Episode Transcript
Speaker 2 00:00:20 Everybody welcome to the T with crema. My name is Chris. I'll be one of your hosts. Adam joined by my best friend, Emma. Hello, we have ass Soper, a special episode for you because it's going to be the start of a short series that we're doing producing, making, and taking our time to talk about we're going to be starting a book club set of episodes,
Speaker 0 00:00:45 Book club, book, club, book club. I'm up
Speaker 2 00:00:49 Particularly excited because I have been trying really hard to get Emma, to join a two person book club for a very long time. And we've gotten started quite a few times. I think one time we even read the full book to gather together, it was, we got most of it done, and then we just did not. It didn't go anywhere. I think we had other people reading the book. I had coworkers who were reading the book. It was we're working on it to work in progress. So hopefully, you know, this episode will help us take that idea and go all the way and really be committed to this book clubs. So we wanted to reflect on our love of reading, but before we get into this episode, I'm our, what TA do you have today?
Speaker 0 00:01:37 Oh, just hot. Um, I had to read it cause I actually don't remember what it's called ginger tumeric, herbal tea from trader Joe's apparently is organic. I think tumeric has some kind of healing properties. It's very yellow. Um, I actually haven't even tried it yet, so y'all are about to hear the first sip spicy, but that's the ginger, isn't it? I, I think so, but the tumeric is, I don't think tumeric has a taste like that. Anyway. What are you drinking today?
Speaker 2 00:02:05 Well, conveniently I too, am trying to tell you that I've not yet tried and it is lemon ginger by big ALO. And it'll be interesting because I don't usually go for ginger teas, but you know, got to try everything at least one time and it was a gift. So I want to take the time.
Speaker 0 00:02:25 So how has it, have you tried it yet? I haven't.
Speaker 2 00:02:28 Yeah, but it's also really, really fresh. So I, there will not be a, Oh, let me try it right this second. I'm going to have to wait a little bit.
Speaker 0 00:02:34 Let's get into tea time then about books like Chris was saying, we have been trying to start a book club with the two of us. So a book duo, if you will. So if anyone is interested, let your girl know in the Instagram, if you would like to join, but let's start with, do you, or do you not love books?
Speaker 2 00:02:54 I, at my present state in my life can say I enjoy books. I would not a hundred percent say that. I love them. And we'll probably get into a bit of the reasoning why I'm at a, I enjoy the right now, but yes, I enjoy books. It's complicated history. I've come to enjoy them again.
Speaker 0 00:03:15 Is that your relationship status with books? It's complicated. It's
Speaker 2 00:03:19 Complicated. What about
Speaker 0 00:03:22 Looks and I are married. I don't know. I love books honestly. And it's really a problem. Like Chris always has to stop me from buying books, um, because I'll just buy books and then it'll sit on my shelf and eventually I'll get to all of them, but I do have a problem. So I do love them. What's not to love about them, but let's talk about then. Why do you have a complicated history?
Speaker 2 00:03:43 Well, let me tell you, what's not to love about books. Uh, well I would say when I started reading intensely and elementary school, I absolutely adored reading. I loved it. It was one of my favorite things to do. I would skip going outside. I would read for as much as I could finish books so fast. And I think part of it is because I could read whatever I wanted to. So we would go to the public library, pick out books. I would pick the books I wanted to read and I would finish them up. It'd be really nice, enjoyable, something I was passionate about. And then in comes middle school where you have to start reading books that you don't necessarily care for. And then you have to do assignments based on them. And then sometimes people tell you that your thoughts are wrong about books, which I've never, I'm still struggling with like how can I read a book, interpret the book based on my lived experiences and then be told that's not right.
Speaker 2 00:04:51 How do you, how does that work? I don't understand how you're going to tell me my interpretation is wrong. I don't get it. So when reading became, it felt like more like an assignment, a chore, a task, something I had to, I had to do. I, it, it took a lot of the fun out of it. I didn't have as much, I didn't enjoy it at that point. And I fell off. Did not really get back into it until really until I graduated from my undergrad. Because at that point I was able to start picking books that I liked again and did not feel as though people were tearing down my interpretations of a book. So that's my complicated history. So I'm at a point where I'm getting back into books, things that I'm wanting to read. And I know it's important to discuss books, but that's why I want to discuss it in a more like book club setting, as opposed to a classroom setting. Because what I don't need is for someone to say, like, you interpreted it wrong, we can disagree. That's my history. What about you?
