June 19, 2026 • 10 mins
Chelsea and Catherine go on a book roundup filled with giants, sisterhood, and the deep, dark woods.
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Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at DearChelseaPodcast@gmail.com
*
Executive Producer Catherine Law
Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, guys, here are my dates for the High and
Mighty Tour.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
In June, I will be in Hyannas, Massachusetts, and then
two shows in Nantucket. In August, you can find me
in Red Bank, New Jersey, Montclair, New Jersey, and Calgary.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
That's Canada.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And September I will be in Santa Barbara, San Diego,
New York City, Philly, and New Haven, Connecticut. October is Atlanta, Baltimore, Saginaw, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Boise,
Idaho and Spokan. And then in November I'll be in
San Francisco. I'm coming to Salt Lake City, Austin, Houston,
Dallas Babies, I'll be there. And then in December, I
(00:38):
am closing out my tour in Denver and Vancouver. So
get your tickets at Chelseahandler dot com for the High
and Mighty Tour.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hi, Catherine, Dougie, come over here, Hime over here, do
come up here, Dougie, come around, come around you thinking
about it? He's very thoughtful, Douggie comet. He only does
what he wants to do.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I love like on camera he just looks like a
void moving through the rook.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
There he is that's my baby, who's my beautiful baby.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
He did get black again, like I know you had
said it. He turned brown and now he's I feel
that he's black again.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Down yeah, good, down, good boy.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
And Weddy, lets you snuggle him, even though he doesn't
snuggle at night.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I know. But he's getting better. He understands that there's
a price to pay if he doesn't give me what
I want.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Chelsea, let's talk about books.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Okay, I've read a few, a bunch of books lately.
I have some good book recommendations.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Okay, do you want to start? Do you want to sure?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Sure? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Well, one that I have been reading that I just
read recently that I super duper loved.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I realized, like the three that I.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Thought to talk about today are all set deep in
the woods. This first one I think that you would
actually really really love.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's fiction.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
There's like a tiny bit of magical realism in it,
but not a.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Ton, not not a ton.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
But it is called in there, it's called north Woods.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
It's by Daniel Mason, and it's all set in New
England at this house that's built like sort of maybe
in the seventeen hundreds and it's the history of this
house and all the different people who live there throughout
the like decades and generations. It's really cool. I really
really loved it. It's beautifully written. It kind of like
(02:28):
moves along pretty quickly. I really liked it.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Okay, do you have.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Fitness and wellness questions? Well, Chelsea's personal trainer Ben Bruno
is about to guest on an episode, So right into
Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com with all your
fitness and wellness questions.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
What else?
Speaker 4 (02:47):
You got a couple other ones that I really loved.
I just finished one called The Cold Vanish.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
It's by Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
These a sound like they take place in the.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Ely they're all in the woods.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I think I need to like go be in the woods,
like I think I'm finding, like think I need to
be I need to go maybe not camping.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I need to go to like a beautiful place.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah. It's on a lake maybe Yeah yeah, yeah, I
think with lots of trails. Yes, then you can see
the before they see you.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah. This is called The Cold Vanish. It's by John Billman.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
And this if, like anybody likes true crime, it's perfect
for that because it's a journalist who has written a
ton of stuff for Outside magazine, and he follows like
a bunch of these cases of missing persons in America's
national parks, and he specifically works with some of the
families to try and like find their loved ones.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Or like as they search.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
And it's just really beautiful storytelling all true stories.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
And I really liked that.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And then is it descriptive?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yes, That's what surprised me the most is I expected
it to be a little bit drier, but it's very
The writing is very evocative. It's it's beautiful writing, and
it's interesting writing. And his turns of phrase are always
kind of surprising, and I really like when a writer
does that.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
And then the third one that I have to recommend
is called The Stranger.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
In the Woods, God We're just in the woods.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
It's called this The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit,
and it's by Michael Finkel. I listened to this one
in the book on tape, which I would recommend.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
We call that.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Audiobooks now, but I would recommend it because the person
in question, the hermit in question, does have this sort
of manor accent, and it's nonfiction, so It's all about
this guy who just like in the eighties, like wandered
off into the woods and then just lived there for
like twenty five years and would go into people's cabins
in the wintertime like take stuff, but like not too much,
(04:37):
and he was always very respectful. But he was like
like they knew there was a hermit out there who
was just like the man in the woods.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And so eventually things come.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
To let people go and live in the woods, and
that's either me, how does it? And then what happens
the next day? What are they eating branches?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Like?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
What are they killing rabbits? Like?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
What are He like learned how to exist in the
woods in such a secretive way that he could like
not leave footprints. He was basically like really close to
all these different houses and cabins and stuff, but like
no one really knew where he was. No one ever
found his camp. He never talked to anybody. So he
was like a person who really truly just wanted.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
To be alone, to be alone in the woods. Yeah,
the exact opposite. Yeah, I like the alone part, but
not the woods part. Right, I don't want to be
alone in the woods. I actually want a.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Guide, a Guide out of the Woods.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Okay, I just read. I've read three books. I read well.
