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On this episode, we discuss the fifth prompt in the Books and Bites 2022 Reading Challenge, a book published in the decade you were born. We're covering the hits from the 70s, 80s, and 90s—brought to you by WJCPL!
Books and Bites
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
5_22 Books and Bites
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[00:00:00] Carrie: Welcome to the Books and Bites podcast. Each month we bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to share with them. I'm Carrie Green and I'm here with my cohosts Michael Cunningham and Adam Wheeler. So today we're talking about the fifth prompt in the 2022 Books and Bites reading challenge, books published in the decade you were born.
So there are several different ways you can go about finding these books. I found lists for each decade on Lit Hub, which is a book publishing and writing blog. How did you all find your books?
[00:00:39] Michael: I went to Stephen King's website and lifted his bibliography and just looked at the ones he published in the eighties.
Cause he was pretty prolific then,
[00:00:51] Carrie: Stephen King was actually mine decades of the seventies and there were a lot of Stephen Kings on that list too.
[00:01:00] Michael: Yeah. Also use like Goodreads. And I, I think I even saw the Lit Hub one, but what about you,
Adam?
[00:01:10] Adam: I found mine through lots of frustration and agony until I finally gave up, like looking at lists
that were just generally, you know, nineties fiction. What were some good stuff that came up because everything I looked at, I couldn't get my hands on my grubby little mitts. So what I ended up doing was just looking at the Bram Stoker awards and seeing what was 1990s from that.
[00:01:33] Carrie: Okay.
[00:01:34] Michael: That's
always a good list to look at.
I use it quite often
[00:01:38] Adam: felt like a good time for some horror.
[00:01:51] Michael: My recommendation comes straight out of the eighties, 1983 to be exact. For this month, I decided to reread Pet cemetery by Stephen King, a book that's an all-time favorite of mine and one I haven't read in like 15 years. This book is famous for scaring Stephen King so bad that he hid the manuscript in a drawer and only published it because he owed his publisher.
So this book opens with a Creed family, moving to Ludlow, Maine. Lewis, creed accepted a job as a campus physician at the local university and moved his wife, Rachel two kids gage and Ellie and her cat Winston Churchill church for short from Chicago. As they settle in, they befriend their neighbors the Crandall's. Judd becomes a surrogate father.
Louis always thought he should have had one sunny afternoon. Judge takes him on. And the expansive woods that, but up to their house, the show, little Ellie, that pet cemetery, the kids in Ludlow have been keeping up since the turn of the 20th century. The road in front of their house uses up a lot of animals according to Judd.
So local kids have become quote unquote nodding acquaintances with death early. Rachel worries about how this is going to affect Ellie stemming from her own childhood experience of watching her sister Zoetis to come to spinal meningitis. That Monday, Louis's first day on the job, a student named Victor Pascal is brought into the doctor's office with a fatal head wound
after being hit by a car. As Victor is dying on the floor, he speaks Louis' name and tells him the pet cemetery is not the quote unquote real cemetery. Louis has what he thinks is a waking nightmare that night, where he's visited by Victor, who leads him to the pet cemetery. It shows him the deadfall that borders that on one side, Victor warns him to never cross it, no matter how bad he may want to.
When Rachel goes back to Chicago with the kids, one weekend Lewis discovers church dead on the side of the road, run over by one of the speeding tankers. Judd decides to repay Louis for helping Norma after a heart attack, by taking him beyond the deadfall to the real cemetery, an ancient burial ground.
That was once used by the Micmac tribe ground that has since soured ground. That brings things back to life, Judd, instructs them on how to bury him since he once buried his own dog there. And sure enough, the next afternoon church returns home, but he's not the same cat he used to be now wreaking of death
and super violent. He's a very grumpy cat. Louis starts to have serious doubts about burying church where he. And a few months later, tragedy strikes the creed family. Again, rats with despair and grief Lewis decides whether to do the unthinkable. His decision leads to one of the bleakest in pitch black endings.
I have ever read in a book. There's no dancing around it. This book is dark, very dark. The themes here are all heavy and tough to ponder death, grief and one's own mortality. I can personally tell you after rereading it now, it hits a lot harder when you're older. It is a challenging reading no doubt. This is a dark book that will stay with you for a while while you contemplate the ending, a whiskey sour makes the perfect companion.
The recipe from boneappetit.com cost for two minutes is a bourbon three quarters ounce of lemon juice, three quarters, and it's a simple syrup and a half of an orange wheel. If you want to take it to another level, you can add an egg white to tame the tartness and give it a creamy mouthfeel. I have to do the pass on the egg.
Whites is definitely a good choice as we really get into the warmer weather
[00:05:18] Adam: and speaking of warmer weather, that sounds like, oh, wonderful beach read for families who are going on vacation.
