Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S7 Ep14: Bookshelfie: Rosie Jones

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Rosie Jones joins Vick Hope in front of a live studio audience where they celebrate different kinds of love, discuss Rosie’s favourite reads on holiday and uncover why Rosie will never get over A Little Life.   Rosie is a must-see act on the UK comedy circuit. Having fronted two travelogue series’ of her own for Channel 4, Mission: Accessible and Trip Hazard. Rosie can also be seen on countless hit television shows including Live At The Apollo, The Jonathan Ross Show, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Cats Does Countdown and The Last Leg, to name a few! Rosie is also an established writer and actor, having written on hit Netflix series Sex Education, she also both wrote and starred in Disability Benefits which was commissioned by Channel 4 as part of their 2022 Comedy Blaps collection.  2022 saw the release of Rosie’s second children’s book, The Amazing Edie Eckhart: The Big Trip which tells the story of a little girl with cerebral palsy.  Rosie’s book choices are: ** The Color Purple by Alice Walker   ** The List by Yomi Adegoke ** A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara ** Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens ** The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid  Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season seven of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of season seven? Listen and subscribe now!

At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic. We're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com slash Toronto. Great commitment and great a brew. With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives,

all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope, and I am your host for Season 7 of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shared. them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you'll be adding to your 2024 reading list. Welcome to a very special recording of bookshelfy tonight. We have a live audience. I am like, there's one, no, two men in the room. You're welcome. It is fine.

Get out of it. In front of some wonderful women. And we are coming to you life from the Diageo headquarters, home of our lovely sponsors, Baileys. And here's how it works. I've got an incredible guest who is going to tell me the story of her life through the books that have shaped her. If you listen to Bookshelfy, it is the most gorgeous chat. I take something away from every single episode.

I feel so honored to get to have these chats. And Rosie and I were just saying, how sophisticated of a Tuesday evening. We're sitting here having some non-acoholic cocktail talking about books. So let's have a good one and I would love to introduce my guests now tonight. I am joined by comedian,

actor and author Rosie Jones. Rosie is incredible. She's a must-see act on the UK comedy circuit. Have confronted two travelogue series of Roan for Channel 4, Mission Accessible and Trip Hazard. Rosie can also be seen on countless hit television shows including live in the Apollo,

the Jonathan Rush show 8 out of 10 cats, cats does countdown and the last leg to name just a few. And I do have to live an admirable shout out to the last leg during the Paralympics of 2021 in Tokyo where Rosie and I were both working and on night one we found the beer fridge. Me and Vic were the legends of Tokyo and eight my shortch so be your time because of They didn't have a crowd or anything. All they had was big being an incredible, talented self-presenting, and me yelling like an absolute meaning.

We both have a strength. Yeah, we do. And we were utilised, I feel it's funny. It were the official TeamGB cheerleader of Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. Though known primarily for her comedy appearances and stand-up, Rosie is also an established writer and actor. Having written on hit Netflix series, Sex Education, she also both wrote and starred in Disability Benefits,

which was commissioned by Channel 4 as part of their 2022 Comedy Blaps collection. And 2022 also saw the release of Rosie's second children's book, The Amazing Edie Eckhart, The Big Trip, published by Hachette Children's Group, which tells the story of a little girl with Sarah Al Palsy. Please join me in giving a very warm welcome to Rosie Jones. Before we started, before we began recording, you were telling you about how picking the five books that have shaped you, the prison for which you would like to see the world tonight. Was therapeutic for you? Yeah, because I really talking seriously and I didn't want to just pick the last five books read or the five books that I enjoyed.

I really wanted five books that I felt have shaped me, had changed me, have made me feel things that I did not necessarily like at the time because books do that to you and I feel like as soon as I see your book cover I'm taken back to a place of a town mobber and emotions. I've, yeah, on like a lot of things in my life, and you're taking this very seriously. I feel very honoured actually. It's one of the things that's making seriously.

