Ep. 439 Fish Tales by Nettie Jones — The Stacks Book Club (Sequoia Holmes)
The Stacks

Ep. 439 Fish Tales by Nettie Jones — The Stacks Book Club (Sequoia Holmes)

B2Upper-intermediateAugust 26, 20261 hr 5 min

It’s The Stacks Book Club Day, and Sequoia Holmes, host of the Black People Love Paramore and Freshly Pop’d podcasts, is back to chat about our August pick, Fish Tales by Nettie Jones. Set in the 1970s, this dark, satirical novel-in-vignettes follows Lewis Jones, a freewheeling young woman partying her way through NYC and Detroit until her independent lifestyle is upended by her relationship with the handsome yet cruel Brook. In this episode, Sequoia and I discuss the difference between the book’s marketing and its actual content, the distinction between an unlikable character and an anti-hero, and th...

Play episode

Opens the player: the full transcript, every word clickable, with translation and flashcards.

Try it: tap any word

Real sentences from the start of this episode. Every word is marked with its level.

Sentence 1 of 12 · 0:00

.

It was very non-judgmental overall.

Hear this sentence

Tap a word to see its meaning in your language.

Do you know these words?

8 harder words from this episode. Tap one to see what it means, then mark it.

  • B20:41
  • B212:13
  • C217:49
  • B225:49
  • B238:57
  • B246:07
  • C156:48
  • B262:16

Mark a few words and we'll tell you how this episode fits your level.

Is this episode right for you?

B2

B2 · Upper-intermediate

Comfortable if you already follow TV news

A1 47%A2 30%B1 15%B2 8%C1 0%
  • 92% of the words are B1 or easier.
  • 195 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
  • 197 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

Transcript

The opening of the episode. The whole transcript is in the player.

0:00

And that is something that I appreciated about it. It was very non-judgmental overall. You know, like there was no morality around it. There was no, you know, like,

0:09

this is how bad people behave and this is how good people behave. It was literally just a fictionalized, inflated or heightened version of things

0:19

that she has experienced, to my surprise. I was like, girl, you been through this? Yeah. Ah, Nettie, you okay? I literally had to look her up.

That was the opening. The rest of the episode (65 min) is in the player: every word clickable, with translation, saved words and flashcards.

Continue in the player

Automatically generated from the audio. May contain errors. Audio belongs to its publisher and is played from their feed. Rights holders can request removal — copyright & takedown policy