Transcript / LoLT: The Uncensored Library and Two New Books — 25 April 2025

This is a transcription of LoLT: The Uncensored Library and Two New Books — 25 April 2025

[cheerful music]

Melissa: Coming up, an otherworldly story collection.

David: A royal imposter vexes Henry VII.

Melissa: Plus, our Distraction of the Week. I’m Mel.

David: I’m Dave. This is The Library of Lost Time.

Melissa: I was just about to start making my notes on a different book for today’s podcast when I found out that Marie-Helene Bertino released a short story collection this week. I’m not exaggerating when I say I gasped. That’s how much I love her writing.

Melissa: For people who’ve been with us for a while, her name might be familiar. Her book ‘2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas’ is one of my favorite books to recommend at Christmas time. It’s set in Philadelphia and all the action takes place on one magical night: Christmas Eve Eve. The heroine of the story is a mouthy fifth-grader named Madeleine who’s hearts desire is to perform at the legendary nightclub The Cat’s Pajamas. And in our recent Strong Sense of Place episode about Outer Space, I recommended the novel ‘Beautyland,’ a sort of magical sci-fi story set in the 1980s about a girl who is convinced she’s an alien. I mean, haven’t we all felt like aliens in our lives at some time or another?

Melissa: That’s one of the things I love about this author’s writing. Her characters wrestle with their feelings of being outsiders, weirdos who don’t fit in with the normies around them. Marie-Helene Bertino write beautiful, lyrical sentences. The words she puts in her heroines’ mouths are laugh-out-loud funny and poignant, often at the same time. She writes stories set in a version of our world that’s been sprinkled with a little absurdity and fairy dust.

Melissa: Which brings me to her new story collection ‘Exit Zero.’ I’ve read half of the 12 stories so far, and they’re delightfully offbeat. The first is a series of observations of ordinary people doing ordinary things that eventually intertwine and call-back to each other. Another one centers on a somewhat jaded event planner who inherits a unicorn from her estranged, now deceased father. In another, a woman’s exes literally rain from the sky, forcing her to confront who they were and who they are now. That one includes the sentence, ‘Sometimes I feel like God’s favorite sitcom.’

Melissa: One of my favorites so far is called ‘Can Only Houses Be Haunted?’ It’s a ghost story about a married couple who spend an idyllic, sunshiny weekend in the country with friends. When they return to their grungy apartment, they realize they’re being haunted by peaches they bought from a road-side market. It’s spooky, for sure. It’s also an exploration of how deeply a couple can know each other — and how that can be wonderful and terrible.

Melissa: This is the scene just before they confront the ghost in their kitchen:

Vig sleeves the crowbar he keeps on his side of the bed, and I take hold of the bat I keep on mine. Armed, we creep down the hallway and stall in fear when we reach the kitchen. Whatever is behind the door overturns a drawer of silverware. Vig straightens, his moth in a serious line. Giving himself a pep talk in the voice of his sixth-grade baseball coach, no doubt, the one who gave him the chance to bat during the only game his mother attended. I know every inflection of that story better than I know certain friends.

Melissa: These stories address the kind of stuff we all deal with — heartbreak, grief, loneliness, awkwardness. The stories are quirky — but not very whimsical. They address dark themes but somehow make me think of candy-colors. They’re set in somewhat mundane locales — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania — and the strong sense of place they’re giving off is the world of the absurd. But it’s also a world of tenderness.

Melissa: I’m finding the stories very readable and entertaining and a little inscrutable, but I like it. By now you can tell if this is for you or not. If you hand yourself over to Marie-Helene Bertino’s imagination, you will be rewarded. This book is Exit Zero, and it’s out now.

David: Jo Harkin released her first novel back in 2022. That was called, “Tell me an Ending.” It’s a speculative sci-fi novel. It centers on a company that’s erases traumatic memories. The book follows four people who each get an email: do you want your traumatic memory restored? It’s twisty and thoughtful and a little unsettling. It’s got some Severance vibes, if you’re into that. That book got a great review from The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times called it one of the Best Science Fiction Books of 2022. Which, you know: first book. Not too bad.

David: Now Jo Harkin is back with her second book. And this one is a hard left turn into historical fiction. This time, she takes a little footnote of history — the story of Lambert Simnel, a boy who was basically used as a pawn in a plot to overthrow Henry VII — and turns it into a novel that’s rich, funny, poignant, and surprisingly contemporary in its emotional depth and its themes.

