What to Read Fall 2024

Book blogger Susan Matheson stops by the podcast to share her top picks for the fall season.

Books discussed:

Apeirogon by Colum McCann

The Trade Off by Samantha Green Woodruff

Absolution by Alice McDermott

Time of the Child by Niall Williams

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen

Big in Sweden by Sally Franson

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Transcript

Amy Mair: 0:20

Amy, hello, welcome back to the red firm book review. I am your host, Amy Tyler, and today we are talking with book blogger Susan Matheson, and you might recognize her name. She comes on about twice a year and talks about what to read for the season. So today she's here to talk about what to read this fall. But before we get to Susan, I wanted to talk with you about an exciting new feature on my podcast, and that is fan mail. So if you go on my episode, it doesn't matter which platform you're using, Spotify or Buzz sprout or Apple podcast, if you go down into the show notes, you'll see a line right before the text, the majority of the text that says, Send me a text, and so if you click on that, you can send me fan mail. And I just received my first piece of fan mail this week, and I was super excited, and I wanted to read it to you. It says, I love all your reviews, and look forward to hearing them interested in having you review real Americans. Thanks, Lisa from Los Angeles. So I was super excited. So I took a break today at lunch and walked over to my neighborhood bookstore, which is chapters, and picked up real Americans by Rachel Kong. And I've never read it. I've seen it around, but I bought it, and I just wanted to do the little blurb on the back by Britt Bennett. It says Kong masterfully explores a family splintered by science, struggling to redefine their own lives after uncovering harrowing secrets. Real Americans is a mesmerizing, multi generational novel about privilege identity and the illusions of the American dream. So thanks Lisa for that suggestion, and I will be reading it, and will feature this book on a future podcast. So if send me your suggestions and feedback, and one of your suggestions might appear on a future episode. With that, I wanted to move over and talk with Susan. Susan selected six books for the season, and as usual, she goes a little bit off piece there. Her books skew more towards the literary but I like that, because you can find you can go to any bookstore and find kind of what the big hits are for the season, but she's kind of delved a little bit deeper and also picked things that personally appeal to her. There's a lot of historical fiction, and she threw in a fun beach read or easy buck if you're getting away. So with that, let's move over and talk with Susan. Hello, Susan, welcome back to the podcast.

Unknown: 3:30

Thanks, Amy, happy to be here as always.

Amy Mair: 3:33

So as usual, you've sent me your list of books ahead of time, and I looked at them. And also, as usual, I think they're going to be a little bit of, I would say, different selections from the norm, which you'd like to do. So they're not all ones. They're more they lean more towards literary, with maybe the last one being kind of a fun, yeah,

Unknown: 3:56

I always like to try and do a little bit of a balance, and have non fiction as well as something a little lighter. But I think I don't know right now, it just feels like there's a lot going on in the world. So some of these choices kind of popped up because of their timeliness. So yeah, sometimes when we read, I guess we have to be responsible too and connect with what's going on in the outer world.

Amy Mair: 4:20

Yes, I would say you've definitely done that with these selections. So let's, let's get started, and start with the first book.

