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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just

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Speaker 2: once answers.

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Speaker 1: Now today I'm a Happy Families podcast. We're letting go

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Speaker 1: of parenting. Well, I think we are letting go of

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Speaker 1: parenting and just focusing on us for a minute. It's

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Speaker 1: the book club podcast where Kylie and I talk about

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Speaker 1: the things that we've been reading, what we've loved, what

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Speaker 1: we haven't. It's unfiltered. I always feel a little bit

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Speaker 1: guilty about this because when I talk badly about a book,

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Speaker 1: I just know how hard it is to write a book.

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Speaker 1: I'm currently slowly dying over the book that I'm writing,

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Speaker 1: and I would just be so devastated if somebody said, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I didn't like it, wasn't that good? And yet that's

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Speaker 1: the whole idea right. Book club gives you an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to talk about the stuff that you're reading. Kylie. You

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Speaker 1: you usually give me a hard time because I have

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Speaker 1: approximately eight to fifteen books each time we do this.

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Speaker 1: I don't have so many this time, but you, on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, have four, So you're up. What have

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Speaker 1: you got for us?

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Speaker 2: Well, I've had to make up because I haven't been

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Speaker 2: doing a lot of reading lately, and the last few

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Speaker 2: times I've cheated a little bit because I've had to

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Speaker 2: use homeschool reads to even have a contribution.

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Speaker 1: Je I know. Hey, speaking of homeschool reads, I've just

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Speaker 1: picked up Lord of the Flies. I'm not talking about

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Speaker 1: it today because I'm only forty pages in, but it's

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Speaker 1: an exceptionally good book I hated at high school, but

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Speaker 1: my goodness, I'm loving it anyway. So have you got

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Speaker 1: homeschool reads for us again?

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Speaker 2: No, I don't. In my list of four, I actually

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Speaker 2: have two that you've already spoken about on the podcast,

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Speaker 2: so I'm actually just going to kind of just briefly

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Speaker 2: mention them.

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Speaker 1: So these are books that I read, These are books

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Speaker 1: that you read.

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Speaker 2: I started to pick up based on your recommendation. I

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Speaker 2: thought i'd give them a go.

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Speaker 1: Here we go.

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Speaker 2: What was So? The first one was The Measure by

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Speaker 2: Niki Erlick.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love this book.

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Speaker 2: So this was a really provocative read. It was actually

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Speaker 2: first published in twenty twenty two, so I wonder if

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Speaker 2: COVID and the pandemic worldwide pandemic actually had anything to

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Speaker 2: do with influencing the storyline way she wrote it.

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Speaker 1: The short part of the plot here is that everybody

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Speaker 1: wakes up one morning and there's a box on their

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Speaker 1: doorstep with a piece of string inside it, and the

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Speaker 1: string shows you the measure of your life, how long

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Speaker 1: essentially you're going to live. And then people start to

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Speaker 1: live their lives accordingly, and there's this polarization around how

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Speaker 1: people respond to people with short strings versus long strings,

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Speaker 1: and who should get what government benefits, and it's just

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Speaker 1: a fascinating I loved it, great original thought experiment.

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Speaker 2: Well, it also kind of looked into how different countries

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Speaker 2: handled it and the impact that it had on individuals

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Speaker 2: and collectively as a country. It looked at different families

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Speaker 2: and different couples, like how they coped with it and

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Speaker 2: dealt with it. Firstly, I actually found it a really

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Speaker 2: hard read. I found it really hard to get into it.

