Emily St. John Mandel on SEA OF TRANQUILITY

"I love being immersed in the grand project of a novel. When I was a kid, I was drawn to books about secret worlds, like The Secret Garden, or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe where you disappear to the back of a wardrobe…"

How many times have you re-read Emily St. John Mandel's genre-blending novels Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel? Emily joins us on the show to talk about her latest novel Sea of Tranquility — our April 2022 Barnes & Noble Book Club pick­ — along with what she loves most about writing, breaking the rules of time + space, how character development makes an imaginary world real, the writers and books who inspire her, and more with Poured Over's host, Miwa Messer. And we end the episode with a TBR Topoff segment featuring Margie and Marc.

Featured Books:

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

The Singer's Gun by Emily St. John Mandel

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Executioner's Song by Normal Mailer

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays).

A full transcript of this episode is available here.