The only thing ever, ever. There were focus on this. There are books on this list. But one in particular, and I feel exactly the same as you about it. I won't give a spoiler away just yet because we'll get to it. But I don't like it. I don't think I like it, but I needed it. It's important.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we'll get to that book later, but I think that book in particular, I could confidently say to the... author. I hated it. And knowing her a meeting about her, she would say good. Because that's what she wanted. She wanted to convey a certain emotion. And she absolutely did that. Oh, I thought probably have we're at the beginning and we're already create a mistake. It's been called this like a writing. You know.

And that's the ending that one about from the next to the next. But it's that encouraging you to interrogate feelings that we're supposed to have. Yeah. Have you always taken that from reading? I mean, have you always even, be a big reader do you do you remember it as a child were you into the book yeah and I mean I can't believe it taking me oh three minutes to mention that I am so many false so many more so that disability is better if you're singing

cerebral palsy, they couldn't walk out. It was very different to people, children my age, but something that I absolutely nailed was reading. And I remember from being about six years or that Up until I left home at 18, I would go to bed every night and read for one hour and that turned into two and three three. And I was just taking book at the book. And it made me who I am, but it also made me angry because the hundreds of books are read. I never found a character that I connected with.

I remember my first vague sense of disability, representation in the children's book wasn't bloody calling from the secret garden. And I was like, well, I'm not a secretly kid in the garden. The Victorian side. Yeah, yeah. I love this one. And I didn't like that because I hated how disability was always represented as something vulnerable or a victim. Because that was never made self through reading it.

Ignatited defying me to get right now. I'll grow up, I'll become right there and tell stories about real disabled people, disabled people who are victims who are great and funny and ambition. and then bitches and flawed. And I'm proud to say I've done that. I now carry on doing that. So for every little girl who's in their bedroom at night, getting lost in a book, who now reads about Edie,

what would you say to them about what they can be? I'd face I say, you're not alone because I had a very happy childhood, incredible parents, but it was lonely and I think if you compare disability to every other minority. If you're a woman, you grow up with all the women in your life, same as if you're not right. If you are queer, you have your queer family, you have your queer spaces. But if you're disabled, you don't have that. You don't have your family.

I was a first person in my family who was disabled, and I thought it's lonely. You kind of mapping out your own story as it comes. So to any girl boy at home reading he did, everything says, you're not alone, your auntie roses here, pay the place for you. And that also says, you can be whatever you want to be, Even if you can't see it, it feels scary, but make it for all the people. It's something so powerful that you can now provide the pages and the words for a little girl, little boy.

In their measuring to get lost in the same way, you got lost in books. And that book will shape them. And I'd love to get into now the books that have shaped you. Oh, that was that lovely. Thank you very much, Rosie Jones. You can say you later. Your first book, Shelby Boot Rosie, is The Colour Purple by Alice Walker. Those of you listening, you can't see Rosie just clutched her pearls.

They've clapped her fist in the air. Set in the deep American South between the wars, the colour purple is the classic tale of Cili. A young black girl born into poverty, segregation. Rape's repeatedly by the man she calls father. She has two children taken away from her. She's separated from her beloved sister Nettie as she's trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous shug, Avery! You love it. Singer and magic maker, a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. Gradually Seeley discovers the power and joy of her own spirit, freeing her from her

past and reuniting her with those she loves. Now, as you said that this was the first book that affected you and made you feel things you had never felt before, what were those feelings? It was the first book that I consumed feeling like an adult. It had incredibly mature and adult themes. I really felt like it was the first time that I really understood them and I felt them and more on a warden history level. I was a little white disabled from shit down.

