​[00:00:00] ANGELA FRITH: It is fascinating. I keep telling my husband, "Oh my gosh, listen to this. This is what happened."

ANNE BOGEL: I mean, this is the laugh of recognition, as in like, "How is this real?"

ANGELA: It's amazing.

ANNE: She's an amazing writer, too.

ANGELA: This is going to be the nonfiction I'm going to be pushing on people.

ANNE: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel, and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:00:48] Readers, our Patreon community is full of exciting ways to get more books in your life, from our weekly bonus episodes on a variety of themes to seasonal events like our upcoming Summer Reading Guide. We also rely on members of our Patreon community to help us out sometimes by voting on the title of an upcoming episode, submitting questions for a live event, or, as you'll hear today, volunteering when we need to fill a last-minute guest recording spot.

Our Patreon members are also a huge part of what we do around here when it comes to the nuts and bolts of creating our podcast every week. Monthly or annual support helps us pay our team and keep the lights on around What Should I Read Next? HQ. We are so grateful to all of you who are or have been Patreon members.

If you're not a current member of our community, this is a great time of year to join. Find out more at patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.

[00:01:42] Readers, today's guest has found herself avoiding heavier topics in her reading life lately, and she'd love my help to find books that align with her word of the year, which is "light". Angela Frith is joining me today from Lexington, North Carolina, where she works as a K-12 curriculum developer and is a member of our Modern Mrs. Darcy book club and What Should I Read Next? Patreon communities.

As she considers her reading life this year, Angela would love her book picks to feel light, warm, and stimulating, but not overly stressful. Whether this means memoirs, found family stories, historical fiction, or fantasy, Angela is hoping for titles that feature the warmth she loves, without the chaos that also sometimes marks titles in these favorite genres. I bet Angela's not the only reader looking for a bit more light these days, and I have ideas to share. Readers, let's get to it.

Angela, welcome to the show.

ANGELA: Thank you. Happy to be here.

[00:02:42] ANNE: Oh my gosh, the pleasure is mine. Now, readers wouldn't know that we've actually gotten to talk books in person before, I think maybe more than once, because I know we've gotten to meet in person at Bookmarks NC for the lovely literary festival that happens every September in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

ANGELA: Yes, I think we have met twice. The first time was right after I joined the book club. I joined right before the Charlie Lovett live podcast recording, and then went to the get-together for book club members before the book festival the last time you were here.

ANNE: Yes, those were both such enjoyable times. And now I'm trying to remember. I mean, I distinctly remember that Charlie Lovett event. That was so great. He's lovely. I'm excited about his new book coming out this fall. I'm sure Winston-Salem will roll out the red carpet for him. But all I can really remember is pre-pandemic and post-pandemic.

ANGELA: Yes, I know.

[00:03:39] ANNE: And the rest is just details. Well, I'm jealous that you live close to a place where there are just... it seems like great book things happening all the time.

ANGELA: It is.

ANNE: Okay. Well, tell us a little bit more about yourself so we get a sense of where you are geographically. What else would help us give the readers a glimpse of who you are as a person and then as a reader?

ANGELA: My husband and I live in Lexington, North Carolina, which is a small town about halfway between Winston-Salem and Charlotte. We are empty nesters. We have two adult children who are both in their 20s and who are out of college now, and both have their own careers, which is lovely. And I work as a K-12 curriculum developer.

In my free time, I read a lot, obviously. I'm in the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club and on the Patreon for What Should I Read Next?. When not reading I like to hike. We like to day hike. I say I don't camp, but I'm very happy do anything you want during the day as long as I have a bed at night. So I love a good day hike.

[00:04:47] I've taken up crochet in the past year. So I'm enjoying doing something tactile that's not just with my brain, since I'm up in my head all the time for work and reading. We also enjoy traveling a lot. I always, if possible, like to go to museums when traveling or around here when there's a show of my undergrads and art history, but I rarely get to use it for work. But I do love keeping up with art and artists and I like to read about art and artists too a lot.

ANNE: Ooh. You know, I'm not sure that was in your submission, but I'm going to make a note.

ANGELA: It wasn't, but I just added it.

ANNE: That's fair game here. And it's not like we didn't already have plenty to choose from, but that'll add a little bit more to the mix. Angela, tell us a little bit about your reading life.

[00:05:38] ANGELA: I've always been a reader. I think the first book I remember reading was Ann Likes Red. And I think it is actually still packed up downstairs in my garage. My mom had saved a lot of my books as a child, and then my kids used them. And now I have packed them up, and they are safe for eventually one day when I maybe have grandchildren. They will get passed along. But I still clearly remember and have the patches still from elementary school that said I read 50 books. And I remember getting some very nerdy award about reading the most books.

So, yeah, a full reader way back in the summers, and this was in the 70s when you could do this, I remember my dad would drop me off at the public library, and he picked me up a few hours later. And I remember I would just go, and I think I'd always start with the Betsy-Tacy books. And I would just get books off and sit and read and he'd pick me back up a few hours later. That was how I spent a lot of days in the summer. So I've always been a reader. Obviously, over time it fluctuates, but I've always considered myself a big reader.

[00:06:54] Now I read a variety of genres. I like to mix it up. I find that I enjoy books a lot more if I read different genres. I try to not read too many of the same genre in a row. I don't enjoy them as much then. I like a series. I like a good series, but I don't want to read it all in a row because I enjoy it more if I can come back to it.

I use the library a lot. I'm lucky, even though I live in a smaller county, that we have a fabulous thing in North Carolina called NC Cardinal. My library can pretty much get about anything I want in the state. So they'll just get it from another library, and I can read it. So it's very nice. It helps, especially when you live in a smaller county that doesn't have as big of a library.

I read all sorts of formats. I do print, audio, and digital. I'll do an ebook. I've just kind of gotten into ebooks a little bit and audiobooks. I always have an audiobook going, and I always have a print or an ebook going too. So I mix it up a little bit.

[00:08:03] ANNE: You like to mix it up. What genres are you often drawn to?

ANGELA: Here's what I don't like. I don't do horror. I just not… not really horror. Like celebrity memoirs, don't do those. But I do like memoirs and essays. I like a good travel memoir. I love history. I like a lot of historical fiction I read. I like fantasy when I read... I don't read as much fantasy, but I almost always enjoy it when I do. But I tend to like more fantasy set around the edges of the real world as opposed to high fantasy with a whole separate world I have to learn. I like magical realism. I'm a Sarah Addison Allen completist. I love her books. Yeah, I read a little bit of everything. I'm more like, "Here's what I don't like," is more distinct thing.

ANNE: The shorter list.

ANGELA: Yeah, yeah. It's easier. I'm more flexible with other things.

[00:09:02] ANNE: I enjoy that for you. Angela, I'm curious to hear what's on your mind in this season of your reading life that brings you to the show right now. Now, I know part of the answer. Part of the answer is we just put out a call to help us fill a last-minute guest slot in our Patreon community. So thank you for heeding our call and making yourself available. But I'm also wondering where it is we're finding you in spring 2026, because I feel like, in a sense, we've been reading together for a long time.

ANGELA: Right. Over the past year, year and a half, I think my bandwidth in general has decreased. I think as far as tolerance for topics, and I'm just trying to protect my energy more, I think maybe with this stage of life. But in my reading life, it has surfaced as I just don't have as much of a tolerance for heavier topics that in the past I would have been like, okay, I'll read that, and I would keep working through it.

[00:10:07] So I enjoy things that have some depth to them, but just things that are heavy and stressful, I don't have as much tolerance for it. Over the past probably year, several books that I probably would have kept reading in the past, I DNF'd them. I put them down. I thought, "I can't do this right now." Or I didn't even pick them up because I just knew I'm not in a place where this is going to work for me.

Some that I DNF'd, I picked up H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, thinking, "Okay, I like nature. I like being outside. Memoirs typically work well for me." So I thought, "I'm going to try this one." And I have some weird interest in falconry. I would love to at some point do a falconry class. Don't ask me why. I have no idea why. So I thought, "I'm going to read H Is for Hawk." And I listened to an hour or two of it, and I thought, "Oh, no..." It was just too depressing. I thought, "I can't do this right now."

[00:11:14] I also did not pick up, even though I know everyone in the world said it was fabulous and loved it, God of the Woods by Liz Moore, because I thought, no, child kidnapping, I just can't do this. And didn't even pick it up. I also DNF'd, I started, I tried twice to read it, Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. And then I was like, "I can't do it". And Grown Women by Sarai Johnson. I tried it, and I got about 50 pages in, and I thought, "Oh no, this is just not where my head is right now." I didn't need abuse, and I was not the place to read about difficult relationships.

ANNE: I hear you. I mean, I think that book is so well done. And also Shannan on our team at a recent meeting says, "Does this get happy?" And we were like, "No, this is not a happy book."

[00:12:10] ANGELA: Right. And I know there are tons of books that are incredibly well done, but I'm not in the place where that's... I don't want to feel icky or something when I'm reading a book or just unsettled. And I know if I'd kept reading it, that's how I would have felt.

ANNE: That's helpful to hear what you're seeking out and what you're not seeking in this season.

ANGELA: Yes. So I know this year, as I was thinking about the beginning of the year, I thought, "How do I want my year to be?" I don't do resolutions, but I like to think about intentions. And I also like to pick a word of the year, and I've done that for a few years. And I spent a week or two in the year kind of toying with different words. Like, "How do I want my year to feel? What do I want to remind myself of?"

And I kind of went through, I don't know, I went through several. But then I thought, "You know what? I finally settled on 'light'." And I thought, "Oh, that's a good word because it has different meanings to it, and I can use it in different ways. So I thought of it in terms I want to keep things light.

[00:13:19] Obviously, life is hard sometimes, and you can't always keep things light, but when I have a choice, I want to try to enjoy things and to keep it light and fun and read things that are light and entertaining for me.

Also, in terms of light, feels warm. And I love that feeling of being warm and safe and cozy. So that works. But also enlightening, because my brain likes to think about things. And I don't want total fluff. I want things that I can grab onto and be like, "Oh, wow, that was interesting," or "here is what I learned". So those are kind of what I was thinking about. And I've been thinking about what are books I can read that give me those qualities that I'm looking for?

​[00:14:11] ANNE: And how are you finding that pursuit? Because when I first read your submission, I thought, "Oh, this is so simple." But actually, we haven't had a conversation about it yet, but the intersection of light emotionally and enlightening is a lot harder for me, at least right off the bat, than either one in isolation.

ANGELA: Right. When I say enlightening, I don't mean that I have to learn something every single time. But I do like if it may make me think about something differently or make me go, "Oh, I didn't know that," or "Oh wow, I really like this genre I didn't know I really liked." So the book I read recently that kind of clued it all together, that went, "Oh wow," was The Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna. It was warm. It felt like a big cozy hug, but it also, I didn't learn information because it's a cozy fantasy. But it felt so warm.

[00:15:20] I love the characters. But it also kind of made you think a little bit about... it had very, very well-done characters on the spectrum in it that I thought were done kindly and lovingly. It addressed all the characters lovingly. It talked about mental health in ways that was not judgmental, that was just matter of fact, like this is just part of life and we deal with it. I love a book that addresses a challenging topic with a light touch, with a light hand.

ANNE: Ooh, we'll see what we can do today.

ANGELA: Okay.

ANNE: You know how this works. I know you've been familiar with the podcast for a long time. You're going to tell me three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately, and we'll find out more about your reading life and see what you may enjoy reading next. This is not the first submission you've sent in.

ANGELA: I know.

ANNE: Do you remember what you sent in with your very first submission, which is dated July 19, 2020, at 5:11 PM?

[00:16:19] ANGELA: Did I say Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver? Was that on there?

ANNE: No, but I know I saw that on a different submission.

ANGELA: That's probably one of my favorite books ever. And I would say it captures that warm feeling, but there's depth to it. What else did I say? Did I say a Deborah Harkness book, I bet?

ANNE: You didn't.

ANGELA: I did not. Oh, what did I say? Did I do a travel memoir?

ANNE: You did say that you would love to talk about travel memoirs by strong women, and you would love to find more.

ANGELA: The Travels of an Independent Woman. Without Reservations.

ANNE: That was your first favorite, Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman.

ANGELA: What else did I say?

ANNE: The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish.

ANGELA: Oh, I do love that.

ANNE: And on your July submission, Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher.

[00:17:11] ANGELA: I do love that. That has a similar feel to Prodigal Summer for me because they both feel warm. They made you want to like... I'm very much an introvert, and I'm an only child. So those didn't feel overwhelming to me. They felt like a cozy hug of these people coming together. And I love the nature part of Prodigal Summer. But yeah, Winter Solstice, I need to reread that. I just read it once. Every December, I go, "Should I reread Winter Solstice this year?" So I'm thinking about it.

ANNE: I know that 2026 we've caught you at a specific moment in time, but it's really interesting and fun to note the continuity between past Angela. I mean, 2020 wasn't forever ago, unless you're one of the readers from your reading life, it does feel like another era.

[00:18:02] ANGELA: No, it feels different. I think that is the point. Probably maybe 10 years ago... I'd always read, but probably about 8, 9, 10 years ago, I really started reading more as I had more time. And probably 2020 was when I really started thinking more about what works for me, what doesn't work for me, and being a little more introspective about it.

ANNE: All right. Well, that's interesting to hear. At the time, in 2020, you were reading The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton. And the book you disliked is the one you've already chosen to speak to today, so we'll get to that shortly.

ANGELA: I really disliked that book.

ANNE: Angela, so with that hanging in our ears, what did you bring to the show for 2026? What's the first book you love?

[00:18:53] ANGELA: I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott. It is a memoir in essays, which I often enjoy memoir in essays. I read her books backwards. I know she has two. I first read Bomb Shelter when we read it in book club, and I loved it. And then probably about three years ago, maybe two years ago, I picked up I Miss You When I Blink. It had been sitting on my shelf. I thought, "I need to read that." And within the first 25 pages, I stopped reading and went and ordered a copy and had it shipped to land on my daughter's door in New Jersey because I thought, "Oh, she's going to love this book."

ANNE: What made you think so?

ANGELA: The point when I Miss You When I Blink, it captures that experience of wanting to feel more like yourself, but not quite knowing how to get there. It's insightful but not heavy, not preachy, not didactic, and it's not depressing. But it's funny.

She read it then, and then she reread it about three weeks ago and she goes, "I'm rereading I Miss You When I Blink, and it's just as good the second time." So I pulled my copy off the shelf, and I probably think about 25% of the pages I have either dog-eared or written notes on in this book.

ANNE: What a compliment.

[00:20:21] ANGELA: I love it. I absolutely adore it. It addresses difficult topics, like it's not all fluff, but with a light touch. And the tone is humorous. It makes you think, "Man, Mary Laura Philpott would be so much fun to hang out with, I think."

It has a lot of aha moments when I was reading it. It kind of, you have thoughts in your head, and then you're reading, you go, oh, that puts words to what I've been thinking about. And so a lot of the experiences and what she was talking about, as far as in life and change, and life is change, as your kids grow up, as life experiences change, how you deal with it and change with it. That's why I love that. I need to reread it soon.

ANNE: You just talked yourself into it.

ANGELA: I did. I've been looking at it, and I'm like, "Oh, I need to do that."

ANNE: I think that's a good sign.

ANGELA: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:20] ANNE: Okay, well, thanks for telling us about that one. Angela, what's the second book you brought that you love?

ANGELA: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness. And I would say that her series, the Discovery of Witches series, is my favorite series. Shadow of Night is my favorite book in the series. It's the second book in the series. And in this one, the two main characters, Diana and Matthew, we have a witch and a vampire, they go back to Elizabethan London. I enjoy fantasy especially that's set around the edges of the real world. And historical fantasy I tend to enjoy when I read it.

This is my favorite book of the series because of the history component in it. It had me Googling nonstop. They talk about places in London, I'd be on Google Maps like, "Oh, where's that?" It talks about Mary Sidney a lot, who was a real woman and an alchemist then. I enjoy the topic because they are both steeped in academia and worked at Oxford and Yale. So I love kind of the academic part of Shadow of Night.

[00:22:34] It has a romantic element too with Matthew and Diana. And I like the witchy thing. Witchy books tend to work well for me. I think that the part I also love is the setting. I love a very textured, detailed setting where I could feel like I was there. And I keep looking at the series going, "I need to reread that series."

But it feels overwhelming to reread the whole series. So I might maybe start rereading some of them.

ANNE: Yeah, and then just see what happens.

ANGELA: Yeah.

ANNE: Take it from there. Angela, what's the third book you love?

ANGELA: The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. I read a good amount of historical fiction and like it, enjoy it. This historical fiction is about the friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune. I mean, I knew who they were, but I didn't know details about their lives before reading this. And I was fascinated by what I learned about them and the work they did together on racial issues. I had no idea.

[00:23:37] Eleanor Roosevelt actually sat in the Black section of a segregated theater in 1938 Alabama, and Mary McLeod Bethune confronted the KKK when they marched at the college she founded. I love books that have strong female characters. I get a little irritated when you have kind of weak women. So this book I love because you had two strong women characters.

I know in my historical fiction, I'm a little quirky that I prefer more history than fiction. I'll read a book that's just kind of a general historical setting with mainly fiction. But what really puts one over the top for me is if it's very detailed history. I love a good meaty author's note. I get so excited if there's an author's note at the end that's extensive and explains, like tells me, okay, this is the fictional part of this book. Because I always want to know. I'm always googly and trying to figure it out.

[00:24:36] Some people have said they're kind of getting tired of multiple points of view and timelines, but I really enjoy a book that has different points of view and timelines because I love trying to figure out how they're going to come together and intersect and to see the connections between their lives. It has multiple timelines. And it was fascinating, the history in that and how they all brought them all together.

ANNE: Is it the alternating timelines that you were definitely here for? I think I heard that as multiple points of view.

ANGELA: I can do either one.

ANNE: Okay, because I've heard people complain about both, and yet I've read many good books that have either or both elements in common.

ANGELA: Either are fine. Like in Prodigal Summer, they're all on the same timeline, but it's different points of view that you rotate between three stories. And I love trying to figure out how they all came together.

In The First Ladies, you have an Eleanor Roosevelt, though I think that one rotates basically between a chapter from Eleanor Roosevelt's point of view and what's going on with her, and then one from Mary McLeod Bethune. And so it was very interesting. You could see the similarities and the differences between them. So, no, I am fine with multiple points of view or timelines. I'm good with all of it.

[00:25:51] ANNE: Angela, now it's time for you to tell us about a book that was not right for you. Can I quote 2020 you about this book?

ANGELA: Yes, you can.

ANNE: You say, "Being from and living in North Carolina, not liking it is a bit of a sacrilege." That was in July, 2020. What is the book you chose that you do not like in 2026? Or you know, whatever. It didn't work for you.

ANGELA: I still don't like it.

ANNE: All right. And tell us why, but what did you choose then and now?

ANGELA: I chose Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

ANNE: Which I haven't read. So please tell us about it.

ANGELA: He is held up as one of the great North Carolina writers. This is probably one of the first books that did help me realize what does not work for me.

ANNE: That's valuable.

ANGELA: It is historical fiction about a soldier's journey home to Cold Mountain, North Carolina, near the end of the Civil War. I picked it up because I love to read books set in places where we have trips planned or we're going to go visit. And I picked it up because we had a trip planned to the North Carolina mountains right near Cold Mountain. I thought, "Oh great. I'll read this book set on Cold Mountain. This'd be great."

[00:27:03] I went back and looked at my Goodreads little blurb that I had written about it and I said that I was traumatized by the violence in it, and it felt like a slog. And I do remember when reading it, I kept putting it down and flipping and reading something else. And I was like, "I just gotta read some other lightweight book and then I'll go back to it." I should have DNF'd it. I truly should have. But at that point, that was not something that I considered doing.

It had no emotional payoff. Like if you work all the way through it, you didn't get anything uplifting or good at the end for me. It's just dark. And I just realized a dark tone does not work for me. And it doesn't end with hope. I need something that ends hopeful. And I did write that I thought it had an unclear or obtuse ending, but I'm not sure if maybe I just didn't get it. Because I know there's a movie about it. And my husband said, "Oh, that movie is so depressing because here's what happens at the end." And I don't remember if the... maybe I just didn't get it when I read the book. But I do like things to wrap up. So I do remember being frustrated with something about the ending. I didn't feel like it was conclusive. It's just dark.

[00:28:21] ANNE: So, what I'm hearing is that you are looking for a book with an emotional payoff that has some element of hope or goodness.

ANGELA: Yes.

ANNE: And this wasn't it?

ANGELA: But not saccharine hope or goodness.

ANNE: Okay.

ANGELA: I can't stand books that are saccharine or cloying, you know, and if it's a tearjerker, you know, Cold Mountain’s one of those too. It's described as a tearjerker, no, thank you. I don't like no big emotions and tearjerker-y things.

ANNE: Okay, heard. Angela, what have you been reading lately?

ANGELA: I'm listening to Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn. It is fascinating. I keep telling my husband, "Oh my gosh, listen to this. This is what happened."

ANNE: I mean, this is the laugh of recognition. As in like, how is this real?

ANGELA: It's amazing.

ANNE: She's an amazing writer, too.

ANGELA: This is going to be the nonfiction I'm going to be pushing on people, truly.

ANNE: I don't have experience with the audiobook. So I appreciate hearing that it's very good in that format for you.

[00:29:23] ANGELA: It's fine. It's working. I do a lot of nonfiction audio just because I work from home.

The end may take me a while to get through an audiobook. So nonfiction tends to work well because it's not like a propulsive plot then that I feel like I'm constantly trying to get to.

Family of Spies is narrative nonfiction. It's a woman who learns that her grandparents were Nazi spies. So that contributed to the planning of Pearl Harbor. I mean, it's fascinating. I read earlier this year in an absolutely adored Awake by Jen Hatmaker. It's a memoir of a woman coming into her own middle age. It has very frank talk in it, but it's not depressing. I mean, it ultimately feels like, hey, we're all working through some stuff, and this is how we're going to do it, and here is how I grew in this experience. I thought it felt empowering, and I loved it. And last night I started Far and Away by Amy Poeppel because it's just light.

[00:30:27] ANNE: What? Okay, that's so funny, because when I was thinking of books that felt light but didn't feel saccharine, because I hadn't applied that word to your reading, but I didn't think that you were looking for anything that felt overly sentimental or maudlin or twee.

I thought, Amy Poeppel is such a good writer for someone who engages real human issues from a realistic standpoint and manages to find the humor in the mundanity, but also just the, like, what in the world? How did we get here? What is happening? How are we...? What's the word I'm looking for? Maybe the humor in the ridiculous reality of the human life and human nature sometimes.

And we've read her in book clubs, so I thought, "I know I haven't talked about Far and Away on the podcast. I'm going to jot that one down as a maybe for Angela." Oh, and you started it last night. How's it working for you so far?

[00:31:20] ANGELA: I like it. So, I picked it up because it has an art component. I realized, I thought, "Oh, this will be fun." And I loved Musical Chairs. I really enjoyed that one. And then I read The Sweet Spot, too. I liked it. I like Musical Chairs more. But Far and Away's fun. It's light. It's enjoyable. I'm just about 50 pages in so far, but it's fun. I'm curious, like, well, how's this all going to pan out?

ANNE: I think Musical Chairs might be my favorite Amy Poeppel. I also really liked Limelight, but I loved reading about Berlin in Far and Away. That was a big draw for me.

ANGELA: Oh, yes.

ANNE: We got a lot of Texas listeners. It's half set in Berlin and half set in Dallas. So, I know that if that catches your ear, there you go. And I'm glad that Amy Poeppel's on your radar.

[00:32:09] Angela, we've talked a little bit about what you're reading for in your reading life right now. You're looking for books that are light, as in you want things to feel light and also be enlightening. You're looking for a good mix of titles for your reading life. You also said something about found family books in your submission. Would you say more about that, if that's still on your near horizon or still what you're scanning for?

ANGELA: I kind of realized it when I absolutely loved A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping. I thought, "Yeah, I really like this found family book." And then I thought about, I loved Winter Solstice and it was found family. And Prodigal Summer that I loved was a kind of found family book. So, you had these different people coming together. And I loved Search by Michelle Huneven, which is also kind of this found family of this church committee. So, I thought, "You know, I like these," but I often feel overwhelmed by books that have large families.

[00:33:08] I'm an only child. Both my parents have very small families. So, I have no experience with the big, bustling family. So, I get kind of overwhelmed, especially when you have books that... when everybody's kind of getting into each other's business. Which one did I felt really overwhelmed with one? It was a Sonali Dev book, I think, like Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors. Had like a red cover. And I just remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, all these people are into everybody's business." And it felt very overwhelming.

So, I'm kind of curious about like, why do I like these kind of found family books, but the other ones, the big family where everybody's very active in each other's lives, why does that feel too much for me? I'm trying to figure out the difference.

ANNE: Mm-hmm. What do you think? Do you have a working theory?

[00:34:07] ANGELA: I think maybe there's a little gentler at how they interact with people. I guess maybe I'm wondering if, with like the biological family, if they are all just used to kind of invading each other's and telling each other what to do. I don't know. I'm not comfortable with personalities that are very in-your-face and telling you like ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ and pressuring you to do things. So, that's the Enneagram Five for me. I like my boundaries.

I think maybe it's that, that I enjoy seeing the interaction and like, oh, how is that going to work, and how trying to figure it out, but not the kind of over the top that just feels like too much. It feels stressful to me when it's like everybody all together. But Musical Chairs worked. And I don't know why that one worked. And it's similar kind of like that, but not as much as the Sonali Dev book.

[00:35:16] ANNE: That wasn't a particularly large family. It wasn't particularly small either. You didn't have a lot of generations running about. You know what I'm wondering? That thread that you said appealed to you, books with an emotional payoff with some element of hope or redemption or goodness at the end, that thread's available in all kinds of books. It's not confined to found family stories. You could certainly have that in a multi-generational family novel.

But so many found family stories, this is a working theory. Readers, you can tell me I'm way off base in comments and I can think about it some more. But so many found family stories involve lonely people coming together and finding community and bonds that feel resilient and lasting. And I wonder if perhaps those elements appeal to you.

ANGELA: Maybe. I just thought of also, I loved this summer, the Kevin Wilson book, which I can't remember the name of it now, with the PT Cruiser.

[00:36:15] ANNE: Yes. Run for the Hill.

ANGELA: Yes. And it had kind of that found family, but it was also funny. That worked because you did see people come together and feel a sense of belonging in that coming together, I think. Maybe that's the difference. I like books where the people come together and feel like they become more themselves when they come together, as opposed to a group in which you're told like, "No, no, you're doing the wrong thing here," or "this isn't going to work because I know better for you." I think that's the difference, maybe.

ANNE: What I'm hearing is a story where people are punished for stepping out of line feels terrible. But a story where people are welcomed as they are and then feel like they're able to blossom even more, that feels like a soft place to land right now.

[00:37:13] ANGELA: Yeah. I Miss You When I Blink does that so well because she's saying like, "This is going on with me. I'm not a perfect person, but this is where I am." But it's not judgmental or I'm wrong. And Awake by Jen Hatmaker kind does the same thing. It's more like, this is who I am right now. It's welcoming. It's not making you feel bad or guilty if you feel that way.

ANNE: I love finding these common threads. Angela, what are we going to do with them?

ANGELA: I don't know. Okay.

ANNE: Well, let's see if we can find some books for you to read next. So, the books we've talked about so far, you loved I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott, Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness. This is part of the Discovery of Witches series, which you think may be your favorite series and this is your favorite book. And then The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. Just noting, if you love them as a writing team, they have several out and one more coming soon this summer. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, by your fellow North Carolinian, not for you and hasn't been for a long time. And we've said repeatedly, but we'll say it again, that you want an emotional payoff with some element of hope or goodness in your reading. You didn't find it here.