The first one is called The Correspondent, which has been
going around. Yes, that's the one Jane Fonda signed on
to do. It's written by Virginia Evans, and that is
a real page. Have you read that yet?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
No?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I haven't. Okay, she's writing letters.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, it's a pistolary. Actually, that's the style of writing,
which is letter writing.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I learned that because I saw Mindy Kaling on a
podcast talking about it on a clip on Instagram and
she was saying her favorite They said, what's your favorite
type of writing? And she wrote a pistolary. That's when
they write letters. I had no idea what that word meant.
So I was like, wow, like that. You know how
I love learning words. So epistolaria, Yes, so that This
book is all about this woman and her letters to
people and their letters back to her family members, love interests, children,
(06:11):
family friends. And she's an older woman and she's got
a lot of kutzpah, and she's got a lot of opinions,
and she's she's got her nose in a lot of
people's business. I like it so I like that she's
very much an interloper. Okay, so I identify is.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
It modern day? Is that modern day?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yes? It is? Oh, that's contemporary. And then this book
my friend Juliana, she sends me all my books, Juliana
Marguley's Life and Death and Giants by Ron Rindo. So
this is a novel, this takes place. I don't want
to give anything away, but this book is. This is
what I love about books is I want to be
introduced to things I know nothing about. And I don't
(06:46):
want to only read things that are of interest to me.
I like to read things that have nothing to do
with me or nothing to do with any of my interests.
This book has nothing to do with There's Amish people,
there's farm life. There's a giant okay in the book.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Oh wait, is this kind of about the giant that
they found in that field? The quote unquote giant, I
forget what it's called.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And he was a wrestler he became it's like loosely
based on a true story about this kid who sprang
to become a giant and became a wrestler, like he
was a professional wrestler. Anyway, he lives this crazy life
because of his size and because of his strength, and
because of his power and his physical strength and his power,
(07:32):
and so he just ends up living this kind of
crazy life. But he was born to this amish mother.
And then it's it's just like a world that I
would never delve into. So in complete honesty, I it's
not a book that I was like, oh my god,
I've got to rip the pages open. But like the correspondent,
(07:55):
I was like, I tore through that in three days.
This took me a little bit longer. But I do
really appreciate she ate being exposed to the things in
life that I'm not that interested in.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
You like naturally.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And now this next book is called Kin by Tyri Jones.
This is one of Oprah's book clubs. Oprah has the
best books. She has always mary the best grades because
they're deep, they're meaningful. And this is about two young
girls who grew up in Louisiana. They both are motherless
and they kind of go off in different directions. The
one goes to college in Atlanta at Spellman and this
other girl goes on and lives in Mississippi for a while.
(08:33):
Then she moves to Tennessee anyway, these two girls just
kind of diverge and then their lives kind of come
back together, and you see the different shapes their lives
have taken. This took a while for me to get into.
It took me about like one hundred pages and then
I was in. And there are some turns of phrase
in here that I mean, there's a chapter in here
that had me hysterically crying. When I went to bed
(08:54):
the other night, I just was bawling. It was so
beautifully written, and it's so profound and me and just
this relationship and this girl's bond that they had because
they were cradle sisters they call it, well they really were.
They like you know, they were in the crib together,
and just their bond and like the bond between women
(09:16):
that go through life together and then kind of keep
showing up for each other at all of the different
turns that you can show up for each other was
really moving. And their dedication and devotion to each other
was really moving and powerful. And the writing is beautiful there.
So I mean I wrote down I underlined a bunch
in the book because there was just such beautiful writing.
But of course I didn't earmark any of the pages,
(09:37):
so I'd have to go through it, but it's definitely
worth reading. It's called Kin and Something. That's one of
Oprah's books. Yeah, So those are three books I've read
in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Awesome, excellent.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
The word of the week is evocative evocative.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Adjective intending to bring out an especially emotional response. Chelsea
uses evocative language when reading straight White Men evocative. If
you want advice from Chelsea, write into Dear Chelsea podcast
at gmail dot com. Dear Chelsea is a production of iHeartMedia.