Unknown: 4:29

All righty, so this book is, it actually came out in February of 2020, and it's by Colum McCann, who's an Irish writer. And he if people ask me, What's your favorite book you've ever read? I inevitably that's a tough question. Don't ever ask me, because it gets me in a bit of a state. But his book let the good world spin is one of my all time favorites, and not just for the content, but the the way he weaves a story. So this book that I'm choosing. Amy to launch us off with, is called Apeirogon. And a Paragon is a math term, referring to something that has an infinite number of sides. And so he's very creatively taken a story and put it into, I think there are 1000 or 1001 little short segments. Some of them only align long so don't run away yet. Book isn't that overwhelming, but they're little tiny, you know, components that build a bigger story. And the story, and this is why this seems like a really interesting choice to go back to the back list for in my mind, is it follows the story of two men who were fathers, one is Israeli and one is Palestinian, and they each lost a daughter in a violent manner related to the conflicts that going on in that region. So this was four years ago, and things have only ramped up since then, these two men. And it's based on a true story, even though it is fiction, these two men met in the way of grieving fathers. That was that's how they come together, and their choice is to use their grief to find a road to peace. So it's their conversations, their reflections, they're united with their mutual losses, but in the grand scheme, they're on opposite sides. So it makes for a really interesting story. But again, the way Colin McCann writes, people always refer to the way he braids the story and he stitches pieces together. So it's it's kind of an interesting way to read something on a heavy, heavy topic, but also to keep in mind, it's sort of, it's based on a real story. So it feels like it's almost, it's a really good thing to know more, in my mind, anyway, to know more about the region in a way that's presented without prejudice, without sides taken, without those filters. So I kind of feel like it's, it's been on my bookshelf for a long time. I think I actually blogged about it in the past, you know, anticipating it was going to be a good read, simply because the author is such a great writer. But I think now the topic is in a different way. Now I really look forward to kind of reading it and and, you know, maybe finding out a bit more. I don't know about you, Amy, but you know, you're very well read. And I get up in the morning like, holy smokes, where do I start? There's so many topics, and I've often laughed with friends. How now we, we used to go deep on topics. Now we skip along the top. So this feels like a good opportunity to kind of go deeper on one of the many issues that's out there in our world.

Amy Mair: 7:46

Well, we're recording this the day before the US election. So talking about but I know what you mean, and I wonder, like even in reference to this topic, I find I'm afraid to talk about it with anyone, yes, yes. And sometimes I'm afraid because I I don't want to offend someone or say the wrong thing. And then sometimes I'm afraid because I don't actually think I know enough about it. Yeah, that's

Unknown: 8:15

where I fall. Exactly I relate to what you just said. So, so well and I but yet I sort of feel, as a global citizenry, you know, obligation to understand, like I need to step up and understand some of these things a bit more. And, you know, I always love my historical fiction because it's a way of, kind of understanding and finding a launching pad to educate yourself with facts, but through the entryway of a story set in the region or in the realm of the conflict.

Amy Mair: 8:46

So the next book is A is historical fiction. So tell us about that. Yes, and I think

Unknown: 8:51

this one will be quite a bit lighter it is, but it's a different, different world. Again, we sort of, I find myself kind of falling into the same patterns of reading and things that you know you find comfort in when you read. This one is called The Trade Off. It came out on October 8, so just a new release now. It's written by Samantha green Woodruff. It is historical fiction, and it follows a young woman in New York in the 1920s and she's gifted with an ability to really understand math and numbers, and she sees patterns and connections and trends in numbers, which makes her an absolute shoe in for the world of the stock market and Wall Street, and that's what She really aspires to do, but she's living in a lower East Side tenement. She's Jewish, which in the 1920s late 20s, was not kind of like today. It's, there's, it's, it's a power packed place to exist and with all sorts of discrimination and so forth. Her chart. Amy brother, however, finds it a lot easier. He's sort of the man who's got all the charisma, but not the math brights, not the actual understanding of what's going on. So they team up, and the he's her cover. She does the fun stuff at the math and everything else that she enjoys, and he's the front man. But this ends up going, there's the stock market crash in 30 there's this huge money and morality and family dynamics, and it all gets really complex So, and there's a little romance woven into you, just for good measure. So I think this is kind of a step out from so many of these. You know, women is on her own, moves to Ireland and opens a bookstore. I seem to read a lot of those. This is a different environment. And is

Amy Mair: 10:53

this based on a true it

Unknown: 10:55

is yes, yes. It is inspired by a true story. And I don't know who it is exactly, but I know that once you read this, you'll probably want to go and read more about who, who actually this was based on. But isn't it just an interesting world, you know, the whole world of finance and and all the factors involved. And I think it's, it'll be quite interesting, but it's not a heavy, heavier one. It's more of a lighter story, but I think just in an intriguing environment and setting. Have

Amy Mair: 11:28

you as an aside, have you seen the new Martha Stewart documentary?