[00:38:30] You love books that are a little witchy. You listen to a fair amount of nonfiction. Ooh, I didn't say about the historical. You really like a lot of history. And that's a driver more so than the fiction of historical fiction. And you love a mix for your reading life. So you're open to lots, but keeping that theme of books that are light and/or enlightening in mind would feel really good. What else do you want me to know?

ANGELA: That's about it. Obviously, I don't like things like abuse and violence. I'd stay away from. And I just stay away from things that feel cloying or too sweet. If it feels like an inspirational quote could go along with it. I don't like things that feel melodramatic or try to jerk you into feeling one way or manipulate your emotions.

ANNE: You know, when you first said that, I immediately started wondering, where is the line? Because a book that feels close... I mean, a book that is close to the line, but not over your line could be perfect.

ANGELA: Right.

[00:39:42] ANNE: But a book that is over the line is going to feel... what's the word you used? It wasn't maudlin. It wasn't sentimental.

ANGELA: Saccharine.

ANNE: Saccharine. Saccharine was the word. Okay. How about let's leap right in with one that I fear might be saccharine with a big warning label on it, and you can tell me, does this feel safe?

ANGELA: Okay.

ANNE: Or do you want to just skip it if I think it might be on the wrong side?

ANGELA: We can try whatever you feel good about.

ANNE: Well, I feel good about letting you make the call. The book I'm thinking of is Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love by Marianne Cronin. And a lot of readers will recognize her name from The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot that was her debut that came out a few years ago.

Now, I'm a little fearful that this might be a little too sweet for you. And it will be too sweet for some readers. Absolutely. And others that I've talked to this book about have said, you know, it walks the line, but it stays right where I needed it to be. But the reason I want to surface this for you is it is a found family story of hard things bringing people together in a way that helps them blossom and flourish and become more themselves.

[00:40:48] The main character in this book is Eddie Winston of the title. He's 90 years old. He works at, I mean, I picture a Goodwill, but he works at a charity shop in Birmingham, England, and he sorts through things and interacts with clientele who are bringing their goods to donate through the doors. But Eddie has a real knack, and I get the sense that he would describe it as his calling, to set aside those items that he suspects people may be sorry in a week or a month or longer that they donated.

Such is the case when this 20-something woman named Bella comes through the door and drops off a box of stuff. And she has spiky pink hair. She and Eddie are not the same stage of life or situation or anything, but Eddie's heart really goes out to her. And he goes through this stuff she's dropped off and something about the box, including a clearly beloved pair of, they might be Converse or just something similar, but they've been heavily personalized, he thinks, "I don't know the story here, but this young woman is going to want this stuff back."

[00:41:54] And this happens to Eddie all the time. He's seen it before. And he knows that sometimes in the clearer light of day, people will come back and be like, "I don't suppose you still have that coffee mug, that necklace, that shirt." And it brings him great joy to be able to say, "It's right here on my special shelf." And Eddie thinks no one else spies what he is up to, but they all totally do and know about Eddie's shelf.

But over these things that Bella has dropped off, Eddie and Bella get to know each other. And it turns out that the love of her young life has died, she dropped off all his things at the charity shop in a fit of impulse and one enclosure. And when she comes back for it, she feels so seen by Eddie and the two connect and start hanging out.

And she encourages Eddie and his style. I think he makes some local photograp​her style blog and a leopard print shirt that he grabs from the racks of the charity shop. And he helps talk her through the thing she's going to right now.

[00:42:51] But the title, Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love, Bella finds out that 90-year-old Eddie has never been kissed, and she decides, "I'm going to help this man find love." Now, what we find out over the course of the novel is Eddie found love a long time ago, but the timing for that love was all wrong. And through the course of the book, we learn more about Eddie's story. We learn more about Bella's story. We see the two moving forward.

And then there's also this other point of view that doesn't at first seem to be related, that's inserted periodically through the story. And by the end of the book, all these threads are going to come together in a safe, welcoming way that will feel both exactly like what you expected, but not the version that you thought the book was heading toward, or at least that was my experience.

And I really liked how I knew what was going to happen, but I didn't know what was going to happen the same way I might feel reading like a romance or a mystery novel, where you know your characters are going to end in a certain place with the mystery tied up, or the characters happy for now or happily ever after, but you don't know how you're going to get there. I was pleased by the journey of this book.

[00:44:02] Now, what do you think? Does that sound like delightful found family or maybe not for you in this season?

ANGELA: I'll try it. I think the multiple threads sounds great. The found family sounds great. And I trust you that it's not saccharine. Actually-

ANNE: I said I trusted you. I trusted you to decide.

ANGELA: It sounds interesting. I think I like Bella. I love the shoes that remind me I had a pair of pink high top Converse way back when in high school that I had written stuff all over and I wish I had those shoes still. To this day, I guess they got donated at some point. But yeah, I'll try it.

ANNE: I have some things that I wish I knew where they got up to.

ANGELA: Yeah.

ANNE: Yeah. Including a great pair of shoes. This is also quite good on audio. I know you mentioned you listen to a lot of nonfiction on audio. Look, I'm a Kentucky girl, you are also from the States, I do love a British narrator. It sounds so delightfully foreign to me. This is narrated by three different narrators for three different main characters. It was lovely in that format.

[00:45:11] ANGELA: That sounds good. I listen to fiction on audio, too. But I do love audio. If it has an accent, it’s fabulous.

ANNE: I do love listening to somebody who doesn't sound like me.

ANGELA: Right. And if there are words that I may not be able to pronounce, I'm like-

ANNE: Oh my gosh.

ANGELA: ...that helps a lot. But my pet peeve is a fake Southern accent done poorly.

ANNE: Oh, the worst.

ANGELA: Oh, it's awful. Just don't even try. But British accent, oh, I'm there.

ANNE: Okay. I am pleased to report the next book I have in mind for you is not set in the South and the audiobook accents are not bad. But it's from last year's Summer Reading Guide, so you may know it. I'm thinking of Jessica Anya Blau's follow-up to Mary Jane called Shopgirls. Have you read this?

ANGELA: I have not. I remember hearing about it, but I have not read it.

[00:46:07] ANNE: It's got a little bit of the Kevin Wilson vibes. This is a coming-of-age story about a wide eyed, earnest, learning about the world 19-year-old protagonist whose name is Zippy. And she is the youngest saleswoman on the dress floor at this very real, realistic, you can Google it, 1980 San Francisco department store.

This novel is very playful, like Jessica Anya Blau was having fun here with her young doe-eyed protagonist. She lives with her 25-year-old roommate, Raquel, who works in the legal field. She might be a lawyer. Zippy thinks she is just unbelievably worldly and sophisticated and knowledgeable. Zippy just loves hearing Raquel's advice about kissing and men and their mutual crush on the dreamy model from the Berber coffee ads. And the Berber coffee guy is a running gag through the book that pays off big at the end of the story. The way it comes together is so fun.

[00:47:11] So over the course of the story, Zippy has to take agency over her own life and step into the role of being the adult in charge. Actually, the way she thinks of this is she wants to learn what it means to be a chooser about what happens to her, not just an object that is acted upon. So she's making big decisions in life and relationships and figuring out what it means.

Her home life was untraditional. She was raised by her mom, who's now living with some guy that Zippy likes, but isn't her dad, and she feels kind of neutral on. She visits him sometimes. Their work situation is interesting and leads to some humorous moments. But she's just making things happen.

And the way she builds her own little family and the way she interacts with the kind of snipey family on the sales floor of the 1980s San Francisco department store. Actually, that's almost like a family unit. She has the makeup girl she really depends on and the shoe people who show her how to polish up her Goodwill pumps. This is the second book actually where I've mentioned Goodwill, but they show her how to make her clothing crisp and great, even though Zippy has zero money to spend on the clothes that will make her look like she belongs on the dress floor serving the very wealthy California women.

[00:48:32] It's a little bit of a dysfunctional family, but one that's not, I don't believe, stressful to read about. It's just kind of gossipy and delightful. And then some threads come together in ways we don't expect. And it's big-hearted and upbeat. Zippy is just a really fun character to root for.

But I will say, this novel feels like the best of the 80s, but also the worst of the 80s. The nostalgia is real. But so are things in the book like diet culture and the AIDS crisis. They are very much there. And yet I am hoping, Angela, that I am listening to you faithfully and reading what I'm hearing correctly and thinking that this can be light and enlightening. And also it's not putting its head in the sand, but it is taking a playful tone to the heavy and the light. How does that sound?

[00:49:26] ANGELA: That sounds great. That sounds fabulous. I think I didn't want total fluff, but I love that it has actual, you know, women taking charge of their lives, but also reflects the time period in which it's in with the things that were going on in the 80s. And I remember the 80s very well.

Actually, the funny part, as you're talking about that, my first job out of college where I learned that I didn't like the corporate world, was I worked as a buyer for a large department store chain. I spent many a time working, I had to for a while, work as a manager in a very large store. And I was like, "I do not like this." So I think I will probably be very humored by all the department store tidbits and the working and things that happened there.

ANNE: Oh, I love that for you. That sounds so fun. I mean, that was just pure voyeurism for me. I know nothing. I mean, I've been shopping on a dress floor, but that's the only connection I had to the material. But I love that connection for you.

ANGELA: Yeah, that'd be fun.

[00:50:34] ANNE: Okay, you love a memoir and essays. How do you feel about... or maybe you've read The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl?

ANGELA: I had it on my TBR for a long time. I think I had a copy and then I had to give it back to the library. I've heard good things about it. I actually heard somebody the other day talking about it. So I've been thinking about that one for a while. And I love nature writing and nature things.

ANNE: So readers have been planting the seeds, you've pondered. I'm wondering if this may hit both the light and enlightening because it's got... I mean, nature is not all lighthearted. She's debating some really serious quandaries. Like, do you rescue the baby bird or do you let nature take its course? Like, are people actually more important than the animals that we are making ill sometimes by our actions?

[00:51:34] And she doesn't answer those questions. You use the word 'didactic' in a negative way, which I think is how people mostly use it, but she lets those questions hang. Like she kind of explores them and lets them be and gives you space to think about it for yourself. And yet there's something that's very soothing in reading 52 chapters, one for each week, where she is observing the flora and fauna in her backyard in Nashville, Tennessee.

And she did this through the whole of 2022, not long after the pandemic changed our lives and our relationship with nature. And she's definitely writing from that specific place and also time. But there's something that's also so steadying and grounding and soothing about the way her writing moves us through the season as the birds and also plenty of other animals are coming and going and the flowers bloom and then the blooms fade, the trees leaf out, and then many chapters later they're shedding their leaves.

[00:52:42] But it isn't just a nature observation because it does sound and feel very Annie Dillard in that sense. But she's also mapping onto that the way her personal life changes. I know you're a parent of grown children. She describes in lovely metaphor, but prose too, how her grown children are making their own migration through these seasons and chapters. How does that sound to you?

ANGELA: Oh, that sounds fabulous. Two questions. One, if it has a different chapter for each week, do you recommend reading it throughout a year and doing the chapter that goes with the week where you are or reading it all at one time?

ANNE: I think readers can make arguments for both, which is very unhelpful. You could read this straight through. You could read it in sync with the seasons. If there is nowhere you want to be than somewhere else when it is 97 degrees in North Carolina, which I'm sure will happen at least a few days in July of this year, maybe you don't want to be reading it in sync.

[00:53:45] Maybe you want to be reading the December and January chapters during that time. Maybe it will feel really soothing to you if that's what you want to move through alongside her. I don't think there's a wrong way, but there could be a way that feels wrong or very, very right to you. Do you know what kind of reader you're inclined to be when decisions like these arise with such a book?

ANGELA: I don't know. I enjoy reading seasonally, so I may enjoy doing it a little... you know, that goes along where we are in the year. My other question feeds into that. Is this the book that's supposed to be gorgeous in print, like I want a print copy of this to have?

ANNE: You know, Angela, I said we weren't going to forget about the art piece, that we were going to put that on the hopper, and then I forgot. So I've heard readers say that they really enjoyed this book on audio. They liked listening to Margaret Renkl's own words, but the illustrations have been highly praised. They're by her brother, Billy Renkl, that she's collaborated with on several different works. If you need to make a decision, I have heard your appreciation for art. I don't know. I think that's worth poking around or deciding what sounds good and taking a chance on it.

[00:54:59] ANGELA: Yeah, I think I might order that in print. I think I will call our local bookstore today and have them put in an order for me.

ANNE: Okay. Well, I'll be excited to hear what you think. Okay, Angela, how are you feeling?

ANGELA: Good. Good. I'm excited about this.

ANNE: Well, I'm excited you're excited. The books that we talked about are Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love by Marianne Cronin, then we talked about Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau, and finally, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl. Angela, of those books, what do you think you may read next?

ANGELA: I think I'm going to order a copy of Comfort of Crows and then maybe try just doing a week at a time for the week. I'm going to try that and see if I like it. And then I definitely am going to pick up Shopgirls. So I'm going to go ahead and get on the library holds list for that one, too.

[00:55:50] ANNE: That sounds lovely. I can't wait to hear what you think. Angela, thank you so much for talking books with me today.

ANGELA: Thank you. It was wonderful.

ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Angela and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Angela on Instagram. We'll have that link along with the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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[00:56:47] Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, Media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.

Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.

KATE SCARTH: You know, and again, not everything has to go back to L.M. Montgomery, but I can't help it.

ANNE BOGEL: But it might in this episode.

KATE: It might.

ANNE: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel, and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:00:40] Readers, I'm so excited to tell you about a live event happening this spring. On May 7th, I'll be joining Laurie Frankel in conversation at Parnassus in Nashville on tour for her new book, Enormous Wings. I'd love to see you there. Get all the information at the link in our show notes or at parnassusbooks.net.

We love to tell you about new additions to the calendar on the podcast, but if you want to make sure you don't miss any news, be sure to subscribe to our email list at modernmrsdarcy.com/subscribe so you'll be the first to know all our What Should I Read Next? news and happenings. That's modernmrsdarcy.com/subscribe.

Readers, I'm sure many of you will well understand our team's excitement when we saw today's guest submission land in our inboxes. Today, I'm talking with Kate Scarth, chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island.

