(bright music) - I wanna put this out there, that not only can women help each other the way Frankie does in the end, but women can help each other along the way, and I think that's a sort of a vital message.

(bright music) - Well, hi, and welcome to the PBS Books Readers Club.

- Today we're thrilled to have author Kristin Hannah with us to discuss her number one bestselling book, "The Women."

- In "The Women," Kristin Hannah delivers a heart wrenching and powerful story of love, sacrifice, and resilience.

Following a young nurse, Frankie McGrath, as she is thrust into the chaos of the Vietnam War, only to return home to a nation that refuses to acknowledge her service.

- With vivid storytelling and deep emotional intensity, this gripping novel explores the bonds of friendship, the cost of war, and one woman's journey to find her voice in a world determined to silence her.

- It is the perfect pick for Women's History Month, as is our PBS Watch Alike this month called "The Midwife," which highlights the profound impact of nurses, midwives, and nuns on London's East End throughout the 1950s and into the 1970s.

- Hi, I'm Fred Nahhat here with Lauren Smith; the Princess Weekes, our literary expert and author; and Heather-Marie Montilla, librarian and PBS Books' national director.

- And of course, we also want to know what you think, share your thoughts on "The Women" as you watch along.

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- Alright, so let's talk about Kristin Hannah's latest book, "The Women."

What'd y'all think?

- I really just appreciated getting the female perspective on this war.

You know, Vietnam is something, especially for my generation, I've always learned as being this tragic period.

And it does usually focus on the men that came back and were, you know, treated poorly and dealt with so many mental and physical issues.

But you don't often think about the trauma that the nurses would've to deal with, seeing those men being the last people to comfort them and see them.

And as someone whose mother is a nurse in hospice, I could really understand from just hearing my mother talk about her own experiences.

So it felt like it really blended in the things that our health providers are always dealing with, which is being there at our most vulnerable.

So that Was just really poignant for me.

- Yeah.

I love this book.

I couldn't put it down.

It was something that I just wanted to read more and more, and the characters are so well developed.

It exposes so many and delves into so many different aspects of what someone who has experienced trauma, how it affects everything.

And it becomes, you know, everyone around them is affected by the trauma of war, but then also how you live on and how you find your way.

Kristin Hannah did an amazing job with this book.

- Yeah, and I'm curious to ask her, she wrote in her author's note something about wanting to have written this book a long time ago, but just not feeling like she was emotionally mature enough to write it.

I can't wait to get her perspective on that.

- Yeah, that's a good point.

- Well, the Vietnam War, of course, was part of my childhood, and so what I appreciated about this is it's like, come for the hearts and minds.

Stay for the moral relativism.

What we're used to experiencing is young people against older people for the war, the way she gets into the characters and the conflict within the family all being pro-war.

That was interesting.

She also captures these slices of life that I remember, the butter and sugar sandwiches, which I remember, the playing cards, and the spokes of our bicycles as we rode around smiling.

The things that I had to reconsider as she's doing in this book all these years later about the conflict really, really stuck with me.

Not the least of which, if anyone's been in a hospital or had a loved one there, you know that nurses are your lifeline.

So, so important.

- Yeah, and all the detail that she captured, I mean, it brought every scene to life.

Like you said, some parts were difficult to read, right?

- Absolutely.

- But couldn't stop.

I read this book while I was up north in, we call it up north in Michigan.

We're up north with my family and I'm just sitting in the corner and the kids are playing and I'm just weeping in the corner.

I was like, "Are you okay?"

I'm like, "It's just this book.

It's so good."

It's really, really good.

And all those little details made it come to life.

And from a woman's perspective, those little bits of like compassion and humanity and care, things that you might not think matter, like the lotion on the hands.

Like little things like that just brought this story to life for me.

- And to Fred's point, I think that Frankie's just a perfect protagonist for this story because you're seeing her naivete get reconstructed into this desire to just do good.

You know, to see her not crumble under the circumstances, to find the humanity in everyone.

And I think it would've been so easy to make her end up a cynical person at the end of it, but I think it really spoke to the way in which even something that you may politically disagree with, the humanity of the people who still felt called to serve or try to do their best in that situation, I think she really understood how to navigate that line.

And I think especially in like our world of history, of having just gotten out of a long war of the lessons that we are still trying to learn about how to serve and be human in the process.

