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Millennial Nostalgia, Season 3 in Review
27 Plays2 days ago
In the season three recap episode of the Book Club Podcast, host Carly is joined by frequent guests My Nguyen and Christy Lynn Horpedahl to discuss their experiences revisiting childhood classics like A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver. The conversation dives into themes of nostalgia, the portrayal of female characters, and the evolving nature of connection in a digital age. The trio reflects on how these books have shaped their understanding of the world and whether they prepared millennials for adulthood. They also explore the balance between the solitary and communal aspects of reading and the impact of technology on personal and collective experiences.
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00:00 Welcome to the Season Three Recap
00:15 Introducing the Guests
00:58 Nostalgia and Childhood Books
01:40 Revisiting Old Favorites
02:51 Critiquing Beloved Characters
04:52 The Joy of Rediscovery
07:50 The Expanse and The Princess Bride
12:56 Reading as a Primer for Life
18:16 Sharing Books Across Generations
27:36 The Solitary and Communal Nature of Reading
33:38 Hiding your Books
36:54 Connection with High Nutritional Value
41:29 The Importance of Generosity and Honesty in Connection
48:47 Technology and Radical Humility
50:48 Female Characters and Their Portrayal
57:40 Millennials and a Changing World
01:02:03 Just Because you Like it
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Transcript
Nostalgia and Childhood Books
00:00:22
Speaker
Hey everyone, I'm Minh Nguyen and I'm an elder millennial. A couple of books from this series that means a lot to me were and are A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver and I'm glad to be here.
00:00:35
Speaker
thank you Hi, I'm k Christy, longtime listener, occasional guest, and I've promised myself that I won't complain that The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Island of the Blue Dolphins were not on Carly's list. There was plenty of good material without them, and like me, a wrinkle in time, Meg Murray, all of her. It was a book I read and enjoyed so many times, I really couldn't count the number.
00:00:57
Speaker
So thank you both for being here. Our conversation today is, I want to talk a bit about nostalgia, you know, why we connect to these books and and what it means to feel connected to books from your childhood, throughout adulthood. And if we have some insight into things that are uniquely millennial about our experience, let's talk about that too. But I've really enjoyed exploring this nostalgia, this connection to my own past and finding friends who have these same connections to the books that I love.
Revisiting Beloved Books
00:01:29
Speaker
And that's sort of a new discovery about it. So we'll just have a loose conversation and and feel free to to bring up ideas or threads that you want to discuss. But let's start with, you know, what was the experience of revisiting books from childhood? Well, I have a comment. I was a little apprehensive, to be honest.
00:01:49
Speaker
because these books meant so much to me when I was a child. And even though I don't think I've changed all that much from when I read them to now, life happens. And whenever you do revisit a book after a long period away, there is that worry or that anxiety that you might not enjoy it as much. And that nostalgia might be shattered as a result. So I was a little apprehensive and and nervous about revisiting The
Mixed Feelings on 'Harry Potter'
00:02:19
Speaker
Giver.
00:02:19
Speaker
Because it was a book that meant a lot to me when I was younger and what if that question of what if the themes didn't age well or there were problematic motifs.
00:02:30
Speaker
What if I encountered that and and would I be prepared to be disappointed or accept that disappointment? But luckily, the giver, as an example, was held up, held up right. Yeah, Carly, i I'd love to hear what you think about this because you read them all and you also picked them. Were you surprised at any moment by whether something had held up or not for you? well I found myself critical of Harry Potter, specifically the character Hermione, in a way that surprised me. Harry Potter in particular, me said the word problematic, and it makes me wonder if previous generations cared about problematic materials the way that we do now.
00:03:08
Speaker
and what that might mean for us as millennials. But yeah, Harry Potter going into it was very apprehensive, felt so, so connected to the books. And there's a lot of controversy around that, which I don't want to talk about. as Going into it, I was like, is this gonna, is this gonna change the way I feel about these books? Because My experience with the books, I want to preserve. It was just wonderful to have that. Part of that was that everyone in my vicinity seemed to be talking about Harry Potter at the same time. And that was wonderful too. But so on the one hand, rereading the book, the language is so credible. The storytelling is so precise. And so that was a relief. But also I was like, ah I was more critical of Hermione and being like, she was i was great to have a smart, nerdy, curly haired
00:03:58
Speaker
character. but But I found myself with some criticisms. of There should be more depth to these female characters. And I think there are in other books, we just read The Goblet of Fire. And I think that there are other female characters that shine in other books. Yeah, that was I think that's the most stark example.
Pure Enjoyment of Rediscovery
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah, for me, the Princess Bride is one where I remember loving Buttercup as a kid, but then as an adult reading her, she does not shine for me the way that she used to. Whereas other characters like Meg Murray and Ellie Sattler, right? they I think they hold up really well through time.
00:04:35
Speaker
I found, and I found in the Princess Bride discussion, we found more strength and depth to Buttercup's character than I was expecting, because I had always been a little bit disappointed by her, but I think that actually changed for me in the opposite direction, revisiting that book and had discussion about it. So interesting. Overwhelmingly, too, I just had pure enjoyment reading these books again. and and if for Most of them I had read many, many times before. The one exception is Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nim, which I had enjoyed the movie a lot, but I hadn't read the book. And so the books, I just loved the momentary experience, the like just experiencing the words on the page, feeling the pacing of the story again, delighting in the jokes,
00:05:17
Speaker
Like it just, it was just delightful again. And I was like, I think it was accessing a type of enjoyment that I don't know if I can quite capture that first discovery of a really great book, a really great story that gives you a perspective of the world. That's just expands your mind. It's hard to find that experience. And it was funny to like go back to a book I'd read before and re experience that again. Absolutely. I wonder though, what is it about human nature that makes you want to revisit things and books and experiences? Obviously, because I guess one example or one reason is because it was a pleasant or positive experience. But I do find it curious that people want to experience something that they've already read or watched again and again and again.
Personal Connections and Discoveries
00:06:06
Speaker
It makes sense for me and my personal that personality type, but I have met other people who are essentially one and done. Like once they have experienced something, even if they've enjoyed it deeply, they're ready to move on to the next thing. So I wonder what it is about us sitting here today that compelled us to agree to reread these books and to perhaps capture or recapture that same feeling again.
00:06:32
Speaker
when there are, I think it's safe to say, so many new things that can maybe give us that same feeling of enjoyment and comfort. Yeah, I think one challenge is knowing what you will like of the things that you haven't tried yet. So I think one of the things that's pleasurable about revisiting these books is I already know that I liked them as opposed to approaching someone new and just trying to figure out everything. There's a way in which it's sort of easy to revisit something.
