Christopher Nolan's Odyssey cast Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy, and the internet exploded over "historical accuracy." Nobody said a word when Diane Kruger played the same role in 2004. Sue and Ksenija dig into the double standard, and into what cultural appropriation actually means, using the Nyong'o/Kruger casting controversy and Montenegro's own non-racial experience of cultural erasure to ask what's really being protected when people invoke the term. Is this about race, about power and ownership, or is "appropriation" just doing too much work as a single word for very different problems? Also discussed: the Snow White backlash, Hamilton's colorblind casting, and why our idea of "universal beauty" so often defaults to whiteness.

📚 Books Mentioned
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• The Color of Everything by Cory Richards
• D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 Read Ksenija’s Novels:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS

Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks is a weekly literary podcast that uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New episodes every Saturday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro

00:34 Casting Controversy: Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy

07:28 The casting of Nolan's Odyssey

17:40 The Inaccuracy of Beauty Standards

26:11 Reimagining Historical Figures: Hamilton

30:56 The Snow White Controversy

33:49 Inclusivity in Beauty Standards

40:38 Cultural Appropriation: Definitions and Perspectives

55:23 Book Recommendations and Personal Growth

It starts with a novel about a woman who steals from her employer, marries into money, and eventually disappears on her own kids. It ends with a hard, unresolved argument about loyalty, guilt, and who actually holds women to impossible standards.

Are women each other's worst enemy? Not men, not the patriarchy in the abstract, but women, tearing down other women who speak up, judging mothers who walk away, staying silent when it would cost them something to defend each other.

Also: book recs, the "human doing" trap, a Paraguayan Senator's lame excuse for attacking the great Kylian Mbappe, and why nobody should be tipping 20% in Montenegro.

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substa...

📚 Read Ksenija’s Novels:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substa...

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads:
/ 6449766.ksenija_popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS

Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks is a weekly literary podcast that uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New episodes every Saturday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

03:30 Tipping Culture

10:23 Expectations of Loyalty and Compliance

15:02 The Impact of Aging on Women

21:57 Compliance vs. Performance and the Human Doing

29:07 Mothers Abandoning Children

43:20 Class Distinctions, Politics, and Morality

50:03 Living Up to the Public Image on Social Media

53:37 Coopting Feminism to Justify Abhorrent Behavior: the Case of the Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla

59:35 Trump's Intervention in the World Cup

01:03:22 Book Recommendations

Looking for the perfect book this summer?

In this episode of Transatlantic Bookmarks, novelist Ksenija Popović and engineer Sue Graham Johnston share the titles they’re most excited to recommend for the season. Whether you’re heading to the beach, escaping to the mountains, or simply slowing down at home, we’ve put together a list that ranges from light and funny to deeply thought-provoking.

We cover romance, psychological thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, literary fiction, historical fiction, and nonfiction, talking about the novels we couldn’t put down, the authors who surprised us, and the books waiting at the top of our own TBRs.

We also discuss why holidays are the perfect time to discover something different, how our tastes have changed over the years, and why putting your phone away for an hour may be the best gift you give yourself this summer.

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 Read Ksenija’s Novels:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS

Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks is a weekly literary podcast that uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New episodes every Saturday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction
04:44 Romance
16:36 Thrillers
23:03 Science Fiction and Fantasy
27:07 More Comedy
28:12 YA and Strong Female Heroines
33:06 Diving into European Literary Fiction
39:25 Self-Help
51:46 Our TBR for the Summer

What makes a country worth loving? Is patriotism about flags, freedom, democracy, or the people who hold a nation together behind the scenes?

In this episode of Transatlantic Bookmarks, we celebrate America’s 249th Independence Day by moving beyond the headlines to ask a bigger question: What makes a country worth fighting for, protecting, or simply loving? We discuss patriotism, democracy, American history, the Fourth of July, Michael Lewis’s Who Is Government?, Hamilton, Lonesome Dove, nationalism, citizenship, NATO, the European Union, Montenegro, and what literature can teach us about civic life.

Whether you’re interested in books, politics, history, literary fiction, democracy, public service, patriotism, or thoughtful long-form conversations, we hope you’ll join us.

📚 Books Mentioned

• Who Is Government? edited by Michael Lewis
• South and West by Joan Didion
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• Steep Trails by John Muir
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Moneyball by Michael Lewis
• Flash Boys by Michael Lewis
• Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
• Ms. Mabel Goes to the Chopping Block by Jesse Q. Sutanto
• The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
• Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 Read Ksenija’s Novels:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS

Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks is a weekly literary podcast that uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New episodes every Saturday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
00:42 Happy Fourth of July
03:31 What We’re Reading
08:09 American Democracy and Independence
13:17 The Price of Independence in the Balkans
24:05 Unsung Heroes in Government
34:41 What Is Patriotism Today?
51:34 Post-9/11 America and Post-Bataclan Paris
54:57 Can One Person Make a Difference?
01:04:12 Alexander Hamilton and the Founding Fathers
01:14:19 Book Recommendations

What happens when distance changes the way we see the world—and ourselves?

Inspired by Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, we explore the Overview Effect: the profound shift astronauts describe after seeing Earth from space. From there, the conversation expands into borders, war, loneliness, mortality, perspective, and the relief that can come from stepping back.

