Get Booked – A Reader Lives A Thousand Lives

Welcome to today's Get Booked radio show here in Covent Garden, supporting women's emotional well-being, opening discussions, and offering support. I'm Hazel Butterfield, and today I'm going to be offering up some brilliant reviews of books that have come By my way, I have been recommended, sent them, I've been chatting away to people during the show and they've said, "You've gotta read this," and I've gone off and done it. And remember, you can send in your own 1-minute book review clip, record it clearly on your phone, and you can send it to us at presenters@womensradiostation.com. And today's show is called called A Reader Lives a Thousand Lives, which is so true. You can kind of involve yourself in somebody else's world or understand what they're going through. There's a book that I recently finished. I haven't actually written my review yet, but it's by the author Kerry Wilkinson. It's the Jessica Daniels series. I'm now on the 14th book. And that is somebody's life. I mean, that's a longer relationship than I've even actually had with somebody other than my kids, pretty much. It's, um, I really feel like I know her and I've kind of been there and been in her head and everything, and it's just fantastic, especially the way that Kerry writes her character. But just experiencing what other people go through, or just what goes on in the world, I just there's something about reading. I did actually go away last week and the kids were somewhere else and I took about 3 different books with me and I just read and read. At some points I was sitting in the sea with just a book and I was like, yeah, this is great. I think I might have a slight book tan, but other than that, you know, it's all good, it's all good. But there is quite a selection here in my latest book review selection. Memoirs aplenty that are completely completely different to each other, funnily enough, because everybody lives a different life. History, facts, figures, and also how to break the rules and stand up for yourself. We do also have a special guest coming into the studio for one of our sections who's going to be helping us review the latest David Walliams books, "The Thing," or "Fing" as he prefers to pronounce it, and "World's Worst Teachers." It will, my special guest is a 12-year-old book enthusiast, and he is my son, my little doppelganger. He's waiting outside now, arduously researching, also known as playing on Minecraft or Fortnite, he thinks. I don't know. Bless his little heart. Now, my first review is for those that don't get to listen to every single show. We had a fantastic comic author in the studio recently called Raz Shaw. He was hilarious, both, uh, on when the mic was live and when it wasn't as well. Um, he wrote the book Death and the Elephant, and I started off the interview saying, um, Raz, I'm going to say something that you might never have heard before, uh, are you ready? And he's like, yeah, yeah, go for it. You're bonkers, mate, you're absolutely bonkers. And he didn't argue with the statement in any way, shape, or form because quite frankly it was True. Death and the Elephant, his book, was quite a— it's a unique cancer memoir in many ways, and so brutally yet honestly descriptive in a way that it just drew me in and gave such a diverse understanding to the process. Everybody experiences illnesses in different ways. They have different support groups, different coping mechanisms, and he just explained what he was going through, but it was funny, it was raw, it was fantastic. But also he kind of said the things that I'm sure other people just didn't know whether they were allowed to say. So if you know of anybody that's going through something like cancer or dealing with or has a family member who's going through with the illness at the moment, then this book is brilliant because it just kind of offers a different perspective perspective. And he kind of talks about his mouth ulcers. I think he had 128 at one point. And guilt and sex to perceptions of making it easy for others to deal with it. Shortly after finishing the book, I found myself in a conversation with a friend whose close relative was struggling to understand a few things that were happening. And I explained what Razad said on a similar subject by way of a kind of hopeful explanation. And apparently it did give them support. They were like, "I'd never even thought they were thinking that. Wow, okay, that makes more sense. I don't feel so shut out, so lost, so," you know? And it's brilliant that people actually take the time to offer up a perspective. It might not be yours, but you can always translate that perspective. And this is what the beauty of books is and are, especially memoirs. And he's got a deliciously perverse sense of humour attacking and describing his own cancer battle and what Raz's cancer meant to him. His depiction is no reflection on other people's journey, it's just his story and it's a good one. Now what was quite interesting is for all you budding writers out there that are wondering about how to get published, he actually used a company called unbound.com to help get his book published and it's basically a crowdfunding crowdfunding publisher that gives people the tools, support, and freedom to bring their ideas to life. You can go check it out, unbound.com. So basically, if you have a story that you want to tell, maybe you write the first couple of chapters and you put it up on this platform and say, "I really wanna write this book. Is anybody interested in it?" And people will say, "Yeah, I am. I'll chuck some money your way." They might chuck, you know, £20 or whatever. But you can say that for certain amounts, it's the same with crowdfunding, you'll get a book, you'll get a mention, you'll get this signed, you'll get whatever. For people who are writing fiction, you can say, "I will name a character after you for this amount and this amount," and