Welcome to Literary Friction. I'm Octavia Bright, here with my co-hosts Carrie Plitt, and today we're

bringing you Minnesota, fresh from freezing, Dalston. Hi, Carrie, how you doing? I'm great. Thank you. Colds, but fine.

Yeah, chilly. And it's our last Minnesota of 2019. So we thought we'd make this our year and review

show and look back over some of our favorite reads from 2019 and some of our resolutions for the

yearhead, plus the usual cultural recommendations. That's right. It's a good

old list. So if you need some inspiration for what books to buy people for Christmas, then listen

closely. Also, here's your annual reminder to support your local independent bookshop and not order

everything online, not only because you get the solace of knowing you're participating in

responsible capitalism as far as this is ever possible.

But also they will always stock fantastic work from independent presses, like Peninsula Press, Influx, prototypes and Inchecks, just a few who are publishing really brilliant avant-garde work.

And you know Uncle Joe wants some brilliant avant-garde work.

You know Uncle Joe should have.

He deserves it.

He needs his mind opening over the turkey or whatever it might be that you're having.

I'm having this wonderful image of you, like, passing out presents to all of your family members,

and then being like, oh, thank you, Octavia, once again, a esoteric poetry collection.

How wonderful.

I believe in passive-aggressive gift giving. I do. It's like, it's like eat your medicine, motherfucker.

Love it. Wish I was in your family. No, you don't.

But I do it with such love. And the thing is I wrap them incredibly beautifully.

Yeah. No, it's, I mean, like, who, it's about getting the gifts rather than the gifts that you're getting. That's right. I believe. Yeah, exactly. But I also think I'm just

going to hammer at home again. Buy local. Yes. Yeah, I completely agree with that.

...