First Aid Lit Nicola Sheppey and Angela Wipperman

Ah, the bliss of childhood ... before life got REALLY scary. In today's episode, we're packing our literary first aid kits to survive those pre-teen years (which becomes a great excuse to talk about our favourite books we read as children).
Jump to:
00:00 - Intro & what we’re reading; Nicola’s reading Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen and Angela’s reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; we also chat a bit about the 2020 Booker winner & shortlist!
08:49 - ‘Adaptation Station’ - today we’re talking about The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix
12:12 - We share our first aid kits!
Angela’s kit:
The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Nicola’s kit:
The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton
The Bed and Breakfast Star by Jacqueline Wilson
Vinegar Street by Philip Ridley
Other resources / books we mention:
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (again!)
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
The Problem of Susan by Neil Gaiman
Bright: The Apotheosis of Lazy Worldbuilding (video essay) from Lindsay Ellis
The Naughtiest Girl in the School by Enid Blyton
Interview with Jacqueline Wilson (British Library)
Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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It's a challenging existence and it comes in many forms. Good thing there's plenty of literature to guide us through the nuances and celebrations of being a woman. We talk about what books we might give to our daughters.
Note - this episode was recorded when it was (briefly!) legal for two members of different households to mix indoors.
Angela's first aid kit:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Nicola's first aid kit:
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
The Bell Jar by Syvia Plath
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Other resources/books we mention:
Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
How 'The Bell Jar' Became Pop Culture's Code for Female Sadness (Nylon)
Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly
Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.


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Just in time for Halloween - we're off to a haunted house with our first aid kit packed with books to keep us sane while things go bump in the night. Will our books keep us safe from ghouls and poltergeists? There's only one way to find out...
Note - this episode was recorded when it was (briefly!) legal for two members of different households to mix indoors.
Angela's first aid kit:
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire by Arthur Conan Doyle (you can read it online here)
Nicola's first aid kit:
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Other resources/books we mention:
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward
A Rather Haunted Life: Guardian review
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilmour
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Bram Stoker Claimed That Parts of Dracula Were Real. Here's What We Know About the Story Behind the Novel (Time)
Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.


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It's the most relatable feeling in the world: we've all had a period of time where we've felt lonely, even when surrounded by people. Whether for escapism or inspiration, what books have helped us survive that rubbish feeling of being alone? We've packed our first aid kits.
Angela's first aid kit:
The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
Red Dust: A Path Through China by Ma Jian
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Nicola's first aid kit:
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Other resources/books we mention:
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Forgotten Women: The Leaders by Zing Tsjeng
Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie
Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move by Reece Jones
Poorna Bell on Instagram
dear juliet... from Jessie Burton's blog
Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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It's episode 2 and we're hopping in our time travel machines, taking our literary first aid kits with us to guide us through the mind-boggling concept of being some-when else. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads! (But we do need books.)
Forgive a mild tech issue on Nic's side in this episode - there's a little bit of static feedback. Promise it's a one-off.
Nicola's first aid kit:
A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Angela's first aid kit:
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Other resources/books we mention:
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The British History podcast
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
Until the End of Time by Brian Greene
Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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For our VERY FIRST episode, we're packing a literary first aid kit for surviving (and solving) a murder mystery! Will our books spare us from becoming the victim of a most grisly murder? Let's hope so...
Angela's first aid kit:
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Nicola's first aid kit:
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Other resources/books we mention:
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
CBC IDEAS podcast: 'Reading with a Grain of Salt' (3-part series)
@ferguscraig on Twitter - 'Detective Roger LeCarre' (Dad reads from his crime novel)
Find us on Twitter @firstaidlit and share your thoughts - what would you pack in your first aid kit? Let us know.

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