Table for Two is a story told in vignettes - Evelyn Ross drifts betwen cities, going from New York City to Chicago, then to Los Angeles. With every step she takes closer to home, she treads farther away away and finds herself in a constantly spiraling dialogue betwen her past, present, and future. Exposited in seven points of view, the chain of storeis highlights the wit and dynamic penmanship of Amor Towles to craft the multi-faceted inner dialogue that goes on within people who are drifting an...
Aug 31, 2024•50 min•Season 7Ep. 4
Hello booknerds! It's been 2 weeks since the Aēsop Women's Library and we had some time to gather our thoughts about it. We got some special guests on board for this epsiode and we asked their thoughts on the Aēsop Women's Library 2024 that took place from 14-16 June at the Aēsop stores at The Exchange TRX and IOI City Mall, Putrajaya. We have Shi Han, who is behind the fabulous Instagram account @human_edition . Shi Han was brought on by Aēsop Malaysia to document and highlight the event and th...
Jun 29, 2024•35 min
Hello everyone! In this second special Aēsop episode, we're talking to some special guests that are no strangers to the literary scene in Kuala Lumpur. We have Sharon Bakar who is the Managing Director of Word Works SDN BHD. Sharon runs creative writing courses, helps edit and publish writer’s works, and hosts literary events like readings at Seksan Gallery, Bangsar, KL. We also have Amir Muhammad who is an independent filmmaker, writer and founder of publication companies Matahari Books and Buk...
Jun 09, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Introducing the Aēsop Women's Library 2024, Malaysia Edition! We are beyond excited to partner up with Aēsop Malaysia again to bring you another year of the Aēsop Women's Library! This year's theme is voices unbound and you'd be spoilt for choice as there will be 27 titles to choose from this year! Do visit the selected Aēsop stores and you are allowed to choose one complimentary book, no purchase required. During this time, the shelves of Aēsop stores at The Exchange TRX and IOI City Mall Putra...
Jun 01, 2024•42 min
Introducing the Aēsop Women's Library 2024, Malaysia Edition! We are beyond excited to partner up with Aēsop Malaysia again to bring you another year of the Aēsop Women's Library! This year's theme is voices unbound and you'd be spoilt for choice as there will be 27 titles to choose from this year! Do visit the selected Aēsop stores and you are allowed to choose one complimentary book, no purchase required. During this time, the shelves of Aēsop stores at The Exchange TRX and IOI City Mall Putra...
Jun 01, 2024•39 min
We're talking about Butter by Asako Yuzuki (translated by Polly Barton) in this episode. Whew! There's a lot to unpack in this book, from delectable desciptions of food, to possible murders, the power struggle between the characters... this book is so much more than it seems. Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer", the books is about gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessme...
May 24, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, or life force, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . . Hello booknerds! We're so excited to share our interview with the fabulous Yangsze Choo on her new book The Fox Wife ! It has a bit of everything; spirits, mystery, vengence, longing, all the good stuff! We really enjoyed this book and we got to talk to Yangsze (thank you Definitely ...
Mar 25, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Hello book nerds! We're back with a whole new season and we're kicking it off with our anticipated reads for the first quarter of 2024! It's an eclectic list filled with family drama, witches, crime, tea, and all sorts. It's going to be an interesting reading year and we hope you'll join us. Books mentioned: - You Only Call Me When You're In Trouble by Stephen McCauley - You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrique, translated by Natasha Wimmer - Good Material by Dolly Alderton - Illium by Lea Carpe...
Feb 24, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Hello booknerds! It has been some time but we're back from the ether to bring you our last episode of the year. Publishers usually hold out till the end of the year to release the good stuff and in this episode, we're talking about some anticipated reads that came out during the autumn season and year end. We would like to take this time to thank all our listeners for sticking with us and for all the support and love we have received. We appreciate you and we will be back in 2024 with all new bo...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 6Ep. 17
Spooky greeting booknerds. We know we're late but better late than never right? In this episode, we got to talk to the mysterious Kopi Soh, author of Looking After the Ashes. The book is a semi-biographical fiction of Kopi Soh’s childhood stories from growing up in a Peranakan family filled with "wisdom". We talked about strange taboos (pantang larang), spirits, ghosts, and everything in between. We definitely learnt some new ones and relived some taboos we heard growing up. We hope you enjoy th...