- And what a journey Frankie goes on in terms of character development.

The person she is in the beginning.

- Yeah.

So different.

- There's pieces of her heart that stay with her that she takes along with her, but I mean, what an arc for her.

- Well, but also in the author's notes, it talks about all of the research, the people she spoke with, how she wanted to get it just right for these women and tell this story, tell an under-heard story.

Like, I didn't know this story.

I didn't know there were women in Vietnam who were nurses.

I guess I hadn't thought about it.

For her to do this, it's really a gift to us because if you don't learn history, it will repeat itself.

And to understand the role women played and then what they were faced with, that they had no place to go when they came back.

- Well, the roles they played all with the lack of validation, which was absurd, so valuable in the book.

And of course, like you said, a perfect pairing with "Call the Midwife" here on PBS.

So much to discuss with Kristin Hannah.

But first, let's talk about how you can join the conversation.

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- Book Clubber are also loving the official PBS Books Readers Club mug.

Oh, just like the one we have on set, and there's actual water in there, so I should be a little careful.

My weekend is booked, which is very true for most of us, almost every weekend.

And when you become a member of your local PBS station, you'll also get access to PBS Passport, which includes full seasons of incredible shows like this month's watch alike "Call the Midwife."

If you love stories of remarkable women in history, like those in "The Women," believe me, you'll love this show.

Let's take a look at what's happening on the upcoming season of "Call the Midwife" on PBS.

- You're a mother to be, and I'm your midwife.

The more you tell me, the more I can help you.

(dramatic music) - The Board of Health have declared war on Nonnatus House.

- What are we going to do, Sister?

- [Sister] We are going to fight back.

- This is our place in the community.

- [Trixie] We are gonna do this together.

(dramatic music) - And now let's turn the page to our book pick for this month, "The Women," and let us welcome in our guest author, Kristin Hannah.

Welcome to the PBS Books Readers Club.

- Thank you.

It's wonderful to be here with you guys today.

- Well, thank you for joining us, Kristin, we were all deeply moved by your book.

In the author's note, you say that you've been wanting to write this for a long time, but didn't feel you had the skill or maturity to achieve your vision.

Where did the idea come from to start and how did it finally come to be after all these years?

- Well, it's true.

I first pitched this book to an editor in 1997, so that's a good long time ago.

And I think it's because, I was a child during the Vietnam War, and my best friend, my third-grade best friend, her father was a pilot who served in Vietnam, and he was shot down and was lost.

And so as you read in the book, back in the day we wore these bracelets in memory of the missing soldiers.

And so I started wearing it at like 10 or 11 and wore it for probably 20 years.

And it had his name on it and the date he was shot down.

And so he just stayed in my mind, year after year after year.

And so many of my friends' fathers were coming home from the war.

And so I was seeing how the veterans were treated when they came home.

And it all just made this really strong impact on me as a child.

And so I just have been interested in it for a long time.

But it was very clear that for a long time the country wasn't ready to read about Vietnam either.

And so I was waiting for this perfect moment of me being ready to write it, me being sort of mature enough and old enough to write it, and me sensing that it was the right time to put what I felt could be an important book out into the marketplace - When writing a novel based on historical events, research is essential to capturing accuracy and authenticity.

How do you approach that process?

And were there any real stories you uncovered that deeply resonated with you?

- Yeah.

I mean, I've been writing historical novels for a while now, and I will say that reading the nurses' memoirs and even the male veterans memoirs of this time period was some of the most difficult research I've ever had to do emotionally.

And I think, again, because I grew up during this era and because I knew that people who had served in this war would be reading this novel, I felt sort of an added layer of responsibility to get it right and to tell this story, I think in sort of an accurate and also emotional and captivating way.

- Were there parts of Frankie's story or character inspired by someone or something specific you found in your research?

- Frankie was very much a creation of the totality of the research.

I really wanted to create this nurse who was very, like a lot of the nurses whose memoirs I had read and whom I had spoken to during the research phase.

And they had a lot in common.

Of course, they were all different.

Everybody has their own story.

But it was very common in that era at that time that the women who were volunteering were young, they were fresh out of nursing school.

They tended to come from patriotic families, and of course they were the children of the greatest generation.