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Speaker 2: You're following eight different characters, and so it's one of

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Speaker 2: those books where each chapter is written from a different

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Speaker 2: characters perspective. I had never read a book with so

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Speaker 2: many characters to try and follow, So I'm going to

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Speaker 2: put it down to the fact that I had very

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Speaker 2: limited headspace as well, because by the time I got

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Speaker 2: to the last one hundred pages, I couldn't put it down,

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Speaker 2: and I think that things were starting to pick up

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Speaker 2: for me in my own personal life. But the one

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Speaker 2: down for me is there is actually a huge amount

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Speaker 2: of swearing. So if you're not someone who actually enjoys

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Speaker 2: that kind of writing, hopefully you've got someone who's a

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Speaker 2: sense of a reader as you are and has gone

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Speaker 2: through it and scrubbed out all of the bad words

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Speaker 2: for you. Thankshn, That made it much easier to die

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Speaker 2: jet out. But I think ultimately, like I said, very provocative,

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Speaker 2: there were so many opportunities to kind of just think

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Speaker 2: through how you would deal with this, and like I said,

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Speaker 2: for me, it kind of really highlighted some of the

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Speaker 2: challenges that we'd experienced as a community with COVID and

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Speaker 2: the different ways even just within our own country, different

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Speaker 2: states dealt with things, and the impact moving forward that

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Speaker 2: that has created different families, individuals and communities as a whole.

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Speaker 2: So the big question, Honey, is would you open your box?

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Speaker 1: I asked you the same question on the podcast ages ago,

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Speaker 1: and I don't remember what you said, but I said no,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to know. I want to live my

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Speaker 1: life without that, without the reassure. I just know. The

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Speaker 1: short answer is no, I wouldn't want to know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: have you read the book and How to Change Your Heart?

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Speaker 1: What do you think?

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Speaker 2: No, No, not at all. I just think because most

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Speaker 2: people were opening their boxes, I probably would have just

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Speaker 2: done it without even really thinking about it. It wouldn't

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Speaker 2: have been in the beginning for me, I don't think

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Speaker 2: it would have been a huge big deal. But obviously

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Speaker 2: the longer people chose not to open it, the bigger

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Speaker 2: it actually became. So for me, ultimately, it's really a

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Speaker 2: story about how do you measure a life? And I

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Speaker 2: know it sounds a little bit cliche, but that whole

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Speaker 2: idea of do you measure a life in the years

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Speaker 2: lived or the way you choose to live your life?

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Speaker 2: Like I really just ultimately, if you know you've only

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Speaker 2: got a handful of days or a handful of months

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Speaker 2: or or whatever, does that impact the way you choose

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Speaker 2: to spend your time and who you choose to spend

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Speaker 2: it with. And I was just I thought there was

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Speaker 2: definitely some really great opportunities for introspective thinking about how

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Speaker 2: you choose to live your life and how you choose

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Speaker 2: to use the time that you've been gifted.

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Speaker 1: What did you give it have five?

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Speaker 2: Four?

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Speaker 1: Okay, I go four. I'm five all the way. I

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Speaker 1: loved it. I thought it was a great book. What's

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Speaker 1: your second one?

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Speaker 2: Well, I picked up a Nicholas Spark's book at the

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Speaker 2: book co op second hand.

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Speaker 1: I'm laughing at that.

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Speaker 2: Go on. It's called The Rescue.

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Speaker 1: It sounds great.

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Speaker 2: And I'm just gonna put out that I really love

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Speaker 2: a good romance. Yes, And after having read the Measure

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Speaker 2: and really working hard to get through it, I knew

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Speaker 2: that I just needed something really easy, light, and something

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Speaker 2: that would kind of just allow me to keep flowing.

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Speaker 2: So this was a really easy Yes. It was actually

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Speaker 2: really really again a thoughtful story. A firefighter with the

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Speaker 2: tragic pass and he finds himself compelled to save people

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Speaker 2: from his fate.

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Speaker 1: Sounds original, sounds sounds you're so harsh, I know, all right.

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Speaker 1: I kind of just want to find out what you

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Speaker 1: gave it out of five so we can move on

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Speaker 1: to another.

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Speaker 2: It was everything you expect from Nicholas part that's my point,

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Speaker 2: and I would give it a three and a half.

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Speaker 2: That's easy read.

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Speaker 1: You've got two more and we're really tight on top.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm not going to talk too much about Troubled

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Speaker 2: by Rob Henderson. Again another book that you read, very

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Speaker 2: different style to what I would normally pick up.

