Roundtable Book Discussion!

What books would you want with you on a desert island? What book do you think deserves to be thrown into the fires of Mt. Doom? What movies are better than the books they're based on? The podcast team tackles these tricky questions and lots more in this month's episode.

Transcript

Michael Pierry: Hello, and welcome to the Hamden Library Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Pierry, and this episode is a special one. Instead of our usual format, we decided to have a roundtable discussion with six members of the podcast team, including myself. What did we talk about? Why, books, of course! In addition to me, you will hear the voices of Matt McGregor, Jenny Nicolelli, Ryan Keeler, Rebecca Coates, and Hannah Tyce.

We had a lot of fun with this one, as you'll hear. We hope you enjoy it as well. Now, let's Let's listen. I make sure I'm recording. Look at that. I'm recording. Amazing.

What a round of applause for recording.

For our first prompt, what book or books would you select if you had to explain humanity to a bunch of aliens? Does anybody have anything for that? 

Matt McGregor: Sure. So. If we think about kids as little aliens, what do we use to explain stuff to them? Well, fairy tales. So the book that I would bring to explain humanity to aliens is, Arabian Nights Entertainments, which is this extensive collection of Middle Eastern fairy tales, And it talks about sort of the norms and relationships between men and women, between higher status and lower status people, what's appropriate actions, and I just think it would be a very expansive introduction to people.

Michael Pierry: That makes sense, because even if the particular, customs are not universal, it gives you an idea of, you know, the kind of things that human beings think are important, like status, things like that. I went with, more Eurocentric books. I liked Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky to just kind of give a sense of the breadth of the different psychologies and, like, problems that human beings tend to have and, like, kind of an existential look at the plight of being a self aware human and, as well as Middlemarch by George Eliot, which is kind of, a good novel about someone who is struggling to, self actualize in, In a world in which they're really constrained by the roles that they're able to perform at that time, in this case, a woman not being able to do as much in the world as she feels she should be able to.

So yeah, I think those are, I think those are both aspects of humanity that are important to, to explore. Anybody else? 

Ryan Keeler: I went with Sapiens by Harari. And the reason why is because it is just a broad history of our species from our evolution from primates into humans. And it really covers and relates our social evolution throughout history and relates it to our Situations and behaviors today.

Michael Pierry: Sounds very factual. 

Ryan Keeler: Indeed. 

Hannah Tyce: To add to that, Wired for Culture by Mark Pagel, it talks about how mutations in DNA, got us to being human and not, this is the right term, Neanderthal, and how we have since evolved in those thousands of years further. 

Rebecca Coates: Oh my gosh. You are, you are so, positive and factual and all of that.

I just read the prompt and I got depressed. I said The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. It's like, you know, everything I fear about humanity, but it's, you know, speculative fiction based on real events throughout history. It's an imagined, alternate future. Alternate? I'm using air quotes. United States, and then it's, spoiler for a 40 year old book, but its framing is that it's sort of a narrative created from found documents, created by someone who, like, doesn't share much with the supposed narrator Offred.

And it's just like, It sort of captures the vibe of the pessimistic wave in the country right now. It's scary. It's passable. It's wonderfully written. It's just, I mean, I don't know why my brain went negative instead of trying to think of something more positive, because it's fun being a human most of the time, but like, that was the first one that I got within like five seconds of reading the prompt.

So that's what I'm choosing. 

Michael Pierry: Well, fear is, fear is an important emotion. Trying to understand humanity.

Rebecca Coates: I'm like, we don't want to give them our hack codes. We are the evolved apes that like burn things for fun. Don't do it without supervision. Pay attention to, like, the fire codes and everything. But it's like, we're recording this the summer and S'mores forever.

Michael Pierry: Thank you, Rebecca. 

Jenny Nicolelli: I kind of mixed the inclination to give like factual information, but I put stories, so I chose Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi because it deals with, and it is framed around the probably the most significant event or period in civilization, in modern civilization, which is the slave trade and the effects of that.

And just thinking aliens, because every chapter is essentially a different character and a different perspective, so you get to hop so you learn a lot about. humanity and emotions and inner life and all of these things. or if these aliens are a threat to humanity and the earth, we could give them World War Z by Max Brooks and pretend it's real.