Yorkshire and I feel like this on my first experience I'm really finding out about a man be care and that hits me." He also said this was a bit of a sexual awakening for you. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember as I said there, I said, I read it at Sigel, but it won't surprise you to know that I was a geek. And I remember we were all given a copy of the colour of purple, and I was like, don't worry about it.

because I'd already gone to the book shop and bought my own 25th year anniversary edition because A, I wanted to make notes on the pages, but I also wanted to read it several times at home I think I read it 10 times in three months I got a name for Rayleigh

about it and so it was one time reading it at home that I really connected to the character of

shrug and silly houses been in this horrendous marriage. Suddenly there was this glamorous woman in her life. Oh my God, too much information But there's a part in the book where she looks at her vulva. She calls it the little button thing. Yeah, yeah. She looked at her vulva in the mirror, and it's incredibly just awakening moment for her.

alongside it. It was a sexual awakening for me and my own body, and even on the pages, Shug is sexy. So it was one of the first times I remember reading. something I'm being like I like that I'm not quite sure

why yeah why is that for I doing fucking gay how much time and that's before you realize why it was that you liked that oh so no I didn't come out

to level 27 because the one year global Piocha, being disabled, you're kind of busy. I was honestly so busy going can I go to uni, can they get a

job, can I go to London, can they live in dependent on, can they believe everybody out at literally? The question, who do I want to shake, was so far away? Which is such a shame. I think that's worrying. I'll keep on myself with a mirror. So yeah, it wasn't, only coming out at 27, that I did go back and learn instances, reading books, reading,

about shug watching Rachel Green on friends and really enjoying them tops it was only then that at 27 when I was so comfortable in myself that I was so comfortable that I went okay let's go out and let's kiss some good the way he just

ran through those questions that you were asking yourself at that stage of your life as an adolescent who do I want to be can I live independently can I get a job these are questions that

I feel really reflected in this book that you know Ceeley is asking in herself, that Shug is asking of Sidi. What Shug does is she shows her the beauty in herself and the beauty in the world around her. Citi gets to see that. She gets to realize her power, step into her life. And it's so interesting that you said you've read it over and over again because saying here, every time I read that book, take something else from it. And the beauty in the world around is something that I find so potent. Alice Walker suggests that perhaps God is

nature. Perhaps God is the universe. Perhaps God is a true saying, look in me, I'm beautiful. So appreciate for a second. What do you see as beautiful in the world around you? Did you take anything from it that made you look just a little bit differently, not only yourself, but also when you look around? Yeah, it's so hard for me because I don't want to say about it. because in many ways our lives could not be more different but I did relate to her because on paper she had enough for life. But the fact that as a character she could still see the beauty in the fact that as a character she could still see the beauty in it all is something that I absolutely related to when I still do and I think for me being disabled, I'd be lagging if I didn't wake up some days when I felt particularly tired when my

I liked her aching because I'm bloody falling over yet again. I'd be lying if I didn't say, I wish I were non-disabled, I wish I was just like everyone else, I wish I was in quotation that's normal. but I think you're stepping back, validating those feelings, but at the same time going. Now look what you do have, look at you, the life you were built due to the choices that you have made. the friends that you've collected and curated, and sometimes it's hard.

It's hard, it's hard in the world that as soon as you turn on a news channel, it looks like the entire world on fire, but I think for everyone it's such a great exercise to step back and give his a beautiful thing in my life. And to laugh. Yeah. Talk to me about comedy. Why comedy? Because

and kill some born it. You know, quick, you're a real full screen, who has written novels and who write stand-up.

Talk to me about the difference between all of these different mediums. Oh, it is an awareness is a great to love. my life and I think growing up being different having people feel awkward around me

feeling a lot of tension when I walked into a room other than that I could use comedy as my defense mechanism and it's such an amazing thing to say to crack a joke and see a person in real time go oh she's all right i like it she can stay she can stay and I think as I grew, comedy grew with me and it's always bitter as that defence mechanism, but at the same time right now we are in need of a good life. I love a joke of. and the fact that I can make somebody's life a day a little bit brighter by giving them a quick joke is everything and I'm very greedy and I love the greedy and I love the fact that I can use comedy and I'm very greedy and I love the fact that I can use comedy and I love the fact that I can use, in my stand-up, in my books, and my scripts.

They're not so different, but the fact that I can give them that out to George in whatever form they want, even podcasts. I love brilliant. Exactly. Here we are. And we move now on to your second book, Shelby book. So we've gone from the first book

that made you feel something to the most recent book that you've read. And it's the list by Yomi Adegoke. Ona, Ola Gile is a high-profile journalist. She's marrying the love of her life in one month's time. That is, until one morning, when they both wake up to the same. same message about the list.

Now it began as a list of anonymous allegations about abuse of men, but now it's been published online. Ola made her name breaking exactly this type of story, except today, Michael's name, her man, is on there. With their future online, Olai gives Michael an ultimatum to prove his innocence by their wedding day, but will the stream of what happened change everything for both of them? What were your immediate thoughts, feelings after to finish in this? Oh, well, did I finish it about three weeks ago now, and it is so interesting and quite uncomfortable at times,

and it really made me think about my place in the world and the media. as a woman coming across misogyny, sexism in the workplace. What as well as that, what I found fascinating was the idea of is there such as a guess one truth? and what happens when one thing happens, but two people have very different experiences of how that event made them feel. Yeah, it's amazing. It's about council culture as well, which, which, you know, which gets thrown around a lot.

Yeah. What are your thoughts on the dangers of media, of the social media and this modern age that we live in? It's very interesting because I feel like I can talk about it as a woman, but also as someone in the media. and first say I saw money in the media. Rightly or wrongly, I think rightly, I am on hire everywhere.

So I'm not on Twitter anymore, but when I was, I was right, a tree and I would read it back like 20 times and I will make sure that I wasn't offending anyone that I didn't want to with. If you were talking, didn't give it shit. That's second guessing. And that high and low that you just mentioned has to be exhausting when you feel like you have this responsibility because of your platform and, you know, others in the past have exploited the power that's been afforded to end by now platform. We know in the comedy world and in many other industries as well.

And on top of all of that, because nuance is so lost online, it can feel deranged out there, right? and I know that there is a lot of tronning, there's a lot of views. How do you, I mean, you just mentioned you, you came off Twitter. How do you protect your energy? How do you look after yourself? How do you deal with it? Sleeperopee! I'm going to join in therapy.

Can I'm Richard not about therapy. Yeah, so I did a documentary last year on channel 4. about trolling online abuse abelism and it was actually that production company that said we are going to be delving into very hard topics let us help you with a favourite issue I think I reacted to reaction and a lot of people out there, we were initially, well, I know, I'm all right, I'm strong, but then going into it, I really found the joy of therapy and talking, and I realized that especially my relationship

with social media was making me increasingly more anxious and I think every comedian gets abused online because, comedy by its nature of it, it's subjective, there's so many people out there who don't find me funny, and that's okay. I mean, they have wronged.

But that is okay, but then when you're a female comedian, get more abuse when you're a female disabled comedian. Christa live! So I have people especially on Twitter every day making comments about what I look like, what I sound like, my comedy, every movement, every word I said. And if I read every single one of them, over time I feel like that would have been incredibly damaging because I was stuck to take it out now.

on and I think like everybody out there I have that day, I have negative thoughts about myself and it's horrendous to think that my deepest worry about myself that I could go. online and have been strangers going. Yes, you know, so through therapy, I have learned to eat, not take that on board, but we also have an incredibly healthy relationship, social media. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction

by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Check out baileys.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. We've talked about how books provide us with this space to walk a day in the shoes of someone else, create empathy.

There would be there for us and to an extent. I think nowhere is that more true than in this next book we're going to talk about, which cliffhanger. Here we are. Isn't this a life? This day. By Haynihani, Anihara, which we're not sure we like. When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college, Willem, J.B., Malcolm and Jude move to New York to make their way, they are broke, they're adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and they darkened and they tinged by addiction, success and pride, yet their greatest challenge is Jude himself.

By midlife, he is an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable challenge. childhood and haunted by a trauma he fears will define his life forever. They've said you're unsure if you like this book, but you've picked it. Why is that? And then like when teachers they begin in literature books for me is art. And you might not look every piece, but if any of a... A book makes you think of video for me. That is a good book and I actually read a little life when I was on holiday alone in Greece.