Unknown: 11:32

I have not. I am saving it to watch. I just got caught up in the whole binge watch that won the territory, set in Australia. I think I'm in recovery now. It's supposed to be a blend of Yellowstone and succession, and it's set in on a big station in Australia. And I was going into it going, Oh, my favorite book was The Thorn Birds. I'll just love this. You know, that's all the accents and the horses and the whole bit, oh my goodness, it's so intense. And then it's very violent. And have to say, I had some nightmares, but it's a compelling story. But again, like this, there's nothing like morality of money and ownership and family dynamics. It's all there. But the Martha one looks very intriguing, and also, because she was on Wall Street, she's she was in that

Amy Mair: 12:23

world in the 60s, and talks about how hard it was. So imagine 40 years prior. But this book also made me think a bit about, I don't know if you've read anything by Marie Benedict, yes. So she always chooses, it's always women in history, and usually they were some type of underdog or maybe not covered. And it kind of made me think about that. She wrote the Mitford affair, the mystery of Mrs. Christie, librarian, kind of that vibe.

Unknown: 12:55

So I should add, she wrote the lobotomist wife, which I have not read, but that was her previous book, and that one was all about the history of mental illness and the treatment. And so she is the wife of the, obviously, the wife of the lobotos, but she it's her take on how mental health was treated back in the day. That's her previous book that was also well reviewed.

Amy Mair: 13:22

Okay, so what is the next book zipping

Unknown: 13:25

along here? This one is called Absolution. It's just come out by Alice. Let's come out in paperback. It was released last year. It's by Alice McDermott. And I don't know about you, but there are some authors that are big names like Alice McDermott. A number of these ones, there you see them, but I've never actually read their work. And I've

Amy Mair: 13:44

read charming, I've read charming Billy, I've read that. Oh, did you, yeah, good.

Unknown: 13:48

So I think so I'm just sort of, I feel like, okay, here's the book. This is the one I'm going to read in Alex McDermott. And it, you know, all of us, or everybody I know anyway has read Kristen Hahn as the women about the women, the take on the Vietnam War, sort of this, like limitation. Statute of limitations is sort of given out now and and Vietnam is sort of popping up here and there. This one goes back. It is about two women, and it involves a time in Vietnam, but it's earlier. It's in 1963 so it's set in Saigon, 1963 and the era these women are the trailing spouses. They are their pre feminist movement to support their husbands, and each of them has a husband who's involved. One is an attorney on loan to the Navy intelligence. The other is involved in the CIA, and they're these women are there to kind of engage with the community and make their husbands look good. So that's sort of the premise. But then what happens is it goes into this whole. Whole element of the complicated relationships between expats and locals and these women of privilege wanting to help and do things for the locals who they perceive as needing their help. And it starts down this exploration of sort of white savior complex, and then how these women bring their own flaws and their own personal stories to this into this capacity of trying to help others. And then it's like, Okay, so where does the image come in? Are they actually doing good? And this is a, I don't think it's a comfortable topic I've lived as an expat, and there you do cross like is a balance to try and strike. And if you're an overthinker who always wants to help you find yourself really assessing, okay, is this the right thing or not the right thing? So she goes into this very complex world and but it's reflective back to that time, because the daughter and one of one woman and the other woman meet together many, many years later, and they look back on that time and and how it impacted their lives going forward. And Anne Patchett called it a moral masterpiece, and I thought that was an interesting thing. It's very much a moral tale. I don't think it's necessarily going to be comfortable reading, but the characters, apparently, are really well developed, and you get very engaged in the story. And I think it's kind of an interesting way again, of looking at a time in history that, well, 1963 was before our time, but it's definitely part of our understanding of the path you're American, and we have, you know, that's probably even more impactful on family, everything you've lived through that time. So I think it's kind of an interesting thing. I think Kristin Hannah sort of piqued our interest in the region. This is coming at it from a different angle. And yeah, has me interested anyway. Well,

