Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 • 48min
Ep 314: Your reading life is in good hands
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We love reconnecting with previous guests to get an update on their reading life, and today's conversation with Tara Nichols is no exception! Since Tara's previous appearance on the show, in WSIRN Ep 168: A century of good books in a single year, we've been curious to know how her challenge worked out, and what she learned along the way.
If you missed Ep 168, Tara shared her goal to read one book published each year between 1920 and 2019, and she and Anne talked about some options that might help her complete her century-long reading list. Tara's back today to share the results and chat about what's she's looking for in her reading life now!
Join Anne and Tara in conversation about what surprised Tara about her challenge and how it's impacted her reading choices now that she's not looking for books tied to a specific time.
As always, all the books mentioned today can be found in the show notes at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/314, and that's also where we'd love to hear what you think Tara should read next!
To see more peeks into Tara's reading life, find her on Instagram.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Tara Nichols
Anne Bogel
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Tara Nichols
00:00
When I was starting on the challenge, I kind of thought man, when I get to the end of this, I'm not going to want to read anything from the 20th century for a long time.
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Anne Bogel
00:08
Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is "What Should I Read Next? " Episode 314. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader. What should I read next?
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00:20
We don't get bossy on the show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next week. Every week we talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.
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Break
Anne Bogel
03:15
I have so many wonderful conversations with readers on this show, so it's a special treat when I can reconnect with a previous guest and get an update on their reading life.
Share
03:23
Tara Nichols first joined me back in episode 168 called "A Century of Good Books in a Single Year" to share her quest to read one book published each year between 1920 and 2019.
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03:34
Today, I'm excited to catch up with Tara to hear about how that challenge went through her experience of reading 100 books written over the past century. Tara gained much more than just a few new favorites, completing her challenge, gave her new insight into what she loves most about a reading experience, while also introducing entirely new genres into her reading life.
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03:53
I've been waiting years to hear all about it and I think you'll find it's been worth the wait in her reading life now, Tara's eager to catch up on some of the newer titles she missed while focused on her challenge. But ultimately, she's looking for the types of stories she's learned she loves, regardless of publication date, impeccably written tails anchored by a strong, distinctive voice. I'm excited to hear what she thinks about my picks for her today, let's get to it.
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04:18
Tara, Welcome to the show.
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Tara Nichols
04:19
Thank you for having me.
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Anne Bogel
04:21
Oh, it is my pleasure, thank you so much for coming back to tell us more about your reading life and to tell us more about how your reading challenge went that you did back in 2019. So we must have talked right at the very beginning of your challenge.
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Tara Nichols
04:35
Yeah, it was early January that we talked.
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Anne Bogel
04:38
Apparently we're in a mood to revisit. And also just to talk about the virtues of reading books that are not just the shiny and new, which feels like the default for a lot of readers early in the year.
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04:49
So, you were first on the show in episode 168 a "Century Of Good Books In A Single Year", which we continue to point readers and listeners back to all the time for inspiration in just as an example of a really fun episode to listen to. Tara tell the readers what this challenge involved and what it did for your reading life.
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Tara Nichols
05:08
So I decided that I wanted to read a book published for every year of the last 100 years. So in 2019, that was 1920 to 2019, midway through 2018, saw I think it was just like a list or an article that was called "A 100 Years of Books" and I think that was just about like the 20th century, like talking about books from the 20th century.
Share
05:32
But when I saw that title, I just got this idea like, "I wonder if I could do that. I wonder if I could pick a book from every year of the last 100 years and read them and do it in a year". So that's when I started planning was midway through 2018, I just started googling every year I google like 1920 books, 1921 books, and then I just from every year I picked a book that interested me.
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05:57
So I wasn't trying to do like the most popular book that year or an award winner that year. It really just was which one of these books published in that year. Sounds interesting to me, so that's kind of how it started, but at the time when I started to plan it in 2018, I didn't intend it to be like a public thing, like, I just thought it would be fun to do just by myself.
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06:19
Sometime in the fall of that year, I was having dinner with a friend, and I was telling her about the challenge and I just said, I said, "do you think I should? Like, I don't know, like post about this on Instagram or something? like share it with people? " And she was like, "yeah, of course you should". And so I was like, "okay".
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06:36
And then around that same time when I realized that other people might be interested in it, that was when I applied to be on, what should I read next? That it became a very public thing, but that's how it started. And then I did not read in order, I did start with 1920, but then I just skipped all around and that way I could kind of read what I was in the mood for, it was super fun to do.
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Anne Bogel
06:58
What did you learn about yourself in the process of your 100-year reading challenge?
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Tara Nichols
07:03
I mean, I learned that when I start something, I'm going to finish it. I mean, I kind of already knew that, but this was probably one of the biggest challenges I had given myself. And at the end of the challenge, a lot of people asked like if I had a hard time sticking with it and things like that and there were times when it was harder, like I would say, especially this summer, like when your reading guide came out for the summer and I couldn't really read any of it because I was trying to read all these old books.
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07:31
The summer was when it was a little bit harder, I wanted to read, you know, lighter stuff, newer stuff, but I had to stick with it, but because I had decided to do it and because I had all of these people mostly on Instagram, really excited about the challenge and following what I was doing, I knew I was going to stick with it, and so I just realized that I could really stick with something if I decided to.
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07:50
I mean, before the challenge, I knew that I liked old books, I would say I tend to gravitate toward books that have stood the test of time, so that could be very old, you know, like the 18 hundreds or that could be 10 or 20 years ago, if people are still talking about a book, I want to read that if I haven't, and I think I just reaffirmed that in me that is the type of reading that really works best for me.
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Anne Bogel
08:12
What did November 2019 Terra know about this challenge that January 2019 Terra just did not see coming?
