Book Club: A Spoiler-Free Conversation About ‘Last Tang Standing’ With Author Lauren Ho
Nerdette
WBEZ
4.7 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2020
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s the Nerdette Book Club! And today we're talking with Lauren Ho, the author of this month’s selection, Last Tang Standing.
It's a wonderful summer romance that follows the story of Andrea Tang, a 33-year-old Chinese-Malaysian lawyer, as she tries to make partner at her Singaporean law firm while fending off the unhealthy interest her relatives have in her love life.
Before she wrote this novel, Lauren herself was a Chinese-Malaysian lawyer living in Singapore. So ahead of our panel discussion later this month, we talked with Lauren about the reasons behind her huge career change, where the similarities between her and Andrea begin and end, and how Andrea was born “from the ashes of a comedy set where I bombed. Badly.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This fall, W bez invites you to our upcoming live events. |
| 0:05.0 | Join us in person for smart discussions, heartfelt storytelling, and more. |
| 0:09.0 | Check out the full calendar now at W be easy.org slash events. |
| 0:15.6 | From W be easy Chicago this is nerdette I'm Greta Johnson and you are |
| 0:21.7 | listening to an episode of |
| 0:23.0 | Nertat Book Club which is just like a regular book club except sometimes the author |
| 0:27.6 | stops by to chat and that is what's happening today. We're gonna talk with |
| 0:32.4 | Lauren Ho about her debut book. |
| 0:34.4 | It's our July book club pick, Last Tang Standing. |
| 0:38.4 | Last Tang Standing is written in diary form |
| 0:41.6 | and it follows the story of Andrea a 30-something Chinese |
| 0:45.0 | Malaysian lawyer as she tries to make partner at her law firm in Singapore and she's |
| 0:50.1 | also got very intense family members who are very concerned about her love life. |
| 0:57.3 | Lauren herself was a Chinese Malaysian lawyer living in Singapore for a while. |
| 1:01.6 | She also worked for the United Nations High |
| 1:03.6 | Commission for Refugees and Doctors Without Borders and she's also lived in Luxembourg |
| 1:08.6 | and the UK. She told us she speaks four and a half languages, which is approximately three times the number of languages I speak. |
| 1:17.8 | In this chat, Lauren and I talk about what I liked so much about the book and about how her time as a stand-up comedian helped her craft |
| 1:25.1 | the main character and how similar her own life is to that of Andrievs. |
| 1:31.3 | Lauren, hey, welcome to Nurdette. |
| 1:35.0 | Thank you for having me. |
| 1:37.0 | You used to be a lawyer. |
... |
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