EPISODE 639 - Deepa Anappara - Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Letters to a Writer of Colour and The Last of Earth

Deepa Anappara’s debut novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian Literature. Time included it in its list of ‘The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time’. It has been translated into over twenty languages.

Anappara is the co-editor of Letters to a Writer of Colour, a collection of personal essays on fiction, race, and culture, published by Random House (US) and Vintage (UK) in 2023.

Her second novel, The Last of Earth, will be published by Random House in the US, and Penguin Random House in India, in January 2026, and by Oneworld in the UK in February 2026.

She has a PhD in Creative-Critical Writing and an MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) from the University of East Anglia, Norwich. She teaches creative writing and is a mentor on the South Asia Speaks mentorship programme for emerging writers in South Asia.

Anappara was born in Kerala, southern India, and worked as a journalist in India for eleven years. Her reports on the impact of poverty and religious violence on the education of children won the Developing Asia Journalism Awards, the Every Human has Rights Media Awards, and the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism.

Book: THE LAST OF EARTH
From the award-winning author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line comes a stunning historical novel set in nineteenth-century Tibet that follows two outsiders—an Indian schoolteacher spying for the British Empire and an English “lady” explorer—as they venture into a forbidden kingdom.

1869. Tibet is closed to Europeans, an infuriating obstruction for the rap­idly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians—permitted to cross borders that white men may not—to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet.

Balram is one such surveyor-spy, an Indian schoolteacher who, for several years, has worked for the British, often alongside his dearest friend, Gyan. But Gyan went missing on his last expedition and is rumored to be imprisoned within Tibet. Desperate to rescue his friend, Balram agrees to guide an English captain on a foolhardy mission: After years of paying others to do the exploring, the captain, disguised as a monk, wants to personally chart a river that runs through southern Tibet. Their path will cross fatefully with that of another Westerner in disguise, fifty-year-old Katherine. Denied a fellowship in the all-male Royal Geographical Society in London, she intends to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa.

A polyphonic novel about the various ways humans try to leave a mark on the world—from the enduring nature of family and friendship to the egomania and obsessions of the colonial enterprise—The Last of Earth confirms Deepa Anappara as one of our greatest and most ambitious storytellers.

https://www.deepa-anappara.com/

Support the show

___
https://livingthenextchapter.com/
podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/

Coffee Refills are always appreciated, refill Dave's cup here, and thanks!
https://buymeacoffee.com/truemediaca

EPISODE 638 - Janet Skeslien Charles - Author of The Paris Library and Miss Morgan's Book Brigade comes a charming and cinematic multi-cast audiobook, The Parisian Chapter

Janet Skeslien Charles is the New York Times, USA Today, and #1 international bestselling author of The Paris Library, Moonlight in Odessa, Miss Morgan's Book Brigade (called The Librarians of Rue de Picardie in the UK and Commonwealth), and the audiobook The Parisian Chapter. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the anthology Montana Noir.

Her work has been translated into 40 languages. Janet was born and raised in Montana. After graduating from the University of Montana, she got a job teaching English in Ukraine. She later went to France intending to teach for a year, and has been there ever since. Place is at the heart of every story she has ever written. She loves traveling, spending time with friends and family, and researching stories of forgotten people and places.

The Parisian Chapter
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade comes a charming and cinematic multi-cast audiobook following a young woman from Montana who lands a job in the American Library in Paris, where she discovers the power of storytelling and writes her own Parisian chapter.

https://www.jskesliencharles.com/

Support the show

___
https://livingthenextchapter.com/
podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/

Coffee Refills are always appreciated, refill Dave's cup here, and thanks!
https://buymeacoffee.com/truemediaca

EPISODE 637 - Jann Alexander - Unspoken - Historic Texas during the Dirty Thirties and beyond

About Jann Alexander
I'm an author, photographer, and artist.

My characters face down their fears, in novels that are as close-to-true as fiction can get.

I specialize in time travel. Read Unspoken, my best-selling novel and the first in my Dust series that stars historic Texas during the Dirty Thirties and beyond. Explore my photography featuring Vanishing Austin, Mother Earth, and Texana. Journey into the American southwest and Mexico, along the Mission Trail, as I capture the colors in my paintings and photos. ​

"Jann Alexander's blazingly alive novel Unspoken asks how do we keep a family intact? Especially during a time of upheaval and betrayal in the 1930s Dust Bowl? Here, in a story told by both a mother and her daughter, two people struggle to both understand their world and each other."

— CAROLINE LEAVITT, New York Times bestselling author of
Pictures of You and Days of Wonder

Upheaval, betrayal, estrangement, families lost and found, poverty, and homelessness, are the themes we wake up to in today's headlines. In the 1930s, the Texas Dust Bowl was no different — with one exception. Nobody knew how to fix air you couldn't breathe.

https://www.jannalexander.com/

Support the show

___
https://livingthenextchapter.com/
podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/

Coffee Refills are always appreciated, refill Dave's cup here, and thanks!
https://buymeacoffee.com/truemediaca