EP56: Magic, Poetry, and the Frozen River

Live from the Book Shop: John Updike's Ghost

This week, we're in the thick of it, busy with all the things the holiday season brings to little retail shops like ours. It's a stressful time. So, Sam's been reading the Magicians, along with the Magician King and the Magician's Land, as a bit of comfort reading. He's discovered he's not being mocked by them. But don't worry! Hannah's been reading more substantive fare, including "We Must Not Think of Ourselves," which left her "really seriously crying, in a way that I love." Author Lauren Grodstein is her former writing teacher from Brooklyn, too. Then we get into a little segue on buying poetry — Sam's been reading Betsy Sholl and Phil Kaye and enjoying them immensely. In her audiobook listening this week, Hannah was a bit underwhelmed by "The Other Half," a mystery that has what feels like a betrayal at the end, but "The Frozen River," by Ariel Lawhon, a book set in Hallowell, Maine (though it wasn't Maine yet), is a lot more enjoyable, with a midwife, and a murder trial, and so much more. Just give it some time to get past the archaic dialogue.