EP43: Trans Men, Perimenopausal Women, and "Sally Rooney, but Funny"

Live from the Book Shop: John Updike's Ghost

The customers are cranking through the Shop at 9 a.m. on Monday morning as Hannah is literally live from the Book Shop (yay, mute button) and we are ready to crank through some books, starting first with "TransElectric," the revelatory musician memoir from Cidny Bullens, who used to be Cindy Bullens (and we talk about that), back-up singer to Elton John (we talk about "Me," as well) and so much more. Then comes a bunch of stuff about books that come out in September, including "Amazing Grace Adams" (let's hear it for perimenopausal women!) and the new Lauren Groff (it's miserable — in a good way! And it is based in Virginia, yes). This leads into a sidebar on why it's hard to handsell "Chain-Gang All-Stars," but we come up with a way to do it. Then Hannah tells us a story about someone buying 500 copies of TJ Newman's "Falling" from an indie bookstore as a way to talk about "Drowning," which is her new book, and a way to mildy apologize for slagging "Falling" last year — "shame on me; I'm not always right." Finally, we wrap up with the "laugh-out-loud" book, "The Rachel Incident," which comes out later this month and is like "Sally Rooney, but funny," and leads to the question, "Do British people like American swearing as much as I like British swearing?" Oh, and Sam doesn't like the National Book Award-winning "Let the Great World Spin."