Speaker 0 00:05:52 I think from a young age, my parents have always encouraged me to read, uh, sounds similar to you, you know, like your parents encouraged you to read, they did it ever like make it seem like readings weird or anything like that. And I think a lot of it has to do with my auntie Naomi rest in peace. She was like the one who really started my love of books. She would take me to Barnes and noble, like every other weekend or whatever she was, um, going to the bookstore and she just let me pick out as many books as I wanted and would just buy all of them for me. So I'd be walking out. Like she would also go into buy herself some books because she was also a super avid reader. And so she would be like, okay. Yeah. Like what books do you want?
Speaker 0 00:06:28 Okay, I'll give you a limit of five and she'd just buy whatever books I wanted. And Barnes and noble is not cheap y'all, but I really do think that that is like where my love of reading started was because she, you know, allowed me to pick whatever books I wanted. Never questioned it just like, I'm just glad you're reading type of situation, you know? And so that's kind of where my love of reading came from. And in school, like I never really had much of an issue with like reading the assigned readings and things like that. I actually enjoyed those books. I can't say there was ever a book animal farm, but I can't say there was ever a book that I was just like, Oh, this is such a chore to read. You know, like I, like I was in honors English my entire time, AP English, and I loved all the books that we ever read.
Speaker 0 00:07:11 I always, you know, was maybe an overachiever and would read ahead, like in my undergrad, we didn't really read books like that for my engineering classes. So it was also really nice when I would take like my ethnic studies courses and women's studies courses and getting those books because I wasn't reading super often. Um, so, and I was more reading, like academic articles, which are not books, not to books and very technical and, you know, prompts to those scientists to come up with those. But it is not easy to get through sometimes if you're not in the bright brain. So I also appreciated those classes that I got to take that were non-engineering classes that I got to like actually sit down and like discuss with others about what we were reading. So I would say that my history with reading is not super complicated. I mean, now that we're talking about making a book club, have you ever been in a book club because now we want to start this book club. Do we have ground rules? Do we have expectations? Have you ever been in one that you can kind of like go off of about like what you liked or didn't like,
Speaker 2 00:08:08 I have solidly never been in a book club, which also might be part of the difficulties that we've had. So I don't, I don't know what the ground rules should be. I had enough, I should be studying people's time limits. I don't know, Doug on the internet find questions to talk about. Do we just open, open forum, this a Socratic seminar? I don't actually know. So maybe that's part of the difficulty of trying to start a book club from literal scratch. But also if we all enjoyed a book and read it, I feel like if the book is really good and you're engaged the conversations come a bit more naturally. That's my interpretation of why I was like, Oh yeah, starting a book club would be fine.
Speaker 0 00:08:47 I have also not ever been in a book club. So also again, maybe that's why I have joined a Pacific virtual book club at pissy fever to a book club. Hey y'all. But it's a bunch of Pacific Islanders who read books every month and they meet every Tuesday and they discuss the books that they read. It's just like Tuesdays always seem to be kind of like my busy days. I've never had a chance to actually call in, but I bought every single one of the books that they're reading every month. So I probably could like keep up. It's just been kind of difficult for me
Speaker 2 00:09:22 To read the books.
