Reading Writers

Charlotte and Jo enthuse briefly but ardently about friend of the pod’s Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection and Helen Humphreys’ Followed By The Lark before the powerhouse Shon Faye joins for a rollicking take on Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch. Shon Faye is an advice columnist for Vogue dot com and the author of two books The Transgender Issue published by Verso in 2022 and the forthcoming Love in Exile a memoir to be published by FSG in May 2025. Send questions, requests, recommendations, and your own thoughts about any of the books discussed today to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.  Charlotte’s most recent book is An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/An-Honest-Woman/Charlotte-Shane/9781982126865]. Learn more at charoshane.com [http://charoshane.com] Jo co-edits The Stopgap [https://www.thestopgap.net/] and their writing lives at jolivingstone.com [http://jolivingstone.com]. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Jo discovers one of the most fascinating books of all time with Extraterrestrial Languages by Daniel Oberhaus, while Charlotte issues her verdict on whether Lional Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin lives up to its good reputation. Beloved critic Lovia Gyarkye then joins to assess the complex, beguiling mother-daughter dynamics at work in Marie NDiaye’s Ladivine. Lovia Gyarkye is a critic at The Hollywood Reporter based in New York.  Send questions, requests, recommendations, and your own thoughts about any of the books discussed today to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.  Charlotte’s most recent book is An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/An-Honest-Woman/Charlotte-Shane/9781982126865]. Learn more at charoshane.com [http://charoshane.com] Jo co-edits The Stopgap [https://www.thestopgap.net/] and their writing lives at jolivingstone.com [http://jolivingstone.com]. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

In another host-only bonus episode, Jo reviews Paula Hawkins’ art mystery novel, The Blue Hour, and Charlotte rhapsodizes about Jacqueline Harpman’s bizarre science fiction masterpiece I Who Have Never Known Men. Other titles discussed: Karen Slaughter’s Will Trent series, Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Send questions, requests, recommendations, and your own thoughts about any of the books discussed today to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.  Charlotte’s most recent book is An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/An-Honest-Woman/Charlotte-Shane/9781982126865]. Learn more at charoshane.com [http://charoshane.com] Jo co-edits The Stopgap [https://www.thestopgap.net/] and their writing lives at jolivingstone.co [http://jolivingstone.com] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Jo is refreshed by Trouble in the Cotswalds by Rebecca Tope but Charlotte quickly ruins their peace by connecting the sex in Heather Lewis’s violent novel Notice with Miranda July’s NBA-shortlisted All Fours. The effervescent Emma Robinson joins to share her love for Dianne Brill’s Boobs, Boys, and High Heels, which inspires further reflection on 90s era beauty books and instruction manuals. Other books mentioned in this episode: Steven Saylor’s Murder on the Appian Way, Rachel Cusk’s Aftermath, Gemma Hartley’s Fed Up, Shelia Heti’s Motherhood, Bobbi Brown’s Teenage Beauty, Amanda Brooks’ Internet Escort’s Handbook, and Sydney Barrow’s Mayflower Madam and Just Between Us Girls. Charlotte’s review of All Fours [https://www.bookforum.com/fiction/libido-re-mi-60890] and Gemma Hartley’s Fed Up [https://www.bookforum.com/print/2504/a-new-book-examines-the-price-of-emotional-labor-20419], both in Bookforum.  Inspired at once by radical philosophers and tulips, Emma Cager Robinson is looking for beauty. As a mechanism for change and source of inspiration, Emma uses beauty as the driving force behind her activism. With a focus on Consciousness Raising and creating “Insurgents,” Emma uses media of all forms to shift the way we interrogate culture and the systems we interact with on a daily basis. A Texan at heart, she’s especially impassioned about spreading this energy through the South; as a means of completing ancestral business, and working in a long line of women committed to making the world suck less for their families and communities. Send questions, requests, recommendations, and your own thoughts about any of the books discussed today to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.  Charlotte’s most recent book is An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/An-Honest-Woman/Charlotte-Shane/9781982126865]. Learn more at charoshane.com [http://charoshane.com] Jo co-edits The Stopgap [https://www.thestopgap.net/] and their writing lives at jolivingstone.com [http://jolivingstone.com]. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Jo opens their mind to further basketball books after reading Hanif Abdurraqib’s There’s Always This Year, while Charlotte (11:30) revisits a YA novel from her youth, Bette Green’s Summer of My German Soldier. Glamorous Marlowe Granados then joins (24:30) to expound on great novels of mid-century women, namely Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone.  Other books discussed in this episode: Mary McCarthy's The Group and Rona Jaffe's The Best of Everything Marlowe Granados [https://www.marlowegranados.com] is the author of Happy Hour, a novel the New Yorker called an "effervescent debut." In 2021, it was shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel award and received starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Review. It is considered a RAVE on Literary Hub’s BookMarks, a website that aggregates reviews from major publications. She writes a substack called "From the Desk of Marlowe Granados" [https://marlowegranados.substack.com/] and is currently at work on her second novel. After spending time in New York and London, she now lives in Toronto.  Send questions, requests, recommendations, and your own thoughts about any of the books discussed today to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.  Charlotte’s most recent book is An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/An-Honest-Woman/Charlotte-Shane/9781982126865]. Learn more at charoshane.com [http://charoshane.com] Jo co-edits The Stopgap [https://www.thestopgap.net/] and their writing lives at jolivingstone.com [http://jolivingstone.com]. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.