Speaker 1: So much. You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mamma
Speaker 1: Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and borders that
Speaker 1: this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 2: Hey spillers, this is producer of This spill Minisha, just
Speaker 2: jumping in because today is a public holiday here in Australia,
Speaker 2: so we don't have our usual daily episode for you.
Speaker 2: But don't worry, we would never leave you without something
Speaker 2: to listen to. So we're bringing back an absolute classic
Speaker 2: where Laura and m hit you with all their top
Speaker 2: book recommendations of all time. Just perfect if you're looking
Speaker 2: to curl up with a great read over the wintery
Speaker 2: long weekend.
Speaker 1: Enjoy. So you might have heard me mention this before.
Speaker 1: It is my single biggest achievement in life, my system
Speaker 1: of how I organize books and how I recommend books,
Speaker 1: and it was born out of this idea of that
Speaker 1: so many of my friends and colleagues over the years
Speaker 1: would come to me and want book recommendations because I'm
Speaker 1: such an avid reader and I get very passionate about
Speaker 1: my books, and a lot of the time, to sort
Speaker 1: of forget the tone of what someone wants, you have
Speaker 1: to ask them what they're in the mood for and
Speaker 1: I feel like the best way to do that is
Speaker 1: to liken it to a food or beverage, because you know,
Speaker 1: when you're like you're deciding to go out, You're like,
Speaker 1: what do you feel like? Do you feel like this?
Speaker 1: VI dinner? Do you feel like that? And that's how
Speaker 1: you get to the heart of what someone wants. You
Speaker 1: can't just give them a random book. And so I
Speaker 1: set up this system, which is the vodka, vegetable chocolate.
Speaker 3: System, the most chaotic types of meals and drinks I know.
Speaker 1: And some people are like, but vodkas are drinking. It's
Speaker 1: a food. I'm like, no, no, we don't.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm not alcoholic. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: It's just a vibe. It's a feeling. You can drink
Speaker 1: vodka as you read, but you don't have to. That's
Speaker 1: not the rule. So it's the way I categorize my books.
Speaker 1: So my friends and I now have a shorthand whether
Speaker 1: they'll want a book, and I'll say and they'll be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I need a vodka, but I also like, I'll take
Speaker 1: a vegetable with me. And that's how I dole out
Speaker 1: my books. So just sort the categories out vodka. These
Speaker 1: are books that you potentially want to hit really hard
Speaker 1: and fast in one night. A page turner, a thriller,
Speaker 1: something exciting. You have to know what happens next, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: So potentially will keep you up all night because you
Speaker 1: have to finish it. All of my biggest vodka books
Speaker 1: I've started in the afternoon. I finished at like one am,
Speaker 1: two am, so you sometimes do have a little bit
Speaker 1: of a hangover the next day. And it's not the
Speaker 1: kind of book you can read every day or every week,
Speaker 1: and like you have to space your vodka books out,
Speaker 1: But they are the books that will give your buzz.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1: Vegetable books. Now, some people think that vegetable books are
Speaker 1: the books that we don't want to read, but that
Speaker 1: is not true. Now, they're not the boring books because
Speaker 1: we need vegetables exactly. The thing is, you need vegetables
Speaker 1: in your diet, and when prepared correctly and when written correctly,
Speaker 1: vegetables can be delicious. It's just that sometimes if you
Speaker 1: want something sugary or like a hit of vodka, that
Speaker 1: you're not in the mood for vegetables. But there's something
Speaker 1: that you that are very satisfying, that good for you,
Speaker 1: and you feel very good after consuming them, and that
Speaker 1: is what a vegetable book will do for you. So
Speaker 1: they can sometimes be like, you know, a classic book
Speaker 1: or historical book or something. Everyone's books and these genres
Speaker 1: are different. But for me, it's a book that I
Speaker 1: might It's not one I'm like craving, but when I
Speaker 1: consume it, it's satisfying and I feel good, and I
Speaker 1: know that these books should make up a big part
Speaker 1: of my diet. That's a vegetable book. But vegetable books
Speaker 1: are also some of my favorite books. Yeah, me too,
Speaker 1: So again, vegetabooks aren't bad, we have.
Speaker 3: Vegetable books are also the best ones to preach about
Speaker 3: when someone asks I need something new to read.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like you want to say to someone, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I made like a butternut squash bake last night.
Speaker 3: I've made a salad.
Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, I made a salad, and I feel
Speaker 1: good about that. That's the same as telling someone that
Speaker 1: you read a vegetable book. So often they're the ones
Speaker 1: that people have prominently displayed in their homes, or they're
Speaker 1: vegetabooks are ones that people love to put on Instagram,
Speaker 1: like just casually reading.
Speaker 3: Casually read quiet all the rest in front of British furniture.
Speaker 1: Just casually read War and Peace. That's a vegetable vegetable book.
Speaker 1: And then we get to chocolate books, which is just
Speaker 1: a little sweet treat. I've got to say a lot
Speaker 1: of my diet of books is chocolate books.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like eighty percent.
Speaker 1: If that's nothing wrong with that, because again, chocolate import
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean they're frivolous, doesn't mean they're silly. It
Speaker 1: just means that they can be a bit comforting, they
Speaker 1: can be a bit light. They're easy to just pick
Speaker 1: up and snack on, like you could just read a
Speaker 1: few chapters here and there, and they just make you
Speaker 1: feel good. They're like a delightful little treat that comes
Speaker 1: into your life. So that is how we are setting
Speaker 1: up the episode today. We're going to do one book
Speaker 1: each for vodka, vegetable, chocolate, and yeah the best. The
Speaker 1: only kind of diet we care about is a book diet,
Speaker 1: and that's all we're here to talk about.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to go first. I'm starting with the Veggies.
Speaker 3: This is a book that I have actually read twice,
Speaker 3: So I know a vegetable book twice, that's impressive. I
Speaker 3: think I read it twice because I didn't fully grasp
Speaker 3: it the first time I read it, And there are
Speaker 3: like a lot of storylines that I felt like I
Speaker 3: skimmed over when I probably should have really concentrated on.
Speaker 3: The issue I have is that I'm a really fast reader,
Speaker 3: and that doesn't change depending on what type of book
Speaker 3: I'm reading. And when you read a vegetable book really fast,
Speaker 3: you don't actually sit with everything. I only said with
Speaker 3: what you finish. And I had to go back in
Speaker 3: this book and then take it much slower.
Speaker 1: Do you find that sometimes when you're reading that your
Speaker 1: eyes are darting ahead, like the bottom of the next
Speaker 1: page because you know where that's where the cliffhanger is
Speaker 1: going to be.
Speaker 3: And I get excited. Yeah, I'm kind of like when
Speaker 3: you're watching a movie and you get like really like
Speaker 3: angsy about it. Yeah, it's similar with books. And then
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait, oh what your mind wanders and then
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, I have to read this page again
Speaker 3: because I have no idea what just happened.
Speaker 1: My trick for that because I only maybe it's different
Speaker 1: if you're on an e reader or something, but I'm
Speaker 1: old school only read physical books. Cover it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hold it because it's always the cliffhanger is on the
Speaker 1: second page on the right hand side. So I read
Speaker 1: like this where I have my hand over the page
Speaker 1: and I don't lift it up until I'm getting to
Speaker 1: that bit. So weird.
Speaker 3: Why do we do that? Like why do your eyes
Speaker 3: just like have a mind of the I.
Speaker 1: Also sometimes if I'm in a really exciting part of
Speaker 1: a book, I stand up because I just I just
Speaker 1: see it from the book to know that I'm present,
Speaker 1: I'm in there with.
Speaker 3: Don't do that like when you're in public, because that's
Speaker 3: quite alarming. I just stand up on a plane. So
Speaker 3: my vegetable book is Girl Woman Other and it's a novel.
Speaker 3: It's a novel by Bernardine Evaristo. She won the Book
Speaker 3: of Prize in twenty nineteen for it, and it is
Speaker 3: extremely complex. Have you read it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 3: It's so confusing. So that's the main reason why I
Speaker 3: had to read it twice because I would always recommend
Speaker 3: it to people and they're like, what's it about? And
Speaker 3: I had to be like, wait, you explained the witch
Speaker 3: shot explaining it's literally that they're like, so, why are
Speaker 3: you recommending this? But I am recommending it because I
Speaker 3: read it twice and I love it. So it focuses
Speaker 3: on the experiences of Black British women across different generations,
Speaker 3: and it does like all the themes like identity, race, gender,
Speaker 3: except in sexuality. There's twelve characters like I count to twelve.
