Kate and Charlie Gibson, THE BOOK CASE
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now.
[0:07]Thank you so much.
[0:08]Called moms don't have time to read books.
[0:10]It is a daily podcast 365 days a year and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career,
[0:18]their book, their life, and more in 30 minutes or less because who has time?
[0:22]I am now an author myself, although I wasn't when I started this podcast, and you can get my new memoir bookends,
[0:29]a memoir of love, loss, and literature, wherever books are sold starting July 1st, and my children's book prints is charming.
[0:37]You can learn more about me at ziviowens.com, but really you're here to learn more about the authors and that is what we're going to do.
[0:44]Also be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the Zcast podcast network.
[0:49]You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com and definitely check out those shows as well.
[0:58]Also just a quick note that submissions for the ziviowards are open and will close on September 15th.
[1:05]Go to ziviowens.com and you will find the ziviowards open submissions where we celebrate
[1:11]all the under-celebrated parts of a book, like the best spine, the best authors note, the best table of contents,
[1:17]and authors can nominate their own best publicists, best editors, and so on.
[1:23]There will be an in-person award ceremony in October in New York. You will not want to miss it.
[1:27]Go to ziviowens.com. Charlie Gibson and Kate Gibson are co-hosts of a podcast called The Bookcase,
[1:34]and I interviewed them about their podcast and also our shared love of reading. Kate previously
[1:40]worked as an executive in public television and as a producer and director for a number of
[1:44]food network shows. She is working on a master's degree in library and information sciences.
[1:49]Her father, Charlie Gibson, had been a 35-year veteran of ABC News before his retirement in 2009,
[1:56]working as White House Correspondent and Congressional Correspondent before joining Good Morning America
[2:01]as co-anchor, and he became the permanent anchor of World News in 2006. The two of them co-hosts,
[2:08]The Bookcase, the description of that is, are you stuck in a reading rut? The bookcase makes the
[2:12]case for books outside of your usual genre, wander the aisles of your local bookstore with Kate
[2:17]and Charlie Gibson, and make fascinating characters who will open your appetite to new categories
[2:22]while deepening your hunger for books. This weekly series will journey cover to cover through the
[2:26]literary world featuring interviews with best-selling authors, tastemakers, and independent bookstore
[2:31]owners, new episodes post every Thursday. Welcome, a big welcome today to Charlie Gibson and
[2:38]Kate Gibson, who are co-hosts of the new podcast The Bookcase from ABC studios, I guess, from ABC
[2:46]in general, from ABC audio. ABC audio, thank you. There's the word I was looking for.
[2:51]So welcome to this special edition of Most And Have Time to Read Books, where we are featuring
[2:55]another podcast. So I don't want everybody to stop listening to this podcast, but you should also
[3:00]listen to their podcast. Welcome, tell listeners about the bookcase and why the two of you,
[3:09]Charlie, why you came out of retirement, Kate, how you convinced him to do this, and why books are
[3:14]so important to you that you felt like this was worth investing all your time in now.
[3:18]Well, I'll go first, and then he can talk about how I pulled him kicking and screaming out of
[3:23]retirement. I left my job at Twin Cities PBS in September of 2019, thinking that I would quickly
[3:33]and easily find another job in public television, either within the Twin Cities or nearby,
[3:38]and we would relocate. And then the bottom dropped out of the entire planet, and I had nothing
[3:45]so if I had to do it again, I may have stayed in my job a little bit longer, but I was home with two
[3:50]kids going completely stir crazy and interviewing any place that would give me 15, 20 minutes.
[3:57]I was tap dancing as fast as I could, and I was reading everything I could get my hands on
[4:01]because I figured at no other time in my life was I not going to have a job. So I started reading
[4:05]things in my bucket list like Infinite Just and Bleak House and all of that, and it was a big part
[4:11]of how I connected with my dad during the pandemic. And my husband who's an audio engineer,
[4:16]that's how we met. We worked on diners, drive-ins, and dives, and he actually is our producer now,
[4:21]said, I have all the equipment, and you guys have really oddly compelling conversations about books.
[4:27]Can I tape them and we'll make a podcast? And I think I told him he was crazy for almost a year
[4:33]before he finally talked me into it, whereupon I called my father.