[00:05:27] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. If you want to kind of like, you know, Go dark
and light and yeah,
[00:05:33] Adam: if you really want to appreciate the time that you're spending with your family by just juxtaposition.
[00:05:39] Michael: Yeah. Yes. That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah.
[00:05:45] Carrie: Also, you know, if you didn't want to use egg whites, you could, as I learned from a previous Books and Bites, you could use aquafaba or chickpea juice to make your drink.
[00:06:02] Michael: Chick pea juice?
[00:06:06] Adam: Yeah. It kind of cuts down the gross factor a little bit and imagine, yeah. I've put egg whites in an absinth cocktail before and made it all shimmery and cool.
It was definitely always in the back of my mind that I'm drinking raw.
Yeah. Yeah. Not everybody's comfortable with
that.
[00:06:27] Michael: Yeah. So, so you said it's a scarier read. Now that you're older, is it because it's got fear of death is like,
yes. There's. Especially with a family now. And. Yeah. Even thinking about the death of your child or, you know, your own mortality now, that's, you know, I'm in my thirties, it's, it's, it's aren't lot harder now.
[00:07:01] Carrie: So how old were you when you first read it?
[00:07:03] Michael: So I was, let's see, probably it's probably 2006, so I was 22?
[00:07:15] Carrie: Yeah, you don't really ponder your mortality. No, you're like,
[00:07:18] Michael: I got, I got all kinds of time. I can do whatever I want and now you're like, oh,
[00:07:25] Adam: I'm going to venture out. And guess that the reason maybe the Pet Sematary doesn't seem to hit millennials and maybe gen Z quite as hard as cause we joke all the time about being ready to die.
Anyways, the world's horrible. We're ready to go. Bring it on.
[00:07:46] Carrie: Okay, well segue. So
[00:07:51] Michael: now this,
[00:07:52] Carrie: well, I am kind of, since I'm going next, I, I think I am sort of the sandwich between the horror. There was a little. Like Stephen King was also publishing in the seventies. Helter Skelter, which is a book I remember my mom reading the book about the Manson murders that was also published in the seventies.
So there was a lot of scary stuff published then. However, I went the complete opposite way. And I guess I'll just go ahead and jump in. My book is All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot.
So I was a little surprised to see the memoir, all creatures great and small on lists of books published in the 1970s because it opens in 1937. I mean I'm old, but I'm not that old, but all creatures is told from the point of view of an older man, looking back on his younger days as a veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales.
So it makes sense that it was published much later than the book actually took place. Even in the 1970s, it must have had a halo of nostalgia around. And speaking of nostalgia, rereading the book confirmed for me that the original PBS TV series of All Creatures Great and Small, which aired from 1978 to 1990, was superior to the current remake and all, but lighting and set design. Well and maybe costume design, unless you prefer the 1980s version of 1930s hair and clothes.
() () I'm looking at you and your fluffy eighties, perm, Carol drink water. But seriously, it definitely captured the characters and humor of the book much better than the current PBS series. The current series is basically Call the Midwife, but with animals. But I digress. For those of you who are not familiar with either of the two TV series or with the book
here's a quick summary. James Herriot writes about his early years working for Siegfried Farnan in a veterinary practice that serves mostly farmers with small holdings. Herriot lives with the eccentric sea creed and secrets younger brother, Trystan. That is when Tristan's not away at vet school. In short chapters that blur the line between essay and memoir,
Herriot describes the life of a rural vet where he is on call at all hours, often driving in the dark on narrow hilly roads in a car with no brakes. Herriot greets the difficulties with humor and appreciation. Though he's from the city of Glasgow, he quickly falls in love with the beautiful countryside, the animals, and the farmers who must work so hard to survive.
He also falls in love with Helen, a farmer's daughter. The stories he tells about their first dates are some of the funniest in the book, not counting the stories about everyone's favorite pampered, dog, Tricky Woo. The book is fairly long. The mass market paperback I read was 437 pages with tiny, tiny print.
There is no overarching plot to propel you through, no overly obvious character motivations like in the new TV series. Instead Siegfried's rants are maddening and hilarious. Tristan is sweet and lovable and a partying college student who can't seem to pass his exams. There's also no sugar coating of the difficulties and inadequacies of either veterinary practice or farming.
Reading the book is like sitting in a pub, listening to a charming old man telling you stories. You don't always know where he's going with them, but you're having so much fun, you don't really care. So grab a pint of bitter and settle in. So I asked my husband for some possible bitter suggestions to pair with All Creatures.
And here's what he had to say. And I quote, it's surprisingly difficult to find proper English beer, even with the massive growth of micro brewing on this side of the pond. But here are some possible picks. Fuller's ESB, extra special butte,r is available at many package store. Three Floyds Lord Admiral Nelson is fantastic, but fairly strong and not for the faint of heart or palate. A personal favorite.
