EP46: Violence in Aruba and Literary Romance

Live from the Book Shop: John Updike's Ghost

This week, Sam's in Aruba, and despite trying to bring fun and light fare on vacation, he has been unable to break his string of very violent reads, starting with "Recursion," by Blake Crouch, where everyone dies a lot, and which is a lot like "Edge of Tomorrow," a Tom Cruise movie Sam and Hannah both like. Somehow, this triggers a discussion of Sam's in-development sci-fi novel. Then Hannah starts talking about Emma Cline's "The Guest" for no good reason; Cline's a hot new writer and Hannah liked "The Girls," her last novel. Nothing really happens, but it's good. And it leads to a discussion of Sam's issues with "The House in the Cerulean Sea," even though he's not done with it. This leads to a discussion of what exactly a "big gay blanket" is, as a seque into "Lush Lives," by J Vanessa Lyon, the first Roxanne Gay-imprint book (which Hannah sort of forgot she'd talked about before). This causes Sam to remind her that people can have sex without anything being funny about it and be reminded of "Warrior Girl Unearthed." Also not really funny, and definitely violent, is "Essex Dogs," the new historical fiction from history podcaster Dan Jones, which Sam took out of the library. The war reference reminds Hannah of "Thin Skin," the new book of anti-capitalist essays from Jenn Shapland, which sounds awesome, and Sam has researched that these essays are original to the collection and not for anyone else (per instructions).