Speaker 3: That possibly is more, but each character has their own
Speaker 3: unique storyline, which is where I think I got confused
Speaker 3: the first time around. But the three main characters that
Speaker 3: I think have the deepest storylines that are constantly hearing from.
Speaker 3: We first hear from Ama, who's like a playwright. She's
Speaker 3: a feminist, and she's kind of like one of those
Speaker 3: really strong femine that's also trying to navigate the landscape
Speaker 3: of feminism as it's changing and as we become like
Speaker 3: more modern. She has a daughter named Jazz, who's a
Speaker 3: university student who's also a bit confused in her life.
Speaker 3: And then AMA's best friend's name is Dominique and she's
Speaker 3: currently struggling in a domestic abuse of relationship. They all
Speaker 3: are such interesting, well thought out characters, and the entire
Speaker 3: novel like spans across more than a century in British history,
Speaker 3: so you're seeing also history come within this novel, which
Speaker 3: is really interesting. The hardest thing about this book is
Speaker 3: that every Stow's style of writing is described as free
Speaker 3: flowing and poetic, and that means there's no punctuation in
Speaker 3: the entire book. I think there's one full stop in
Speaker 3: the entire novel relief for me, I can breathe. But
Speaker 3: I think that's why I read it so fast the
Speaker 3: first time. There's no sentences, so.
Speaker 1: You didn't know where to stop. You just kept going.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I probably had my first broke at that one full
Speaker 3: stop halfway through, and I just kept going. But I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people struggle with this book because
Speaker 3: I can't get past that. And when I read it
Speaker 3: for the second time, it just made everything so much better,
Speaker 3: Like I fully immersed myself into her style of writing,
Speaker 3: and it just felt like one big, massive thought that's
Speaker 3: just spanning across these generations and these years, and it
Speaker 3: was just such an experience of reading that I've never
Speaker 3: had before, and it was just so beautiful. It's such
Speaker 3: a brilliant book. I highly recommend it to everyone. I
Speaker 3: would say if you're not an avid reader, this is
Speaker 3: probably a really big one for you to start with.
Speaker 1: Don't if you haven't read a book for ten years,
Speaker 1: don't leap in with this one.
Speaker 3: Don't leap in with this one. But if you love
Speaker 3: reading and you love like just the description I gave you,
Speaker 3: this needs to be on your list.
Speaker 1: Oh I really love that. Okay, my vegetable book. I
Speaker 1: only realized after I had finished making my notes of
Speaker 1: this episode, and I had very painstakingly picked my book
Speaker 1: for each category that I've picked novels that I all
Speaker 1: read as like a young teenager, because this is the
Speaker 1: first time this idea started for me in my head
Speaker 1: of like these different books. So I've somehow picked my
Speaker 1: very first vegetable word cod chocolate books by accident. So
Speaker 1: my vegetable book is The Color Purple, which so good.
Speaker 1: I had such a vivid memory of I think I
Speaker 1: got it from the library and like the school holidays
Speaker 1: when I was like fourteen. I was like, I read
Speaker 1: it around.
Speaker 3: The same age. Yeah, my nana gave it to me
Speaker 3: and I was like, Nana.
Speaker 1: Famous book. And I remember just like through the school
Speaker 1: holidays really trying to like I loved reading it. But
Speaker 1: I also it was the first time I was really
Speaker 1: struggling to get through a book and I had to
Speaker 1: sort of sometimes remind myself to go and read it
Speaker 1: and finish it. And it's the first time I remember
Speaker 1: telling myself as like a teen, like, no, no, this
Speaker 1: book is good for you. You need to read it, you
Speaker 1: need to finish it. And so The Color Purple came
Speaker 1: out in nineteen eighty two. It's a novel by an
Speaker 1: American author called Alice Walker, and it was hugely successful
Speaker 1: after it came out. It won the nineteen eighty three
Speaker 1: Pulit Surprise for Fiction and also the National Book Award
Speaker 1: for Fiction. That Alice Walker is actually the first black
Speaker 1: woman to win for fiction in the Plitzurprise category. So
Speaker 1: that is obviously so well deserved. And one reason I
Speaker 1: wanted to read the book before I saw the movie
Speaker 1: or anything like that is that The Color Purple has
Speaker 1: kind of sprung up into this whole cornerstone of pop
Speaker 1: culture and entertainment over the years. And when something like that, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and when something like that happens, I think it's really
Speaker 1: important to read the source material so you can you
Speaker 1: can understand what it's across. So it was adapt into
Speaker 1: a film in nineteen eighty five, directed by Steven Spielberg,
Speaker 1: and it had Whoopi goldbergs star as the lead. And
Speaker 1: then it became a men Epra. Yes, Oprah was in
Speaker 1: it too, as Sofia Danny Glover. Like all Star cast.
