Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you for modeling your evolution of understanding. I hope it gives other people permission to do the same.
I think maybe she'd talked about it in a spicy episode at the beginning of the summer. but we DO recognize that not everyone will share that opinion. Which is okay. We don't all have to agree on this.
I have many books going, and sometimes I just don’t finish all of them bc I am a grownup in her 40’s and reading time is precious….
but three of the books I am reading are definitely in conversation: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. Highly recommend all three.
What a group!! If you want to keep that vibe going for another round, I recommend reading The Overstory by Richard Powers (a great pairing for Braiding Sweetgrass) and Deficit: how feminist economics can change our world by Emma Holten (paired with Doughnut Economics).
I had to come here just to concur that “The River is Waiting” is THE WORST. I was so excited for new Wally Lamb but I hated absolutely everything about this novel. I stuck with it hoping it would eventually get better but it never did. Biggest reading disappointment of my summer by far!!
I wanted to share this conversation my congregation hosted between an Israeli and a Palestinian peace activist with the group Together Beyond Words about deep listening and what gets in the way of acknowledging others’ pain. “Pain that is not transformed is transmitted.” https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kCaLmeHx3jBYriq12qLFf?si=Cv5F2MHaTmSnfC6Vtb9L0w
Fall book rec: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Super cozy, witty, found family themes (House on the Cerulean Sea vibes). Loved every minute of it.
I too am waiting for Louise Penney’s latest Gamache with bated breath!
As an undergradiate, I took a course from one of my favorite professors on the literature of the Holocaust. At the end of many of the class sessions, he would tell us to go outside and sit under a tree and breathe the fresh air He taught this class during the spring term, and he said he would never teach it in the fall or winter when the days were dark or getting darker.
So it makes complete ense to me to take in the most difficult material in or near a pleasant setting. It keeps us grounded in the fact there is more in the world than the terrible things we are reading.
Fall book rec: Every fall I reread Big Stone Gap, the first of four books of Adriana Trigiani's series of the same name. Takes place in the small town of Stone Gap in western VA in the late 1970's and I love it. It starts out in early September.
Oh! I will have to add this to my list - I spent my high school years in SW Virginia and thinking about my time there always conjures memories of fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Thank you for this conversation and the care you took with it. I appreciate the way you both shared how your thinking about the situation has changed over the years of this war.
I want to share something that is based on some reporting that you referenced, but the fuller idea is not something that I've yet seen written or shared (although I have certainly only read a fraction of what is out there).
We know that Netanyahu certainly knew about the attack happening earlier than thought and did not react immediately, and that he has tried to destroy documents about this. And correct me if I am wrong, but he even had intelligence that it could happen days or weeks before it did and made no move to warn residents or put any specific plans in place.
I personally believe that this was Netanyahu's plan all along and this war has followed his playbook. I think he knew Hamas would attack eventually and may have even made subtle movements that increased its likelihood. I think he was waiting for an opportunity to destroy Gaza and destroy as many Palestinians as he could. I think the goal all along has been to reclaim all of Gaza and get rid of the residents there either through death or expulsion.
What happened on October 7th was devastating and horrible. And if a world leader used that massacre in a way that allowed it to happen to his own people for his own political gains is evil and unconscionable, and a crime not only against Palestinians, but against Israel and Israelis.
Fiction Fall: I agree that Beth will love Shark Heart. It is the most beautiful book and has stuck with me for nearly two years now. I recommend it so often.
My one caveat is that if you (Beth or anyone else) are wading through grief, be aware that it is largely a grief story in many ways. Not in a trigger warning way more in a “if you’re looking for escape not feeling things look elsewhere” way.
I recently read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It's about 20 years old, so you may have already encountered it. I loved this book, but I have no one to recommend it to except for the two of you and some subset of the people who listen to you. It is written from the perspective of an elderly Congregationalist minister in 1956. He's writing the history of his family, and he's also grappling with the return of his wayward godson, and he has a much younger wife and a 7 year old son. He's also grappling a lot with the fact that he won't see his son grow up. So the book is actually a letter to the son in a way. There's a lot of God talk in the book, which is why I can't recommend it to the women I normally read with. They'll think I'm trying to convert them. It reads very very slowly even though it's only 250 pages long, but I absolutely loved it. I think you might want to give it a try.