(10:15):
Follow Chelsea on All socials at Chelsea Handler, and find
Katherine on TikTok at Flashcadabra. Dear Chelsea is edited and
engineered by Brandon Dickert executive producer Katherine Law. Find full
video episodes and minisodes now on Netflix, and get tickets
to see Chelsea live at Chelseahandler dot com
Okay, guys, here are my dates for the High and
Mighty Tour.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
In June, I will be in Hyannas, Massachusetts, and then
two shows in Nantucket. In August, you can find me
in Red Bank, New Jersey, Montclair, New Jersey, and Calgary.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
That's Canada.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And September I will be in Santa Barbara, San Diego,
New York City, Philly, and New Haven, Connecticut. October is Atlanta, Baltimore, Saginaw, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Boise,
Idaho and Spokan. And then in November I'll be in
San Francisco. I'm coming to Salt Lake City, Austin, Houston,
Dallas Babies, I'll be there. And then in December, I
(00:38):
am closing out my tour in Denver and Vancouver. So
get your tickets at Chelseahandler dot com for the High
and Mighty Tour.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hi, Catherine, Dougie, come over here, Hime over here, do
come up here, Dougie, come around, come around you thinking
about it? He's very thoughtful, Douggie comet. He only does
what he wants to do.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I love like on camera he just looks like a
void moving through the rook.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
There he is that's my baby, who's my beautiful baby.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
He did get black again, like I know you had
said it. He turned brown and now he's I feel
that he's black again.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Down yeah, good, down, good boy.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
And Weddy, lets you snuggle him, even though he doesn't
snuggle at night.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I know. But he's getting better. He understands that there's
a price to pay if he doesn't give me what
I want.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Chelsea, let's talk about books.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Okay, I've read a few, a bunch of books lately.
I have some good book recommendations.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Okay, do you want to start? Do you want to sure?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Sure? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Well, one that I have been reading that I just
read recently that I super duper loved.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I realized, like the three that I.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Thought to talk about today are all set deep in
the woods. This first one I think that you would
actually really really love.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's fiction.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
There's like a tiny bit of magical realism in it,
but not a.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Ton, not not a ton.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
But it is called in there, it's called north Woods.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
It's by Daniel Mason, and it's all set in New
England at this house that's built like sort of maybe
in the seventeen hundreds and it's the history of this
house and all the different people who live there throughout
the like decades and generations. It's really cool. I really
really loved it. It's beautifully written. It kind of like
(02:28):
moves along pretty quickly. I really liked it.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Okay, do you have.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Fitness and wellness questions? Well, Chelsea's personal trainer Ben Bruno
is about to guest on an episode, So right into
Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com with all your
fitness and wellness questions.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
What else?
Speaker 4 (02:47):
You got a couple other ones that I really loved.
I just finished one called The Cold Vanish.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
It's by Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
These a sound like they take place in the.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Ely they're all in the woods.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I think I need to like go be in the woods,
like I think I'm finding, like think I need to
be I need to go maybe not camping.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I need to go to like a beautiful place.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah. It's on a lake maybe Yeah yeah, yeah, I
think with lots of trails. Yes, then you can see
the before they see you.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah. This is called The Cold Vanish. It's by John Billman.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
And this if, like anybody likes true crime, it's perfect
for that because it's a journalist who has written a
ton of stuff for Outside magazine, and he follows like
a bunch of these cases of missing persons in America's
national parks, and he specifically works with some of the
families to try and like find their loved ones.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Or like as they search.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
And it's just really beautiful storytelling all true stories.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
And I really liked that.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And then is it descriptive?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yes, That's what surprised me the most is I expected
it to be a little bit drier, but it's very
The writing is very evocative. It's it's beautiful writing, and
it's interesting writing. And his turns of phrase are always
kind of surprising, and I really like when a writer
does that.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
And then the third one that I have to recommend
is called The Stranger.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
In the Woods, God We're just in the woods.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
It's called this The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit,
and it's by Michael Finkel. I listened to this one
in the book on tape, which I would recommend.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
We call that.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Audiobooks now, but I would recommend it because the person
in question, the hermit in question, does have this sort
of manor accent, and it's nonfiction, so It's all about
this guy who just like in the eighties, like wandered
off into the woods and then just lived there for
like twenty five years and would go into people's cabins
in the wintertime like take stuff, but like not too much,
(04:37):
and he was always very respectful. But he was like
like they knew there was a hermit out there who
was just like the man in the woods.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And so eventually things come.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
To let people go and live in the woods, and
that's either me, how does it? And then what happens
the next day? What are they eating branches?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Like?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
What are they killing rabbits? Like?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
What are He like learned how to exist in the
woods in such a secretive way that he could like
not leave footprints. He was basically like really close to
all these different houses and cabins and stuff, but like
no one really knew where he was. No one ever
found his camp. He never talked to anybody. So he
was like a person who really truly just wanted.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
To be alone, to be alone in the woods. Yeah,
the exact opposite. Yeah, I like the alone part, but
not the woods part. Right, I don't want to be
alone in the woods. I actually want a.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Guide, a Guide out of the Woods.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Okay, I just read. I've read three books. I read well.
