#64 My Life in Books with Shawn the Book Maniac

Today, Sarah welcomes Shawn Mooney on for an episode of My Life in Books. Shawn is a Canadian Booktuber and book reviewer who is based Japan, and loves to enthuse about underrated or forgotten pieces of literature. We hope you enjoy the episode! If there is someone you would like us to interview for My Life in Books, please let us know!

This episode is fully transcribed. The episode transcript should be accessible from within your podcasting app or directly from Buzzsprout. 

Shawn's links
Shawn's booktube channel
Instagram: @shawnthebookmaniac
Twitter: @shawnmooney
Litsy: @shawnmooney
Sarah appearing on Shawn's channel

Books mentioned

• Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien 
• A Constellation Of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra 
• Anthony Marra's short story collectionsThe Tsar of Love and Techno and The Lion's Den
• Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra [release expected in July 2022]
• The Known World by Edward P Jones
• The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie [this is the one Sarah couldn't remember the name of!]
• The One Who Did Not Ask by Altaf Fatima
• A Brief History Of Seven Killings by Marlon James
• The Yield by Tara June Winch 
• Some Tame Gazelle  by Barbara Pym 
• A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
• No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym

People and things mentioned
Britta Böhler
 Book Riot podcast
The Readers podcast [no longer making episodes]
Litsy
Simon Savidge
Eric Karl Anderson
Reading Envy podcast
Books on the Go podcast



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Transcript

*AUDIO STARTS*

00:00:16 Sarah

Hello, welcome to the Bookcast Club, a podcast for people who like to chat books. Today, it's me Sarah coming to you as usual from the Netherlands for an episode of our My Life in book series. In my life in books, a guest comes to chat with us about some of the books that mean the most to them. 

I am really excited today to be joined by Shawn the book Maniac. Shawn is a book reviewer and youtuber. Canadian, based in Japan, who reads and reviews books that have been mostly forgotten, I guess or flown under the radar a bit.

So Shawn, welcome to the Bookcast Club.

00:00:45 Shawn

Sarah, how lovely to be here, thank you for inviting me and I think we would, I think we have the four corners of the Globe covered then. A netherlander in… no, an Australian in the Netherlands, and a Canadian in Tokyo. So yes, my moniker on Booktube is Shawn the Book Maniac. I had fun coming up with that title. It fits and I have had my channel for about four or four and a half years. I think your new your new co-host, Chris and I came on to booktube about the same time I think he beat me by about three weeks if I remember correctly.

00:01:21 Sarah

OK, nice.

00:01:22 Shawn

And yeah, I'm known for very strong opinions. I'm not afraid of a good rant like Chris. But I also love to wax passionate about the books that I truly love, and I am also known, I guess for reading off the beaten track. I read some…. I'm a non-apologetic literary snob. You - everybody read what they want, but I choose to read pretty much exclusively literary fiction.

I'm also specialized in a lot of stuff that is rather obscure. I think most of the ones I'm going to want to talk to you about today are not all that obscure one is, but yes, when I'm browsing in a used bookstore or a new bookstore or online, my eyes always gravitate towards the book that I've never seen the author have never heard of.

00:02:17 Sarah

Yeah, you also do quite a lot of something I really appreciate is when you are talking about a book that you know no one will have heard of you tend to learn a little bit about the author and explain a bit about their life, which I always find really interesting. Especially the ones that have - sometimes you have people that have been out of print for a while, or that we're publishing. You know, many decades ago.

I find this very interesting.

00:02:39 Shawn

I do like to specialize in that and that's a I'm glad you like it 'cause I'm going to be doing that about one of my picks today.

00:02:46 Sarah

OK, good yeah, I think you must be - you're one of the few people that I would watch on YouTube who would every single time come up with multiple books that I've never heard of. Most people I, you know, know the author or know the book already, but not you.

00:02:59 Shawn

Well, one of my dearest friends on Booktube, one of my dearest friends in life is Britta, Britta Böhler, and she often comments on my book hauls. She said, wow, I'd actually heard of two of those books.

Usually I haven't heard of any of them so.

00:03:15 Sarah

Yeah, I think we've we talk about Britta a lot on the podcast but I will leave her channel down in the show notes for everyone who wants to check her out because she's awesome.

00:03:22 Shawn

So yeah, the other thing about me as a way of kind of a segue into me getting to my first pick is that I kind of I had a reading slump that lasted about 10 years. And during that time I really just read maybe one or two books a year. Or you know, maybe 12 books a year, but my priorities were elsewhere and it was only when that of the advanced stage of I don't know what, but in my uh, late 40s, that I finally settled down with a man, instead of chasing up too many men, that my priority shifted back and I kind of settled down more deeply into myself. And started reading again passionately and that was about seven years ago.

So one of the things that got me back into reading was bookish podcasts. I don't think Bookcast was around seven years ago, but I used to listen to the Book Riot podcast and Simon Savage and Thomas is the readers and a few like that, and even then it wasn't… it just was a chance for me to fantasize about reading. It still took me about six months and maybe I had the Scribd membership for about four or five months before I actually read a damn book. And then I never look back. And reading has just become really the center of my life.