it's— Unbound is still a proper publisher. It's just with the crowdfunding element, you're taking away the risk of a brand new author, which is why a lot of people struggle to get out there. I mean, you know, J.K. Rowling, it took her years and years and years, and then as soon as she published a book, everyone's like, "Yeah, it's brilliant." The risk is taken away. First book that people struggle with. Maybe you've got quite a few books in you, but you know, go and check it out and just share the love. And you can also go on to Women's Radio Station SoundCloud and listen to the interview again. And another one, a book that I've just read quite recently, it is a very different memoir, and we are actually going to be interviewing this author in September, so you can look out for that one. She's gonna be chatting to us for a whole hour. She does live out in the States, States, so she's going to be phoning it in, which is always interesting. You never quite know what's going to happen. However, she's promised to get up nice and early to chat to us. I'm really looking forward to it. And her name is April Kirkwood with Working My Way Back to Me, and her latest book is a memoir of awakening, discovery, identity, and the struggle to change lifestyle. Terms. Sometimes we kind of think, oh, this is just the way life's going to be. No, it's not. We can change our path. We can choose how things are going to go. We don't— things aren't set in stone. We do not have to stand for what people say that, you know, this is who you are, this is how your life's going to go. No, we are in charge of our own destiny. She's a— she was a rural Ohio beauty queen, and her Me Too moment came way before the term was kind of coined as well, her strong yet dysfunctional family who shaped who she was and who she didn't want to be. She lost her virginity to the middle-aged Frankie Valli at 16 after a decade pursuing a childhood fantasy to be the crooner's wife. The, but the effect, which is weird, so she's actually known him since he was, I think she was about 4 or 5 when she first met him and kind of went, oh, I like him, and then as soon as she turned 16 she was invited Backstage. The affair would actually go on and off and on and off for decades, actually. So, and the book is— it's got a lot of pictures in there as well of them together. I find the introspective nature of the mistakes April knew she was making, and yet the overwhelming and self-destructive power overtaking rationale, it was quite relatable. I mean, how many times have you gone This decision I'm making right now, I know it's wrong, I can't stop it, I'm doing it. Ah! But you're still gonna keep on doing it. And then it happens again. And sometimes life just takes over and you can't always be in control of everything you do. But you know what? Give ourselves a little bit of a break. It was funny, it was frank, excuse the pun. Oh, deary me. And honestly descriptive. You can go and check her out at aprilkirkwood.com. And what you could actually do, if you wanna go and get the book, have a bit of a read, go and check out certain excerpts, go and check out her website, and why don't you email me at hazel@hazelbutterfield.com with questions that you want me to ask her during our interview in approximately a month's time. It'd be nice. I do quite often get questions through when we, our fantastic producer does actually promote our shows before we get the people in the studio. So you can always check us out at Women's Radio Station on Twitter and Instagram, and you can check out Get Booked WRS on my Instagram or my Twitter @NuttyButty. And when you see that there's somebody coming up in an interview coming up, get in touch with me and say, do you know what, I'd love to ask this person this question. And, you know, be a part of it. This is a station for you as well, especially when we're dealing with therapists and authors of motivational books. Maybe you have a question or a topic you would like me to bring up. I don't have to mention your name. You can be completely anonymous, or maybe you wanna say, "My name's Barry and I'm proud of it." It's completely up to you. We have so many other books that I want to talk about, and a couple of them that I wanna tell you about to get you a little bit excited for the upcoming interviews. There are a couple of people whose book I've been reading that I'm going to be chatting about today. We're going to be just going off to our first break. We will be back in a couple of minutes, and I'm going to be chatting about the next couple of books. And then in our third section, we are going to be bringing in my mini-me to hopefully, hopefully not take the mickey out of me. I'll be honest, he's a bit of a sarcastic child. Don't know where he gets it from. It's absolutely bonkers. 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Welcome back to our second section of Get Booked here at our lovely studio in Covent Garden. It is a fantastic day out there, absolutely loving it. It is the kids' holidays. I have got my rabble in tow because it's all about making sure that we can fit everything together and multitask. It is— we are women, it is what we do, which does mean that But I am also putting them to work. So my eldest will be coming in to join us in the next section to chat about books. He is a huge book fan. It's quite funny 'cause I always say to them, you know, bring a couple of bits and pieces with you when mommy goes to work 'cause I want to make sure, you know, that they get, they don't get bored or anything. He brings the biggest rucksack and I'm like, what have you got in there? And he's like, books. How many? He's like, 4 or 5. I'm like, you couldn't even get through them. Yeah, but I don't know what I'm gonna fancy reading. Don't get me wrong, we're not some sort of, happy clappy family where all we do is read. He's got his iPad, his telephone, his chargers, his emergency battery pack, you name it, he's