You don't want to be here. Look at it. There's so many zombies. So that would definitely be, maybe a good strategy. 

Michael Pierry: Yup. Prank the aliens. I like that. Like that a lot. What books would you most want with you if you were trapped on a desert island? 

Jenny Nicolelli: Okay, I'm going to go first because I originally thought it was only, you were limited, so I only picked three.

So other people are going to have more, but I just picked three. So, the first, and this could interchange, but We Have Always Lived in the Castle and I could change that out with the Haunting Hill House any day, but basically that's my Shirley Jackson slot. And then, or I can cheat and do the complete works of Shirley Jackson, which you're going to hear other people talk about in a minute, cheating.

then this slot could be like my speculative fiction, you know, reread it and discover something new every single time. So right now it would be today on this day, it would be Kafka on Shore by Haruki Murakami. and then this one would not change out because I've already proven I can read this book multiple times and not get sick of it because I read it every day, the summer between seventh and eighth grade.

Oops, I probably should have had more things to do. and that would be The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. Because I thought we can only pick three things. 

Michael Pierry: Well, if you're the podcast host and you changed the prompt. And you're, and somebody else doesn't read the prompt. Is it cheating? I don't know.

Anyway, I wanted to go with some comfort food for me. It's on my desert Island experience because I don't know how long I'm going to be stuck there. So. I went with, complete works of J. R. R. Tolkien as well as Douglas Adams, and yep, it's a lot of books. It's more than three. Sorry. that's it for me.

Ryan Keeler: Well, piggybacking on your not knowing how long you're gonna be there, I would take the entire collection of Shakespeare's plays so I could not only read them but act them out as I slowly lose my mind on the island. 

Rebecca Coates: Very Hamlet in some ways. I thought of my response after I heard Michael, air quotes, cheating, as Jenny would think of it.

So I was like, you know what? I've never finished Ann McCaffrey's Pern series. I love the books I've read, I love the characters I've met. But I just think it would be, you know, exciting to have the option to either visit some old favorites or try something new in a world that I know I already like. The other book I would choose is Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, which is one of my favorite children's books.

I have a, actually an audiobook on vinyl record that I used to listen to all the time. it was a gift to me and it's just very close to my heart. That's probably the children's book I would take with me. 

Hannah Tyce: I would take an essay collection of E. B. White. I enjoy his stories. I think they're from the New Yorker, his column, back in the 30s.

He talks about New York City in the 30s. He talks about, So we get some glimpses into his childhood from the New York City area and going in, and that's from like the 1910s. So that's an interesting perspective. And then he goes into farm life in coastal Maine in his retirement. I enjoy the prose of his.

It is writing, it is humorous, there are some unexpected characters, like President Coolidge, and overall it's a very entertaining collection. 

Rebecca Coates: I'm adding that to my TBR, I didn't know before today that he, had published non fiction. 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah, I actually went to borrow, Trumpet of the Swan, and just by author name and some of them popped up, so I, by chance, I found out he was a non fiction writer.

Rebecca Coates: Oh, cool. 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah.

Matt McGregor: I have a bunch of books that I would like to read, Beyond Good and Evil, A Theory of Justice, which are very sort of heavy philosophical books, but what I actually wind up reading is Divergent, so I would use this time on the island, sort of in meditation to, bring the books that I want to have read, and not the books that I will wind up reading. I would also--

Michael Pierry: You're going to catch up on your Nietzsche and your, your Rawls and all your moral philosophy. 

Matt McGregor: Yes. Yes, I am. I also going to use the, the time in isolation to work on my woodworking, my navigation and survival skills, and hopefully I get off the island so I can get back to the books that I guess I want to read. 

Rebecca Coates: Oh yeah, we have some non fiction like that in the collection. And we also have like, Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins, if you want some inspiration. Middle grade novels, still love them. 

Michael Pierry: Alright, those are all, all good picks. Turning now to our next prompt. Books we don't like so much.

If you could throw one book, and all the existing copies, into A volcano or the fires of Mount Doom, whatever you choose, which one would it be and why? 