I won't say here publicly whether if I had to make a choice between my husband and reading what I would choose. But yeah, reading is central.

00:05:03 Sarah

Well, I had no idea about that, so this was this is when you were already living in Japan?

00:05:08 Shawn

Already living in Japan and I, you know there's all many things I love about Japan, but Japanese man was at the top of that list and so I yeah, I was just crazy. Boy, crazy man, crazy let's man crazy is better word to use and finally settle down and then kind of got caught more deeply acquainted with myself.

So fantastic, so all of these books are books that I've read since I got reimbursed in the reading life, so they're all books in the last seven years.

00:05:41 Sarah

Were you a reader before? Iis something you've returned to? 

00:05:45 Shawn

I started reading when I was old enough to read and I was, uh, you know, just a bookworm extraordinary as a kid? And then I would say probably by about high school I kind of got away from reading so much.

Went to university and then of course the reading you do in academia is pretty much for academia and then reading was more like I say, just maybe a book a month. I was members of book groups and going to literary readings and bookish festivals in Canada and so on, but was not a book maniac the way I am today.

00:06:24 Sarah

And then you started your channel pretty quickly, I guess because if it was a couple of years ago…

00:06:27 Shawn

Yeah, bookish podcasts which led me to Litsy, and I got so invested in and involved in Litsy that when I married my husband in Canada about 3 1/2 years ago, a couple of my litsey besties came to the wedding and I met them for the first time and they're still very very close friends today. So that was fabulous. But then through I think Simon Savidge started on Booktube, and so I started watching him and then Eric Karl Anderson and Chris and many others that I thought I think - I'm going to start one myself, so yes, it all happened in fairly fairly quick succession.

00:07:11 Sarah

I love it and we will link all these people. I'll put all these people in the show notes if anyone doesn't know Simon or Eric. Although I'm sure people do, but just in case.

00:07:18 Shawn

That would be a shock if they didn't. So yes, so I'm dying to know if you've read this, but this is the best book I have ever read and it's also a Marmite book, for example.

I mean, it's a prize winning book from 2016. Canadian book I might as well tell you before I do my preamble. It is I don't have to hold it up, but it is Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien nominated for the Booker and the Women's Prize and it won the…I never remember which of the Canadian literary prizes won that year either the [Scotiabank Giller Prize] or the [Governor General's Literary Award]. And I didn't want to read it.

Everybody was talking about it on Litsey and I found out that it was about China, it was a historical novel mostly based in China. The story starts closer to the present in Vancouver, but goes the bulk of the stories in China from the early days of the Chinese revolution up to the certainly up to tenement square.

But even past that and I wasn't sure hadn't read any Chinese literature or didn't think I was particularly interested in China and all the characters were musicians in China composers or violinists.

You name it, and they were a group of family and or friends. And it was the story of their lives in music and how the Cultural Revolution and various political tragedies and oppressions pulled them from their music. Tested their devotion to one another, and so on. It's a really gripping book, but I didn't think I'm not that interested in classical music. I don't want to read about China, why would I?

So I thought they say it's good… I fell so deeply into this book. That, like I say, it is the best novel I've ever read and prize winning, there's obviously lots of people out there that love it, but there are also significant detractors.

Chris from Chris Bookish Cauldron… if I'm remembering correctly, bail on this in disgust.

00:09:27 Sarah

Yeah, well, don't listen to him.

00:09:28 Shawn

And and my mother cannot understand what I see in this. Britta, cannot understand what I see in this, so there's lots of people that it just doesn't uhm, work for but it's the book that got the deepest into me, the one that shattered me the most where I didn't want to be put back together. Sometimes the most eloquent thing I have to say about a book is that it's rendered me mute… I have never tried to do a full review of this on my channel, but it is just… the way that it knits history and politics and creativity are the life of an artist, music into such fully realized characters and such gorgeous writing that just passages I remember…. 

I think somebody on Litsy - I'm famous on Litsy and Instagram and Twitter for when I find an interesting quote that I think has some kind of standalone vitality I put a little excerpt and sometimes find a nice picture to go with and put it up on Bush social media and I think I did finally get a request saying Shawn, we'd like to read the book ourselves. Don't put so many quotes up! But I mean it's just so many beautiful, beautiful passages.

I want to recommend it to people that don't think they'd like it because I didn't think I was going to like it, but at the same time, it's a book that you know people - Well, as I say, it's a Marmite book and I loved it so much.

The author Madeleine Thien came to Tokyo. The government brought her in to give a lecture at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo and I harassed the staff at the Canadian Embassy. Because it was free, but you had to make sure you had to get your name on our list and I was sending them emails every day to make sure they had my name on file and blah blah blah blah blah and almost got fired from a job because I asked for an evening off from my teaching. When she signed my books they said, oh, we're not… there's no time for her to sign any books and I said, oh please, please. And so I actually had about 10 minutes with Madeleine Thien.

