Transcript / LoLT: History Extra Halloween Podcasts and Two New Books — 04 October 2024

This is a transcription of LoLT: History Extra Halloween Podcasts and Two New Books — 04 October 2024

[cheerful music]

Melissa: Coming up, a mystery novel inspired by Hollywood’s Master of Suspense.

David: Non-fiction about the librarian spies of World War II.

Melissa: Plus, our distraction of the week. I’m Mel.

David: I’m Dave. This is the library of lost time.

Melissa: The book I’m talking about today is at the top of my TBR. I have two more books to read for our Strong Sense of Place season, and then I’m all in on Spooky. One second after I turn the final page of my last book set in Seattle, I’m opening the cover of The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel [roble].

Melissa: Here’s the setup: The main character is Alfred Smettle. Right off the bat: Great name! Alfred Smettle is the number one fan of filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. He loves Hitchcock’s films so much, he’s turned a Victorian mansion into a hotel devoted to the director. The rooms are decorated with movie memorabilia. There are film screenings 24/7. And in case that’s not immersive enough, there’s an aviary stocked with a murder of 50 crows. He’s living his best, creepy life.

Melissa: To celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the hotel in the New England mountains, he invites his former film club members for a getaway at his hotel. They haven’t spoken to each other for 16 years. But each of them accepts his invitation… for SECRET REASONS. And then somebody ends up dead. YAY!

Melissa: One: A Victorian mansion in the White Mountains of New Hampshire? Yes, please.

Melissa: Two: In an interview, the author Stephanie Wrobel [roble] said she based her seven main characters on the seven deadly sins. There’s a hedge fund manager, an heir to a luxury clothing company, an entrepreneur, a disgraced restaurateur, and a security specialist. They all sound pretty shady and, therefore, awesome.

Melissa: Three: The narrative POV shifts among the characters, which is one of my favorite author tricks in a thriller.

Melissa: Four: In that same interview, the author said that when the former best friends gather, ‘Hitchcockian chaos ensues.’ I love the word ensues.

Melissa: And five: The first paragraph sets the scene like a screenplay, and all I wanted to do was pretend responsibilities don’t exist and keep reading. Here’s how the book starts:

Let us begin with an establishing shot. A three-story Victorian house stands alone on a hill in the White Mountains. The house boasts a wraparound porch, mansard roof, and bay windows. Despite the building’s age, her shingles gleam, shutters sparkle. In other words, she is beloved. We swoop in through an open window on the third floor to reveal a handsome hotel room. A woman with a face of cracked earth leans against a four-poster bed, watching a man in his thirties survey himself in a pedestal floor mirror.

I twist away from the mirror to face my housekeeper. ‘How do I look?’

Danny takes her time considering me. ‘Like Norman Bates.’

Melissa: That’s The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel. I will start reading it on October 14 if anyone wants to join me.

David: A new book came out last week that immediately got my attention. It’s called ‘Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.’ It’s by Elyse Graham, a professor of English at Stony Brook University.

David: This story starts at the beginning of World War II. The United States government is suddenly in need of a spy network. They realize that they are hundreds of years behind England, France, Germany, and Japan — all of whom have been practicing spycraft since at least the Middle Ages. The US had spies for World War I, but they let them go. Whoops. So, President Roosevelt appointed a man named Donovan to start up what would become the Office of Strategic Services.

David: So Donovan looks at what’s to be done, and thinks, “I’m going to need a lot of smart people. I’m going to need people who can gather and organize a mountain of data. I’m going to need people who can look at that pile, and come up with the useful detail. I’m going to need … librarians.”

David: This book is about the scholars, librarians, and academics who became spies during World War II.

David: The very first page, the introduction, has a story about the recruitment of a professor at Yale in August of 1942. His name is Jospeph Curtiss. He’s at home one night – in his faculty apartment, surrounded by books. When there’s a knock on the door. It’s the head of his department. That’s unusual. Maybe Curtiss is in trouble? … And the head of the department comes in, shuts the windows, looks around, and then tells Curtiss, ‘I need you to visit the Yale Club in New York City tomorrow. Wear a blue suit and a purple tie. You’ll see a man in the lounge who will light, and then quickly put out a cigarette. That man wants to talk to you.’

