Narrated by the authors, Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth A. Silvers.

Two friends on opposite sides of the aisle provide a practical guide to grace-filled political conversation while challenging readers to put relationship before policy and understanding before argument.

More than ever, politics seems driven by conflict and anger. People sitting together in pews every Sunday have started to feel like strangers, loved ones at the dinner table like enemies. Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers say there is a better way.       

As working moms on opposite ends of the political spectrum and hosts of a fast-growing politics podcast, Holland and Silvers have learned how to practice engaging conversation while disagreeing. In I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening), they share principles on how to give grace and be vulnerable when discussing issues that affect families, churches, the country, and the world. They provide practical tools to move past frustration and into productive dialogue, emphasizing that faith should inform the way people engage more than it does the outcome of that engagement. This urgently needed new book reveals how to talk about politics in a way that inspires rather than angers and that pays spiritual dividends far past election day.

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I THINK YOU'RE WRONG (BUT I'M LISTENING) by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth A. Silvers

We're still stuck on the theme of intimacy, because we haven't been able to stop thinking about it. The demands of this crisis are forcing us to rethink so much that used to be instinctive, including how we connect with other people - physical contact has never been more loaded, and we're having to rely on other ways to bridge the gaps between us. In our last show with Garth Greenwell we were thinking about how books can be a tool for intimacy in themselves, and in this minisode we continue that conversation. How does reading and talking about books create intimacy? Has the way we think about intimacy changed during lockdown? Can books ever be a substitute for intimacy IRL? Plus, the usual (extremely inside) cultural recommendations.

This episode is sponsored by Picador https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador @picadorbooks

Minisode Fourteen: More Intimacy

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA&#160;Book Club Pick!&#160;&ldquo;Bennett&rsquo;s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it&rsquo;s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison&rsquo;s 1970 debut novel,&#160;The Bluest Eye.&rdquo;&#160;&mdash;Kiley Reid,&#160;Wall Street Journal&#160;&ldquo;This is sure to be one of 2020&rsquo;s best and boldest . . . Bennett&rsquo;s next masterpiece is a triumph of character-driven narrative.&rdquo;&#160;&mdash;Elle&#160; From&#160;The&#160;New York Times-bestselling author of&#160;The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise. Available for purchase at: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XNG5L99?tag=randohouseinc7911-20">Amazon</a><a href="http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-8373827-11819508?sid=PRHD39095A662&url=http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/?ean=9780525536970">Barnes & Noble</a><a href="http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-8373827-10747236?SID=PRHD39095A662--9780525536970&url=http://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780525536970">Books A Million</a><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2186/9780525536291?prhc=PRHD39095A662">Bookshop.org</a><a href="http://www.hudsonbooksellers.com/book/9780525536291?utm_source=prh&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=301&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780525536291&utm_campaign=9780525536291">Hudson Booksellers</a><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525536291?aff=penguinrandom">IndieBound</a><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/-9780525536291?utm_source=randomhouse&utm_campaign=randomhouse&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780525536291">Powell's</a><a href="http://goto.target.com/c/128773/81938/2092?subId1=PRHD39095A662--9780525536291&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fs%3FsearchTerm%3D9780525536291">Target</a><a href="http://linksynergy.walmart.com/fs-bin/click?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&subid=0&offerid=183959.1&type=10&tmpid=273&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780525536291&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.walmart.com%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-ng.do%3F&RD_PARM2=search_query%3D9780525536291%2526ic%3D16_0%2526Find%3DFind%2526search_constraint%3D3920">Walmart</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1479330315?at=11l3IH&ct=PRHD39095A662--9780525536970">Apple Books</a><a href="https://google.prf.hn/click/camref:1011ld4r/pubref:PRHD39095A662--9780525536970/destination:https://play.google.com/store/search?q=9780525536970&c=books">Google Play Store</a><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&offerid=258185.12829781935712206&type=2&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780525536970}&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobo.com%2Fsearch%3FQuery%3D9780525536970">Kobo</a>

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, read by Shayna Small

What does it mean to write luxuriously? How can books be rich and generous? This month we’re talking about luxury in literature - and no, we don’t mean books about the 1% having spa days or flying first class. Instead, we’re talking about writing that explores the aesthetic, opulent, baroque and decadent. Through writers including Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sylvia Plath, we’ll be thinking about what makes writing luxurious, and why engaging with luxury can be a subversive act of resistance for marginalised communities. Our guest today is Shola von Reinhold, whose debut novel Lote is about present-day narrator Mathilda's fixation with the forgotten Black Scottish modernist poet, Hermia Druitt. It's also a beautiful meditation on aesthetics and beauty and who is allowed access to them. Listen in for all the usual recommendations, and a chance to find out if you're an Arcadian or a Utopian. So, come indulge with us in a little literary friction. 

Recommendations on the theme, Luxury: 
Octavia: Ariel by Sylvia Plath https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571236091-ariel-the-restored-edition.html
Carrie: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/alan-hollinghurst/the-line-of-beauty/9781447275183

General Recommendations: 
Octavia: The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/emily-st-john-mandel/the-glass-hotel/9781509882809
Shola: Race, Sexuality and Identity in Britain and Jamaica: the Biography of Patrick Nelson by Gemma Romain https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/race-sexuality-and-identity-in-britain-and-jamaica-9781472588654/
Carrie: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett https://britbennett.com/the-vanishing-half

Email us: litfriction@gmail.com 
Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction 

This episode is sponsored by Picador https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador

Literary Friction - Luxury With Shola Von Reinhold

We're still on our summer break, so we wanted to use this chance to bring you a re-run of one of our favourite shows from our archive. In 2018, we spoke to Thomas Page McBee about his book Amateur, which tells the true story of his quest to become the first trans man to box at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The theme of the show is Masculinity: what makes a man? Why do men fight? Is there a crisis of masculinity? These are some of the questions that authors from Ernest Hemingway to Grayson Perry have asked, and questions that Thomas Page McBee addresses head on in his searching, beautiful and wise book.

Literary Friction - RE-RUN: Masculinity with Thomas Page McBee

OPRAH&rsquo;S BOOK CLUB PICK &bull;&#160;The Pulitzer Prize&ndash;winning, bestselling author of&#160;The Warmth of Other Suns&#160;examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. &#160; &ldquo;An instant American classic.&rdquo;&mdash;Dwight Garner, The New York Times &ldquo;As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power&mdash;which groups have it and which do not.&rdquo; &#160; In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. &#160; Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people&rsquo;s lives and behavior and the nation&rsquo;s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people&mdash;including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball&rsquo;s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others&mdash;she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing,&#160;Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents&#160;is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

Caste (Oprah's Book Club) by Isabel Wilkerson, read by Robin Miles

Listen to an excerpt from THE GIFT by Edith Eva Eger and read by Tovah Feldshuh

THE GIFT Audiobook Excerpt

Listen to an excerpt from FORTUNE AND GLORY by Janet Evanovich and read by Lorelei King

FORTUNE AND GLORY Audiobook Excerpt

Listen to an excerpt from GROUP by Christie Tate, read by the author.

GROUP Audiobook Excerpt

Listen to an excerpt from DARK TIDES by Philippa Gregory and read by Louise Brealey

DARK TIDES Audiobook Excerpt

Twelve early pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of Joan Didion. Mostly drawn from the earliest part of her astonishing five-decade career, the wide-ranging pieces in this collection include Didion writing about a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, a visit to San Simeon, and a reunion of WWII veterans in Las Vegas, and about topics ranging from Nancy Reagan to Robert Mapplethorpe to Martha Stewart. Here are subjects Didion has long written about -- the press, politics, California robber barons, women, the act of writing, and her own self-doubt. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive and, in new light, stunningly prescient.

Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion, read by Kimberly Farr

Harper Audio proudly traces its roots back to 1952, when Dylan Thomas first recorded for our Caedmon label. For more than five decades, HarperAudio/Caedmon has been synonymous not only with distinguished poets reading their works, but also with equally distinguished authors and readers performing classic and contemporary texts.

I THINK YOU'RE WRONG (BUT I'M LISTENING) by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth A. Silvers

HarperAudio US

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