And I'm sure I made a complete fool of myself, but it's it was it was lovely.

00:11:49 Sarah

That's wonderful.

00:11:50 Shawn

Lovely, have you read it?

00:11:52 Sarah

I haven't – but I was just going to say, you’re known by the Canadian Embassy in Japan for sort of neutral reasons.

00:11:56 Shawn

[laughs] Yes, and when I came when I came to the door they said, oh you're Shawn!

00:12:04 Sarah

That's funny.

I haven't read it. I know of it of course, I've funny I this is the best than most I've ever heard anyone talking about it sort of in a way that actually makes me want to read it, because most of the time I think I'm like you… not a huge fan of books about us like music painting that doesn't really draw me in or appeals to me at all.

So yeah, you've made me think I should have read it 'cause at the time I think I was like, oh, not so interested.

00:12:40 Shawn

The story opens in pretty much present day Vancouver and the Murray is her name and she I think she's a teenager and a family friend. Or maybe it's a distant cousin I've forgotten.

Now Ming comes from China and stays with her and her widowed mother and it's this I mean characters telling stories that moves quite quickly moves the story back into China into the past and the first part about the Canadian. Stuff sounded kind of, typically boringly Canadian. But once that story moved back to China, I was just hooked.

00:13:15 Sarah

Love it. So that was, Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.

00:13:18 Shawn

When I look at the pile of books I have here, Sarah, I think that what they all have in common is that there is some social, political or social historical theme. And that it is told through incredibly well realized characters. So I'm somebody who really cares about character. These all have pretty highly developed plots as well, but I actually don't care if there's much of a plot and I rarely talk about plot when I talk about books or why I love them.

To me it's the depth of the character work fit that hooks me and all of these have really strong characters. So are you more of a character or plot reader?

00:14:04 Sarah

Character 100%. I think we share a lot of like we both love the yield. I think you love The Yield right by Tara June Winch. 

00:14:11 Shawn

Yes, that's my last pick.

00:14:12 Sarah

Oh well, cut that out!

Yeah, characters all the way. I could read about a good character brushing their teeth if they're having like deep interesting thoughts. So for sure right? What is your second book?

00:14:28 Shawn

My second book is - and the rest of them all tie for second place. Basically, I don't really rank books beyond the do not say we have nothing is my favorite and the rest are all my second favorite.

But this one also just obliterated me. This is from 2013 and this is an American novel by a man. Go figure A Constellation Of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. Do you know this one?

00:14:53 Sarah

No, never seen it at all.

00:14:58 Shawn

So he's an American writer, and he's written a story set in Chechnya during Chechen–Russian conflict, so it's a fairly modern story. He himself has no connection to Chechen or Russia, although he's spent quite a bit of time living there doing research is my understanding, but it is one of the most graceful and compelling works of fiction that I've ever read, and I'm not sure I'm going to run out of superlatives soon so let's just carry on.

I'll tell you, it opens with this young girl who saw her father get taken away by the police and she's all alone and she hooks up with the next door neighbor across the street who takes her to a hospital where they agree to keep her and he this man he's Akhmed he also begs for a job at the hospital. I think his nursing credentials are a little bit wobbly, but they're so desperate for him in the hospital, where I think the roof has been blown off by whatever, you know it's just a desperate situation and I can't believe how Anthony Marra brings humor into such a tragic situation.

And we meet so many characters in this Chechnyan village and it's, uh, the doctor at the hospital, her name is Sonia and she is so stressed and overworked and exhausted and she doesn't really want to deal with looking after a 10 year old girl who doesn't know where her daddy is and she doesn't want to deal with this silly act man who claims to be a nurse, but she lets them in.

And then it's just all of not only all of the things that happen at that hospital, but the web just gets expanded to more characters in the village and then going back decades into the past with the history of the village, including a deportation from one part of the Soviet Union to the other and all this stuff in the back. And yet he manages to humor in fiction is not something that I typically look for or spend a lot of time.

You know, I just don't care - I don't need my fiction. I usually like to read heavy serious stuff, this is a heavy serious novel, but it is shot through with humor. It's a kind of a gallows humor that just was delightful and heartbreaking at the same time. If I can put it that way, I love this novel, you know, I guess I can only say that about two more times. But yes, I absolutely I absolutely love this novel.

00:17:45 Sarah

Where did you hear about this novel? I'm very curious.

00:17:47 Shawn

I think it was on Litsy. It won a bunch of prizes when it came out in 2013, but that was before I was doing so much reading so it was a new book to me, but popular at that time.

In fact, you know the podcast Reading Envy?

00:18:06 Sarah

Yes I do, yeah.

00:18:07 Shawn

It was, I think, her that was championing it and I read it and it was one of the few that Jenny and I actually agreed on.

00:18:20 Sarah

Let's see, we should probably say for people I guess in case they don't know, Litsy is like a social media book site, basically, right?