Amy Mair: 17:06

she's more assuming this is the same she's a literary writer, and yeah, called Kristen Hannah's more popular, exactly. So it's kind of what your vibe is, what you'd want. The the women said a little later, okay, it was really good, but that's more I mean, the women, it could be a beach read. It could be, yeah, easy, but Alice is more of a Yeah,

Unknown: 17:34

yeah. I think to writing is, yeah, it's a step higher on the bookshelf. Maybe it's right, depending on demanding of you. Okay,

Amy Mair: 17:41

what about the next book? Okay, it's

Unknown: 17:45

coming out on November 19, and it's has a holiday element to it. I think I'm gathering so my favorite book of the last year that I blogged about, but also I have put into the hands of as many people as I can was by the writer Niall Williams, and that book was called This Is happiness, and it's on my keeper shelf. It's absolutely one of my favorites, most beautiful language in the world, where you're you literally are turning the page and you stop and you're like, just a minute, I need to read that again. It's so evocative the imagery. And he's an Irish writer that of some acclaim, lots people are very engaged with his he's written, I think, nine books. So this book builds on this is happiness, and it's called time of the child. It can be stand alone. But because this is happiness, was such an amazing story, and this carries on from that story, takes two of the characters from that or not two, but takes a number of the characters from that first book and revisits them. It would be nice to read them together, but you don't have to. So the premise of both books is, it's a tiny Irish village. It's called FAHA. It's set in 1962 and in this what this time of the child book that's coming out? It takes the village doctor and his unmarried daughter who lives at home with him, and a baby is left in their care, and the entire village and comes around, and it's set in one December, and it's all the people in the village who are just totally ordinary people going about their business. But how this brings everybody together? And I wrote down the quote by Karen J Fowler, and she says, a powerful pleasure to find myself back in FAHA, where the prose is luminous, the people irresistible, the stories mesmerizing, and it never stops raining, which is kind of a good thing to have today, but we're sitting here in big storms talking to each other, but it. Yes, you just get in grossed in this little village and the people, you're so engaged with them. So this is a really nice one, whether you've read the other or not, read this one first and then go back to the other, it doesn't really matter, but do yourself a favor, because the language, it's what reading is all about. And writing, he's just a wizard with words and and the descriptions are so beautiful, and it's all set in Ireland, which, for me, is a another bonus. But yeah, this is kind of nice because it's, it's like a feels like a festive read, a Christmas all the good things about Christmas read

Amy Mair: 20:36

is it kind of like A Man Called Ove. Is this kind of like that, where you like, take away. Is that the idea that you take away sort of, yeah,

Unknown: 20:45

moral or Yeah, theme? I think so, yeah. The The this is happiness. It's one of these books I've been calling sort of a gentle book, where you get it's almost like you're I remember going and hearing Stuart McLean talk once about writing. And he said, it's like when you take a box and you cut a hole in it, and you look in, and then you put a hole in the other side of the box and look at, you're looking at the same thing, but you just see it from a different way. So he takes all of these villagers, and he weaves together their back stories, but they're, you know, walking the same streets, and it's very simple, quiet, but you are so engaged in these people's stories, and so this like the doctor, the dynamics the doctors, because He's the doctor, and everybody sort of respects him, he finds himself a bit separated from the community because He's the doctor and he doesn't he's not one of the gang. They sort of put him on this pedestal and keep him away, and his daughter has her own reasons for being separated. So when this baby comes, it's about everybody coming together and and I think that that's, yeah, there'll be that kind of good feeling about, as you say, a man called of as well.

Amy Mair: 21:55

Okay, and what about the next one? Alright, so

Unknown: 21:59

here's the non fiction choice, and this totally left field, really, I'm sure you're thinking you saw it

Amy Mair: 22:08

well, sort of, I'll tell you, go ahead.

