S04:E05 | Regift: On Booksgiving + Five Books for Your Fab Fam (and Favorite Freaks)

Happy Booksgiving! We're inaugurating a new Jolabokaflod-inspired holiday, Little Oracles style ... because gifting a book is cool as hell. Featuring five books I won't flinch about giving to fabulous friends (and fellow weird-fiction freaks).

• If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga
• Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
• Hera Lindsay Bird by Hera Lindsay Bird
• The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
• Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

Thanks so much for being here, and, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine. <3

Resources

• Find every episode of the pod in the Little Oracles Archive
• Books and media referenced | If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English: Pure Colour by Sheila Heti and Weather by Jenny Offill; Hera Lindsay Bird: Fleabag (TV show, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Dolly Alderton (author), The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (album by Chappell Roan); The Friend: Splinters by Leslie Jamison, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner; Cursed Bread: Diabolique (film, 1955), I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid, Mona by Pola Oloixarac

IG: @littleoracles

Transcript

[Intro music]

Hey everybody, and welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, an oracle for the everyday creative. I’m Allison Arth.

So it’s holiday season, and for a lot of folks that means gift-giving season, and so I thought I’d put together a giving guide that leans a little more Little Oracles and little less big-box Black Friday bonanza. And this isn’t gonna be a list of my favorite small shops or maker storefronts — even though I have a lot of those, and if you’re going gift shopping, I highly encourage you to patronize as many little local businesses or creator-owned online outlets as you can, and just, you know, be a comrade during this very consumption-focused time of year — but today I wanna talk about giving something that’s near and dear to my heart, and I think is near and dear to your hearts as well, and that’s books.

I was inspired to put together this list by a couple of things: first, by a post I saw on Bluesky by this fella named Pete Prodoehl; he said, “Giving someone a book as a gift is cool as fuck.” [laugh] And pardon the swear, but I’m quoting, so it’s okay. [laughs] And second, I was inspired by my friend Larissa, who started observing Jolabokaflod many years ago — and I’m not Icelandic so apologies for the pronunciation, there — but if you’re not familiar with this very cool Icelandic tradition, Jolabokaflod basically translates to Christmas Book Flood, and it’s the practice of giving books to one another at Christmastime, and relishing the time you spend together reading them.

And I think it goes without saying, but I totally agree with Pete and Larissa and I guess the people of Iceland [chuckles]: giving someone a book as a gift is cool, and it’s an extension of care, it takes empathy and thoughtfulness to determine what book you think someone would savor and enjoy and even treasure. A book is the gift of knowledge, or of escape, or of challenge, or of comfort — it’s perspective and connection and imagination; it’s just, like, a god-tier gift, you know? [laughs]

And to that end, let’s celebrate our own version of Jolabokaflod here on Little Oracles; let’s call it Booksgiving, and frankly, you can celebrate this holiday any time of year as far as I’m concerned. So for this inaugural Booksgiving, I’ve got five book recommendations for you, and they’re divided by character type — so, you know, books that I think a person with certain likes or proclivities would enjoy — and they are atypical types, I’m telling you right now, but that’s by design, because these books are equally atypical; they really stand out for me as I think back on everything I’ve read these past few years.

So first up, for the mega meta-head, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga. This is a story about an Egyptian American woman who travels to Cairo in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings; she meets an Egyptian man; and things happen. Obviously those are brushstrokes, because I don’t wanna give too much away, but what I love about this book isn’t the plot; it’s the writerly ornaments that surround the plot, and what I mean by that is the story unfolds through multiple perspectives; each chapter opens with a cryptic Zen koan; there’s a twist; there’s all this meta going on throughout the book, and it just feels fresh and experimental, even as it wrestles with questions of colonialism and globalism and tokenism, and even as it offers these really rich portraits of our two point-of-view characters. It’s a truly remarkable book, and one that anyone who’s interested in literary fiction with some experimental elements — I’m thinking fans of Sheila Heti’s Pure Colour or Jenny Offill’s Weather, for example — folks who love that type of fiction would really get into If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English.

Next, for the heartsore homie, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter. I think we’re all aware that the holidays can be a tough time of year for a lot of people, so I want to include a book for anyone who’s really going through it; this book was a buoy for me when I was really deep in my grief earlier this year: I read it four times in a row — it’s a tiny little thing, and I would maybe call it a poetry novel; it’s certainly experimental in its blending of literary genre. So this is another multi-POV book, with a shifting timeline to boot, it’s about a man whose wife dies unexpectedly, and his two young sons, and the spectral crow who squats in their home as they deal with the loss. Now, based on what I’ve just told you, you can imagine that this book is weird — I’m not gonna lie to you [chuckles] — but there’s some in its surreality that just grabbed me as I was navigating loss as well: the manifestation of this unruly and really rude crow in these sad lives felt so apt. And it felt cathartic to fixate on this book and kind of live in its rawness for a while, and I think anyone who’s been a little sad this year can find comfort in these pages, and in the absolutely heartwrenching and beautiful way Max Porter renders the relationships between the father and his sons, and between all of them and their memories of their dearly departed — it’s just a gorgeous read, one that made me cry over and over, and still want to go back and live in that deep and abiding love again and again.