00:18:25 Shawn

Yeah, it's like bookstagram, but it's on a much smaller scale and because Bookstagram has just really taken off, Litsy is kind of looks like it's small country cousin, but because I have so many good friends there. 

Are you a member Sarah?

00:18:46 Sarah

No, I've never used it, but I know that you and Anna from Books On The Go - the guys on Books on The Go podcast all use it.

00:18:53 Shawn

Absolutely, that's where Anna and I first crossed paths.

00:18:57 Sarah

OK, yeah, they always talk about it and then I think you know it's like you guys and you and the guys on Books On The Go are the only people I hear talking about it, but in my mind it must just be like you four.

00:19:06 Shawn

That's right!  Yeah no, not a lot of booktubers go there anymore.

So the author, Anthony Marra, has also written a collection of linked short stories, which I very much admired but didn't love as much as this.

It is called….I don't know, I can't. I don't have it in front of me, but and finally 'cause this was 2013, he finally has a new novel coming out at the end of 2022. I can't wait.

00:19:36 Sarah

OK cool alright it will put I'll find the name of the other the short story collection and we'll pop it in the show notes.

All of the books will be in the show notes by the way dear listener.

00:19:44 Shawn

We only have one other dude bro not dude bro in terms of what role it is but I only have one other novel by a man. This one is also one of my favorite novels. It is a historical novel from the States and it came out in 2003.

I remember when it came out 'cause I remember hearing that it was his debut novel and he was something like 40 or something and I'd always thought that was quite inspiring and kind of kept a look out for it and finally read it about 3-4 or five years ago. Historical novel set pre civil war. The Known World by Edward P Jones. Have you read this one?

00:20:19 Sarah

No, I haven't.

00:20:21 Shawn

I'm dying to tell you about it, so this one is about a young man. I'll set it up kind of deviously the way I did in my full booktube review. A young man who decides against the wishes of his abolitionist parents in the Deep South.

Pre civil war that he believes he could become a slave holder and that he could be an ethical slaveholder and his parents are very upset because they're deeply, deeply abolition abolitionist, but he says, let me….I don't think he says it quite so explicitly, but basically he wants to prove that he can do it. His name is Henry Townsend, Henry Townsend is a former slave.

So he's a black ex-slave and as are his parents they have bought their freedom and he decides to become a slave holder, a slave owner to enslave to keep other uhm, enslaved people as his own property.

And then he thinks he can do this ethically. Well, let's just say it doesn't go well. It's based on a historical fact that there were a few not very many - I don't know how many but not very many ex slave owners and beyond that it's a fictionalization of that premise unlike any other book about any other novel I've ever read.

And I've read a fair amount of fiction about slavery, this one was incredibly powerful. The formerly enslaved slave owner, obviously is morally compromised and so are the many, many white characters and the on all and the enslaved characters, the formerly enslaved characters every everyone is implicated and compromised in this complex web of story.

00:22:34 Sarah

What a deeply complicated, ethical issue, right? That is so so complex.

00:22:42 Shawn

There's a scene which I'm not going to describe in any way, but other than that, it is one of the most devastating things I've ever read in my life. And it's about a ex slave and the only way it's about a formerly enslaved character. It happens to be a man so the only thing that uh, formerly enslaved person has to prove that they are free is a handwritten legal document that they carry on their person. And it is a scene about the vulnerability of being in that situation where the only thing - the only way you can prove that you belong, that you are entitled to walk or be out and about as a free person is this one piece of paper. I don't want to say anymore about the scene, but it if it doesn't rip your heart out, I don't think you have one.

Yeah, just really, really beautiful incredible novel.

00:23:45 Sarah

It sounds to me like it would be a good book club book if your book likes to discuss. Do you think that's accurate?

00:23:52 Shawn

Oh, I do. I do and I think most people loved it. I did this as a buddy read with a bunch of other booktubers maybe 4-3 or four years ago, and I think pretty much everyone loved it. And yeah, there's certainly a lot to discuss. And again, the characters you know he doesn't let anybody off the hook, but he also doesn't give up on anybody. And then there are some character revealing quirks that come that are that punctuate the novel.

For example, one of the weirdest ones. One of the ones I'll never forget is that sweat is pooling on so many of these characters’ bodies and the author just focuses your attention on the sweat.

And so sweat is the result of Labor and the labor in this book is being done by enslaved people, but sweat also can be created by desire and so the way that he plays with that.

And drinking, drinking the perspiration off the beloved body and different aspects of that. It's just this viscerally disturbing and compelling symbol that just or metaphor whatever you want to call it that flows through the novel.

And there's many other. Powerful, quirky things like that.

00:25:16 Sarah

God, how interesting that sounds fascinating. A very meaty book, really, sounds like there's so much in it.

00:25:22 Shawn

Very meaty, meaty, so good word. It won the Pulitzer Prize.

