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EP85: Is Cozy Horror Next?

Episode 85 of the Four Books a Fortnight podcast, hosted by Hannah Harlow and Sam Pfeifle, titled "EP85: Is Cozy Horror Next?" was published on February 1, 2025 and runs 45 minutes.

February 1, 2025 ·45m · Four Books a Fortnight

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It's another episode of "John Updike's Ghost After Dark," a wild and crazy recording that finds Sam with a blanket on his lap and Hannah reading books infused with the number three (and using the word "tome"). We move from Anne Tyler (don't worry, she's a little bit funny) to weird French YA and cover a lot of ground in between, including: 


- "Three Days in June," by Anne Tyler (Sam thinks he read "The Accidental Tourist")
- "Infinite Jest," by David Foster Wallace (just touching on it, really)
- "Beta Vulgaris," by Margie Sarsfield (kinda like "Lazy City," except totally crazy with evil sugar beets, and a little bit like "Banal Nightmare," except scary instead of funny)
- "The Three Lives of Cate Kay," by Kate Fagan ("it's all so ridiculous," romantic without being a romance, a book that makes grand statements; this Kate woman is crazy impressive)
- "The Bookshop," by Evan Friss (Sam mispronounces his name, sorry; this one is a little close ot the quick; please remember that Sam considers "weirdos" a compliment)
- "The Missing of Clairdelune," by Christelle Dabos (completely out-there French YA, so good)
- "Water Moon," by Samantha Sotto Yambao (completely you-there Japanese YA, so good; "this book delivers" and is NOT cozy)

Also, come to our 5th birthday party. You'll know when it is if you listen to the end. 

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Hilda Lessways by Arnold Bennett Loyal Books This book is the second in Bennett’s four books about life in the Five Towns (the real life Potteries in Staffordshire). It tells the story of Hilda before her marriage to Edwin Clayhanger (from the first book). Bennett explores Hilda's ambition to make a career for herself, her coming of age and her working experiences as a shorthand clerk and keeper of a lodging house in London and Brighton. He also shows her intensifying relationship with the enigmatic George Cannon that ends in her disastrous bigamous marriage and pregnancy, and finally her reconciliation with Edwin Clayhanger Fiction Between Friends Josephine Angelini, Aileen Calderon, Alisa Hilfinger, Lauren Sanchez Part book club, part podcast, Fiction Between Friends is a celebration of how a really good book can come into your life and change it. No scathing reviews or negative commentary, just great books and engaging conversations. Hosted by four childhood friends from the suburbs of Massachusetts, each episode covers either four books they’ve loved from the past, or a new release that just hit the bookshelves. It is an idyllic place for bibliophiles to rekindle their love for an old favorite or find a new one to read. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day (version 2) by Arnold Bennett Loyal Books Are you really 'living', or just existing? Do you want to improve yourself or just continue to muddle through? Do you use the time given you each day, or just throw most of it away? These questions Bennett asks each of us and for those who want to really live and learn, offers very valuable advice. Time is the most precious of commodities states Bennett in this book. Many books have been written on how to live on a certain amount of money each day. And he added that the old adage "time is money" understates the matter, as time can often produce money, but money cannot produce more time. Time is extremely limited, and Bennett urged others to make the best of the time remaining in their lives. Which of us lives on twenty-four hours a day? And when I say "lives," I do not mean exists, nor "muddles through." Which of us is free from that uneasy feeling that the "great spending departments" of his daily life are not managed as they ought to be? [...] Which of us is not saying to hims Touch of the Sun and Other Stories, A by Mary Hallock Foote (1847 - 1938) LibriVox Four short stories by Mary Hallock Foote (1847–1938), an American author and illustrator. She is best known for her illustrated short stories and novels portraying life in the mining communities of the turn-of-the-century American West. She is famous for her stories of place, in which she portrayed the rough, picturesque life she experienced and observed in the old West, especially that in the early mining towns. She wrote several novels, and illustrated stories and novels by other authors for various publishers. She died at age 90. Her legacy in American history is as a stalwart of the American Old West and a teller of its stories. Her work—the numerous stories for books and periodicals, with her drawings and woodcut illustrations; the correspondence from western outposts; her novels and nonfiction—gained her notice as a skilled observer of the frontier (Summary by Wikipedia and David Wales)
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