It all started with Sarah chatting about the wonderful interview she did with Dr. Susan Rogers on her tome about music cognition and psychoacoustics: “This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You”
And then the conversation took a book curve into what we’re reading, what we’ve enjoyed over the past few months, and we thought it would be great to build a community around our love of books and reading.
So here we are! Each month we will try to bring recommendations and also include YOUR recommendations, we would love you to help build this community.
We finish the show with some books for you to choose from as we start this ball rolling! Please do let us know what you think and what you’d like us to discuss next time. We’re going to try to get an actual ‘club’ going where we pick a book for us all to read and discuss on each show.
You will have no doubt heard both of my colleagues on Today Radio as Sarah Tapp hosts The Hangover and Vanessa Phelan is a newsreader and contributing journalist for RTL Today.
Exciting launch! Our very first Book Club show with Vanessa Phelan and Sarah Tapp
Crying in H Mart
by Michelle ZaunerRemarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Milkman by Anna Burns
Well me you know about I guess, as you’re listening to the show. What’s relevant and something I don’t normally talk about is that I write and consult on children’s science books for DK in the UK. You can find my books here. I love giving back to the science I once studied and with books, this is one avenue. I wrote the Mini Scientist series when my girls were tiny as I realised experimenting is our first language. Before words.
Vanessa grew up in the States and moved to Luxembourg in 2017 after 12 years in Dublin. Aside from her work at RTL, Vanessa also works for a publisher of Irish language children’s books. She is a lover of all kinds of fiction, whether mystery, romance, historical or just stories about people with messages and themes we can all relate to. She also loves to travel and so enjoys reading about far-flung and exotic places.
Originally from Hawaii, Sarah studied Zen poetry in college and spent almost 15 years in Japan before relocating to Luxembourg in 2016. When she’s not hosting The Hangover on Today Radio, Sarah is an avid reader who loves literary fiction, poetry, classics and memoir. Her unchecked obsession with One Direction fanfiction and inability to pronounce words correctly when reading aloud keep her from being an insufferable snob.
This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You
by Susan Rogers and Ogi OgasMy Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry and other books by Fredrik Backman
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Olive Kitteridge and other books by Elizabeth Strout
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Fanfiction (we recommend Archive of Our Own (AO3))
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History by Aida Edemariam
Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling by Emer McLysaght & Sarah Breen
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani
Chocolat and Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
Beach Read by Emily Henry (Sarah said “Book Lovers” but this is the one she meant!)
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
Hamnet and other books by Maggie O’Farrell
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
My Policeman by Bethan Roberts
Windswept & Interesting by Billy Connolly
Memoirs and biographies of Victoria Beckham, Britney Spears, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Diana, Princess of Wales
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving by David Richo
Milkman by Anna Burns
Please do subscribe to the podcast on Apple and / or Spotify. It would be great if you could rate and review too - helps others find us.
Tune in on Today Radio Saturdays at 11am, Sundays at noon and Tuesdays at 10am.
And don’t forget to vote on our next book in the comments, we would love to hear from you.