00:25:30 Sarah

OK, is that how you heard about it? I'm sure you're a big fan of the Pulitzer [laughs]

00:25:35 Shawn

I'm not a fan of book prizes particularly, but I don't ignore them. I don't ignore them, and when they often bring books to my attention that I hadn't heard of and beyond that. I have very little use for them.

I think I heard about it because it was kind of newsworthy when it was published that it was Edward Jones was of a, you know he was middle aged when his debut novel was being published, and that's where it has always stuck with me.

00:26:01 Shawn

But that may have been tied to the fact that he won the Pulitzer and I just don't remember.

00:26:07 Sarah

Do you remember? I don't know if you follow the Stella prize, which is like the Australian version of the Women's Prize.

00:26:16 Shawn

I always make a joke about, you know from The Streetcar Named Desire, right Stella?

00:26:34 Sarah

A few years ago it was won by a woman who was her debut memoir and she was in her 70s I think.

00:26:41 Shawn

Oh, and it was a Canadian story. She was Australian Canadian.

00:26:45 Sarah

Exactly. I have read it but I can't remember… Vicki I think her first name is, don't remember.

00:26:48 Shawn

I think it is too, and it's a hyphenated name.

00:26:51 Sarah

Yes, it is double barreled. I still remember – I can’t remember her name or the name of the book, but I do remember she describes coming in from the airport to that where she lives in Canada and driving through the mountains and it's incredible description which I remember very well, but I don't remember her name.

00:27:11 Shawn

Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting to that one. The next one is the only one really on this list that is representative of my taste for obscure out of print off the beaten track, books, writers and novels.

And this is one that I would say is probably Canonical, but certainly a central novel in Pakistani literature, or maybe the best way to put it is of Urdu literature.

I bought my copy of this at a used bookstore here in Tokyo. Sat on my shelf until I discovered the Women In Translation readathon my first year on book 2 and I read it for that and that Is The One Who Did Not Ask by Altaf Fatima.

And it is translated from the Urdu by Roxana Ahmed. It was originally published… I could never find because there's no information in the on the copyright page and there was no information that I could find online when I read this about four years ago about when it was actually published in Urdu, but now it's available that data that datum that piece of information 1964 and this translation from Heinemann, 1993, but sadly it's under print, but I'd recommend people go to the ends of the Earth to track down a used copy, because I loved this book.

I mean, it's it's a beautiful cover. It shows a man on a bicycle in a very lush garden, but the title is so [] The One Who Did Not Ask. Like I say I finally read it for women in translation, and this is a story about a pre partition Urdu family so it's in what is now Pakistan but Pakistan didn't exist at the time.

Yes it was set during World War Two and leads up to the early days post partition and there's a pair of twins, but the protagonist is Geeti and she's the mischievous twin. It's an upper class Muslim family and she's a bit of a rebel.

And there is a -  and this is the part that makes it such a rich and unexpected story, because there's one character from outside the culture. This is insular Muslim world of 1 extended family. But there is a Chinese shoe salesman slash delivery boy. He's about the same age as Geeti and they are friends and they have this special connection that I'm not.

I won't say whether it ever turns romantic, but it's a very deep bond between them that just injects this multicultural energy at the heart of this incredibly insular family story, and I was rooting for them and loved the connection between them.

And it had ups and downs and he would disappear for 100 pages. I wanted more of him in the novel actually, but that quirky, completely unexpected connection between Geeti and….

I've sorry all these years later, I can't remember his name, something Sandor or something was the heart of the novel for me.

I don't mind….In fact I love having things untranslated that I have to look up and sometimes not finding the answer when I go to Google but there was too much here that was not translated. That would be, I would say one flaw, but it made it a challenging read it, made it the kind of a read where I realized I was only getting maybe 60 percent, 70% of what I was reading, and I don't mean the language, but I just mean the overall story and the family was extended in every character in the family, every aunt, uncle, and cousin had at least two nicknames and sometimes they were called by their real name and sometimes by their nickname and that drove me crazy and I finally had to let go of you know, I knew that this was a cousin, but I couldn't remember.

It was on the dad side with them upside because there was too many names, but I just focused on the central immediate family of Geeti, her twin sister, parents and this connection with the Chinese guy.

And it was a beautiful read. I loved it so much. I think that was my last one. I that was the last time I get to say that and it took me forever to read. I'm a bookslut in in that I'm always reading well right now I've limited it to 15, but most of last year I was reading 30 bucks at once. And this was a few years ago and I don't remember how many. But this is a book that needs to be a lot more attention than I could give it.

And yet I still got so much out of it. The writer Altaf Fatima she was alive. She was a 91 or something.

And then at the week that I filmed the review in between filming the review and editing the review, when I checked one more time, she had died and so that was chilling because I had such a deep connection to this book, despite my imperfect reading of it. And then her granddaughter found my review and left her comment saying how touched she was by finding that people were reading her grandmothers work. So yeah, this is the special one, The One Who Did Not Ask by Altaf Fatima.

00:32:51 Sarah

Can I ask are you someone who you know at the beginning of a book, often you'll get like a character list. Are you a refer back to the character list, make sure you understand who everyone is, or are you just generally reading it?

