Welcome to Literary Friction. I'm Carrie Plitt, here as always with my co-host Octavia Bright. How are you, Octavia?

Hi, Carrie. I am bronzed and beautiful because I just got back from a week in Marseille in the south of France.

And I am slightly devastated to be back in England but

I am also full of the joys of the Mediterranean Sea and just being somewhere else and it's such a

phenomenal city so you know I ate beautiful food and I bathed in the sun and I bathed in the sea and I saw some

stimulating things and yeah, it was wonderful. How about you? Well, I am also back from France.

I'm also very, very upset about the state of England right now. Oh, God.

It's not great.

It's not the place to be, let me tell you.

Yeah, but France was great.

I was in the Doordaigne Valley.

I went to a local fete.

I ate chocolate-covered walnuts, I mean, and lots of delicious produce.

It's really a nice place to be in the summer, I have to say.

Yeah, France in the summer is pretty spectacular. But anyway, before we get into it,

let's get business out of the way, as we like to do. So if you would like to, you can support us

on Patreon by subscribing at patreon.com forward slash lit friction. will also get access to an extra minisode each

month there are now 30 waiting for you there and have the chance to suggest themes for us to talk about

but now back to minisode 42 and thanks for tuning in the format for these minisodes between full

shows is for the next half hour or so,

we'll first have an informal conversation about the topic in hand and anything else that might come up,

and then recommend some cultural things that we have enjoyed lately that are not books.

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