on the double bed on the second story when it ran
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: its fingers down their backs,
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: making them break out in goose flesh.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: There was something erotic about the first breeze that brought the monsoons.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: "'Did you feel that?'
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: asked Maminama.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: "'Yes,' said Sandeep's mother.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: "'And that smell,' said Chotamama, breathing in deeply.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_03: He had never known any smell like that of wet earth,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: her own sweet odor,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: earth musk,
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: the most natural and unpretentious fragrance.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not all, you know, writing about storms and nature and such.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like I say, there's a bit of the bustle, but there's so much about this, the bustle of this young woman
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: child in a bit of an unfamiliar but also somewhat familiar setting and just really
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_03: good stuff i'm excited to read more of his work and finish i should finish this one
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: today or tomorrow i think and move i'm going to move right on to the next one so
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: nice you sold me for sure that sounds wonderful it is it is an interesting thing
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: it's very slowly written it's a short book but there's not a
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's really just memories in a way, but told with the immediacy of the now.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: I really am enjoying it.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds wonderful.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: And in a way, maybe it gets us into our topic today, you know, rediscovered gems.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_03: Certainly a worthy publisher to be brought up in this conversation is NYRB Classics,
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: often publishing books that have been long out of print.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: In fact,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: years ago now,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: but I did go and meet with them and met with Edwin Frank,
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: the publisher and curator and all of that.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: And that was their goal.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: He had basically had a list of books that had been out of print for a long time.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: And he thought, well, let's do what we can to bring these back.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: And,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: some probably still get published and then,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: still kind of don't make too much of a ripple.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then you have a book like John Williams Stoner that makes a huge ripple.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, no one would believe that for decades, no one really knew about that book anymore.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: Because now everybody does, it feels like.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, NYRB Classics.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I think, I mean, I don't know the publishing history of these early Amit Choudhury books, but...
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: certainly not ones that were on my list of books to read soon,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: cause I didn't really know about them.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'd not looked into them, but glad that they're here.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: So, but Jackie, this was your, your choice some time ago.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: We we've been preparing for this episode for a while now,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: and I'm so excited to hear some more of your,
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: your desire to talk about this,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: your desire to,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: to dig in here.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm assuming it comes from a place of,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: Warmth and appreciation.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's certainly kind of a big area for me in my own personal reading.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I suggested it as a topic for discussion because there seems to be in
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: recent years a bit of a kind of upswing in the appetite for rediscovered gems and
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: forgotten authors.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: know particularly in the last few years and i think as you alluded to trevor we
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: should say up front that you know there's there are many excellent publishers that
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: have been doing fantastic work in this area for decades now and you know we should
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: acknowledge them up front so i'm kind of thinking of uh publishers like virago
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: press persephone books um penguin modern classics
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: vintage books, and of course, NYRB Classics, possibly the grandfather of them all.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, they've been doing tremendous work in this area for a number of years.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess what prompted me to raise this as a topic for discussion is I feel in
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: recent years,
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: there are other enterprising publishers
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: have moved into this space,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: launching their own imprints or series,
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: reclaiming lost voices from the past that still speak to readers of today.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I know we're going to cover a few of the publishers during the discussion and maybe
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: we can come back at the end and just mention a few others that may not come up to
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: discuss in detail,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: just to give readers a feel for some of the other publishers operating in this area.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one other aspect which has potentially driven the resurgence of
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: interest in this area is the brilliant Backlisted podcast,
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: which I'm sure needs no introduction to the majority of your listeners,
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: but that's fronted by Andy Miller and John Mitchinson.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: who have been championing old books and lost authors and forgotten books since I think 2015.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then also another thing that's been happening along in the background and may well
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: link into this whole area is just kind of broader trends in society as a whole.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I think when you kind of look at what's happened over the last,
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: say,
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: five to 10 years,
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: there's been a move to have much better representation,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: diversity within
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Within lots of aspects of society and literature, I think, is kind of no exception to this.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we're now kind of moving into a world where there's much better
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: representation of women,
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: people of colour,
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: other groups that may have been marginalised in the past.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: again,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: has contributed to some of the lost books that we've seen coming back into
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: prominence in recent years.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: there are many reasons why books fall out of print and we'll probably touch on
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: those as we go through the books that we talk about in detail.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want me to start off,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can reveal my publisher of choice and maybe chat about my first book and then we
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: can kind of rotate around and see how the discussion goes.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, I'm all for it.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very curious and excited because, you know, as we often say here, it's not bad for our TBR, right?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: This is great for it.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: It makes them so much richer.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just excited to add some more books right now.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: maybe before we kind of get into talking about the publishers and the books,
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to kind of add to my introduction,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: really,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: in terms of,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: why it was an area of interest for me.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've potentially got your own views on this as well.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was just going to say, I mean, I love what you said about women and other women.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: groups of people who've been underrepresented because I was thinking about one of the,
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: there's a lot of value to bringing back books that have been lost over time,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: but not only lost over time,
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: but sometimes either suppressed or just never given the platform they deserve for
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: the very reasons that you said.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm so glad you brought that up because that's one of my favorite things about
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: when I come across a Virago book or something like that,
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: and half the time I have no idea who it is or what it's about.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: But we've talked about the value of some of these publishers where they've built up this trust with me.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I know with many other people,
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'll pick up any of their books,
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: not knowing a single thing about them and just trust them.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so you get introduced to these women in these different parts of the world or
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: whatever the case may be,
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: who otherwise just you never would have had a chance to meet.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I love that you brought that part up.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's the kind of thing about, you know, the Virago green spines.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you see one of those in a secondhand bookshop, it's it's a sign of quality.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you've never heard of the author or the book itself,
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: you kind of know that you're on to a winner with it.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, and I love that kind of thing.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: exactly and i love the community that forms around these like sometimes if i will