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Tara Nichols
08:18
Well, I mean, I definitely discovered authors and genres that were new to me, and I was hoping that would happen as a part of it, but I wasn't sure if it would. When I was starting on the challenge, I kind of thought, man when I get to the end of this, I'm not going to want to read anything from the 20th century for a long time.
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08:35
But that didn't happen because I discovered authors and genres that I hadn't read before that I was excited about reading more of. So I had always avoided mysteries and thrillers because I'm really sensitive to violence, so I don't watch movies with violence and I don't like reading books with violence because the images really stick in my brain and that's not the kind of things I want to like linger in my brain. So I had never read mysteries because I just always assumed that they were, you know, if someone is murdered, I assume that that's violent.
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09:05
But when I started reading some of these old mysteries as a part of the challenge, I realized like, "oh, the mystery genre usually isn't violent" because they're trying to solve the crime. Usually like a graphic description of the crime isn't typically there or even when it is, I don't know, it's not the kind of thing that you would see watching like a horror movie or anything like that.
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09:25
So I had wrongly assumed this about mysteries, and I found that I really loved reading mysteries, so that was one thing that I kind of discovered in the challenge. So when the challenge ended, I wanted to continue to read mysteries that I had missed my whole life because I had made a wrong assumption about them.
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Anne Bogel
09:41
So you've had some catching up to do since then.
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Tara Nichols
09:43
I did, yes.
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Anne Bogel
09:44
So I know that you chose books that you were drawn to. You gave yourself all the leeway when it came to choosing a book that was published a certain year, but that being said, I can imagine that you might have read books because they were big books, or you've heard a lot about them. Did you read anything that you thought was going to be amazing that just completely underwhelmed you or vice versa?
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Tara Nichols
10:02
I mean, one of the books that I was most excited about was
Brideshead Revisited,
and that was from 1945. I found it underwhelming, and maybe it's because I had really built it up in my mind, and so maybe my expectations for it were too high.Share
10:21
And I know that's the book that you love, and I didn't, I didn't hate it and I would even be interested in no pun intended but revisiting it, at some point, and then I would say one of my favorites, so I won't tell you what it is yet, but one of my favorites was one that I had heard of, but really had no expectations of knew nothing of it, and it ended up being my favorite of the whole thing.
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10:42
I mean, I think the best thing about it was just read so many authors that I had never read before and some that I had never heard of. I mean, like one that was the biggest surprise to me was
Georgette Heyer
. I had had a book slotted in for I think it was 1936, and then it didn't, I don't know if I should say this because people loved this book, but it was "The Hobbit"
, and I was having a hard time with it. I think that was the one.Share
11:07
And so I decided to change that year because I don't know, I just have a hard time with fantasy and I just wasn't loving it. And so I needed another book for 1936, and I was just looking at lists and I had heard of
Georgette Heyer
, and I knew she wrote like a ton of books and there was one for 1936, and then I picked it, I ordered it from thrift books. It came and it was just the cheesiest cover. I was like, "oh no, this is going to be terrible, like what have I done? " And then I started it and it was so delightful. Have you ever read Georgette Heyer
?Share
Anne Bogel
11:40
I'd read maybe three of her like hundred or something novels.
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Tara Nichols
11:43
Right, she has so many books. I feel like she does dialogue better than almost any writer. Like, her dialogue is just so like snappy and witty, I loved it. So it opened me up to this whole world of this author that I had never heard of but some other big ones, you know, I read some
James Baldwin
which was fantastic.Share
12:01
So I did one reread as a part of the challenge and that was
The Grapes Of Wrath
because I had read it in high school. I remembered loving the last page, but I really didn't remember much about the book at all, so it was a reread, but it didn't really feel like I reread because I remembered nothing, and I did, I did enjoy it.Share
12:19
So there were some big ones in there, yeah, I definitely wanted to put in some of these books that a lot of people have read, but I hadn't yet another one that I tried that really didn't work out was
Catch 22.
I think I made it like 20 pages And then I'm like "nope, let's find something else for this year" so.Share
12:37
Oh, and then I ended up reading
The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie
which I also didn't love, but it was short at least, and I think I liked it better than I would have liked to Catch 22.
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Anne Bogel
12:46
Tara, so you finished your challenge in November, What did you do immediately after being in a sense freed from like this major like enjoyable but also obligatory reading project you had embarked on.
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Tara Nichols
12:58
What I did was actually about two weeks before I was done. So when I was on like the last couple or few books. So when I, when the end was in sight, I just started putting all the books from 2019 that I didn't get to on hold at the library. And I just had like this giant stack of all these books because I mean, I was still listening to your podcast and some other podcasts, and I'm still on books to grab, so I'm seeing all these new releases and not really reading any of them.
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13:22
And so the ones that I was most excited about, I put on hold, I got, I realized I cannot read this many books in December, but I did, I did get to quite a few. So December of that year was almost exclusively new releases because there were so many things I had missed. Like the one I remember in particular was "The Nickel Boys", you know, I'd heard so much about that book that year, and it was, I knew it was up my alley, but I just was holding off on it. So that was one of the first ones I read in December and I did love it.
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13:50
That was probably my favorite book of that year, that wasn't a part of my challenge. And I, and I did read books throughout the year that weren't for the challenge cause I'm in a real, real life book club. So I had, you know, I had to read different books for that. So there were a handful of books I read throughout the year that weren't for the challenge, but for the most part it was mostly challenged books that year, so I was very excited in December to read new stuff.
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14:10
And I also in the summer I am a real sucker for award winners and particularly
The Pulitzer
and that was the year that The Overstory
won the Pulitzer
and this is like a 600-page novel, but I just couldn't help myself. So that summer and I was doing my pace was good on the challenge, and so I was like, I can take a break to read this 600-page book and I did and it was worth it, but that was one of the few times where I really veered off course.Share
Anne Bogel
14:34
Well Tara, you've teased us a little bit saying that you would tell us some of your favorites, and your very favorites from your 100 books you read for this century of great books, challenge. I'm ready to get to it.