[4:37]Yeah, I think parents, father and child, mother and child, find various ways to connect
[4:43]as the kids are growing up. And other than family matters, I think Kate and I probably
[4:49]talked more about books than we have anything else in our lives. And she's a reader. She's
[4:57]has always been a voracious reader. And that's always been a love of mine reading, and so she calls
[5:05]me and says, let's do a podcast. As I've told the story before, she had to call her back and say,
[5:10]what's a podcast? I didn't know. I'm just not of the generation that the cast pods, I guess.
[5:17]And so I went out and bought a copy of a podcast for Dummies, and it proved not to be very instructive,
[5:25]because there is no cookie-cutter way, as I know you have learned to do a podcast. You just do it.
[5:32]And unfortunately, millions of people are doing it. And so I said to Kate, we need to, if you're not
[5:40]working, we need to sell this thing. Well, that proved to be a tougher job than I thought. We went
[5:46]up a lot of blind allies. And finally, ABC audio to probably to their great regret,
[5:53]they would buy it. I had some previous connection with ABC. It's about seven people in the world,
[6:01]remember. So eight. But it certainly was less than 11. And so we were in business once ABC said
[6:15]they would do it. The other thing was in order to stand out, to differentiate ourselves.
[6:21]Since it was an ABC connection, and since I was the host of Good Morning America for 19 years,
[6:27]I asked the new executive producer of Good Morning America, would she give us six slots a year
[6:32]to come on and do stories that sort of organically grow out of the podcast. But in truth,
[6:38]it's to plug the podcast. I can't lie about that. So that's what we're doing. And I bless
[6:45]your heart for saying it's a new podcast. We've been doing what 16, 17 shows. And it's hard.
[6:51]You do it to be every day. I am in awe of your ability to do that. Because we do want to
[6:58]weaken. I'm thinking, this is this is not in our end. It's not any time seven.
[7:05]As I told you, I also started doing it once a week. And our stories were so similar. It was my
[7:10]husband who got me to do a podcast. I was I also literally said to a friend, like, what's a podcast
[7:16]and had to go Google like what to do and where the I couldn't even find the button on my phone
[7:20]to listen to podcast. So I am with you on that whole journey. So yeah, I mean, starting slow,
[7:26]maybe who knows, maybe in four years, you guys will be a daily podcast. And you'll be like, wow,
[7:30]who knows? I promise you, I promise you, if it's a daily podcast, I will be six feet under
[7:38]quickly. But it's it's it's interesting. It's really radio about demand. I mean, that's
[7:43]essentially what it is. And once I had that phrase in my head, it was it was a whole lot easier to
[7:48]understand. But I think in some ways, our sort of beginner stance with podcasts in some ways has
[7:54]been advantageous because we have no idea how we're doing. Nor would we even know how to go about
[8:01]putting together those analytics to figure out how we're doing. So that's very freeing. And so
[8:09]in this particular in this particular, I think ignorance is really freeing because we both come
[8:13]from the world of TV. And we know that how a podcast does is based on lots of different
[8:18]factors. And so in some ways, I think are not understanding the world has been very relaxing.
[8:23]Not at first your bubble, but there are detailed analytics for podcasts.
[8:27]You want to know? Okay. Okay. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I don't want to know.
[8:32]So if somebody told us that what percentage of people who are listening have subscribed
[8:39]apparently, that's that's something that people who listen to the podcast do. I didn't know.
[8:44]And that's very high. So our level of engagement is high. Whether a lot of people are listening,
[8:50]we don't know, but we're having fun. And that's the point of it. And we have, and I think you
[8:56]probably come to the same conclusion. We are in the midst of a masterclass and writing. And we learn
[9:01]so much about how novelist nonfiction writers, we're going to get into kids' books. We're going
[9:08]to get into biographies, how all these people work because it's totally different. Again,
[9:13]is there there's no cookie cutter form of a podcast. So too is there no cookie cutter potter,
[9:20]a cookie cutter way that that writers go about their craft? Yeah, that's that's that's true.
[9:27]And I think too when I when I was reading when I was growing up reading, if I read a good book,
[9:31]my first reaction when I put the book down is boy, I would love to sit down and how coffee with
[9:36]the author and find out how their mind works because I'm always interested in exploring the
[9:41]mind behind a great book. And so now we get to do that. And, and that's awesome. It's my dream job.
[9:48]You sound exactly like me. This is like the craziest thing. It's like watching myself talk.