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: do what you just said i'll grab a couple viragos just not knowing anything about
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: them and i'll post something on social media just here's a stack of books i bought
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: at the used bookstore yeah and inevitably you'll get people just coming out of the
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: woodwork they're just oh i can't believe you got xyz i love that book and it's so
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: fun because to me it's i don't even know what it's about but you know based on what
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: you just said that the curation of these publishers and the fan base that they've
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: built up that you've got a winner there so that's really fun
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there is an element of,
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: the thrill of discovery here,
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: which kind of links into what you were saying.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: there there is this kind of sense that,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: you've got something that's a bit special that perhaps hasn't had,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: as you say,
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: the attention that deserved in the past.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you've got a chance to to kind of rediscover it.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there is a bit of a thrill and excitement around that.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: I know when we had Sean,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: the book maniac on for a related,
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: but different episode about this,
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: that was definitely something that he loves about finding those,
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: those books that nobody else has heard of.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: And he kind of likes the hunt and the thrill of the chase, I think.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I love being the beneficiary of the hunt.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the person waiting at home when the meal is cooked, someone I'm okay.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: If I do love that sense of discovery, but I, I do still get that thrill when I,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: you know, NYRB Classics is publishing Amit Choudhury books.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't even know I wanted to read these, but now I can't wait to get them, you know.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: And speaking of backlisted, I mean, how many books have they helped bring back into print?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, their track record.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think they, you know, they must be responsible for upticks in sales of
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, several books.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And as you say,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: kind of republication of things that had slipped out of print just,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: because somebody has championed it with enthusiasm and,
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: it finds a whole new audience.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there is something, you know, completely wonderful about that.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: You are right.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: There have been a few publishers who have talked about the backlisted effect and
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: that it is something that they would love to be the beneficiary of,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: when one of their books might be on it.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: And New Directions, you know, is a publisher that publishes a lot of new translations, right?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: but often of older books that are coming to English for the first time.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: And we'll talk a little bit more about that area of rediscovering gems that maybe
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: we never even had an opportunity in English to discover before.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: But through the act of translation, they're being discovered by us.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: But they also published Rosemary Tonks,
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: The Bloater,
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: which was a backlisted episode of a book that even in that episode,
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: they were talking about how hard it was for them each to find a copy to read.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: Now you can go and go and be, you know, be part of that.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's in print with vintage over here.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of got reissued a few years ago.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I really like how you put lost voices of the past that still speak to readers today.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I just think that's such a great way of looking at it.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, books that we can still connect with, even though they were written some time ago.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: And it does strike me,
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: too,
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: that the publisher that I'll be talking about publishes a lot of books that maybe
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: didn't speak so well to the readers,
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: the general reading public of their time.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: But are a little bit,
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: maybe because they were a little bit ahead of their time or talking about subjects
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: or or groups that were marginalized and even a little bit,
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: despised by the general reading public.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: So these books kind of had a black mark on them where.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: They're important and they maybe are finding their audience finally today with a
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: little bit more open eyes and open hearts to their subjects and such.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, there's so much good about this.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: And it is interesting.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: We talked a little bit about this, too, last week in our Great American Novel.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, times change what we read and what appeals to us, even culturally as a whole.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: change and i i'm so glad that we we have publishers because and i think it must be
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: a risk you know there's no guarantee that these yeah these rediscovered gems are
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: going to do anything out there i i know a few publishers who have gone down this
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: road and have then come out a year later after a slate of books and kind of said
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: hey
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: We really need people to start buying these books or this is going to end.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that's so heartbreaking because they're doing such good work.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Even something like we've talked about with Miss McIntosh,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: my darling,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: that is a wonderful example of a rediscovered gem and just all the work and the
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: upfront investment and the risk that Dahlke put into bringing that back.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that one,
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: I would hope,
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: would be one that has a relatively good chance of succeeding,
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: obviously,
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: because it's had so much buzz.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: But when you start to learn some of the stories,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: like you said,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: some of these publishers running on shoestring budgets or at the very least taking
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: these big upfront investments on something,
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: to your point,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: that they don't necessarily know if it'll do well.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: It is exciting to have,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: backlisted and we hopefully do a little part in just these communities online that
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: are spreading the word about these things,
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: because I do think that that makes a difference.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: yeah i do think just and this is not in the cards or anything but if we did a mooks
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: and the gripes publisher publishing house yeah this is what i would want to focus
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: on oh for sure i would love to do do this kind of stuff but anyway absolutely
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: absolutely yes one day trevor one day some sometimes yeah listeners provide some
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: feedback you know
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: But the thought process,
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: even if I've ever really kind of even looked in that direction,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: has always been,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: how do you find these books in the first place?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: And even if you find them, how do you find their readers today?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: So much great work by these publishers to have stepped into that field and
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: found, hopefully, success that allows them to continue to help us find these books.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, with that, why don't we hear your publisher a little bit about them and your first book?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: So my publisher and imprint, I guess, is Faber Editions, which is part of Faber and Faber.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that series launched in summer 2021.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to go into this particular book in detail,
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: but I just wanted to give a shout out to Mrs.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Caliban by Rachel Ingalls,
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: which was the first book in the Faber Editions series.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it really is the most captivating novella, kind of
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: subversive feminist fable,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: which mixes elements of the everyday and the extraordinary to really thrilling effect.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: for readers that haven't come across the Faber edition series before it would be,
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: a great introduction.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And some of your readers may well have read it already.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: But that was the first Faber editions book that came out in summer 2021.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there are now 11 books in the series.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I think they publish about four books per year.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a couple of more sort of planned for later on this year.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And really the ethos behind this particular series is to spotlight rediscovered
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: gems from both the Faber archive,