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Speaker 1: Just before you go on Trouble by Rob Henderson five

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Speaker 1: out of five, ten out of ten one of the

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Speaker 1: just a brilliant memoir. From my perspective. Did you agree

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Speaker 1: or disagree? No?

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Speaker 2: I thought it was a really really good book. I

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Speaker 2: loved it until the last handful of chapters where he

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Speaker 2: goes all psychology, well.

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Speaker 1: Gone, all ivy league. He's a big shot PhD psychology

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Speaker 1: guy in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, up until that point, he had me completely hooked

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Speaker 2: and then he lost me. Right, Okay, so I probably

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Speaker 2: I almost didn't finish the book wow, because I just

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Speaker 2: he just it's gone from a memoir now to you know,

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Speaker 2: a full on science textbook.

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Speaker 1: I didn't think that it was that hard, but but

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Speaker 1: then again, I've got a PhD in psychology. Are you

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Speaker 1: glad you read that? I read it, though? Was it

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Speaker 1: worth pushing through the end?

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Speaker 2: I think it's really important for us to see people's

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Speaker 2: lives from different perspectives and to delve into different ways

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Speaker 2: of living. This was so like, so outside the box

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Speaker 2: of anything that I've personally experienced in my life and

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Speaker 2: so tragic in so many ways. And it kind of

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Speaker 2: had me thinking because we have associated with different people

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Speaker 2: who've either been foster cares or kids who've lived in

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Speaker 2: foster homes with friends with our children, and just watching

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Speaker 2: it from afar, not really understanding why certain decisions are

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Speaker 2: made and why it just seems so transient, right when

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Speaker 2: there are families who are really happy to keep children

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Speaker 2: in their care for long times. And so he really

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Speaker 2: just kind of helped me see different the thought process

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Speaker 2: behind it. I don't agree with it necessarily, but just

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Speaker 2: the thought process behind why government organizations make the decisions

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Speaker 2: they do, but ultimately devastating.

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Speaker 1: It's a book that I read so highly. I'm so

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Speaker 1: glad that you read it and persistent with it. Really

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Speaker 1: really great stuff. Troubled Rob Henderson. Okay, fourth and final,

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Speaker 1: the last one.

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Speaker 2: For you is The Winter Dress. It's by Lauren Chater.

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Speaker 2: I actually loved this more fiction. It's actually a novel

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Speaker 2: written about a address that was found on a shipwreck

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Speaker 2: obviously deep under the sea, completely in tacked from the

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Speaker 2: seventeen hundreds, and how the historians went about trying to

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Speaker 2: find its original owner. And it was just a really

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Speaker 2: really cool story going through the process of I guess

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Speaker 2: that treasure hunt process of trying to piece together minute

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Speaker 2: details that would ultimately give you the big picture. And

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Speaker 2: I could see how people who are inclined in that

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Speaker 2: way could have so much fun, Like just real, it's

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Speaker 2: like going on a treasure hunt.

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Speaker 1: It's funny listening to you because you've read three fiction

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Speaker 1: and one nonfiction and memoir and I don't know why,

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Speaker 1: but I'm so automatically dismissive of fiction, and yet there's

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Speaker 1: so much there except for that Nicholas Sparks want to

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Speaker 1: call it, But I love here. What did you give

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Speaker 1: the windows dress? Out of them?

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Speaker 2: Look, I'm going to give it a five out of five.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: I actually loved this book. Wow, I really loved it

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Speaker 2: from start to finish. It was so well written.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting that, and.

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Speaker 2: It was such, like I said, just such a different

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Speaker 2: storyline so historically, you know, kind of sound had some

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Speaker 2: great relationship connections in there, which I enjoy. I really

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Speaker 2: enjoyed the mystery behind the piece and Howard ended up

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Speaker 2: there and how a lazy historian wants to just attack

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Speaker 2: it on to what would be the obvious answer, and

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Speaker 2: yet another kind of younger historian has decided that that

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Speaker 2: definitely doesn't fit the bill. There is more to the story.