Speaker 1: There was no Made for eleven Academy Awards. Didn't win any,
Speaker 1: but it was no Made for eleven Academy Awards. That's
Speaker 1: important to note. It then became a Broadway musical in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and then just last year it
Speaker 1: was adapted into So is the adaptation of the Broadway
Speaker 1: musical into a movie, which if anyone hasn't seen that,
Speaker 1: it is just incredible. I loved it so much. So
Speaker 1: it's a story of Seely, who's a poor African American
Speaker 1: girl living in rural Georgia in the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: She is very close to her sister Netti. They're being abused,
Speaker 1: they get separated, and then attracts Sealy's life over thirty years.
Speaker 3: It's such a sad story.
Speaker 1: It is so sad. I remember just like being in
Speaker 1: my room on the summer holidays, my siblings are out
Speaker 1: in the pool, my Mom's coming to my room and
Speaker 1: she's like, why are you crying here?
Speaker 3: And other Yeah, right, especially the book because the book
Speaker 3: is like way more traumatizing than the Marrie.
Speaker 1: I should say. The book has a bit of controversy
Speaker 1: over the years in terms of like some of the
Speaker 1: way it depicts domestic abuse and rape and sexual assault,
Speaker 1: and some people think it it's not handled in the
Speaker 1: right way, and some people think we're reveling in pain.
Speaker 1: There's a huge long history there that I won't get
Speaker 1: into it. It's quite graphic. It's very graphic. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: a warning of reading it. This is not in any
Speaker 1: way a light read. But I just think it's such
Speaker 1: an incredible story. You just feel like you're in it
Speaker 1: when you're reading it, and it's so important, and I
Speaker 1: just think sometimes we have to read things that are
Speaker 1: difficult and sit in those stories.
Speaker 3: It's important because it's depicting what actually would have happened.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, exactly one hundred and it really kind of
Speaker 1: is a moment in time where women but especially African
Speaker 1: American women in Georgia in that time, just have absolutely
Speaker 1: no rights, and you see the pain and torture, and
Speaker 1: sometimes those characters like the side characters in those kind
Speaker 1: of novels where you just seen there's like you know,
Speaker 1: they're the servants or they're like, you know, the supportive
Speaker 1: like woman of color in the background kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And so this is like taking that story and putting
Speaker 1: it front and center. So it's a difficult read, but
Speaker 1: it's so beautifully written, and it's my first memory of
Speaker 1: kind of like making myself read a book outside of
Speaker 1: school and being like, I'm so glad I read that,
Speaker 1: like I needed to know that story.
Speaker 3: Okay, moving onto vodka. I remember I got this really
Speaker 3: mixed up because I thought it was about the speed
Speaker 3: of how you read, and because I read really fast,
Speaker 3: I would get my vodkas and chocolates mixed up quite often.
Speaker 1: But like I said, it's sometimes a chocolate book for me,
Speaker 1: bite me, a vodka book for someone else, or a
Speaker 1: vuable book, like it's a very personal decision.
Speaker 3: I'm all vodka here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So my vodka book I want to talk about is
Speaker 3: Yellow Face of Kwan. I've read this book so many times.
Speaker 3: It is so good. It's like a very fast paced
Speaker 3: kind of like psychological drama, but it's also very funny
Speaker 3: and very hectic and I think the pace of the
Speaker 3: novel dictates the pace of how you read it, because
Speaker 3: you're constantly wanting to turn to the next page. So
Speaker 3: it's about this writer, a white writer, and it's important
Speaker 3: that she's white. Yeah, named June Hayward, who's in publishing.
Speaker 3: She's writing books, but she's not really making it like
Speaker 3: she's struggling a little bit. She has a friend who's
Speaker 3: very good at writing books, and her name is Athena,
Speaker 3: and Athena is an Asian American author, and they both
Speaker 3: kind of started out at the same time. They're both
Speaker 3: the same age, except Athena just went skyrocketing, like writing
Speaker 3: amazing stuff, and June is kind of hanging out in
Speaker 3: the background. Athena suddenly dies. It's like the craziest dead
Speaker 3: scene I've ever read.