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: because they've got a rich archive of books and authors,
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: but also beyond the Faber list.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: resurrecting radical literary voices who speak to the present day.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And each of these books are championed by a highly regarded and respected author.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: with a new introduction from that author,
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: almost to kind of set the book in the present day context in which readers are
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: coming to it today.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the authors that they've had introducing these books include Sarah Hall,
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jeff Vandermeer,
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: and Tahari Jones.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the series is managed by Ella Griffiths, who heads up Faber's Classics and Heritage Group.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly,
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: as we were saying before,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of work has gone into the curation of this series,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: you can kind of see that they've been very carefully kind of chosen.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I've read eight of the 11 books that they've issued so far and.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: each one has had something interesting and exciting to offer.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I've had a good, a pretty good hit rate with this particular, this particular series.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if you've come across them before or read any of the books in the series.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_03: I have read Mrs.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: Caliban,
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: NYRB,
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: or not NYRB Classic,
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_03: New Directions published that one here in the US,
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: and I have read that one.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_03: There's a book on here that I don't think I've ever heard of, The Mountain Lion by Gene Stafford.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_03: Just kidding, Paul.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: We will be reading.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: I will finally be able to tell you I've read that book next month.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's next month.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: Then you can finally get me to shut up about it.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's on Kim's list, isn't it?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: I love it so much.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_03: But the only one that I have read, there is a book bundle.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm looking at it right now.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: You can get all 11 of these books plus a tote bag for £88.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_03: That is a screaming deal.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is an amazing deal.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Take it from me because I've read eight of them.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: You honestly can't go wrong with that.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: free delivery for uk shipping so people in the uk this is wow that is yeah that is
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: exceptional but yeah that's what's that's what i'm seeing right now um for for them
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: but yeah that's the only one that i've that i've read uh yeah but they all look
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: really really interesting i have seen i think i've seen some of you online talking
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: about hackenfeller's ape by bridget brophy is that one yes it is yeah it is indeed
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: yeah
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, all of them look very appealing.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty good.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they do.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: I've only read them out in line out of that group.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, and I love just the look of them, too.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's one thing that we talk a lot about is what's inside, of course, is what matters ultimately.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: But so many of these publishers do such a great job of just not only bringing them
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: back to life,
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: but making them fresh and exciting and interesting,
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: and that's a big part of all of this,
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: too.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're beautifully, really beautifully designed.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I see on the cover, they have the Faber editions along the side there.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_03: And that,
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_03: of course,
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: makes it distinct and gives it that,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: what we might say sign of quality,
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: like the green spines of Virago or the NYRB Classics little symbol.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: Is there spine design?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: have some kind of uniform look that also makes them stand out on the shelf it does
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: um actually the faber editions kind of flash down the side is probably on the front
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: cover is probably more distinctive than the spine so i've got a couple here i think
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: they've got
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: black spines with slightly different coloured lettering on them.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: if you were looking at them side on on the shelf,
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: you can see that they're part of the same series for sure.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_03: That stuff, I'm a big sucker for that.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're really beautifully designed.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell that Ella's put a lot of thought into the cover design of these books.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, wait a minute.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: Summer in Baden-Baden.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_03: I have read that one as well.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's coming out shortly.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think that will be the next one.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in the series.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not part of that 11 book bundle, which is why I didn't see it.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: But that's book 12, huh?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's coming out soon.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Leonid Sipkin's Summer in Baden-Baden.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: I really enjoyed that one.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's been about a decade now, but I did love that.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_03: So we'll you'll get back into them here in a minute with another choice.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is that right?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I can I can go for that now if you want.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: My first choice.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: So my first pick from the Faber edition series is Neighbors and Other Stories by
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: the black American writer Diane Oliver.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Oliver was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she was writing in the early 60s at a time when racial segregation in America
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: was being challenged through the civil rights movement.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: But
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless,
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: at that time,
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: racial prejudice was still very much entrenched in society,
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: still an issue that needed to be tackled.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: So much of her work tells us what life was like for black women in America at the time,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: frequently young black women,
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: as Oliver was very young when she was writing.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she kind of gives a picture of life complete with all the racial prejudices and
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: microaggressions that black individuals at that time had to deal with.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, Oliver's own story is a very tragic one.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: So with a very promising career ahead of her, she died in a motorcycle accident in 1966 at the age of 22.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time,
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: she was a grad student at the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop and had
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: published four short stories,
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: with another two then being published posthumously following her death.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Neighbors and Other Stories,
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: which is the collection that came out from Faber Editions earlier this year,
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: includes the six previously published pieces together with another eight unpublished stories.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: So for the first time,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: really,
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: we've got a chance to read,
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: pretty much all of Diana Oliver's work in kind of one volume.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really striking collection.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: So here we've got stories of racial discrimination, both explicit discrimination and less overt.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: There are stories of social exclusion, abandonment.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: activism so what happens when people try to push back against some of these
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: ingrained prejudices there's a story about what happens when a black person becomes
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: the object of curiosity in a predominantly white environment there are other
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: stories that look at interracial relationships and some of the tensions around
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: those and you know there's a whole kind of variety of different aspects of
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: black life.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the collection as a whole I think gives us a really rich insight into what life
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: was like,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: particularly for black women during this crucial period of history.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: And despite the undeniably powerful nature of the themes that Oliver was tackling,
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a real subtlety to her fiction.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: So she's exploring a range of different experiences which feel authentic and true.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: She often explores what's happening around the central issue.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: she's very good on the impact of what happens to the protagonist's family,
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: what's happening in the family dynamics in some of these situations,
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: not just...