got it all. But he has got his books as well, so he kind of looks a little bit like he's going on some sort of expedition. Expedition, that's the right word, isn't it? Yeah, I'm all over it, I'm all over it. It's been a long day, been a long day already, quite frankly, which is probably why I keep on hitting the chair. So we have been talking about my latest set of book reviews. The show is entitled A Reader Lives a thousand lives before he/she dies. The man or woman who never reads only lives once. I love that quote, it's so incredibly fantastic. Somebody else that I also love is Judy May with her show Judy May Is Listening, which is aired live at 12 every Monday and then throughout the rest of the week. It's a fantastic show, love her to pieces. She's got just such an aura about her. She's an incredible motivational speaker. I did actually go on her show quite recently, and we wanted to talk about how— she interviewed me on how books can help people mentally and socially and motivationally. It's not always just about reading a self-help book because it's just, you know, it's not always what somebody wants, but sometimes just reading a book, it's escape. It stops you from being anxious, say, even on public transport when you just wanna read and let the time pass, or maybe your brain's doing that whole overwhelming round and round overthinking thing. And sometimes when I can't stop my brain going in a loop and I'm thinking about something that bothers me, I just try and get myself into a book. And every time I realise that the words aren't going in, I stop and start again. And, and it's like retraining your brain. And it can be something funny, something about, it can be any topic whatsoever, fiction, nonfiction. And as just saying that how, you know, gone are the days where self-help books, you're sitting there being told to kind of sit and chant and look deep into the soul. No, it's about people swearing a lot and saying you need to tell people to go away. See, I made that really polite. And that's just, and we had a good old hour discussion about it. And a lot of her shows, they're just fantastic discussions to get so many people getting in touch and getting involved. With these live shows. It's fantastic. Please make sure that you go and check her out, and you can go and check her out on judymay.tv. She is unbelievable, gorgeous person inside and outside. I think I need to get her on one of my shows at some point because, do you know what, she may be a motivational speaker, she may be a radio presenter, she's also written like a squillion books as well. I was chatting to her and she was like, oh yeah, I've written books. Oh wait a minute, I've written loads. I was like, "Right." Do you know when you do so much and you've got so many strings to your bow that you suddenly go, "Oh wait a minute, yeah, yeah, I do that as well." It's just what we do. We don't just do one thing anymore. We kind of do a little bit of everything and then we suddenly go, "Wait a minute, why can't I remember where I left my glasses?" Because we were too busy doing 38 million other things. Anyway, I don't digress. I want to go and tell you about a book that I read recently, "The Tattooist of Auschwitz." by Heather Morris. This was one of those ones where we had somebody in the studio, and I always ask people about their favourite books. I asked them about their 3 tips on mental health and mental well-being, and one of the books that I was recommended was The Tattooist of Auschwitz. I've also been told to try The Alchemist as well, which is definitely on my list, but at the moment I've got so many book— people booked in onto this show that I have about 6 books waiting for me and about 6 books in the post, so The Alchemist is gonna have to wait. Do you know what? I just love the idea that I'm constantly getting to find about— find out about all these new publisher— new published artists and people. I then get to actually ask them about their book, and so do you too. I will— if you check me out on Instagram at @getbookwrs, you can see what books I'm reading and you can send your questions in and say, if you are gonna be interviewing this person, I'd love to know this, this, this. And it's fantastic. And I do write all the questions down and I do make sure that I ask them. Although quite a lot of our interviews, they end up being, we get through to like the last 50 minutes and say, we've just been chatting. Oh, we didn't get through any of the questions. Then I could do a quickfire 'cause we just chat away. An hour can fly by when you're having fun. So, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I raced through it. It's an excellently written account of the atrocities in Auschwitz, a great reminder that beauty can be found in the most abhorrent circumstances. It's a story about strength and spirit and determination and belief and people coming together and getting by. It's not always about, you know, you sometimes you're put in a situation, you can't always be in control of it, but getting the most out of it, and that's what I really like. That was message that I really took from it. It was an insight into history, and it wasn't glorified or Americanized but told with bittersweet humility and grace, which is so important. I cried as I read the end, which, to be honest, I get so engrossed. I remember a time when I used to just sit there getting so annoyed that you would waste time. I had a friend recently saying that she's just fed up of constantly commuting to the other end of London, I'm like, "You do realise if you read a book, there's actually some, you can do something else if there's a book you're interested in. It's not wasted time." And even when I used to do, I did a degree through the Open University. I constantly did that while I was commuting. So it was never wasted time. There are ways and there are means other than just sitting there looking at your phone going, "Oh, look at