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Home > MashReads Podcast > 'Tiny Beautiful Things' and books that taught us important lessons
Podcast: MashReads Podcast
Episode:

'Tiny Beautiful Things' and books that taught us important lessons
Category: Arts
Duration: 00:52:10
Publish Date: 2017-01-25 06:32:11
Description:

"Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small quiet room."

So writes Cheryl Strayed in her advice/ essay collection Tiny Beautiful Things.

Tiny Beautiful Things started out as an advice column by Steve Almond in 2009, written on the literary website The Rumpus. Advice came from the anonymous "Sugar" persona, a figure who was both kind and wizened. Later, in 2010, Cheryl Strayed took over the anonymous persona of "Sugar," doling out advice but mixing in personal stories of her own to help her readers make sense of their own struggles. It's this mix of advice and memoir that took Dear Sugar too both internet acclaim and later literary acclaim.

This week on the MashReads Podcast, we read Cheryl Strayed's collection of advice essays Tiny Beautiful Things.

Then, inspired by Tiny Beautiful Things, we talk about the books that have taught us important lessons including The Golden Bough by James George Frazer, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner by Katrine Marçal and The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison.
And as always, we close the show with recommendations:
  • Aliza recommends rewatching the pilot of The West Wing. "Sorkin is far from perfect, but I do find the West Wing enjoyable. It's fast-paced, it's quippy. It's a breath of fresh air, in terms of politics."
  • Peter recommends The Familiar: Vol. 3 by Mark Z. Danielewski. "We're definitely entering in the synthesis era of this. Things are coming together where you see how characters fit into each other. It's really coming together slowly but surely, and it's just marvelous."
  • Alex recommends Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. She also recommends Disney's Zootopia. "It's just really delightful. You guys should watch it."
  • MJ recommends Wild by Cheryl Strayed. He also recommends Roxane Gay's new short story collection Dangerous Women. "I'm only a few stories but every short story has stuck with me. [Her stories] are creative. They are these soaring indictments of how society treats women."
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