Jenny Nicolelli: So sorry to all the literary bros, but I would throw Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace into the fires of Mount Doom. it's not that I have issues with postmodernism in literature because I actually love unreliable narrators.

Some of my favorite books have unreliable narrators. That's not the issue. the issue is not complicated, that it's complicated. The issue is not that it has endnotes or footnote like, People by the trees, of the trees in the trees-- I always forget what it's called-- by Hanya Yanagihara, who's more known for Little Life, but The People in the Trees I really love, even though it's a very disturbing book that's full of footnotes and like a really complex structure.

so that's not the issue. The issue is just, you know. That era of bro literature and and maybe it's the bro bro literature era that I want to throw into the volcano But and it's just fully represented by Infinite Jest and by David Foster Wallace 

Ryan Keeler: I'm gonna go with Rich Dad, Poor Dad and maybe the entire genre of Wealth manifestation.

Let's just throw them all. 

Matt McGregor: Speaking of manifestation, I would like to manifest The Secret out of existence. And Rhonda Byrne, if you do not approve of this, you shouldn't have manifested it into existence. 

Jenny Nicolelli: The manifest, yeah, let's just throw all of that. 

Matt McGregor: Manifestation. 

Jenny Nicolelli: All of the, the social media culture. Let's just take all that and put it in the volcano for sure.

Matt McGregor: Yeah, we can do better. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Yeah. 

Rebecca Coates: Well, speaking of like all the works that have been authored, like Jenny was earlier, I'd say the ouvre of Ted Hughes? . Like, I have no idea if it's just I don't like his poems or if it's the way he edited Sylvia Plath's work, but I'm over it. Let's make it go away.

Michael Pierry: Jenny and I might be in a fight after the Infinite Jest thing,

Jenny Nicolelli: Sorry

Michael Pierry: but I haven't read it since I was 19 So it might be, it might be bad, but I have very fond memories of reading that book. 

Jenny Nicolelli: I am really happy for a 19 year old Michael. I'm so happy for, I genuinely mean that. I'm good. I'm happy for you, and I'm glad that was part of your journey. 

Michael Pierry: If I reread it and have a different experience, I'll let you know. 

Rebecca Coates: A book for every reader. But all this sounds like he's one of those polarizing authors. 

Michael Pierry: Yes. I'm going to throw, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand into the volcano. Cause, the, the dialogue in that book is, is reprehensible. It's written as if every character was just spouting diatribes instead of normal dialogue, it's It's insane. It's a book by an insane person. That's all I can say. No one should read it. 

Rebecca Coates: Are we allowed to say that as librarians? 

Michael Pierry: no, but I -- (laughter) in fact, I'm going to edit that out. 

Matt McGregor: Is that the one of her books where they, like, invent some nonsensical fuel out of water?

Michael Pierry: Yeah, yeah. 

Matt McGregor: Yeah, that's ridiculous. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Sorry, I didn't read this one. I I can talk about the one I did read, which I think Michael's going to talk about for our next prompt, but I remember trying to read Atlas Shrugged and I think I didn't get to the water fuel. I, I didn't make it that far. And I'm okay with that.

Matt McGregor: The special people need to get all the pie. That, that, that's the, the, the moral, the special people need to get all the, I have been reading some of the moral philosophy books. Yeah, just not all the ones that I want to. 

Michael Pierry: Name a book that you read in your youth and then re read as an adult to only really get it when you were older.

Jenny Nicolelli: Oh, mine's easy. It's The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. ever heard of it? no, I'm kidding. I read it in 10th grade for English class because I think at the time, I don't know if it's still true, you read American Lit in 10th grade in public schools in Connecticut. I just, I loved it. Loved the book, loved the story.

I'm pretty sure I got an A on the paper I had to write after that. but I definitely was like, oh, I want that life. Like, I want dresses and cool cocktails and, I'll always remember the written visual of, like, the room that Daisy and what's her friend's name, Jordan, are, like, lying in when you first meet them in the story, and I'm like, I want a room like that.

