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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at B.

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Speaker 2: Twenty to twelve. It is this time every Saturday morning

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Speaker 2: that our book reviewer Katherine Rain comes and give us

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Speaker 2: gives us her two top picks for the week, and

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Speaker 2: she's here this morning, calder Catherine warning Jack, Well, let's

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Speaker 2: begin with Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins.

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Speaker 1: Read.

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Speaker 3: So, this is the type of the book where you

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Speaker 3: start almost at the end and you work your way

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Speaker 3: back from that point from the past. And so you

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Speaker 3: had to begin in the late seventies and early eighties,

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Speaker 3: and you meet this woman, Joan Goodwin, who's an astronomy

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Speaker 3: professor at Rice University, and she has this lifelong fascination

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Speaker 3: with the stars, and she ends up applying for NASA's

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Speaker 3: Space Shuttle program as they begin accepting woman candidates, and

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Speaker 3: so through her eyes you see the training and the

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Speaker 3: interaction with the fellow candidates, Sam Houston, and she sees

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Speaker 3: this divide very early on between the nerds really and

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Speaker 3: the soldiers and those with their military backgrounds, particularly the pilots.

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Speaker 3: And you learn a lot about mission control and the

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Speaker 3: mechanics of spaceflight. And while the author gives a lot

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Speaker 3: of attention to those technical aspects of space, it's the

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Speaker 3: human stories that unfold alongside it, and their professional ambitions

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Speaker 3: alongside their personal struggles. And you see Joan's journey from

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Speaker 3: this very reserved academic to this passionate astronaut and hits

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Speaker 3: her relationship with her niece, in particular Francis, that is

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Speaker 3: really touching and wonderful. And then there's this dynamic where

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Speaker 3: Joan forges some unlikely friendships and this very unexpected romance

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Speaker 3: with a fellow astronaut candidate, Vanessa Ford, and that challenges

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Speaker 3: everything she thought she knew about her play, herself, in

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Speaker 3: her place in the universe, and that portrayal of NASA

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Speaker 3: and the eighties feels really authentic and well researched, and

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Speaker 3: you know, she addresses discrimination and the challenges faced by

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Speaker 3: women in the space program and celebrates their achievements as well.

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Speaker 3: And the book's incredibly well thought out and constructed, and

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Speaker 3: you dip into the past and the present and you

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Speaker 3: see that will through Joan and Vanessa's eyes, and it's

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Speaker 3: really captivating, really human focused, and really attached to the

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Speaker 3: story and the characters and about that humanity and relationship

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Speaker 3: and emotions and it felt really real. It's really well timed.

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Speaker 2: So it's a novel, I mean this is yes, absolutely right.

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Speaker 2: So it's a novel that's kind of set against the

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Speaker 2: backdrop of the of the Space Program in the eighties. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: sounds intriguing, Okay, cool. So that's Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins

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Speaker 2: reader tailor Jinks readers like New York Times number one

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Speaker 2: best seller three times over or whatever. So you're not

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Speaker 2: surprised to hear that it's so well constructed, but that

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Speaker 2: does sound really good. Next up, finally, a sequel to

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Speaker 2: chochol Art, tell Us About v arm by Joanne Harris.

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Speaker 3: So, twenty five years ago, believe it or not, Joane

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Speaker 3: Harris introduced the world of Avian and her magical skills

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Speaker 3: at creating chokola, at creating chocolate and weaving herself into

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Speaker 3: the lives of others by trying to break harmony into

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Speaker 3: their lives and her book Chocolate And now, twenty five

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Speaker 3: years later week she had a prequel, So this is

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Speaker 3: her life before chokoal Art, and it's really magical and

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Speaker 3: moving and about love and trade and friendship. So you

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Speaker 3: meet her as Sylvany when she's only twenty and pregnant

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Speaker 3: and finds herself in the city out of Marseilles after

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Speaker 3: scattering her mother's ashes in the Hudson Bay in New York,

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Speaker 3: and she starts working in the small cafe, and she's

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Speaker 3: taught to cook the recipes from Lewis's late wife's cookbook,

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Speaker 3: and there's a real enchantment about it, and she starts

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Speaker 3: to put together the pieces of his life, and she

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Speaker 3: meet some locals in the cafe, Guys Came. There's two

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Speaker 3: people called Guy and Mahama who make chocolate, and they

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Speaker 3: teach her their skills, and that's where she really finds

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Speaker 3: her love for cooking and reinvents herself as Vivian, and

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Speaker 3: that wonders of chocolate and its magic really mesmerizes her.

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Speaker 3: But she's really fearful of her mother's reluctance of settling

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Speaker 3: down in one place, and so she takes off without warning,

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Speaker 3: leaving her friends quite distraught. And there's a real mystical

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Speaker 3: element running through the book. There's tarot cards and rituals

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Speaker 3: and her ability to see and read people's colors and

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Speaker 3: understand them so queer clearly. But the writing feels really

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Speaker 3: kind of authentic and mesmerizing, and you almost feel like

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Speaker 3: you're in Marseille in the summer breeze, and you can

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Speaker 3: smell the pretzels and the beer in New York and

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Speaker 3: the fresh herbs and garlic cooking and shast. The recipes are,

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Speaker 3: you know, like if you're kind of a bit of

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Speaker 3: a food fanatic. This is also because you feel immersed

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Speaker 3: in that world. And it's a perfect book for escapism.

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Speaker 3: And it's a brilliant prequel to the whole Chocolar story.

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Speaker 2: Ah sounds so good, fantastic. That is VR by Joanne Harris.

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Speaker 2: Catherine's first book is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins. Read and

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Speaker 2: of course both of those will be on the website.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to Newstalks ed B from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio