Just here for the fizz and the snacks (with Matthew Sweet)

Off Air with Jane & Fi

In this episode of Off Air with Jane & Fi, Eve Salisbury and Fi Glover navigate a shared cold while diving into listener-submitted book recommendations for young men, the

Key takeaways

• Eve and Fi review listener-suggested titles for young men, including 'Long Live the Post Horn', 'The Word for World is Forest', and Haruki Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood'.
• Matthew Sweet reveals Barbara Cartland dictated up to 8,000 words daily using secretaries, producing 723 books despite leaving almost no personal wealth at her death due to corporate copyright structuring.

Main topics

• Book club recommendations & young men's reading
• Barbara Cartland biography & literary legacy

Notable quotes

"A book is the only place that you can truly step in somebody else's experience firsthand, wear their shoes, walk their walk, feel their feelings."

Conclusion

The episode successfully merges casual listener engagement with substa

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) How do we truly navigate life's hardest moments? I'm Julia Samuel, psychotherapist and best-selling author. In my podcast, Therapy Works, I open the therapy room for candid, insightful conversations with people known and unknown. Discover what my guests have learnt and failed to learn about resilience and human connection. Listen to Therapy Works today. wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:40) Right, we are on. So I just want to be more like Eve, which is why I've contrived to get a cold that has made my voice sink a little bit. I'm trying to affect the Eve Salisbury Tamble and it's still not as good. But this cold has done a journey, hasn't it? You think? I think patient Speaker 3 (1:02) zero was Jane. Yeah. And I... Got it. Me and Jane had about a week overlap where her cough was ending and my cough was beginning. And I think you and I have got that same overlap about three weeks later. Right, and my cough. Speaker 4 (1:20) So the huge problem is, and I do apologise, we'll be able to stop the podcast if I have a little bit of a coughing fit. Speaker 2 (1:25) But Speaker 4 (1:25) it's a very big day in politics today. Andy Burnham's making his first speech to his first Labour Party conference as leader with the slogan, Hope Again. And it probably is going to be the first time that we really get a bit of flesh on the bones of what the party is going to do under him. It is not a day to come off the back of that in a terrible kind of Victorian coughing fit. So we've got a presenter's friend coming to hold my hand at three o'clock. I feel like such a ninny. But it's one of those things, if I was doing any other job, you wouldn't really know. Speaker 3 (2:04) Well, I was going to say it's, yeah. you can't avoid talking and that is really what gets the tickle going it Speaker 4 (2:10) does doesn't it it's so annoying so i've got all my strepsils as well but nobody wants to hear somebody sucking a lozenge on the radio that's proper proper torture isn't it ryan's gonna have to be hot on your mic today Speaker 4 (2:26) Anyway, apologies all round and I'll never sound as good as you. It's just a fact. So I have given you, with your beautiful voice, all of the really difficult pronunciations to read out today. Oh, perfect. Thank you. Because we've had fantastic book recommendations from people who are so informative about what young men are reading and also what's being targeted to young men. So I think we would... Definitely, definitely pick one of the selection on offer to read as a book club. And we're just going to have to settle ourselves down, aren't we? Take a big deep breath and go, I'm a young man reading this. Yeah, Speaker 3 (3:07) there was someone in the inbox, which is completely fair enough, who basically said, it's not really how I want to spend my time trying to get inside the head of a young man. That's absolutely fine. But I also don't think that's to say that what young men are reading is... is not going to be of interest to us either. Speaker 4 (3:25) Yeah, can only be read by young men. I think you're completely right because then at the same time we would be saying that all of the books that we absolutely love, why would young men bother to read them? And a book is the only place that you can truly step in somebody else's experience firsthand, wear their shoes, walk their walk, feel their feelings. So it's got to go both ways, hasn't Speaker 3 (3:49) it? Speaker 4 (3:49) And I just know that I have never read a