Show Notes
Welcome back to Book Chat, a new monthly books podcast brought to you by novelist Bobby Palmer and journalist Pandora Sykes, which does what it says on the tin: we each bring one book, and we chat. Our one rule? The books have to be more than 2 years old. NB: this is a meaty book chat, not a book review show, so if you have not yet read the books, there will be spoilers.
For our second episode, Pandora brings White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000) and Bobby, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (2016, trans. 2019). Both books were huge bestsellers and launched each woman as a "literary sensation". We discuss this tag as well as the books themselves: our favourite bits, how they've aged, and what we'd change.
Other books/ articles mentioned: Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald Darling by India Knight On Beauty, NW, Intimations, Swing Time and Grand Union by Zadie Smith Life Ceremony and Earthlings by Sayaka Murata The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer White Teeth seemed fresh and optimistic in 2000 - how does it read now? by Sam Jordison for The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/jul/14/white-teeth-2000-how-does-it-read-now-zadie-smith Generation Why? by Zadie Smith for The New York Review of Books https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/11/25/generation-why/ In Defence of Fiction, by Zadie Smith for The New York Review of Books https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/zadie-smith-in-defense-of-fiction/ Zadie Smith interview: On Shame, Rage and Writing, for the Louisiana channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LREBOwjrrw For Japanese novelist Sayaka Murata, odd is the new normal, by Motoko Rich for The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/books/japanese-novelist-sayaka-murata-convenience-store-woman.html The future of sex lives in us all, by Sayaka Murata for The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/future-sex-society.html A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham Darling by India Knight Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson White Noise by Don DeLillo My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh Luster by Raven Leilani The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen On Beauty, NW, Intimations, Swing Time and Grand Union by Zadie Smith Earthlings and Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata
You can get in touch [email protected].
Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Book Chat
A bittersweet episode of Book Chat has Pandora and Bobby discussing two fittingly bittersweet books: Stoner by John Williams and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Also, “some news”, a hearty goodbye, and a look back on some of our Book Chat faves from episodes past.
We bring two books both published in 1970 to the table. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by “the poet laureate of puberty” Judy Blume, and The Bluest Eye, by the legendary Toni Morrison.
After last month’s crowd-pleasers, Bobby and Pandora sink their teeth into two very different, equally meaty books. In Augustown by Kei Miller, a “dismal little valley” in Jamaica becomes a boiling pot of tension when a young boy’s dreadlocks are cut off. And in Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, the boiling pots are a little more literal – and Pandora shares an all-timer of a kitchen horror story.
It’s a bumper episode 8, with Pandora and Bobby tackling two million-copy-bestselling, much-loved-movie-inspiring titans of the nineties. In Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding, Pandora finds a surprisingly feminist heroine who’s no less funny 25 years on. And in Nick Hornby’s beloved High Fidelity, Bobby meets his match in a perpetually depressed man-boy who needs to love himself before anyone else can love him back.
Book Chat is back, and episode 7 pits a Pulitzer-winning author against a Nobel-winning author. But not really: in the battle of the Annies whose name ends in ‘X’, both Bobby and Pandora are winners. Discussing Close Range by Annie Proulx, Bobby feels the need to make apologies for the unapologetic bleakness of rural Wyoming – while Pandora is transported back to the excruciating experience of Catholic boarding school girlhood in Annie Ernaux’s A Girl’s Story.