Students from Trinity College Dublin were also featured in the series while filming at the university.

We've included that link in our show notes page, where you'll also find, as always, the full list of titles we talked about in today's episode. This book explores a number of topics including family abuse, consensual and non-consensual sex, mental illness and class differences. There's a fair amount of kind of nonfiction that, you know, didn't require a ton of intensive focus or memory or things like that.And you can always get the Spring Book Preview PDF in our recorded event video even after that date. But when I witness Rooney’s massive hype across the media and internet, I can’t help but chafe against her literary empire’s assumption of relatability and universality—one that is only afforded to white narratives. I just love the way that this book connects a lot of seemingly disparate themes and brings them together in a way that I think a lot of our brains do. And it got you thinking that some starter books that would help you explore like fantasy, sci-fi, mystery could be really promising for you maybe in your near future reading life.

NATALIE: I was just like, these themes sound very interesting, and I understand the themes of empire and like using language, but I was like, how the hell is this going to be a book? For a while, things are ideal and Connell and Marianne's renewed relationship blossoms due to lack of pressure for once. We learn about the experience of her parents immigrating to the States, and how they had to adapt to life in this new country.Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next?

As Marianne and Connell's relationship grows deeper, Normal People becomes as immersive as the book that inspired it, making you both crave and dread knowing—or perhaps more accurately, experiencing—what happens next. The book became a best-seller in the US, selling almost 64,000 copies in hardcover in its first four months of release. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can’t. But I think kind of over the long term, I've just understood now after this experience why having hobbies is so important, because it's just like having time away from where you sort of put the work part of your brain on the shelf and kind of unplug. Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays.Based on Sally Rooney's namesake book, the story follows Marianne and Connell through the later years of their high-school, their years at college, and the post-collegiate restlessness, failing to be what one wished for oneself only years ago. Rooney is a self-proclaimed Marxist, a fact that sits uncomfortably beside her literary empire, and her characters loudly debate inequalities in class and gender, and more rarely race.