Along the way, we discuss the International Space Station, the former Yugoslavia, Viktor Frankl's Man’s Search for Meaning, climate anxiety, AI and art, social media, body image, and why some books help us see familiar things from a completely different angle.

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED:
• Training for the Uphill Athlete by Steve House, Scott Johnston, and Kilian Jornet
• Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose
• Orbital by Samantha Harvey
• In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
• Awe by Dacher Keltner
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 Read Ksenija’s Novels:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS

Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New episodes every Saturday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
00:25 What We’re Reading
08:03 The Overview Effect
19:14 Isolation vs. Connection
26:09 When Borders Disappear
33:46 Judging from a Distance
39:05 Above Situationalists
48:26 Literature and Human Empathy
52:39 Literature, Climate, and the Earth
59:08 Mortality, Meaning, and Daily Life
01:01:40 Body Image and Beauty Standards
01:08:08 Book Recommendations

What makes a book dangerous?

In this episode of Transatlantic Bookmarks, we discuss banned books, censorship, school libraries, Pride Month, LGBTQ literature, free speech, and the role books play in helping us understand lives different from our own. From John Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair to Alice Walker and Andrew Sean Greer, we explore why certain books become cultural battlegrounds and who gets to decide what belongs on the shelf.

We also discuss book bans in the United States, the difference between age-appropriate reading and censorship, the role of librarians, LGBTQ representation in literature, and why societies often seem more comfortable with violence than with sex. At the center of the conversation is a simple question: what do we lose when access to books becomes restricted?

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED:
• No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs (with David Roberts)
• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Das Kapital by Karl Marx
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• The Works of Immanuel Kant
• Less by Andrew Sean Greer
• The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
• The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 Read Ksenija’s Novels:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS

Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New episodes every Saturday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
02:49 What We’re Reading
05:21 The Fear of a Different Opinion
08:54 The Role of Literature in Critical Thinking
09:20 Pride Month and LGBTQ Representation
16:23 Cultural Divides in America
21:23 Book Banning in the United States
25:55 The Case for Censorship
33:46 The Hypocrisy of Censorship
38:03 Censoring Socialism
43:36 LGBTQIA+ in the Balkans
49:28 Unexpected Events and Personal Stories
51:13 Pride Marches: Corporate Influence vs. Authenticity
52:45 The Role of Librarians in Democracy
56:13 Both Sides Are Banning

What happens to a book when it crosses a border?

In this episode of Transatlantic Bookmarks, we discuss translation, multilingualism, dialects, cultural context, and whether it is ever possible to experience a book exactly as its author intended. Ksenija shares her experience writing a novel in English rather than her native language, the politics of language in the former Yugoslavia, and the disastrous translation that nearly ruined Steinbeck for her forever.

Along the way, we explore translated literature, Asian fiction, letter writing, the global dominance of English, the challenge of translating poetry, and the books that helped us understand cultures far beyond our own.

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED:
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
• Orbital by Samantha Harvey
• Fathers Before Sons by Ksenija Popović
• Commissario Montalbano by Andrea Camilleri
• Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en
• Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino
• The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 Read Ksenija’s Novels:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS

Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New episodes every Saturday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
07:57 The Football World Cup
10:49 What We’re Reading
12:32 How Many Languages Do Ksenija (and Melania Trump) Speak?
19:08 The Challenges of Writing in a Foreign Language
24:57 Accents and Dialects
34:15 The Woes of Reading in Translation
41:25 The United States and the Hegemony of English
49:36 Asian Literature
55:48 Why Ksenija Talks (a Lot!)
58:15 Getting a Sense of Place Through Literature
1:03:05 The Translator from Hell
1:06:18 Translating Poetry
1:08:20 Examples of Translation Gems
1:10:07 Book Banning in the United States
1:12:44 Book Recommendations
1:14:29 Setting the Record Straight on Tolstoy

Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director, shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize, tells the story of legendary filmmaker G.W. Pabst and raises a question that extends far beyond one artist or one historical moment: what happens when creative people find themselves face to face with power?

In this episode of Transatlantic Bookmarks, we discuss the uneasy relationship between artists and tyrants, artistic freedom, censorship, free speech, and the compromises creators make to survive. From Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia to modern publishing, Hollywood, and social media, we explore where the line lies between pragmatism and complicity, whether great art can be separated from its creator, and why these debates remain as relevant today as ever.

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED:
• The Director by Daniel Kehlmann
• The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
• Isola by Allegra Goodman
• Departure(s) by Julian Barnes
• Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
• The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 Read Ksenija’s Novels:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 Ksenija on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS

Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New episodes every Saturday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:44 What We’re Reading
06:42 The Director by Daniel Kehlmann
11:33 Historical Context of Artists and Power
18:05 Moral Dilemmas in Artistic Integrity
25:15 The Different Standards for Artists, Tech Bros, and Podcast Bros
30:00 Censorship in the Publishing Industry
39:03 The Nuances of Free Speech
41:06 Art, Politics, and the Artist’s Responsibility
49:05 Does Great Art Require Angst?
51:14 The Compromises of Artistic Freedom
1:06:26 Book Recommendation