[9:53]It's great. I'm like, this is what I must sound like to other people when I say the same thing.
[9:58]Do I sound obnoxious? You sound-
[10:00]amazing. No, I share both of your enthusiasm about books and I loved listening to your interview
[10:08]with Oprah. Your opening episode which was so wonderful. I actually didn't know the whole
[10:12]backstory of how she started the book club, how random the thing it was that it was just a five
[10:17]minute thing at the end of her show and it was her intern really who was like well we have to just
[10:22]get people to read books. Listening to her talk to you about the importance of reading and getting
[10:27]people reading and also the gift of what you're giving someone when you read a good book and
[10:33]love it and you share that with someone else and then they read it and love it as this unique connection
[10:39]like I am so behind that a hundred percent. I feel like that all the time. Well, it's interesting
[10:45]we have one of the things I said to Kate because we both both of us have an affection for
[10:51]independent bookstores that we love to go into a bookstore and just lose ourselves in the shelves
[10:56]and so I suggested to Kate that we would affiliate ourselves with 25, 30, 35 independent
[11:02]bookstores around the country and I spent a fair bit of time on the web looking up what would be
[11:08]interesting bookstores and I was interested in small ones. You know, there's some really big ones
[11:12]like Shakespeare and Strand in New York and City Lights in Los Angeles and Powell's in Portland, Oregon.
[11:21]I was interested in the little, you know, we just recently talked to a woman who retired as an
[11:28]English teacher and opened an independent bookstore in the town of 616 people. Now that's gutsy
[11:36]and I love talking to those people so independent bookstores were critical to us and we have
[11:42]affiliated with a bunch talking to the independent booksellers gives the same reflection of what you
[11:48]just mentioned to be which is that the wealth that they derive is not monetary. The wealth
[11:55]that they derive is putting a book in somebody's hands and having them come back and say,
[12:01]I love this book and you have inspired me to read this, this, this, and this as well. That is
[12:08]where they get their compensation and I admire them immensely the same way I guess
[12:15]writers do a number of writers have said to us once I've written the book. It's not mine anymore.
[12:20]It's yours. It's the readers. I would think that would be a tremendously satisfying thing for them
[12:26]to say and one of the booksellers that we talked to told us a wonderful story. She put,
[12:31]she put the old man in the sea in the hands, the Hemingway book in the hands of an eight-year-old
[12:37]an eight-year-old and the eight-year-old came back 10 years later. This was a resort bookstore and
[12:44]the kid came back every year with his parents, I guess, to vacation here and he had the book which
[12:50]was all dog-eared and he said for 10 years it had been on his bedside table and he had read it
[12:55]and reread it and she said, oh can I see it and he handed it to her and he said, but don't let
[13:01]any of the sand fall out and she looked at him quizzically and said sand and he said, yeah,
[13:07]I thought it would be really cool to take it down and read it on the beach outside Hemingway's home
[13:14]and he did. He took it to Cuba and he read it right in the shade and the lead of the Hemingway home.
[13:23]Now that she said is my wealth. One of the things too that we realized I think by talking to
[13:28]Oprah and talking to many guests and I bet you've realized it as well too is that you can make
[13:33]a devoted reader out of anyone if when you get them as a child you can get them a book in which
[13:40]they see themselves represented. It's one of the reasons that I'll fight book banning all day long
[13:45]because there are so many different kinds of kids out there and they're looking for themselves,
[13:49]they're looking for the story of themselves and that will inspire them to be readers their whole
[13:54]life. And Oprah told a great story about she wasn't really a reader until she read I know why
[13:59]the cave to bird sings and she opened it up and she saw herself on every page and that inspired
[14:04]her to be a reader for the rest of her life. I think that's really important for kids.
[14:09]I'm hoping we can do an episode on the fight right now to keep books available to all kids
[14:16]but kids need to see themselves in books and that will create a reader out of almost anyone which
[14:20]makes me really happy. And we talked to the proprietor of a bookstore in Chicago which basically
[14:26]caters to the LGBTQ community and that bookseller said to us it wasn't until it was a very brave
[14:36]to write a memoir if you were not straight in the ages that this woman had grown up and now
[14:42]it's much more common but she said it's really important that the kids who might feel in some way
[14:48]well it's feel different that they find themselves and that kind of book and she said as a result
[14:53]our bookstores is really important. I'm sorry I interrupted you. No no no it's your it's your
[14:58]episode. No I was just I was just going to make a joke like why then I wondered do my kids like
[15:04]dog man like why are they seeing themselves in dog man? I don't know. What does that say about them?