It's hindsight. Was that a good idea? No. And it's a big book, you're not fitting any others in your back. It's too heavy, you'll be over your 20-15 photographs. I have my suitcase full of bikinis and a little life and that's it. And I really have let it sit with me and I have thought.

thought about it every day since and I think in hindsight, yeah, I did it a little bit and as I said, and as I said, I hated it at times, but I needed it, I needed to read it and I think even there was the Probably the most tragic story I've ever read. It still has moments of joy and happiness. And it turned back to what we were saying of, even in the darkest of times when we were, and the jackets of places that are so much

to be found I very similarly read this on Haldare's in Nigeria of my family and I keep three out of the five books you've picked Rosie are boots that I've cried all planes to so that's about this one I was wailing I was just crying I was wailing and the man next to me where I'm sure it's a lovely story but can you

please be quiet. But you're right, it is devastating. I was angry with Nei Yanukhahad for quite a while because I was like so emotionally manipulating. You're taking by the scrub of my neck and pulling me through this. I can't handle it. But at the centre of it is friendship, yeah?

At the centre of this book, as well as trauma, there is this big love story between Jude and Willem. And while it's not just a book about gay relationships, because that would be very reductive to say that. It is a love story. Yeah. it's about friendship. How much with the complex relationships part of the joy that you took from it, part of why you loved it?

Yeah, that's it. It was a love story that really came at a perfect place in the book when you feel like only to watch for the characters. They have this really authentic friendship love that becomes romantic. But also I think my favourite character in it all was J.B. and just his relationship to addiction and how he basically burns his friendship with their boys, but how he through the other day tries to come back and repair it.

And I just think that is kind of the answer to life really. and we'll come back to it in the later watcher, but it's about all kinds of love, and even in the most horrendous times if you've got a friend of a lover you can lean on, That is a joy to be had in life. You're talking about JV there. Yeah, I'm really happy you did because you're right.

This book is about all the different barriers and obstacles and challenges we face in this little life that we're all just trying to live. We're all just trying to get by and avoid the potholes as much as possible. And I actually read that you've commented before that the barriers that you face in comedy aren't necessarily around being gay or disabled, but they don't know that's the fact that you are women. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's bullshit.

And I remember, I knew that a comedy in 2017. So we were only 127 years ago. but I would regularly enter green rooms where I would be the only woman on the comedy line of. I remember one particular night where I came into the green room, said hello to four male or comedians who glanced at me didn't say hello and they went back to their conversation. It's just rude. Yeah, yeah and then I jocated myself to myself. I went on stage and naturally and they all

I was there for me. I had a great one and I came back in the green room and they were four different men. They were like, all right, how long have you been doing comedy? And at the time I felt relieved that they were told that they were told. they were talking to me, but in hindsight it's like, fuck you. I really don't think if I would have been run, they would wait for me to go out there and prove myself and prove me to be worthy of it. Oh, blend baking to me.

You've got a brandy show, actually, out of order with co-hosts, Catherine Ryan, and Judy Love, who are both so excellent. Yeah. It is insane that it should even feel like a big deal to have three female comedies. You shouldn't even have to say female comedians. Yeah. Three comedians. But what was that dynamic like and what does that mean to have that lighter?

Incredible. And I think one of my very big. doing promo for it, everybody kept saying all female comedy show. And I'm glad they did to because it was the first comedy show where the host and the two team captains for all women. Of course we should celebrate that, but at the same time, it was nothing to do with being a woman, and Comedy Central got me on board as a host, and they were brilliant. and they were like we want you to choose the team captains. And I didn't specifically choose to win.

I chose Catherine and Judy because regardless of gender, they are two of their best kids. media into working in their country right now. Yes. Because of watching their knickers. And but then at the same times when we were filming because me, Catherine and QD were the regular, we kind of set the tone

and the concept of out of order is what it says on the tin we had roses regular and we had the order then according to a question whether that was

who's been fired the most times or who's had the most one night. That's and I think if that concept had been done 10 years ago with a very different host that would probably make us. There is so much of an opportunity to look and to belittle lives to pay for and to make them the book of the joke. And that wasn't a bad battle. I remember that exact one who's had the memory. the most one that stands.