00:07:00
Speaker
And I think there's also a way that if it's a great, great work and well-written, you can see other things in it the next time you read it or the next time you read it. So I think there's both. There's the familiarity. There's also the possibility of a new discovery, something you didn't see before that you see now that can open up the work for you again. I don't know if I experienced that second one very much with my rereads. I definitely enjoyed them and some of the charm of them I'd also forgotten in the 30 years since I read them. I got to be surprised again by things that I'd forgotten that I'm sure I noticed and loved when I was a kid but just hated out of my memory of the book. So those were some of the things that I loved about it and I have tried to read even the ones that I didn't get to talk about as Carly's episodes come out so I've gotten to revisit even more than I got to talk about.
00:07:50
Speaker
I know I've found recently, for example, the Expanse series is in your series. watched I watched TV show, read the books a few years ago. And then I reread them again, like last year. And as an adult, that experience was, I was read it the first time to get the plot. And I was like racing through it because I had to know what happened, right? And it was the story that that propelled it. And then when I go back and reread a book like that, I can appreciate more the details and the texture. And if I know what the ending is going to be,
00:08:20
Speaker
I can see spot the foreshadowing or spot how it was built up to go that way. And I really appreciate the artistry of ah that and and being able to follow along with with those details. I mean, rereading The Princess Bride for me, I feel like as a kid, I didn't sit with it as much. As a kid, it it it was just one story that was just enjoyable. and i And this time reading it, the structure of it became more apparent, how it was like split up into these little,
00:08:48
Speaker
stories of you get each little picture of each character and the overall plot is a very simple short plot but he fills in the backstory of all these different characters and he fills in like the story of the princess of gilder and her hats is the main part of one chapter, but then you never hear about her again. And sitting with it and just enjoying the fleetingness of that, I guess, here's this very, in very few words, he has created a character and a history and a whole story of this person.
Books as Life Primers
00:09:20
Speaker
And it's just one chapter in this book, which is not very big altogether, but it just, he does that with each and every character that is really fascinating. that I didn't appreciate as a kid. I just knew I liked the book. I didn't appreciate what goes into the craft of creating a story and writing it down like that. I actually think part of what I loved about being a kid was not having any of that in my head yet, right?
00:09:43
Speaker
a I wrote in the notes, I remember thinking that it was weird that authors were even on the covers of books. Like, why would you have the author's name there, right? This isn't about the author. This is about the characters in the story. And as an adult, I see how silly that is. But as a child, I remember just thinking these books landed fully formed in the world for you to enjoy, like an apple might fall from a tree. um And there's something There is something good about that, about being able to just look at the thing for itself and not say, well, what year was this written and who was it written by? And as an adult, I appreciate those things more and I'm interested in those questions in a way I wasn't as a child, but I also remember the delight of not caring who JK Rowling was, right? Not caring that this book was written by a man instead of a woman or not caring that maybe this person from this country shouldn't have writing shouldn't have been writing about someone from this country is all of that was in Christie's future. That was not in her kid Christie reading moment. There's also we're talking about a wrinkle in time reading it as an adult.
00:10:50
Speaker
closer to Meg's mother's age, that that changes the experience of reading it. And the thing that stands out for me in A Wrinkle in Time is Meg's fury especially when she gets angry with her father for not fixing everything. And I don't think I was able to understand what was going on there as a kid. I don't know what that taught me as a kid or if, I don't know, it's just, you know, revisiting books at different points in your life. You you can identify with different characters just because of your age and your life experience.
00:11:21
Speaker
I can imagine when you have an experience of grief, I don't know that there's examples in the books we read this season, but we have talked about grief and especially the the haunted house season that once you've experienced your own loss, no, we did talk about grief when we talked about Harry Potter, actually.
00:11:36
Speaker
that we formed connections with like the characters. And so when the characters die in the book, you feel a loss to it, but it's different than the grief that you feel when you lose someone that in real life. But is there some kind of is there some kind of a learning? like Do you practice some form of grief like with training wheels?
00:11:55
Speaker
when it's in a book and then when you have it in real life, how does that change the way you handle it in real life? I think you used the word inoculation when you were talking about it, that like reading about tragedy or something that fills you with sadness or grief can prepare you for experiencing those things.
00:12:13
Speaker
Also, I think for some of these books, I remember reading them when I was very young, certainly before I had romantic feelings. And so to think about characters and what that would mean as you were growing up and looking at how do these characters navigate loving
Value of Serial Fiction
00:12:30
Speaker
relationships? And how do these characters find people who are special to them in that way, even before you start to maybe feel that way towards particular people, you can read about in a book what those things are like and anticipate some of what might be coming for you. Some of these books were definitely in that space for me as well. Who do I want my boyfriend to be? Or what kind of things do you look for in a partner or a lover? I fully agree, Kristy. I definitely think, especially when we're kids, reading opened up a lot of portals to experiences and people and worlds that I would never have had access to since I was pretty sheltered, and it I'm grateful
00:13:16
Speaker
for libraries and for books because they served as primers for, like Christy said, how to engage with the world, what personality traits were desirable in friends and partners, how to navigate grief. Like Carly mentioned, you see elements or examples of these experiences in these books. And even though you might be too young to understand or too young to experience them. It was always good for me to have a primer of what to expect. It was almost like a know before you go in life with these books that that we reread as children. And I wouldn't even i would even branch out and say beyond the selection
00:14:02
Speaker
from Carly, I would say The Baby-Sitters Club or Sweet Valley Twins, Nancy Drew, these serial fiction series that were, I guess, targeted towards children that were very formulaic that I think maybe some snobs might dismiss as candy. Like, it's just you you're reading this for fun. There's really no nutritional value, I guess, intellectually anyway.
00:14:25
Speaker
in these novels or in these like serial fiction series. But I vehemently disagree. I actually was weaned on Sweet Valley Twins and The Baby-Sitters Club. And in a weird way, they spoke to me and taught me more about what to expect from life and from school than some of the more literary millennial novels that we read. And I'm still trying to figure out why, but I guess it's because, yeah, these books focused on what I was concerned about when I was 12 or
00:14:59
Speaker
fourteen Like, what my boyfriend will be like? How, what kind of personal style am I going to develop? What do I want in a best friend? What do I do when I am arguing with my parents over my curfew? Something like that. So I felt and ah in a really, really shallow way, but also in a very deep way. Those books were far more profound to me as like a sheltered kid.
00:15:24
Speaker
than The Giver. Because I know The Giver is like a very profound novel with a really powerful message. But yeah, Sweet Valley University's broken promises, shattered dreams, like book number 25, I don't know, taught me a lot about interpersonal relationships. And I don't know, I think there's something to be said for for fiction of that nature and for revisiting maybe that sort of fiction and the nostalgia that that is contained in that.