[15:10]I don't know. My daughter's in a captain underpants so right exactly yeah it's like better than
[15:15]captain underpants. Yeah I don't know so crazy. When you do your podcast you ask a number of
[15:22]questions to some of your guests so I wanted to ask them back to you. I don't know if you've had
[15:26]them asked to you so I'm going to do that. So both of you what are and these are if you listen to
[15:31]the bookcase for listeners of this show you will hear all these amazing authors like John Irving
[15:36]summarized his life in five words which is hilarious and just amazing Anna Quinlan and Mary
[15:41]Laura FilmPod and it's just so cool. Okay what is the most influential book in your life? What
[15:47]has been the most influential book of your life? A prayer from Mimi by John Irving. Yeah in terms
[15:52]influential I would say Tom Wolf the right stuff. It is always interesting to me that was written
[15:59]about the astronauts and they're having the right stuff but but the way that that so many
[16:06]industries or businesses or or networks are pyramidical and you sort of started the bottom and you
[16:13]work your way up to the top and if you fall off to the side and you don't have the right stuff
[16:19]whatever that may be in whatever business you may be in. People tend to say well okay you didn't
[16:25]make it you know and write him off and that's an unfortunate but it's true in so many different
[16:32]guys' in life that you sort of have to rise up to get to the top of the pyramid and if you fall
[16:38]off the side nobody has a whole lot of time for you which I think is sort of unfortunate. I've
[16:43]just found a brilliant brilliant book. Okay well I can't give that many poetic reasons for liking a
[16:49]prayer for O and Mimi but I can tell you that I reread it every couple of years and every couple
[16:53]of years it changes it's meaning changes for me and it was also the first book I think I read
[16:58]where almost after every page I would go oh just because of the writing. I mean every I mean
[17:04]when he says I am a Christian because of O and Mimi every time I go oh I mean it's just the way
[17:09]he writes in that book to me is is transcendent so I love that book. You know we were encouraging
[17:15]readers just to read like the first five pages or something you know like you will get it once
[17:19]you read a few pages so excited for his new book. Favorite time and place to read? After my kids
[17:24]go to bed. There's just I and God love my kids I love them so much and I'm so I mean they are they are
[17:31]my reason they are all my reasons but that being said there's just something nice to know
[17:37]that I can read and at no point nobody's gonna go mom like that's just there's there's something
[17:43]wonderful about that. Well you're lucky because my kids still bother me in the middle of the night
[17:46]so I you went on that front. I would answer that question. My wife and I I did a lot of traveling
[17:55]when I worked for ABC and my wife and I both love to travel but I've traveled for work and what
[18:01]I hate to do is to pack an unpack and pack an unpack. So I want to go somewhere and stay there
[18:08]and my wife wants to go someplace different every day. So we've gotten into cruising which is
[18:13]not it's not inconsiderable in the cost of doing so but we love that and and I would say not just
[18:21]at favorite time to read but place these these new cruise ships now you get a balcony off your cabin
[18:28]and I'm going out sitting in a chair looking at the sea as you cruise and reading is to me
[18:36]the perfect spot. Oprah described her spot as when it's raining and she opens the door and she's
[18:42]sitting in front of a fire and she's got a dog at the base of a chair and whatever that she said
[18:46]I do it right and I'm gonna catch me or throw on her lap or something. Yeah it's very I do like
[18:51]also like that would also be my like if I could open up the windows in Hawaii and get my non-existent
[18:57]dog and like I wanted to be in that room with Oprah and just read with her. You can borrow my dog.
[19:04]Well I'm telling you've been on a cruise ship sitting on a sitting on your terrace and looking
[19:08]at the sea and reading is just it's perfect. Do you have a cruise line or like something I feel
[19:15]like there's so many options that I wouldn't even know where to start and getting in doing a cruise.
[19:20]Well if they'd sponsor the podcast I'd mention the two that we love. That's true yeah
[19:27]any cruise lines out there if you would like to sponsor these two podcasts we'll take a big fun
[19:32]bookish cruise together. Regent Cruise Line down in Fort Lauderdale I think it is we'd love to have
[19:38]you sponsor the podcast. Okay. We'll proceed. Are you listening? Okay favorite children's book.