I just tend to read it and if I don't get it from the writing, I'm like, well, I will….

00:33:06 Shawn

I'm a bit in the middle. I have been known to buy an ebook version of a book that I'm reading in hardcopy, so that I can do a quick text search to remind myself who the characters are. Yeah, so because now I do want to know and in fact when I film I remember in my review of this book I recommended that if you're going to tackle it that you should make a character list, including all the nicknames.

Otherwise, you’ll probably get lost. But yes, I love books that have a character list or a family tree. Yes, I do.

00:33:38 Sarah

Ah, interesting. Yeah, I ignore them. The only book I've ever followed it for was Marlon James's A Brief History Of Seven Killings, because those people who the individual characters are is not so important, but they all are part of different kind of gangs or political groups, so it's kind of important. The context of that person, but normally I sort of think well if it's not clear from the book, I'm not interested, you know.

00:34:01 Shawn

And so, and you're a one book at a time reader.

00:34:05 Sarah

Yeah, one or two, so we're very our context is very different.

00:34:06 Shawn

That's right in with my context to any any family tree, your character list would dramatis personae or however, whatever that word is is is does help.

00:34:19 Sarah

Yeah, I was going to say to the listener. If you think that you're a polyreader and you read multiple books at once you don't. Not compared to Shawn, it's insane.

00:34:28 Shawn

Well, it was insane 20. I think it was up to 27 books at one point last year and it was.. Yeah, but I am who I am! I don't have to explain myself to anybody.

No, no, I'm not asking you to justify it.

00:34:44 Shawn

No, I know you're not! So that was that was the one that comes from that side of my reading life so I've only got 1 left so our time is good. We could actually talk about more whatever you might want to talk about or other books. My last my last one is my top read of last year that is Tara June Winch’s The Yield.

I did this as a buddy, read with another booktuber Greg of supposedly fun and we both loved it and this remained my top read of the year by because we read it quite early in the year for Aussie April. In fact, this is the only book that I immediately - this is the only book in my entire life that I immediately started rereading upon finishing it the first time, so I read it twice last year and this is the one where I felt so mute.

I was so stunned by the force of this book, and this is quite a Marmite book, too by the way, I know you loved it, right?

00:35:48 Sarah

Yep Yep Yep.

00:35:49 Shawn

But a fair amount of people on booktube that didn't care for it or didn't think thought it had major weaknesses or whatever. And that's fine. It's a free country. Uhm, I loved it even more at the second time. But I still feel mute. So come help me talk about it.

The Yield is set in a fictional part of Australia, Rural Town and the characters are Wurundjeri characters, Aboriginal characters, and there are three storylines.

The grandfather has just died, Albert and his granddaughter had gone to live in the UK several years before, so she comes home for the funeral. Her narrative in the very present of the novel, preparing for the funeral and all that stuff, and there's all kinds of stuff going on in the present day of this story and that's kind of the August strand of the narrative, Albert had been making a Dictionary of the weird jury language that was unfinished at the time of his death, and in fact, a lot of things going on in the August story or they're looking for the manuscript, but he had been creating this and I, I would say that is definitely the strongest, most emotionally obliterating part of the the novel is his dictionary entries because he embeds a lot of his and his story and the story of his family in those dictionary entries, and it is so beautiful and in such a unique way to tell a story, and then there's a historical narrative which is a long letter. I think it was written in 1915 by a German Australian pastor who had been ministering to the Wurundjeri people in that same neighborhood back then, and he was implicated in the horrific racism of that time.

But he was also had some kind of an awakening. That's debatable and lots of people have different opinions about him, but that that links the letter that he's writing

00:38:04 Sarah

Yeah, I think he's writing back to his church I believe.

00:38:08 Shawn

his church, some leader in the church or something, and that those are all interleaved in the novel and to me it works.

00:38:14 Sarah

Yeah, he's he's writing about his experiences trying to convert the people that lived there.

00:38:19 Shawn

Trying to convert them and then being converted by them being getting his mind a bit stretched open and seeing their plight for for what it is his particular persuasion of religion. Or certainly more than he did at the beginning. And then experiencing racism as a German in Australia as well, I thought.

The three parts fit together beautifully to me, this in a way that's comparable/analogous to my favorite novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, this is a novel that. weaves the strands of the social, political, racial issues, Aboriginal liberation issues. Told through desperate characters in a way that just made my heart sing.

00:39:14 Sarah

Yeah, I I loved it too actually. So I've also read it twice, funnily enough, and I also got much more out of it the second time I appreciated the structure and Tara June Winch’s writing ability actually a lot more the second time.

The first time I was sort of more trying to understand it, I think and understand how how each of these three characters fit together, and especially the historical narrative.

