Reading Room Radio: A Very Laufey Podcast

HCPL is a branded library card partner with the Laufey Book Club this year! Our limited edition library card design is being announced today, Friday, August 14th,  and online sign ups begin (and end) Sunday, August 23rd. Check hcpl.net for latest on this event!

Books mentioned in this episode: 

 Title: My Antonia
Author: Willa Cather
Paired with “From the Start”
Reviewed by: Esteban S.

Title: Gogogogo-go-ghost!
Mangaka: Miyako Hiruzuka
Paired with “Let You Break My Heart Again”
Reviewed by: Esteban S.

Title: If He Had Been With Me
Author: Laura Nowlin
Paired with “Let You Break My Heart Again”
Reviewed by: Alyssa M.

Title: The Art Forger
Author: B.A. Shapiro
Paired with “Street by Street”
Reviewed by: Kaitlyn R.

Title: But How Are You, Really
Author: Ella Dawson
Paired with “Street by Street” 
Reviewed by: Kaitlyn R. 

Laufey song "Above the Chinese Restaurant" also mentioned.

Created by the Podcast Team at the Harris County Public Library.
www.hcpl.net

Podcast Team Members include: Beth Krippel, John Harbaugh, Mary Mink, Dylan Smith, Sadina Shawver, Alinda Mac, John Schaffer, Jennifer Finch, Katelyn Helberg, Darcy Casavant, Darla Pruitt and Nancy Hu 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Harris County Public Library's Reading Room Radio, where your to be red pile gets a little more exciting one micro podcast at a time.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

My name is Estelan Salinas. I'm an adult program librarian at Freeman Branch Library. I was interested in this recording for Louvet. I'm not like a huge super fan, but I've listened to a bit of her music, and it's not music I typically enjoy listening to, like the style of it, but I heard from the start back when it was like very popular, and I immediately became infatuated with it. I listened to it over and over, and I still do. I think it's really good. I love like the unrequited love of it all, and how you know you're kind of just left with that feeling that you didn't get the person that you loved. And it reminded me of a book that I read back in college. I don't read a lot of romance, and this book is not a romance novel on the surface, but it is My Antonia or My Antonia as it's supposed to be pronounced by Willa Cather. Um it's one of those like really popular American novels. It was published in 1918, and it's set in the 1880s Nebraska on like the pioneer farmland. And it is first person, it follows Jim, who's an orphan who moves into his grandparents' like farmhouse, and their neighbors are Czech immigrants, and their oldest daughter's name is Antonia, Antonia Shimurda. The book is really beautiful. It's just like a farm pastoral narrative of Jim and Antonia living their lives and growing up together. They do everything together. He helps their family, she helps his family, he like saves her brother from a rattlesnake. As they get older, she moves into the city to become a maid for a wealthy family, and he helps her through that situation, too. As I was reading it in college, I was like, they were my OTP. I needed them to be together, even though, like I said, it wasn't a romantic novel, but they did everything together, they grew up together. In my head, I was like, okay, they're gonna end up together, right? And he always calls her my Antonia, hence the name of the book. But eventually, because of the time period he's afforded these different opportunities, he gets to go to college and become a doctor, and he leaves Antonia on the farm, and there's a really big time jump at the end, like 10 years, that they don't see each other. And when he returns to the farm, she's married, and she has like 10 kids with a new man that she's been with for years. The book just kind of ends. I was devastated. I was like, no, they were supposed to be together. And in my head, when I was reading it, I think he did love her. He has a girlfriend at some point earlier in the book that doesn't work out, and this song reminds me a lot of that book. It's really good.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

That's so gut-wrenching. I can't believe that she just moved on that whole time.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yes, I couldn't believe it either. Imagine my 19-year-old self reading this for the first time, and I was like, Yeah, of course, they're gonna work out. He he lost his chance, just like Louvet talks about in a lot of her songs.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, it's kind of funny because I always think of from the start as one of her happier songs, and then you paired it with a book that seems so like devastating at the end and everything.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Yeah, I can agree that it it sounds very happy, right? And yeah, it's not.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah, a lot of her songs are like that, and I kind of stuck with that with some of mine that I'm gonna talk about later, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

And then I wanted to mention it, because like I said, I don't read a lot of romance, but recently I finished this very short manga series. It's called Gugga Gugga Ghost, and it's like a paranormal romance type thing where this woman gets scorned by a man that she was dating, because it turns out he was actually like having an affair and yet whole life. So she meets a ghost, her guardian spirit, that wants to help her get revenge. But despite everything she went through with that man, she still loves him. So it's very rocky relationship type stuff that also reminded me of Laffy's songs. There's that one, what is it, Let You Break My Heart Again? I think is that it's called. Yeah, it reminded me of that. That mom was good.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