I want a mansion. I want to be on, you know, Have a view of the water. I want these cars. and listen, let's be honest, like, I still want those things, in my lucrative career of librarianship. Definitely gonna get those things, for sure. but then I read it as an adult and realized, like, this is a commentary about the destructiveness of, of wealth and privilege and, moving through the world, not caring or, or, Understanding and being willfully ignorant to the destruction you leave in your wake.

Michael Pierry: Anybody? 

Matt McGregor: I read Ender's Game in high school and loved it, and I've read Ender's Game a couple of times since then. And every time I read it, I get more different stuff out of it, especially learning more about the author's personal politics. once you know what Orson Scott Card believes, you can really see him subtly pushing those ideas in a bunch of different places, and it's something I never would have gotten when I was a kid reading it the first time.

Michael Pierry: Mine is Flatland, which is a book that, a very slim book, that, I think I read it as a small kid and didn't really know what it was about fully. And then, subsequently when I read it in college, I realized it was a satire of Victorian class. So it's completely working on different levels. I just thought it was a cool sci fi book about what it would be like to live as a two dimensional being.

And then suddenly. See three dimensional space when somebody picked you up off your, your plane of existence, literally. So, that was really cool to get that, 

Matt McGregor: It's a book that feels kind of Phantom Tollbooth-esque. 

Michael Pierry: Yeah, exactly. When you're, when you're small, you, you don't really get the, the satire bit of it.

Hannah Tyce: I similarly read, Of Mice and Men for my freshman high school, freshman in high school, summer reading, and I chose it because it was the shortest on the list, if I'm being frank. but now, I reread it a couple years ago, and I understand the, farmhand experience better now. I understand the implications of some of, The actions the characters were doing.

I understand frustrations better and why the ending is how it is. I understand the depression era as a whole better now, thankfully, than I did when I was 14. I see its place in the future. That time period and in the American canon of literature and Steinbeck now is one of my favorite authors. 

Ryan Keeler: You mentioning these classic books Of Mice and Men and Great Gatsby reminds me of how, The Grapes of Wrath, you know, reading that in high school meant very little to me, until about, I don't know, what happened 10 or so years ago that would have changed our understanding of the world.

but essentially, you know, these books that we just maybe not, don't connect with when we're teenagers, that it takes a certain level of adulthood to recognize the, potency. 

Michael Pierry: Mm hmm. All right, what's a book you loved in your youth that has not aged well at all, and why? Jenny. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Okay, so in full transparency, I went through a hardcore King Arthur phase in high school, and I absolutely loved The Mists of Avalon, and if anyone remembers, there was a Mists of Avalon made for tv miniseries.

What's her face, Carol from ER, the actress. but anyway, I loved The Mists of Avalon book, and I read a couple of the companion novels obsessively, and then many years later, learned things about Marion Zimmer Bradley, the author, and they have forever gone. ruined my ability to read those books again. And if you want to know about those allegations with Marion Zimmer Bradley, you are welcome to Google those things.

Michael Pierry: Well, for me, it's The Fountainhead. I got to pick on Ayn Rand because I read that as a teenager. I loved it. I loved the, you know, the whole struggle of Howard Rorker and, everything and, just thought it was, you know, a wonderful novel. And then I read it as an adult again, and I was like, Oh no.

What is this crap? So, yeah, that was mine. 

Matt McGregor: Oh, sorry, were you still going? 

Michael Pierry: No, no, go ahead. 

Matt McGregor: I reread Redwall a couple years ago, and the story still holds up. It's as entertaining, as enjoyable as ever it was, but now the real black and white essentialism of the various species of animals. It doesn't feel that great anymore.

Michael Pierry: When you say essentialism of the animals, what do you mean by that? 

Matt McGregor: Foxes are always sneaky. Rats are always evil. There are, there are species of animals that are Inherently evil and their species of animals that are inherently good and 

Michael Pierry: You mean that's not true in real life? 

Matt McGregor: Well Foxes are very cute 

Michael Pierry: That's true and and They say things I hear I don't know what quite what they say.

Matt McGregor: Normally it's you left now. Dang it. That's the rabbits anyway 

Michael Pierry: Never mind. I was only kidding. I know that all animals are just pure love 

Hmm. 

Matt McGregor: Does a dog have Buddha Nature?

Michael Pierry: I don't know what that means, but yes. . 