We're going to talk more about Kate's work today, but in addition to her academic role, Kate has partnered with the L.M. Montgomery Institute, which she describes as a hub of the international Montgomery community and was part of the advisory committee for the Green Gables Interpretive Center.

[00:01:47] I was so interested in hearing more about Montgomery's life and work and also Kate's life and work and about some of her favorite Montgomery retellings and homages, but our main focus today is on Kate's reading life. She's interested in building out a deep reading roster for the kinds of books she especially enjoys. Books featuring literary women, books where an investigation or detective work is a big part of the story, books that center on a house, and nonfiction about creative and artistic women in history.

She's also very interested in finding more books with magical realism and ghosts, and had some interesting thoughts to share in this vein connecting Stephen King and L.M. Montgomery, if you can believe it. Stick around to hear more. Let's get to it.

Kate, welcome to the show.

KATE: Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation. I've been a fan of the podcast for years, so it's such a delight to be here.

[00:02:37] ANNE: Oh, well, thank you. I'm so excited to chat. And I have to tell you when you wrote in to our submissions inbox about your work as chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies, which it makes me happy to know I live in a world where such a role exists, our team members who review those all said, "Hey, I think now's a good time for a conversation about Anne." Not just about Anne, but I'm happy to talk a little bit about Anne of Green Gables today. I've been looking forward to this.

KATE: Well, I love how often you mention L.M. Montgomery on the podcast and on the blog.

ANNE: Do I?

KATE: Yeah, you do. Yes.

ANNE: Have I said out loud how much I've been wanting to reread specifically The Blue Castle recently? But I'm sure that's just going to set me down all of them. But I have to finish my Summer Reading Guide reading first. That's where I am right now at the moment we're recording. I was not aware I did that, though.

KATE: Right. Well, and if you need an added incentive to read The Blue Castle this year, it is 100 years since it was published. So it's a good year to read it in.

[00:03:34] ANNE: Is it really? Okay, well, I have a beautiful edition in my library. I was going to say with my name on it, not literally. Unless Anne counts.

KATE: Yeah, that's right. But yes, no, you absolutely, you are a good booster for L.M. Montgomery. And yeah, the position, I mean, I went to PEI for the first time, Prince Edward Island, where Montgomery lived and the place she mostly wrote about. And yeah, 8-year-old me was so excited to go to the land of Anne. But I definitely could not have conceived that the chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies was the job that existed, or that I would be that person one day.

ANNE: So if you visited PEI when you were eight, where did you grow up?

KATE: I grew up in Newfoundland. So another island province on the east coast of Canada, but very different. So if PEI is like gently rolling hills, very pastoral, agricultural, Newfoundland is rocky and has mostly relied on fishing and now oil and gas, but very much a study in contrast, even though they're kind of all part of Atlantic Canada. So it really felt like a different world to me.

[00:04:42] ANNE: Oh, I love your introduction was so young. Okay, Kate, tell us a little more about yourself. We always want to give our readers a glimpse of who we're talking to on the podcast.

KATE: I am a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island. And as the chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies, I work closely with the L.M. Montgomery Institute. And we kind of have two main goals. One is to support research into Montgomery's life, work, legacy, context. And we do that through a journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies, which is online, and then a conference every two years.

One thing that's really exciting about the work with the Montgomery Institute is how international it is. So we usually have about 15 different countries represented in the presenters at the conference. We're very focused on public engagement as well. So whether that's locally with the National Park, where there's the Green Gables House that you can visit, or with some of the international scholars or tourism operators, or just any of the many people who have an interest in Montgomery.

[00:05:41] ANNE: Kate, I'm so curious how your reading life is impacted by the work you do by day.

KATE: I've always been a really big reader. I definitely return to Montgomery's books. I mean, one of the things that's been really exciting for me about the role is just learning about what an artist Montgomery was. She kept scrapbooks. She was a photographer. She kept journals for decades. So there's a lot to read that either she produced or has been written about her.

I've gotten really interested in books that are adaptations of her work or homages in some way to her writing and even to books that just reference Anne of Green Gables once. I'm really interested in kind of the cultural shorthand that that novel represents. So certainly some of my reading is Montgomery-focused. I've never been a collector, but I think for the first time in my life, I am going to start collecting books that have some link to Montgomery.

[00:06:37] There's a local kids’ bookstore in Halifax, Nova Scotia called Woozles and they're kind of helping me get set up there. But in terms of other reading, certainly I think that there are links back to Montgomery in terms of a lot of the things that I enjoy. So I love books about houses, for example, women's stories. So you can see that there are links back to Montgomery. I was reading her at such a young age and loving her at such a young age that probably those influences were inevitable.

ANNE: That's so interesting. We are going to get more into your specific loves and make, for better or worse listeners, non-Montgomery recommendations at the end of this episode. But I feel like it's our responsibility to ask you some L.M. Montgomery-related questions while we have the opportunity. I would love to hear more about how Anne of Green Gables is used as cultural shorthand. Now, you and I were just talking about how Anne of Green Gables is mentioned often in literature. I almost said fiction, but it may be in literature. And it's meant to convey a certain something about a character in the book. I imagine that that's what they're reading. But would you take it from here? What do you observe readers to be using that as shorthand for?

[00:07:54] KATE: Yeah. So some of the things are what you might expect. It's meant to emphasize that someone is bookish or studious or imaginative or maybe a bit hyperactive or chatty. So these characteristics that we might associate with Anne of Green Gables.

But sometimes the references are negative as well. I recently did a post on Instagram about references to Anne of Green Gables by writers from Newfoundland, the island where I grew up. And in some cases, it's very much like we're from the same part of the world. And of course, L.M. Montgomery influenced me, like Lisa Moore, the novelist, talks about that. But then sometimes it's like, well, you know, it's real life here on Newfoundland, like where it's harsher and Prince Edward Island, life is easy. Anne of Green Gables is associated with tourism and summer. And so it can be very dismissive as well to kind of show like, well, what we're doing over here is like gritty and real life.

[00:09:02] And that's kind of interesting too, actually, because it goes back to how in the 1920s and 30s, modernist critics started to be very dismissive of Montgomery's work. They wanted to be producing their own F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and showing that Canadians could do modernist too. And that was not what Montgomery was doing. And so she was really used as like, almost like the punching bag for like, this is not the direction we want Canadian literature to go in. We don't want it to be sentimental and for children. We want it to be real life.

ANNE: I imagine you have some thoughts about the enduring appeal, though.

KATE: Absolutely. I think that readers and fans always loved Montgomery's work, you know, no matter what these critics were saying, and people continue to read Anne of Green Gables and other books by Montgomery. But it was very distressing to her, even though she had a lot of success, was a celebrity in her lifetime, and was very interested in promoting Canadian writers. She helped establish the Canadian Authors Association. So then for these modernist writers to turn around and exclude her from the national stage in many ways was very difficult. But yeah, we remember her name now and we don't remember many of her critics.

[00:10:19] ANNE: You mentioned one of your interests right now is tracking down books that are adaptations or homages. I imagine readers would be interested in hearing a standout or two, whether or not that's a personal favorite for you that falls in that category.

KATE: One of my absolute favorites is Heather Fawcett's The Grace of Wild Things, which is just I think an amazing work of art itself. A middle grade book that is Anne of Green Gables meets Hansel and Gretel. I mean, I like it as a book in itself. It's a great story and great characters and a great sense of place, but I love that she draws out the dark elements that are present in Montgomery's writing.

I think they're there in terms of Anne's backstory as an orphan, but in other books, she explores that dark side in more detail. Like in the Emily of New Moon series, Emily has the sixth sense, for example. So there's that kind of Scottish supernatural element at play in some of her work too. So I like that Heather Fawcett draws that out.

[00:11:22] I love Anna James's book, Tilly and the Book Wanderers. And Tilly actually gets to jump into Anne of Green Gables and go to the Avonlea schools. That's a really fun one, I think, that highlights the magic of books.

Actually, just like a book that references Anne of Green Gables briefly, Kate Quinn's new book, The Astral Library, allows people to escape their very difficult lives into a book of their choice. There's this one little girl who's been abused and her choice is to go into Anne of Green Gables, which is very powerful, right, like that book as an escape, which it has been for so many people kind of metaphorically. And then for this little girl in Kate Quinn's book, Anne of Green Gables is a literal escape from her life.

ANNE: Thank you for sharing those. What do you like to read for your own sake? I certainly hope you enjoy your work reading, but I imagine not all of it, not all your personal reading, has to do with Anne or PEI.

[00:12:25] KATE: That's right, yeah. I read really widely. I really enjoy reading the classics. My PhD was on Jane Austen and writers of that period. So I love anything like 18th or 19th century. I love a mystery novel. I've been doing some challenges on Instagram, like the Dickens December, last December, 2025. I love A Christmas Carol. I love reading that every December. I'm doing a new challenge, 26 classics in 26. And I do like reading nonfiction and listening to nonfiction works really well for me. So stories about women, again, the 18th and 19th century. I like to have multiple books on the go at the same time so I can have options according to how I'm feeling.

ANNE: Kate, you mentioned in your submission that there are a couple of things that really keep you on track in your reading life. Anything you want to tell us about?

[00:13:25] KATE: Yes. Well, I really do like keeping track of the books that I read on Goodreads. I find having the challenge number and watching the number creep up really satisfying. Because it's funny. Like I've always been a reader. I played hockey for one year when I was in grade four. And like for decades after, parents of the other kids on the hockey team, which like I'd run into them in the supermarket and they'd be like talking about me and all my hockey gear reading in the hockey dressing room. So it's like I never needed motivation to reading, but somehow the Goodreads challenge does really help.

And of course, it's just nice to be able to go back. Like, especially when I'm recommending books to people, I can never remember the titles, but there they are. So that helps. And I'm really enjoying doing the challenges on Instagram. There's just something about reading with other people. That's really nice. And seeing what other people think about books.

[00:14:17] One thing about Goodreads that I like too, is I love reading one-star reviews. Whether or not I liked the book, I think they can often be really insightful because you get a sense of like, "Oh yeah, that's true. That didn't really work with that book." That can be fun.

ANNE: Is that guidance, entertainment or both for you?

KATE: I think both. And I mean, sometimes it makes me really angry because I'm like, no, they totally missed what this book is trying to do, right?

ANNE: Yes. That, or I feel like this is happening less, but UPS delivered it to the wrong house, one star.

KATE: Oh yeah, that's right. And particularly on Amazon that happens. It's like, yeah, that's not really about the book.

ANNE: I'm so curious to hear how your professional work might inform your reading life. What I'm imagining is you are very steeped in the life and work of one of our major artists of the 20th century in Canada, widely read in the US and widely read around the world. I really loved especially the international tidbits in your great course.

[00:15:21] Actually, would you tell everybody about that for a moment? I'm so glad I listened to the life and work of L.M. Montgomery lecture series that you did for the Great Courses before we spoke today because it was pure fun, mostly Kate, but I do feel like I have a better handle on what you do. What I'm really curious about, not so much as what they will find there, because those who want to find it will certainly find it, is what are some of the misconceptions? What are some things that people are often shocked to learn as you see it, or that you find that we get wrong, or that the culture gets wrong about the artist and her works? Because I've said Anne as shorthand many times, but L.M. Montgomery wrote many books besides the Anne of Green Gables series.

KATE: Absolutely, yeah. So that would definitely, I think, be one of the misconceptions is that people think that she just wrote this one novel, Anne of Green Gables, and that people have misconceptions about that book, right? It's beloved by many, and yet I think it's easy to dismiss, especially if you just have a superficial understanding, whether you've gone to PEI and just seen people running around with the straw hats and the red braids.

[00:16:25] It's easy to have misconceptions about the character and then just to think that that's Montgomery's only creation. And something that I have just found so interesting about being in this job is learning about what an artist and creator she was across her life. So she had a camera in the 1890s in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, which would have been really unusual. So she really had a powerful visual imagination.

She was kind of a conscious magpie. She loved to collect tidbits about her life. She kept scrapbooks. She wrote poems. She wrote 21 novels. She wrote hundreds of short stories. Very astute businesswoman, you know, knew what publications would want to publish what kind of stories. So she would be very strategic about that. She loved fashion. She liked to be the best dressed person in a room. She took great pride in her household management as well and baking and cooking and loved to eat. And so, yeah, I think that that is something that's just so fascinating about her. It's so much more than Anne of Green Gables.

[00:17:29] ANNE: And I think also that people make a lot of assumptions about Montgomery herself.

KATE: Yeah. So in the 1980s, her journals, so her diaries, which she kept for decades, started to be published. There are a lot of challenges in those. You know, her marriage was at times difficult. She and her husband both had mental health issues. There was a lot of anguish, especially as her life went on. And so people were kind of shocked that the author of this sunny story could have had such darkness in her life.

I mean, I would say that, and, you know, scholars have talked about this, that one of Montgomery's strengths is that she balances the darkness and the light. And the lightness works so well. You know, Anne transforms this community and Marilla and Matthew, but, you know, there's this darkness in her past. And that darkness and light is more apparent in other books.

[00:18:23] So people were kind of amazed at learning about this complex woman behind Anne of Green Gables. And then it also just allowed people to kind of see that complexity in the books as well. Her journals are in many ways, creative works too. Like she went back and copied them out and re-edited them so we can see them as kind of a great kind of literary output as well.

ANNE: And she was very much on board with them being published one day. Do I remember you saying that?

KATE: That's absolutely true. Yeah, because she was a celebrity pretty much as soon as Anne of Green Gables was published. She did a lot of public speaking because of her books, got a lot of fan letters. So she knew there would be interest in her journals. So she went back and wrote them. But, you know, sometimes she leaves things in, like nasty things she says about people, and you think, "Oh, you know, why didn't she edit that out?"

Laura Robinson, a Montgomery scholar, says, we don't know for sure sometimes if a description, say, of a sunset appeared first in the novel or in the journal. You'd assume it was in the journal and then she put it in the novel, but maybe she liked it so much in the novel that then it ended up in the journal.

