Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to The Stack, a books podcast that cuts through the noise to share with you a curated list of the books that are worth your time. My name is Jake. I'm a writer and a podcast producer.
And I'm Ella. I work in book publishing. In every episode, we'll be building a theme stack of six books we love. And this week's theme is haunted books. But before we start, Jake, how are you doing? How was your week?
Yeah, my week was good. I have been excited to share with you that I have bought a bike.
Congratulations.
I'm back on the bike, which famously you never forget how to do. And I always think of you because of the time that you did the cycling proficiency course.
I did. Thank you for remembering. Yes, I did.
Advice that has stuck with me. Do you remember what it was?
Was it the only piece of advice I can recall from said cycling proficiency, which was if you get beeped at, it means the other drivers can see you.
It wasn't that funny. Okay, sure.
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Chapter 2: What is the theme of this week's episode?
It was like, you are a vehicle.
I said that to you?
Yeah, it's like, you're not a cyclist.
Yeah.
You're a vehicle. That's really motivational. And you need to take up space on the road.
Yeah.
That's what I'm trying to do.
Congratulations.
How are you? What have you been up to?
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Chapter 3: How did Jake and Ella choose their haunted book recommendations?
So.
It maybe makes me believe in that when you see what your brain creates, that maybe that's very real in the moment.
I, having now had someone I'm friends with tell me that they've seen a ghost. Yeah, that's not done it. Okay. That's not done it for me. Should we talk about some books? The first book I am adding to the stack is Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. So this is a dark, kind of dark academia fantasy book set at Yale. So Leigh Bardugo is a fantasy author.
She has written YA before, so she wrote Shadow and Bone. This was her first adult fantasy book. So the kind of brief plot summary is that Alex is a sole survivor of a horrific unsolved crime and then finds the fresh start that she's been looking for at Yale University. It's completely free ride, full scholarship, but it comes with a catch.
So Alex represents a secret society called Leith and they are tasked with monitoring the mysterious activities of Yale secret societies. Secret societies are all magic and they all kind of prey on people that have less power and privilege.
And at the expense of those people, they are able to, through dark magic, yield the most famous and influential people in the world from kind of Nobel Prize winners to presidents and influence the kind of stock market. So as a novel, it's full of power and balance. And you have Alex as this person who's trying to keep these societies in check.
Alex, in her favour, she is born with the ability to see ghosts. Hence the selection for today. And so she can communicate them. She sees flashes of their memories and her ability becomes more and more useful, even as she's working to keep them at bay because they're really draining. And so it has all the hallmarks of fantasy that I love. It has a really fleshed out magic system.
It has great characters. I love the heroine. I love a duology. Do you ever read?
I think that it's quite rare that I come across duos.
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Chapter 4: What makes 'Ninth House' by Leigh Bardugo a unique read?
You can borrow it. There you go.
Thank you.
I'm sure, yeah, because I'm sure you've seen that in the shops. It's done very well.
I've thought too scary for me. I've probably written it off because I don't read a huge amount of horror. And I've probably thought it's a bit too scary. But actually, that sounds amazing.
Now, we have got a listener question for our shelf help section. What we want to do here is to solve any of your dilemmas. So whether you need a present for your in-laws, whether you're struggling to read in a certain genre and you want recommendations, we are here to help. We are at the Stack podcast on all platforms. If you're watching on YouTube, you can leave a note in the comments.
We've got our first listener question from Emily, a friend of the pod, who runs the It's Hard Back Out Here book club. So let's hear what Emily has to say.
Hi Jake and Ella, it's Emily here from It's Hard Back Out Here Book Club. Obviously books are a big part of my life and something that I really want to share with my family who are less bookish than I am, particularly my dad. He's a therapist, he is generally not particularly interested in books but he has been reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Laurie Cotlieb.
It's a memoir about a therapist who goes to therapy. So my question to you guys is do you have any book recs that are fiction that might be able to give them some escapism or nonfiction that's not about like psychology or therapy.
Thank you. OK, I have one thing to say. The third book that I bought at Waterstones, it was this book that Emily's dad has read. Oh, reverse influenced. Wow.
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