Next, a bit of a tone shift: for the chaotic queen, Hera Lindsay Bird by Hera Lindsay Bird. So this is a poetry collection from, like, eight years ago, by a New Zealand poet I’d never heard of until very recently, and oh my god: if you’re giving a gift to some unhinged goblin, to someone who likes gross girls in fiction, to someone who thinks they don’t like poetry — your search has ended, find this Hera Lindsay Bird’s self-titled and you’ll be all set. This collection is so bizarre, both content-wise and formally; it’s hilarious; it’s perfectly disgusting, it’s just … I– I mean, naming your collection after yourself is its own level of goofy and messy and self-effacing. I love this collection so much, and I know I’ve already referenced Fleabag here on the podcast — that the Phoebe Waller-Bridge show that I adore — but this book is giving Fleabag in a huge way; it’s giving Dolly Alderton if you’ve read her essays; it’s giving The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan; it’s just giving, you know what I mean? And I think there are so many chaotic queens in this world who would just love Hera Lindsay Bird by Hera Lindsay Bird.

Next up, for the big-hearted bestie, The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. So this is a short novel about a woman whose best friend dies, and leaves his aging Great Dane in her care, and what I really liked about this book — and the reason I would recommend it without hesitation — is that the writing itself read like memoir. It’s so real and matter-of-fact; it just feels like you’re catching up with your best friend, which is a real feat, I think, given the weightiness of the story itself. It’s definitely a book about dealing with grief, but it’s also so touching, and lightly funny, and really human; it’s just refreshing, you know? It encapsulates that push-pull of heartbreak and happiness, and kind of reminds me of Splinters, Leslie Jamison’s memoir about divorce and motherhood, which, honestly, I’d also give without a second thought, just a stunning book; and also Crying in H Mart, in some ways, by Michelle Zauner, which I think was everyone’s favorite book of 2021 [laughs] There’s that indescribable frisson of intimacy and almost like shared history in the narration of those books that I find also in The Friend; it’s the real-real, and that’s why The Friend by Sigrid Nunez made this list.

And finally, for the unapologetic weirdo, Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh. Here I am again with the surreal fiction, everybody! Only this time we’re in post-World War II, rural France, and we’re plunged into a strange story of obsession starring a Elodie, a baker’s wife, and Violet, a visiting Ambassador’s wife (and there are side quests featuring the baker and the Ambassador, but it’s more about Elodie and Violet). Seems normal, right? Like a Marguerite Duras love triangle, or some mannered postwar pastoral of suppressed desire or whatever. And in a way, I guess Cursed Bread — which I always want to pronounce as Curs-ed Bread for the rhyme and for the vibes [laughs] — but Cursed Bread definitely contains those elements, all of those “normal,” quote-unquote elements, but it’s so much more. The narrative, which is driven by Elodie, feels so claustrophobic; it’s very closeted, very repressed, very self-flagellating, very midlife crisis; and there’s this ever-present dread, this, like, overcast-skies feeling — and it kind of reminds me, at least tonally, of Diabolique, the French movie from 1955 — there’s this general foreboding throughout the whole book, and then, shit gets surreal, okay? [laughs] Like, super surreal, and sinister, and a little scary, but also kind of triumphant? You know, it’s– it’s a tough tome to describe without giving a ton away, plot-wise, but suffice to say that anyone who loves weird fiction — not experimental formally, per se, but just outre storytelling, like I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid or Mona by Pola Oloixarac — anyone who likes that kind of book will devour this book like, I don’t know, a loaf of cursed bread, maybe? [chuckles]

And there you have it, your Jolabokaflod-ish gift guide for all the kooky characters in your life. As ever, please check content warnings for any books you’re planning to read or give away, because reading should be a refuge, not a trigger. If you wanna chat, you can find me at arthograph — that’s a-r-t-h-o-g-r-a-p-h — on Instagram and Bluesky. And if you’re looking for more big book energy like this, as well as all manner of creativity content, you can find every episode of the podcast at little oracles dot com. Until next time, as always: take care, keep creating, and stay divine.

[Outro music]

[Secret outtake]

… and that’s books [cat meows] wow [cat meows again] [laughs] … and that’s books [cat meows again, questioningly] Mitchell? [cat meows insistently] Mitchell! [cat meows even more insistently] Oh my goodness, Mitchelli! Are you done? [cat meows loudly] No. [cat meows so very loudly] Oh my god, he won’t stop. [cat meows so, so very loudly] Oh my god! [laughs]