Speaker 0 00:09:24 I've read some of them and like, I'll like read it through the month. And I'm like, Oh shit. I'm like, so behind. I can't even, I can't even, but I really liked the way that they set it up because it's like every Tuesday they discuss a certain amount. Um, usually like four chapters or five chapters, depending on how long the book is, but I liked the way that they set it up, that it's literally, you only have a month to finish. Right. And so they, I guess they look at however many pages. It is divided by four or five weeks, depending on how long the month is. And then someone in their club facilitates the entire month. And so it was really cool. Cause this last week they were doing a couple of weeks ago, but they're reading currently white feminism by Koa Beck. And they got the author to come on to their zoom call and like ask questions and like facilitate a whole discussion around her weight, around like their experience, writing the book and everything. So it was really cool. I didn't actually get to go again because I don't know what we were doing, but so like seeing their space really grow has kind of inspired me like, Oh wow. Like this is like we out here, we out here reading. So maybe we could kind of, you know, like mimic the way they're doing it again right now. We're currently a book duo. So if anyone likes to join an IRA, become a book trio. That's cool. I don't know if we can be a club
Speaker 2 00:10:34 Also, have you been in a book club and I have some guidance or suggestions that would also be great because again, we just thought here flying blind, it's just it's happening. It is happening. What would you say has been like your favorite, like reading and discussion experience, or do you have a memorable one that really stands out to you
Speaker 0 00:10:54 Think about that? Like in the terms of like the method it was done or in terms of like, we were discussing a book and I got, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:11:00 It was really good either one. Cause I know that you had mentioned, I know in your undergrad, in particular, there were some experiences, some classes that you really enjoyed. So I'm just curious if there's any one or two that like really stands out that might help us figure out what a book club could look like to. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:11:17 I really enjoyed, um, I was taking a women's studies course in my last year of my undergrad. And if I'm not mistaken, I might've been taking it for funsies. Now that I think about it, I don't think it was required. Oops. Um, but it was like, we were talking about this kind of like where a lot of my feminist thought in theory comes from when I think of like my journey through identity work and things like that. Um, we were discussing sister outsider by Audrey Laurie, and I really enjoyed the way that our TA set up our discussions in that it was student led. So there each group was in charge of either a section of the book or the entire book and they'd basically teach it to the class and then it would be open forum. And so there were some pretty good discourse amongst students and in particular, like seeing, you know, BiPAP students and white students experiences and just like the way that they compare and it was, it was such a safe space that people felt okay to like bring up without, you know, fear of like, Oh God, you know, like, am I about to be canceled for this?
Speaker 0 00:12:19 And I thought that that was really important because that's super easy when you're, you know, 21, 22 years old to be like, that person is trash. They are no longer allowed in this discussion because everything they say is dumb, which I think that my TA really allowed for them to like kind of grow and like all of us to grow in this experience that, you know, just because that's your lived experience, like, let's talk about that. Let's, you know, unpack, have you ever had a certain discussion type thing that's memorable to you?
Speaker 2 00:12:46 It was also a women's studies class, black women's studies. And it was one of the few books that I like actively made sure I was on top of my readings for, because the, again, just like wanting to participate in the conversation and having a background and an understanding of what we were talking about that class. I made sure I read that book. In fact, it was so one of the books, in fact, I still have it here where I tried to read it. Oh, a shining thread of hope was the main one, Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson. And I think if I remember correctly, how do I explain this book? I just know that we took out, we didn't read like the whole book cover to cover. Um, so we read different sections. Oh yeah. So it just talks about like black women's experiences since the 17th and 18th centuries, essentially when black women were brought to America as slaves. So starting there and the book gets up to the eighties and then, but again, we did not read the entire book and this was also the class that like, um, I think formation by Beyonce just come up and we spent a good two classes talking about, we got in to that discussion. It was,
Speaker 0 00:14:11 I think we were taking women's studies at the same time. Cause that's literally what happened during mine that my, uh, my TA at the time had actually woven formation into her thesis was like starting to like going to argue with it for her dissertation. I, yes, that was intense. I remember that. That was like a whole, I was a time that was a time to be alive. It was a time to be an undergraduate
Speaker 2 00:14:33 Taking a women's studies class
Speaker 0 00:14:36 For sure. Oh my gosh. I forgot about that. Anyway. Uh, let's get back on track. So good books that we've read it, you know, as undergrads, let's go back to like our childhood. Then what is your favorite book or series that you read as a child or a teenager? I have so many,
Speaker 2 00:14:52 So one that overlaps with my love of cooking is called cook a doodle doo. And I love that book and it gives you an a recipe at the end on how to make a strawberry shortcake. And I did it and it was really good. And, but I don't, I don't think I still have that book. And then one of the first books series that I got into really intensively where the magic tree house series still have my original magic tree house. Like my mom bought a special magic tree house, like set that's in this like Treehouse box. And so that was one of the first series I like read and just went for it. And then number of the stars, I think was one of the first books that I read that like it was a class read and we, we, we cried as a collective and it was in third grade. And then wait, you said teenager to write, I also really enjoy house of the scorpion. I know I've tried to get you to read it like several.