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Speaker 1: A seventeen hundred textile mystery, The Winter Dress Lauren Chad

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Speaker 1: five out of five. Now you've spoken so long about

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Speaker 1: your four books that I've barely got any time for

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Speaker 1: my book club, Coylie, and that.

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Speaker 2: Well, have you got eight books?

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Speaker 1: No? No, I don't. And the reason for that is

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Speaker 1: because three of the books that I've read in the

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Speaker 1: last little while have had religious orientations, and I'm just

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Speaker 1: not going to talk about them. But I am going

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Speaker 1: to talk really quickly about two. I'm just going to three.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to mention three, but I'm going to do

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Speaker 1: it really fast. Okay, the first one is very quick

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Speaker 1: and easy to talk about. Every now and again a

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Speaker 1: memoir pops onto my shelf that I think, oh my goodness,

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Speaker 1: this is going to be incredible. So in this book,

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Speaker 1: I read two hundred pages of a two hundred and

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Speaker 1: eighty page book. This memoir is about a guy, Sandy Greenberg.

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Speaker 1: He's because of medical misfortune and poor choices, ends up

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Speaker 1: blind at the age of nineteen. He goes on to

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Speaker 1: live this incredible life. I mean an extraordinary, extraordinary life.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately the book was He may have had an amazing life,

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Speaker 1: but the autobiography was dull, and especially after reading some

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Speaker 1: of the autobiographies that I've read this year Jane ferguson

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Speaker 1: No Ordinary Assignment. We talked just before about Rob Henderson

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Speaker 1: and Troubled and some journalistic brilliance from people like Hannah Barnes.

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Speaker 1: With time to think, it just it was a bit

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Speaker 1: of a disappointment. I stopped reading, didn't even finish the book,

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Speaker 1: and I know that I was getting in to the

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Speaker 1: best bit, but I just keep going with it. So

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Speaker 1: that's the first one. It was called Hello Darkness, my

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Speaker 1: old Friend. And the reason it had that title is

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Speaker 1: because he was roommates at university with Garth Uncle. And

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Speaker 1: again there's this incredible opportunity to tell this amazing story.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he helped fund the beginning of Garfuncle's career

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Speaker 1: with Paul Simon. They sang Bridge over Troubled Waters and

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Speaker 1: Sounds of Silence and all that sort of stuff, and

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Speaker 1: it just wasn't there. It was lacking. Ah, there was

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Speaker 1: so much potential for I wanted to be so good.

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Speaker 2: Used that title, Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, walked away from it. The next book I want

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Speaker 1: to mention is called The ex pat Kylie was a novel.

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Speaker 1: I picked up a novel because I've been reading so

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Speaker 1: much heavy stuff.

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Speaker 2: Just like you give me a hard time, and it was.

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Speaker 1: A spy novel, do you know what. It was really fun,

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Speaker 1: it was easy to read. I'm going to give it

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Speaker 1: a four out of five. It was really fascinating to

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Speaker 1: consider the implications of corporate espionage. So this is a

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Speaker 1: book that's about Asian Americans being contacted by the Chinese

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Speaker 1: Communist government. These Asian Americans are working in some of

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Speaker 1: the biggest companies in the United States, and they're essentially

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Speaker 1: being asked to come back to China and bring all

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Speaker 1: of the corporate secrets from the big American companies with them.

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Speaker 1: It was really intriguing, like a really compelling and you

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Speaker 1: sort of think about spies with all the government secrets

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But when you look at what's going

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Speaker 1: on from a corporate perspective and a stock market perspective,

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Speaker 1: you can see how this is so compelling. I really

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Speaker 1: got into it. I really like it.

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Speaker 2: How do you decide you're going to be a spy?

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Speaker 1: Four out of five. I reckon I could have given

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Speaker 1: it more, but it was a novel, so it's going

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Speaker 1: to be pretty good novel to get more than four

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Speaker 1: out of five in my book, my five out of

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Speaker 1: five book for the last month or so, you had

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Speaker 1: one of those. Yeah, Yeah, this was an incredible book.

