Support for the Radio West podcast comes from Harmon's Grocery.

Focused on making holiday hosting effortless with party trays, cookies, and holiday favorites.

Harman's for the holidays.

The writer Florence Napp's debut novel came out this year.

It's a story about life and fate and the consequences of choices.

It's called The Names.

Anne Holman is one of the co-owners of the King's English Bookshop,

and it's one of her favorite books of the year.

It's the whole idea behind what's in a name, right?

And when you name a baby, what happens to that baby?

Do they become their name?

Or are they able to overcome it?

So what happens in the book is in Great Britain,

you go to a registrar's office to name your baby. And Cora, the mom,

is about to go do that with her little girl. And she's thinking about what she's going to name

the baby. And the little girl, Maya, wants to name him bear. She wants to name him Julian.

Her husband is pretty awful and is assuming that she's going to name the baby Gordon, which is the family name.

What happens if she doesn't, though? What happens if she names the baby bear?

Cora watches as the letters form.

Each one emerging like some magical and extraordinary thing from the nib of the registrar's pen as it moves across the page.

So in the book she does do this three times.

What happens if he was named Bear?

...