Rebecca Coates: Okay. Yeah. So Redwall is kind of like the anti Animal Farm, or, 

Matt McGregor: oh, did you never read it? 

Rebecca Coates: I haven't read Redwall yet. I'm, I'm wondering if I should. 

Matt McGregor: It's, it's pretty good. So you have, the characters are all animals, and it's set in, you know, sort of typical fantasy settings, medieval England, and there's very sumptuous descriptions of the food, and you have, a young mouse who goes on a heroic adventure to save the monastery that he lives in from a horde of invading evil animals.

Michael Pierry: So mice are heroic but rats are evil. 

Matt McGregor: Yes. 

Michael Pierry: Just for clarity. 

Matt McGregor: A hundred percent. 

Michael Pierry: Okay. 

Rebecca Coates: Wonderful world building but very essentialist in the characterization category. 

Matt McGregor: Yes. 

Rebecca Coates: Is that redundant? 

Matt McGregor: No, no, there, there are, he's, what's the author's name? Brian Jacques. Jacques. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Why are you looking at me? I don't know.

Matt McGregor: It's in your section. 

Michael Pierry: I'll just call him Brian, like we're on a first name basis. Brian, you've besmirched the good name of rats. 

Matt McGregor: Hey, rats are, they are, affectionate and, intelligent social animals and they would be great pets if they didn't die every two years. 

Michael Pierry: That's, yeah, just like octopus.

Matt McGregor: Yes. Honestly, 

Michael Pierry: yes. 

Rebecca Coates: Octopodes die every two years? 

Matt McGregor: Four, but yes.

Michael Pierry: They don't live long. 

Jenny Nicolelli: This is not brevity, guys. 

Michael Pierry: We're not good at it. 

Matt McGregor: I had a short answer, and then people kept talking. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Okay. 

Michael Pierry: Don't worry about, don't worry too much about it. Everything can be edited. 

Rebecca Coates: Like that statement. 

Michael Pierry: Like that. 

Rebecca Coates: In the final recording.

Michael Pierry: Does anybody else have anything for this? No? Okay. Name a movie that's better than the book from which it's adapted, and why. 

Ryan Keeler: I'll go with Children of Men, and I think the movie is better than the book because they added some contemporary issues like xenophobia and immigration, women's rights, and all kinds of interesting political dynamics to the science fiction story.

Jenny Nicolelli: Plus they have that extremely dope car scene. 

Ryan Keeler: Yes. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Which is incredible. 

Ryan Keeler: Yeah. They, they, ah--- 

Jenny Nicolelli: You can't do that on a page. 

Ryan Keeler: They use a fixed camera, so the scene never changes, and it's incredible. 

Matt McGregor: Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. I think that the movie is better than the book. I like them both. but in the movie they, Really, Robert De Niro just kills it as the character of Shakespeare and they really expand that part and give them give that character a lot more screen time.

And it's a real joy. And, the movie gets a much more theatrical climactic ending where the, Book sort of goes out with a whimper. The movie really gets to go out with a bang. 

Rebecca Coates: I mean, it's a story, not a book, but "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen. I prefer Frozen. Not just for, like, the animation and the songs and everything, but I don't always love Disney adaptations more than the original stories, but I love how they made the resolution.

Spoiler alert. They made the resolution about the sisters' love between each other and not about, like, being rescued by a boy or rescuing a boy or any of that. It's just, it's just that Hans Christian Andersen is one of my favorite, short story authors. And that this was even better. I love it, I love it, I love it.

Michael Pierry: That's great. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Okay, so I have two. I could, I have a million actually. but I'll just talk about two. So, the first one is The Shining. I think Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. It's one of my favourite movies. It's brilliant. I mean, it's, it's not the first time the steadicam is used, but it's, it's known for the steadicam use with the big wheel scenes.

You know, it, it really got, it's really interesting. It's like Stephen King's most hated adaptations of one of his books or up there with one of his most hated. And, you know, it's obviously because The Shining is one of his most beloved movies. Personal books, because it's so deeply about his alcoholism.

and, and, you know, Kubrick found other aspects of The Shining to focus on, so it kind of removed what made Stephen King so passionate about that story, but I think it's just, like, one of the most brilliant films, and not the conspiracy theory aspects, like Kubrick filmed the movie landing, but just the film itself and all the things you can find in it, and The performances are are incredible.