OK. This book has been on my list for a while, and I recently listened to an old podcast in which the host lists this on her favorite books of all time. I must get to it!
It won a whole slew of awards, including the Pulitzer, so it may be more universal than you think.
I also read Gilead this year and loved it as well!!! It’s one I think is definitely worth revisiting every few years. I’m almost done with the sequel Home, all about the godson Jack, his sister, and his father. It’s different in style/form but the same in that the plot is slow but certainly not boring. I’m loving it so far
Book recommendation: I’m not sure where I got the recommendation, so sorry if it was from you all but my favorite cozy read of the last year is “what you are looking for is in the library” by Michiko Aoyama
This was one of the first discussions of the Israel/Palestine conflict that didn't leave me feeling frustrated because I felt like you did it with such care and compassion for both sides, without both sidesing it (which sounds contradictory, I know). I feel like whenever Democratic politicians talk about this conflict, it has always been very heavy-handed in their need to express their support for Israel's right to exist, so the expression of wanting a ceasefire always rang hollow. You both did a great job in being measured while still finding sincere compassion for both sides.
Book recommendation “These Heathens” Forest Gump but instead of a white man, a young Black woman in 1960 Atlanta meeting everyone in Civil Rights Movement and learning so much about what she wants in life. It was an ignore my family and stay up way to late fun book to read.
Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you for modeling your evolution of understanding. I hope it gives other people permission to do the same.
I recommend the comedy series Mo on Netflix. It’s a beautiful reflection of Texas, and an education on US immigration and the Palestinian community.
Also the fall book recs are great. 🍂
Um, was no one else shocked by Sarah just casually saying James is "a bad book"?!?
I think maybe she'd talked about it in a spicy episode at the beginning of the summer. but we DO recognize that not everyone will share that opinion. Which is okay. We don't all have to agree on this.
She also reviewed it in her By Plane or By Page Substack: https://stewartholland.substack.com/p/memoirs-i-loved-and-a-pulitzer-i
I have many books going, and sometimes I just don’t finish all of them bc I am a grownup in her 40’s and reading time is precious….
but three of the books I am reading are definitely in conversation: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. Highly recommend all three.
What a group!! If you want to keep that vibe going for another round, I recommend reading The Overstory by Richard Powers (a great pairing for Braiding Sweetgrass) and Deficit: how feminist economics can change our world by Emma Holten (paired with Doughnut Economics).
I had to come here just to concur that “The River is Waiting” is THE WORST. I was so excited for new Wally Lamb but I hated absolutely everything about this novel. I stuck with it hoping it would eventually get better but it never did. Biggest reading disappointment of my summer by far!!
I wanted to share this conversation my congregation hosted between an Israeli and a Palestinian peace activist with the group Together Beyond Words about deep listening and what gets in the way of acknowledging others’ pain. “Pain that is not transformed is transmitted.” https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kCaLmeHx3jBYriq12qLFf?si=Cv5F2MHaTmSnfC6Vtb9L0w
Fall book rec: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Super cozy, witty, found family themes (House on the Cerulean Sea vibes). Loved every minute of it.
I too am waiting for Louise Penney’s latest Gamache with bated breath!
This was a very cute book and I think there is another book by the author out (the name is escaping me but it is similar)
Yes!! Such a good fall read!!!
Re: Reading about Epstein next to the pool.
As an undergradiate, I took a course from one of my favorite professors on the literature of the Holocaust. At the end of many of the class sessions, he would tell us to go outside and sit under a tree and breathe the fresh air He taught this class during the spring term, and he said he would never teach it in the fall or winter when the days were dark or getting darker.
So it makes complete ense to me to take in the most difficult material in or near a pleasant setting. It keeps us grounded in the fact there is more in the world than the terrible things we are reading.