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14:45
You've been here before, you know how this works, you're going to tell me three books you loved one book you didn't and what you've been reading lately, and we'll talk about, I think, what you're looking for right now in your reading life and what you may enjoy reading next because of that.
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Break
Anne Bogel
17:03
Now tell me how you chose these books you loved and didn't.
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Tara Nichols
17:06
Well, when I finished my challenge, I picked a favorite from each decade. So that's kind of how I organized the challenge in my own mind, I kind of thought of it as decades.
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17:16
I picked a favorite from each decade. And so for this, I just, you know, I went back and looked at those and pick the ones that have still stayed with me that I still think about that when I see someone else read, I get really excited.
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Anne Bogel
17:32
Isn't that such a great sign about what you love.
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Tara Nichols
17:35
Yes.
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Anne Bogel
17:36
You just do a little tear in your heart when you see somebody else reading it.
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Tara Nichols
17:38
Yes, absolutely. Okay. You ready?
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Anne Bogel
17:40
Oh, I'm ready.
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Tara Nichols
17:41
This one was the easiest one to pick because this was my favorite of the whole challenge. But it's also hard because I can't tell you that much about it, so it is
A Town Like Alice
by Nevil Shute
and this was from 1950.Share
Anne Bogel
17:56
Really your favorite of the whole challenge, my mom is so happy right now, she loves this book.
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Tara Nichols
18:01
Yeah. I think you told me that your mom, your mom, loves this one. And I think part of the reason it was so delightful to me is because I knew nothing about it. I had seen it on some list, like you know, best books of the 20th century and stuff, but I really knew nothing about it, the title is strange, like I didn't I really didn't know anything going in.
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18:22
And so it was just such a surprise and such a joy to read it, and the reason it's hard for me to talk about is because I think most people who want to read this should go in knowing almost nothing, because if you read the back of the book, it gives away a plot point that happens about maybe about halfway in.
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Anne Bogel
18:41
Oh, I hate it when they do this.
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Tara Nichols
18:43
Yeah. And this was a moment, so I didn't read the back of the book, I went in not knowing anything, I read the back of the book after I finished, and I was so angry with it because so there's this moment, and I'm not going to tell you what it is, but there's this moment was so surprising and delightful to me that I like gasped out loud when I was reading it. And they give away this moment on the back of the book.
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19:04
So don't read the back of the book, don't just, so here's what I'll say. So, it was published in 1950 when you read it today, it will feel like historical fiction because part of it takes place during
World War II
. Now, it wasn't historical fiction because it was published in 1950. So he was writing really about very recent history and the current time for him.Share
19:25
But the center of it is a woman, what you know at the beginning of the book is that she I think it's like a long-lost uncle or something who's drawing up his will, she is his only relative, so he decides he's going to leave his money to her, but he's not going to give it to her, like unless she's like 30 or something like that because she's a woman, and he doesn't trust women with money. And that's what you know from the beginning, and then you get to know this woman in this book, and it's just everything.
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19:50
It is, it just made me feel happy reading it the way that this woman like subverts expectations. So I would say if you like historical fiction, if you like a strong female protagonist, that's all I'm gonna say because I think you should go ahead not knowing what this book is about. Because the surprise, I think, is a huge part of the delight of this book.
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Anne Bogel
20:13
I really enjoyed this book and I totally understand how you can describe it the way you had. But I think also that readers should know that this isn't like a lighthearted romp through the Australian outback.
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Tara Nichols
20:24
That's true, well the middle section especially that this is um the part during
World War II,
and she's in I think it's Malaysia which is something else now going through some very difficult thing, so the middle of the book is not delightful. The middle of the book is difficult as far as the subject matter. But I will say when you end the book, you will feel so good. I can say that much, but you're right, that is good to say that the whole thing is not just lighthearted.Share
Anne Bogel
20:51
It's interesting what you said about it feeling like historical fiction because it really does. But it's a fictionalized account of very recent historical events when it was written, but a lot of this book is about healing, and I just remember after said tragedy, the young woman, I think she's just like "oh I just feel 100 years old" after living through what she lived through, which somehow feels poetic for your challenge.
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Tara Nichols
21:16
Right? Yeah, that's true, that's true.
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Anne Bogel
21:19
That is
A Town Like Alice
by Nevil Shute
. Have you read anything else by Nevil Shute
?Share
Tara Nichols
21:23
I haven't, I haven't, I bought a couple of his other books after I read that one, but I haven't read them yet because I've heard some of his other stuff, it's very heavy.
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Anne Bogel
21:31
Well, the only other one I've read is "On the Beach", which I've heard discussed quite often as it's not a pandemic novel, it's a nuclear devastation novel.
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Tara Nichols
21:40
Okay.
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Anne Bogel
21:41
But I've heard it discussed as reading similarly to a pandemic novel and for those who are flocking to pandemic novels right now as opposed to the other camera readers who are like, you have got to be kidding me. I need 10 years before I want to read like the station 11 or the stand or anything close like on the beach. I was just wondering, you see that title batted about. I remember it being not as devastating to read as you might expect, given the fact that it's about humanity coming to a swift end after nuclear war.
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Tara Nichols
22:10
Right? Yes.
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Anne Bogel
22:11
Some listeners are thinking I need to read that immediately, and some listeners are thinking what is wrong with people that they want to read that? But take your pick readers. Tara, tell me what's next.