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: what's going on in the central character's mind.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: She's very good at kind of looking at things obliquely or pulling in other perspectives.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: So just to give you an example of that,
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm obviously I'm not going to go through every story in detail,
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: but just to give you a feel.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: The very first story in the collection features a young black boy who's about to
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: become the first and only black child to attend a newly integrated school in his
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: local area.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: But rather than show us what happens on the first day when he goes to school,
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oliver focuses on the family's conflicted emotions on the night before he's due to go.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: which is a really interesting angle i think rather than kind of showing his first
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: day at school itself so um opinions within the community have been divided and the
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: strong views being expressed on both sides and in fact the family's already
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: received and been the target of threatening letters and abuse and tensions are
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: running very high police are out kind of patrolling the area
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: trying to keep everything under control.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: And central to the story is the family's moral dilemma.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: So should they send young Tommy to this newly integrated school,
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: knowing that as the first black child there,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: he's going to be bullied and ostracized for months?
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or do they relent and put his emotional well-being first and, you know, send him to a different school?
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they're very conscious that, you know, for progress to be made, somebody has got to be the first.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's got to pave the way.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a sense of does it have to be their child?
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Does it have to be him on his own?
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: So.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: The story really kind of gets into that and you kind of see the different issues
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: that they're grappling with.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a fascinating story, I think.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: And elsewhere within the collection, there's even a story that's much more experimental.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's raw and evocative, almost a stream of consciousness style story.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: So very much showing the kind of promise that Diane Oliver had at the time,
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: even though it's less polished.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: than some of the rest, some of the other stories in the collection.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's really exciting to kind of read that because you can kind of see the genesis
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: of the writer that she could have gone on and become.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think in many respects,
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: this collection feels particularly timely now in light of the recent Black Lives
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Matter movement and
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: everything that's kind of happened in the last few years.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's a very timely release by Faber.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: It came out earlier this year and it's just a great opportunity,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: for people to discover this writer's work.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she's been compared to Nella Larsen,
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Toni Morrison,
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: and also there are shades of Shirley Jackson here.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: And while I haven't read Toni Morrison,
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can definitely see the parallels with Nella Larson as she's the writer I was most
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: reminded of,
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: when I read these stories.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so that's my first pick.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think I've ever heard of Diane Oliver, which doesn't surprise me.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: Dying at 22 doesn't leave a lot.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: I do note, while I would like to get the Faber Editions edition, it was also published in the U.S.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_03: earlier this year by Grove Press.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_03: And they put on there a missing figure in the canon of 20th century African-American literature.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_03: Hopefully not missing for long, though.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for,
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_03: helping me to rediscover because that's not one that I had seen on any of this.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, me too.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Looks and sounds wonderful.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the comparisons to Nella Larson,
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: you had already sold me,
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: but that one really pushed it up because she's amazing.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_03: How about you, Paul?
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: Do you want to?
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: so I was going to say I took it in a slightly different angle,
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: but we did already touch on this a little bit because I decided to go with the
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: angle of more of the translation side of things.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it is a publisher that will surprise no one that I'm bringing up again because
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: we've talked about them a lot,
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: Archipelago.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: But the reason I thought they were very fitting for this is because they have that
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: mission specifically of translating
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: bringing books to English readers from around the world that otherwise would not
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: have been either discovered or sometimes rediscovered.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think just the fact that they're always striving to find,
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: on their website it even says,
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: to find visionary international writers whom American readers might not otherwise encounter.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: And to me,
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: that's kind of one of the,
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: one of the different wrinkles of this rediscovered gems is sometimes some of the
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: books that they've published are relatively new translations or brand new,
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: or brand new books,
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: I should say,
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: that have just been translated within the last couple of years.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: But oftentimes they will go back,
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_02: decades or further to find books that maybe are well known in other countries or
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: have maybe been lost in other countries.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're bringing them to English for the first time.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was just kind of a different angle that we could talk about.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: I found an interview with one of their main figures,
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: their editorial and development associate,
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: Emma Raddatz,
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: and she says they look for works that are saying something urgent and vital in a
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_02: very distinctive way and also seek out languages that haven't been translated into
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: English very much.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so often I asked them actually to give me a list if they had one of any books
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: that they had translated for the first time into English.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: And they said they actually don't necessarily keep a list like that.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: They don't know, but there are examples of that.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: And the first book that I'm going to bring up today is one of those.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that's one of the reasons I wanted to mention it.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: So
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor and I have talked about this book before.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's January by Sarah Gallardo.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it just came out earlier this year.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it was translated for the very first time into English by Francis Riddle and
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: Maureen Shaughnessy and came out from Archipelago.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: I guess it was like late last year.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: But this book was originally published back in 1956 in Argentina.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it's pretty amazing because when you read this book,
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: you were talking about how some of these books,
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: when they're brought back,
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: they seem very modern.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing that they speak to modern readers as well as they do.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: And this is one of those for sure.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's about a 16-year-old woman named Nefer.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: She's working on a farm in Argentina, and she ends up pregnant.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not in great circumstances that she becomes pregnant.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so she's basically struggling to try to hide her situation from her family as
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: she tries to figure out what to do,
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: because obviously in the time and place where she is,
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: this is not anything that's acceptable to society.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: Abortion is not really seen as a viable option.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so she is taking a lot of this on internally as a young 16 year old girl just