Fall book rec: Every fall I reread Big Stone Gap, the first of four books of Adriana Trigiani's series of the same name. Takes place in the small town of Stone Gap in western VA in the late 1970's and I love it. It starts out in early September.
Oh! I will have to add this to my list - I spent my high school years in SW Virginia and thinking about my time there always conjures memories of fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Thank you for this conversation and the care you took with it. I appreciate the way you both shared how your thinking about the situation has changed over the years of this war.
I want to share something that is based on some reporting that you referenced, but the fuller idea is not something that I've yet seen written or shared (although I have certainly only read a fraction of what is out there).
We know that Netanyahu certainly knew about the attack happening earlier than thought and did not react immediately, and that he has tried to destroy documents about this. And correct me if I am wrong, but he even had intelligence that it could happen days or weeks before it did and made no move to warn residents or put any specific plans in place.
I personally believe that this was Netanyahu's plan all along and this war has followed his playbook. I think he knew Hamas would attack eventually and may have even made subtle movements that increased its likelihood. I think he was waiting for an opportunity to destroy Gaza and destroy as many Palestinians as he could. I think the goal all along has been to reclaim all of Gaza and get rid of the residents there either through death or expulsion.
What happened on October 7th was devastating and horrible. And if a world leader used that massacre in a way that allowed it to happen to his own people for his own political gains is evil and unconscionable, and a crime not only against Palestinians, but against Israel and Israelis.
Does Wally Lamb write anything but tragedy porn?! Unpopular opinion but that is exactly how “She’s Come Undone” felt to me!
Thank you thank you thank you! I have felt this way for years! I hated that book. Absolutely hated it.
Fiction Fall: I agree that Beth will love Shark Heart. It is the most beautiful book and has stuck with me for nearly two years now. I recommend it so often.
My one caveat is that if you (Beth or anyone else) are wading through grief, be aware that it is largely a grief story in many ways. Not in a trigger warning way more in a “if you’re looking for escape not feeling things look elsewhere” way.
I recently read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It's about 20 years old, so you may have already encountered it. I loved this book, but I have no one to recommend it to except for the two of you and some subset of the people who listen to you. It is written from the perspective of an elderly Congregationalist minister in 1956. He's writing the history of his family, and he's also grappling with the return of his wayward godson, and he has a much younger wife and a 7 year old son. He's also grappling a lot with the fact that he won't see his son grow up. So the book is actually a letter to the son in a way. There's a lot of God talk in the book, which is why I can't recommend it to the women I normally read with. They'll think I'm trying to convert them. It reads very very slowly even though it's only 250 pages long, but I absolutely loved it. I think you might want to give it a try.
OK. This book has been on my list for a while, and I recently listened to an old podcast in which the host lists this on her favorite books of all time. I must get to it!
It won a whole slew of awards, including the Pulitzer, so it may be more universal than you think.
I also read Gilead this year and loved it as well!!! It’s one I think is definitely worth revisiting every few years. I’m almost done with the sequel Home, all about the godson Jack, his sister, and his father. It’s different in style/form but the same in that the plot is slow but certainly not boring. I’m loving it so far
Gilead, in many ways, changed my life. Read her entire series in this universe. Then go read Wendell Berry's Port William books and be transformed.
Book recommendation: I’m not sure where I got the recommendation, so sorry if it was from you all but my favorite cozy read of the last year is “what you are looking for is in the library” by Michiko Aoyama
Loved that book! And it is a series of vignettes, so you don't need to read it quickly.
This was one of the first discussions of the Israel/Palestine conflict that didn't leave me feeling frustrated because I felt like you did it with such care and compassion for both sides, without both sidesing it (which sounds contradictory, I know). I feel like whenever Democratic politicians talk about this conflict, it has always been very heavy-handed in their need to express their support for Israel's right to exist, so the expression of wanting a ceasefire always rang hollow. You both did a great job in being measured while still finding sincere compassion for both sides.
Book recommendation “These Heathens” Forest Gump but instead of a white man, a young Black woman in 1960 Atlanta meeting everyone in Civil Rights Movement and learning so much about what she wants in life. It was an ignore my family and stay up way to late fun book to read.