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Tara Nichols
22:20
So the second one was actually one of your recommendations, when I was first on the podcast, and it was the one I didn't think I was going to read,
Native Son
by Richard Wright
, and it's from 1940. So I of course have heard of this book and I totally understood why you were recommending it to me, but I was wary of it because I had heard that there were some moments of graphic violence in it and like I said, I tend to stay away from that.Share
22:46
So when we first, you know, ended the call, I didn't think I was going to read it because you have given me another suggestion for that same year when I said I was not sure about that one. And then the more I thought about it, I thought you know what, this is an important book, it's a book that really should work for me, and I feel like I should give it a try.
Share
23:03
And if it's too much for me, if the violence is too much, I can put it down and choose another book for that year. So, you know, I gave myself that freedom and man, this book, probably more than any other in the whole challenge has stuck with me the most this is what I will say about the violence.
Share
23:16
So there are two moments in the book of very graphic violence, but both of those points like it's not a surprise, you can see leading up to it that something is about to happen. And so there were two paragraphs that I skipped, and then it was okay. I know what happened in those two paragraphs. I didn't need to read the details, so I was able to skip just a small portion in order to make it more manageable for me.
Share
23:41
I mean, it's an incredible book. The main character is
Bigger Thomas
, and he is a young black man living in Chicago
, he's hired to work for this white family, some bad things start to happen. The reason that this book really stuck with me is I would say in my schooling growing up. So I was in high school in the '90s when we were taught about the Jim Crow
years and about segregation.Share
24:09
I've come to see that we were taught it in a very whitewashed way. I don't think we were ever really presented with, at least living here in Arizona, I don't think we're ever really presented with what segregation really meant for black people in America at that time.
Share
24:24
This book does that. I mean, it feels, and this is in
Chicago
. So this wasn't even in the south, you just see so deeply what segregation did to both black and white people, what it meant, what it meant that there were whole parts of society that were unavailable to black people and the kind of rage and sorrow that can result from that.Share
24:48
This is just an incredibly powerful book, there is one scene in it where Bigger is talking to someone else and really talking about this about segregation and what it means for him that I think will stay with me forever. So, I mean, it's a novel, but it's talking about real issues at that time, and the fact that it was published in 1940.
Share
25:05
And I later learned too, that it was a book of the month selection. So, this book went out to all these people all over the country and I wonder what kind of impact it had on them then in 1940, it's a very heart of this.
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Anne Bogel
25:19
In 1940.
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Tara Nichols
25:21
Yeah, so, yeah, so this was just an incredibly impactful book. It's also written unbelievably well, I mean, he's an incredible writer, so I'm so glad I read it, I'm so glad that I didn't let the fear of the violence, and it keep me away from it. I'm so glad you recommended it, I'm so glad I read it, and it was absolutely one of my favorites.
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Anne Bogel
25:40
I'm so glad you read it too. Tara, what did you choose to complete your favorites?
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Tara Nichols
25:45
I just realized that both of these are incredibly heavy. But that's not rare for me in my reading, I typically like stuff that has heavy subject matter. So my third is
Testament Of Youth
, which is by Vera Brittain,
and it was published in 1933. Has this been talked about on the podcast before, do you know?Share
Anne Bogel
26:02
Yes, and I hadn't heard of it until it was Emily Kinard actually an episode 86. She chose it as one of her favorites, and I didn't know anything.
Share
Tara Nichols
26:10
Yeah, I think that's where I heard about it was on the show. Have you read it now or?
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Anne Bogel
26:14
No, no, I still haven't read it, talked me into it, Tara.
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Tara Nichols
26:16
This is nonfiction, so this is
Vera Brittain's
kind of memoir autobiography of her life before World War I
during World War I
, and after. The thing about this book that really stood out to me is her voice in this book was so incredibly strong, and it's a pretty long book. I think it was like 600 pages or so when I finished this book, I felt like I was saying goodbye to a friend. Like I felt like I knew her voice was so distinct.Share
26:44
The strongest part of the book to me was this middle section during
World War I
. She was a nurse in World War I
, she was from England,
and she was of an age where most of her like her brothers, her friends, basically, any male in her life that was her age went off to fight the war.Share
27:03
She was just of that age at that time, and so then she also volunteered to be a nurse, but just the devastating loss that she sustained, and I know this is probably not selling it, but she just suffered such devastating loss as a result of
World War I
, but the way that she writes about it.Share
27:20
I mean, she's just such a skillful writer and I don't I haven't really learned anything about
World War
I, I knew very little, I mean I feel like so much non-fiction and historical fiction now is about World War II and I just hadn't seen it at least at the time, I hadn't seen much about World War I
and this isn't about the war.Share
27:37
Like what started the war and the battles, it's not that at all, it's really just about what it was like to be a young woman in
England
and to have so many of your friends and family members go off to war and many not come back. But I think the thing that, like I said, the thing I really loved about this book was her voice, I just felt like I knew her.Share
27:55
And I took my time with this one because it was heavier, and it was longer. I kind of stayed with this book longer than most of the other books in the challenge. And so I just I felt like I felt like she was a friend telling me about her life. I feel like it's just a really special book and I don't know if it's for everybody because it is heavy, it is long but if you want to understand more about what it was like to live at that time, you can't go wrong with this book.
Share
Anne Bogel
28:20
I do love a novel with a really strong voice, and I hear you saying that we're definitely going to keep that in mind as we move forward. Okay, I heard you wanted to wedge in a four. If you could pick one, what would it be?
Share
Tara Nichols
28:30
It would be
Housekeeping
by Marilynne Robinson
.Share
Anne Bogel
28:32
Are these four novels head and shoulders above the rest? Or is there like a steady progression of Tara's favorites?
Share
Tara Nichols
28:38
No, there's a lot of good ones, but I mean, it's a 100 books, right? So there's a lot of good ones in there.