And I would agree with this one is Green Man ESB from Asheville and Robinson's Trooper branded by England's classic metal band. Iron maiden is a solid classic.
I agree with him. Those are all great choices.
All right. So our, our books and bites beer expert weighs in too.
[00:13:11] Adam: I'm not going to lie. I've been completely clueless the entire time.
Cause I don't know the book or the TV shows and I don't drink that kind of beer. I'm just, I'm just here.
[00:13:26] Carrie: I think I need a laugh track because I was making some jokes and you were pretty silent over there.
[00:13:32] Michael: I know!
[00:13:33] Adam: I don't get them! I don't know anything about it!
[00:13:35] Carrie: Thank you, Michael. For, for at least giving me a chuckle.
[00:13:40] Adam: It's like if I were to make jokes about like Adventure Time or something, you can
[00:13:44] Michael: throw some crickets in there.
[00:13:49] Carrie: All right. Well, that's what I got.
[00:13:52] Michael: Was it a, was it a tough read, an easy read to get, since there was no overarching plot?
[00:13:58] Carrie: No, I love that kind of book. I know it's not either of your things, but especially because I was like reading them. I mean, I do most of my reading at night and so it was perfect because you know, the chapters are only a few pages.
I would fall asleep before the end of a chapter. And like, so if you're looking for a good bedtime book that is not Pet Sematary, All Creatures Great and Small is an excellent choice. Now that said it did take me a while to get through it because, you know, I would fall asleep every, every few pages. But, but I did, I perservered.
I enjoyed it. Yeah.
And there's like a whole series of them. I've never read past the first one. I think I've read that one a couple of times, but there is, if you can't get enough of All Creatures Great and Small, you can keep going.
[00:15:04] Michael: Let me tell you that the, the shirt and the new show, the new adaptation is very popular in people keep coming in and asking for not just that, but the books now, too.
So,
[00:15:14] Carrie: yes. Well, I hope that, I mean, the new series really does not do the books justice. So I hope that they become fans. If they've never read the books before I hope they realize how superior it is to the new series,
[00:15:32] Michael: I'm going to steal that. Call the Midwife with animals.
[00:15:35] Adam: I did enjoy Call the Midwife. So it's out of it.
That said, I think that book would make me unreasonably angry. Like it sounds nice, but like, I can't stand investing time into something and not knowing where it's going. Like knowing we're going down a clear path to something. Let's throw it against a wall. Where are we going with this? Why?
[00:16:03] Carrie: Yeah, I think we all know that about you by now.
[00:16:20] Adam: Yeah. Yeah.
Probably.
All right. So I would like both our listeners and the both of you to appreciate that I committed to a big, full length adult audio book this month. However, I deeply wish I hadn't done this in a challenge where I needed a title from the 1990s. I already talked about the struggles I had earlier in the episode.
So I'm not going to go over it again. Suffice it to say everything I wanted to read was checked out or unavailable on audio. No, I nearly committed to yet another helping of Alice Hoffman's Practical, Magic a favorite from my teen years. I ultimately settled on the dusty Arizona town of Randall in Bentley, littles, Bram, Stoker award-winning first novel, the revelation.
Published in 1990 there's a quote from the 2004 movie, a princess story that comes to mind for this book. Hillary Duff's 2000 high school Cinderella figure pleads with her stepmother played by Jennifer Coolidge in her usual hilarious typecast to let her go to a school dance rather than pulling a diner night shift.
The famous line of Jennifer's reply is, "now that you're older, there's something I've always wanted to tell. And I think you're ready to hear it. You're not very pretty and you're not very bright. Oh, I'm so glad we had that talk." I picked that quote because it's funny, it's iconic for millennials and I acknowledged there's probably a lot of positives in the revelation, but I hat it anyway.
I can see how the story might have been novel in 1990, but it just feels kind of like an end cap to eighties or in retrospect, We're mainly following a few characters all standard eighties, white dudes with a few and far between likable qualities, as increasingly strange events point towards full blown, good versus evil revelation style, apocalyptic conflict.
I believe our first foreboding scene introduces an intimidating preacher, Brother Elias, gaining reputation for accurate prophecy of seemingly impossible occurrences. His importance is reinforced by some native American stereotype characters. One of which is a shaman who fears the preacher because he seems more powerful and also prophesized in an unknown language
sometimes. Setting aside the fact that native Americans really didn't, their tribes didn't have any individuals or groups that they labeled as shamans. The characters really never made an appearance in the book again. They were just there to show that brother Elias was more powerful than their natural power and it was stupid.