that. It's a funny cat." or a funny goat, as Melissa, the producer, would prefer to look at. But, you know, as I said, I digress. It was a touching and beautifully depicted story, and there's a special little bit at the end that you might not be expecting. Always read to the end. And yeah, absolutely beautiful. Now, the next book I want to tell you about is is by Georgia Vargas. And now I'm going to be interviewing her towards the end of August. And she is fantastic. Any of my friends at the moment that are saying, "Oh, what should I read?" This is the book. It kind of, there's the assumption that this book is a self-help book, but it's so much more than that. It's called The Rule Breaker's Guide to Step Up and Stand Out. It's a story, it's a history lesson, a reminder of who we are and what we're capable of, which is loads, by the way. And sometimes we just need a little bit of a reminder and a little bit of a kick up the bottom as to how much we really are capable of. It's an explanation of the current state of affairs, but it's not an excuse. And as I say, it is a kick up the bottom. And there's so much of what Georgia had to say struck a chord with me. That I'd previously not identified was even there. It helped me to understand, to get angry, and you will get angry, but in a good way. When you— sometimes you can get angry and it makes you want to do something productive. It made me laugh. It made me forgive myself and want to aim higher. All at the same time, how as women we are still not believed, and not just in situations of abuse, but generally in many of life's situations. The amount of times, you know, that I'm known for being a bit too strong at times, which that's just a self-deprecating term in itself. I have been subjected to certain ways that people wanted to treat me because I was seen as being different or standing up for myself when supposedly we shouldn't. And it's— we need to stand up for ourselves. If a man did it, it would be perfectly fine. I have felt that things were wrong. Thing is, I was brought up by a very strong mother and she never made me feel that it was something that would be allowed in a social situation. So, it's not that I thought that I was quite different, it's just my mum was in charge, single mum, she did everything. She managed jobs, she raised us, we did quite well, and she raised us to kind of be responsible for ourselves as well. So, I've always done that and I've always been just, just blasting through. And it's only recently that I realized that not everybody was brought up that way. Maybe I was seen as being a little bit different, and I was like, oh wow. But this book is like, yeah, we're supposed to be that. We are all different. We don't have to, you know, we should stand up for ourselves, but we can all be who we want to be, not what's depicted by society. And it's amazing how people get threatened by that as well, because it's kind of a shift from the norm and not necessarily what they think should be of a woman. I mean, it's not like I'm sitting there scratching my bum and trying to be a bloke. I'm trying to be a person who is in charge of her own destiny, who will not accept certain behaviour. But the rhetoric around women speaking out and standing up about many things is still a contentious subject. Situations we've all encountered and brushed off or just accept it as the norm. This book is excellent and an absolutely easy read. It took me a matter of days to get through, which is good. So you can pass it on amongst your friends, both male and female, trust me, then discuss it, preferably over a bottle or three of wine. And then you can listen to my chat with Georgia when we air it at the beginning of September. Please do go and check out georgiavarjas.com, check out the book, try and read it before I have the interview with her and sending your questions. Trust me, this is an interview not to be missed. She is a fantastic lady. We're just coming up to the end of our second section. Here we go. Welcome to the Women's Radio Station, supporting women's well-being. Women's Radio Station is all about diversity, from opinions, career, ethnicity, education, and most importantly, women's well-being. We aim to celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. 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Women's Radio Station can give voice to your brand with a wide range of sponsorship opportunities, including individual programs. We can tailor your experience for you. For more information on how you can sponsor a show, go to womensradiostation.com. Women's Radio Station, supporting women's well-being. Welcome back to our second half of today's Get Booked. We have been chatting about a little bit of everything. It's predominantly a book review show, but it's also me just going on and on about books because it's what I do, so much so that I ended up doing a show about it. I'm Hazel Butterfield, and we have been chatting about The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Georgia Vardis's book about standing up and standing out and being a rule breaker, and the incredible Raj Shore, The Death of the Elephant. We've got a couple more reviews to you, but right now I have a special guest in the studio. I like to call him mini me, and when we're off air, many other things as well, depending on his behavior. I have Leo Butterfield Smith in the studio, my son. Hello. Hi. Hi, how you doing? Good. Yeah, I'm convinced that your voice is breaking. No. So you were a fan of reading like myself. Yeah. And we have— you read all the time, you refuse to get rid of your books because you'll read them again and again and again. And the books I want to talk to you predominantly about now are the David Walliams books. Now Now, the latest one that you've read is The World's Worst Teachers. Yeah. What did you think of that book? I thought it was quite good. In what way? It was funny. Now, he uses the word poo a lot, doesn't