00:15:48
Speaker
I remember reading Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and being like, it's kind of like Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, right? These dynamics between the adventurous sister who wants to experience everything and make some very bad relationship choices along the way, and then the sister who who doesn't do that, but also misses out on a lot of fun and some really interesting experiences. and Yeah, I think people are sometimes cruel about the affection of young girls for these entryways into young women thinking and young women
Discovering New Books
00:16:23
Speaker
worlds. And I know that's something Carly and I talked about in our first episode about the Once in a Millennial book, but I think
00:16:29
Speaker
those can be doorways too. And certainly, I don't think you get the same criticism of boys who read Hardy Boys, which seems a little unfair sometimes. I remember reading all of those series you mentioned, Nancy Drew, I collected a bunch of Nancy Drew books and the and Baby Search Club and Sweet Valley Twins. I didn't really get into Sweet Valley High. I remember reading a couple books. When they were in middle school, I was really, I read a lot of those books. And I remember just the joy of you'd find a used bookstore and maybe they'd have a few copies of Nancy Drew or Babysitter's Club and be like, Oh, This is one I don't have yet. I have to, I have to get that and that treasure hunting drawer, like at the library. Oh, maybe there's a new, there's a new verb. There's one that you hadn't seen before and just that enjoyment that we don't get when you just go on your Libby app or whatever and find it.
00:17:20
Speaker
So that was I remember that it's funny those books didn't really stick in my head as much and me in our emails you mentioned Sweet Valley Twins and I was like the one Sweet Valley Twins book I really remember was a Christmas special edition and they get these dolls and the dolls transport them into a fantasy land and I was like oh I'm a fantasy person like this was very clearly established for me early on that I like the fantasy I like the science fiction that's the one that sticks with me.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, that was a great one. I remember it's called A Magic Christmas or The Magic Christmas. And yeah, they the twins are given two twin dolls and you have to break a spell in order to be transported into their world. And somehow they do. And it was quite fantastical, as Carly mentioned. It was very much geared towards people who loved fantasy novels. And I think they did a great job. Yeah. One other thing I want to say about those series, I collected a bunch of those books. and I used to have so many Babysitter's Club books, but at some point, I think I was still in my twenties, but you know, after college was at home for a little bit. And I sold most of those books to a woman via Craigslist and she had a young daughter and
00:18:34
Speaker
She was struggling with money and she's told me she like, it's so hard to find and afford all these books. She just wanted to have this ritual of giving her daughter a babysitter's club book like every year for a birthday or every Christmas. And so I gave her my whole collection that I had at that point. And part of that was I enjoyed the books a lot, but I also really love that I could pass them on to someone and they could be part of some other young girls experience too. And so um unlike unlike so the books that ah for this podcast, which I'm hoarding, they're not leaving my ownership. Those are books I was happy to share and give away or sell at a very low price. I will maybe as an inoculation for some moms or someday moms listening, this idea that your children are automatically going to love the books you loved as a child is unfortunately false.
Impact of Childhood Books
00:19:26
Speaker
Just to prepare you for that, I do occasionally find books that I love that I can share with my kids, and they'll spark for them too, but there's a lot that fall fallow, so just be warned. It's magical when it happens, but it's not going to happen for everyone, so you just have to enjoy the ones where they do seem to find something in it that's not even necessarily what you found in it.
00:19:49
Speaker
But I think I thought that would just happen automatically. They would love any childhood book that I loved. And I've i've been shown several times, but that's just false. One other book I've been thinking about as we prepared for this conversation. I don't know if you all have heard of it. It's called The Ancient One by T.A. Barron. And it was given to me by my mom's friend when I was around 10 years old. And it became my favorite book for the next five years.
00:20:13
Speaker
I was, but I reread it. I actually shared it with my best friend and she got her own copy. And then we would kind of compete with how many times we had each reread it until we got tired of that game. But it was the first book I remember reading, again, my love of fantasy, ah you know, coming alive. The character goes back in time. And when that happens in the book, I was like, I don't, it was like my first realization that any happened in a book.
00:20:36
Speaker
that, oh yeah, actually a character can just go back in time in a book. like there You don't have these rules of sticking to what's literally possible in real life. I don't know why it took me that long.
00:20:49
Speaker
I just vividly remember that moment of like, oh, she's going back in time and that's a thing you can do in a book. That was like a very clear memory for me reading that. And then also when we were talking about grief, there is a character in that book who dies. And I i remember being up late in my bed reading that book and and having that character die. And I was like, wait a minute, but anything can have happen in a book. Like why does a character die? Like that was probably the first time I experienced grief for a fictional character in a book too. So I yeah I just wanted to share that experience. It's so vivid in my mind and that book now I see it it's next to my bed in my house now on the built-in bookshelf like that like right prominently right there it's like that's where it has to be and I have to look at that cover every day and I see it and I'm like yeah that book. That book was important. Yeah, I remember reading Bridge to Terabithia for the first time and sorry for spoiling it. For those who haven't had the joy of reading it, but it a major character in that book dies as well in a very shocking way. This wasn't like a book where there's a little kid that has cancer. This wasn't a book where there was foreshadowing. It was just very sudden and very surprising. And I remember being devastated by that, putting down the book, having to walk away from it, devastated by what happened. I wanted to ask about sharing because Carly mentioned that Sweet Valley twins or the Babysitter's Clubs novels were items that you were happy to share. And then I was thinking of Christie's earlier comment about how sometimes you will want to share
00:22:23
Speaker
or you do share things or novels and movies with your children and they might not necessarily enjoy them and to be prepared for that. And so I wanted to talk about sharing things that we hold so dearly in our nostalgia, things that we share, these things that we share with others and what, how it feels when, yeah, when people don't respond in a way that we would have liked them to. How does that puncture your nostalgia, if it does
Connection Through Shared Interests
00:22:50
Speaker
at all?
00:22:50
Speaker
I think it makes me very hesitant to share in the first place. like yeah please go ahead christy Yeah, I could see you preemptively holding back from sharing something if you're worried about a reaction, but I think is perhaps demonstrating a sort of egoism. But I i think my first reaction is, well, what's wrong with you, right? Not necessarily There couldn't be something wrong with this book that I loved. So maybe you misunderstood it or misread it, or maybe you just didn't approach it at at a moment where you could be open to it, as opposed to thinking I might just like something that isn't as powerful as I think it is. But I think this also relates to Carly's question and thinking about how you can open a space for a meaningful connection when you do have a book or a movie or music that
00:23:40
Speaker
that you share a love up with someone else. And I think it's easy to focus on all the differences, like people who don't like things that you like. But I think it's also amazing when someone really different than you can love something that you love and for you to see a human connection in the love of something where you might not like other things the same, but realizing that millions of other people do like this one thing that you like is a way that you're sharing something with millions of people, even though you don't know them. And that is really powerful.
