Kate Scarth

He can be very chatty.

So it really works on audio, but I'm really excited now to read more classics on audio.

I think it could be a real game changer for my reading life.

Why this book?

Well, I did an 18th century fiction course, and one of my favorite university professors, Don Nickel, is an 18th century lit prof. And Tom Jones was always a favorite of his.

I know he's given me at least a couple copies of it over the years.

So it felt like I've been waiting to read it.

I definitely, in my application, how much should I read next?

I had many, many ideas.

So I feel like maybe it comes down to like,

ghost stories.

And so I mean, like both kind of, I guess as a metaphor, like I'm thinking about books like The Postcard, Ghost in the Throat, The Five, there's the ghosts, right, of these people whose lives are being investigated, right, and being recuperated.

And that's really true.

Like, I mean, Ghost in the Throat, it's right there in the title with the 18th century poet who's very much like haunting the narrative, even if she's not kind of necessarily, you

And I am more and more interested in stories that have, well, actual apparitions.

I was going to say literal ghosts.

Can you have a literal ghost?

But an Instagram reading friend of mine had recommended Stephen King's The Reach, which is about an elderly woman who's never left this island in Maine where she's lived her whole life there.

And it's just separated from the mainland by a body of water called the Reach.

And as she's kind of getting closer to the end of her life, all these people from her past start appearing to her and saying it's time to cross the Reach.