Share
Anne Bogel
28:44
I mean, I recently put together my best books of 2021 and the question is, how many is too many? I have asterisks that meant like a really great read next to like 40.
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Tara Nichols
28:52
Yeah, although it does, so it does feel like if I can do four I feel like those four really encapsulate what I like to read in general and the best ones from the challenge, so.
Share
Anne Bogel
29:01
Well, what does
Housekeeping
bring? How does that illuminate your reading tastes in the way the first three didn't.Share
Tara Nichols
29:06
I mean, I love
Marilynne Robinson
, I've now as of 28-21 I've read all of her novels. I think she has some nonfiction and I haven't read that, but I've read all of her novels and I just love the way she writes. For me, what I'm looking for when I pick up a book to me, the writing is the most important thing. I can absolutely do a book without a plot, but I cannot do a book without good writing, for the most part. Housekeeping
, you've read this one, right?Share
Anne Bogel
29:32
I have, but not until recent years.
Share
Tara Nichols
29:35
I mean, the, her writing is incredible in it and I love this one because it's kind of melodramatic too, like her other books, and I love the Gilead books as well, but they are very quiet and
Housekeeping
has some melodrama to it. I mean, it's this family where the daughters, I think they've lost their parents at the beginning. Is that right? And then they go to live with an aunt, yes, but the ant is kind of a transient, she doesn't, or maybe it's a grandmother, sorry, it's been a few years since I've read this book now.Share
30:01
They're in this house and this town that is really a character in itself, it's very atmospheric. But the thing that I really love about it is it felt a little bit melodramatic to me, and I really love that in books. If the writing is good, and I can have some drama, I am here for it. That's why I like to have this one as the fourth. I mean, I think all of the books I picked are written incredibly well, but
Marilynne Robinson
is probably at the top.Share
Anne Bogel
30:27
Now, tell me about a book that wasn't right for you from your challenge was this hard to choose?
Share
Tara Nichols
30:32
It was so easy to choose. I would sometimes start a book for a year and realized it wasn't really working for me, so I would stop that book and I would choose a different one for that year. So, this is the only one in my challenge that I gave a one-star rating too, because it's the only one that I didn't like, but I still finished and didn't choose another book for, and it is
Wide Sargasso Sea
from 1966.Share
30:55
Nothing about it worked for me. I felt like the narration was erratic and confusing, so this book, if you're not familiar with it, I guess I'm going to give it like a really slight
Jane Eyre
spoiler, but it takes the madwoman in the attic from Jane Eyre,
and it tells her backstory with Mr Rochester, and they are in the Caribbean.Share
31:17
That premise to me sounds amazing, but just the way it was written, I think it's considered a postmodern novel and I don't even exactly know what postmodern encompasses, but I will tell you that this book is confusing. The characters to me felt kind of one dimensional. Yeah, I just I thought it was terrible, and I know it's considered a modern classic, and so.
Share
Anne Bogel
31:42
I thought it was terrible, that's going to be a pull quote.
Share
Tara Nichols
31:44
Yeah, a lot of people hate it tto, because when I did my review, a lot of people were like, "yes, this book is terrible", but some people love it, and it is considered a modern classic and so maybe if I had read it as a part of a literature class where I had, you know, a professor to help me understand why the author was making the choices she was making. But just reading it just me and the page, it did not work.
Share
Anne Bogel
32:08
I just listened to "The Sentence" by
Louise Erdrich
, not that long ago, which I mean, talk about a book that will load up your TBR so proceeded with caution or enthusiasm or a mixture thereof. So much of it takes place in a bookstore and there's lots of books mentioned in the text and Wide Sargasso Sea
is on a bookseller's informal list of short perfect novel.Share
Tara Nichols
32:26
Wow, yeah, I didn't. It is short. I agree, I agree with the short part, and that's one of the reasons I decided to finish it. There wasn't anything else from 1966 that I was excited about replacing it with, and it was short. So I was just like, I'm gonna I'll finish it. Honestly, if I had kept reading
Catch 22
that might have been worse, I don't know. But for the ones that I finished and didn't replace with another book, Wide Sargasso Sea
was definitely on the bottom.Share
Anne Bogel
32:53
Now I'm going to see what you could choose from in 1966.
Share
Tara Nichols
32:57
You know, I looked recently as I was kind of preparing to talk with you again, and I was like was there truly nothing else? And then I saw there was a "Jubilee". I can't remember who the author is though.
Share
Anne Bogel
33:06
Oh, is that 1966!
Share
Tara Nichols
33:08
I think so, so I'm.
Share
Anne Bogel
33:09
Margaret Walker
.Share
Tara Nichols
33:10
Yeah, I should have read that clearly because I feel like that's a book I would like.
Share
Anne Bogel
33:14
Oh well, I read
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
in school with an amazing English professor. I don't know what I would have thought if I'd read it on my own.Share
Tara Nichols
33:21
I have read that and that's one of the reasons I didn't pick that one, there might have been some other ones, but I had already read them and for the most part I did not do rereads for this other than
The Grapes Of Wrath.
Share
Anne Bogel
33:31
Tara, what have you been reading lately?
Share
Tara Nichols
33:33
I've kind of been on like a literary award kick. I recently read the whole just the short list for the
National Book Award
. So I think the last couple that I read were "The Prophets" and "Matrix". Right now I'm reading this year's Pulitzer
winner, which is "The Night Watchman" by Louise Erdrich,
and I'm really liking that.Share
33:55
I actually, I read two of her books for my challenge because she is prolific, she's been writing for a long time, and so I read two of hers for the challenge and I liked both of them.
Share
Anne Bogel
34:03
Which ones did you read?