00:24:10
Speaker
I think this idea of fandom, right? To feel like you're a part of a community of people who get something, even if not everyone. gets it. Yeah. That makes me think of memes when people take memes from a movie, or I've seen it written down with like book quotes too. And it's just recycling over and over again the same lines or the same pacing, but then you just change one little thing and suddenly it's a whole new joke and it's hilarious. And that's why I'm still on Twitter basically is for that kind of content that it is that sharing of something. And it's so funny. Like maybe I would meet these people in real life and we wouldn't have anything to talk about, but somehow
00:24:45
Speaker
I can like every single one of their tweets because it's about Jane Austen or something. I'd like to hear more of me about what you were thinking when you raised that question. Well, similarly to you and your response of, well, is there something wrong with me or is there something wrong with you when I am generously with all my hopes and
Power of Nostalgia
00:25:05
Speaker
dreams?
00:25:05
Speaker
giving you this access point that means so much to me and you don't like it it. It feels devastating. It feels discombobulating, and at least momentarily anyway, and it makes me question, wait a second, was I wrong? Was I wrong all this time? Just because somebody that I respect can't validate this thing that means so much to me?
00:25:28
Speaker
But then, like you, I have my ego take over and think, well, okay, it's your loss. This is a beautiful piece of work that is very important to me, and that's all that matters. But yeah, there's just something really important about nostalgia that makes you want to share it with others and connect with others. Like Carly mentioned, even if you don't have a lot in common with somebody, when you do meet a person that you have nothing in common with but they happen to love say I don't remember like a I don't know like some obscure thing their stock kind of rises in your eyes even if you don't particularly like them as a person very much you are able to hold on to your
00:26:09
Speaker
affection for them because they like something that means so much to you. And I just think it speaks to the power of nostalgia and how, I don't know, how, powerful yeah, how powerful it can be, but also how fragile it is, especially when, yeah, like we mentioned, you're sharing something with your children that means a lot to you. And they think, wow Mom, it's really not the mood. It's not as cool as you think it is. It's really not for me. You think, Oh, ouch. I don't know. I just think about the power of nostalgia. I think about made the fragility of it too. I think about how, like Carly mentioned, it can connect disparate people with each other. And I think about how important it is to me and how I continuously revisit Sweet Valley High and Sweet Valley Twins and the Baby-Sitters Club, even though I'm almost
00:26:59
Speaker
40. I still read them at least once a month. Similarly to Carly, I have a pile of these novels from when I was in middle school and in high school, and I still take one out every month or so just to read and get lost and in, I don't know, in entertainment, in nostalgia, in this like pleasantness
Reading as Solitary and Communal
00:27:19
Speaker
of comfort. I think Christy mentioned earlier, like we revisit these things because they provide comfort for us, because it's not new.
00:27:26
Speaker
and there is something really special about how the fact about the fact that it's not new. something it's It's like a friend, almost, that you know very, very well, and that's special to me. Growing up reading, I felt very isolated as a kid. I never thought of reading as a communal experience. My mom read to us a lot, but once I was old enough to read on my own, i was mostly reading by myself. I didn't read books that other kids at school were reading. It was a very unusual thing for me to share a book with a friend at school, so it's not actually have a very clear moment when I started thinking of reading as as a community activity and that was when sadly
00:28:01
Speaker
Sir Terry Pratchett passed away and suddenly everywhere online people were talking about Discworld and I was like, okay, I thought I was the only one who liked Discworld because for most of my life I was the only one and around who liked Discworld. And so, so kind of talk about that. How, is reading solitary or is it, how is it, you know, how do you think of it usually? I'll take a stab at this. I think reading is so intimate and personal while at the same time it is communal. and I know that's a non-answer, but hear me out here. I think the act of reading itself is to not speak hyperbolically. I think it's sacred. You're clearing space and time away from your life to sit down and b and just be with this thing, this book. And if it's a really good book,
00:28:50
Speaker
you're completely shut off from the world. And it's one of the most fascinating and sacred moments and gifts that you can give yourself because you're completely enclosed in in the words and in the story. And I think that's so special, especially now that there are so many distractions available for you. But even when you were a kid and there weren't perhaps quite as many distractions, it was still very special and sacred because it was something that you could claim as your own, right? It was your thing. Like, this is my thing I'm going to read.
00:29:26
Speaker
I'm going to go inside myself and inside this world that an author is offering. And it it was beautiful. it feel it yeah So I think there it is a very solitary act that is so special, at least to me. And I like ah remember jealously guarding it.
00:29:44
Speaker
right? This was time for me. And it's not really easy to achieve that. Even when you're a kid, right? There's homework, your parents have expectations, your siblings, if you have them, are running around, the TV's blaring, there's some chaos in your childhood, right? Be it positive or negative, there there can be some distraction. And so when you or when I made the conscious decision to pluck a book from the shelf to read, that was amazing. But it's communal too, because you wonder when you're reading these books, especially when you're younger, you wonder if anyone else feels similarly about the characters or about the story. And you start to feel alone, but also desirous of company or of
00:30:34
Speaker
finding your like-minded tribe to sit and talk about this thing that's so special to you. And so, ah yeah, and so I guess solitaire versus communal, yeah, I think that it's squarely in the middle. And I want to say this, is it weird to say that when we're sitting here, Carly, Christy and I, when we're sitting here and we're talking about the various books that we've read in our childhood. Does it feel almost like liturgical? Like we're not worshipping the books, but we're like communing in a way, right? There's there's something that crosses words. I feel like I am connected to Christy and Carly in a way that I wouldn't with like my husband because we've read some of these books together and we're talking about it. It it feels transcendent. I know that sounds corny, but I do really appreciate like the shared experience that people have when they're discussing things that they've read. it We're using words to express our thoughts and our ideas, but it feels deeper than that. Does that sound crazy?
Judgment and Privacy in Reading
00:31:35
Speaker
No, no. I mean, that sounds like experiencing art together.
00:31:38
Speaker
right? It's art. And that's what art is supposed to do. It's supposed to evoke emotion and experiences in the audience. And so when you share that experience with someone one else in the audience, it does connect to you. Yeah, I think so. I feel like that was a very sort of pedantic way of looking at it. Because I want to think more about sacred and liturgical because my mind goes to Oh, it's about your the chemicals in your brain. you know So trying not to think about that. But please, Christy, did you have a comment?