Speaker 0 00:15:53 Oh, I have it because he bought it for me.
Speaker 2 00:15:55 It's one of the few books that I, because I don't often read books twice. That's one of the few books I've read three times actually like am ready to read it all fourth time. I truly enjoy it.
Speaker 0 00:16:07 Maybe that's the book we should open with them because you enjoy the book so much. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:16:11 We can talk. There's some topics in there we can discuss.
Speaker 0 00:16:14 I know it's crazy because there's these, you know, pretty intense topics. And like it it's a youth book. It's like a young adult book. It's not an adult book by any means. So
Speaker 2 00:16:23 Get into it. It is intense. But what about you? What are some child teenager books that just really pop out to you?
Speaker 0 00:16:30 Favorite book from when I was a child or from, I guess a young adult ish was the book thief and I keep bringing up the book thief and I, I honestly I've read it once and I could never go back to it because it was so heartbreaking the first time I read it. But now I think as an adult, I should read it one more time because I need to remember why that book stuck in my head. And whenever I think of like, Oh my gosh, that was, there was a book that just like broke my heart. It was the book thief, but like the first like really intensive series I got into, like, I wrote all, you know, like Aragon and,
Speaker 2 00:17:01 Um, terrible movie,
Speaker 0 00:17:03 Terrible movie, not a good one. And Harry Potter, like I stood in line for five, six and seven when they came out. That was, that was a time to be alive, was waiting for Harry Potter, five, six, and seven to come out. So what is a favorite book? You've read recently though.
Speaker 2 00:17:20 Let's define recently, like in my adulthood.
Speaker 0 00:17:22 Yeah. So it can be anything like in your adulthood, maybe this year, maybe in the past couple of years, what's one book that's like stuck out to you
Speaker 2 00:17:30 And I'm really, I'm looking at my book case to see which ones I've read recently. Ish. Um, cause I just finished Trevor Noah's book. I finished Michelle Obama's book. Autobiographies are not necessarily my favorite, but those are both really enjoyable. I have also finished reading. You know what one I started could not get into mindset, growth mindset could do it did not, I couldn't do it. I did read a book on Greek classical Greek mythology because I really enjoyed the whole book. It was great. And then one that I've read like a while ago, but would definitely read it again. It's called gold by Mary Roach. I read it on my own. I think like right towards the end of college, it was just something that I read for funsies. And it's just about your digestive system and it is a great, it is hysterical, but also very informative. So I would definitely recommend that one, but yeah, I think those are the ones that stand out the most that I have started to read and then I just finished the color of law. And so I, yeah, I'm about to pick a new book. We'll see what
Speaker 0 00:18:42 Jaga Jase. She wrote Homegoing and that was her debut novel chia Americana by chia Monda. And Gosey a DG. That was a great book. She's a fantastic writer and American marriage by Tyree Jones. Those are all like books that have really changed my thinking, I guess, and really have been super enjoyable. I've also been trying to be a little bit more intentional looking at more BiPAP authors and BiPAP for those of you who don't know it's black indigenous people of color. And so I enjoy and you know, specifically like by walk, um, women of color, I like to support their writing because you know, representation was not something that was super seen growing up. And so I think that now, like as an adult and like seeing all these other writers coming out and supporting their work is super important to me. So I've been, trying to be a lot more intentional in the way that I am reading. Um, Chris and I both bought all boys aren't did you finish it? I haven't started it yet. Okay. So we both bought that. So, and you know, like also in terms of like being representative with, um, the queer community. Yeah. And so we've been trying to be super intentional in that way as well. So what is currently then, since we both haven't read that what is currently on your to be read list your TBR list?
Speaker 2 00:20:00 So I will say, you know, all boys aren't blue is one of the ones that's on the top and that would be George M. Johnson. Then I have Felix ever after by casing calender. And then the black Flamingo, my Dean Adda, those were like top of my, um, queer studies books. And then I have, they were her property as one of my black studies books, the immortal life of Henrietta lacks, redefining realness, which has some intersectionality because that's by Jeanette mock, who is a black trans woman. So
Speaker 0 00:20:42 You got options, you got life.