Share
Tara Nichols
34:04
I read, "Love Medicine", which was 1984, and then I read her middle grade novel, "The Birch Bark House", which was 1999. Yeah, I liked both of them, I wouldn't say that I loved either of them, but I, I was so glad I read them, and it made me want to read more of her.
Share
Anne Bogel
34:23
Is reading through the
National Book Award
shortlist, reading the Pulitzer
winner, are these regular practices for you?Share
Tara Nichols
34:28
No, I think this is the first time I've ever read the whole short list for the
National Book Award
. I do like to, I do like to read the winner and I think the last several years I have, but it is sort of an informal goal to read all of the fiction Pulitzer
winners at some point. That is the award that I feel like clothes like matches my reading style the closest. I just feel like most of the ones that win that I love. Like the last two before this one were "The Nickel Boys" and "The Overstory" and those were absolute five-star reads for me.Share
35:01
So yes, I do, I do like, following the literary awards, I don't usually try to read like the whole long list or the whole shortlist just this year, all of the books on the shortlist really interested me, so that's why I chose to, to read them.
Share
Anne Bogel
35:15
What do you want to be different in your reading life right now?
Share
Tara Nichols
35:17
With my 100 years of book challenge, I reviewed every single book that I read, and I reviewed all of them on Instagram. I was reading back through those reviews to prepare for today, and it made me want to review more.
Share
35:30
So I've continued to review books, but I've just been lazy about it because I didn't have like this goal propelling me forward, but I just love having this almost like a time capsule of my reading life where I have 100 books that I read, and I can read what I thought about all of them.
Share
35:47
And so I don't think I'll ever review every book I read, but I want to review more because I realize just how valuable that is to me, and I think it's just, I mean with the pandemic, I've still been reading a ton, but I haven't been reviewing much because it just feels hard.
Share
36:03
I guess just when everything feels hard, I just want something to feel easy, but I really miss having those reviews to look at again. So that's one thing that I would like to do more of and I did buy your reading journal and I think that will help me to get back into reviewing more of what I read.
Share
Anne Bogel
36:19
I'm really glad you mentioned the reading journal because I meant to tell you I've heard from maybe not small amount considering maybe a half dozen readers who say that they're using the "My Reading Life: Book Journal" specifically for a century of good books challenge.
Share
Tara Nichols
36:32
Oh that's so great.
Share
Anne Bogel
36:33
It holds 100 books. There's a 100 fill in the blank, one and a half page table of contents at the beginning as you can see, all the books you've read in advance. But what they're doing is they're not listing the books in order, but they're reading through the 21st century 1901 is book one, 1910 is book 10 and I just thought that was so smart.
Share
Tara Nichols
36:52
Yeah, I love that, that's really cool. And then I mean another thing, I guess I don't want this to be different. But what I found in my pandemic reading is that I just needed to be good writing. You know, I think a lot of people, especially at the beginning of this two year now ordeal, and I know a lot of people were having trouble with heavy subject matter in their books and I didn't with that. But I did find that I needed the writing to be beautiful.
Share
37:15
I felt like if all the things around me are broken, I at least need the writing that I read to be lovely, and doesn't mean the subject matter has to be lovely, but I just I wanted to be written amazingly is kind of um where I've been at in the last, you know, year and a half, two years.
Share
Anne Bogel
37:31
This is a hard question, but what is beautiful writing mean to you?
Share
Tara Nichols
37:34
I mean I can tell you who I think writes beautifully,
Marilynne Robinson
, Elizabeth Strout,
James Baldwin
. I mean, I think writing that doesn't have like clichés or things like that just feels original, and I just love books that really explore what it means to be human. Yeah, I'm not a writer myself, so I don't even know that I could say what it is about those authors that just have them stand apart from other authors.Share
37:59
You might be better at this than I am, but because you're a writer, and I am not. But when I read books by authors like that like
Elizabeth Strout
, James Baldwin
, like I feel like I'm in good hands, right? Like I feel like they might have really bad things happen to their characters, but I trust them, I trust where they're going to go with it, their writing is just a pleasure to read if that makes sense.Share
Anne Bogel
38:23
I remember the author, Hannah Pittard, said once "sometimes the words just fall in exactly the right place" and I feel like that sometimes when I'm reading like, "oh that was just, it could not have been said better".
Share
Tara Nichols
38:36
That's a good way to put it.
Share
Anne Bogel
38:37
Tara, how are you approaching your reading life right now? How are you choosing what to read? What kind of mix are you looking for between old and new? Or are you just choosing what looks good and let it fall where it does?
Share
Tara Nichols
38:49
I mean, probably some of both. I still definitely like to read old books, books that have stood the test of time, although I would say this year, I feel like I've read more new books as far as like a proportion of the books that I've read than any other year before, and I feel like there was just like so many good books that came out this year.
Share
Anne Bogel
39:04
I was going to say, though, like there have been so many amazing new books.
Share
Tara Nichols
39:08
Yeah, but I still think I'm over half, I would say three or four years old or much older. Gosh, how do I choose books? I mean obviously this podcast puts a ton of books on my list, and you know, one of the cool things about being on this podcast, you know, three years ago was I got to meet over Instagram so many other readers.
Share
39:29
And I've found just so many readers whose taste is similar to mine and so if I have a friend on Instagram who posts about a book and I know their taste is similar to mine, like it's so easy for me then to just go and read that book because it's like I'm getting, I mean it's not a personalized recommendation, but it feels like it is.
Share
39:48
This year I finally read "Lame Is" the full version and I loved it, so that wouldn't have been in my challenge because that was the 19th century, but I love old books. You know, if a new book comes out and people are talking about the writing that I'm more likely to pick that book up to.
Share
Anne Bogel
40:05
I read unabridged lame is in eigth grade, which was not a choice. I would not recommend that to a 13-year-old passed an.