I remember the first time I read it, I was thinking like why is this in here? I didn't really understand it obviously for me as an Australian reader it's a little bit - Yeah, obviously it's different to be reading something I've read a lot before, so as an Australian reader I was thinking like, well I didn't need this in here, but then talking to we actually did an episode of the podcast about this, which I'll link in the show notes, but talking to the other hosts, they all appreciated it much more than I did. It made me appreciate why she had put it in there and how sort of beautifully balanced, it was so.

00:40:09 Shawn

I have been one of my reading projects, especially last year, was to read a lot of indigenous fiction and nonfiction. It took me leaving Canada for more than a decade to realize what a shithole country Canada is. We love to pat ourselves on the back that we're not nearly as racist as America. Well, that's a pretty low bar. Canada is terrible, and the Canadian history is just chock full of horrific racism, and particularly to the indigenous people whose land we stole.

So I've been reading a lot of nonfiction, not only Canadian but also you know Australian or American and this book more than any other work of fiction to meet, got to the heart of the idea of the idea and - more than idea that the physicality and the philosophy and the beating heart of what land in an Aboriginal context, and she does that just so beautifully and like you say, reading it a second time I got more so much more out of it and realized how much more there was to get on a third reading.

Like the layers of this and the whole idea, you know the title, the yield and the way that land shows up in all three of the narratives that was. Ah, it was powerful. Absolutely incredible.

The one section that the readers that don't quite love it or don't love it tend to find fault with is the August section. Would you agree with that as a general statement?

00:41:55 Sarah

That isn't, yeah, I disagree with them, but, yeah. 

00:41:57 Shawn

I do too. I can see why some people might have that view, but I was lucky enough that as while I was rereading it, I was also reading some Canadian, a Canadian memoir that was very much focused on intergenerational trauma and it really helped me see the August strand of the narrative in The Yield in a different way and I think it's actually I don't want to use such a stupid word as perfect, but it's actually a really deep portrayal of her character experiencing intergenerational trauma and and that affects her character and her actions in a way that I think some people think what's going on with August.

Well yeah, that's a big part I think of what's going on with August, and I don't think it was a a flaw at all was incredibly powerful.

00:42:54 Sarah

Yeah, I completely agree. I hear people say that they find her too passive as a character, she doesn't do enough, her reactions don't really make sense, and she doesn't seem upset enough and and I think the way that Tara shows how she's just sort of… yeah exactly, it's intergenerational trauma.

How all this these things are happening to her, How they've always happened to her, how it happens to all the people that she knows and I, and it's very interesting when reviewer's will say, like, oh, she should have been doing more like they expect. There's this expectation that someone like August has to be some kind of activist who's going to go and protest.

Also, -  sorry to if you haven't read it, one of the plotlines that's happening is that August grandmother, her farm is getting taken away by the government. A mining company who wants to demolish her farm, and uprooted and get the stuff out from under the ground that's there.

And yeah, I'll often you hear people say that she wasn't doing enough or her reactions weren't enough, but this is something that's been happening for since white people came to Australia, removing indigenous people taking their land, getting rid of them, et cetera, and it really shows how, yeah how much intergenerational trauma that August experiences. She's not that outraged about it, she's just like it's just part of her life.

I found that really, I think it's brilliant. Also, I also read for my book club as well and a lot of my book like obviously I'm the only Australian there, but there's so much in it for people. Everyone in the book club got so much out of it for completely different reasons.

There's just so much in the book because the main character, August, she's been living in London for, I think 10 years or so, so she's really coming back.

Yeah, after a long time and the way that it describes the feeling of going back to your “home” when you've been living overseas for such a long time, a lot of my friends here who are also expats really found that that really resonated with them. That feeling of going home and or not being home are you home? Are you not home?

00:44:49 Shawn

Now that's very interesting. I hadn't thought about that for me personally, but I bet you that is part of my reaction. The other thing that I would say to people is, I mean I'm a big believer in Google reading.

So I mean, what deepened my experience of this? Both times I read it, so I remembered when I looked the bird names up. For example, the second time that I had done it the first time, so there's so much about the natural environment and the land that if you look stuff up and you do go down and watch some YouTube videos. Or whatever it does deepen your sense of the setting, which is the one of the main characters.

00:45:26 Sarah

Oh, the Brulga dancing?

00:45:27 Shawn

Yes, oh, such a powerful scene in the novel.

00:45:28 Sarah

Worth looking up if you are not familiar with. Yeah, no, I'm really glad you liked it and it's and it makes me very happy because it's obviously it's a deeply distressing novel, but it also shows some of the beautiful parts about Australia and indigenous culture which are not super well known I think outside of Australia so I'm glad you liked it.

00:45:49 Shawn

My favorite book of last year.

00:45:51 Sarah

Yeah, I think it was my favorite book the year I've read it, which was, I think, the year before last year.

00:45:54 Shawn

And Tara June Winch is wonderful. I've actually had a little bit of personal contact with her and she's just a lovely person. How about if I talk about a writer rather than a book.

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00:46:53 Sarah

Oh yeah, great, that's perfect.

00:46:55 Shawn

Because this is also another part of my reading life, that's really important to me that when I think about my favorites, these books don't go on that list even though they are another type of favorite.

