Welcome to Literary Frictions. I'm Octavia Bright here with my co-host Carrie Plit. Hi Carrie. Hi, Octavia.

How you doing? I'm doing great. It's so beautiful and sunny today and I'm so happy about it. I know it's the best thing in the entire world. Doesn't it make you feel like running sand between your fingers

and your toes? Yes, although then I start thinking about how annoying it is to have sand like in

your shoes and things like that. It's the best. It's the best. Yeah. I don't know. We can talk

about this later, but I have mixed feelings about the beach. Wow. That's a very big statement, can I flip?

I like to be controversial.

I feel like I don't know who you are anymore.

So welcome to minisode five.

If this is your first time listening, the format for these minisodes between full shows is,

for the next half hour-ish, we're going to have an informal conversation about

something book-related and anything else that might come up and then also recommend some other

cultural things that we've enjoyed lately with of course the usual musical interludes chosen by

Eddie thanks Eddie that's right and now that the summer is very much on the horizon we're

dedicating this miniserie to the joys beach reading. So stay tuned for some optimistic fantasising about long, sunny days with nothing to do but read and snooze and swim and eat barata and nectarines and whatever else you like to eat on the beach. That's a very fancy vision of beach eating. I mean, it sounds delicious. But I don't think I've ever had barata on a beach.

I've never had barata on a beach either, and I don't know if it would be wise.

And I feel like I've had a nectarine on a beach before and almost got stung by a wasp as a result. But let's go with a fantasy. Yes, it's all about fantasy. Yeah. We're feeling very into escapism at the moment, so please indulge us while we have a think about reading in hot places, in baking sunshine, in moments where there's nothing else to do.

This actually feels a bit like an extension of the guilty pleasures conversation we had in the last Minnesota, doesn't it?

Yeah.

But this time I think

we're placing even more emphasis on pleasure. No guilt. Right, no guilt. Absolutely no guilt. Just the good

feelings, please, everyone. So let me set the scene for you, Carrie, who feels ambivalent about beaches.

You're lying on a soft towel on hot sand. Ugh, no, I'm just kidding. You can feel the warmth of the sand through the towel.

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