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah, I do notice though that I read a book differently if I think I'm gonna have to talk about it, or I should say I get to talk about it, right? The the pleasure of being invited on Carly's podcast as I'm reading, but also thinking, well, what am I gonna say about this? I actually am aware of reading it differently. And I think this also might be an adult thing versus a child thing, right? When I when i read a book as a child, I didn't think I was gonna be tested on it or called upon to say anything meaningful about it. I was just in that moment, which feels private and so personal. But I think there is it is different, I think, to read a book with the expectation of seeking out connections with other people on it than to just read it privately for yourself. And I also, at some point, wanted to mention the the idea that
00:32:55
Speaker
other people might be very judgy of the things that you love. And I think me you talked about how people look down on Sweet Valley High or or Babysitter's Club, which is bizarre because those were hugely popular, made tons of money, were reprinted in tons of languages, right? So these are clearly very popular books that are connecting with something and they're readers that bring them back over and over again. but I also remember Carly being a little bit of a science fiction fantasy nerd. When I would take certain books to school with me to read after like the schoolwork was done, I would put book covers on them because I knew that if other people saw me reading that book, they would think certain things about me. Or in some cases, if you were reading fantasy novels in the 90s, those covers were not appropriate for school as well. But I remember sort of looking at a book and thinking, do I have to cover this up when I
00:33:43
Speaker
go out to read it because some of it felt private or personal in a way that you didn't even want to share the cover with the people who were around you. I don't know if either of you had experiences like that, but there were definitely books that I covered up before I threw them in my backpack. Yeah, I don't think I covered books up, but I do remember, I think I was in middle school when my local library moved to a new updated building and they had self-checkout.
00:34:05
Speaker
And so I didn't have to like show my book to the librarian that if I was checking out a book, but i that felt yeah that was comforting to me that like I could sneak out of the place and no one would have to know that what I was reading. Yeah, I don't think I ever covered my... I'm trying to think. This is a really good question. Did I ever cover my books?
00:34:24
Speaker
i don I don't think so. maybe Maybe the ones that were way beyond what like a 14 year old girl should have been should be reading. But nothing too crazy. I don't think so. But I can definitely understand the impulse to do that. Because yeah, like Christy said, like christie said it is it's very personal, right? And you don't want to be judged. I don't think I ever covered my books.
00:34:45
Speaker
But you know, I will say this, I read a lot of what people might characterize as trash romance, and I don't buy them. I check them out on Libby, and it's wonderful. But I would never, if I'm reading like a serious, quote unquote, serious book, like say, War and Peace, I will buy the book. So that does rather expose my own hypocrisies, right? And maybe internalized misogyny, like I will go out and buy serious books and proudly display them on my bookcase. But when it comes to books that might stereotypically have what's perceived as low nutritional value or intellectual value, that I won't shell out the big bucks for and I won't buy the physical copies. I will read them
00:35:32
Speaker
in like electronic formats. So maybe that's an example of having to hide things that you read for fear of judgment. That's funny because I think of privacy as the total opposite of that. And I wonder if this is an elder millennial versus younger millennial thing me because I think you're quite a bit younger than me. like For me, having a physical book in my possession, that feels like more private in a certain way. No one sees that unless I put it on my shelf, for example, right? Whereas something about like, what's my electronic footprint on this this device, right? When someone who works for Amazon sees that I bought this series of books, right?
Real vs. Superficial Connections
00:36:12
Speaker
That in a way actually to me seems less private in a certain way, but I wonder if that's just a difference between generations. I think that's fascinating. I hadn't even thought of it that way. I actually think
00:36:23
Speaker
it's not generational, but it's ego. It's my own ego. It's like my egotistical nature of, oh, I want to, I don't mind if people see that I have War and Peace or Proust on my bookshelf, but I would mind maybe if somebody saw that I had Danielle Steele or Jackie Collins on my bookshelf. And I don't really care if Amazon knows that I read a lot of smut and trash as long as like the people that I know in real life don't know. So maybe it's more of an ego thing. um Let's talk about genre themes. So the big genre thing we talked about in every episode was connection. What is real connection and how do we define it? Has the definition of connection changed after reading all these books?
00:37:06
Speaker
So Christie, you and I talked to one in a millennial. We talked a lot about connection and I, I've thought about your comment about real connection throughout every book I was reading. What is real connection? What does it mean to have real connection? Because as millennials, we started out.
00:37:20
Speaker
Without the internet, we had experiences with AIM, MySpace, and social media just has exploded and changed the way we connect to other people in the world. So what does real connection look like? And I like me, I like your distinction of nutritional. What is nutritional value? So maybe that's one way to think about connection. What is nutritional connection versus a frivolous connection or an unhealth false connection?
00:37:43
Speaker
I loved connecting with you and all the other guests who wanted to come and talk about books. like It's so amazing that I sent out an email to a few people and said, hey, I want to talk about these books on the podcast. Do you want to join me? And almost immediately my season was filled. like I had so many responses. That was just delightful.
00:38:02
Speaker
So connecting over media, connecting over things that we like. On one hand, it could be superficial, like maybe a fandom of hundreds of thousands of people who probably aren't all connected on the same wavelength, right? But there is some level of connection there as being a fandom versus intimate conversation where we reveal something about ourselves in talking about a book.
00:38:26
Speaker
Well, I have thought about this conversation a lot too, since we had it. And whether or not I was maybe being too elitist by saying superficial works can only give you superficial connections, I think that would be a fair paraphrase of what I was saying. And I think with some reflection, I'd like to lean harder that anything can be an opening to a connection, no matter how low nutritional value something is, I think you can find perhaps a way to connect with someone
Shared Humanity Through Media
00:38:53
Speaker
else over it. But I do think that certain kinds of works or certain kinds of things that you appreciate in certain works might be easier to lead to a deeper connection, right? And
00:39:03
Speaker
An example i I tried to think about beforehand was, if you love Shakespeare, there might be two people that love Shakespeare, but for very different reasons, right? Someone might love Shakespeare because of his bodiness. They might love that he's very irreverent about powerful people in history. They might love that he has a lot of moments for physical humor in his plays that are funny when you watch them, even if you couldn't necessarily get them by reading it. But that person is going to be very different from someone who reads Shakespeare for the poetry or for the tragedy of him. But I think two people who love the same work have a moment where they can
00:39:40
Speaker
share that bit of love and shared humanity and that that can open up all kinds of opportunities but I also don't want to go too far because I think you can have very meaningful connections with people who don't like the things that you like.
00:39:55
Speaker
and I think there's maybe a divisive tendency today that if you don't like this thing, then I guess we can't be friends. and I even remember my younger self saying, these are 10 movies where if somebody didn't like these movies, I don't think I could be friends with them. i I even remember some of the movies on the list and I'm embarrassed by that list now. I remember a gift from a guy I was dating once, he gave me a book and I read the book and I was like, this book is terrible. Like, why would he give me this? Like, we must not be a good fit, right? And I think that those are too far, right? To say that we can't have connections with people who don't share those things with us, I think is a step too far. But to focus on the possibility of connection, I think is a good way to focus. I think it also matters to me that many people I love enjoy things that are totally different
00:40:44
Speaker
than the things that I enjoy and I have to remember that and think just because you like westerns and I don't like that genre but like I still love you. You're still someone that I love and connect with and it has nothing to do with the media we like to consume and so not to take those differences too seriously. So to take the potential for connection seriously but not to take the differences too seriously I think is where I'm trying to go with my thoughts on that.