Moving on, we've also got kind of a bumbling sheriff, Jim Weldon. Who's unfortunately about the only form of law enforcement in town. He has some prophetic dreams, but they mostly just help them find bodies after deaths have already happened. Possibly his biggest source of consternation is the same as the satanic panic vibes, desecration of local churches with goat's blood followed by his dreams of ritual sacrifice and fire, along with the vision of a local preacher, going with a horn figure, his new God into the flames.
After an honorable mention to a new minister named father Andrews, who hasn't quite had an important role to the point I've reached, I haven't completely finished the book. Our last member to round out the anti apocalypse team is Gordon Lewis, a blue collar worker with authorship aspirations and a wife, Marina, going through unexpected pregnancy.
And I have to say that Gordon really feels like the author is inserting himself into the story. That said Gordon is absolutely childish with his wife having to coddle him through literally every twist and turn while also dealing with the stress herself. He goes from anger that she's pregnant
despite birth control, anger that she confirmed the pregnancy with a doctor before. Bringing it up to him for good reasons, based on his reaction to anger that she wasn't sure if she wanted to keep the child, even though he knew she didn't want a child in the first place to anger that she decided to keep the kid to openly mocking anger about each development that followed with little short bursts of over short bursts of overcompensating care, probably shocking at the time.
Marina's pregnancy is thrown into unsurity due to all the other women living near them, losing their childrenafter premature births. Throw in a case of an elderly woman in a nursing home becoming spontaneously pregnant quickly birthing and the malformed dead baby seemingly walking away on its own.
Instances of snickering, little gremlins-esque, monsters, wreaking havoc around town, and a big reveal from brother Elias. And we get a very blatant grab at moral shock centered around the damnation of aborted and miscarried fetuses. That's a lot of information. So look, The Revelation has fun points, but I could go on way too long about how the story overcompensates for mediocrity with gore, eighties, horror, tropes, religious guilt, and toxic masculinity.
If you're looking for disturbing apocalyptic horror with a religious flavor, I highly recommend either Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chobsky or The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. Granted don't let my negativity dissuade you , if The Revelation sounds like a good time. Clearly it was well enough received to get the Bram Stoker award in 1990.
So maybe I'm just an outlier or it was a book of its time that doesn't really hold up after 30 years. Regardless, Bentley Little's The Revelation is available as a downloadable audio book on hoopla digital with the JCPL library card. As far as our tasty bite, turn trash into a tasty treat with coffee ground cashew butter.
This spread can be adjusted from smooth to textured, nutty, to chocolatey, and so much more with just coffee grounds, fresh or spent, cashews, sea salt, cacao nibs oil, and any other flavors you'd like to add, find this recipe in Lindsay Jean Hard's, cooking with scraps at JCPL available
in hard copy.
[00:22:42] Carrie: So that was published in 1990 because it really, it really sounds.
It sounds like eighties, you know? So
[00:22:53] Adam: he does. So it's like he wrote it in the eighties and then it came out
only little let's double check it really quick and make sure I got this right. Yeah. 1990. Yeah.
According to Fantastic Fiction.
[00:23:07] Carrie: Yeah. It kind of sounds like one of those crossover decade books, which is, I mean, you know, Our calendar is kind of arbitrary, so it makes sense, but that, that would happen.
[00:23:19] Adam: What is time anyway?
So did I convince any either of you to read this book? No, no, probably. Yeah.
[00:23:35] Carrie: Yeah. I mean, did you even finish it? No,
[00:23:40] Adam: no. I got about 75% of the way. Yeah, no, I haven't finished it. I might still, you know, it's still on my account so I could, if I want to do just do something crazy again. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see.
[00:23:55] Carrie: Have you read other books by that author?
[00:23:58] Michael: I
have never read Bentley Little. I've heard a lot of good things about. And he's a pretty prolific writer that this never really made it up to like Koons and king status, but he's still publishing today. I got a lot of mine.
I got several titles on my list or have downloaded that I may need to get, but Adam hasn't dissuaded me from it
[00:24:24] Adam: now, you know, a review or two, I saw, said, You know, it was a fun book, but it's definitely a, like, it's his first one. So maybe, maybe he's got ones after this one that are improved a lot and, or brushed up.
[00:24:41] Michael: Yeah. Sometimes the first one can be a little rough.
[00:24:44] Adam: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:47] Carrie: All right. Well there you have the seventies, eighties, and nineties in kind of a wildly divergent selection.
[00:25:02] Adam: It's a spectrum of choice and it's all something
[00:25:07] Michael: the
hits from the seventies, eighties and nineties. WJCPL.
[00:25:18] Carrie: Thanks for listening to the Books and Bites podcast. For more information about the Books and Bites reading challenge, visit our website at Jesspublib.org/books-bites. Our theme music is The Breakers by Scott Whiddon from his album In Close Quarters with the Enemy. Find out more about Scott and his music on his website, adoorforadesk.com.