Share
Break
Anne Bogel
41:11
So the books you loved were
A Town Like Alice
by Nevil Shute
, published 1950. Native Son
by Richard Wright,
published 1940, and Testament Of Youth
by Vera Brittain
, published in 1933. Also, for you, I was Housekeeping
by Marilynne Robinson
, published in 1980 but not for you. Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys
.Share
41:32
Did you expect at the beginning of the year that your favorites would skew so old?
Share
Tara Nichols
41:36
No, I did not. And actually my favorite decade was the 50s, which was totally unexpected. I had very, very neutral feelings about the '50s, and I loved so many of the books I read that decade.
Share
Anne Bogel
41:46
What were a couple of the titles that you read in the '50s?
Share
Tara Nichols
41:48
Well,
Giovanni's Room
by James Baldwin
, and one that one of the other ones that you recommended, which was "The Daughter Of Time", that was 1951, and I loved that oneShare
Anne Bogel
41:59
I thought of that when you were talking about the mysteries.
Share
Tara Nichols
42:00
So there was just some really good ones. Those were, those were the best, I would say, and of course the town like Alice, which I already mentioned.
Share
Anne Bogel
42:06
And currently you're working your way through the
National Book Award
shortlist and reading the Pulitzer
winner, and you're looking for a beautiful writing, although a confusing needlessly complicated story, like wide sarcastic see, not for you.Share
42:20
Okay, I'm not quite sure whether to go old or new with one of these authors, I hope you haven't read, but we are going to start with the oldest.
Share
Tara Nichols
42:29
Okay.
Share
Anne Bogel
42:29
Now, I actually just talked about this book as an old book that I think is worth shining a spotlight on in my episode with Jim Mustich. But it's worth repeating, and I think it's worth repeating for you. Have you read
The Transit Of Venus
by Shirley Hazzard
?Share
Tara Nichols
42:43
No, I've never even heard of that.
Share
Anne Bogel
42:44
Oh, this makes me so happy. I know when Anne Helen Petersen was on, what should I read next? She loved one of her I think later works, "The Great Fire". Remember when you said the
Testament Of Youth
was very Britain
talking about hard stuff that happened to her, and you're not really selling it.Share
Tara Nichols
42:59
Yes.
Share
Anne Bogel
42:60
I fear it might be in a similar situation with
Shirley Hazzard
and The Transit Of Venus
. But let me start by introducing it this way. There's a new edition that just came out, I think earlier this year it's been reissued. It's a beautiful, I think penguin edition, but don't hold me to that. You've been working your way through the National Book Award
winners.Share
43:18
One of those winners
Lauren Groff
writes a new introduction to this book and in the beginning she says there is no one who writes a novel like Shirley Hazzard,
look at the structure of her sentences at this point in her career. Not only does she tell the story that needs to be told and tell it in a beautiful way, but just watch the way the words fall on the page and that's beginning from the very first line which is, I'll read it to you, it's "by nightfall, the headlines would be reporting devastation".Share
43:47
And what
Lauren Groff
starts by pointing out is that that is the beginning of a pattern, you'll see over and over and over, like where she's ending on the downbeat almost like the important thing, like she's just really giving her words a rhythm that makes you feel their impact, even if you don't consciously notice it. Lauren Groff
is like, this is going straight into your subconscious, your body knows, your mind knows, even if you don't consciously recognize it.Share
44:09
So, she talks about the elegant, economical, purposely constructed sentences telling this story and how at the beginning, when you start reading, you're reading about a storm, but you don't understand why the storm matters. What event the Storm is actually showing you, or that what you're basically reading is this like tiny encapsulation of the whole plot of the novel in these opening pages.
Share
44:31
What you do learn very quickly is that you almost feel like you've been dropped into a
Henry James
novel because there are these two beautiful sisters, they're orphan. They've come from Australia
to London
to make their way, and they have a almost called her Doting Aunt, she might actually be a cousin, but she's not doting, she is more like Mrs Bates than anything, but without any of her goodwill.Share
44:53
And so these women have to make their way and that means for them meeting men and falling in love with the right men or perhaps the wrong men. And one of these men is an astronomer, which is how you end up with a title from astronomy,
The Transit Of Venus
, that actually makes sense in the story.Share
45:09
The sisters on their surface have nothing in common. One is fair and shy and just wants a normal life that she never dreamt that she could ever have when she was first orphaned back in
Australia
and the other is more willful. She is fiercely intelligent, reserved, but not cowering like she thinks her sister could be, that's the one who brings the melodrama.Share
45:30
Although the other one doesn't really shy off because of whom she marries. I wanted to read this book because readers with good taste had told me, like "Anne, you will be glad you read this story". So even though I was practically bored to tear the first 75 pages and could not keep the sisters apart, which by the end of the book was inconceivable to me. Like, how could I confuse these two? I kept going because I knew that I would at least be glad that I reddit, I trusted that.
Share
45:54
But I do want to warn readers that that maybe their experience at the beginning, and I also want to share a quote from
Shirley Hazzard
own husband that said like, "oh, no one should have to read that book for the first time". There is so, I mean, she's such a master, I'm so impressed, but you don't even realize what she's doing so well as you're reading the story for the first time because you don't know where it's going, you don't know what happens.Share
46:16
And you can tell that there's some foreshadowing because she says things like "this is where this character is going to end up in 20 years, but he won't know that till later". So she's giving you clues, but you don't know what she's referencing until later, and you don't even realize all the crumbs she's dropping until later, and it'll just make you get to the end, I want to go back to the beginning and read again. The way she tells a story, I think you're going to like it, and I know I use the word melodrama because I'm talking to you, but by readers who are scared by that term, I wouldn't worry.
Share
Tara Nichols
46:43
Yeah, that sounds great.
