Lexi & Ben get literary AF with their first ever book club episode! Dork book club? Book dork club? Whatever. Listen in as they dork out about some of the formative books that made them the dorks they are today.
SHOW NOTES:
Books we talked about:
Important references:
BONUS MATERIAL:
Producer Jess' formative book picks and explanations:
- Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones. I wasn't really much of a reader until I was turned on to the Harry Potter series, but this was the first book I read before even those ones that made me interested in fantasy, and was ultimately what put me on the path of being a lifelong book lover (Gail Carson Levine also falls under this umbrella as another kickass fairytale fantasy writer)
- A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews. I think YA is grossly underrated and books like this prove that; I also think the idea that YA has to have a happy ending is ridiculous and this is a book that proves that because it's decidedly melancholic throughout all the way to the end (but honestly that is how teenagerdom felt for me, so I appreciate that)
- Nightwood, Djuna Barnes. From a stylistic perspective it's unlike any other book I've ever read (it's a story with no plot, really - contemporary of TS Eliot if that gives any context) and it fundamentally changed the way I think about love and sexuality
- The Waves, Virginia Woolf. My favourite of Woolf's work, this is the first time I ever got to read an experience of depression that felt like my own
- The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck. Yes, this is an Oprah Book Club book that was given to me by my mother as an "easy read" because I was feeling overwhelmed crushing out a shitload of classics readings in my undergrad, but this is a book that I re-read probably once a year. It just kind of makes you feel good despite the fact that it's about the cyclical folly of man, and I love that
- Difficult Women, Roxane Gay - I love short stories as much as I love novels, and this is one of the best collections I've ever read, period. Every single one of these stories completely captures the terror and power of what it means to be a woman
- Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter - I don't think I've ever cried so hard reading before (like had to stop because I couldn't see the page crying) but you feel really cathartically better after because if you've ever experienced any death in your life this is a heartbreakingly true articulation of how truly awful it is to lose someone you love
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