[00:19:33] So they're not exactly... I mean, I guess diaries are never... you know, it's a person's version of reality, but they're kind of this great literary work themselves. I mean, I do find that there can be a bit of titillation around, especially in terms of how her life ended, that... when I was doing the Audible, the great course, The Life and World of L.M. Montgomery, I wanted to make sure that that wasn't too central. We have such better understanding of mental health too, but the interesting thing about her is what she created. And of course, I mean, it's all the more powerful because she dealt with such hardship in her life, but I think it's really important not to lose track of the fact that she was this amazing artist.

ANNE: I appreciate you speaking to that. And it's so interesting to hear you talk about the way she edited her journals, because when I had heard her journals referred to as literature in the past, I took that to mean quality and purpose. I was not at all thinking about the process by which they were written. That's so interesting.

[00:20:37] KATE: It really is interesting. In the Audible that you listened to that I did, I talk about, for example, her experience of hearing about the Halifax explosion, which was this really devastating collision between two ships in World War I, and how even that, she kind of... you know, she's able to turn an event like that into this very personal, psychological experience of how she coped throughout that day.

So they are a literature, absolutely in the way that you were thinking about them in terms of her crafting place and character, but there's also this, I guess, imaginative editing network as well. And they're also just really interesting because you can almost think of them as kind of experimental because she'll do these long diary entries where it's her kind of revisiting the Cavendish of her past. So Cavendish is where she grew up and dreamt up Anne of Green Gables, and it's kind of the real-life counterpart we could say to Avonlea in the Anne books.

[00:21:38] But she'll just kind of recreate with words, like every turn in the road and the tree and who lived here. So she had this amazing imagination and you could almost see it's like she's creating this map with words. So she's doing a lot of different kind of interesting things in the journals.

ANNE: What would you say to anyone contemplating a trip of their own to PEI and surrounds?

KATE: Well, there is an online literary tour that you can follow. There are many sites tied to Anne of Green Gables. So, yes, I would definitely encourage anyone who's enjoyed the books, make sure... go to Green Gables. The Interpretive Centre has been recently redone and there's a lot of information about Montgomery and her world.

You can visit the house that has been known since Montgomery's lifetime as Green Gables. You can go to the site where she grew up, where she wrote Anne of Green Gables. There are sites all over the island in Bedeque and elsewhere where she taught school. There are many sites to explore. And then that's kind of nice too because if you're dragging along family members who might not be sure if Anne of Green Gables is fit to eat, there might be ways into it for them. Beautiful beaches in PEI and really good food as well.

[00:22:54] ANNE: And we should tell readers that in March, 2023, we hosted an episode with Rosalynn in which she had recently returned from an intergenerational book pilgrimage to PEI that was motivated 100% by Anne of Green Gables and her and her daughter's love for it. Yeah, listen in, readers. That's called "Books so nice you’ll want to read them twice".

KATE: That's great.

ANNE: Okay, are you ready to get more into the books that you love and don't?

KATE: Sounds good.

ANNE: You know how this works. You're going to tell me three books you love, one that you don't, and what you've been reading lately, and we'll hear what you're into these days and what you're interested in reading next.

KATE: Great.

ANNE: How did you choose the ones you brought to the show today?

KATE: I just chose them really quickly. I think that that was important not to overthink it. I chose them and I... like thinking about them before coming on here, I can see that there are quite a few links between them, which I think will be good for our conversation.

[00:23:55] ANNE: Ooh, that maybe you didn't realize at first?

KATE: Mm-hmm, absolutely.

ANNE: Well, I'm excited to hear it. What's the first book you love?

KATE: The Postcard by Anne Berest. In this book, a woman receives a postcard with four names on it. And then 15 years later, her daughter decides, with the mother's help, to track down the people who are listed on the postcard. And they traveled to many places in Europe. And it turns out that these were relatives of theirs who were victims of the Holocaust.

I think one of the things that I love about this book, I guess the main thing, is this honoring of people whose lives were taken from them. And it's this honoring through the book and through the search for them and recuperating their lives and their stories and their names.

I've realized that, and this is true with all of the books that I've chosen today, how much I enjoy when that search, like the research or the exploration of the material that becomes the book when it's foregrounded in the book itself. I just find that really compelling.

[00:25:03] ANNE: Duly noted. I'm also interested in hearing what the emotional experience was like for you. I'm wondering what kind of timber or seeking out or what range, what different kinds may appeal to you?

KATE: It's such a good question because I listened to this book on audio. My daughter was only about an year and a half old. And there are some absolutely excruciating moments involving children separated from their parents. I'm not sure how I was able to carry on with this book, but I did. I did really just find it so compelling. Maybe because there are all these terrible things, but the book is always focused on the ties that bind, like the family, the love, and recuperating these people's stories. And so maybe that's a reason why.

Because I know, for example, I tried to read Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet, I couldn't read Hamnet in that moment. Or Colson Whitehead's book, The Underground Railroad. That's when I couldn't read when my daughter was small. But The Postcard for some reason, I don't know, it doesn't necessarily make sense because it is harrowing emotionally.

[00:26:15] ANNE: I'm thinking now about how it's not just the reader is at a remove from the characters because that is how books work, but also the investigator, I feel like that should get air quotes, in The Postcard is also removed from those that she is researching. It's a little abstract to her. I wonder, is there something there?

KATE: Yes, whereas in Hamnet is direct experience, right? What is happening? What happens to the child? Yeah, maybe that is true, that in some ways, like me as the reader and the investigator, we're like on the same side of the fence looking over at something that's already happened a long time ago, maybe? I don't know if because I listened to it in audio, that helped create some distance as well.

ANNE: Oh, that's interesting. I was just thinking that does create a sense of immediacy, perhaps.

KATE: Yeah, those things are funny. It's hard to put my finger on it.

[00:27:18] ANNE: I will pay attention to what the emotional content and weight is of the books that we end up recommending to you today. And if necessary, we can explore how they're going to feel and if that's actually a good pick for you at this season in your life.

KATE: Right, yes. I feel like I'm at a season in my life where I think I can handle weightier emotional things. But yeah, sometimes maybe it's a day-to-day or week-to-week thing, right?

ANNE: And it also might depend on the balance, just thinking of what you said about the content of Montgomery's fiction.

KATE: Yeah, that's right. Yes, because certainly going from Anne of Green Gables to some of Montgomery's final diary entries, which are just very bleak, maybe that contrast can be helpful, but you're definitely in two different worlds.

ANNE: Okay, we'll pay attention.

[00:28:10] KATE: Kate, what's the second book you love? A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa. I also love this book because we have an investigator narrator. I listened to this one, which was great on audiobook with the Irish accent.

ANNE: It was so good.

KATE: So good. And then immediately read the book in paper copy because I just loved it so much. I love the language of this book. The author is a poet and the narrator is a new mother. My daughter was about a year and a half when I read it. And so that part really appealed to me.

The narrator mother-investigator character is translating from Irish into English, a poem by an 18th-century noble woman, the Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire. This was a mourning poem when she finds her husband murdered.

[00:29:03] I loved that the narrator trying to learn more about the woman behind this poem was such a central focus of the book. Our narrator, yeah, she talks to people, she visits sites, she does lots of reading. Again, yeah, I just found that really compelling as well as the beautiful language. And the focus, of course, too, on this is a female text is kind of the mantra of the book. That's repeated again and again. And it points to my interest in stories about women and the stories that women create.

ANNE: I enjoyed this one so much myself. Now, it sounds like this fits into one of the categories of books you really enjoy reading about, about creative and artistic women in history.

KATE: Absolutely.

ANNE: Would you say more about that?

[00:29:53] KATE: Yeah, it's something that I'm drawn to. I mean, especially like the 18th and 19th century, I had a really great professor teaching in that area. I think it's probably we can blame Jane Austen, really, who kind of hooked me into that time period. I am really interested in, well, fiction, but then also nonfiction that kind of has that individual human element at the center of women who are creating.

So writing in particular, but then all kinds of art. I think it's a really interesting way into the past because it's about when women start creating things, it's about them reacting to the world around them, shaping the world around them.

ANNE: Kate, what is the third book you love?

KATE: The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. This is the story of Jack the Ripper's five canonical victims. So the five victims that they are pretty sure were all murdered by the person called Jack the Ripper. This book is amazing for a few reasons. It's nonfiction. Rubenhold is not interested at all really in Jack the Ripper and what the identity of that person is, which there is a lot of speculation and titillation around the identity of that murder.

[00:31:19] So Hallie Rubenhold is recuperating the names, the stories, the lives of the women who were Jack the Ripper's victims and really honoring them as human beings and putting their lives in the context of late 19th-century London. So it's just learning about these women in and of themselves is so powerful.

Again, another thing I love about this book is that we did get such a sense of the research that Rubenhold did and how the lives of working-class women who were often illiterate is not hard to piece together, but Rubenhold does it. She goes into like workhouse, poorhouse archives. It's such an honoring of these people whose lives have been dismissed, really.

ANNE: Now, Jack the Ripper on the surface does not quite fit with the other books that you have brought today, and yet the way you are describing it, I get it, but I am still struggling to articulate it. Can you say more about what lands it as... I mean, you only got three favorites and this is one of them. Can you say more?

[00:32:28] KATE: Yes. I think that these are stories about women's lives, women's lives in the past. They are stories that all have kind of an investigator character who is narrating them. Even if Hallie Rubenhold is not a character in her book, like you do get just such a powerful sense of her research. So that part I find really compelling.

You can kind of see that act of creation happening on the page. I think the honoring of people's lives, people who... well, I guess in all of them there is... I did not really think about this until right now, there is murder happening in all of these. I do like detective mystery novels.

So there are these horrible acts of violence that are being not like maybe rectified in a way. It makes me think of Ian McEwan's Atonement, right, and how this little girl grows up and she writes the sister and Robbie's story so that they get that happy ending.

[00:33:29] And so in some way, I think these books are all doing a similar thing in terms of The Postcard and The Five. Well, no, they actually all have real people at the heart of them. They are all rooted in historical figures who have been involved in an act of violence. And it's all about how creativity and storytelling can honor people and their lives. Does that make sense?

ANNE: It does. It does. And I am taking notes.

KATE: There is also just something about the connection between humans. And that is clear through like a storytelling, having that curiosity about other people that you want to tell their stories and write it down so that they are not forgotten. But family connections are also really strong here. Like in A Ghost in the Throat, it's a mother caring for her young children as she researches a mother from, you know, 250 years ago, and The Postcard is about finding family who were lost in the Holocaust. And The Five, like Hallie Rubenhold, shows that often these women were kind of dismissible. They were just in quotes, "prostitutes". But in The Five, they come alive as mothers and daughters and friends. And so it's about people being in connection with each other as well.

[00:34:49] I think that I really love that, like stories about individuals, but also where you get a sense of the historical moment, whether that is 2020 or I do not know, 1750.

ANNE: Kate, now would you tell me about a book that was not a good fit for you? And I would love to hear why. Not what you expected, bad timing. What did you choose?

KATE: The book I chose was All Fours by Miranda July. I was recommended this book by a bookseller at this lovely bookstore in rural Nova Scotia. So my expectations were high because the bookseller was so excited about it. I think what I did not like about this book, I just found it really self-indulgent. The stakes seemed like very individual and that people in the main character's lives kind of just felt like props in terms of this performative art that she was making her life into, even though it was her real life, but she was kind of acting like it was a performative art piece and that people were just props.

[00:35:58] I think as we were just talking about with the three books that I chose, I like books that are about, well, say strong female characters, strong characters. I want a compelling story about an individual, but I want to know about that context, like there are connections with other people about the place, about the historical moment. And I just do not think All Fours had that. The stakes needed to be higher for me.

ANNE: And there is not that sense of community that you really enjoyed in the ones you loved.

KATE: Yeah, absolutely. Again, not everything has to go back to L. M. Montgomery, but I cannot help it.

ANNE: But it might in this episode.

KATE: It might. But I cannot help but think of Anne of Green Gables. Her name is in the title of the book. This is her story. But we care as much about Marilla's development. And Margaret Atwood wrote a piece when Anne of Green Gables turned 100 about how Marilla is perhaps really the heroine of the story. She is the one who changes the most.

ANNE: Ooh.

[00:37:01] KATE: Yeah, which I love as a reading. And we just get such a sense of like Rachel Lynde and Matthew Cuthbert and Diana Barry and Aunt Josephine. And it's as much about how Avonlea responds to Anne as it's about her development. So that sense of community is really important for me. Community in terms of people, but also place.

Part of what I love about, say, Anne of Green Gables or The Five is just getting a sense of the different ways that people can live and the different ways that societies have been put together, right? There is not just one way of doing it.

ANNE: Okay, that sounds lovely. Also, I want to read that piece about Marilla as heroine.

KATE: Yes. Yeah. You can just Google it. There is a version of it in The Guardian, the UK Guardian online.

ANNE: I will track that down and we will put it in show notes. Kate, what have you been reading lately?

[00:37:58] KATE: All right. So on audio, I have been listening to Rebel of the Regency by Ann Foster, which is about the Prince Regent's wife. The Prince Regent who would have been acting as king, as regent, during some of Jane Austen's life. Again, that real interest I have in that time period. But the Prince Regent and his wife were estranged and she met all kinds of people like Napoleon, but had a very difficult time in England because she was ostracized.

She is a really interesting person who has been kind of misunderstood or not given that much attention. You get so much historical detail, but Anne Foster really also uses a lot of early 21st century language, and she actually draws parallels to the present moment and influencers. So you have really got the sense of like the connections between the early 19th century and the early 21st century. It's just very fun as well.

[00:39:05] The Prince Regent was very criticized for how he treated his wife and people would, you know, boo him in the street and stuff like that. And Jane Austen said that she would be on Princess Caroline's side because she is a woman, Princess Caroline is a woman, and I hate her husband. But he was a huge fan of Jane Austen's work. He kept copies of her books in all of his houses and kind of through His library and kind of bullied her into dedicating Emma to him. I know some scholars read Frank Churchill as potentially a version of the Prince Regent who doesn't go kind of uncriticized in that book.

ANNE: Sounds good. What else have you been reading?