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Speaker 1: It was called The Weirdest People in the World by

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Speaker 1: a Harvard anthropologist.

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Speaker 2: You tell me this was so hard to get through.

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Speaker 1: For Joseph Henry it was extremely hard. Probably too Dan's

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Speaker 1: probably too long, and I'm still giving it five out

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Speaker 1: of five. Anyway, Weird, weirdest people in the World. Weird

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Speaker 1: stands for Western educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. And what

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Speaker 1: he's basically done is he's picked up where Guns Germs

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Speaker 1: and Still left off.

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Speaker 2: No.

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Speaker 1: Jared Diamond wrote Guns, Germs and Steel, which I think

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Speaker 1: is one of the most important books that I've ever written.

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Speaker 1: It's incredible, ever read. Did I say I've ever written?

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Speaker 1: I wish I'd written that that I've ever read, powerful, profound,

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Speaker 1: and it traces the history of why nations have succeeded

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Speaker 1: or failed. And you know what Guns Germs and Steel

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Speaker 1: did is it turns the narrative that we get in

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Speaker 1: our schools the stuff that our kids are being taught about,

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Speaker 1: the history of the world, history of civilization's, history of cultures.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's really politically incorrect, but the evidence that

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Speaker 1: he it turns it all on its head and it's brilliant. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: This one picks up from where he left off, and

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Speaker 1: Joseph Heinrich looks at essentially the psychological changes that have

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Speaker 1: happened in the last couple of thousand years as civilization

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Speaker 1: did what Jared Diamond talked about in Guns, Germs and

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Speaker 1: Steel and why We are So Weird? He really highlights

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Speaker 1: it if we live in a Western educated, industrialized, rich

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Speaker 1: democratic nation, that we are the weird ones compared with

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Speaker 1: the rest of the history of the world and the

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Speaker 1: rest of the cultures that even exist now, we are

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Speaker 1: so weird in our psychology compared to what the world

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Speaker 1: has always been. It's just extraordinary. It's really, really, really

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Speaker 1: hard to read because it is so detailed. It's extremely serious.

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Speaker 1: It's a really heavy read, nothing easy about it, but

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Speaker 1: worth the slog, absolutely worth it. And again it has

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Speaker 1: further revolutionized my understanding of how the world is how

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Speaker 1: it is, and it also makes me more and more

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Speaker 1: infuriated when I look at some of the things that

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Speaker 1: people say on social media, or some of the things

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Speaker 1: that the mainstream media will say, our journalists will say,

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Speaker 1: or some of the things that are taught in our schools.

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Speaker 1: Because this is not some guy with an agenda. This

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Speaker 1: is deep, real research. It's evidence based research. It's not

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Speaker 1: just some speculation. And I loved it. The Weirdest People

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Speaker 1: in the World five out of five amazing book. It

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Speaker 1: is our book club for today. Thank you Kylie for

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Speaker 1: sharing your four books, including The Measure, Rob Henderson, The

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Speaker 1: Winter Dress, and what.

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Speaker 2: Was that of the one the Rescue?

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Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, the Nicholas whatever his name is, Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: and my ones will link to them in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: We've got The Expat by Hanson, she We've got.

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Speaker 2: You know what.

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Speaker 1: We won't even link to Sandy Greenberg, which just wann't

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Speaker 1: that great, but we will definitely link to The Weirdest

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Speaker 1: People in the World by Joseph Henrik. Hopefully there's some

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Speaker 1: inspo there for we to dive into and read as

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Speaker 1: we move towards I don't know, the end of the year,

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Speaker 1: something for Christmas Stocking, maybe The Happy Family. His podcast

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Speaker 1: is produced by Justin Ruhland from Bridge Media. For more

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Speaker 1: information about the stuff we've talked about, check the show notes. Otherwise,

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Speaker 1: visit us at our Facebook page, Doctor Justin Colson's Happy

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Speaker 1: Families