My other one is Gone Girl, David Fincher's Gone Girl, and I would actually put almost all of David Fincher's, actually all of his movies that are adaptations from books, I think are incredible. He's one of my favorite filmmakers, but just the brilliance of having Ben Affleck play the male protagonist character, because it's really a commentary about Ben Affleck's celebrity, particularly at that time.

And we're swinging back to that time once again. With what's going on with Ben Affleck right now. And I just think it's like so brilliant and one of my favorite facts because David Fincher is such a perfectionist. Ben Affleck absolutely refused to wear a New York Yankees hat. Refused. and they got into fights about this and so he had to wear a Mets hat in the airport scene when he goes to New York City.

So anyway, those would definitely be up there for me, those two films. 

Michael Pierry: I really feel out of the loop because I don't even know what's going on with Affleck right now, but I probably don't. I probably don't care. But, Was that a response? 

Jenny Nicolelli: It's just like you, if you know anything about Ben Affleck around 2014, you know, when that movie was made, it is like, That movie is about him as a famous person, and that's why it makes, it elevates that story so much. 

Michael Pierry: Well, I think you're right about Fincher's adaptations. Like, Fight Club is, is I'd say a cut above the book, although the book is pretty good too.

I was going to choose, I am going to choose, The Princess Bride, which is a good book, very good book, but I really love the movie. The casting is great. And, I think it really is a movie that was like kind of a sleeper at the time, but Is really standing the test of time. So I would choose that one.

So what about books and movies that are both excellent? And which do you prefer? Yeah, I guess I already answered that with The Princess Bride. 

Matt McGregor: I think this comment is a little bit of a red herring, or the question because when we think about book movies we think about bad book movies but this is like a prime example of the bad toupee fallacy. No one's talking about Schindler's List, Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Jaws--

Jenny Nicolelli: or maybe I was about to talk about some of those.

Matt McGregor: Were you?

Jenny Nicolelli: Yes, because I think that's what people love. I think, I think people think of, like, 

Matt McGregor: Eragon. 

Jenny Nicolelli: They think of Harry Potter, right? They think of, like, 

Matt McGregor: Even those are pretty faithful adaptations. 

Jenny Nicolelli: but, or they think about, well, it was faithful, but it was uninspired, or it was boring, or it didn't level anything up.

but I think, like, we forget, you know, Jaws, which essentially created the blockbuster movie, It's based on a book. The Godfather is based on a book. The Exorcist is based on a book. and some of, like, our greatest, you know, films since the 70s have been based on books. so it is, like, I, I, I kind of hate that fallacy, like, and, and that attitude of going into something.

And I think it's particular for genre. fantasy and sci fi, but also other things where people get really wound up about them. And there are definitely really bad book to movie adaptations, but some of our best films are based on books. 

Michael Pierry: Amen. Anybody else have any,

Hannah Tyce: I would choose Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

The book and the Apple TV adaptation were both excellent. I liked the book was emotionally devastating. It showed a family, Korean family living in colonial-- living in Korea, colonized by Japan, and then later in Japan, the, around the time of World War II. And the adaptation show is able to show the change in

style of Hanbok worn by the women and the men and then how they adapt to westernized clothing, shows part of the hyper industrialization after the World War and the Korean War. it shows in the trailer, you can see in the trailer, the, the way the rice cooker changes from the beginning of her life to the electric one on the counter.

That said, I would choose the book over the adaptation. 

Michael Pierry: Cool. 

Rebecca Coates: Oh my gosh, everyone with all of these, like, classic and future classic examples, and I'm over here like, Practical Magic! 

I'm sorry, I love Hoffman's series, but like, I really have to hand it to, like, the cast and crew of the movie. Love Nicole Kidman, love Sandra Bullock, but it's just, like, Practical Magic, the book just felt really different.

Like, it was set more in suburbia rather than sort of rural and out in the woods and stuff, and it's just-- I love them both. I can't wait to see where they're going with the other installments in the series, in the movie adaptations or the TV adaptations. But if I had to choose one or the other, the books every time. 