Unknown: 22:11

So it's called The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper and it's written by Roland Allen. Came out here in North America in September 3. He's a British writer. He's actually a publisher in the UK, but so it's been out for a year over there, but it's come out here. He takes topics and he goes deep on them. And this one he was going to he loves stationery. And he was thinking, Oh, I'm just going to go and learn everything I can about stationery. And then as he got doing the research, he realized this isn't about stationery, it's a history of ideas. And so he's taken this simple notebook, and he's gone back to its origins, which was the first notebooks were like in 1300 Florence, Italy, and they were ledgers for storekeepers. So that's how it started. And then, of course, now, you know, we know Leonardo da Vinci and his notebooks are, you know, so famous because he sketched all of these incredible thoughts all in this, these notebooks. And so we have those people started keeping diaries and sketchbooks, like Da Vinci's sailors started to keep logs of their trips and everything. So he just goes crazily deep. And when you stop and think about, you know, there's cookbooks, we all have these little notebooks filled with things. And I learned the term this year, which actually explains something I've done my entire life, but I've always, always have two notebooks on the go. One is just for quotes and things that I hear, or or little snippets of this, that and everything else. And it all goes into this notebook, just so I have a place to keep it and don't forget it. And it's called a common place book. And I never knew, but it was a common place to put a wide variety of ideas. And so this goes way back, like Victorian times, people had their commonplace books. So he goes into all of this in great detail, but it seems like it's not overwhelming. I think it's like a book, a little bit of trivia here, there and everywhere. And he has the stories behind Da Vinci but Frida Kahlo Newton, Marie, Curie Chaucer, Henry, James, Darwin, Agatha Christie. And then he goes into the story of the Moleskine notebooks and their connection to Bruce Chatwin, who is a travel writer. He interviews modern authors on how they use notebooks and and then he talks a little bit about, you know, how we've come to this craze of bullet journaling and all of these things. It's all kind of linked together in this one concept of the notebook. And I just find like, Well, I'm a total geek when it comes to stationery too. So I he had me at the stationary element before he got into all the ideas. But I. Find it really interesting. And like you, probably, I follow a lot of writers on Instagram, and inevitably, somebody has a notebook. It gets always have a notebook with you and and I do, I always have it in my bag and and I love my notebooks to go back and read about them. And I don't think mine are ever going to be written about in the future anyone. But this just seems like a really interesting step out of our usual reads.

Amy Mair: 25:26

So the funny, the last book, right before we went online, some friends, Jennifer and Tiffany, hello, if you're listening, they were FaceTiming me. They're together on vacation, and they're like, Well, what should we be reading now? So then I just pulled this last book because I knew it was a popular selection. It kind of looks like a Sophie Kinsella cover, and so I kind of stole it, and I didn't, I have to say I didn't give you credit. I was like, Oh, this book. No, now I'm giving you credit, but so tell us about the last book.

Unknown: 26:03

Okay, so, big departure from the other choices. It's called Big in Sweden, by Sally Franson, as you say, has, you know, the bubble gum cover, very cute, cartoony cover, and it follows the, you know, it's interesting. They call it. They called it a what do they call it? Some serial comic. So I think it's actually more moving and more deep than it appears to be.

Amy Mair: 26:32

So hold on. They're saying serial comic the genre. That's what never did that. No,

Unknown: 26:38

I know they had to look it up. And so it's an American woman. She's big. She's six feet tall, so she's literally big in Sweden. She's an American woman who competes in a reality, Swedish based reality show in an attempt to discover her roots. Now, the surprising thing about this is the author actually did this. She This is a novel. It's not her story, but her experience. She actually won the show. This experience prompted her to write the book and to find the funny in it, but also kind of the poignancy as well. So it's um, this 35 year old, very tall woman goes to Sweden, and it's sort of like Survivor. It's a reality show, but you have to, you know, kayak through fjords and go to some little town and perform some ritual, and then come back and in so doing, you learn about your Swedish heritage. So she goes through this. This character goes through this. She's 35 years old. She's in a romantic relationship that's sort of a go nowhere relationship in the US. She goes over sort of drunkenly, applies for this, ends up getting invited to join, and says, What the heck? Here I go. And off she goes. And so there's great humor in it, it's very much the show is actually a show, and apparent. We love it because it's kind of watching these goofy Americans trying to find their Swedish roots, and, you know, botching it up all the way. So there's, it's the entertainment value of it. But in this, she starts to find her family roots. She starts to make new friends and and there's this new appreciation for the country of Sweden. So all of that comes together. They call it, you know, charming and funny, but with a warmth and an optimism about it as well. So yeah, something quite light. I was looking through the Amazon comments on the book, an actual contestant wrote a review that said, Oh yeah, the author totally gets this, like she nailed it. This is exactly what it's like. So I like that kind of level of authenticity to it, that it's not all farce, but at the same time, what a funny kind of setting for for a novel.