Speaker 1: Every time I'm eating it home, I think about choking
Speaker 1: to death from that. It is that part of the base.
Speaker 3: This isn't a spoiler because it happens quite early. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the entire the first few pages. So Athena suddenly dies
Speaker 3: and June was with her, and then after she dies,
Speaker 3: June finds a manuscript of a novel that Athena was
Speaker 3: currently working on and June decides to develop a pseudonym
Speaker 3: named Junipersong, which yes, does sound like an Asian name,
Speaker 3: and publish Athena's novel under her alias. And then what
Speaker 3: ensures is just like so many critics and people in
Speaker 3: like think of Reddit threads and people who are book
Speaker 3: fans trying to figure out who Juniper Song is and
Speaker 3: then trying to make connections like how come this girl
Speaker 3: June is suddenly like taking off with like all of
Speaker 3: these shows and stuff like that, Like people are starting
Speaker 3: to figure out who really wrote the manuscript, and it
Speaker 3: just dives into this whole world of I want to
Speaker 3: call it modern racism and modern microaggressions of what happens
Speaker 3: when you have a white person who is a complete
Speaker 3: ally suddenly gets support from people who aren't allies, and
Speaker 3: like how that dictates how they see people of color.
Speaker 3: It is just so incredibly done. It is really funny.
Speaker 3: The lengths that some of the fans go to try
Speaker 3: to expose her is insane, but it also just shows
Speaker 3: how far you're willing to go just to be famous.
Speaker 1: I love this book so much. It's one of my
Speaker 1: vodka books as well, because I read it all in
Speaker 1: one night. I couldn't stop them, like I have to
Speaker 1: know because the build up of like is she going
Speaker 1: to get caught out? And who's going to catch her out?
Speaker 1: And who are those anonymous messages coming from? And then
Speaker 1: you start thinking, wait, is Athena even dead? Am I
Speaker 1: going crazy? What's happening?
Speaker 3: It's so good. I went to actually watch iv Quan
Speaker 3: speak and she came to Sydney to speak, and I
Speaker 3: went to get my book signing. It's a whole drama.
Speaker 3: I was last in line, and then they cut it
Speaker 3: off right at me. It was so I had my
Speaker 3: book and I was holding in front of the security
Speaker 3: guard and I was like, please, sir, just me, It's
Speaker 3: just me one morning. He's like, sorry, that's the hundred limit.
Speaker 3: And my Mom's like, please got my book signed. It
Speaker 3: was really sad. She speaks so well. She's actually a
Speaker 3: fantasy writer and this was like her first like no
Speaker 3: like chick lit novel, and the fact that it was
Speaker 3: her first was just amazing because I'm not really into fantasy,
Speaker 3: but she's a massive fantasy writer and so what she
Speaker 3: said was really interesting because every time I recommend this
Speaker 3: book to someone, they either hate it or love it.
Speaker 3: And She said that she loves that people hate her
Speaker 3: characters because that's exactly what she was going for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're everyone.
Speaker 3: In this book is so unlikable, like every single person,
Speaker 3: but they feel like real people. It's so brilliant. Okay,
Speaker 3: what is your vodka?
Speaker 1: Okay, my vodka book? She just had vodka with us.
Speaker 1: I know it's I actually do have some on my desk.
Speaker 1: Someone sent it to me. So this is the first
Speaker 1: book I stayed up all my reading. I'm really painting
Speaker 1: myself as a cool teenager.
Speaker 3: We love especially you say your siblings are outside playing
Speaker 3: in the sun and you're just crying over the color.
Speaker 1: That is mean a nutshell. So when I was fourteen
Speaker 1: years old, I went into the school library very early
Speaker 1: before my first class, and by past the nuns who
Speaker 1: were restacking the books, and I got this very battered
Speaker 1: old copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Speaker 3: Oh, they were definitely trying to hide that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't believe it wasn't even in I went
Speaker 1: to a convent school. I can't believe there was even
Speaker 1: a copy around.
Speaker 3: Some none was like, I'm going to change history and
Speaker 3: these girls are going to read Jaculas my.