Ryan Keeler: So for this one, I actually picked Lord of the Rings, and the reason why is because it kind of shows the difference in the medium of film and the book, because while the movie leaves out tons of story and changes character motivations and things like that, It's still probably the best you could do to make it into a film.

Rebecca Coates: And also Andy Serkis. 

Ryan Keeler: Yeah. Both of them are wonderful, and I don't think I could choose. I have to have them both.

Matt McGregor: As a kid I was very angry about them cutting Tom Bombadil. But now The movies are so good. 

They're so good. 

Jenny Nicolelli: And these, like, epic, you know, high fantasy stories, like Game of Thrones, you know, the first four seasons of the TV show are excellent.

And, like, things that especially translate well and go over better are, like, battles on screen, for sure. Yeah. Like, the battle of Blackwater Bay in, in the Game of Thrones season two TV show is, Amazing. And like, the, the books are incredible and I would definitely choose the books, particularly over seasons five through the end.

but, the, you know, it, it can be difficult and for authors to write battle scenes, action scenes, fighting, chases, like all those types of things. And those can be tough in print and then just visual mediums can really elevate those. 

Michael Pierry: Ryan, I was just going to add to your Lord of the Rings, discussion that, the one thing you don't get from the movies is how often in the books they're constantly breaking into song.

Rebecca Coates: That's what I loved about the first Hobbit movie. Like the poem was turned into a song and absolutely hilarious. Not as good as Lord of the Rings, but still good. 

Michael Pierry: There's always elves singing and talking about the olden times and stuff. 

Matt McGregor: Tom Bombadil, I believe, It always speaks in song. 

Michael Pierry: Yes. So. I think the last one is, what is your favorite genre or genres and why?

Matt McGregor: I'm a sucker for a good sci fi novel, I like hard sci fi, I like soft sci fi, but recently I've been reading a lot more, mystery, and if you want to get your mystery, and your sci fi, and your lesbian stuff together, Gideon the Ninth, oh my god, it's so good, go read Gideon the Ninth, it came out like five years ago and I love it.

Rebecca Coates: I keep thinking when I see that on display, I should check that out. 

Matt McGregor: You should check that out. 

Rebecca Coates: Do I remember it until someone else checks it out? No. For me, I used to say sci fi as well, like in McCaffrey's Pern and all, but what I think I like is just complex world building because I've recently gotten to Louise Penny's Gamache series and I love it for the same reasons.

It's mystery, it's completely, you know, different. Mystery, real world, all of that. But it's just I love the same things about it. 

Ryan Keeler: I do love science fiction as well, but I definitely lean more into non fiction, social and physical sciences for sure. 

Michael Pierry: Any particular reason why? 

Ryan Keeler: I guess it's just a desire to understand the world and The people in it.

Michael Pierry: Yeah, I don't, I don't desire to understand that at all.

I'd rather not know. I love horror. something about being an anxious person. I think it's soothing to read about someone else going through scary, horrific ordeals. And, I've liked that since I was a, a child, Stephen King, stuff like that. I do also like sci fi, I didn't know we were all going to be a bunch of sci fi nerds here.

But, one of my favorite authors, I discovered recently is Stephen Baxter because he imagines all these bizarre situations that I never would have, thought of in a million years like living inside of a neutron star or life forms that are made out of convection cells and all kinds of just bizarre things.

And his, his novels follow the whole life of the universe from birth to death. So that's pretty ambitious. So yeah, I just really liked the fact that in sci fi you have these worlds that you can build. And, yeah. 

Jenny Nicolelli: I feel like I genre hop. I don't really marry to any genre because I'll like be, I've been in periods of my life where I'm like, Oh, I like, I got really into Tana French.

And I was like, I love mystery now. And then. For every one mystery author I love, there's probably like 30 that I can't deal with. I, their books are total fails for me. So I'm like, okay, so it's not the aspect that it's mystery or like, I really love certain fantasy. Or science fiction or like combo speculative fiction and then like, but I'm not going to sit there and just grab a book because it's science fiction or fantasy.