All I've had is coffee and left over. My name is Alyssa. I am the youth librarian at the South Houston Branch Library, and the song I chose by Leve is actually Let You Break My Heart Again. Um I listened to that song, all the first book that comes to mind when this podcast was announced, I immediately was like, Oh, I have it. I know the pair. The first book that came to mind was If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nolan. I don't know if you guys have heard of that book, but it's very popular on book talk. And even though it came out in 2013, it's been a lot more popular in recent years. What that book is about is Autumn and Vinny, they grew up as best friends. Their moms are best friends and they live next door to each other and they did everything together. And the first few chapters of the book kind of like focuses on them and their relationship. Once they start high school, they kind of start drifting apart. Vinny becomes more popular and he gets his own girlfriend and joins that friend group versus Autumn kind of ends up with the indie alternative kids and she starts dating Jamie. And so they just drift apart. But throughout the book, what you see a lot of is just them yearning for each other and not being able to communicate with each other. And then all of it is just her reminiscing on their times together and the things that they used to do and the fact that they can't do them anymore. And she's even though she's with Jamie, she's always constantly thinking about Finny. If you guys have read the book, I don't want to give any spoilers or anything like that. But if he had been with me, it's truly gut-wrenching. When I read them, I cried, I was balling on the couch. And then book two, you actually get to see Finney's perspective of everything, which I cannot remember the name of book two. I think it's if only I had told her or something like that. And you you will be bawling if you read those. And I think that both the song Let You Break My Heart Again and the book, If You Had Been With Me, they both have that like cozy, melancholic vibe the entire time because they're both so nostalgic. Leve talks about the midnight call of sunset views. And then she also says, pretend that we're more than friends, which I think is basically the whole novel. It's just autumn wishing they were more than friends. I just saw the connection between those two immediately. Just the overall feel of the books and the feel of that songs. And I really gravitate towards Leve's like sadder songs. I really wanted to talk about Above the Chinese restaurant. It's one of her like earlier songs where she just talks about the relationship and remembers on them living above a Chinese restaurant in a small apartment.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

That's so cool. That sounds you made you sold that book really well.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

Because now I wanna now I want to read it and bob my eyes out.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, it's very popular. And they also just released the special edition that has the like sprayed edges and the special cover.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

They love sprayed edges now.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

The special editions, man. They're just taking all my money.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Yeah. And that song is probably my second most listened to LeVay song. It's very, very good. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Hello everyone. I'm Caitlin. I'm from the Captain Tyler Library at Bear Creek. I'm a library specialist. I first found Leve from her two singles, Street by Street and Someone New. Both of those back in 2021, I was listening to. I was in college and just listening to those two on repeat straight. So Street by Street. Because I was actually living in Boston at that time and it kind of alludes to some stuff in Boston. I wanted to pick a book that kind of censors around Boston and its sense of place. So I have The Art Forager by B.A. Shapiro. It's one of the titles that has been on my list for a while. It's about an art heist that takes place at the Isabella Gardner Museum, but it's like a fictionalized tale of that. I haven't actually read this yet, so I don't know much more than that, but I thought it was topical because I also went to one of the colleges that's right by there, and I got to go in there and look at stuff, and it was cool. The song Street by Street is kind of like I'm trying to take back the power that you've invested into the city. So a book that I've recently read, that the end kind of like alludes to that is But How Are You Really by Ella Dawson. It's about this girl who, after a series of events, has to go back to her college town, and she works for this terrible boss. He's narcissistic and like abusive and stuff. Talks. So it's about her reclaiming her power of because she's just like an anxious and feels like she's very trapped in this situation, but she gains her power back slowly through relationship with an old flame and also her friends.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

That's really cool. I like that. It's interesting that you have this like personal connection with the two with the settings and being in Boston. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Yeah. Leve is special to me in that way. It was just very timely.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

But everything. I bet it hit different for sure.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Yeah. I'm like, I can see back video. It's right over there.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Yeah, that's so cool. And how that first book you mentioned is historical fiction almost. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Yeah. I think it's really cool how you're able to connect street by street because with that one, it's kind of taking back your power after a relationship or a breakup. But the book that you found was just gaining your power through anxiety and like kind of showing that even if you haven't been in those exact situations as Leve, like the messages she talks about and the general feel of the songs, everyone can get and relate to.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

At the time of this recording, obviously the design for our card is embargoed. So we don't know what it looks like yet. I'm curious if any of y'all have predictions for the design.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

Funnily enough, I didn't, but I right before this, I told my coworker that I was gonna record for this, and we were speculating on the card, and he was like, Oh, isn't her new album like, isn't it like clock related? Like, isn't that like the motif? It is like time and a clock. So it might have something like that on it, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Like a Salvador Dolly style kind of clock situation. That was what I was kind of getting from the vibe, a little bit that we saw from the slide. Maybe it's like Alice in Wonderland or something like that, kind of children's book-esque. I could see that too.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah, I genuinely have no clue. I can see like clocks being in there because she has all the songs like clockwork and then the album like a matter of time. I don't know why, but something that I've always loved this about Levee, and so I would hope there was some influence on the design as a card, but I don't think it would actually happen, is for her concert, she always performs with orchestras. Like the last time she was in Houston, she performed with the Houston Symphony. A lot of her recordings like on Spotify are like with the Philharmonic Orchestra. So I would love to see something like that. And I know she plays a lot of instruments too. I can't remember which ones besides piano, but she does have a lot of orchestra musical background.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

I know her sister plays violin and they her twin sister and they do concerts together and they do duets.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

She has a twin. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Yeah, she does.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Her song Best Friend is about her twin sister, actually.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

Oh, that's so nice. Okay, maybe the card will have like sheet music, musical notes, maybe. I don't know. What if sheet music that makes a clock? And the hands are clock.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Now we're thinking, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

This is that we're using our noodles, everyone.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

All the partner libraries, like the card will be customized for that location too. So I'm curious what will the HCPL flavor be?

SPEAKER_03 12:06

I didn't know that. That's crazy. Maybe something with the Houston Symphony Orchestra? That'd be really cool. And she's worked with them.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Or just like landmarks in Houston. I would have to imagine something like that. It's gonna be our flavor.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Yeah, we are this space city, so maybe something space related with a clock. A clock with the planets around there. Whoa. And then the hands around the clock. Space clock.