Tall And True Short Reads

Season Two: Episode 33 (13 September 2022)

The Last Book That Made You Cry is a blog post from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the post: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/blog/the-last-book-that-made-you-cry.

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

• Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
• Apple Books:     https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
• Rakuten Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead

Episode Insight

As I explained in the Season Two trailer for this podcast, in addition to short stories, I’m expanding Tall And True Short Reads to feature my blog posts and other writing from the Tall And True website.

Fittingly for this first episode of Season Two, The Last Book That Made You Cry was the first blog post I shared on Tall And True in August 2017. And it was inspired by a question posted by Penguin Books Australia on Facebook: What is the last book that made you cry?

Tuesdays with Morrie, Marley & Me, and The Book Thief sprung to mind. Recollections of being “Mr Mom” with my toddler son and of a dear departed dog amplified the tugging of heartstrings over the first two nonfiction tear-jerkers. And an interest in World War Two history and skilful writing by Marcus Zusak had me emotionally invested and weeping reading The Book Thief.

I’ve read many books since 2017. And the most recent that made me cry is another work of fiction, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. I shed tears towards the end and closed the book wanting to know more about the characters. How had their lives played out? And subsequently, I posed this question to Pip Williams in a readers’ event run as part of ABC Radio National’s Big Weekend of Books for 2021.

As I observed in The Last Book That Made You Cry blog post, writers should strive to engage and move their readers to tears of joy — or sadness. Tuesdays with Morrie, Marley & Me, and The Book Thief did this for me, and so did The Dictionary of Lost Words. And, in a further example of a good goal for writers, Pip Williams had me concerned about her characters beyond the book.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Tall And True Short Reads. You can read my short stories, blog posts and other writing at TallAndTrue.com. You can also buy my short story collections from the Amazon Kindle and Kobo online bookstores.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will appear in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, don’t forget to check your feed for earlier episodes from Season One. And follow or subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite listening app. Doing so helps other listeners find us.

And finally, please support this podcast by telling your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

• Page turning: https://freesound.org/people/Kodack/sounds/256475/

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads produced using Audacity. Thanks to Josh (VoiceOverMaster) Meyer for Audacity recording tips and tricks.

Podcast recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

Acast Podcast Supporter Page

Support this show https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.