00:47:06 Shawn

Please grant me a few minutes to obsess about the the mid 20th century British writer Barbara Pym have you read Barbara?

00:47:18 Sarah

Did she write… I have to look at I think I have read one of her novels.  I think every one of her novels?

OK, no, I've read Barbara Trapido. I was thinking of Brother of a More Famous Jack. She's a British novelist from the mid 20th century, also called Barbara, but not this one.

00:47:42 Shawn

Barbara Pym’s first novel is Some Tame Gazelle and I'll talk about it for a minute, but I could talk about I have about four or five favorites from her oeuvre, and it was published in 1950, and she was a university student, went to Oxford and never married, wrote for a hobby, kept losing confidence and trying again and and the novel that was published in 1950, Some Tame Gazelle she started in oh goodness, then early 1930s, mid 1930s and it was finally published and in that novel she imagined that she and her sister would never marry and would live together and she imagined what their life would be like as middle aged spinsters living together in a rinky-arse little town in the UK.

In fact, while her sister did get married briefly and got divorced, Barbara Pym never married. They did end up living together many years later as two single British women, and this was her imagining what that would be like.

It is full of humor. And again, I'm humor is not something that I'm typically drawn to. But I think if you really what I say is if you only get the humor of the story, I think you're missing the gold because it's also is really deep portrayal of loneliness and feeling like you've missed out on what your culture is telling you you should be doing with your life.

Getting married and having kids and these two women are, you know, they're involved in church work and there's sexy young tourists coming in. I'll never forget the opening scene is that they can see the long underwear under the curate trousers and what a kerfuffle that that causes to them both and I'm not good on British religious vocabulary. The the priest, the Anglican, whatever he is, [used to] date the protagonist and she's never quite given up on hoping that something might happen between them, even though the the priest is married and has been married for years and there's all these yearnings and no step.

All this nostalgia that is told with such humor, like the experience I had of it, is these characters are people that you don't want to only laugh at, and so you and you don't just laugh at them. You can't help but laughing at how ridiculous some of the interior and interpersonal foibles they get themselves mixed up in are, but that there's also something really compassionate.

About the way that Barbara Pym tells stories like these about the women, that get short shifted in a lot of other fiction.

Barbara Pym is the goddess I recommend her. Very, very highly..

00:50:51 Sarah

I love that. So she's your favorite writer, you would say.

00:50:54 Shawn

Well, she's definitely one of my favorite writers. Yes, she wrote from about and and then her biography is is quite fascinating too, because she wrote and had quite a lot of success with. I believe the first four of her novels and then in about 1961 or 1962, her publisher rejected her next manuscript and said, AH, this is a bit passe, we’re in the 60s now your stories are not - They're just not speaking to the era, and she was heart devastated and she'd been into the literary wilderness until about two years before her death.

Yes, in about 1980 when she had a comeback and got published again and got nominated for the Booker and then died at the age of I forget - very quiet young, 60 years.

If you have any other questions about Barbara Pym, I could talk for 17 hours, but yes.

00:51:50 Sarah

I love that. Well, apparently I've never read anything by her. So what was the name?

00:51:55 Shawn

Her debut is Some Tame Gazelle, which is a phrase in a line of British poetry from the 19th century.

And my other favorites are A Glass Of Blessings.

00:52:07 Shawn

Ah, No Fond Return of Love.  And, well, I'll leave it at those three. I have one others, but I kind of blanked on the title, but that's enough.

00:52:14 Sarah

Looks like she's wrote about 8 or 10 books I don’t know.. I can’t count that quickly. Interesting!

00:52:28 Shawn

Again, it's not something that everybody would take too, but I..

00:52:32 Sarah

Well, that's you, Shawn, isn't you?

00:52:33 Shawn

That is me. That is me in a nutshell. It's not everyone’s cup of tea, but a cup of tea is a fitting way to end the discussion on Barbara Pym, because there’s a lot of tea-drinking going on. 

00:52:47 Sarah

Awesome, I guess that's it.

Thank you so much Shawn.

00:52:50 Shawn

What a delight Sarah.

00:52:50 Sarah

I really enjoyed it.

00:52:53 Shawn

So I guess now it's your turn to come on my channel. 

00:52:56 Sarah

I guess so yeah, I guess we didn't mention I'd have been on Shawn’s channel before, so I guess we'll link that in this show. Despite my reluctance to be on video. Yeah it's so funny 'cause you I was like very nervous about being on online being you know what I mean - I think a visual thing of me on the Internet and then you didn't want to do audio, so.

00:53:13 Shawn

That's right. Well, we're both better people for it.

00:53:21 Sarah

Thank you so much and we will link all of Shawn's stuff - We will link his Instagram. We will link his YouTube in the show notes. Please go and check him out. I think he will really like him, especially if you would like to have your reading horizons broadened, which I hope you will as a listener of this podcast

Thank you so much.

We will talk to you guys next time. Bye!

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