KATE: My friend Sarah Emsley wrote a book called The Austens, which is about Jane Austen and her sister, Fanny Palmer Austen, who was born in Bermuda and spent time in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I am today. It's really interesting because it shows those kind of international links that Jane Austen had, her links with Canada, you know, across the Atlantic world, in this case through her two naval brothers and then her sister-in-law. Just gives you a sense of what Mrs. Croft's life would have been like aboard a naval ship. And we can see Fanny's letters back to Jane Austen would have influenced in particular when she was writing Persuasion.

[00:40:28] ANNE: And Kate, you were just telling me that you were really enjoying classics on audio lately.

KATE: Yes. And I was inspired by episode 510 of What Should I Read Next? I have had a few false starts with Tom Jones. I was really enjoying it, but it's a huge book and I never got that deep into it. But I am loving it on audio. Henry Fielding is very funny. He breaks the fourth wall. He can be very chatty. It really works on audio, but I am really excited now to read more classics on audio. I think it could be a real game-changer for my reading life.

ANNE: Okay, well, I am happy to hear that for you. I have never read Tom Jones, or at least I have not yet read Tom Jones. Why this book?

KATE: Well, I did an 18th-century fiction course and one of my favorite university professors, Don Nichol, is an 18th-century lit prof, and Tom Jones is always a favorite of his. I know he has given me at least a couple copies of it over the years. So it felt like I have been waiting to read it.

[00:41:32] ANNE: All right, well, I am glad that it was ready for you when you were ready for it. Kate, what are you looking for in your reading life right now? Now, of course, some things have stood out to me from our conversation, but I would love to hear you say more.

KATE: I definitely, in my application to be on What Should I Read Next?, I had many, many ideas. I feel like maybe it comes down to ghost stories. I guess, as a metaphor, I am thinking about books like The Postcard, A Ghost in the Throat, The Five. The ghosts of these people whose lives are being investigated and being recuperated. And that is really true. Like, I mean, A Ghost in the Throat, it's right there in the title with the 18th-century poet, who is very much like haunting the narrative, even if she is not kind of necessarily an apparition.

[00:42:27] I am more and more interested in stories that have, well, actual apparitions. I was going to say literal ghosts. Can you have a literal ghost? An Instagram reading friend of mine had recommended Stephen King's The Reach, which is about an elderly woman who has never left this island in Maine, where she has lived her whole life there. And it's just separated from the mainland by a body of water called The Reach. And as she is kind of getting closer to the end of her life, all these people from her past start appearing to her and saying it's time to cross The Reach.

I think Stephen King is so brilliant, but also it just felt like the kind of story that L. M. Montgomery could have written. She did write some ghost stories, but it just feels like, you know, it's all part of this Atlantic, Northeastern world, a focus on women and the past kind of always being with us. So ghosts in different forms is, I think, what it all boils down to.

[00:43:29] ANNE: I love this. And also that is quite... well, you know, there is overlap, but it's a different direction from the investigator stories.

KATE: Yes. The investigators are... they are kind of haunted by these ghosts because they... like in A Ghost in the Throat, she just wants to learn everything she can about this 18th century poet. So is haunted by her and is trying to give voice to this ghost, the ghost in the throat. So, yeah, I think there are connections there. One book that I really liked was... is it J. Courtney Sullivan, The Cliffs?

ANNE: Yes, it is.

KATE: I was reading it and I just thought, "Oh my goodness, this book has so many parallels to Montgomery," like that focus on women's stories and the focus on one particular place, like the area on the top of the cliff. And there is no direct reference to Montgomery or Anne of Green Gables, but I Googled it after, and sure enough, she had written the introduction to a recent Penguin edition of Anne of Green Gables. So that was kind of fun. I guess that was me being the investigator, but it just seemed like, oh my goodness, there felt like a lot of influence there.

[00:44:39] ANNE: I was so intrigued when you mentioned L. M. Montgomery could have written that Stephen King story in your submission. And I am really glad you told us more just now. Thank you very much.

KATE: It's a great story. I really recommend it. And it's not horror. I mean, there is a ghost and there are some dark things, but nothing that would not have happened in a rural community in the 20th century.

ANNE: That sounds delightful. You know, I have enjoyed the Stephen King I have read on the whole, but I never thought an L. M. Montgomery reference would add another story to my list. My King reading list.

KATE: I know. I just cannot resist making that connection because it seems so unexpected.

[00:45:24] ANNE: What are we going to talk about today? Kate, we have good options. I mean, I feel like every week we have good options. But it's possible some of these are so on the nose you have already read them, and that will definitely help me narrow it down. But to recap, you loved The Postcard, A Ghost in the Throat, and The Five. Not for you, All Fours. And lately you have been reading Rebel of the Regency by Anne Foster, The Austens by Sarah Emsley, and Tom Jones on audio. And you are looking for ghost stories. But also we know that you love tales of literary women, books where detective work is a big part of the story. You love an investigator, nonfiction about creative and artistic women in history. Also, I think I remember reading that you... Oh, you said specifically books about houses.

KATE: Yes, love books about houses.

ANNE: I have novels of a certain era in my mind. Or am I making that up? Like 19th, 20th century?

KATE: Yeah.

[00:46:27] ANNE: I would like to jump in with a book that I have not talked about on the podcast, but I feel like I have been talking about a lot lately because we just hosted the author Sarai Johnson in book club. But that is Grown Women by Sarai Johnson. This is a debut. It's a multi-generational family saga that does not feel entirely unlike some of the issues we see in L. M. Montgomery, but this does not have a balance of heavy and light.

There is not as much light to outweigh a lot of heavy. This is very much about the ghosts of the past and how they haunt us, both in the form of just embodied generational trauma, but also, there is a very specific literary ghost I am going to tell you about in a moment.

[00:47:13] This is a depiction of four generations of Black Southern women — the story takes place in Atlanta, Nashville, and surrounds and D.C. predominantly — and how they interact with each other as mothers and daughters. Some of the mothers know they are terrible mothers. Some of the mothers know they received bad mothering and want to do better by their daughters. Their attempts to correct and do better by their daughters. Sometimes backfire, sometimes do not succeed at all, sometimes cause harms that they did not remotely foresee.

But it starts when we see the second generation fleeing Atlanta, where she has clearly left behind a life of at least financial privilege to arrive in Nashville, to start a new life with a soon-to-be daughter that we know she does not want to have, but she has decided to have. And in the next 300-something pages, we learn more about why. And her reasons are good. Make a lot of sense. Feel a lot of empathy for this character.

[00:48:22] But she has a daughter who also gets pregnant while still in high school and has a daughter who the whole family, including the estranged great grandmother who is brought back into her life, who is a renowned literary scholar, all try to do their best by this baby girl who grows up and we leave her in the story at the age of maybe 17. But lots of thorny mother-daughter relationships and lots of questions about how or is it even possible to right the wrongs of the past and what might that look like?

But this book does interrogate the painful, traumatic things that have happened in our past and how the impacts of that play out. And it would be really easy for this book just to be very on the nose and feel heavy-handed, like a textbook. And it does not as well. The way that Johnson explores race, class, ambivalent parenthood, resentment, redemption is so good, so good. But it's hard and heavy. Readers should know that going in.

[00:49:32] But something I was especially charmed by and that felt so... I mean, it was just the right amount, is the literary scholar, who is the first generation in this book, takes pride in her house. She loves her neighborhood even though it's not particularly fashionable because it has this literary history that means a lot to her.

And the character... now, this is not like a major plot thing in the book. And I do not mind that a bit, but I love that it's in the book and the author keeps coming back to it. But that house is haunted, and it's haunted by this past owner, this literary figure. But sometimes it takes the form of the home's owner leaves the room, she comes back, things are not where she left them. And sometimes that is pretty tricky when she is working on a manuscript. But sometimes she will come back from working on a manuscript and there will be handwritten notes in red pen all over the pages that are not in the owner's handwriting. Like somebody else has been there and left her thoughts. I just thought those details are so fun. So you get literal and figurative ghosts in this book. And we are just going to stipulate that we both know what I mean when I say literal ghosts.

[00:50:44] KATE: Yes, exactly. This sounds amazing. Like so many intersections with my interests and what we have been talking about.

ANNE: I am glad to hear it. We have another book about a ghost for you. And this one is set in Western Massachusetts and it goes from the Puritan era forward to the present time. It's by Daniel Mason. It's called North Woods. Is this one you are familiar with?

KATE: Yes, I have it on my shelf. It's one of these books I read the beginning, loved it, and then, for whatever reason, did not keep reading it. But yeah, it's one that I have on my TBR for sure.

ANNE: Did you get to the wronged in a past life spinster sisters whose ghosts come to haunt the house that is the setting of the story, owner after owner, after owner, after owner?

KATE: No, that does not sound familiar.

[00:51:39] ANNE: Okay, well, that is going to happen.

KATE: Okay.

ANNE: Early in the book, you meet a pair of Puritan lovers. Then there is a soldier turned farmer determined to grow the best apples of the world. Those apples keep showing up in the pages for centuries. You get spinster sisters and it's their ghosts who will come to haunt the property. And they are accidentally summoned by a charlatan who is conducting a fake seance that turns to everyone's surprise, except perhaps the ghosts themselves, very, very real.

There is a pair of star-crossed lovers, a participant in a prison pen pal program. Not all the characters whose minds we get inside to get their perspective on this house and this place are human. So, for you, I was thinking it's a book about a house. It's also a book with ghosts. No investigator to run you through the years like in some of your favorites, but how does that sound to you?

[00:52:38] KATE: That sounds great, yes. Yeah, a haunted house. I love a story like The Cliffs where we follow a house through centuries or generations. So that sounds great.

ANNE: All right, I am glad to hear it. I do not know about this next one, but it feels worth mentioning as it is a Jack the Ripper, Medusa mashup by Julie Berry. She was on the podcast I think last fall, and we did talk about this book. It's called If Looks Could Kill. Does this sound familiar?

KATE: It does not.

ANNE: Okay, well, she is best known, I believe, for her book The Lovely War. Although my kids were assigned The Passion of Dolssa as school reading forever ago. So maybe some people know her from that work that was widely read in school. But I love Lovely War. And then If Looks Could Kill came out this past fall.

[00:53:30] And of course, it's Hallie Rubenhold, The Five, making me think of this one. I'm not sure if your interest in retellings and reimaginings is limited to Anne of Green Gables, or if you are interested in this kind as well. But in this story, which is written, as her past works have been, for YA readers, but it's very hospitable to a wide audience, as long as you are not going to be scared by the monsters. But it's set in, well, predominantly in 1888 New York City, with some flashes across the Atlantic to origin stories unfolding in London with Jack the Ripper.

But in late 19th century New York, we meet a young girl named Tabitha who has left her home upstate for the city because she wants to join the Salvation Army in the Bowery in order to start a new life, make some friends, and also help humankind. But instead, she ends up getting all mixed up with her roommate, so at least she has company, but they realize that something sinister is happening at a brothel in the Bowery. They see a teenage girl get disappeared inside its walls and they feel compelled to try to do something.

[00:54:45] So when they seek to help out this young woman, they tap into a sisterhood of Medusas in New York City who are bent on justice for women that have been hurt by bad men, including Jack the Ripper, who is trying to hide out and stay beneath the radar in late 19th century New York City. Historical fiction with a strong mythical component. Not quite ghosts, but if we broaden the heading to ghosts and monsters, then maybe.

KATE: Well, that sounds really intriguing. I think kind of magical realism is definitely an area that I am getting more interested in. Because this book sounds like it's rooted in the historic reality, right? Like, well, historical figures and places and then with a mythical twist. Yeah, that sounds really interesting.

ANNE: So this is carefully researched, and also not all nonfiction.

KATE: Right, but yeah, still with that, yeah, serious focus on women's stories and historical events. Yeah.

ANNE: Indeed.

[00:56:06] KATE: I have not come across that at all, so thank you.

ANNE: Well, I wanted to put it on your radar and leave it up to you to decide whether or not it's a good fit. Now, I have an idea for you that is either going to be completely obvious or maybe not so much, but it's Sarah Polley's memoir and essays, Run Towards the Danger. Is this one you have read or familiar with?

KATE: I have read it, yes.

ANNE: Okay.

KATE: And there is that whole chapter about her experience being on Road to Avonlea, which was a favorite of mine growing up and a spinoff of the Story Girl. But of course, yeah, as you know, it goes much beyond that as well, and yeah, essays on many parts of her life.

ANNE: Yes, I wondered if that would count as metaphorical ghosts. But she does have an essay, I think it's called Dissolving the Boundaries, where she describes taking a trip back to Prince Edward Island.

[00:56:56] KATE: Oh, right. Yes, that is right.

ANNE: I mean, my first introduction to Sarah Polley was as the Story Girl and the Road to Avonlea.

KATE: Yeah, but you are right. Like the ghost idea does kind of work because when she goes back to Prince Edward Island as an adult she is very much haunted by that experience of being on Road to Avonlea and in particular, like herself as Sara Stanley, right?

ANNE: Yes, the Story Girl.

KATE: Yeah.

ANNE: Okay, well, let us get you a new one. Let us get you one more. Kate, have you read Possession by A. S. Byatt?

KATE: Yeah, you know what? I was thinking, "Oh, I wonder if that book will come out when we are talking." I have not. So you need to encourage me to read it because I feel like, again, this is one of these books. Do I have a terrible habit of just reading a little bit and then not reading books? There was something about it I just could not get into, but it really checks off a lot of my interest, does it not?

[00:57:51] ANNE: It really does. And I will tell you, I wonder how much mood has to do with this. I inhaled it on my first read, and when I revisited it during a busy time of my life, maybe five years ago, I struggled. But I do think it's worth a try for you just purely based on what you know about your own reading life. Because for those interested in interrogating the past, books with investigators or amateur literate investigators, as they are here, it's an academic mystery, it does have that same... I mean, it has two characters who have teamed up to be investigators to the past.

And her prose is very elegant, lyrical, vivid. And if you like that kind of thing, she has fictional letters and poems and journal entries in her books that are written by many characters, not just one. I think it could be a lot of fun for you. And it's also set during a time period that I believe you are interested in.