Nov 17, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Season 6Ep. 16
Hello booknerds! We're talking to Tokyo-based Malaysian writer Florentyna Leow in this episode about her debut book How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart. The book is tender time capsule of her time working as a tour guide in Kyoto and the heartbreak that followed the end of a friendship. We absolutely loved reading her book and we obviously had to talk to her about it. She's a kindred spirit and we hope you'll enjoy this episode (and pick up her book!). Cheers!...
Sep 20, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Season 6Ep. 15
We know it's rather late in the day to release this episode but we've came across some titles that are just too good not to share. The promt for our August #tbntbookchallenge2023 is to read a book set in an ancient city or about an ancient civilisation. Eventhough these are some recommendations for our August challenge, we do hope some of these titles have piqued your interest and that you'll pick it up in your own time. We had so much fun researching and recording this episode and of course, ou...
Aug 30, 2023•53 min•Season 6Ep. 14
Hello booknerds! We got to talk to award-winning short story writer Saras Manickam back on 15 July 2023 live at our favourite indie bookshop Lit Books, PJ. We get into her short story collection My Mother Pattu and it was such a lovely conversation. Saras writes with much empathy and understanding of human complexities, tackling difficult issues like racism, mistreatment of migrant workers, and domestic abuse. Her short story collection is filled with violence, tenderness, and hope. We hope you ...
Aug 16, 2023•49 min•Season 6Ep. 13
“We're here to make magic with words” ― R.F. Kuang, Babel: An Arcane History Step into the world of dark academia with us in this book chaser episode. We talk about Babel by R.F. Kuang and I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai; both set in institutions of learning and all the dark stuff that happens behind the scenes. Murder, colonism, dark secrets, word nerdery: all the good stuff can be found in these books and of course, we did our best to not spoil anything for you. Cheers!...
Jul 26, 2023•59 min•Season 6Ep. 12
Hello booknerds! We took a short break after all the Aesop Women's Library excitement and we're back! We got to speak to THE Samantha Shannon, author of The Priory of the Orange Tree, about her latest book, A Day of Fallen Night . A Day of Fallen Night is the prequel to Priory and it’s set just shy of five centuries before Priory and covers the period known as the Great Sorrow, or Grief of Ages. We had such a great time talking to Samantha and we feel that it has come full circle. In case you di...
Jul 03, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Season 6Ep. 11
This is the third special episode brought to you by Aesop Malaysia in conjunction with the Aesop Women's Library: Malaysia Edition. In this episode, we got Hanna Alkaf , Viji Krishnamoorthy , Alina Rastam , Qurratul ‘Ain , and 梁靖芬 Leong Ching Foon aboard to talk to us about being a woman writer in Malaysia. It is such an illuminating episode and we think we can confidently say that our women writers are forces to be reckoned with. — The Aesop Women's Library: Malaysia Edition is happening on the...
May 23, 2023•49 min
Cheers booknerds! This is the second episode of our Aesop Women's Library special. In this episode, Honey and Diana will be talking about some of their picks for the fiction and poetry collections that will be availble at the selected Aesop stores soon. You will be spoilt for choice and we're here to help highlight some titles that might interest you. Enjoy! — Over the course of three days, the shelves of Aesop Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, Aesop The Gardens Mall, Kuala Lumpur and Aesop Gurney Plaza wi...
May 14, 2023•44 min
Introducing The Aesop Women's Library! During this time, the shelves of Aesop Pavilion, Aesop Gardens, and Aesop Gurney Plaza will be cleared of products to make way for significant works of literature by Malayisan women authors. The selection is sprawling in genre and spirit: from emerging voices to seasoned authors, and short stories to novels and poetry. To find out more, listen to this episode! You'd be spoilt for choice as there will be 25 titles to choose from. Do visit the selected Aesop ...
May 10, 2023•30 min
Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self? Get ready to be all in your feels with We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman. Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years, and when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer and put into hospice care, Ash's life is reshaped. Catherine Newman has managed to write a book that is both sad and funny, and we highly recommend this read. Buddy read with your bes...
Apr 26, 2023•52 min•Season 6Ep. 10
We're talking to Malaysian author Shivani Sivagurunathan on her book, What Has Happened to Harry Pillai? in this episode. Shivani Sivagurunathan has been writing and publishing fiction and poetry for twenty years. She is an English professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia and fun fact, she was Diana's professor when she was persuing her Masters! What Has Happened to Harry Pillai? consists of two novellas and we got the opportunity to talk to Shivani about the two stories and all the ju...
