Penelope Lively has written more than thirty books, and for some reason Tom picked this one. The novel purports to be an “anti-memoir” that blends the line between fiction and real life, but neither of us found that to be true. If anything, the novel reads more like a series of (admittedly well-written) fiction exercises.

In the second half of the show we’ve got a special Christmas-themed edition of Fan Fiction Corner, in which we see what some of your favorite characters are up to for the holidays, including the casts of Love, Actually, Veronica Mars and Law & Order: SVU. You won’t want to miss this, as you start getting into the ol’ Yuletide spirit!

Some relevant links:

• Learn more about (and purchase a copy of) Nicole Steinberg’s Getting Lucky.
• Check out the Guardian’s review of Making It Up.
• Bone up on your Detective Eliot Stabler knowledge via Wikipedia.
• Read Lindy West’s hilarious (and insightful!) takedown of the movie Love, Actually, via Jezebel.
• Watch the trailer for Holiday in Handcuffs and then read this Buzzfeed list about why it’s the “craziest movie ever.”

As always, we’re happy to hear what you think about the stuff we talked about this week. You can email us directly, hit us up on Twitter, or just leave a comment here on the site. Also: we’re on Facebook, and gradually getting better about posting studio pics and links and such. So come visit us over there, like our page, etc. etc.

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