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: trying to figure out what to do.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, very timely.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously,
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: again,
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: like you were saying,
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: Jackie,
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: with the previous book,
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: some of the things that are happening right now around women's rights and
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: reproduction and everything,
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: this book could not have,
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: it's kind of sad,
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: not kind of sad,
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: it's heartbreaking that these same issues,
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: 60,
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: 70 years later,
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: have not come as far as we might have hoped they would have.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_02: so she's,
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: like I said,
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: struggling to figure out what to do and the description from Archipelago says
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_02: describes this book is quote a radical feminist text,
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: and the first Argentine novel to represent rate from the survivors perspective,
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: and to explore the life threatening risks pregnancy posed in a society where
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: abortion was both outlawed and taboo and taboo.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, she was raised, obviously, in a very Catholic environment.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_02: Her family is very religious.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so as she's trying to figure out what to do, there's some really powerful quotes.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: One, she says, maybe I should pray, Nefer thinks.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: If I say one Hail Mary and three Apostles' creeds, will a miracle occur?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the Lord God is trying to scare me into praying more because I don't pray enough.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: But very few people pray a lot, and disgrace like mine doesn't happen to any of them.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's these really powerful,
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: inner monologues where she's,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: probably unfairly blaming herself and trying to figure out why did this happen to
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: me and,
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: wrestling with religious guilt and everything like that.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: She also turns to like.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: local medicine women i guess you'd call them who have some different you know herbs
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: and things like that so she's just reaching out and trying all these different
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: ideas so um i thought i would just read a little brief intro from the beginning
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: just to give a little more taste of the writing and this is literally the very
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: beginning of the book it says they talk about the harvest but they don't know that
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: by then there'll be no turning back never thinks everyone here and everywhere else
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: will know by then and they won't be able to stop talking about it
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: Her eyes cloud with worry.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: She slowly lowers her head and herds a small flock of crumbs across the worn oilcloth.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: Her father mentions the harvest and then reaches for the tea towel used to wipe all
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: the hands and mouths around the table.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: Her mother stands to pass it to him, stepping on the dog, which yelps and takes refuge under the bench.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: As she walks,
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: her shadow moves across those of the people seated around the table,
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: held fixed by the walls by the light of a lantern.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: The day will come when my belly starts to show, Nefer thinks.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: The insects buzz, flutter, and fall as they hit the lantern.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: They climb back up the lantern's tin skirt, singe their wings, and fall back down again.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: No one pays attention to her,
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_02: still and silent in the corner as they lean over their plates,
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: eating and listening to the occasional exchanges between Don Pedro and the Turk,
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: who slurps a spoonful of soup,
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: still out of breath,
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: after unhitching his horses from the cart.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just as beautiful.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a fairly simple writing style, I would say, but there's still some beauty there.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: But more than anything,
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: it's the power of just being alongside this poor girl who's just dealing with this
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_02: seemingly impossible situation.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I get the impression that this book was very well known in Argentina at the time.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: And yet, you know, for American readers, I think it was pretty much unknown.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: So this is an example of a book that is rediscovered,
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: but also crossed across language to be exposed to a whole group of readers who
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_02: otherwise would never have been exposed to it.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's one of the wonderful things about translation in general and
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: Archipelago in particular is rediscovering gems or at least giving them to a whole
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: new audience.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that sounds great.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I can see where you're coming from with that angle, definitely.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was afraid.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: I knew I was taking it a little bit out of maybe what we'd originally talked about,
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: but I think it still fits.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Typical Paul.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: Typical, typical.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: I always got to poke at the edges a little bit.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_03: No, I like that too.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_03: And it does strike me as,
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: we're talking about many of these rediscovered gems are still pertinent and modern
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_03: to us contemporary readers.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_03: In some ways because they were probably pushed down in many ways by the larger cultural forces.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it just reminds me of the idea – and I think I first read this with theories of feminism –
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: That for generations...
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's not that women today or a generation ago were the first ones to ever have
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_03: these struggles or these thoughts.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's just that anybody who tried to express them before, it was...
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_03: pushed aside.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_03: It has to be rediscovered.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so it feels like it might be new,
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_03: but it also does a disservice because it means that women who come later don't have
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_03: that foundation to build on.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_03: Almost there's a requirement to start that discussion again.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_03: And how unfair that is.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: There's no,
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: there's no cultural buildup of,
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_03: of texts or,
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: or things to refer to or continue the discussion on.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's always having to have the discussion again with people who don't want to hear about it.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I love that the books that you brought up, um,
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_03: cover that.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think my publisher does too.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's McNally editions is who I wanted to highlight.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_03: They're also pretty fresh on the scene.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_03: A couple of years old now.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um,
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_03: you can still get all their books for,
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: a good price and be on the front end of,
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_03: of,
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_03: if you want the collection,
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_03: especially since they do number their,
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_03: their books spine,
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_03: this is released number three,
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_03: number 18.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um,
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_03: Many of their books are, I would say, represent minority voices as well.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_03: And in particular,
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if it's in particular,
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_03: but I feel like there's more of them with McNally editions than I've seen with others.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe LGBTQ plus community voices.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_03: And how, you know, again, it's like...
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, when I was growing up, there was the impression that this was all new and therefore wrong.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_03: You don't talk about this kind of stuff because it's wrong.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_03: And it's so refreshing to read people expressing these subjects in their...
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_03: their passions, their loves, their trials, their everything from the past as well.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_03: That said,
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_03: the first book I'm going to talk about in here might more reflect my judging other
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_03: people right now,
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_03: you know?