book that is completely beloved of young men. You know, I didn't, I know that I didn't read that kind of book when I was a young woman. I mean, in the 1990s, we, you know, chick lit, just erupted over the bookshelves, started by Bridget Jones' diary. And I did certainly read an awful lot of that. I didn't feel the need to get inside a young man's head in the way that I definitely... could benefit from now. And some of the suggestions sound really interesting. Do Speaker 3 (4:22) you Speaker 4 (4:22) want to do Speaker 3 (4:22) some of them? Yes. And I'm sorry about the Speaker 4 (4:24) pronunciations, Speaker 3 (4:25) but you're just much better at this type of thing than me. Let's Speaker 4 (4:27) see Speaker 3 (4:27) how this goes. This comes from Francis. Dear Jane, Fi and young Eve, I was interested in your discussion of choices for the Off-Air Book Club and your curiosity relating to what young men read these days. My son has always been a keen reader. I'm not sure what he was reading at university. Probably quite a few books on civil engineering. but he always seemed to have something on the go during Christmas or summer holidays. I'm a keen reader myself and I'm still a member of a book group I joined when my daughter was in primary school. I was tickled pink when he told me that he and four of his friends had formed a book group. So far, they've read three books. The first, Long Live the Post Horn by Victus. Speaker 3 (5:08) Perfect. You've Speaker 4 (5:10) really done me in there. You've really nailed it there, Eve. Absolutely wonderful. Spot on. Speaker 3 (5:14) Yes. Second, The Word for World is Forest, a science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Yeah, Speaker 4 (5:24) equally good, yeah. I know. I didn't know it was Speaker 3 (5:27) going Speaker 4 (5:27) to be stitched up like this. Speaker 3 (5:28) I've Speaker 4 (5:28) just been very cruel. Speaker 3 (5:30) I've got to cough. And the third, Whimmy Road Boys by Safai and Salam. I've no idea what any of them are, but Ethan said they're all interesting in their own way. Also, no idea if this is what the average 31-year-old is reading at the moment, but it could be a good starting point in your research for the next book. Love the pod and have been listening for years. Speaker 4 (5:52) Well, how heartening is that? Yes. Book clubs of their own volition. I'd never heard of any of those books either, but we will do a little bit of digging and... Definitely, definitely pop them in the pile. This is Erica from Nottingham who says, I asked my 23-year-old son for a suggestion for the book club and he has written the following for me to send to you. So here we go. My favourite book is Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. It's an older Japanese novel that I and several other young men I know have read and found uniquely relatable and deeply moving. It follows a man in his 20th year grappling with purpose, sexuality and grief in a way that focuses less on morality and more on... how both the smallest and largest experiences in life shape you. It definitely feels like the target audience is young men, but it's also a book I really struggle to recommend to most people. Paradoxically, it's a book which so well reflects the way the world can feel and be as a young man, including all of the grit and grime that makes it really hard to share in fear of exposing the illusion that men are. put up. It's not a dramatic book, but it's one that has been very powerful and meaningful to myself and my best friend. And there is nothing else I've read, which has better shone a light on my own life. Wow. Yes, wow. So that tickled my Speaker 3 (7:08) fancy as well. Have you read Norwegian Wood? So I haven't read it either, but probably about eight, nine years ago, I was on a holiday and one of the dads on the family holiday pressed it into my hand and said, you really should read this. I think at that age, I just, I couldn't, I didn't really get into it. I'm intrigued by it, but I think it was quite popular, wasn't it? Which is... Speaker 4 (7:30) I definitely recognise the... The title, yep. So that just sounds fantastic. What a recommendation as well from your 23-year-old son. So Erica, you are definitely in there quite close to the top of the pile. What we always do is just make sure that any of these books aren't going to sink us in your cancelled way. that they are available in all bookshops, libraries and secondhand places as well. And we are absolutely aware of the fact that hardbacks are a no-no, but that one's not going to be a hardback, so