Share
Anne Bogel
46:44
That's
The Transit Of Venus
by Shirley Hazzard
. Okay, next, talk to me about your experience with James McBride.
Share
Tara Nichols
46:52
I have read "Deacon King Kong", I really liked it.
Share
Anne Bogel
46:54
I want to suggest you read
The Good Lord Bird
, published in 2013.Share
46:59
You have discussed today how you love beautiful writing, and you love a strong, distinctive voice, and that is what you're going to get here. There's a prologue in the beginning of the book that kind of sets up because you're reading a novel, but the novel unfolds as though it's a memoir written by the first-person narrator.
Share
47:20
So when you meet the narrator in chapter one, the first sentence goes, "I was born a colored man, and don't you forget it, but I lived as a colored woman for 17 years". The colored man who lived as a colored woman for 17 years is Henry Shackleford, but he goes by "little Onion" when he was a 12-year-old slave in
Kansas
in the Civil War era. So, we talked about how A Town Like Alice
was lightly fictionalized.Share
47:47
This is actually the story of John Brown from the raid at Harpers Ferry and John Brown's body, and actually there was a series that came out last, I guess, two years ago now. And there were a lot of press pieces afterwards that when do you want to know how much is real? The answer is a lot more than you think in this story, the same is true for the book.
Share
48:06
But what happens is little onion's father is killed when
John Brown
comes in to free some slaves, which is what he was best known for, but little onion escapes and or rather is taken in by John Brown
, but because he's wearing like a sack cloth, it looks like a dress to John Brown
, he thinks little onion as a girl, but for safety reasons, little onion just goes along with it because he thinks he'll be safer if he is believed to be that way.Share
48:32
But he ends up following along with
John Brown
and his gang as they go across the country, they meet Frederick Douglass
, they meet Harriet Tubman,
they go all over and what's so interesting here is, you know, much of this history or at least you have, you know, a little about much of this history.Share
48:49
But to see it unfold through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy who's very innocent in some ways, but because of life experience very not in others is really interesting, narratively speaking, but the voice is what I think, I think that's why you're really going to love it. His turns of phrase, the way it expresses himself, the way that
James Mcbride
can make the words fall in the right order.Share
Tara Nichols
49:13
Yeah, I do love a distinctive voice and I really enjoyed "Deacon King Kong". So I've wanted to read more of his, so this sounds great.
Share
Anne Bogel
49:21
That is "The Good Lord Bird",
James McBride,
2013. Have you read Mary Lawson
?Share
Tara Nichols
49:26
I don't think so.
Share
Anne Bogel
49:27
I was really thinking about
Crow Lake
for you, but I didn't even realize until you were talking about Neville Shute that her most recent book, which was I believe shortlisted for the booker this year, it's called "A Town Like Solace" and I kind of like that symmetry for you.Share
Tara Nichols
49:42
Okay, I do. I own this one on my Kindle, "A Town Like Solace", but I haven't read it yet. I haven't read anything by her.
Share
Anne Bogel
49:47
Mary Lawson
typically writes short stories, but she packs in so much. I think that she would definitely be actually during our conversation I wrote down, you know, one of the authors I want to become a completest in because that's something I'm doing in 2022. I need to add Mary Lawson
to the list. I love the way she writes, but I think you will too. I think Mary Lawson's
tone and style just nestles in so well with that cluster of writers.Share
50:12
So this is a braid of a story. This is about three characters in a small, almost forgotten Canadian town with one diner where some of the best scenes absolutely take place just so you know, but their lives come together in unexpected unforeseen ways, and even though each of these characters is going through just brutal things in their life, loss and divorce and unemployment.
Share
50:37
But the way these characters in a small town come together in their own little trio, but also the way they each put out fingers to find community in the places they are, especially the 30 something in this story who comes to this community, they're really just licking his wounds and starts to make connections that save him.
Share
50:56
There's so much to love here, and I'm so glad that it got called out the way it did as a nominee because I know you're not the only one who's a sucker for an award winner, and I'm glad it's going to find more readers because of that, but that is "A Town Like Solace" by
Mary Lawson
. How does it sound?Share
Tara Nichols
51:10
I'm really excited about all of these truly.
Share
Anne Bogel
51:13
Well, we kept it to one new book, but if you want to go back in time,
Crow Lake
was published in 2002, it's her award-winning debut, and if you like "A Town Called Solace" and you'll go through it really quickly because it's just barely over 200 pages, there is more where that came from, and I'm going to be discovering the rest in 2022.Share
51:30
My list of must-read books for this year is just getting longer and longer and longer, I'm going to start considering taking the must label off some of them, I think, but you know how that goes?
Share
Tara Nichols
51:39
I do. I definitely do.
Share
Anne Bogel
51:41
Okay, Tara of the books we talked about today, at least the ones you may consider reading next, they were
The Transit Of Venus
by Shirley Hazzard,
"The Good Lord Bird" by James Mcbride
and "A Town Called Solace" by Mary Lawson
of those books, what do you think you'll read next?Share
Tara Nichols
51:57
Well, I think since I already own "A Town Called Solace", that one will probably be next. But I'm excited to read all of them.
Share
Anne Bogel
52:03
That feels right to me. This has been a pleasure, thank you so much for coming back on What Should I Read Next? Top books.
Share
Tara Nichols
52:08
Thank you so much, this was so fun.
Share
Anne Bogel
52:15
Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Tara, and I'd love to hear which of our recommendations you want to read next. To see all of the titles we discussed today, check out the show notes at whatshouldIreadnextpodcast. com/314.
Share
Break
Anne Bogel
53:13
Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What should I read next? Is produced by Brenna Frederick with sound design by Kellum Pekcheck. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, how good it is to be among people who are reading. Happy reading everyone.
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