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_03: than um these voices uh because the first one that i read from them is the feast by
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_03: margaret kennedy which we've talked about plenty there's a great backlisted episode
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_03: that talks about the feast um you know margaret kennedy's the feast is just a great
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_03: book so i'm not going to go into too much detail um with it other than to say i'm
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_03: so glad that they brought that one back into print
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um,
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_03: I've been wanting to buy Troy chimneys by,
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: um,
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: uh,
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_03: by Margaret Kennedy,
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_03: which they also have published and it's their number five,
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_03: but I don't have it quite yet.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_03: I still need to make that purchase, but they have such a promising front list.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like that what's coming out from them is so exciting that I thought I'm going to
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_03: make a big order and just get a bunch of them.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_03: They've got Ryan journey by Ann Schley coming out here in a couple of months.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_03: Caroline Blackwood's The Stepdaughter,
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_03: Juna Barnes' I Am Alien to Life and Selected Stories,
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_03: edited and with a forward by Mervay Emery,
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_03: which I've already brought up on here.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_03: Constant Reader by Dorothy Parker.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_03: they're just some of these are more familiar names than others,
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_03: but they have such a great front list that I haven't bought the ones I'm missing still.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm going to.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I do have a pretty good collection.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_03: And in a moment, I'll bring up one that I have not read yet, but that I can't wait to read that I have.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm planning on starting it here in the next few days, actually.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_03: But why don't we go back to you, Jackie?
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'd love to hear what the other one you're focusing on for Faber Editions.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: And many,
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: many listeners will be familiar with the name Emmerich Pressburger because he is,
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: one half of the legendary filmmaking duo Powell and Pressburger,
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_00: whose iconic films have also,
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: been enjoying a bit of a renaissance in recent years,
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: largely because they've been championed so brilliantly by Martin Scorsese.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: there is actually a new documentary coming out fairly soon,
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: which I think Martin Scorsese narrates about Powell and Pressburger's work.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if there are any Powell and Pressburger fans out there, they need to kind of keep an eye out for that.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: And as for screenwriter in in the filmmaking partnership,
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: Pressburger,
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: who is a Hungarian emigre,
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: was known for his nuanced portrayals of complex characters.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think these qualities flowed through to The Glass Pearls,
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: which was one of two novels that Pressburger wrote after parting company with
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: Powell in the late 1950s.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: And having worked in the film industry in Berlin before fleeing Germany in the
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: 1930s for Britain,
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: Pressburger retained,
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: an affinity for everyday kind of work.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: normal German people in the community,
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: kind of recognising their humanity despite the terrible atrocities that the Nazi
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: regime were perpetrating and were sweeping across the country at the time.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think these sensibilities and this affinity for German people,
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: for the German community,
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think we can kind of see that in
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: films such as 49th Parallel and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: where German figures are portrayed in shades of grey,
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: so they're quite nuanced characters,
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_00: rather than stereotypical villainous figures portrayed in some other propaganda
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: films that came out during the Second World War.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm kind of mentioning all this as background because I think it's important
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: context for The Glass Pearls because it's a novel with a morally ambiguous German
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: character at its heart.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the novel, which came out in 1966 originally,
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: is set in Britain in the mid-1960s,
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_00: and the main character is a chap called Karl,
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: who is a cultured,
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: mild-mannered German
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: Emma Gray, who's working in London as a piano tuner.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when the story opens, Carl has just moved into new lodgings in Pimlico.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we see him going about his day.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's got a fairly quiet, respectable life.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's courting.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: Helen, who is a young mother separated from her husband.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: They go to concerts together.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he kind of just seems to be a normal chap who enjoys cultural pursuits.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Karl's work colleagues and fellow lodgers at the boarding house just simply
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: assume that,
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: being German,
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: he came to England to escape the Nazis.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the more we read, the more we realise that Karl is haunted by something in his past.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_00: So various sinister details start to emerge and
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: We get the distinct impression that Carl is hiding from something or from someone
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: with a link to his past.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll kind of leave it there in terms of the plot.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_00: But we do get this.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: You do get this impression that he's got a backstory worked out and he's kind of very cagey about it.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: the level of information that he reveals about his life in Germany.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he kind of sticks to this backstory and script that he's got,
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: being very careful not to kind of reveal too much about his background.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when The Glass Pearls kind of came out in 1966, it sank virtually without a trace.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there was one review of the novel, a pretty poor review by the TLS.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that kind of sealed its fate.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think looking back on it now,
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: it's probably possible to see why this fascinating novel kind of didn't really find
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: an audience at the time.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: So in the mid 60s,
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: even at that time,
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: Britain was still kind of trying to get over and recover from the war.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_00: The war was still within a lot of people's lifetime in their memory.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the kind of trauma of that and the brutality and all the atrocities that
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_00: Germany as a country inflicted on the world was still very raw in people's minds.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I think critics and the general public were perhaps less willing to accept
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: nuanced portrayals of complex German characters than they might be today.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think as a consequence of that, the novel just failed to find its audience.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think,
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: for readers today,
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: Carl will test our sympathies in a way that's not dissimilar to some of Patricia
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: Highsmith's novels and that,
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: she is very good at eliciting the reader's sympathies for,
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_00: these devilishly charming psychopaths who,
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: enact these terrible crimes so there are kind of some parallels I think with
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_00: Patricia Highsmith's work which are very interesting so you know 60 years on it's
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: almost 60 years on I think it's fascinating to see this novel back in print now and
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: kind of finding a new audience it's a really compelling read
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of Hitchcockian in terms of its vibe.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I just cannot recommend it highly enough, to be honest.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's exciting.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_03: I love Powell and Pressburger.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_03: And incidentally, I know you are a film buff, Jackie.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_03: would you ever be interested in joining us for a bonus episode on some films?