[00:58:57] So this is about two scholars who are researching the lives of Victorian poets, particularly Randolph Henry Ash and also another named Christabel LaMotte. And they are on a mission to discover the truth about these writers because it's Ash they were first interested in, but then they accidentally stumble upon this evidence that makes them think like, wait, was there an illicit love affair happening between these two Victorian writers? Because that would change what we understand about their lives. It would change the things we understand about their works and their meanings.

So they embark on this quest to discover the truth. And they are chasing this trail of evidence through the ages and through many a library, but also this quest calls them to examine their own personal relationships. So we have got that back and forth in time element happening here. I'm wondering how that sounds to you.

[01:00:02] KATE: It sounds so good, like this is a book that I should have read years ago. Yeah, like then the 19th century, the literary mystery, the investigation, it's all there. So I'm really glad that you brought it up because I think that'll be incentive to finally read it.

ANNE: Kate, of the books we talked about today, they were Grown Women by Sarai Johnson, North Woods by Daniel Mason, we talked about If Looks Could Kill by Julie Berry, and then Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polly. Wanted to recap those for our listeners. And then also Possession by A.S. Byatt. Of those books, what do you think you may pick up first?

KATE: All right, so I'm definitely going to read them all. I think I'll start with North Woods because I did read a bit of that and I have a copy. So I just need to pull it off the bookshelf.

ANNE: I'm happy to hear it. Kate, I enjoyed this so much. Thank you for talking books with me today.

KATE: Thank you so much. It was a real pleasure, and I'm just so excited now to have more ghosty stories to read. So thank you.

[01:01:10] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kate, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Connect with Kate at her website, katescarth.com. We have that link, links to the Ella Montgomery Institute, the full list of titles we talked about today, and more at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Follow our show on Instagram at @WhatShouldIReadNext, and please tag us when you share an episode or post with your friends and fellow readers. And make sure you're following an Apple podcast, Spotify, Pocketcast, Overcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

Join our email list to get weekly updates on the show, upcoming events, and all the What Should I Read Next? news you will want to know. Sign up at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, Media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.

[01:02:15] Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.

[00:00:00] KELLY KRAUSE: One that a lot of people have been talking about.

ANNE BOGEL: Ooh, yeah. Okay, I'll tell you. I don't know.

KELLY: Okay.

ANNE: I want you to read like three big wins and then I want to talk to you about it.

KELLY: Okay.

ANNE: But it's not like a heck yes or definitely not. It's like a ooh, like, oh, it's-

KELLY: Maybe.

ANNE: Let's get a little more info first.

Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel, and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:00:52] Readers, this year marks a whole bunch of milestones here at What Should I Read Next? HQ. And one of those is our 15th Summer Reading Guide coming your way next month. Creating this guide each year is truly a labor of love. Our Modern Mrs. Darcy book club and What Should I Read Next? Patreon community members are automatically invited. And we'll have a popular a la carte option as well.

To make sure you get the 15th anniversary edition in your inbox and to find out how to join us for our live unboxing event, visit modernmrsdarcy.com/srg, for Summer Reading Guide, to get all the details. That's modernmrsdarcy.com/srg.

Readers, today's guest would love to add more four and five-star picks to her reading list and she's curious about techniques that might help get her there. Kelly Krause is a first-grade teacher who lives in Northwest Arkansas with her family. In addition to reading with her girls, she loves finding stories that pack a certain kind of emotional punch.

[00:01:51] When Kelly discovers a winning author, it feels like a slam dunk to read the rest of their work. But when it comes to branching out in new directions, Kelly is not as confident. She's wondering whether devoting more time to reflecting on her reads by analyzing what's worked well or practicing the art of writing book reviews will help her pick more winning titles. You know we love to talk about the examined reading life around here, and I can't wait to explore this with Kelly today.

Kelly, welcome to the show.

KELLY: Thank you. I'm so excited to talk to you today about books.

ANNE: Oh, I can't wait to talk books today. Kelly, would you start by giving our readers just a glimpse of who you are? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

KELLY: I am a first-grade teacher, and I would describe myself also as a soccer mom. I'm living in Northwest Arkansas with my husband and our two daughters. Our favorite date night when we're not watching soccer and all the things, when we have a little time, is to go biking on the Razorback Trail here in Northwest Arkansas. We have an amazing trail system. We also like to go hiking as a family and take out... we recently inherited a 1969 teal blue ski boat that we named Martha Jean.

ANNE: Very nice.

KELLY: Yeah, it's fun.

[00:03:05] ANNE: That sounds like a lot of fun. Kelly, tell me a little bit about your reading life.

KELLY: Well, I think I fell in love with reading when I was a little girl. My mom read me stories before bed. And definitely when I had two girls of my own, I've been really trying to be purposeful about reading with them. So we did 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten when they're in preschool. And now it's something that we're reading Harry Potter and The Green Ember and Anne of Green Gables books as a family. And so that's a big part of my reading life. As well as, of course, being a first-grade teacher, I get the privilege of teaching children how to read. And so I'm very intentional about that as well.

For my own reading life, I feel like it has taken a backseat a little bit. I mostly get reading done during breaks, like spring break that's coming up and also the summertime. So I really enjoy it. And I think of it as a big treat.

[00:04:07] ANNE: That sounds lovely. I'm thinking of my friend who's a teacher who says... well, what she would say about you is perhaps "Summer Kelly" lives an entirely different life, especially reading life, than "School Year Kelly."

KELLY: Oh, definitely. I fly through the books in the summertime and on spring break and breaks like that. And during the rest of the year, I just kind of slowly make my way through them.

ANNE: All right. Well, I hope you've been slowly making your way through some good stuff. And I'm excited about making your way through some good stuff at a quicker pace coming very soon.

KELLY: Yes, definitely.

ANNE: Okay. Kelly, I believe you've been listening to the show for a while.

KELLY: Yes, I have. I've been enjoying it for a long time.

ANNE: But something has prompted you to come to What Should I Read Next? right now. And I'm really wondering what that is.

KELLY: Well, I think during winter break, right before the new year started, I was listening to a few of your podcasts, and one of your teammates said that they were attempting to read four and five-star reads.

ANNE: That sounds like Shannan.

[00:05:07] KELLY: Okay. Well, I was just thinking, how would one go about doing that? And so I started making a list of books that I thought might be right for me based off of books that I've read before. But the first few books that I picked up for myself were not quite five-star reads. And so I was feeling a little frustrated that maybe I wasn't quite in touch with the books that I wanted to read or how to go about finding that five star read.

ANNE: Ooh. Okay. We definitely may be digging more into the process you used. But how would you feel today about beginning with talking about the books you really loved and didn't? And maybe along the way, we'll hear some of what your experimentation has felt like.

KELLY: Sure.

ANNE: Also tagging for you and the readers that you mentioned in your submission, that reviewing more books may be an element that helps you in this quest.

[00:06:00] KELLY: Yeah, definitely. I feel like I process by writing things down. I think even if I write for myself or on a platform like Goodreads, then it would help me just kind of figure out what I enjoyed about a book or maybe what I didn't enjoy about a book. But I am cautious about it. I think I never want to hurt anyone's feelings or sound negative about a book. So I think that's kind of given me pause in the past.

ANNE: Okay. I will hold that for our continuing conversation. Kelly, you know how this works. You have come with three books you love, one you don't, and what you've been reading lately. And Kelly, we're going to use that to see if we can identify books that are more likely to be four and five-star reads for you. First, I'd love to hear how did you think about choosing these today?

KELLY: Well, I think I tried to pick books that have stuck with me. These are all books that I've read several years ago, and they're also books that are in different genres. So just to kind of give a range of the different types of books that I've read and enjoyed.

[00:07:05] ANNE: That sounds good. That sounds really helpful for what we want to do here. What's the first book you love?

KELLY: The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. And that's by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams. I chose this book to represent a nonfiction choice for me. I think most people are probably familiar with Dr. Jane Goodall. She recently passed away last year, which was sad. So maybe it's a good time to think about her for me.

But Dr. Jane Goodall was known for studying chimpanzees and their habitat. And I thought it was really interesting just hearing about her story of how she was inspired to be a scientist as a kid. I think she mentioned spending a lot of time in nature and also reading books like Doctor Dolittle as a child. And then I also found it really fascinating just what it would have been like being a woman scientist and going in her 20s to Africa to study chimpanzees and their habitat.

[00:08:03] So I found her career really fascinating and how it evolved to becoming an international spokesperson for wildlife protection. I just found her book both interesting and also inspiring. She really approached big problems with wisdom and hope.

ANNE: Interesting and inspiring.

KELLY: And I listened to this book on audio, which was a really great way for me to read this book. I enjoyed her accent, and I enjoyed the conversational style because Doug Abrams asked her questions. It's more of an interview type or conversational format.

ANNE: Thanks for sharing that. Kelly, what's the second book you love?

KELLY: The second book I love is The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan. I would describe this book as British Bake Off meets World War II Rations. It's set in the British countryside during World War II and it's based, I believe, on an actual BBC radio program during that time. I just really enjoyed the rivalry between the women that were the contestants in this radio program and also their friendship that evolved along the way.

[00:09:14] ANNE: British Bake Off meets World War II Rations. It sounds like a mix, and I've read your submission, of the hard and the cozy. Would you say more about that?

KELLY: I've read a lot of World War II books and I've enjoyed many of them. This one felt just a little cozier, like you said, or just a little bit lighter in the tone, and I appreciated that about this book. It's talking about a hard topic, but in a way that didn't feel so, I guess, in your face about it.

ANNE: Hard topic made bearable?

KELLY: That's a better way to put it, yes.

ANNE: And I'm noticing this is historical fiction.

KELLY: Yes. And historical fiction, I would say, is my go-to genre. So this book probably represents the largest chunk of what I would normally be reading.

ANNE: Okay, that's helpful. Kelly, what did you choose for your third favorite?

[00:10:03] KELLY: My third favorite is The Poet X. I chose this book because I wanted to pick something that was a little outside of my normal reading. The Poet X is a YA novel in verse. This is definitely the first novel that I remember reading that was written in verse. I was really impressed with just how poetry can be put into a narrative.

For people who aren't familiar with the book, it's about a 16-year-old girl named Xiomara Batista. She lives in Harlem and she, like many 16-year-olds, is wanting more freedom and starting to want to date. But her mother is very strict and devout, and so they have a lot of conflicts that gets taken too far. I also think this book ends in a hopeful way. But I just really enjoyed just reading a book that was written in a different style.

ANNE: Than your go-tos?

KELLY: Yeah, I had never read a book that was written in verse before, for example.

[00:11:04] ANNE: Okay, your first one. Did you follow it up with more, or is this still really unique in your reading life?

KELLY: I feel like I've read maybe one or two more, and those were more YA books as well. I am not familiar with books that are in this type of format for, I guess, the adult section of the library. But I would say this book is adult-appropriate for sure. It's not a young child book at all.

ANNE: We read this in Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club years ago, and Elizabeth Acevedo came and talked to us and read to us, which was incredible. But we heard from so many readers: "I may not have picked this up, but I'm so glad I read it."

KELLY: Definitely. And speaking to her sounds like such a great opportunity that I'm kind of jealous that I missed that. But I wish I had also… and I guess I can go back. I read this book in print, but I think this would be a great book on audio.

[00:11:57] ANNE: Yes. I know I've listened to the audio. I'm trying to remember if that was my first exposure. But any novel in verse, or any book that really has a musicality about it like that, can be amazing on audio. For next time.

KELLY: Yes.

ANNE: Kelly, what is a book that did not fit your taste, timing, style? I'd love to hear what you chose and why you chose it.

KELLY: Sure. I chose The Ministry of Time. I know that this book actually has won so many awards, so I'm probably in the minority for not enjoying this book. But I think for me, it was the case of, I thought it was going to be something that it turned out to be less of. And that is that it was described as a spy thriller and a workplace comedy and a time travel romance were some of the key words that I picked out. But for me, it just wasn't that funny or romantic.

[00:12:56] ANNE: I really enjoyed this book, and I am surprised by the phrase "workplace comedy" in this context, both at the same time.

KELLY: Okay. Maybe that was just a review that I read and I had unmet expectations.

ANNE: I will reveal my working theory: the tone, the worldview, the underlying idea the author has about what kind of world we're living in, what we can expect from it, and what it means for us and the story in these pages. I think that may be the heart of your struggle to find these four and five-star reads.

KELLY: Sure. I would love to hear that.

ANNE: Okay. Well, that's all I'm going to say for right now. So that one did not work out for you.

KELLY: At least not at this time.

ANNE: Well, Kelly, I heard you say The Book of Hope was inspiring, The Kitchen Front took a hard topic and made it inviting for you to enter in, and The Poet X was hopeful. I think these adjectives coming out of your mouth one after the other, I don't think that's a coincidence.

[00:14:00] KELLY: You're right. That's probably not a coincidence.

ANNE: And The Ministry of Time is many things, and it has won a ton of awards, and subjective, personal opinion, but also shared by many. It's beautifully crafted. But that is not the same as being inspiring, hopeful or... what's one synonym for The Kitchen Front? I mean, we talked about how… or Bake Off. Can we just use Bake Off as the adjective?

KELLY: Yeah, it feels more fun. I guess there's a little bit of fun or whimsy to that idea of having a British Bake Off-type competition in the midst of a war.

ANNE: I hear that. And there is definitely some droll humor in The Ministry of Time. Like, it's not that it's never funny. But inspiring and hopeful, I don't think, is what Kaliane Bradley was aiming for.

KELLY: Probably not.

ANNE: Okay. We're going to put a pin in that. What have you been reading lately?

[00:14:54] KELLY: Well, I recently finished A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. Fredrik Backman is definitely an author that works well. Every book I've read has been a book that I've enjoyed by him. I was halfway through the book, and I wasn't enjoying it as much as I expected to. But without any spoilers, the end really came through. And so that turned out to be a great read for me.

It's about a lonely widower who is really grouchy and hard to live around, and his neighbors who are meddling into his business quite a lot. And it's just funny and cute, sweet, and hopeful.

ANNE: That sounds lovely. Anything else you've been reading lately?