[19:46]Oh we love it out without a doubt because it's my I think it's my favorite book in the world
[19:51]Charlotte's web and right behind that I think everybody has a copy of Goodnight Moon. I would put
[19:56]that on the list and then one that we're going to actually get.
[20:00]and tune in the next GMA spot we do,
[20:03]which is Alexander in the horrible terrible,
[20:05]no good, very bad day, which I love.
[20:07]I love that too.
[20:09]I just did an Instagram post and ended it hashtag
[20:11]even in Australia.
[20:13]Even in Australia was actually a phrase in my house.
[20:16]We said it a lot.
[20:17]I loved Eloise because I was a pain in the A
[20:21]and she was a pain in the A.
[20:22]And so I always saw myself in that book.
[20:25]I love, love, love that book.
[20:28]But Charlotte's web was also a big one for me.
[20:30]Most of E.B. white, you know,
[20:31]Stuart Little, Trumpet of the Swan.
[20:33]And I was just, I was a fan.
[20:35]And then I also really, really love James
[20:37]and the Giant Peach.
[20:39]Awesome.
[20:40]E.V. or Adiabuck?
[20:41]Book.
[20:42]Book.
[20:43]But I do, I do since I started doing this.
[20:46]I also do audiobooks obsessively.
[20:47]So if I'm not reading my book,
[20:50]and I'm folding on to where you're making my bed
[20:51]or whatever, I'm listening to an audiobook
[20:53]and I generally try to listen to it at time and a half,
[20:56]which means that can absorb more books.
[20:58]But I, and while I think the answer is easy to that,
[21:02]it's book when you're traveling,
[21:03]when I'm out on that terrace on the ship,
[21:05]I've got a Kindle in my lap
[21:07]because it is made reading on when you travel so much easier.
[21:12]And also that's interesting,
[21:15]I think there's an interesting psychology,
[21:17]which I think would be sort of fun to explore
[21:20]in one of the podcasts,
[21:21]which is it's easier to buy books on a Kindle
[21:25]and you will, if you might go into a bookstore
[21:29]and you get three in your hands
[21:31]and you think, oh, great,
[21:32]you know, I've got $50 with a books in my hand
[21:35]or 60 or whatever.
[21:37]Then you get on a Kindle and it's kind of easy
[21:38]and you just keep, and there's a whole lot of books
[21:41]on my Kindle.
[21:42]Disney, isn't it?
[21:43]They don't let you spend money anymore.
[21:44]They just give you a wristband.
[21:46]So you're like, this is so magical.
[21:48]I'm not paying for anything.
[21:50]And then at the end,
[21:51]they hand you all the paperwork
[21:51]and you're like, oh, what?
[21:53]I don't, I've tried an e-reader.
[21:55]I have, my parents gave me one.
[21:58]My husband would love it when we moved from New York.
[22:00]He had to pack up all the books and take them with us.
[22:03]But it's just, it's not me.
[22:05]I like pages.
[22:06]I like knowing where I am in the pages.
[22:08]So going on vacation, my husband knows he has to leave
[22:12]almost half a suitcase for me if it's long.
[22:15]I think our husband's, our husband's have to talk.
[22:17]Hmm.
[22:18]And Kate's bookcase is her biography.
[22:22]She likes books in the order she reads them in her bookcase.
[22:26]And she can look and realize what age she was
[22:29]when she read that and what was going on in her life,
[22:31]et cetera.
[22:31]I'm not nearly that organized.
[22:33]But it's an interesting way to approach reading.
[22:36]The only OCD thing I do.
[22:39]Favorite character and literature?
[22:41]Oh, I go along with Kate on that.
[22:44]I'd say only fascinating character,
[22:46]really interesting character.
[22:48]Yeah, and I've got a very distinct voice for him in my head.
[22:51]I talked to an interview once who said to me,
[22:54]I asked John Irving to do the voice.
[22:55]And my first reaction was, oh God, I hope he didn't do it.
[22:58]And the interview said he didn't do it.
[22:59]And I was like, yeah, because I have a very distinct voice
[23:02]Charlotte also, but Charlotte and Wilbur are also
[23:05]right up there for me.
[23:06]Okay.
[23:07]Then you have, you asked people,
[23:08]what's the most revered book you read and didn't like?