Amy Mair: 29:03

Well, that sounds fun, yeah, good. Good escape with some with some heart Yes. And

Unknown: 29:09

you know, again, we're often in Irish or English bookstores, or we're wherever we don't go to Sweden very often in our books, unless there's some dire murder or something, those dark, Nordic kind of mysteries. This one is definitely lighter and it's interesting. You know, just on an aside, you brought up Sophie Kinsella, but her latest book, I almost put it on the list, is about, it's a novel, but it's about her experience with brain cancer that she's just recently been oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. So it's taken quite a different route, and it's getting very good reviews because it's sad, because it's her actual story, but it's also a different take for a writer that has never really been given credit for being a. Or anything other than a light hearted writer. So that's interesting, but yeah, an aside.

Amy Mair: 30:07

Well, the light hearted is can be challenging too, like the I reviewed Ellen hildebrands books, and she's highly trained, yes, and actually, I highly recommend her, because it's the characters are super well developed, but it is light, yes,

Unknown: 30:23

yeah, well, it's interesting. She, she has done very, very well, but she's just announced that she's stepping out of writing altogether. And that's right idea. And I just thought was funny. And I guess at some point you almost have to make that break to start her. Her genre is always said in Nantucket, and it's sort of always this very predictable environment. She's done some great stories, and I agree with you. I've any one of the ones I've read, I've always sort of come away going, Oh, that's interesting, like, a little bit deeper than I was expecting, or a creative way of telling a story. But I wonder if she's going to come back, but with a whole different approach. I don't know it'll be interesting. I heard

Amy Mair: 31:01

she was writing a book with her daughter. Oh, I don't know what that is, and I think she's done with think she's gone to enough clam bakes or I think she needs to change it. I don't know, yeah, doing next, but yeah.

Unknown: 31:15

I read the blog Cup of Joe, which you're probably familiar. Oh, yeah, yeah. And through that, I found a woman, a writer called Caroline, Donna frio, and I followed her her blog. She's exceptional writer, so every Sunday, she puts out a essay. And her essay last week was on embarrassing books, and she was talking about how she's just moved house, and she said that she had to find a new place for her embarrassing books that don't go on the bookshelf. And she said, we all have them. And I started to laugh, because it's quite true. Like, if you redo your bookshelf, there are always a few books that don't make the front, you know, the front row bookshelf in the living room kind of thing. It's always, you know, there's sort of, and I was laughing, and some of the people started to chime in. Everybody in the comments has an embarrassing book, or grouping of books, and, you know, she said, people were saying, the self help books don't appear. Other people said, Oh, it's my, you know, Sophie Kinsella books. I don't put those out because it doesn't seem that I'm a literary reader. And it was just really interesting, food for thought. Anyway, if you have embarrassing books, let Amy know, like

Amy Mair: 32:26

listening to Madonna in the car, we all do that. What do you recommend? Yes, well, thanks so much. Susan, that

Unknown: 32:35

was great. Always a pleasure. Amy, that's great. Look forward to Happy reading ahead.

Amy Mair: 32:39

Okay, thank you. Bye. Bye. Thanks so much to Susan for coming on the podcast, and I'm really excited now I have a whole new group of selections to choose from, and I think I'm gonna, actually the first thing I think I'm gonna tackle on this list is big in Sweden. It just looks fun, but has a bit of a heart to it as well. And I also think I am going to next look at the Colin McCann book. It has me really intrigued. Wait. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I will talk with you later. Okay, Bye. You.