Speaker 2 00:20:44 I have a lot of that and then have some professional books that I'm to read, you know, get better, faster the data book that all of the people read are driven by data 2.0. So,
Speaker 0 00:20:55 Yeah. And I think that goes back to like, as educators, we are always constantly doing professional development. And so that's also something that like kind of gets in the way teaching is also like, Oh really like full-time plus hours job. Not like we really have to be intentional about the way that we carve out time to read these books on my TBR list. Like I have an entire bookshelf that's filled with books that I have yet to read. Um, including all boys arm blue. I have Abraham Kennedy's books on how to be an anti-racist, um, Searcy by Madeline Miller. I also just, uh, got the book. They were her property because I saw Chris was reading it. So I decided
Speaker 2 00:21:37 Jones Rogers. I realized that I did not drop her name the first time. So I just wanted to clarify
Speaker 0 00:21:43 Your name dropping. We will also like post these books too. I'm excited. Like I really do enjoy reading. I really do want to make that part of my routine. You know, I do, I have started journaling at night again, so, you know, maybe carving out 30 minutes to read and like however many minutes to journal I think is going to start being a part of my routine just so that I can start getting through books as quickly as I used to.
Speaker 2 00:22:04 Cause it's a practice. It takes, you have to get back into it. I've noticed that with my writing, I got to. And so I'm thinking, I will say that ties into like part of why I want to start a book club is I think it's really important to have not necessarily super structured conversations, but intentional thoughtful conversations because I know in school it's built into what you're doing, especially if you're in those types of classes, but I still, I want to find a way to still develop my reading and have those discussions. And then something that I found recently is that I actually want to incorporate writing into these book clubs because my amount of practice on my writing, I realized, so I want to get back into just that habit of just constantly developing, growing, um, and continuing to use those skills and in this particular case reading and in hopefully writing. So I'm super excited to incorporate those into our book club. I do hope that people want to join, even if they're not interested in the writing part, it's fine. I just have to practice my writing more.
Speaker 0 00:23:11 Yeah. And it's almost like I kind of want it to look like it doesn't have to be like all of us have to be on a zoom call. You know, it can be, we can be really creative with this. Maybe we're all in a forum somehow. Maybe we all start a Slack or like a group me and we discuss the books in that way. There's so many different ways that I think that this can go, which is kind of what I'm interested in. I also just like want to start a book club just so that I can start reading again, because it's something that I truly do miss. And it's hard for me to encourage students to read when I don't even, you know, like do it myself normally, so I can completely understand the necessity of it. So is there any kind of like types of books that you want to read kinds of discussions that you want to have in these?
Speaker 2 00:23:51 Yes, there are types of books. So I definitely want to make sure that I'm reading books that are from various perspectives. So from queer perspective, from black perspectives from women's perspectives. So I want to just make sure that I'm being intentional, like you've already mentioned in the selection of those books. So just being more thoughtful because I know that growing up, there were a lot of books written from the white perspective. And I just want to read a little bit more dive a little deeper, get into other perspectives in a literary sense as well. And at this point I would say, this is there's. So there's a lot of diversity out there. There are a lot of options and availability, so I just want to take advantage of it. And I think part of that journey is also having those discussions with other people. It just means a little bit more when you share those experiences with others.
Speaker 0 00:24:46 That's for sure. I agree. I agree. 100%. So if y'all would like to join us in our book club, let us know. I was just thinking right now and I kind of came up with the idea we should do like a March madness bracket type of style to figure out what our first book should be. But I think that is about all we have to say. So we're super excited. We just kind of want us to start, you know, thinking about that, getting the feelers out there to everyone else. How do y'all feel about a book club? And you know, maybe some of these episodes will then become dedicated to some books that we've been discussing and reading and some takeaways that we have from it. And that's really all we hope to get.
Speaker 2 00:25:22 We can start our rapid fire questions. We are getting the sound effects, worked out. Everybody
Speaker 0 00:25:33 Garage band helped me out. I need to go to a class specifically for garage pad just so I can get the sounds.
Speaker 2 00:25:41 It is in the works. I know Jeffrey sent me a few things. We're going to, we're going to work out. Okay. It's gonna happen. So with that, I'm on. Would you like to ask the first rapid fire question?
Speaker 0 00:25:53 Sure. So since we are talking about books, I thought I'd have a book related question. What is your favorite movie or TV show adaptation of a book. And what is your least favorite?