And so they had grown up on stories about their parents or grandparents service in World War II.

And so those kinds of things were so common that that was sort of how Frankie began.

And then I chose to make her a girl from a young woman, from a conservative and well todo family, primarily because I wanted to take the most innocent woman possible and throw her into the fire of war and see the transformation that came from that.

- You used such fine details to really set the reader in the 1960s and 70s from clothing styles to specific music and largely gender roles.

Can you talk about how you approached weaving these historical elements into your story and how they shaped the characters' experiences and identities during that time?

- Yeah, I mean, going back to who these young nurses were, I mean, these were young women who had come of age in the late 50s.

And so had grown up in a very conservative era where gender roles were very firmly set.

And one of the things I heard over and over again from these women were even if they went to college, they were really expected to get married and have children.

That was sort of the path that they were supposed to be set on by their parents and their community and their church and the people around them.

And it was really the 60s that began the blowing apart of these normative expectations.

And so I just found that really, it was interesting.

And one of the most interesting things about the sort of Frankie arc is she really almost leaves one world and comes home to a completely different world.

You know, she's there 68, which is really sort of the epicenter of change in America.

And so she came home and especially the people her age were dressing differently, thinking differently, talking differently.

And so that really even more deeply, I guess, sort of separated her and the other veterans from the people who hadn't gone to war.

- Well, Kristin, like you, I spent my years during the Vietnam War riding my bike around with baseball cards in the spokes.

I ate butter and sugar sandwiches.

You captured all of that essence so, so perfectly to my memory.

But then these characters you've developed, a woman put together with vodka and hairspray, at least at the beginning, not being allowed to be on the honor wall and the development of Frankie's character is captured in this dynamic with her mother and father and Finley of course.

How did you go about writing such distinct characters?

- You know, honestly, it's kind of, that's the alchemy of writing.

The characters that I ultimately create are not necessarily exactly who I set out to create.

I have a good, strong feeling in my mind, and I begin that.

And of course, like you said, vodka and hairspray, I don't know if I said that or you said that, but that's amazing.

But trying to show the world, and I think what we writers do is use the specific to sort of create the universal so that we all understand the kind of family that we're talking about, the kind of women that we're talking about.

And it's those specific details that are really fun to create.

And they create themselves more and more over the editorial process as you see what a character needs to be to tell the story that you're trying to tell.

- Vodka and hairspray was definitely yours.

Definitely yours.

- It was?

Oh, that's great.

- Nice work.

Nice work.

So this book was an intense read in some moments.

Were there any particular scenes or chapters that were especially difficult to write?

How did you get through it?

- There were a lot.

Both during the war, I would say during the war, the intense scenes where they're doing surgery while they're being shelled.

And I remember in reading one of the research books where they're doing an operation during all of this, and the power goes out and the lights go out and they have to drop to the floor, and they're doing the surgery lying on the floor.

I mean, moments like that were so amazing.

And then there were napalm sections, there were some really difficult things to write.

But it was almost more difficult in a way to write the second half of the novel, which was about Frankie coming home and having to deal with undiagnosed, untreated, unaccepted, PTSD.

And seeing how difficult it was for these vets to come home and be scorned for their service and not be helped by veterans administrations, and in some cases even their families.

That was really difficult.

And so because I had loved Frankie so much, and I felt so deeply that she was heroic and courageous, and then you have to see that this person is brought low by this experience and has to fight almost a second war to regain her sense of self.

- Frankie faces, blatant dismissal and misogyny from even the VA doctors, her parents, those who should be supporting her.

And those moments were just deeply infuriating to read.

And I'm guessing inspired by the real stories from women that you research.

I would wonder if you could speak to the experience of like, reading and uncovering those stories, and were you surprised by how blatant and toxic that environment was for these women coming back?

- Yeah, I mean, that's such a great point.

I remember in reading about it, and in talking to the women while I was in my research mode, I kept hearing and reading the sentence, "There were no women in Vietnam."

And I was so stunned by that.

I kept thinking, "That's gotta be an exaggeration.

That's gotta be the way this woman felt in that moment.

But not necessarily a universal response."

Because like I say in the book, I mean, people were watching "M*A*S*H," we all know that there were nurses in World War II, in Korea.

I mean, we've known since Florence Nightingale and before that nurses went to war.

And so I didn't wanna use this sentence, I didn't wanna go that far because I was afraid I was going to be wrong basically.

And then last year I went to the 30th anniversary of the women's Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC and saw the nurses gather there.

And I just asked them over and over and over again, is this true?

Was this your experience?

And the number that said, they were told at some point there were no women in Vietnam, was just overwhelming.

- The ultimate gaslight.

- Yeah.

- It really is.

It really is.

But as one nurse said to me, what she said to people who said that to her, other male veterans, by the way, who said there were no women in Vietnam, her comment was, "Well, if you didn't see a woman, you were lucky, that you weren't in a hospital."

- And that made it to the book, if I recall correctly.

- Yeah.

- This book included so much trauma.

But one thing that really resonated with me was the discussion and the occurrence of miscarriage.

As someone who's experienced my own miscarriage, the relationship between Frankie going through it, but also speaking to her mother about it, and the mother talking about the locket and sharing the locket.

If you could talk a little bit about that, because as someone who's gone through it, I thought it was such a beautiful addition to the book, but then also to see, and the discussion of Agent Orange and how that also probably played a role.

Could you discuss that overall?

- It's really the Agent Orange connection that encouraged me to put that storyline in in the first place.

Because I mean, that's one thing I'm seeing with the nurses now with the Vietnam vets in general, the death to cancer and the cancer-related issues caused by Agent Orange are just devastating.

And I wanted it to be something, a really personal price that Frankie paid and in direct relation to the life that she expected to have as a wife, as a mother.

It's sort of in losing that, there's this sense of losing oneself.

And I think in terms of the relationship with she and her mother, it's something that I'm really, especially as I get older, that I'm so interested in saying in the way that I have, which is through novels, which is that women need to talk to each other, and these issues need to be exposed to the light of day so that we can all understand how normal they are, how painful they are, so that we can reach out to each other.

And sort of the hallmark of Frankie's relationship with her mother, primarily, but her parents was one of not talking, of not speaking about the things that matter.

In fact, it isn't until the very, very end of the book that her mother asks the first question about Vietnam.

And I like to sort of hope that the reader understands that that's the cracking open of a door that hopefully will allow for an exchange of life experiences that we all need to talk about.

- I thought it was so compelling, because you already write such strong female protagonist, but in this book, in addition to Frankie, we also have her two friends who really help her get through the entire war itself, the post-war process, and encourage her to stay an extra tour because she sees other young women coming in needing that kind of guidance.

So I wanted to just talk about the role of that kind of sisterhood and comradery in the war, and what stories that you were hearing from these nurses about how they helped each other get through that period together and afterwards.

- Yeah, I mean, I really think that the beating heart of "The Women" is the female friendships.

That is, I think that's the most powerful emotional part of the book.

The fact that these women who probably would never have met under ordinary circumstances, who wouldn't have been friends, form this bond that lasts a lifetime.

And I think we're all used to seeing this kind of comradery among men at war, but seeing it with women is a little bit different.

And with these particular three women who continually go out of their way post-war to keep this friendship going, to continue to be there for each other.

And I just think that as we get older, it is so important to understand how much we rely on our girlfriends, how much we need them there.

I mean, we were just talking about miscarriage or something, that's the exact kind of thing that you need a girlfriend to help get you through that you are able to talk to.

And in referencing last November when I went to the women's Vietnam memorial and saw these nurses that were probably 150 of them from Vietnam era at their memorial, telling their stories at a podium and hugging and seeing, you know, each other maybe for the first time in 30 years, but you could tell instantly this bond that they had formed and how much it meant for each of them to be standing there with all of them.

- What are some of the reactions you received from this book?

And were they what you expected and wanted out of such a deeply inspired work that you've done?

- Well, you know, as I think I said earlier, I knew that this book had the potential to be important and to get a lot of conversations going that I think are long overdue.

But even so, I was worried, and I didn't know if people were ready even to read about Vietnam, let alone the women who had served there.

And so it was absolutely sort of awe inspiring to see how much readers responded to this, how much the nurses and their children and even the male vets.

And I've gotten so many comments from people that said, "You know, this book got me to talk to my dad."

"This got me to talk to my mom."

And that's something I'm always looking for sort of in life, is to write material that gets people talking within their own families and their own communities, so that these lost stories of not just women, but any marginalized stories are brought to the fore and are talked about because remembering matters.

I think, I mean, that's one of the fundamental tenets of the book, is that it really matters that we care about each other's stories and we thank each other.

- Kristin, we're amazed at all you've accomplished so far in your career, "The Women" certainly, but also the "Nightingale," "The Great Alone," "Firefly Lane," "The Four Winds" and so many more.

Do you ever feel a sense of pressure to meet reader's expectations?

Or do you write solely for yourself?

- You know, unfortunately, the truth is that I write solely for myself.

And the minute I finish the book, then I start feeling the pressure of connecting with readership and will people like this book, and it's too late to do anything about it.

So I really have to just hope for the best.

I'm aware, I guess, of my readership, obviously I've been doing this a long time, but I really just think that novels about really strong women finding their voice is just something that women, and now men, love to read.

And I'm lucky because that sort of is what I do naturally.

- Well, I work in a library and I can tell you that always people come in looking for your books and finding the one they haven't yet read.

But having said that, can you talk about if your writing has changed over time and what have you discovered about yourself through your writing journey?

- Well, of course, my writing has changed over time.

It's been a long time.

I like to think I've gotten a lot better.

I really feel like my writing journey is the journey of my womanhood, honestly.

My growing up.

You know, I started, my early books were about falling in love.

My sort of middle books were about young wifehood, young motherhood, trying to balance at home.

You know, I was both an at home mom and a working mom, so trying to balance all of those things.

And then the discovery at about 40, that girlfriends were a huge part of what I needed to have around me all the time.

And so I started looking at those relationships more closely.

And then at around 50, I started thinking about, this was empty nest years.

I started thinking about women in general and women of a certain age and our place in history.

And that's when I started getting angry actually, that so many of our stories have been erased from the historical landscape.

And so I've started to, or I've spent the last 15 years, just writing about sort of women at pivotal times in history and what we were doing and how important our contribution was.

So, we'll see where it goes from here.

- That's so interesting.

It seems like you said, it's a growing up period.

It's like your worldview starts very much like myself then falling in love, then it expands to your family, your community, and then the larger world.

It's like you just expand as you get older.

I think that's so beautiful.

- Well, yeah, and this is, I guess more of an observation than a question, but women's contributions being forgotten, particularly the Vietnam War, the real pain in the forgetting was that Frankie came to this very patriotic family, and yet even they didn't recognize her service.

- Yeah, I was shocked at how often I heard that story, that women who had served and gone to war and come home and had been, their families were either embarrassed by them or angry at them.

And of course it depended on where you live.

California, of course, it was a more difficult place to come home to than maybe some other places where a higher percentage of your community served or whatever.

But yeah, it's an interesting phenomenon and heartbreaking, and it didn't really change, you know?

I mean, I think that's one of the things that the book has shown is there are all of these stories out there that people have been waiting to tell.

- Your book gave us so much to think about and to talk about.

And it's opened up a lot of conversations.

So we thank you for that.

We also wanna help people get to know you a little bit better.

Did you always know that you were a writer or did that realization come later in life?

- No, I mean, I never wanted to be a writer, actually.

And I've thought about that a lot.

I think it's because I would've said that somehow you had to be special to be a writer, that somehow you would have some stories burning inside of you, and you would be the kid who started writing stories in kindergarten and never stopped.

I was just a huge reader.

I come from a family of huge readers.

And so the way it all started was when I was in my third year of law school, my mom was at the end of her battle with breast cancer.

And so she was dying in the hospital, and I went and talked to her one day, and of course being 26 or 5, whatever I was, I was complaining about my life and how difficult law school was and blah, blah, blah.

And my mom said, "You know, don't worry about that.

You're gonna be a writer anyway."

And that had literally never come up.

And so somehow we decided in that moment that we were going to write a book together, the two of us.

And of course, being mother and daughter, we immediately started arguing about what kind of book we were gonna write.

I wanted to write a horror novel because these were my Stephen King years, and she wanted to write a historical romance.

And so ultimately she said, "I'm sick, I pick, we're writing historical romance."

And so we did.

So every day after law school, I would go to the library and cull information, and we came up with what we believed was a genius plot, which was as far from genius as you can possibly be.

But we came up with this story and I did all this research, and we would sit and talk about it.

And then after she passed away, I just put all this in a box and ignored it.

I had no interest in being a writer still.

So, I passed the bar, started working in a law firm, but now I was secretly reading historical romances and they were... - Secretly like under the covers with your flashlight on (laughing).

- And they were so hope filled.

And I think, just following the loss of my mother and being in love for the first time, and all of these things came together to really make an impact on me.

But then I didn't do anything with it.

And several years later when I got pregnant, I had a difficult pregnancy and I was bedridden for most of it.

And so my husband came in one day and said, "Hey, what about that book that you and your mom were gonna write?"

And I thought, "Huh, I'll write a book.

How hard can it be?

I've got like seven months to do it."

So I just started, and that was sort of the beginning.

And then once I, of course had my son, I just wanted to be an at-home mom for a while.

And so I thought to myself, "I'm gonna give this until kindergarten, and if I can finish a book and write one, then I'll be a writer.

If not, it's a pretty good cocktail conversation.

I'll go back to the law."

So that's my origin story.

- It's very full circle.

It started with your mother and sort of catapulted with your baby.

I think that's really cool.

Like mother and motherhood launched you into being a writer.

That's awesome.

- Love the origin story.

Love the defining moment or moments, obviously preordained that you would be a writer even if you didn't quite know it yet.

But moving into it as vocation, which must be so rewarding, what is it that you do for fun?

- Ah, well, now I guess I travel, I read, hang out with girlfriends, hang out with family.

I have a lot more time these days, and I still write for fun.

I mean, I really do.

In fact, a couple of years ago when a really close family member got cancer, I gave up writing for a year because I thought, "Okay, I need to be present all the time."

And one of the problems with being a writer is you can be present and not present at the same time.

You're like, your mind is somewhere else.

And so I gave up writing for a year, and it turned out that that was really the worst thing I could have done because writing is my safe and happy place.

It's the place I go where I control the world.

And I think it's how I deal with stress.

So it turns out to be a pretty good thing for me all the way around.

- That is so fascinating.

Well, when you are reading for fun, do you prefer a physical book, an e-reader or an audio book listen?

- You know, all of the above is the easy answer.

There were days, years and years ago, of course, where you'd have to have a whole carry on bag just for your books if you were going on an extended trip.

So now of course, when I'm on travel, or touring or whatever, I have a device and I read that way.

But in a perfect world, given my choice all the time, I love the feel of a hardcover book.

That's my personal choice.

- Agreed.

- I remember when I went to college, I had such separation anxiety from leaving my books behind.

I was like, "I can't take all of you."

I was like, "But I've curated them so well."

(everyone laughing) - Well, Kristin, everyone around this table knows I am a huge audio book fan.

Now, what was it like to have such a prolific audio book narrator, like Julia Whelan read the audio book?

What's the behind the scenes?

Do you collaborate with her on the production and how does it all come out in your case so spectacularly?

- Well, the reason it comes out so spectacularly is because Julia is just a major talent.

She's remarkable.

I remember the first time I actually sat next to her an event and they asked her to do a reading because I don't really do readings, and she just moved instantly into these voices and watching her work, it was just remarkable.

And I know that she has said that my books could be for her because she can't reveal any of the emotion that the words are causing her.

So she sometimes has to leave her little studio and go sit down and have a cup of tea and then come back and try to finish the scene.

And I've been at events where her fan base is just rabid.

- What is your ideal writing setup?

Are you a morning person, a night owl, or somewhere in between?

- Well, I still write longhand on yellow legal pads.

- You do not.

- I do, I do, I do.

- It's very impressive.

- And the reason I do that is I can write anywhere, anytime.

And so I wrote a good chunk of "The Nightingale" sitting on the beach in Hawaii, and I can write on airplanes, I can write wherever I am.

So my ideal place is a comfortable chair... - Hawaii on a beach.

- With the sound of ocean in the background.

- Do you have any writing rituals or must haves when you're working on a new book?

- I'm not really a ritual candle-lighting kind of girl, actually.

To me, it's very much a job.

I absolutely love it.

I think it's the best job in the world.

But, you know, back when I was a lawyer, I didn't get to need anything to do my job other than to show up.

And I think that is still the best advice.

