Both Chris and Emily inhaled Alice Henderson’s second Alex Carter novel, A BLIZZARD OF POLAR BEARS, which is out today, 11/9! Emily has been partaking in the Laurie Colwin renaissance and read HOME COOKING: A WRITER IN THE KITCHEN and her novel, HAPPY ALL THE TIME. Chris enjoyed Our Mystery Man John’s recent recommendation, THE VAMPYRES OF HOLLYWOOD by Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Scott. And we recount our Joint Jaunt to The Montague Bookmill, a used bookstore located alongside the Sawmill River in Massachusetts. The Book Cougars were thrilled to sit down and talk with Jung Yun about her second novel, O BEAUTIFUL, which is out today, 11/9. This novel is centered around the oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor is a 40-something Korean-American woman who is reinventing herself as a journalist after leaving her first career as a model. She finds herself back in her home state of North Dakota where an important assignment and investigation into the boom prompts a collision between Elinor’s own past and present. The result is a dark and complex story about identity, gender, race, class, and violence, both inter-personal and environmental. O BEAUTIFUL is a masterful exploration into a woman’s experience that sheds light not only on one place and time, but on so much of the discontent and pain in American culture today.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related