Recently, Katherine interviewed Sarah Moss about her incredible new memoir, My Good Bright Wolf, an account of growing up as a difficult girl in a difficult family, and how this ultimately led to her eating disorder. Throughout the book, she repeatedly argues against herself. A voice rises up in the text and says, What are you trying to claim here? That’s not how it happened! Why can’t you tell the truth?

The point she makes is that we are unsteady in our remembering. We’re often incredibly uncertain, not just about the content of our memories, but also what they represent. We're unsure when the meaning-making took place. Was it something that arose at the point that those events happened? Or was it something we constructed far later in adulthood? And if so, what purpose did they serve?

Links from the episode:

• Sarah Moss' book, My Good Bright Wolf

Katherine's book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

• Join Katherine's Substack
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

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What’s to be done with the lost, the dead, but write them into being?’

So writes Hilary Mantel in her extraordinary memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. First published in 2003, it offers a snapshot of the great writer before the Wolf Hall era: a literary, if not commercial, success, and a fragile soul with a dark, scuttling imagination.

Katherine was joined by Jillian Hess of the brilliant Noted Substack to explore this wonderful book. They discussed the way that Mantel captures her childhood and family, her relationship to her body and the endometriosis that assailed it, the way she talks about writing, and - of course, given that it’s Halloween week - those ambiguous ghosts.

Katherine's book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Jillian's Substack, Noted
• Hilary Mantel’s book, Giving Up The Ghost

• Join Katherine's Substack for a free reading guide, video recordings and transcripts
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was National Poetry Day in the UK earlier this month and Katherine talked to Kate Fox about her new book, On Sycamore Gap, in an extra Book Club event. Kate’s book is about a very special tree in the north of England that was chopped down by vandals, but that has brought people together in the aftermath of its felling.

Katherine's book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Kate on Instagram
• Kate's website
• Kate’s book, On Sycamore Gap: UK

• Join Katherine's Substack for a free reading guide, video recordings and transcripts
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.