And now, the second podcast you’ve all (hopefully) been waiting for! This week, the demographically similar Jennys are here to update you on Claire Messud, report on an author event attended by Whiskey Jenny, review Daniel Wallace’s The Kings and Queens of Roam, and answer your mail! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go.
Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We will appreciate it very very much).
If you want to skip around, here are the contents of the podcast:
1:30: I provide an update on why the question Claire Messud was asked in the Publishers Weekly interview (discussed in our last podcast) was even more annoying than it appeared at first glance.
3:05: Whiskey Jenny went to a reading with Sarah Dessen and several other YA authors, and she reports back to us on how that went and what was said.
8:32: We poke fun at ourselves for saying “lovely” and “charming” too much. We’re sorry. We’re trying to cut back.
8:38: We review Daniel Wallace’s new book The Kings and Queens of Roam (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository). There are some spoilers in this review, which we do flag before we go ahead with them, but just so you’ll be warned, I’ll give you the time signatures. Spoilers occur between 12:42 and 13:55.
16:51 – I explain why, contrary to what you probably learned in history class, Thomas a Becket was kind of a jerk and needed to be stopped. Not with death. But maybe with defrocking? He really was being a prat. If I were Henry II I would have been frustrated too. You can skip this. It’s not that relevant to the review of The Kings and Queens of Roam (it’s a smidge relevant but that’s it). I just needed to get the truth out there. The play that I’m quoting from is Christopher Fry’s wonderful Curtmantle (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository).
18:41 – Our review of The Kings and Queens of Roam continues.
22:40 – WE PLAY A GAME. In case this is unclear, the answers are being revealed to us as we go along by our producer, who speaks in my ear. Next time, to make it a little more fair, we’re going to have Captain Hammer read the quiz, and that way we’ll both be hearing the questions at the same time. Also it will make more sense for you, our listeners.
27:39 – In the course of the game, I make a super dumb mistake. Please try not to judge me. I wanted to cut this bit out, but Captain Hammer thought it was funny. In the end I decided it would be humbling and thus improving to my character to leave it in.
29:28 – The correct pronunciation of the guy’s last name is CHAY-peck. So now we all know.
29:51 – Non-Imaginary Listener Mail! If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please send them to us at readingtheend (at) gmail (dot) com.
30:35 – During our responses to one piece of Listener Mail, I mention Patton Oswalt’s filibuster on Parks and Recreation. Believe me when I say that it is worth watching in its entirety, and not just because it gives you a sense of how to talk about books at parties in a way that will make people back away from you slowly.
35:24 – Closing remarks, new book recommendation by Whiskey Jenny, and outro.
As a reminder, the next book we’ll be discussing will be Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s wonderful Americanah. If you would like to read along with us and send us your two cents for the next podcast, we’d be delighted to hear your thoughts!
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: andreybl / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
Song is by Jeff MacDougall and comes from here.
The above links to books we’ve discussed are affiliate links. If you click on them and then buy a book from that website, I get a very small amount of money. This in no way influences my reviews.