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_03: I would love it.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think Jackie could be a good bookseller too.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_02: Just your comparisons of like, you know, Highsmith and Hitchcock and before with Nella Larson.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like,
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're setting me up every time.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_02: Knows where to go for it.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: I do some freelance work for a couple of independent bookshops here in the south of England.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of do do a bit of that as part of my day job.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'd like to hear more about that, too.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_03: All right, Paul.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_03: let's hear hear yours and I know I Jackie will we will we will be brisk so that we
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: can get you done on your on your time I think I'm good until um half six so okay
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_02: well the next book I wanted to talk about is one that I haven't read yet I know
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor you said you were going to talk about one like that too um but I know this
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: is a favorite Jackie you mentioned our buddy Dorian and we do bring him up a lot so
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_02: you got him off the bingo card early but I'll I'll double down
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: He's been recommending this to me for years now, and I bought it, but I have yet to read it.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm hoping I pronounce it right.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's Aline Weir, which is an 1889 novel by the Dutch writer Louise Kuperis.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I might be slaughtering the pronunciation, but I think that's right.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a book that has been translated into English twice,
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_02: as well as into Norwegian and into Urdu,
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_02: which I thought was interesting.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_02: And according to Archipelago,
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_02: award-winning translator Ina Rilke's new translation of this Madame Bovary of the
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_02: Netherlands will reintroduce to the English-speaking world the greatest Dutch
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: novelist of his generation.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_02: So it comes with very high praise, not only from Dorian, but from the publisher themselves.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And if that praise wasn't enough, here's an impressive quote from our buddy, Michael Derda.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor, you know how we always bring him up, but he's just an amazing critic and he has great taste.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he has this to say about the book.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: He says, superb.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_02: The author handles his many characters with masterly ease and keeps his prose smooth, light and flowing.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And this new translation cannot be praised highly enough.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_02: The estimable Archipelago Books continues to make available in English some of the
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_02: most important works of European literature.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_02: So again,
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is just a good example of a translation that not only revitalizes an
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_02: older text and rethinks it,
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_02: which is another thing I think that we've talked about with translation.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_02: You can rediscover it,
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_02: but you can also,
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_02: a new translation can kind of bring it into,
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_02: not that you're necessarily changing the way it's written,
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_02: but you can kind of revitalize it and bring it back,
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_02: both the language and just bring it back into the spotlight as well.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_02: So the more I read about this book, the more excited I get.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's described as a psychological masterpiece.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I keep seeing it compared to like Flaubert and Tolstoy.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, right there, it's ticking a lot of boxes.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the young Aline Ver is a young heiress, dreamy, impulsive and subject to bleak moods.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Though beloved among her large coterie of friends and relations,
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_02: there are whispers that she's an eccentric.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_02: She's been known to wander alone in the park,
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_02: as well as indulge in long,
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_02: lazy,
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_02: philosophical conversations with her vagabond cousin.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_02: When she accepts the marriage proposal of a family friend,
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_02: she is thrust into a life that looks beyond the confines of the Hague and her overpowering,
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_02: ever fluctuating desires grow increasingly blurred and desperate.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, like I said, every time I read about it, I'm like, why have I not read this yet?
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_02: But the edition that's out from Archipelago, it's a big book, but it's gorgeous as always.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_02: The unique presentation that a lot of these publishers bring.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: So they revitalize the language sometimes, but they also revitalize the look.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is important to make people realize that even though it's an older book,
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_02: that doesn't mean it's not relatable.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean it's not exciting.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's not some musty, dusty old tome.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_02: It still has a life to it.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is one that I wanted to bring up as another example of,
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_02: this is,
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_02: like I said,
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_02: well over 100 years old,
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_02: but one that they've brought back and it's getting a new life,
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_02: one that I need to take part in.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, excellent.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_03: I've had that one since it was published, but I haven't read it yet.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_03: Have you read that one, Jackie?
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't, no.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've ever heard of it, actually, which surprises me if Dorian has been championing it.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds amazing.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to say, I love the look of the archipelago books.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't see them quite as often in bookshops over here.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I know Daunt books in...
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_00: In London, they do stock some, but yeah, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for it.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds amazing.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't it amazing,
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_02: speaking of rediscovering books,
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_02: that something that's described as like the Madame Bovary of the Netherlands?
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_02: is something that we have not really heard that much about or had much exposure to.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it just shows that,
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_02: especially when you start introducing books internationally,
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_02: there's just so many books out there that we've never even heard of.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_03: Always fun.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_03: It is fun.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Trevor, how about you?
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_02: What is your last one?
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm curious if either of you have read this one yet.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_03: It is described on McNally's website as a wry,
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_03: macabre tale of simple country living,
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_03: brutal murder,
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_03: and a reasonably happy couple.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_03: This is John Bowen's The Girls, A Story of Village Life.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_03: And listen to this description.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's written in such a fun way that I think you could tell what my
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_03: parents were visiting over the weekend,
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_03: as you two both know.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think my mom would really look at me and be like, son, you can't, don't read that one.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_03: But I can't wait.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_03: It says,
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_03: in their lovely Cotswolds village,
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_03: Janet and Susan are known to all the other villagers as the girls,
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_03: a fixture.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_03: Partners in love and work,
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_03: co-proprietors of a picturesque shop specializing in the work of local artisans and farmers,
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_03: they lead an enviable,
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_03: enviably settled life.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_03: So it's no catastrophe when Sue,
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_03: the younger of the two,
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_03: feels the need to take a month to travel on her own,
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_03: leaving Jan alone to run their stall at the inland waterways rally craft fair.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_03: Nor is it any real threat when a kindly gay man named Alan lends Jan a hand in Sue's absence.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_03: Or when the two wind up sharing some wine and even a bunk for the night.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_03: If Jan turns out to be pregnant some weeks after Sue's return to the nest,
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_03: what's that but a cause for joy?
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_03: And when Alan happens to come visiting by and by,
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_03: finding the delighted girls raising a beautiful baby boy,
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_03: who can blame him for wanting to share in a small part of their bliss?