I'm really picky. I've very recently in my life, the past few years, finally been able to do horror, which I couldn't do at all, like the scary movies, satirical movies. used to scare me. So, but now in film and TV and books, I can finally do horror. And I, I do really enjoy horror, but it's the same thing.

Just because it's horror doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy it. at a place I used to work, I was one of the few people that read anything published in the 21st century. So I just used to say I like modern fiction. So the closest I can get to picking a genre is just saying I tend towards 21st century fiction over, you know, I, I usually don't reach back.

It's pretty uncommon for me to reach back, back into the 20th century. 

Michael Pierry: That makes sense. 

Jenny Nicolelli: I think it, maybe it's a reflection of what got, attention, you know, and there's still a lot of improvements that happen in the publishing industry, but I think it's what got attention, you know, in the 20th century and, and before that and, and what did get elevated to be things that we consider worthy of reading versus now.

And I, I think I just prefer the selection. You know, in more recent times. 

Matt McGregor: What about the classic classics, like even going back into like the 19th century, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Dickens? Is that still on your no go list? 

Jenny Nicolelli: It's not a no go, and like, I've read a lot of that stuff.

I just don't like, prefer it anymore, I guess. although I do think with like, the romance popping off right now, some folks could, it would maybe, I've talked to people who work here, who do our displays when you walk in to the main level, and I'm like, oh, there could be like, Gateways to like classic romances like Wuthering Heights, you know, that would be like, That book would probably hit for a lot of people right now.

Matt McGregor: In my head, Pride and Prejudice is ye olde rom com. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Yeah, well it is, it literally is. 

Michael Pierry: I was an English major so we read a lot of older stuff in college, so I feel like I've been there, done that to a certain amount. I mean, I'll, I'll Probably still go back and read some older things and stuff that I missed, stuff like that.

But yeah, for the most part. 

Rebecca Coates: For sure. When it comes to liking things, it is for me, like it is for Jenny where you don't really, you do see the genre, but it's not the genre you're drawn to. It's like this quality of the way the author sets up the story or this tone or whatever. Cause like, 

Michael Pierry: well, the way I look at it and not to interrupt you, but the way I look at it is.

It's not the genre drawing me in. It's the genre is not forbidding me from entering sort of. It's like, if I see a book it's in a genre, I'm like, well, I've read books in that genre before. So, it looks interesting and it's in a genre I seem to like. So I'll give it a shot, you know, versus something I don't know anything about.

And maybe it's a Western or something, some other genre that I don't really tend to like as much, and maybe I, maybe I don't explore that one. 

Jenny Nicolelli: I think it's, for me, it's, is it fully realized? And that can be an entirely invented world, or it can be something that's set in, you know, our, our world. But is it fully realized?

Like, does the story and the characters and the plot and the motivations, do they have, like, depth? They have, like, texture, almost. It's kind of the difference between, like, a hyper CGI movie versus something that's filmed on location. Like, I can't fall into the story if it just feels really shallow and manufactured, or So, to me, that trumps everything.

That trumps genre. That trumps the hook. That trumps absolutely everything. 

Michael Pierry: Right. Big Marvel fan. 

Jenny Nicolelli: Not really. 

Rebecca Coates: Love the characters, don't always love the presentation. 

Michael Pierry: okay. Is that, is that all the things? 

Rebecca Coates: we can do this again next year.

Jenny Nicolelli: We did it. Guys, we did it.

Michael Pierry: Yeah, so I just want to thank everyone for contributing and, I think this was a lot of fun. We should do it again. 

Jenny Nicolelli: And we'll record the whole time next time. 

Michael Pierry: Yes, we always record the whole time. I don't know what you're speaking about.

Jenny Nicolelli: We definitely had hit that record button. For sure. When we were supposed to.

Rebecca Coates: Yeah, I think there were some things in the pre recorded session that were kind of-- should have been on tape.

Jenny Nicolelli: Like and subscribe, comment, read us, five stars.

Michael Pierry: Things went smoothly and there were no issues and that's all I can remember. Thank you. 

Rebecca Coates: We'll see you next time. 

Michael Pierry: That's all we have for you this month. Don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. If you're listening on our website, you can also send us a text message from your phone.

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