Speaker 1: Sister a Gena'll shout out to you. I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of people know the like Dracula obviously the character,
Speaker 1: and this is the first definitive book his origin story,
Speaker 1: you will. So it was written by Bram Stoker, who's
Speaker 1: an Irish author, and published in eighteen ninety seven. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a Gothic horror novel and it is just so
Speaker 1: it's almost for some people might be a vegetable book
Speaker 1: because in some cases it could be hard to follow
Speaker 1: because it's as.
Speaker 3: A very like archaic language.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to an extent, not as much as you would think,
Speaker 1: like I guess, like you know, there's a vampire here,
Speaker 1: just transcends time employees. But it's a lot of it's
Speaker 1: told through letters and diary entries, newspaper articles, maps, all
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So you know, you've got to
Speaker 1: sort of put it together. But it sounds like a
Speaker 1: lot of work. But most of it is just a narrative,
Speaker 1: but it's told from different people's perspectives. But it is
Speaker 1: just such an incredibly gripping story. So it starts off
Speaker 1: with Johnathan Harko who's a solicitor and he travels to Transylvania,
Speaker 1: to visit this nobleman called Count Dracula because you know
Speaker 1: they're gonna sell them some property and.
Speaker 3: It's just anos Ferati.
Speaker 1: Well, no, no, because nos Feratu is a rip off
Speaker 1: of Dracula, as you know from our previous podcast about
Speaker 1: that topic. And so Dracula is obviously a vampire and
Speaker 1: then locks Jonathan in his castle. I'm obviously going over
Speaker 1: a lot here, and he moves to this tiny seaside
Speaker 1: town of Whitby where Jonathan's fiance Mina, who's staying to
Speaker 1: see say that, and he starts killing people. And then
Speaker 1: you've got Van helsing who is this? You know, who
Speaker 1: knows who is trying to hunt him down? And it
Speaker 1: is just this incredible, like visceral, intense story, full of violence,
Speaker 1: full of death, full of sex. As a fourteen year old,
Speaker 1: I had not known. My only instruction to vampires was
Speaker 1: Buffy the Vampires Like, and I was.
Speaker 3: Like, tell me, this was your sex education.
Speaker 1: It maybe it kind of was, I don't know, and
Speaker 1: I just remember. So I got it out from the
Speaker 1: library in the morning and then all day through all
Speaker 1: of my classes, I read it under the desk because
Speaker 1: I was just like, holy sh I said it all
Speaker 1: trying to read books under the desk.
Speaker 3: And I was like, that's who straight porn for.
Speaker 1: I was just like, my heart was beating in my
Speaker 1: chest so fast, because no, it's so violent and graphic.
Speaker 1: I read it at home on the bus. I read
Speaker 1: all afternoon. I read it into the night. I think
Speaker 1: I finished it with a torch under my blanket that night.
Speaker 1: This is a massive book. It is absolutely huge. Most
Speaker 1: people say this takes them a month to read. I
Speaker 1: finished it about two in the morning, and then I
Speaker 1: was so both terrified and just enamored and freaked out
Speaker 1: that I stayed up. That's the first time I stayed
Speaker 1: up all night as a teenager because my eye was
Speaker 1: just overcome by this book. And that is the idea
Speaker 1: of what a vodka book is. There's even lines I
Speaker 1: remember reading for the first time of like when one
Speaker 1: of the characters, because Jacula is feeding on I don't
Speaker 1: want to ruin exuse obviously, Wan, you want to go
Speaker 1: read it when Dracula is like secretly feeding on this
Speaker 1: one young woman all night and she's slowly turning into
Speaker 1: a vampire, and like the moment she starts to turn,
Speaker 1: where she starts describing like the blood pulsing through her veins,
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, I can hear the mice down
Speaker 1: in the cellars below scurrying about because everything's getting better.
Speaker 1: And then like the moment where like Jacula comes through
Speaker 1: when she's just about to die and she screams and
Speaker 1: ecstasies her vampire lover, and I was like, what is happening.
Speaker 1: It's just so, it's such a good book.
Speaker 3: You've hooked me.
Speaker 1: I think you should read it. There's also an incredible
Speaker 1: film adaptation. No it's called Bramstoke Is Dracula, because I
Speaker 1: wanted people to know it's a direct movie based on
Speaker 1: the book. So it's got when I'm in a writer
Speaker 1: and Countu Reeves and Gary Oldman, and it's completely pulled
Speaker 1: from the book. And the cast actually sat down and
Speaker 1: read the entire novel in like a few days, not
Speaker 1: one day like I did, but a few days so
Speaker 1: they would have the exact flow and pattern of the store.