he? Yeah. Now, do you think that affects the way that you speak? No. Do you like it when he talks about peas as bogies? Well, now, do you remember all of the different teachers? I think so. What do you think was the funniest teacher, the worst teacher, the teacher that you actually thought, actually, you're not that bad? The funniest teacher I thought was the last one because he was the worst teacher because he doesn't know how to teach any of the Freely children. Which is quite a problem, but the thing is he did actually love children and he wanted to help them, but on the first ever day of school, what had happened is that he'd been— was it like the Hell's Bells or something? Yeah. And they covered him in custard and put a plunger on his head and smacked tomato in his face and given him drawing pins on his bottom, and it'd gone horribly wrong. So do we think it's really that teacher's fault? No. So it's the children's fault. So it's not Necessarily the World's Worst. So he's going back to the World's Worst Children again, which is, he's done what, 3 books? Yeah, but it's meant to be like the title. It's not worse than bad, well, kind of it. Like worst teacher because he doesn't know how to teach, not worse than behaviour. Right, I see, whereas some of the teachers were a nightmare. Yeah. Which do you think? Actually, one was about, one was a dinner lady. That was not even a teacher. Ah, yes, they usually do cooking lessons in school. That is true. Do you do cooking at school? Sometimes. And what do you like cooking? Non-burnt food. Yeah, that's a good one. Do you know there's an easy way to make non-burnt food? Did you know what it is? Cook it properly. Yeah, yeah, that's the way. You don't read any cookery books anymore, do you? No. No, okay. So World's Worst Teachers. What do you think's best, the World's Worst Teachers or the World's Worst Children? I think there's more variety to choose from in World's Worst Children, but teachers are things that you know could happen more often. Yeah, alright, okay, fair enough. Now I've decided that at some point David Walliams needs to do a slightly more grown-up version of this series, so not really aimed at 8 to 15-year-olds. He needs to do it aimed at 21 to 50-year-olds called World's Worst Adults. Which it could be quite interesting. Do you have any input on that, my dear? Would you be in it? What, as in one of the people that was treated badly by one of the bad adults? No, as one of the adults. But what could I possibly do wrong? Uh, should I start a list? I dare you! So you think I should be in the book? Yeah. We were so gonna eat at Subway this lunchtime. If you want, you don't need to do it so we can increase the sales of the book. Oh, but, um, should we move on quickly? Yeah, yeah, I think so. It's best for everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, now the other book, the book that we read before that was thing. Do you want to explain what thing is about? A spoilt brat who wants everything and doesn't know what else she wants, so she says she wants a thing, not knowing what a thing is. And unfortunately, a thing is a thing. Yeah. A thing is an animal from the deepest, darkest jungle. Yeah. Jungliest jungle. Jungliest jungle. Well done, good memory. It's a It's a small furry ball that can increase in size. It has two holes, one for its mouth, one for its bottom, and it doesn't know the difference sometimes when it eats. Which is typical of David Walliams' style, really. It's all bottom jokes and ridiculousness, isn't it? Yeah. Love him to pieces. You know what, he's not— he's still not asked me out yet. It's ridiculous. I do keep on tweeting him and he just doesn't listen. You've met David— have you met David Walliams? I'm not sure, but I have a signed book. You're not sure? I think you'd know if you had. Yeah, I don't think I have. I'm working on it, so next time when I get him in on one of our book shows, would you want to come in on one of those shows? If I'm at school, yeah. So I quite often talk about you on this show. What I find quite interesting is when it was World Book Day What did you do with all the vouchers? Well, loads of people were just dropping them on the floor, so I just went and picked those up to get loads more books. You went down to Waterstones and basically bought all of them. And how long did they take you to read all these books? About 2 days. See, don't get me wrong, I'm not Mother Earth. He's very good with his reading, but you know, he is very much, um, I wanna play on Fortnite. I wanna have this. I wanna watch telly. Can we watch Stranger Things, please, Mum? What's the latest one you want to watch on Netflix? Umbrella Academy. Yeah, you see? So it's all about a mix, really, and I've kind of said to you, you know, if you want to eat rubbish, you got to eat good food. If you want to play on tech, you've got to do a bit of exercise. If you want to do something annoying, you got to do a bit of reading. It's all about balancing, isn't it? Do you think you're a balanced Child. Yes. Yeah, well, you know, we'll see. Now, what the other book I want to talk about is The Ice Monster, which is another one that we read. It's still quite recently. Yeah. What did you think about that? Would you want to explain? Because it's all about like the Natural History Museum, isn't it? And what happens? It's about when someone finds An archaeologist or something in the Antarctic finds a mammoth and they bring it to a museum. And this little girl who lives on the street, it's set in the 1800s, probably near your first birthday. Your first birthday. Yeah, and it starts to melt and they try and bring the mammoth back alive. Then they get hunted by a load of people to catch the mammoth. And a load of old people help them. They were actually from the Royal Marsden. Yeah. Yeah, so they're ex-veterans. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And they get to go out on another adventure. Yeah. It's good. I think some of them are a bit forgetful, but they're like, "Yeah, let's go to the Arctic. Let's just do it." Yeah. I thought it was quite sweet, and it— that's one of the ones— I mean, I love all of his books, but I think The Ice Monster was better than Fing in my eyes. What was your favourite out of those three that we've just discussed? Well, to us teachers, Oh really? Yeah, I like how it's just short stories but they're all so different. Yeah, that is what I, that's what I like about the World's Worst Children one as well and I think they're good 'cause he's kind of highlighting to you children how terrible you can be sometimes. He's only waiting for the adults book to release it though. Yeah, I'm gonna find it so interesting and you know, maybe I should start changing my behaviour to try and get in the book. Book. So maybe I'll be like really mean for a bit. You don't need to change. This is what happens when you raise your child in London with a northern mother. There's conflicting sarcasm elements. Bless your heart, dear. There's some other books that you absolutely love at the moment. Now there's a book that's just been released, part of a series that you read quite a lot of and you've read them over and over again. Which series is that? Alex Rider. Alex Rider, okay. So what's Alex Rider about? Um, a spy who gets blackmailed into doing the spy work. Oh, blackmailed? Yeah. Oh, okay. And how old is this Alex Rider? 16. Wow. Okay, and how many of the books have there been so far? 11, and the 12th one has been out for about 3 months. Oh, you poor child. Have you considered phoning Childline because you haven't had the book and it's been out for 3 months? No. Or you could have done like some, some housework and earned some money and bought it. Dude, I'm made to do that anyway, but I have to do it for free. I gave you 2 quid the other day. Oh yeah, I spent that on the ice cream. Seriously, are there any parents out there going, you can't win, can you? And yet we're the ones in the wrong. So Alex Rider, right, well, should we go and buy you that today? Yeah. Okay, fine. Did you bring your money? I'm just messing with you. I'm buying your brother some trainers, so maybe you can have a book. Yeah, I think that's fair enough. We're all over it. And because, do you know what it is? If you read a book, you're quiet for a bit. Really? Well, hopefully. Hopefully. I'll put on some music while I read it then. Just put it in your earphones. No, I can't concentrate like that. I only concentrate when it's in the background really loud. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got like 20 seconds to say some of the other books that you think other people should read out there because we're still in the middle of the summer holidays. What do you reckon? Um, I'm not sure. Well, so you reckon Alex Rider is good, David Walliams is good. Have you read any of the Jung Bond ones recently? No, they ended the series. Did they? Well, there you go. I mean, you've got hundreds and hundreds of books, but we're gonna go and get you the other one just because I am that much of an amazing mother, kind and gentle and generous. And we should possibly turn his mic off at this point. Thanks for joining us, Leo. I will let you go back to what you were up to, and we'll be back in a couple of seconds after these ads. Bye. Welcome to Women's Radio Station. I'm Sarah Louise Ryan, and welcome to Love Lessons Live on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to Future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte, on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to Julie May Is Listening. Hi, this is Anna Kennedy and we're at Women's Radio Station supporting women's well-being and we're talking all things autism. Women, the possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Lauren Mishkon. I'm a birth doula and mum of 3 and I'm passionate about supporting women to have empowering and positive birth experiences. Please join me for my brand new show From Tummy to Mummy. Here on Women's Radio Station. Every week I'll be here with an expert guest talking about women's reproductive health, everything fertility, pregnancy, birth, and baby related, right through to the menopause and beyond. Please join us for an informative and fun hour. Hello, my name is Ingrid Marsh on Women's Radio Station, and coming soon is the Radical Wellbeing Show. To help support women's wellbeing, each show I share the airwaves with ordinary women like me and you doing extraordinary things. Women who have overcome huge obstacles in their lives who are now here with me to empower you. On the Radical Wellbeing Show, you'll be inspired to kick away the roadblocks and live your life to the fullest. If you're ready to get radical about your wellbeing, then this is the show for you. Hi, I'm Hazel Butterfield, a blogger, book lover, and mental health advocate, and you can listen to my show Get Booked here at Women's Radio Station daily at 5 AM and 5 PM. Throughout my shows, we'll talk about the books I've read, new releases, chat to authors, publishers, and book enthusiasts, all with a theme and aim of supporting women's emotional well-being. If you have a book to tell us about, get in touch at presenters@womensradiostation.com. Join me on my show and share my love of books and writing. Hi, I'm Valentina Barbacci, and I'm the executive director of Media Matters for Women. We're a registered charity operating in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and we produce and share podcasts via Bluetooth on mobile phones, focusing specifically on women and girls excluded from information due to extreme poverty. We empower those living in rural areas with media that transforms how they access, own, and share information. To find out more and be part of this movement, come check out our website at MediaMattersForWomen.org. You're listening to Women's Radio Station, supporting women's well-being. Women's