LoLT: A Special Poem for Valentine’s Day and Two New Books

Strong Sense of Place | Travel Through Books

Melissa & Dave

Books, Arts

5.0 • 559 Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, we get excited about two new books: Every Tom, Dick & Harry by Elinor Lipman and On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer by Rick Steves. Then Dave shares a sweet poem about the good stuff: love and dogs. Links Every Tom, Dick & Harry by Elinor Lipman Podcast: Mel talks about Ms. Demeanor by Elinor Lipman Visit Elinor Lipman’s website. Elinor Lipman is the new EM Forster. Fight me. Review of The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman Review of The Way Men Act by Elinor Lipman Review of Isabel’s Bed by Elinor Lipman On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer_ by Rick Steves Photos from On the Hippie Trail on Rick Steves' website Video: Rick Steves talks about his book Taylor Mali’s website What Learning Leaves by Taylor Mali Video: Taylor Mali performing ‘How Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog’ Transcript of this episode. The Library of Lost Time is a Strong Sense of Place Production! https://strongsenseofplace.com Join our FREE Substack to get our (awesome) newsletter and join in chats with other people who love books and travel. Do you enjoy our show? Do you want to make friends with other (lovely) listeners? Please support our work on Patreon. Every little bit helps us keep the show going and makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside - https://www.patreon.com/strongsenseofplace As always, you can find us at: Our site Instagram Substack Patreon Parts of the Strong Sense of Place podcast are produced in udio! Some effects are provided by soundly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Coming up, a new rom-com from my reigning queen of rom-coms. A new book from one of our favorite travel authors.
0:08.9	Plus our distraction of the week. I'm Mel. I'm Dave. This is the Library of Lost Time.
0:17.2	Eleanor Lippman has been writing rom-coms with teeth for 35 years.
0:22.2	That's a good run.
0:23.3	It is a good run.
0:24.4	And she has been called the modern-day Jane Austen.
0:27.4	But I think of her books as cousins to EM Foresters are Room With a View.
0:32.7	That novel tells the coming-of-age story of Lucy, a young girl who's almost always in a muddle of her own
0:39.6	making. I love Lucy Honey Church so much. Eleanor Lippman's characters are like that too. They
0:45.8	distrust their instincts. They worry way too much about what other people think until eventually
0:51.9	they don't. And that's when the magic really starts to happen. Along the way,
0:56.7	they often fall imperfectly, but perfectly in love. Which is kind of your perfect rom-com set up there.
1:03.3	It really is. One of the things I love about these books, though, is that they're not only about
1:07.7	romance. There's almost always an ensemble cast of characters that help the
1:12.8	heroine explore the bonds of familial love and friendship and all of the rewards and messiness
1:20.3	involved in that. Eleanor Lipman is very good at setting up unexpected friendships and exploring how the differences play out
1:30.5	in hilarious and moving ways. So in Isabel's bed, it's a scandalous socialite and a mousy writer.
1:38.9	In It Lake Divine, it's a Jewish girl and a family of Gentiles. And in her new book, Every Tom Dick and Harry,
1:47.1	it's a 30-something woman named Emma,
1:50.0	who, through a series of comic mishaps,
1:52.7	finds herself roommates with Frank,
1:55.5	a friend of her dad,
	...

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