The one with the map was an amazing 70-year-old woman. She's being around looking back. Yeah. Yeah. But she had 3,000 on that sense. And when I revealed that, she said, actually 3,002. Because the last night

and I did a boost and I just think like I said 10 years ago in the other hands that woman would they have been very difficult. But with me, Catherine and Judith we make comedy from it

but always with the notion of yeah you do you do you that's amazing man I mean I could talk about comedy and tone and intention

and what you can't and say what you can't say all the day long. But I think it always comes back to what is that coming from. Is it coming from a good place? Or is it coming from a place of mercury and ridicule? And if it's coming from the latter, goodbye, I'm not bothered with that. Can we give a look that, frankly, lazy attempt at comedy in the 90s? I'm all for lifting, celebrating, embracing everybody

and bringing them all along for their party. It's just like this podcast is about owning our own voices, owning our stories, end uplifting the stories and voices of other women. And I will be tuning in, very few on to another. the plain crying. It's your fourth book,

She'll have a book, which is where the crawed have seen by Telia Owens. She's clutching and fills again. For years, rumours of the Marsh Girl have haunted Berkeley Cove, a quiet town in the North Carolina coast.

So, in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kaya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kaya is not what they say. sensitive and intelligent

she's survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home finding friends in the goals and lessons in the sand then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved where two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty

Kaya opens herself to a new life until the unthinkable happens Okay so let's get into this even thinking about the main character Kaya it makes your heart hurt. You've got your head in your hands. What was it about her that had such a lasting impact on you?

It's interesting and I wrote this and like I said, I thought about this a lot. But I said it's only hearing you read them out together. I'm like, I'm a shocker from a lonely good. I don't know what that says about me, but I'm really again related to care and just how rich understouchy is by the town. And I just look at her and I think actually talking about a lot, I think people would look at Kaya and pity her or see her as a monster or somebody they should fear.

and that's not that character at all, and I think there's been times in my life that people have misunderstood me and pity me or feared me in a way that they didn't know how to interact with me and it's reading a book like where the card that's saying when I go

how about we just all that their conversation with each other before jumping to assumptions You talked about loneliness at the very beginning of our chat about growing up and feeling lonely, not necessarily finding that family, finding that tribe,

that it felt like everyone else was finding. And, Rosie, you've gone into a career that I know from knowing a lot of comedians can be very lonely. How do you find being on the road, stand-up comedy, and the loneliness that comes with that? Yeah, wow. sound, isn't it?

Well, I'm really It is lonely, and you have not chosen the right career of it, but I think you do find your people and I said before that you

I feel like you're not only five friends, you curate your friends, and I'm really conscious of that. And it's basically moving in my duties, and as I get booty, yeah, as my friends, I get better, as my friends, he gets married. children, it's no longer a case of running into a paling the Pope. You have got to make a conscious choice and effort to stay in their life and laying yours. and I'm looking in that aspect of having great friends, a great family. So when I'm on the road, a lot of the time I have pockets I had days up and I feel them with friends or people. but at the same time, you won't believe me, you laugh at me, but it's a growing up that I really understood myself,

and I do my traits of being an intrepair in that I, love people but I do find it draining and that idea of going back at the end of down the day to an empty house to my favourite take away to my favourite TV show to a and you're walking bed. That's what brings me joy and that's what furs me up. So it's that balance

between making time for friends and family to cure that loneliness but at the same. time releasing itself from any guilt. I had it on Saturday. It was my first day off in six weeks and I went,

oh one should see them, oh, I haven't seen them courageous. And then I went wait. wait what do I want to? I don't really want to see them no and I didn't and I got a tiny take away I bought a watch on and I read an entire book in one city

and it was a greatest day I saw quite a few heads nodding in the audience when you talked about curating your friendships because as we get older it is the quantity over the quantity of friends. And this is a book, yes, about loneliness and the importance of human connection. But also, loneliness is not the same as solitude. The power of solitude, you can be on your own and feel amazing. You know, Kaya loves being around the goals and the insects and the nature.