we'll be OK. So we'll do a little bit of research on that and come back to you with the final title next week. We also need to run it past Jane to make sure it's something that she will read, although it's never worked before. She don't want to read it. She don't read it. There's always one in book club who just turns up, says, couldn't be asked. And then book club needs one. Speaker 3 (8:27) The fizz and the snacks. Exactly, exactly. Somebody who just kind of views it from afar. I'm also so heartened just to hear people turning to the sons and friends and partners in their lives. and getting these recommendations and having those conversations. It's such a nice thing. It is lovely, Speaker 4 (8:45) isn't it? Because sometimes you think that people would be embarrassed to say that they listen to this podcast, but they're not. They are. They're reaching out. No, but I'm with you because... You know, how crazy if we don't ask things of other people to better inform us about our own lives. And that's the problem, isn't it? That we're all just so stuck in our own bloody echo chambers, especially in terms of the generations and genders. We're not crossing over at all and we just need to, absolutely need to. The Canadian postie uniform coming to you from Greece comes from Echo. Echo has a PS, I am a woman, I wrote him once before and you weren't quite sure. So I'll pop that up at the top. Here we go. I'm listening to the latest podcast in one of Jane's most visited places. So that would either be... Liverpool. Or? Probably the little Speaker 3 (9:37) bakery section around the corner from her. Speaker 4 (9:39) Or Greece. Speaker 3 (9:41) Greece. Speaker 4 (9:43) However, not one of the islands, but the beautiful mainland of the Peloponnese, staying with my mother, who has a house halfway up a cliff in the village of Virga, just outside of Kalamata. Well, don't hold back on the invitations. Even I can still manage the stairs, so we'd be delighted to have an invitation. We've both been very ill. We need a little bit of a break. And Eve hasn't been away for a week. When I'm not in Greece helping my mother get rid of rats and organising, fixing, leaking roofs with interludes and swimming in the middle. Actually, it doesn't sound very nice, does it? Maybe we won't go. And filling my face with the best food and wine. I'm wearing a uniform delivering the mail in Ottawa, Canada. I'm very happy to wear a uniform. Never have to think about what to wear and best of all, my work pays for my clothes. It also means clothes last much longer because they're hardly worn. When I'm not at work and I'm going to be leaving the house, I do put a lot of effort into what to wear. And as an expat Brit living in Canada, Speaker 4 (11:01) So I would have thought that Canadians were super Speaker 3 (11:05) smart. Well, I think it's quite a phenomenon now with the rise of athleisure. I have a friend who recently moved to Sydney and they're very into their fitness there, aren't they? They get up really early and there's run clubs and sea swims and all sorts. She loved it when she first moved there, but after a while she was like, I just miss putting jeans on because all of her friends in their social circles would just wear leggings and Lululemon out because that's just what their whole social lives revolve around. I mean, it's a lovely life. Speaker 4 (11:34) Well, I mean, yes, it's a lovely life. They're lovely outfits. They don't really suit very many people. There's a certain body shape that does not look good in Lululemon. I'm just gently raising my hand here in the studio. No, it's very true. And I wouldn't be able to do that if I like a hard Speaker 3 (11:52) trouser. You've really nailed your kind of, it's not formal, but your kind of workwear wardrobe. Speaker 4 (11:59) Have I? You have. I'm not sure I have, but it's nice of you to say that. As I was saying before, now we're visualised, I just have to know the type of thing I'm wearing every day because otherwise I get in a bit of a panic in the morning and I just can't work out what's going to look nice from the waist up. Do you pick your outfit the night before? I do. Do you lay it out? I hang it up, yes. I do. And I know that this will tickle the fancies of our lovely listeners, but I bought a new iron at the weekend, Eve, because my previous one kept on tripping the fuse. Very annoying. So I invested in a £45.99 Philips Ultra. steam that just it just had so much stuff on it that it claimed to be able to do it can travel to different planets all by itself it can it can superpower a crease