Radio Station's creating a global network for the empowerment of women, and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter at Women's Radio Station, that's Women's Radio STN, or Facebook Women's Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programs. Hello, I'm Hazel and welcome back to our final section of today's Get Booked. For those of you that have just joined us, where have you been? In the last section, I was interviewing my son who was showing his levels of sarcasm, such is his want being a 12-year-old, almost 13. Home life is great at the moment, kiddos. But he was offering up some advice and reviews on some of the books he's read, predominantly the Alex Rider series and the David Walliams books, the David Walliams books that we all read as a family, my me with my younger son as well. Absolutely love them. And he was also showing the kind of relationship we have, which is based on him taking the mickey out of me. But it's fine, I've released him back into the wild, the wild being his iPad. It is the summer holidays, we are out and about in London. And what's great about where this studio is in Covent Garden is it's right next to a fantastic donut shop. Ah, and even for all you vegans out there listening, they do vegan donuts. And seriously, and I'm not talking one, there's like 5 of them on there. If you're a vegan and you need a donut, get yourself down to Garden Studios. So we've been talking about various book reviews And, uh, if you have only just joined us and you do want to make sure that you do not miss the, uh, whole show in its entirety, you can listen to the show every day at 5 AM and 5 PM, or after the week that it has been aired, you can go and check it out on our SoundCloud channel. Now, what we have been doing over the last few months here at the station is a mental health advocate series on writers and book lovers. And writers don't just come in the form of people that write books, they write blogs. So many people are writing on their Instagram pages. It's no longer check out my lunch. It is, you know, reams of interesting information, insightful, motivational prose. And we went through a process of interviewing a variety of different people. I'm very lucky to host a show at women's radio station where we get to talk about what I've read and what I'm reading, new releases. I get to chat to authors, bloggers, publishers, and just book enthusiasts, all based around supporting women's emotional wellbeing. We're opening discussions and offering support via the incredible writing community out there. You can go onto my website, hazelbutterfield.com, and there's a blog on there detailing, there's all the different shows that are embedded in there. And some of the different books and blogs that we discussed during the series. One of the first people that we got to chat to, there was Dominique Fragale, an ambassador for MQ Mental Health Foundation, as well as an award holder and public speaker on behalf of the Diana Award against anti-bullying and gun crime. You can find examples of her blogs, I'm Never Too Quick to Judge, and You Have the Power to Be a Superhero. If you want those, links, go and jump on to my website. You can also listen to the whole show there. The very first person we had in for the mental health series was Iveta Paravani. She is an adult and youth mental health first aid instructor at More Than Mind, as well as founding Debasmana in 2013, which is currently the only charity in Latvia that provides provides free support and information to new parents and families who experience difficulties in the perinatal period, and their aim is to reduce the stigma around maternal mental health and help to educate people about it. Now, More Than Mind actually runs a service where they run health and safety and first aid lessons for employees and employers. There's so many people that are in offices and they, there are people mental health and mental wellbeing issues. I mean, there are stats out there that say it affects 1 in 4 people. I think it's so many more than that, but it's about helping people to understand how to support each other, how to listen for employees and employers of how to handle certain situations or just express how they're feeling and just making sure it's happening to so many people. We can't ignore it. We need to get on board with it and be supportive. And she offers help and support and training to do that. There's, I think there's 1 and 2 day courses depending on the level you wanna get to. It's brilliant. Go and check it out. That's More Than Mind for those that missed it at the beginning. I also got to chat to Zira Asante from Enrich Charity, co-founder of the nonprofit organization where she was promoting love, support, mental health, and self-development from going through a process of of when she just left school and she was expected to just kind of know how to be an adult, to go on and go to university and suddenly just figure stuff out, and just how confusing it can be. And there's so many different ideas coming from everywhere as to who we're supposed to be, what we're supposed to do, and what we're supposed to master. There's so many people out there on social media go, "Yeah, killing it, living life to the full. I'm doing this, I'm buying this." I'm living my best life. And yet in reality, they're at home going, I still don't know how to open a tin of beans. Am I supposed to be buying insurance? Am I supposed to be feeling like an adult? Am I supposed to be all right being on my own? It's just, it's anything and everything. And she wrote a blog called Letting Life Happen. There is a link up on my website. I've also done it as a guest post on there as well while they get their website for Enrich Charity up and running. And again, you can listen to the whole interview there. The other interesting podcast interviewers that we had was A History of Mental Illness. Gabrielle Alsop and William Monk are