Speaker 2 00:26:06 My favorite. So like, uh, a series that like I watched it, I was like, actually, this wasn't terrible as it relates to the book. Yes. I would say bridge to Terabithia is one that comes to mind what a book they did really well on that one. So I would say, yeah, that one definitely would be one of the top lists of movies that did the book justice really, really did well with that. Uh, as far as, uh, movies that did not do the book justice, I think we all know a lot of books and movies that do not, it just didn't work out. So like Percy Jackson in the Olympics
Speaker 0 00:26:48 So much potential that books, those books are fantastic. Erica also fantastic. I think they need to try it again. Try it one more time.
Speaker 2 00:26:56 What there's some other ones I was like, what is like what I think the divergent series got a skew, like just I, what, they're just moms. I don't,
Speaker 0 00:27:08 We're not true to the source material at all. I agree
Speaker 2 00:27:11 That plot twist ending that they put in Twilight that last Twilight one, it was like the imaginary scene that wasn't even in the book and then they added it to the movie and then plot twist. It was like a vision. So like, yeah, that was that. That was what the whole movie like that section was like, how are we just adding scenes to books here? Like what is happening?
Speaker 0 00:27:34 Terrible. Um, I think my favorite actually, no, I'll start with my least favorite. We'll start with a cold and then end with a warm, my least favorite adaptation was actually goblet of fire, Harry Potter and the goblet of fire. I did not enjoy that one. The may scene was completely so bland compared to the book. The book was scary, scary, scary, scary. But also that book was huge. It was, it was a very big undertaking. I mean, they could've split it into two, like they didn't over seven. I think my favorite out of the Harry Potter series that I thought was pretty accurate was number six. I thought that that was as close as they were going to get to the book. But number four was my least favorite. Also you have to take into consideration that they changed directors, every two movies, which was kind of weird.
Speaker 0 00:28:17 But my favorite that I thought was pretty close TV show wise a little fires everywhere by Celeste and Kerry, Washington and Reese Witherspoon did a fantastic job in that. And they really did a great job with the source material. My favorite movie adaptation that I thought was pretty close, like as accurate as you could get for, you know, Hollywood standards was crazy rich Asians. I would say that that was a pretty good one. That's one of Chris and I's favorite movies. Um, and now he's read the book, but I always tell him, I'm like, man, the book just has like a little bit more details. Like there's just a little bit more that they just can't put into a movie, but I thought they did really well.
Speaker 2 00:28:52 I'm not going to, yeah, they had to simplify it. I read the book and I was like, yeah, there's no way you could visually include all of the connections from the book. I, it was, it was like, it was a lot of, I liked the way they simplified it in the movie.
Speaker 0 00:29:05 Yeah. I thought they did a really good job of the simplification. Like it wasn't, there wasn't anything that was lost. I felt like, um,
Speaker 2 00:29:11 You got the major emotions, you got a lot of the major characters, like really brought some of them to life. Like yeah. It worked out really well. I think
Speaker 0 00:29:21 I agree. So what is your rapid fire question?
Speaker 2 00:29:25 My question has absolutely nothing to do with books, but where is a place that you could absolutely never live? Never, ever like ever, ever.
Speaker 0 00:29:35 I know these are supposed to be rapid fire questions. I really can't think of, I could never live. Oh, I'm probably to get some hate for this, sorry, family. If any of you are eliciting Utah only because it gets so cold and it gets so hot. It's like the worst it is. And I thought Texas was bad at Texas is pretty bad. I will say that, but Utah winters are brutal. Like, and I think it might've just been a bad experience in winter, but in the summer it's not any better. It's just not my favorite. What about you?
Speaker 0 00:30:09 It just, it shouldn't, it shouldn't be there. And like 115 plus degrees regularly. It's in the middle of a desert. That's nothing but casinos where people smoke all over the place. I just, I've never even been there, but I just couldn't. I could not do it would not make it judge a book by its cover. It's so fun though. When the panini is over, we'll go just so you can have a go in good time. That's not Vegas. Well with that. Where can people find the podcast? Emma, you can find our podcast on Twitter and Instagram at the T with crema. You can also find us on anywhere that you can stream podcasts like Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and also coming soon. YouTube. We'll see you next time. Bye.