If you want to do something and do it well, you sit down, you show up, you give it 110% day after day after day, and that's pretty much what I do.

- Well, you said you were a long time reader, always loved reading in your family.

Do you have a favorite book from your childhood?

- Well, early childhood is, I'm gonna go with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Teen Years, absolutely, "The Lord of the Rings."

That's the one that sort of stays with me.

I'm a geek girl from way back.

And I, honestly, I think people ask me about that all the time.

I really think my love of fantasy, epic fantasy, has contributed to the way I world build in historical fiction.

I'm very intensely interested in creating the world that I want you to inhabit.

That goes back to our conversation about detail.

And so I do credit my geek girl years for that.

- Love that.

So I have a "Lord of the Rings" sweater that I'm just waiting to bust out.

I'm waiting for the perfect time.

Also a huge nerd.

- I'm getting my "Lord of the Rings" tattoo in like three months.

I can't wait.

Actually, that's my birthday gift to myself.

- (indistinct) Send us a picture when you get... - When they did the "Firefly Lane" TV series on Netflix, I went to the table read, and there's a 13-year-old girl in there who was very much my childhood, my youth, and I was sitting at the table and the director said, "I've talked about this character who I'd sort of modeled after myself."

And he said, "So she's like the ultimate nerd."

And I said, "Is she?

I don't think so."

And he said, "She reads 'Lord of the Rings,' she's a nerd, so."

- I think that's cool.

My husband read "Lord of the Rings" to us when I had my like first baby.

And so I would like have him be explain this so much.

- Gotta be feeding.

Baby feeding him.

- Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

I'd be feeding little baby and we would just be listening to "Lord of the Rings."

I think it's like ingrained into his little baby brain.

- That's perfect.

- Yeah.

- He's gonna have a noble heart because for Aragorn to be like your first hero, you're gonna be okay.

(everyone laughing) - We hope so.

Kristin, what are some of your favorite reads that you've read in the past year?

- Oh, let's see.

What have I read in the last year?

Mostly, I've been reading an awful lot of research at the moment for my next book.

Like everybody else, I read "God of the Woods" and really enjoyed that.

I loved a book called "I Cheerfully Refuse" by Leif Enger this year, and I'm reading the new Isabel Allende right now and loving it.

- What is the best advice you've ever received?

Either about writing or anything else?

- Just life.

- Yeah, exactly.

- You know what?

I talked about this earlier, the best advice on anything is show up and do your best every day.

And you know that the only way that you fail is to quit doing something that you love.

And I'm often asked, aspiring writers, "What do I do?

How do I get started?"

And my answer is always the same.

You have to actually begin, and then you have to continue doing it, day after day after day.

And it never really, it gets easier sentence by sentence, but it doesn't get easier book by book.

- From your own works, what character has stuck with you?

- So my two favorite characters, I believe are Frankie from "The Women."

I love Vianne from "The Nightingale."

And there was a character from long, long ago, a book called "Magic Hour," Alice, a feral child, a feral 6-year-old child who stays with me.

- Kristin, if there's something that you hope readers take away from "The Women," what would that be?

- I mean, I hope that, there's just so much about this book.

I hope that it starts conversations among families and women.

I hope that it reinforces this idea that friendships are important and that they need to be maintained.

Because we all know, especially you guys were talking when we're young mothers, when we're working women, it's really hard sometime.

We all move away.

We live in different places.

I mean, now there's the internet, which of course helps, but it's still, friendships require time and care like a marriage.

And so I wanna put this out there, that not only can women help each other the way Frankie does in the end, but women can help each other along the way.

And I think that's a sort of a vital message.

And I think also this sort of idea that we as parents need to support our children in whatever they choose to do and whoever they choose to be in their journey.

- Well, I will certainly take that advice to heart.

- Absolutely.

- Thank you very much.

Finally, Kristin, anything you'd like to say to your readers?

- Oh, thank you.

I mean so much for, again, for showing up.

Thank you for taking your time to read my books.

I mean, it means the world to me.

And thanks for showing up to my events, which is really great.

- And thank you for showing up here.

We'd love to hear what you think about "The Women," so pop that into the chat.

We love to respond and read to all your comments, so please do that.

Kristin, thank you so much for joining us today.

- Thank you so much, you guys.