the creators of A History of Mental Illness, the podcast. They cover a wide variety of mental illness and mental wellbeing issues. You can check them out at ahistoryofmentalillness.com. They, they discuss so many different subjects in each podcast, from OCD to suicide to just different areas of depression. And they not only talk about their experience and the research they've come across, they talk about the history of it. And one of them is— has actually done counseling and psychology training at university, and the other one is a pharmacist. So it's an interesting combination of talking about how we feel and how intervention can help. They're actually a couple as well. I think they've been together for about 8 years or something like that, and they've gone through a lot together, and it's a brilliant combination. It's definitely one to go and check out. And another person that we had in very recently was Karen Seager, a BACP-accredited and registered psychotherapist, writer, and podcast host. Based in London, and you can listen to a variety of her podcasts on her website at karensieger.com. That's K-A-R-I-N-S-I-E-G-E-R, and you can go and check her out there. And she offered up a lot of support on just getting over resentment, and, and there's so many different issues that she covers. And she's, she's got one of those kind of calming auras where you just want I want to keep on listening to it. It's fantastic. And I also did a series on, because I actually write on mental health quite a lot. I have had my own issues, but I also, I did a psychology degree. I found it enthralling, just the kind of how things can affect you, how your brain reacts, how your body reacts. And I sometimes just write about things that I've experienced. I'm quite chatty. I get to chat to a lot of people, especially in the work that I do, but also I'm a bit of a big gob. So, I just get to, you know, have quite a lot of conversations with people and we, you know, I've got some really open and fantastic friends and we all talk about our issues and I just, it's just about things that I've come across and realised and trying to, again, open up discussions. And if you, I'd love you to go and check them all out. So I've also done a show there and you can check them out on the Get Booked section of Women's Radio. Audio stations, SoundCloud, and you can have a look at the blogs themselves. Sometimes you want to read rather than listen, and sometimes it just maybe it sinks in a little bit better for you. And just generally, you know, just pass on these bits and pieces to other people, pass on the information. This is what it's all about, sharing and caring. Right. We are coming to the end of today's show. It's been quite a varied show. I hope you've enjoyed it. There is one other book for you I want to tell you about, which is more of a sweet, and it's just one that I came across. You know when sometimes there's something you want to be reading, you've wanted to read for ages and you finally came across it and just said, right, I'm just going to do it. And I also watched the movie as well, and the movie was coming out, so I thought, right, I've got to read the book first before I actually watch it, because otherwise it's just going to be ruined. The Lady In the Van by Alan Bennett, a true story, which I'm always— which I always appreciate, and it's told without any sensationalism. It's so raw. I think it helped that I'm already a fan of Alan Bennett and had the picture in my head of Maggie Smith as Miss Shepherd before I actually watched the movie. If you haven't watched the movie, please read the book first. It is absolutely fantastic. I like eccentricities, if I can say the word properly. The world is full of dull people. It was quick and an easy it's only 113 pages, which is why I thought, bang, quick, I can read that in a day pretty much. All I got to do is just shut the door to the children and ignore them a little bit, uh, or buy them a new book and say, look, Mummy's been really kind to you, here's a new book, go and read it. Uh, it's not going to rock your world, but I hope it leaves a little smile on your face. It's just sweet, it's really sweet, which is what Alan Bennett focuses on with a lot of his books. Um, even if you've watched the movie, the book is always better and has more to offer. Absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for listening today, and as I've said, go and check out my Instagram @getbookedwrs to see what books I'm reading and see what people are going to be coming in in the upcoming weeks. And get your questions in, and you can email me at presenters@womensradiostation.com, or you can tweet me @NuttyButty. That's N-U-T-T-Y B-U-T-T-Y. Thanks for listening. Welcome to the Women's Radio Station, supporting women's well-being. Women's Radio Station is all about diversity, from opinions, career, ethnicity, education, and most importantly, women's well-being. We aim to celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. Visit our website, womensradiostation.com. For more information. I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money, or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone. Many women want to be smarter with their cash but just don't know where to start. At empowerandenrich.org, you will find a host of options to help you take charge of your finances and learn how to put your money to work for you in an easy, affordable way. Get in touch with me at empowerandenrich.org and let's change your future together. Hello, my name is Natasha Anne Callaghan. Welcome to you lovely lady listeners of your very own women's radio station. Over the coming months, I'll be doing a survey in big brand coffee shops interviewing customers asking why they like to drink coffee. And if they would like to give us a health tip for our listeners. The most shared and liked post will be the winner of a prize. 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