HARRY JOSIE GILES: I don't think that anyone should come away from this conversation not wanting to use the name Fiona. I think this is a beautiful and rich history. It might not be quite the history that you imagined, but I think it's a beautiful history.
Read moreAllusionist 165 Fiona part 1 transcript
HARRY JOSIE GILES: Fiona is a name I think now that still has a slightly romantic, slightly historical Scottish feel. I think everyone thinks it's an old Scottish name, but it's not an old Scottish name!
Read moreAllusionist 151 The Bee's Knees transcript
“There's a town in Quebec called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, which apparently has the Guinness World Record for most exclamation marks in a town name. Which is two.”
Read moreAllusionist 85. Skin Story - transcript
HZ: Thirteen or so years ago, I met a friend at a pub, and she had someone with her who had a tattoo on her elbow of the word ‘cuticles,’. An unusual word to see as a tattoo - unlikely to be the name of a loved one or a birthplace or something. And also it wasn’t just the word ‘cuticles’, it was ‘cuticles’ followed by a comma.
SHELLEY JACKSON: With a piece of punctuation attached, you can really tell that it must be part of something else.
HZ: She was part of something else: The Skin Project, a story, 2095 words long, and each word tattooed on a person.
Read moreAllusionist 82 A Novel Remedy transcript
When you’re not feeling well, which books do you turn to to make yourself feel better?
I asked this question on the Allusionist Facebook and Twitter, and hundreds of you responded, but a few answers came up again and again:
Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, JRR Tolkien.
Makes sense. Science fiction, fantasy: what’s more escapist?
Jane Austen. PG Wodehouse.
Also escapist, thanks to period setting - and, rich people problems not health problems.
Things you read when you were a child: Moomins, What Katy Did, Anne of Green Gables…
Taking you back to a time in your life that perhaps felt safer, or simpler...
...Harry Potter.
Boarding school shenanigans! Wizard problems not real life problems!
And, Agatha Christie.
Poison! Gunshots! Stabbing! Hang on, why would stories about murder make us feel better?
Well, they’re kind of supposed to make you feel better.
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