The actual ending was terrible. Not the mother dying part so much, but resurrecting the whole Ted and Robin thing yet again was just too much for me. This is way, way better.

I don't think her novels are as good as her short stories. I did like The Lowland better than The Namesake, though.

Yeah, I'm really excited for that one. I have to finish The Lives of Others first, though, which is turning into a bit of a slog.

Hobb often stretches her plot over more books than she really needs to; the first book of the Fool trilogy is at least 75% prologue. But I do love her world-building and characters.

I've tried the first book at least three times, and I just get bogged down in all the details. But my husband loves the series, so I keep thinking I'll try it again someday. Hope springs eternal.

I loved Redshirts. So much fun.

And do nannies really curtsy to him? I'm skeptical — that just doesn't sound practical to me, for one thing. "I'm sorry, Your Royal Highness, I'd love to change your messy diaper but I must pause to curtsy first." I doubt it.

Yes, I was taught at a very early age that Heaven was all about praising God all day long. I once scandalized a Sunday School teacher by saying, "No thank you, I'd rather stay here with my Laura Ingalls Wilder books."

I never really got into On Such a Full Sea (probably my fault, not the book's), but The Enchanted is wonderful.

Yeah, I do think that comes out more in the second book.

Sarah Waters is one of my favorite British writers. She is best known, probably, for Fingersmith, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002. She is actually quite a different writer than Mitchell, but because they always tend to be Booker favorites I sort of group them together in my mind.

Extremely so. And also the new Sarah Waters, which comes out around the same time.

I didn't like Goldfinch, but Orfeo is really, really good — one of Richard Powers's best, in my opinion.

Nixonland is fabulous, as is the author's Goldwater book, Before the Storm.

I haven't read a lot of 2014 books, but my favorite so far is Richard Powers's Orfeo.

But anything he says about the inmates is ultimately coming from Piper, so if he slams them then it's going to have negative consequences for her. He talks about, for example, how Piper was sleeping "with one eye open" because Claudette had murdered someone. I haven't seen the scene in a while, but I know at the time…

But isn't part of the point of the show that you pretty much have to be outrageously selfish in prison? If anything, the characters are often less selfish that I would expect in that situation.

Yeah, the show has actually even given Pornstache a moment of redemption. The only character that I can think of with no sympathetic moments at all is Figueroa (the assistant warden).

I also thought it was a deliberate act of revenge. The initial interest in doing the interview was all about his writing career, but I think he said the things he said to cause problems for Piper. I don't think he necessarily thought about how serious the consequences could be for her, but I do think he was being…

I wasn't necessarily wild about this particular article, but I do think the way the real-life Larry dealt with Piper's incarceration was truly impressive.