Ep. 36: Claire Gibson (Author of Beyond the Point) + Book Recommendations
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
Sarah Dickinson
4.7 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2019
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 36, Claire Gibson, author of Beyond the Point (my review), talks about the inspiration behind the novel, what it was like growing up on the West Point campus, two editorial choices she made, and...of course, shares her book recommendations!
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Highlights
- What it was like to grow up on the West Point campus.
- A story about one of the women she interviewed as research for the book that didn't make it into the book.
- Which of the three main characters is most like Claire herself.
- How Claire decided to more or less reveal the crux of the ending in the Prologue.
- Why Claire decided to make her three main characters competitive athletes (they all played basketball for West Point).
- A glimpse into Claire's second novel (which she's currently working on).
- Claire's favorite book of all-time.
Claire's Book Recommendations
Two OLD Books She Loves
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [19:27]
- So Big by Edna Ferber | Buy from Amazon [21:22]
Two NEW Books She Loves
- A Woman is No Man
by Etaf Rum (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [23:03]
- All That You Leave Behind by Erin Lee Carr | Buy from Amazon [24:36]
One Book She DIDN'T Love
- Evvie Drake Starts Over
[27:09]
One NEW RELEASE She's Excited About
- The Book of Longings
Other Books Mentioned
- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
by Ann Brashares | Buy from Amazon
[3:27]
- Middlesex
- The Night of the Gun
- All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg (My Review) | Buy from Amazon
- The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11
- The Invention of Wings
- The Secret Life of Bees
Other Links
- Book of the Month
- "David Carr, Times Critic and Champion of Media, Dies at 58", The New York Times
- My Best Books of 2019 So Far
- My Brain Candy Books List
About Claire
When people ask Claire where she's from, she doesn't have a good answer. Just like millions of other Army Brats around the world, she moved somewhere new every few years, so she has plenty of answers to choose from: I grew up at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where her father was a professor. She attended Furman University in South Carolina. She studied in Asia as a young adult. And sometime in 2009, she put down roots in Nashville.
She writes about anything that strikes her as interesting, which means she's written about the military, travel, faith, food and education.
Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and Entrepreneur Magazine, among many other publications. Her debut novel, Beyond the Point, was published April 2, 2019 by William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm Sarah of the blog Sarah's Bookshelves. Each week, |
| 0:15.2 | I'm talking with one bookish guest about two old books they love, two new books they love, |
| 0:20.5 | one book they don't love, and one new |
| 0:22.7 | release they're excited about. We're going to get real and sometimes a bit snarky about all things |
| 0:28.3 | books. If you like the show, I'd really love your support. Spread the word to your reader friends, |
| 0:33.8 | subscribe to the show, rate and review it wherever you listen to podcasts, or get bonus podcast episodes by supporting the podcast on Patreon. |
| 0:43.6 | There's a link in the show notes and in my Instagram bio to my Patreon page. |
| 0:48.6 | Let's get rolling. |
| 0:50.5 | Hey everyone, welcome to a full-length episode of Sarah's Bookshelves Live. |
| 0:55.3 | Y'all know I love campus novels and novels about female friendship. |
| 1:00.2 | So I absolutely loved sinking into Beyond the Point this summer. |
| 1:04.5 | I flew through its 500 pages, which is actually pretty difficult for me. |
| 1:09.7 | I tend to really feel a book's length. And this one, |
| 1:13.2 | I did not feel like it was 500 pages long, even though it was. And that's a really good thing for me. |
| 1:18.5 | And I was completely invested in the three West Point Military Academy women at the heart of this |
| 1:24.1 | story. So I'm thrilled to have Claire Gibson, author of Beyond the Point, |
| 1:29.3 | joining me today. Claire grew up moving often as an army brat and actually lived on the West Point |
| 1:34.8 | Academy campus while her dad was a professor there. Her work has been featured in the Washington |
| 1:39.5 | Post, the Christian Science Monitor, an entrepreneur Magazine, among many other publications. |
| 1:44.9 | And Beyond the Point is her debut novel. Welcome, Claire. |
| 1:48.3 | Hi, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:51.3 | Thank you for being here. I'm so excited to talk to you. And one of the other cool things |
... |
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