The first one is called The Correspondent, which has been
going around. Yes, that's the one Jane Fonda signed on
to do. It's written by Virginia Evans, and that is
a real page. Have you read that yet?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
No?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I haven't. Okay, she's writing letters.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, it's a pistolary. Actually, that's the style of writing,
which is letter writing.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I learned that because I saw Mindy Kaling on a
podcast talking about it on a clip on Instagram and
she was saying her favorite They said, what's your favorite
type of writing? And she wrote a pistolary. That's when
they write letters. I had no idea what that word meant.
So I was like, wow, like that. You know how
I love learning words. So epistolaria, Yes, so that This
book is all about this woman and her letters to
people and their letters back to her family members, love interests, children,
(06:11):
family friends. And she's an older woman and she's got
a lot of kutzpah, and she's got a lot of opinions,
and she's she's got her nose in a lot of
people's business. I like it so I like that she's
very much an interloper. Okay, so I identify is.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
It modern day? Is that modern day?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yes? It is? Oh, that's contemporary. And then this book
my friend Juliana, she sends me all my books, Juliana
Marguley's Life and Death and Giants by Ron Rindo. So
this is a novel, this takes place. I don't want
to give anything away, but this book is. This is
what I love about books is I want to be
introduced to things I know nothing about. And I don't
(06:46):
want to only read things that are of interest to me.
I like to read things that have nothing to do
with me or nothing to do with any of my interests.
This book has nothing to do with There's Amish people,
there's farm life. There's a giant okay in the book.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Oh wait, is this kind of about the giant that
they found in that field? The quote unquote giant, I
forget what it's called.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And he was a wrestler he became it's like loosely
based on a true story about this kid who sprang
to become a giant and became a wrestler, like he
was a professional wrestler. Anyway, he lives this crazy life
because of his size and because of his strength, and
because of his power and his physical strength and his power,
(07:32):
and so he just ends up living this kind of
crazy life. But he was born to this amish mother.
And then it's it's just like a world that I
would never delve into. So in complete honesty, I it's
not a book that I was like, oh my god,
I've got to rip the pages open. But like the correspondent,
(07:55):
I was like, I tore through that in three days.
This took me a little bit longer. But I do
really appreciate she ate being exposed to the things in
life that I'm not that interested in.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
You like naturally.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And now this next book is called Kin by Tyri Jones.
This is one of Oprah's book clubs. Oprah has the
best books. She has always mary the best grades because
they're deep, they're meaningful. And this is about two young
girls who grew up in Louisiana. They both are motherless
and they kind of go off in different directions. The
one goes to college in Atlanta at Spellman and this
other girl goes on and lives in Mississippi for a while.
(08:33):
Then she moves to Tennessee anyway, these two girls just
kind of diverge and then their lives kind of come
back together, and you see the different shapes their lives
have taken. This took a while for me to get into.
It took me about like one hundred pages and then
I was in. And there are some turns of phrase
in here that I mean, there's a chapter in here
that had me hysterically crying. When I went to bed
(08:54):
the other night, I just was bawling. It was so
beautifully written, and it's so profound and me and just
this relationship and this girl's bond that they had because
they were cradle sisters they call it, well they really were.
They like you know, they were in the crib together,
and just their bond and like the bond between women
(09:16):
that go through life together and then kind of keep
showing up for each other at all of the different
turns that you can show up for each other was
really moving. And their dedication and devotion to each other
was really moving and powerful. And the writing is beautiful there.
So I mean I wrote down I underlined a bunch
in the book because there was just such beautiful writing.
But of course I didn't earmark any of the pages,
(09:37):
so I'd have to go through it, but it's definitely
worth reading. It's called Kin and Something. That's one of
Oprah's books. Yeah, So those are three books I've read
in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Awesome, excellent.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
The word of the week is evocative evocative.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Adjective intending to bring out an especially emotional response. Chelsea
uses evocative language when reading straight White Men evocative. If
you want advice from Chelsea, write into Dear Chelsea podcast
at gmail dot com. Dear Chelsea is a production of iHeartMedia.
(10:15):
Follow Chelsea on All socials at Chelsea Handler, and find
Katherine on TikTok at Flashcadabra. Dear Chelsea is edited and
engineered by Brandon Dickert executive producer Katherine Law. Find full
video episodes and minisodes now on Netflix, and get tickets
to see Chelsea live at Chelseahandler dot com
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