[23:11]Isn't that your question?
[23:13]Yeah, no, because I have a very specific book in mind.
[23:17]I had a great professor actually at Princeton
[23:20]who taught, of course, in the English novel.
[23:23]We started with Pamela and we went right up
[23:25]through the Alexandria Quartet.
[23:27]And we spent, he was a, he was a joycy and scholar.
[23:30]And we spent three weeks on.
[23:33]He misses.
[23:33]You listen, you blocked it out.
[23:35]You blocked it out.
[23:36]You knocked it out.
[23:37]You blocked it out.
[23:38]We spent three weeks on Ulysses.
[23:39]And I hated it.
[23:40]I hated it.
[23:41]And I, he kept talking about the predominant color
[23:44]in each chapter and I didn't get any of it.
[23:48]I just, I thought it was a, I, anyway.
[23:50]And it's mostly the great English novel.
[23:52]So actually one of the things I want to do is have a podcast
[23:55]with the debate among the most professors
[23:57]about, about whether or not this book really is
[23:59]as worthy as so many of them say and revere.
[24:03]But I feel that maybe that's a little,
[24:05]I don't know if that's too high for okay to do that.
[24:07]No, I think actually I want to do Ulysses.
[24:10]I want to do Don Quixote, which I did not understand.
[24:13]Uh-oh, everybody from Spain, my apologies.
[24:15]I know Cetervantes is a, is a big deal.
[24:18]I didn't get Don Quixote.
[24:20]And over the, over the pandemic, I read Infinite Jest.
[24:24]Amazing.
[24:25]I read Infinite Jest.
[24:26]I'll just say that.
[24:27]I read Infinite Jest.
[24:28]I read Infinite Jest.
[24:29]I read it.
[24:31]And I, I almost feel like I should get that tattooed on my arm.
[24:35]I read Infinite Jest and then put the date.
[24:37]All respect to David Foster Wallace,
[24:39]who was clearly a brilliant, brilliant man.
[24:42]But that book was, I read it.
[24:45]Let me get you, I'll make you a t-shirt.
[24:46]How about that?
[24:47]You can just wear it when you're feeling it, you know?
[24:49]Let's do it.
[24:50]And it's, it's so way, I know we're almost out of time
[24:54]and we can talk books all day.
[24:55]But I know our shared mission is to help people
[25:00]connect through books, keep reading, not be so distracted
[25:04]by the eight million things, including devices
[25:07]and so many things that are vying for our attention.
[25:11]What can we do?
[25:11]What are you, what aside from podcasting
[25:14]and trying to proselytize ourselves?
[25:16]Do you think there's anything else we can do
[25:18]or that other people who are, who love to read can do
[25:22]to, to make reading as exciting as, as we feel it is?
[25:26]Well, I'll start because I know my father
[25:28]is going to be more articulate than I am.
[25:29]But I just, for me, I think that you use the right word there.
[25:33]We live in an economy of attention.
[25:36]I think right now, advertisers,
[25:38]everybody's trying to get your attention.
[25:39]That's what be monetized these days.
[25:42]And I think also we did a piece with Ozzler Nophacy
[25:45]on the show, she wrote a book called Reading Dangerous Late.
[25:48]And I think what she is saying, and I think it's really important,
[25:52]is we are not a country that is very good at talking
[25:55]to each other right now.
[25:56]We're incredibly divided.
[25:57]And we're not challenging ourselves by reading.
[26:00]And we really should be because it is by humanizing
[26:03]the other that we can understand the other.
[26:06]We can have empathy for the other.
[26:07]And we can sympathize for the other.
[26:08]So I think this country needs to do more of it,
[26:11]but that's more of me on my soap box.
[26:13]In terms of making it more exciting,
[26:14]you can go anywhere in a book and it costs you almost nothing
[26:18]and it costs you the price of a library card.
[26:19]So I can't, it's an addiction for me.
[26:23]Ozzler Nophacy was a very interesting interview.
[26:25]I don't think many people have read that book,
[26:28]but she wrote a book called Reading Lolita in Tehran,
[26:31]which was a subversive act at the time
[26:34]that she had a little reading group doing it.
[26:36]And she believed, she puts a Nabokov or a Nabokov
[26:40]I never know how to pronounce his name in her book,
[26:42]really dangerously in saying that imagination
[26:46]is the first step toward, what is it Kate?