Speaker 1: Sorry to film the movie, so read the book first
Speaker 1: and then watch the movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay. For my Chocolate book, I didn't write any
Speaker 3: single note because I thought we could just both of
Speaker 3: us go to town on this. Yeah, it is so basic.
Speaker 3: So if you're gonna call me a basic bitch, I know, Okay,
Speaker 3: I know this book is basic. But there's a reason
Speaker 3: it's basic, and that's because so many women love it. Okay,
Speaker 3: So that's not even a good insult, even though I'm
Speaker 3: talking to myself about Okay, stop stop stalling.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: It is everything I know about love by Dolly Albert.
Speaker 1: That is not a basic book. That is a beautiful book.
Speaker 1: And you know you're beautiful for recommending it.
Speaker 3: The reason I'm recommending it is because I'm reading it
Speaker 3: right now, because I read it after every time I
Speaker 3: go through a heartache.
Speaker 1: No, no, Boddy, So you.
Speaker 3: Can guess why I'm reading it right now. I read
Speaker 3: it so many times because it's been so many It
Speaker 3: is a memoir. She started writing it when she was
Speaker 3: twenty eight, which is my age now, and I think
Speaker 3: it was published and really got everyone going when she
Speaker 3: was around there, and then she completely took off as
Speaker 3: an author after that. It's about love, it's about breakups,
Speaker 3: it's about friendships, it's about living in share houses. It's
Speaker 3: about annoying problematic men, regardless of their age. It's about
Speaker 3: just kind of accepting yourself. It even goes into death
Speaker 3: and things like that and your parents getting older, and
Speaker 3: it's one of those books that makes you feel like
Speaker 3: you're not isolated with every thought you've had. There's been
Speaker 3: so many like moments, I think, especially as a young
Speaker 3: woman in your twenties, where you have a thought or
Speaker 3: you have an experience and you think this sucks, and like,
Speaker 3: who do I talk to because surely no one's ever
Speaker 3: gone through this before, And then you read Dolly Alton's
Speaker 3: book and you're like, oh shit, I was completely wrong.
Speaker 3: I've never had an original thought in my life. And
Speaker 3: it's just so good because I think this book has
Speaker 3: just formed so many friendships in a way that we've
Speaker 3: all just started talking about these kind of issues that
Speaker 3: we've all gone through as growing up in your twenties,
Speaker 3: whether you're in a relationationship or single, or you had
Speaker 3: friends or you don't have friends and you're making new
Speaker 3: friends and your career, we're all just like becoming more
Speaker 3: vulnerable and open with each other in a time where
Speaker 3: we were kind of brought up to believe that we
Speaker 3: always had to compete with each other. And I think
Speaker 3: this book has done so much in just like making
Speaker 3: women feel really good about having each other in our lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, obviously, I love this book so much.
Speaker 1: It's one of my ultimate chocolate books. I love so
Speaker 1: much that I've got a copy at home that I
Speaker 1: reread all the time, and a copy at my desk
Speaker 1: care at Mama Mia that I lend out to people.
Speaker 3: Such a good book. I'm getting so emotional talking about it.
Speaker 3: I think everyone men should read this book. Yeah, everyone
Speaker 3: read this damn book.
Speaker 1: It's so good. Okay, I love that my chocolate book
Speaker 1: is also about friendship. We're so cute.
Speaker 3: The greatest loves you'll know are your female friends.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. So my book is actually called Circle
Speaker 1: of Friends. I found it really hard to pick a
Speaker 1: chocolate book, and then I found it really hard to
Speaker 1: pick a book from this author because it's written by
Speaker 1: May've Binchi, who I think is my favorite author of
Speaker 1: all time.
Speaker 3: But I'm excited for this because I haven't read this.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm so excited for you to read it.
Speaker 1: Because May've Binchi has so many books out there, and
Speaker 1: each one of them is just a masterpiece. It's one
Speaker 1: of those authors where you can just like any book
Speaker 1: that she has written. You can pick up and just
Speaker 1: know that you'll have an incredible time reading it. And
Speaker 1: it was hard to pick, but I went with a
Speaker 1: circle of friends. Again. I read this as a teenager.