Mar 16, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 6Ep. 9
What do you do if you're a murder-magnet? Everywhere you go, someone dies. Mallory Veridian's solution is to blast off to space, to a space station called Eternity. Greetings booknerds! In this episode, Honey and DIana talk about a sci-fi cozy mystery called Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty. Sentient spaceships, all forms and manners of aliens, symbiotic alien relationships, a shuttle full of humans from space - what can go wrong?
Feb 17, 2023•46 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Cheers booknerds! It's been a hot minute since you've heard our dulcet voices. Life certainly got crazy towards the end of 2022 but we've finally sat ourselves down in the studio to bring you some of our anticipated reads of the first half of 2023! Ranging from fantasy to non-fiction, a dash of a VERY much talked about 'memoir', dreadful and hopeful reads about climate change, we've come up with a mixed bag of titles and genres to suit everyone's taste. We're getiing back into the grove of bring...
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Season 6Ep. 7
On the 2nd of September 2022, we sat down with the incredible Karina Robles Bahrin to talk about her debut Epigram Fiction Prize 2022 winning book, The Accidental Malay at Lit Books. We had such a great time talking to Karina and she's a hoot, as you'll find out yourself in this episode. This recording was done in front of a live audience so do take note of the sound. Do pick up a copy of Karina's book and we hope you'll enjoy it as much as we did. Cheers!
Sep 14, 2022•1 hr 5 min
Cheers book nerds! We're back and fair warning, we're GUSHING about Gabreille Zevin's new book, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. This book helped Honey out of her reading slump and Diana loved it. It's described as "a love story, but it is not one you have read before", it's one of love between creative individuals and the sense of being able to understand and click with one another. The book is beautifully nuanced and it's such a good read. We cannot recommend this enough and we hope you'l...
Aug 24, 2022•49 min
Man, it's August already and that means a new reading prompt for our #tbntbookchallenge2022! This month, we're challenging you to read a diverse or a classic YA book and we're back with some recommendations. Honey tackles some diverse and recent YA books while Diana is giving us some classic YA titles that you may or may not have heard of. Whatever you pick up, we hope it's an enjoyable read for you. Cheers!
Aug 06, 2022•37 min
As promised, we both read some books that gives you a feel-good feeling. They range from intelligent animals to benevolent ghosts, a holiday in an Italian town and figuring out your place in the world. As usual feel-good reads often have a vein of coping, grieving, figuring out where one fits (among other things) and all of the books we discuss today have some of that. Come meet a highly intelligent octopus, a woman who has a healing touch, and a girl who meets her own mother 30 years in the pas...
Jul 27, 2022•44 min
We are finally back with LIVE events! Rejoice fellow introverts who occasionally would like to see some like-minded people. We interviewed Hanna Alkaf at Lit Books (our favourite lil bookish spot) on her book Queen of the Tiles. We put up a scrabble game and was horrified to find out some of her fans DO NOT KNOW how to play Scrabble! ZOMG but we digress, it was a lovely event and we got to nerd out on words, talk about normalising mental health and her latest heroine, Najwa who it in Hanna's wor...
Jul 20, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Greetings booknerds! We're back with another 30 Dirty episode to give you some book recommendations for our July #tbntbookchallenge2022. July's prompt is to read a book from a country you want to visit OR by an indigenous author. We've come up with a list of books where the setting is of places we would love to visit and there are some trip-py reads. Cheers! Books Mentioned (in order): A Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier (Swiss Alps) The Green-eyed Lama by Oyungerel Tsedevdamba and Jeffrey Le...
Jun 29, 2022•36 min
Ian McEwan recommends it, calling it a compelling setting. Diana says it's one of the darkest books she has read in a long time comparing it to Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. Honey picked it up and did not put it down until she was finished with it. This book (originally in Dutch) was so deceptively simple to read that you don't realise it punching you in the gut until you're halfway through and thoroughly invested. Join us as we discuss a book that goes into how it's like working as a social me...
Jun 09, 2022•47 min
We're back with Part 2 of our book recommendations for June's #tbntbookchallenge2022! We have more retellings and books on historical figures PLUS 2 extra books that are to be released later this year for your consideration. We hope you'll enjoy this episode. Cheers!
Jun 03, 2022•32 min