[26:48]How was that?
[26:49]I'm missing a quote to imagination.
[26:51]It's a version, it's a version of rebellion,
[26:54]something like that.
[26:55]And she believes you do that through fiction,
[26:59]that that really opens your mind to other ideas
[27:03]because nonfiction is wedded to fact
[27:06]and fiction will really open your mind
[27:08]and get you thinking differently.
[27:10]I think that's a very powerful argument.
[27:12]And I don't, you know, we say with this podcast,
[27:17]you're not gonna read every book we talk about,
[27:19]but if we just get you to think,
[27:20]oh, gee, that sounds interesting.
[27:23]For O, if we get you to think that author is really smart.
[27:27]And they all are, they're so smart in what they do.
[27:30]And as I say, I have no greater respect
[27:33]for any craft inside writing, overriding.
[27:35]I just think writers are the most important people
[27:38]in many respects in our society.
[27:40]So it is a privilege to talk to them
[27:43]and Kate talks about all the writers
[27:46]that we talk to who are of whom she is a fan.
[27:49]I'm a fan of all of them.
[27:50]If you can sit down and have the discipline to write
[27:54]and have the mind that is expansive enough
[27:57]to come up with something that will interest somebody
[27:59]for 250, 300 pages or power to you.
[28:03]Or in the case of John's latest book,
[28:05]892 pages.
[28:07]Yeah, John's John's, John's, John,
[28:09]or having a latest book is called The Last Chairlift.
[28:12]Comes out, I think in October.
[28:14]Okay, now you're reading at the moment.
[28:15]It's almost 900 pages.
[28:17]John, John, John, John, John, I'm a fan.
[28:23]I'm wife, has it?
[28:24]My wife has an expression that if you can't say it
[28:27]in 500 pages, don't say it.
[28:30]I don't know.
[28:31]I love it.
[28:32]Well, thank you both so much for coming on Momstone Time
[28:35]to read books.
[28:36]We're having me as a guest on the bookcase,
[28:38]which I am just so honored to be among
[28:40]the highly esteemed other writers who I adore.
[28:44]Many of whom have been on this podcast too,
[28:45]and it's just so wonderful to talk to such
[28:49]like-minded book enthusiasts so that collectively
[28:52]we can all keep the excitement going
[28:54]and I don't know, falls in the air, right?
[28:57]Well, it's an interesting thing that you're doing
[28:59]and then we are as well.
[29:01]If you're a reader and if you really love reading,
[29:04]then why are you gonna take time out
[29:05]to listen to a podcast?
[29:07]Because you, you know, why aren't you reading?
[29:09]But if I go back to that idea,
[29:12]if you can get people to say,
[29:13]well, that's something I hadn't thought about before.
[29:15]Yes.
[29:16]I have a good friend after the John Irving interview.
[29:18]He said, you know, I've been for the last 30 years,
[29:21]I've been reading nothing but nonfiction,
[29:23]but you really got me interested in John.
[29:25]And so I've read prayer for Owen Meany.
[29:28]I read the world according to Garpan.
[29:30]Now I just finished last night in Twisted River.
[29:33]And he said, I loved it.
[29:34]And I think you've changed my reading habits.
[29:36]You've opened up a new world to me.
[29:38]So if you can do that, maybe that's our wealth.
[29:42]Maybe that's our wealth.
[29:43]Amazing.
[29:44]Thank you so much.
[29:45]Thank you so much.
[29:46]Really appreciate you having us on.
[29:49]Nice question.
[29:49]And I love the podcast.
[29:50]I look forward to more.
[29:52]You're doing a good job for the people,
[29:53]but you're doing it every day.
[29:55]He really, he can't get over that.
[29:57]He can't get over that.
[29:58]How can we talk to you the other day?
[30:00]It calls me up and he's like, every day.
[30:02]We'll see if this is an interview.
[30:06]You can see how I can do this over and over again.
[30:07]This is a piece of cake.
[30:09]Thank you so much, Sivi.
[30:10]Take care.
[30:11]You do.
[30:12]Bye-bye.
[30:13]Bye-bye.
[30:14]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[30:17]to Read Books.
[30:18]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zibi Owens,
[30:21]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:23]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[30:25]and sign up for my virtual book club
[30:27]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[30:30]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[30:32]for the Sound Editing.
[30:34]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[30:35]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.