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, theirs is an enviable, enviably settled life.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_03: And the girls will defend it with every tool at their disposal.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds amazing.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have to say,
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_00: I do actually have a copy of that book,
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: an old secondhand copy,
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_00: but I am sorely tempted to buy the McNally editions copy of it because it's got
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_00: that Edward Gorey cover on it.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And again, there's sort of the style and the look of those books.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_00: They've obviously been put together, you know, with great care and they look amazing.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a couple of other McNally edition books that I've managed to kind of pick up.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I am sorely tempted to buy the girls in their edition for sure because it sounds
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_00: absolutely up my street.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds amazing.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's a tricky point you're bringing up where you have an edition, an older edition maybe.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_02: I have the same thing with Troy Chimney's.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_02: I actually found a Virago Classics edition
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_02: doing exactly what we talked about looking for those green spines and use bookstore.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I picked it up within the last couple of months.
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm like, okay, does that mean I need to also get the McNally edition when it comes out?
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, Oh, it's out, Paul.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's out.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that one's out.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's their number five.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_03: But one thing that's interesting with McNally is they started out with a certain
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_03: style and I think maybe got eight or nine books published in it.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost like a,
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_03: it reminded me of like screenplays or stage plays for,
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_03: for the cast,
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_03: just that it's like a manuscript almost with then a flap around it.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought they were very striking and interesting.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I loved that, but boy, do I love their new style.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_03: They're so beautiful and well-produced and Troy chimneys originally came out in the
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_03: old style,
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_03: but they have republished it or re you know,
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_03: re jacketed it for the new style.
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_03: as they've been doing with, I think, probably the ones that sell out.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_03: They probably reject it at this point.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure when they reprint.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_03: How many editions can you get a hold of, Paul?
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Not a bad situation to be in.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, so those are our publishers.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, there are so many others that we could bring up.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_03: Are there any that you want to...
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_03: You just can't let the episode go,
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_03: Jackie,
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_03: without at least mentioning...
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_03: You did mention Daunt Books.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was going to say Daunt, actually.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they're a great example, again, that have moved kind of into this area.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_00: They've republished a couple of Barbara Commons novels.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And also Celia Dale,
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_00: who is a,
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_00: a British writer who has got an amazing sort of line in very chilling kind of social,
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_00: domestic,
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_00: domestic noir stories,
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I guess you might call them.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_00: But again, kind of in a not dissimilar ballpark to Patricia Highsmith.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I think Daunt are doing some great work in this area.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think they are also publishing Rhine Journey by Anne Schley later this year,
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_00: which is coming out from McNally,
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think you mentioned.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Also this year.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say definitely Daunt Books, particularly for readers in the UK.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Also, a quick shout out to Simon Thomas and the work that he's been doing as a series consultant with
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_00: the British Library on their Women Writers series.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's been doing some sterling work of helping them to curate that series and write
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_00: the afterwards for the books.
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they've,
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_00: republished some great books by authors such as Rose McCauley,
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Molly Penter Downes,
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_00: a kind of whole range of women writers that again,
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_00: their books are being rediscovered by a whole new generation of readers as a result.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's like we've talked about before,
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_03: Paul,
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_03: in 2666,
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_03: when the critics are just discussing like titles of these authors books and they
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_03: give a big list of titles and I just want to go and get them.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_03: I know that's kind of how I feel with this is they they're these authors that are
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_03: they are like discoveries,
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_03: even though someone else has done all the work.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_03: it's so nice to to find that list and realize i can go there's so much potential
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_03: there's so much promise and often it is it is fulfilled in beautiful ways i love
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_03: these publishers not because of what i hope they will provide but what i've already
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_03: gotten from them i just i trust them uh just with with with whatever bring it out
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_03: and i'll i'll go buy it yeah
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's such a wonderful feeling.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's having a bunch of really smart friends who are just constantly foisting these
• 1:20:37
  SPEAKER_02: books on you and you just know for a fact that you're going to love them.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_03: Did you want another great reading experience?
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Here you go.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_02: Another one?
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_03: Here you go.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_03: Another one.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we've got you covered.
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thanks so much for joining us, Jackie.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's always a treat.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_03: Again, I'd love to talk.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe we can figure out if we would like to talk just in general about movies on a
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_03: bonus episode or specifically about Powell and Pressburger or something else.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_03: But we'll be in touch because that would be a fun conversation to have.
• 1:21:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's something I would enjoy.
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_03: Paul, I know you like movies.
• 1:21:14
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_02: With you two,
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_02: I might be pretty quiet on that episode and just let you both talk,
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_02: but I would love to sit in and chime in occasionally because I'm an aspiring lover
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_02: of film.
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_03: We can get you prepped up for a Pal and Pressburger episode.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_03: They're on the Criterion channel.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_03: I've definitely watched some of them for sure.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're wonderful.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_02: That would be fun.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_00: They are amazing.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you so much for having me back on the episode.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love the podcast, as you know, big fan.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a real pleasure to be chatting to you both today.
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Jackie.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_03: And thank you, Paul.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_03: We'll be back next week.
• 1:21:51
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, everybody.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_03: Bye.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening to this episode of the MOOCs and the Gripes podcast.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can follow the MOOCs and the Gripes and get show notes and book and film
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_02: reviews at moocsandgripes.com.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_02: On Twitter, you can find Trevor at MOOCs and Paul at Bibliopal.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_02: You can also get information about future shows on our Patreon.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_02: If you'd like to donate to the show,
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_02: anything and everything,
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_02: even a dollar a month,
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_02: helps and is deeply appreciated.
• 1:22:21
  SPEAKER_02: You can become a patron at patreon.com slash MOOCs.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time.