Speaker 1: My mum gave it to me because she loves May
Speaker 1: Binchi as well. It's set in Dublin as well as
Speaker 1: this like tiny town outside of Dublin Island called Knocklin
Speaker 1: in Ireland in the nineteen fifties. And it starts off
Speaker 1: with so the two main characters are Even Benny and
Speaker 1: they live in a small town of Knocklann. Eve is
Speaker 1: an orphan but her like rich family live in the
Speaker 1: town and they just gave her up when her mother
Speaker 1: passed away. She lives in a convent with nuns. Benny
Speaker 1: Benny lives in a big house with her parents. Eva's
Speaker 1: tiny and gets bullied for being an orphan. Benny gets
Speaker 1: bullied for being very very tall, which I obviously related
Speaker 1: to as a teenager, that everyone calls her big and
Speaker 1: awful and all this sort of stuff. And they become
Speaker 1: these two best friends as kids when they're ten years old,
Speaker 1: and then the story jumps forward to when they've finished
Speaker 1: school and they're going to university in Dublin. There's this
Speaker 1: whole big story about how they get there, and then
Speaker 1: the story is about them in Dublin as like growing
Speaker 1: women and everything it happens, the new friends they make,
Speaker 1: the big love stories that they have, these group of
Speaker 1: people they make. There's this huge kind of scandal that
Speaker 1: happens towards the end of the book, which I'm just like,
Speaker 1: if any friendship group has had a scandal, it's this. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I only threw the book across the room when it happened.
Speaker 1: I was like, made Binchi, you did not go there.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And it's just such a lovely, comforting book. And also
Speaker 1: just the detail of May Binchi's writing is why it's
Speaker 1: chocolate because she describes you know, those authors can just
Speaker 1: like keep you enamored by describing the room and what
Speaker 1: everyone's wearing, and like the dresses that they have made
Speaker 1: for this first big college ball they go to and
Speaker 1: the first time that one of them dances with the
Speaker 1: hottest guy and starts dating him, and like the food,
Speaker 1: the hot chips they get at the pub before they
Speaker 1: jump on the train to go out to Brain you know,
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. So yeah, the oldimate chocolate books.
Speaker 1: So if you haven't read any of Mee Binchi's books,
Speaker 1: Holy Hell, because also, like I said, they're scandalous, some
Speaker 1: of them found like scandal light. But if you love
Speaker 1: a book that's just about like normal people who go
Speaker 1: through an intense situation, that's what a lot of her
Speaker 1: books are about. So read Circle of Friends. That's your
Speaker 1: holiday reading. Read Circle of Friends by've made Binchi. Then
Speaker 1: read The Glass Lake, Holy Hell, that's a page turner,
Speaker 1: and then read Evening Class. They're my top three for.
Speaker 3: He Okay, we've got a little list, so much time
Speaker 3: to do, so thank you so much for listening to
Speaker 3: the Spill today. We hope you really loved the This
Speaker 3: Book special episode because we love reading so much and
Speaker 3: we definitely want to recommend more books next year. And
Speaker 3: if you want a more deep analysis of the vodka
Speaker 3: chocolate vegetable theory, LB has done an extremely viral article
Speaker 3: on it that explained everything for you, so you can
Speaker 3: have it as like your little prep doc while you
Speaker 3: go before you choose your books. We will link that
Speaker 3: article in our show notes. We're also gonna keep being
Speaker 3: in your ears till we get back on break which
Speaker 3: I guess is not even a break if we're saying
Speaker 3: that we have so much content coming out, don't we Yes.
Speaker 1: So this it might be our last day in the office,
Speaker 1: but we have so much new content for you guys
Speaker 1: coming out over the summer break, some of our best episodes.
Speaker 3: We've had so much fun with these episodes.
Speaker 1: We're going through celebrity scandals with celebrity breakups, but also
Speaker 1: we're going through the best new TV shows of the summer.
Speaker 1: So we'll have so many recommendations coming for you guys.
Speaker 1: We're doing best new movies, we're doing books. Just so
Speaker 1: much good stuff coming out. I know, I've got so
Speaker 1: many little like funny things that I took during some
Speaker 1: of our recordings, and I'm going to post when the
Speaker 1: EP's come out, and I'm really excited about.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm excited. So we will be back here in
Speaker 3: your podcast feed on Monday. See you they bye.