00:41:10
Speaker
I think this is such a good question, and it's so hard for me to answer and put into words, and Christy did it so well. Hmm. Because I'm thinking about differences. I'm thinking about what Christy mentioned earlier. you You can't just dismiss large swaths of people just because they don't like something that you don't like or that they can't appreciate something that you can't. So I wonder, yeah, there's like a generosity that you have to convey.
00:41:33
Speaker
in order to connect, right? You have to be generous. You also have to be honest. And so what I mean by this is in this discussion, or whenever we sit and share a common experience with someone, there's this unspoken agreement from all parties that, number one,
00:41:51
Speaker
we're honest. Number two, we're generous, I think. Because I contrast this conversation with others I've had where the experience or the connection wasn't honest and wasn't generous because, number one, I don't know, people love to hear themselves talk. So they're not listening. they It's just very egotistical and very selfish. And that's, you can never really connect, right, if you're selfish in anything.
00:42:16
Speaker
But especially um when you are attempting to connect over a book or media or an experience or say like in seminar at St. John's, for instance, when people aren't being very generous with their time or their thoughtfulness, their dismissive, its it just doesn't feel like you're connecting and the conversation does not feel authentic. So I guess in answer to Carly's question of what a real connection looks like and what is a high nutritional value connection versus false,
00:42:46
Speaker
low nutritional connection. I think the crucial elements are trust, generosity, and honesty. Because you can vibe to a song that you like. Two people can just love, I don't know, Britney Spears' Toxic, for instance. Talk about like millennial throwbacks.
00:43:02
Speaker
but we can dance together and sing along when it comes on in the car.
Challenges in Forming Connections
00:43:06
Speaker
And that's a connection. that is some that That's like authentic, but I don't know. Maybe that is actually also like real and not false, right? If you're having a moment over a pop star song, like just because it's pop music doesn't mean that it can't be authentic and real. So maybe maybe I'll backtrack. I'm gonna backtrack on on that. Well, the conversation about connection too is also related to loneliness, epidemic,
00:43:30
Speaker
These are all pop psychology conversations, so I don't want to give too much weight to the hypotheses because I don't know how verifiable these trends are, but it's just in the conversation of a lot of things that I i absorb. This loneliness epi epidemic and the idea that people today, there's some like survey question that people were asking like 15 years ago, you had five friends you can call on if you needed a ride to the airport or some silly thing like that.
00:43:55
Speaker
And now people don't feel comfortable asking friends for a ride to the airport, or they don't have friends that they want to ask, stuff like that. I love the trust, honesty, and generosity part of it too. That you have to be vulnerable with people to form a connection and that's risky. And so you need them to be generous with you, right? Like being vulnerable with someone.
00:44:16
Speaker
But how do you get to that point where you are willing to take those risks of being vulnerable, of asking for help or being willing to step up and offer help to to a friend? It's hard as adults to make those friends that we can be there for each other. So what does it take to get to the point of jamming along to a pop song in a car ride to asking someone to help you if you're sick, to help you prepare a meal or clean your house or something?
00:44:45
Speaker
you're sick or just had a baby or any other life event that may prevent you from operating at full capacity, right? And you need your community to come in and support you. How do we get there is my overall question. I'm not expecting us to answer that right now, but that's sort of behind my questions around connection. I asked in our notes, is real connection a matter of luck or can it be cultivated? So I'm going to say both. And I'm also going to try to acknowledge that I think One thing I've learned is that the luck is actually much smaller than I thought and the cultivation is actually much bigger than I thought and I think when I was younger I thought like you'd meet somebody and there'd be a connection and then the connection would lead to the cultivation and that those things would naturally follow but those connections have to be remade all the time.
00:45:32
Speaker
And I think when I was younger, I thought once you've connected with someone, the existence of that connection would be the weight of that relationship. But I think now with a longer perspective and having had failed friendships and relationships and hopefully some successful ones, the cultivation part is actually really, really big and really, really hard. And I think I had this idea when I was younger.
00:45:57
Speaker
I remember thinking about it in mathematical terms. I was like, if I give 50% in this relationship and this other person gives 50% in this relationship, we'll have a relationship. And now I feel like you have to give 100% to your relationship and they have to give 100% to your relationship. And it's still not even going to equal 100% because you're going to screw something up or they're going to make a misstep. And so if you're giving 100 and they're giving 100, you're still lucky if you end up with 75.
00:46:26
Speaker
The math on that doesn't work because it's not about math, but just this idea for me of the cultivation has to be like redone and being done all the time. And the gratefulness I have for the people in my life who are willing on the other side to put in that same level of cultivation. And it's not always even, right? There are years where you do more. There are years when someone else does more. It's not just like a day-to-day thing or a week-to-week thing, but I think I thought luck would matter more. And I think now that finding people who are willing to do that cultivation is luck, but the cultivation is actually where the time has to be spent. Yeah, I think one i think luck, the idea of luck is very romantic. And I think when we're younger, we tend to romanticize making connections and finding that one friend who
00:47:15
Speaker
will just mean so much and serve all functions and and needs in your life. But it's romantic. It's not reality, unfortunately. But yeah, the cultivation, though, it's serious and it's work and it's hard, I would say. It takes effort and it takes a degree of trust and generosity and vulnerability. as well. And that's work. It's work. It's not fun. I hate to say it. Whereas with luck is fun. Luck feels serendipity. I mean, luck is serendipitous, right? You're just walking down the street and then you meet the love of your life or you meet your long lost best friend that you've always wanted. It's whimsical. To bring it back to your books, Carly, I actually think this is something that's so lovable about the Harry Potter series is how I think they
00:47:58
Speaker
they try really hard to show how hard it is to be friends over a really long time and that you're gonna say something that you either don't mean or maybe you did mean it and it was just really mean and then you have to fix that or maybe you misunderstood something and they misunderstood something and that was one of the things that felt very real to me about those books when I was reading them that I still as an adult really appreciate is it's not easy for Ron and Harry always. It's not easy for Ron and Hermione always. They really struggle, but but they do come back together, and I think that's a good thing for kids to see, too, and maybe for anyone to see,
Ethics and Gender in Literature
00:48:38
Speaker
right? That you can come back from those moments where it feels like things are breaking, but you have to give it time and work, and sometimes you need a friend to step in. Well, so one of the newer genre themes, because had I had the luck of finding someone to do Jurassic Park episode, we talked about technology. And I think Jurassic Park in particular, tell me if you have the same impression that the idea that it's that quote from the book and the movie that your scientists were too busy thinking about whether they could, they weren't thinking about whether they should. And is it cynicism? Maybe it's critical thinking about technology, advancing technology for the advancement's sake.
00:49:15
Speaker
or if there really is a good reason to advance technology or use advanced technology. So I really feel like that Jurassic Park, the movie really cemented that in our minds of just because you can, doesn't mean you should regarding technologies. I know that I'm kind of springing this on you, but if you had any initial thoughts about that.