David: So, Curtiss does what he’s asked. He goes to New York, purple tie, meets the guy. The contact is from the OSS. He needs a Yale professor to say they’re going abroad to acquire books for the library, but actually to gather intelligence. Would he do it?

David: So, I’m reading this, and I’m 98% in for this book. This is tasty. It’s got spies, it’s got librarians, it’s got the 1940s. The writing is lively. Love that she’s starting with this anecdote. And then there’s the next sentence — the sentence that totally sells me. Graham writes, ‘The story that follows is not going to sound like it really happened, but it did.’

David: If you’re like me, and find the idea of World War 2 librarian-spies and their stories difficult to resist, you might enjoy this. It just came out last week. The reviews have been great. It’s ‘Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II’ by Elyse Graham.

David: And now, our Distraction of the Week.

Melissa: I’ve been listening to a podcast that’s keeping me very entertained AND improving my Jeopardy! skills. It’s the History Extra podcast from the BBC. It’s a companion to the glossy History Extra magazine, which I’ve picked up in the UK and love. But the podcast might be even better.

Melissa: The podcast is updated six times a week and there are currently more than 2000 episodes available. They have stand-alone episodes and a few different series, so you can go deep on a particular topic. The conversations are lively and don’t feel scripted, but they’re also focused. These are not two people idly chatting — they have points they want to hit, and they do it all with a ton of charm.

Melissa: On Sundays, they release an episode called Everything You Wanted to Know About… to answer common questions about historical stuff. They ask people on social media and collect the most popular Google searches, then answer those questions about topics like medieval torture, prehistoric stone circles, the 18th-century Grand Tour, stuff like that. One of my favorites is about tartan plaid. Who knew it would be such a fun story!

Melissa: On Tuesdays, they drop an episode of Life of the Week. That series delves into the biographies of fascinating people like Anne Frank, George Orwell, Joan of Arc, Catherine de Medici, Plato. The conversation is usually with a historian or author, and they go beyond the basic bio info to try to get to who these people really were. The producers do a fantastic job of finding experts who are also great at talking.

Melissa: But… I’m telling you about this podcast NOW because it’s Spooky Season. If you want to celebrate the best season of the year, but don’t like to be scared, History Extra has lots of Halloween stories with a historical slant. You get all the legendary creatures and shadowy tales without the jump scares.

Melissa: I just finished listening to a 9-part series on the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts in 1692. The first episode is an overview of just what the devil was going on in Salem Village. Then the other episodes each tackle one aspect of the story, like how events spiraled out of control, the role that Puritanism and a belief in the supernatural played in the villagers’ fears, how the trials went down… and then the last episode puts all the theories together.

Melissa: For more witchy fun, they also have stand-alone episodes about England and Scotland’s last witches, witch hunters, and an episode of ‘Everything You Wanted to Know’ devoted to witchcraft.

Melissa: If vampires are your thing, they have a special episode about Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The discussion covers how Victorian audiences reacted to the story at the time and how it reflects our anxieties now. There’s also an ‘Everything You Wanted’ about Halloween monsters that answers essential questions like, ‘Why do ghosts wear white sheets?’

Melissa: On the lighter side, you could listen to the one about Arthur Conan Doyle, Spiritualism, and fairies.

Melissa: Most of the episodes are hosted by two young women: Emily Briffett and Eillie Cawthorne. They have lovely radio voices and ask just the right questions. The enthusiasm they and their guests bring to the shows is infectious — it’s like eavesdropping on two smart people talking rather than listening to an academic lecture, even though the guests bring that level of expertise.

Melissa: I love it so much. Maybe you will, too. It’s the History Extra podcast. It’s free, and you can listen to it everywhere: Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon Music.

Melissa: Visit strongsenseofplace.com/library for more on the books we talked about today and links to the Halloween episodes of the History Extra podcast that I mentioned.

David: Thanks for joining us on the library of last time. Remember to visit your local library and your independent bookstore to lose some time yourself.

Melissa: Stay curious. We’ll talk to you soon.

[cheerful music]

Top image courtesy of HistoryExtra.