- Well, you think of Kristin Hannah as being a really big deal, and she is, but she was so generous and open with her heart and her stories.

I loved talking to her.

- And I just love how she talked about her own evolution as an author and all these different phases of womanhood that she experienced.

And how that has really developed her style and what she focuses on as an author.

And I think bringing voice to unheard women is so important.

I mean, that was something that we did with "Margaret..." "Margaret Fuller" - Yes.

- Last year.

And I think it's just this amazing continuation of the importance of the novel and what it can bring to stuff.

Like biographies are great, but I think that human story, that narrative is just so important to understanding our past.

And I really walked away from this book really thinking about a lot of things I hadn't thought about before.

- And a lot of tears, I don't know.

I don't always cry when I read books, but this one really got me in a lot of places.

But I couldn't stop reading it.

- Yes.

- It was really excellent.

- I think the importance of female friendships and also parenthood, those are two of my biggest takeaways.

I think parenthood is so hard and trying to like look at Frankie's mother's perspective and father's perspective, and how even the father wanted to heal, but he was also from a generation that they didn't really say they were sorry, right?

And so for her to be able to weave all of that into this beautiful book and also have so much history, and it was incredible.

I loved it.

I really did.

- First, a couple of footnotes.

Number one, Barry Sadler wrote "The Battle of the Green Beret."

- Oh, thank you.

- Which was a song they played on record players when boys came home for the war.

They did that on my street.

And then Barry McGuire was the "Eve of Destruction," which of course is an anti-war anthem.

So there's that.

The other thing is, it's called "The Women," but boy, were, there's some men in there.

Jamie; Rye; Henry, Frankie's father; and of course Finley.

And it's called a love story because she did love all of these men.

I mean, there was a moment where she said, "Well, how do you say I love you to someone you don't love?"

But I think retrospect, I think she loved all of these men and they influenced her, and yet she persevered, I feel like in the end.

- Yeah.

Difficult.

Difficult loves most.

- Yeah.

Especially Rye, I mean, I really wanted to kick - Is there another guy?

- Him in the teeth at the end of this whole thing.

And on top of all of this, that as well, dating has never been easy, guys (laughing).

- It has never been easy.

And speaking of dating not being easy, get ready for our April pick because this tells the story of an author who holds a special place in our hearts and happens to be a bit of an expert on love and relationships and drama.

So we're excited about that.

It's also the inspiration for an exciting new masterpiece drama on PBS.

We'll reveal it in just a moment.

But first, remember to support this program and your local PBS station at pbsbooks.org/donate.

We've experienced so much joy here with the PBS Books Readers Club, so please give what you can, because your support helps keep events like this going.

If you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, just click the link in the description or comments or visit pbsbooks.org/donate.

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My weekend is booked.

I am certain that is true for you as well.

Plus, as a member of your PBS station, you'll unlock access to PBS Passport, where you can stream incredible shows like "Call the" Midwife.

You can watch the previous season before the new season premieres on PBS.

- And now it is time to reveal our next PBS Books Readers Club pick.

Heather, I think it's only fitting a real, live librarian deliver this one.

- Oh gosh, yes.

Our next read is "Miss Austen" by Gill Hornby.

- "Miss Austen" begins in 1840 at the Fowles family home in Kintbury, where an elderly Cassandra Austen is searching for her late sister Jane's lost letters.

Now dedicated to preserving Jane's legacy, Cassandra must navigate both time and a meddling housemaid to uncover the letters and decide whether to share their secrets or destroy them.

While revisiting the past through these letters, the bond between the Austen sisters is showcased, along with Jane's voice full of wit, intelligence and vulnerability.

- Shifting between Cassandra's days at the Kintbury vicarage and her vivid memories and time spent with Jane, "Miss Austen" weaves a story that blends the youthful promise and romance of early years with the hard-earned wisdom of experience.

Without giving too much away, do you think our readers will like this one?

- Oh yeah.

PBS Jane Austen, it's the perfect couple.

(everyone laughing) - Agreed.

A very advantageous marriage.

- Exactly.

It's a universal truth.

- Yes.

(everyone laughing) - Well, there's so much to talk about, talk about "Miss Austen."

But we will do that live on April 30th.

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There are hundreds there, so you will... - A full vault.

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We'll see you next month.

Happy reading.

(bright music) (bright music fades)