00:49:33
Speaker
One of the things I remember a lot from the movie and then the book when I read it was there's an argument there for radical humility, right? That just the reminders that you are so unable to anticipate what's going to happen based on what you do, that should make you deeply humble. And the part I remember most is the Jeff gold bloom speech in the movie. like Life's gonna find a way, right? And this reminder that we need to have radical humility, especially with technologies that are new or expanding rapidly. I remember that that part of that movie so clearly, and I definitely think about that a lot. I thought about it in the AI debate, but I also remember thinking about it the first time I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
00:50:17
Speaker
and realizing, oh, this is baked into science fiction, right? That there's always just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. And if you don't kind of care for the things that you create, bad things are going to happen sometimes to you personally, but also to other people that you care about. So I think Jurassic Park did it well at a good moment, but I also think that's one of the things that you can love about the genre of science fiction is I think that's very central to to most of the the great works in that genre is that idea is so important that it's there over and over again. um So one of the other things we've talked about is female characters and how they're portrayed. And it's not something that I thought about until I was one of my 30s. And in fact, I think when I was younger, I kind of actively avoided
00:51:01
Speaker
thinking about women characters versus male characters in a sort of sense of, oh, sexism is solved now, right? We don't have to think about it anymore. But going back to these books, that was something I was looking for was like, did these female characters tell me something about womanhood that I've taken into adulthood of their subconsciously or consciously. I have to say not, I didn't really get clear answers when I asked myself this question reading these books. Meg stands out, Meg from A Wrinkle in Time stands out as a really fascinating example of a woman having anger. And I appreciate that more and more. Oh, and my opinion of Buttercup in The Princess Bride changed a bit after our discussion that I give her a lot more
00:51:44
Speaker
credit. She's called dumb in the book, but that doesn't necessarily mean she is dumb. So I have to reconsider, is the author calling her dumb or just other characters calling her dumb? It's sort of something to think about the next time I read that book. So what do you all think about that?
00:52:00
Speaker
I'm excited to listen to the Buttercup episode because I want to be challenged on that, so I'm excited to to hear your challenge. I think if I was trying to identify the best or strong female characters in your season, I think Meg Murray is a clear winner, and I think Ellie Sattler from Jurassic Park is a clear winner. um Although I think even with Meg, there are definitely moments with her relationship with Calvin that I felt like I'm not sure a modern audience would accept this, like the way she likes him and the way she leans on him in certain moments. I just think
00:52:34
Speaker
that that does resonate with me, but it also felt like something where I could see younger women thinking that she was too conservative maybe, or just not modern enough in her relationship with Calvin. And when you watch the movie version, I can't remember if we talked about this or not. They change that very much in the movie version for a modern audience and I think for this reason that I think people would feel like that relationship looks dated. I still think it's lovely and I'm glad it's there and I'm glad I got to read it when I was younger but I also think expectations for
00:53:06
Speaker
how young women are supposed to act have changed a lot in regards to that. So those were the two that stuck out to me were Ellie Sattler and Meg. I think that's great. I would say with respect to the books that were read in this season, an example is from The Giver where women who gave birth were denigrated as not a career path that was valued or valuable. I remember Lily was chastised by her mother who happened to be a judge in The Giver. She was chastised by her mother for expressing a desire to be a birth mom when she was and when it would be her time to be selected for her career. And I think millennial women, especially in the characters portrayed in these millennial books, were expected to be strong and not
00:53:53
Speaker
feminine. I feel like femininity in the 90s and in the early aughts was dismissed as shallow and silly and frivolous. I know we didn't read any Sweet Valley Twins books during the series, but I Forgive me, and and please indulge me for bringing it to that. But I, you know, I think about how Jessica Wakefield is often described as the wild, frivolous, shallow party girl, and it's Elizabeth, the studious, bookish, obedient one, who is respected.
00:54:30
Speaker
by there by parents and teachers. And Jessica is written rather like a sociopath and her friends are rather like shallow, silly, frivolous people. And so I feel like that kind of dichotomy between being a strong, intelligent person versus being someone who was interested in fashion and being popular and looking pretty. I feel like that was the dichotomy of our of at least my millennial experience and what I saw in in some of the millennial centered books that we had to read in our youth. And I felt often that you could only be one or the other. It was very binary, at least in in how it was portrayed in film and in novels. And it wasn't really until maybe the Gen Z, I guess, where menstruation is normalized.
00:55:27
Speaker
or we're talking openly about mental health. I don't know, just things that might be characterized as not serious in my time. I think you're either smart and strong or you were so silly and liked fashion. I don't know. ah so yeah So there wasn't like, you couldn't be both is what I'm trying to say. And maybe maybe that was just my experience. I hope it was just my experience and it wasn't for others, but that was the message that I got from a lot of the media that I consumed.
00:55:57
Speaker
in my youth. You could only be one or the other. And I wanted to be taken seriously, so I quietly kept my reading of Cosmo a secret, right? Or I loved reality TV, I still do, but I didn't broadcast it to the world because I didn't want to be seen as unserious. So I guess that was a really long-winded way of saying that I think we were expected to be one or the other, or we only had like two. That's what it felt like to me. I think a little bit along with your point, me, I think I mentioned this earlier in my episode with Carly, but the the radicalness of having a mom be the hero in Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nim is something that I appreciate much more now than I did when I was little. And I i think this goes along with this idea that heroes aren't maternal, heroes aren't feminine, heroes aren't
00:56:46
Speaker
caring that that these sort of things that might have traditionally been thought of as womenly virtues or feminine virtues are definitely things that become barriers to your success as opposed to things that would make you seem like a good candidate for success. And I think I remember that part from The Giver very well because I remember thinking about how would children influence your life? How would a career change your relationship prospects? so These are all things that you're starting to think about at the same time that you might be reading that book. And then to hear someone say, oh, you don't want to be a mom. You don't want to spend time growing a new human life inside you and then caring for it. That's really going to mess up your life, right? To hear that from another character is
00:57:30
Speaker
It's really shocking and also different, I think, than what sort of women would traditionally hear about those roles. But that that that definitely is part of that conversation
Millennial Reflections on Adulthood
00:57:39
Speaker
as well. so The last genre theme I want to talk about is the claim that millennials are raised for a world that no longer exists. And did these books prepare us for adulthood or the opposite? Did they prepare us for a world that does not exist? Are there lessons we take away? society I think that's a very heavy question to put on these books, but it's been fun thinking about anyway.
00:58:00
Speaker
Carly, is there a book on this list that you feel like... gave you an idea of something that would be true about your life that you just feel hasn't been true or that you hasn't been true yet that you're waiting for? Is there a book that stands out to you for that? I know it's a bigger question than that, but maybe there's one or two examples that you feel like, I really thought that there was going to be more of this in my life and and that hasn't happened. Well, it's Meg Murray again. As a kid, it was even clear to me that she was presented as an ugly duckling character.
