Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the Webby-nominated podcast.

Moms don't have time to read books.

Book of the Month Club is this week's sponsor.

They're offering listeners their first book for only $5 with Code Zibby, Z-I-B-B-Y.

Again, that's Code Zibby for your first book for $5 to Book of the Month Club, which, by the way, is amazing.

I subscribe every month I get to pick from five of their favorite books.

Most of the time, one of them is by an author I've had on my podcast, and then it just

arrives. I've given it as a gift. I adore it, and you will too. So think of it for gifts,

and for sure, go on bookof the month.com and subscribe yourself. I'm here today with Kathleen

Shine, who's the author of the internationally best-selling novels, The Three Weissmans of Westport, The Love Letter, and the New Yorkers, as well as award-winning they may not mean to, but they do, and other novels. Two of her books have been made into films. Her latest novel is The Grammarians. She's the winner of the Farrow-Grumbley Award and is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, a graduate of Barnard and a former New Yorker. She currently lives in Venice, California, with her partner. So welcome, Kathy. Thanks for coming on, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Also, I love the name. Moms don't have time to read books. Moms don't have time to do anything.

It's true. But you can make the time if you really try. That's what you have to do. And hopefully moms have time to listen to podcasts about books. So at least there's that. Absolutely. At least then they can save some time trying to figure out what to read. They can multitask. Yes, exactly. So you are the author of several books, including this new one, The Grammarians, which was so good.

And I mean, I feel like the dictionary in this book and like all of these things are so real to me still, having put it down like two weeks ago. Tell me what inspired you to write the grammarians, which has been called

an enchanting comic love letter to sibling rivalry and the English language.

Well, what usually happens, inspiration is a very strange thing. I don't even think it's the

right word. I always feel like I'm sort of wandering around banging my head against things,

and one of them turns out to be a door that opens. And after every book, I've written 11 books,

after every book, I think, okay, I've had 11 ideas. I'm not going to have a 12th. And one of these days it's going to be true that I'm

not going to have an idea for the next book. But so far, I bang my head around enough and an

idea comes. This, I really wanted to write about two people having a feud about language. And I

wasn't sure what shape that was going to take. At first,

it was going to be about translation, but the only language I know is English, so that didn't seem

very practical. And then someone reminded me of Anne Landers and Dear Abby, who were identical twins

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