Nerdette Book Club: ‘Loot,’ discussed!
Happy To Be Here
Greta Johnsen
4.6 • 924 Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nerdette Book Club is back to discuss our July selection, Tania James’ book Loot. It’s historical fiction, but the story centers around a real artifact: a life-sized, wooden automaton of a tiger devouring an English soldier known as Tipu’s Tiger. It was built in the late 1700s in Mysore, India, and it resides in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
Our protagonist is Abbas, a young and talented woodworker who’s summoned to the Sultan’s palace to help build that tiger. But the perspective shifts to others who impact the artifact and its trajectory, from the French clockmaker who mentored Abbas to the wealthy English widow who takes the tiger into her antiquities collection.
Our panelists are the authors of two former Nerdette Book Club selections: Rebecca Makkai, author of I Have Some Questions For You, and Sameer Pandya, who wrote Members Only. (This conversation includes spoilers! If you have not read the book yet, you can find our spoiler-free interview with Tania James in our feed.)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still |
| 0:06.1 | watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you, |
| 0:12.7 | soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making, |
| 0:18.0 | Stories Without End from WB EZ Chicago. |
| 0:25.7 | Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure. |
| 0:28.3 | Listen wherever you get your podcast. |
| 0:37.0 | From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson, and this is the Nerdette Book Club. |
| 0:37.9 | It's just like a regular book club, except you don't have to share your snacks. This month's selection is Tanya James' |
| 0:43.6 | historical fiction novel Lute. It takes place right around the 1700s in Mysore, India, |
| 0:49.4 | and our main character is a boss, a young and talented woodworker who is summoned to the Sultan's palace to help a |
| 0:56.0 | French expat build a mechanical tiger. It's about a boss and his journey across the sea, but it's also |
| 1:02.5 | about ambition and colonialism and love and how history is remembered. That's all I'm going to say for |
| 1:08.5 | now, but this is your spoiler warning. If you haven't read the book and you don't want to know what happens, go listen to our author interview in the feed because we are going to get into it. I am super excited to introduce you to our panelists this month. With us, we have the author of several books, including most recently our March Book Club Pick, the boarding school murder mystery novel. I have some |
| 1:28.6 | questions for you. Rebecca McKay, Rebecca, welcome. Thank you. I'm glad to be back. Thank you for coming |
| 1:34.6 | back. Also here is Samir Pandya. He is the author of another Nerdat Book Club Book members only, |
| 1:40.2 | which we chose approximately 10,000 years ago back in August of 2020. |
| 1:45.3 | Samir, welcome. |
| 1:46.3 | Hey, Greta. |
| 1:46.9 | Nice to chat with you again. |
| 1:48.6 | Yes, nice to have you. |
| 1:49.5 | You also have a book coming out next year called The Boys, which I'm very excited to check |
| 1:53.0 | out as well. |
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