And for me personally, I read this book at a time when I realized that I could be amazing on my own. And I lent into those things, they let into the nature around me. Yeah, it felt good. Yeah. And again, I can't, I probably can't say it without crying, but one of the most powerful part of the book for me is a beginning when K is a child, then, First, up on humble leaves, and then one by one,

her brothers and sisters leave, and she's left. That's a child who came in for her dad, and then he leaves, and she died on the road. And it was interesting that. and didn't feel sorry for it. She, even from a child, had a power to survive. And I think that is the greatest thing about life in that. If you face adversity,

that ideal situation. is that you have friends, family, a partner that is to help you through it. But with the case in that, you are struggling to face it on your own. That resilience is a form of self-love. We've talked about the love of friends, family, romantic love, but at the end of the day, it comes down to loving yourself.

Yeah. And with that, it is time to talk about your fifth and final bookshelfy pick tonight, which is the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reed. She's doing the gun fingers, rap, rap to this. Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon, Evelyn Hugo, is finally ready to tell. the truth about her glowers and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter, Manique grant for the job. No one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? But as Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, as Evelyn's story

nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways. Now, we keep coming back to. to this book. You've described this book as showing love in all its forms. What do you know? Love is at the bottom of everything and it obviously details seven marriages but they're not all what you might expect right? Right. And I'm personally to apologize to my family because I I picked this book up on Christmas Day morning. And then I was like, oh no. And then I don't think I should vote to my family all day.

I just read it in its entirety and looked at it. It had everything that I need from a good story, that idea of Old Hollywood, that idea of Then she knows something for me as the love of your life, one single place she goes for a little bit, comes in so many different forms, and yes, she gets married seven times, but no, They're not the love of her life and that I feel like, yeah, but I don't want to give it away.

There's obviously one romantic love of her life. But even that, I didn't come away thinking about that. I came away thinking about friendship and the man that is by her side to companion. There's a theme of legacy in this as well and what we leave behind to the world, how we're perceived, how we're remembered. Yeah. How would you like to be remembered, Rosie? I wrote her judge Great Commodeon

Greater Bruce Really Good What has been said So I mean that's it immortalized

That's it Among other things as well I mean Yeah Now I say seriously. I think for me it comes

back to joy and it. If one of the people say, oh I'm not about it. She made me happy. She made me giggle. She made me

happy to be here. Yeah, I'd be happy with that. I think that's already happening. I think it's been happening for time. Great, I can die now. And your idiotic-up books, they are, we know making a huge impact on young readers

and on their deception of life of cerebral palsy. What would you like to do next with your writing? Where would you like it to take you? What would you like to leave in the world in terms of writing? 500 books you're done I've been going to write 496

now I definitely want to continue writing my ed books writing more books for children but moving on I want to write books for adults and I don't feel old enough and write right now I wouldn't want to write a memoir or something like that but I do want to step into that but I do want to step into that world and write about disability and what it's like being disabled in the world in the country right now.

So I'll absolutely continue doing my stand up doing my tele-up, doing my tele-doing, doing my acting, but I didn't. I love for the writer and I'm doing the author. Only getting bigger. I love that there is so much more life to live. There's more love to be felt. There's more joy to be found, which is what has come up over and over again, your picks today.

So I know this is going to be a tough question, but just finally, if you did have to choose one book, from your list as a favourite, Rosie Richard, it's via why. I think because I can read it over and over. I say there's seven which bends our baby and sugar because, yeah, for me, it encapsulated love in all its forms. I think that's the perfect way to wrap things up.

Rosie Jones, thank you so much. I have loved. I always love our conversations and I love this one, particularly. Thank you so much, everyone. I appreciate you. I'm Vick Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.