David: So, picture this: you’re a kid, a boy. You’re just living your normal peasant life. You’re worried about goats or grain or whatever. And then, suddenly, a stranger shows up and tells you that you are not who you thought you were. You are actually someone else — someone important, someone with a claim to the throne of England! And that’s what happens to our main character, John Collan. He’s swept up into an elaborate conspiracy and forced to play the part of Lambert Simnel during the chaotic years right after the Wars of the Roses.

David: There is danger. There are schemes. There are questions of loyalty. But it’s really a human story. Through this boy, we see the experience of being educated as a noble, learning how to ride and hawk, navigating the treacherous courts — and also constantly wrestling with the question: who am I really? Am I a peasant boy, pretending to be an heir? Or an heir who was raised as a peasant?

This book just came out this week. The early reviews have been glowing. One reviewer called it ‘Demon Copperhead’ meets ‘Wolf Hall’ — which feels spot on. If you’re looking for a historical fiction that’s smart, funny, and human — something that shines a light on a little corner of history, you’re probably going to enjoy this. It’s ‘The Pretender’ by Jo Harkin.

David: And now our Distraction of the Week.

Melissa: I don’t play videogames, but I think even people who don’t play videogames have at least heard of Minecraft. And I learned something very cool about Minecraft recently that makes me feel a little better about the world. This is not a new story, but it’s new to me, and it made me feel nice. So now I’m going to tell you about it.

Melissa: First, let’s cover some basics. Minecraft is the best-selling videogame of all time. More than 170 million people play it a month and more than 300 million copies have been sold. So what is it?

Melissa: It’s basically like digital legos but with potions, armor, and enchanted weapons. It’s called a sandbox game. That’s the term for a game where you can wander through a digital landscape, exploring and building as you go. In Minecraft, there are forests, mountains, caves, oceans, and cities to explore. You can gather materials like wood an stone to build your own structures — and if you play the game in survival mode, you have to manage your health and resources while facing down dangers like environmental hazards and monsters. But mostly, Minecraft is about using your imagination and creativity to have fun in an imaginary world.

Melissa: Even if you’re not into gaming, you might have heard about Minecraft recently because the Minecraft movie came out this month. It’s a fantasy-adventure-comedy film starring Jack Black, and so far, worldwide, it’s grossed $723.5 million dollars.

Melissa: I’m telling you all of this so you have the context of how huge Minecraft is. It’s a phenomenon. It’s beloved. And it’s global.

Melissa: Now, here’s the thing I learned that is so cool. Inside the world of Minecraft is a virtual library. It’s called The Uncensored Library, and it’s stocked with hundreds of books filled with articles by journalists from countries where access to information is limited or banned.

Melissa: The library was created and is maintained by a nonprofit organization called Reporters Without Borders or RSF. They built inside Minecraft because the game is available in every country. So players in Russia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Egypt, Brazil, and other countries with censorship have access to articles in their original languages and English.

Melissa: The library was designed by a company called Blockworks. A team of two dozen people from 16 different countries collaborated to build it. Visually, the library’s architecture is neoclassical, based loosely on the British Museum and New York Public Library. It looks like it’s built of white marble. There are domes, columns, and arches. It sits on an island, surrounded by gardens and in the front, at the head of a promenade leading to the front door, there’s an enormous fist raised in the air, clutching a pencil. The designers said they chose architecture that represents power and authority to turn those characteristics on their heads.

Melissa: Inside, players can navigate through the library’s 12 wings, each representing a different country. Censored articles become uncensored books, so it’s a safe space for journalists to share their writing and readers to find it. The site includes instructions for how to republish the content to other servers, so that if any country tries to block access, the books are not inaccessible for very long.

Melissa: The Library also includes digital shrines to murdered journalists, including Miroslava Breach and Javier Valdez from Mexico, and Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Melissa: In 2022, The Uncensored Library won a Peabody Award, the most prestigious media award in the industry. The judges described the Library as ‘a monument to press freedom and an innovative back door for access to censored content.’ They went on to say:

… perhaps the most impressive aspect of the library is the gorgeous artistry and architecture of the spaces such as the section on Russia housing a giant octopus to point to the country’s role in spreading misinformation around the world. It’s this attention to detail that speaks most to Minecraft’s younger audience, and the library has become a teaching tool in K-12 schools and universities around the world. For turning one of the largest digital platforms for youth into a global movement to fight censorship, The Uncensored Library wins a Peabody Award.

Melissa: Visit strongsenseofplace.com/library for more on the books we talked about today and the remarkable library hidden inside a videogame.

David: Thanks for joining us in the Libary of Lost 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 The Uncensored Library.