00:58:33
Speaker
and that the trope was the ugly duckling grows into a beautiful swan and everything falls into place for her. And that that didn't happen for me. like wait I don't know where the story is that, and I think in in the later books, Meg Murray has a PhD. Where's the book about her getting her PhD? Did she marry Calvin before or after she earned her PhD? Also, like was it easier for her to get a PhD because both her parents have PhDs?
00:59:02
Speaker
You know, and so that's my answer to that question. There's also a sense of conquering evil, like most of these stories are fantasy because or science fiction because that's what I tend to like. And we talked a little bit about the hero's journey in previous episodes and the hero setting out to on a journey to defeat evil and enacting a great change for the better for the world and for within him or herself. And I mentioned my experience as a political activist before, but there's not a satisfactory We did it. We defeated the evil. like this is Let's our do our victory run. It's much more very small victories that sometimes it's very hard to recognize um as victories. And maybe you have victories that no one will realize in your lifetime, but it's part of a greater shift that will take many generations to recognize. So wow. so Thank you for asking that question because I hadn't thought about it yet. So thank you for giving me the chance to articulate all that.
01:00:06
Speaker
Yeah, the scope of the impact you could have on your world always feels smaller. You could read these books and think there's going to be a moment where I'm called upon to slay a dragon or ah defend something good against something evil. And those moments, I think, are always there, but but
Books Inspiring Action
01:00:25
Speaker
they're smaller. And they again, it's redoing them every day too, I think, that sometimes is lost. In fiction, they're not going to show you making breakfast every morning. They might not ever show you making breakfast, but every day you make your breakfast, right? And every day you choose to try to do something kind instead of something petty. But that doesn't feel like slaying a dragon. and It doesn't feel like exposing the corrupt judge, right? um It just feels like that was a lot of work again today.
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, and to broaden Christie's comment, I'm thinking of Gabe in The Giver and how he senses, he observes that something's deeply, deeply wrong about the community that he's living in. And he is determined to make a change, even though he's young and has very little resources. And I think that ethos still exists very much so in today's world where, especially with social media, you can speak out and you can attempt to make change in your own way.
01:01:28
Speaker
by taking action or writing letters or spreading the word on social media about things that are unjust. I think that's one element that was created in our millennial universe that still persists today in this contemporary world. You want to speak out. People still want to speak out when they're when there's something wrong or unjust
Conclusion and Call to Action
01:01:52
Speaker
that they see. And so I guess that's something that these books taught me is that there there are ways to act when something's wrong and it's okay to take action when you see something is wrong. Any final thoughts on millennial nostalgia on the millennial part or the nostalgia part or them together?
01:02:09
Speaker
i think my final thought is I want to try to be more conscious of finding moments where I can enjoy a thing just for the thing in and of itself because I think when me was talking I think that's part of why those moments of nostalgia are so important to us is because I think Carly you were discovering that you liked science fiction when you were reading that sweet Valley High special edition. You didn't know yet like, oh well I like speculative fiction so I'm gonna like this one yet. You were discovering that part of yourself through an activity where you weren't thinking like, do I need to like this because it's a classic of science fiction?
01:02:48
Speaker
right? You are just enjoying it for itself and discovering something about yourself. And I think our self-consciousness or our ego or our desire to present ourself while as we get older, it's much harder to just let yourself even ask the question, like do I just like this? And not to feel like you have to justify your liking of a thing. So I think one thing I'm trying to think more about is, is there a way to open up space in your life for just remembering that you can just like a thing because you like a thing and not because it's the sort of thing you should like? This is what this podcast is about. I like reading these books and I like talking about them with people. like That's why this podcast exists.
01:03:27
Speaker
So that's how I've found it in my life, Kristy, to just like some things. Just enjoy it. Yeah, and I wanted to expand on that, this self-conscious desire to ah portray yourself as a certain thing online because we do live our lives online to some extent, I think all of us do. And I think what was really special about being a millennial is that, yes, we were, I think, the last generation to exist before and after.
01:03:56
Speaker
the internet? Does that make any sense? So there was a time before the internet where we just existed and then we kind of saw the growth of it and we grew up in that. And I want similarly to Christy to just enjoy the moment, not just things, but just be very present and not on my mobile device or not thinking, Oh, this is a picture that I should take. and upload to social media for likes. I think what was so special and cool about being 10 or 11 years old in 1996 was just being like being alive and not
01:04:31
Speaker
thinking about anything other than that moment, that moment of like crafting or playing outside with my friends or my family, turning on the TV. That's a pretty bad example, because I guess you're not really present when you're watching TV. But just you you were just there. you were You existed. And you didn't have this life online. You didn't have all of these avenues where people can contact you. You only have the phone and maybe the mail.
01:04:59
Speaker
and obviously like neighbors could knock on your door, but now you have email, you have text, you have messenger, you have discord. you have to It's just, it's a lot, right? And yeah, I think what was really special to me and nostalgic to me is just the fact that we were able to just be, we were just able to just be alive. And now I think social media has completely changed my brain chemistry anyway.
01:05:22
Speaker
and required how I approach life where I want to curate it, where I want to like things because I think other people will think I'm cool or interesting, right? And so I really respect that Christy said, you know what, I just, and Carly too, you know what, I want to make a concerted effort to just be and just like the things that I like and enjoy the things that I like without worrying about what ah other people think. It's just so bizarre. This is my last comment. It's so bizarre because I feel like ah human it's human nature to always care about what other people think, right? That will never go away. It's just rather been amplified now in this contemporary space because of social media. My takeaway from millennials and nostalgia and and reading these books is that it it was just so nice to just enjoy things and enjoy life just for the sake of it, like Christy said. It's a beautiful thing and it it takes effort to achieve that today, but I think it's worth it Yeah. And social media makes it possible. like I understand what you're saying to me about not thinking about your audience when you're just going about your life, but also social media makes it possible to, if you are just doing something you like and you happen to share it, it makes it easier to find people who just like that thing too, right? So I think that's valuable. I think there's a lot of nuance in how to that
01:06:39
Speaker
healthy and not unhealthy. So thank you both.
01:06:50
Speaker
Listeners, we hope you have enjoyed listening to these discussions as much as we have enjoyed having them. We ask that you support this new podcast by telling your friends and leaving a review on your podcast app. We need your help to continue. Subscribe to the Substack at bookclubpod.com or contribute to our Venmo account at Book Club Pod.
01:07:09
Speaker
I'll add links to those in show notes. The book club podcast is produced by me, Carly Jackson, music and audio editing by Alex Marcus. Special thanks to me Nguyen and Kristy Lynn Horpital. Thanks for listening.