KELLY: I also just finished The Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson. It recently came out in February. I think I saw it at the airport and picked it up and felt lucky to find it. It's about a woman who is a military wife in the 1950s. She goes over to Germany, and she discovers that there are a lot of biracial children that have been born, out of having African-American men that are in Germany at that time, and just the struggles that the children have been dealing with as far as being accepted by that culture or by our culture.

[00:16:15] And so she feels inspired to take action and have the children adopted by American families. It follows the path of how that turned out for these children. I would also say this story is hopeful and interesting. It was a topic that had not been introduced to before, so I was really excited to learn more about it. I wouldn't say it was a five-star read for me just because I felt like it wasn't a page turner for me. I wasn't as invested in the characters as I would expect to be, I guess, based on the topic.

ANNE: All right. I'm glad to hear about that one. I would like to go back to Fredrik Backman for a moment. Can we do that?

KELLY: Yes, definitely.

ANNE: Okay. You said you've really enjoyed everything you've read by him. What have you read by him? And I'm really wondering if you've read Beartown in the trilogy.

[00:17:09] KELLY: I believe I've read at least two, if not three, from that series. And I really enjoyed it. I feel like his writing in that almost feels poetic in some places. The words are so purposeful, and it kind of moves the story along in a really great way.

ANNE: The reason I was asking is that book is hard.

KELLY: Oh, yeah. It is hard, for sure.

ANNE: And yet, that one worked for you.

KELLY: Yes, I enjoyed that book. I guess I'm not really opposed to reading books that are hard. I have to space them out. But I also appreciate when they don't end in a bleak way.

ANNE: So you have the books that you loved, and you'd like to find more of these four- and five-star reads.

KELLY: Yes.

ANNE: You want to tell me about what you're trying, what you've tried so far?

[00:18:01] KELLY: Well, what I started out with, I made a list for 2026. I came up with 26 books that I thought I might read. And I kind of did that based off of books that I've read in the past. And also, I believe I got this idea off of your podcast as well as creating my own curriculum. So just things I think are interesting.

So the first book I read is Heartwood, which is about a female hiker that gets lost on a trail. The whole story is about trying to find her. Of course, I like hiking, and I'm in that age range, so I thought this book would be really great for me.

And then another book that I read is Station Eleven. And to tell you the truth, I don't remember why I thought I would like Station Eleven. I think I've just heard of that book several times, and I thought that I should read it.

ANNE: And how did those work out for you?

[00:18:54] KELLY: I think Heartwood, it has a beautiful cover, first of all. It is a beautiful book, and there are a lot of great things about this book. But for me, I just felt a little confused in some places. Again, I didn't feel quite as much for the character situation as I felt was appropriate. I lacked a little bit of character development, maybe. I don't know if that's the right way to put it, for me.

ANNE: Okay, I can see that. I'm just guessing that you were drawn to this more on the wilderness vibes and Appalachian Trail concept than the scary guy doing bad things.

KELLY: A hundred percent.

ANNE: In the woods?

KELLY: Yes.

ANNE: What was on your personal curriculum? Did you have a unifying theme or themes? What did you want to explore?

KELLY: Well, first, I have to tell you, I titled this... it's just a list, a bullet point list. And it's just "things I can nerd out about if I want to."

ANNE: Oh, I love that.

[00:19:57] KELLY: That's my personal curriculum. So it's just a bullet point list of things that I find interesting.

ANNE: And can you give us the flavor of some of the things on it?

KELLY: Sure. Art heists throughout history, Anastasia, Cleopatra, city planning, and then also some nature-related themes like sea turtles and forest. It's kind of a wide variety in there, but I think there's history and there's nature, probably are two big themes.

ANNE: Scribbling furiously here. All right, that's really fun. And I love how you gave that great example of a personal curriculum theme that absolutely makes sense for you, unified, cohesive, something you're excited about, but "things I could nerd out about if I wanted to" is just a giant umbrella for all kinds of what you would consider to be good stuff. And actually, probably me too. That sounds like a really fun list, Kelly.

KELLY: I had fun making it.

[00:21:00] ANNE: Okay, but you've identified these books. You're hoping also that they will be four and five stars. Is that correct?

KELLY: Yes.

ANNE: And it's not going the way you want it to?

KELLY: Yes. That's basically when I reached out to you is because I read the first two that I described and they just weren't quite up to the five-star reading that I wanted to. And since I have such little time to read, I'm just trying to be more purposeful this year about it. And so I thought you can maybe help me figure out which direction to go.

ANNE: Okay. You could go lots of directions. You have so many options available to you, but I'm not entirely sure that's going to land on you as a good thing because what are you supposed to do if you could do so much? But looking for that intersection of "belongs on your personal curriculum," "has a touch point in common with what you've enjoyed before." And also, I really think that tone is something I'd like to pay attention to for you as we think about what you may really enjoy.

[00:22:03] And Beartown is throwing me a little bit because that book is not... I mean, it's been 10 years since I've read it, but I wouldn't call it hopeful or inspiring, even though – although maybe now I can equivocate a little bit – there are definitely moments in that book and characters in that book that do call out to the reader, Like, "look at this person. Here is evidence for your not misplaced faith in human nature." But also, how many times have I said there's hard stuff in that book that remains?

KELLY: Yeah. I think that something that we haven't talked about is that when I read hard books, I think that I gain empathy for people in situations that are unlike my own. And so, that also reflects back on Poet X and, I think, Beartown.

ANNE: Kelly, as I'm scouring my mental stores for what you may enjoy reading, do I remember correctly that you're a big library user? Are there lots of new titles you're intrigued in? How should we be thinking about where we're going to go get these books?

[00:23:06] KELLY: I have to put a plug in for the Fayetteville Public Library. We have an amazing –

ANNE: Please do.

KELLY: We have an amazing, beautiful library in Fayetteville, and I would appreciate any excuse to go visit it and walk around the shelves. They have a great section for books that are new called "Lucky Day," so you can just kind of see what they have that is available and new. So, that's intriguing to me. But also, I am open to actually purchasing more books this year. I think that's part of just trying to be more intentional and taking my time and not worrying about a due date.

ANNE: Okay. So, you do read some old, some new?

KELLY: Definitely.

ANNE: Kelly, I'm really interested in hearing what would help you best today. Do you have a list of books you're considering and you're thinking, like, "Ah, I don't know if these really belong on my list or not"? Would you like some fresh titles? Are you curious to hear what I might say that might already be on your list? Like, how can I help you as you move forward?

[00:24:09] KELLY: Yes, definitely. It would be fun to see if any of the books that you recommend for me are on my list to see if I am on the right track. And then, again, any advice that you have about ways to maybe keep track of why and why I didn't like certain books. Kind of what we've said is that some of the books that I said, like Beartown, I did enjoy, and they don't necessarily fit in with the other books on my list. So, just helping me understand that a little bit more.

ANNE: I'm looking back at your submission and just reading how one of your sticking points has been that you haven't been as emotionally invested in the characters in some of the books you've been reading, like Heartwood and Station Eleven. Like, you hoped they'd be four and five-star reads. They really weren't for you and you think that emotionally invested piece is part of it. Am I getting that right?

KELLY: I think so.

[00:25:02] ANNE: I'm wondering if the emotional resonance is important, but I'm also wondering if the idea of, like, what kind of emotions are calling to you. I'm wondering if you're really wanting to be a participant in the emotional universe of the book and not an external observer.

The books you love are often buoyant and, I think, generally open-hearted. And the drumbeat beneath the surface and the fundamental assumptions about life and people, there's a lot in common in the books you love. And I'm wondering if the question that you're hoping your books will answer with a hopeful bent is, like, "this is the way it is, so, like, what now? How are we supposed to live now?" And I wonder if you're hoping to enter into that experience.

KELLY: I think I am. I think that goes kind of to the point of wanting to gain empathy and experience someone's life and their feelings through the book.

[00:26:03] ANNE: So, I wonder if taking that idea, "what am I expecting this book to feel like?" and "does that sync up with how I want to feel right now when I open my books?" I wonder if that could be useful as you're scanning your list of 26 and 26.

KELLY: I think it definitely can be useful because I think I went about it in a different way, and that is what I thought would be interesting, and not what I would feel like.

ANNE: I mean, the interesting is really important, too. But I think neither are the only thing. I wonder if you can feel more comfortable and confident saying, "this is what I expect to enjoy and why." And even if it totally doesn't work out, if afterwards you can see clearly, like, "okay, this is where the gap was. I understand. This makes sense to me." Instead of it being like a big murky puzzle. I wonder if that would be a good place to, like, that you could then branch out from into ones that you're not at all sure about, but you are interested in trying because of the themes and because of how they found their way to the "things I could nerd out about if I wanted to" list.

[00:27:13] KELLY: Yes, definitely. That makes sense to me.

ANNE: Because if you really want to know about sea turtles, then you may be willing to take a chance on any number of books that might not sound like they're in your usual lane. But it might be nice to do that from a place of a little more confidence than you're feeling right now.

KELLY: Yes.

ANNE: Are there any titles on your list you want to spot-check real quick and talk through?

KELLY: Sure. The Wild Dark Shore is one that a lot of people have been talking about.

ANNE: Yeah. Okay. I'll tell you. I don't know.

KELLY: Okay.

ANNE: I want you to read like three big wins, and then I want to talk to you about it.

KELLY: Okay.

ANNE: But it's not like a, heck yes, or definitely not. It's like, a, ooh, like, oh, let's get a little more info first.

KELLY: Okay. Okay.

ANNE: Readers, if you disagree, you can comment on our show notes any time and tell Kelly your take. That's whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

KELLY: Yes. I would love to hear everyone's feedback. Another book that is on my list is The Lion Women of Tehran.

[00:28:08] ANNE: Oh, my gosh. That's on my notes for what I thought we might talk about today.

KELLY: Oh, perfect. That's exciting.

ANNE: Because what I was wondering, based on The Kitchen Front and based on—I know you're about to leave for a trip—so based on what I assumed was an interest in travel, was that maybe you'd like to experience another side of the world through the pages of your novels. And Marjan Kamali does... I mean, for me, who grew up in Kentucky and had my schooling in Virginia and Illinois, I didn't learn about the Iranian Revolution she's describing in this book. So yes, absolutely. You want to tell me what you know about it, or do you want me to tell you why I thought you might enjoy it?

KELLY: Well, I don't know much about it, but I do have a connection to Iran, and that is one of my best friends in high school. Her family immigrated from Iran.

ANNE: Well, this is a best friend story.

[00:28:57] KELLY: Okay. So perfect. This will give me an opportunity to reach back out to her. I just want to know more about that culture.

ANNE: Then I think Marjan Kamali is a wonderful author, because she excels at the sensory details and the slice of life, even against the backdrop of these earth-moving political happenings. But her writing is so rich and textured, especially when it comes to things like describing the wardrobes. You feel like you can touch the fabric of the dresses and smell the food and what's cooking as you move through the market, and you can feel the air on your skin.

But this is the story of a decades-long, life-defining friendship between two girls who meet in school and don't seem to have a lot in common. And their families actually aren't keen on the idea of them being friends, but they are inseparable. And it's set between 1953 and 1982, and it is primarily the story of these two women and their friendship.

[00:29:56] But it's also very much about the Iran they're living in and the political upheaval they live through during this time. And it's set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, which means they are experiencing, as young girls and then as women, the just cataclysmic change in both their countries and both because of, and also in addition to, changes happening in their families.

What I was trying to say is some of those changes are politically driven, but some are really not. But the two friends are divided by politics, not because they're not sympathetic to each other's beliefs, but they have very different ideas of what to do, what help looks like, what is needed, how much to involve themselves in action to make those political yearnings a reality. I love this for you. How's all this sounding?

KELLY: All of that sounds perfect.

ANNE: And I feel like you're in good hands knowing what you like with Kamali.

KELLY: Great. Well, I'm so excited to hear that, that at least one of these might be a good fit for me.

[00:30:59] ANNE: At least one. Okay, I think there's more.

KELLY: Yes. I guess related more to my first choice, I also have Born a Crime. Are you familiar with that book?

ANNE: Yeah. I think you could absolutely do this. What were we saying about workplace comedy not feeling right? Now, this is not a workplace comedy. It has been a long time since I picked this up, but he can make you laugh and cry on the same page describing the devastating realities of his life growing up in South Africa. But also, he's so funny at finding the humor in sometimes terrible, horribly embarrassing situations or just heartbreaking ones. And also telling some stories purely for comic relief.

This is wonderful on audio. You mentioned that you really enjoyed the Book of Hope in that format, that the style really helped, you felt like you were listening in on the conversation. This is only Trevor Noah, but I think you'll feel like he is telling these stories to you.

[00:31:58] KELLY: Oh, I'm so glad that you mentioned that. That is really helpful to know.

ANNE: What else you got?

KELLY: Another one on my list is The Correspondent.

ANNE: Oh, yes. You could absolutely do this one. And gosh, isn't it everywhere? As is Wild Dark Shore. But this one feels like a much more confident pick. What calls to you about it?

KELLY: I think it's one that I have seen a lot of people talking about. Is it a book written in letters?

ANNE: It is, yeah. And a few emails.

KELLY: Okay. Well, I have found that other books like that have worked for me in the past. I'm not sure if the plot is one that will be a page-turner. I don't know a lot about it to tell you the truth. I think it's just one that I know that people are talking about, and then it's written in letters.

[00:32:49] ANNE: Okay. This is a book that addresses terribly difficult things, primarily grief over unpreventable losses, but also remorse over a major past decision. And those two threads are big in the book. And yet the reading of it feels and has felt so gentle to so many readers. The protagonist is a 70-something career woman. She was a law clerk to a respected judge in the Baltimore area for a very long time, and she could fairly be described as a curmudgeon. She has strong opinions. She's set in her ways. She's a little bit judgy. But we get to see a real growth journey.

And there are threads that will make you wonder, what is going to happen? Who's sending her these scary anonymous letters and what she's going to do about them? What is going on with this rift with her best friend? What's she going to do about it? Is she going to patch things up with her daughter that we see come unglued at the beginning of the book? What's she going to do about these men? She's figuring out how to deal with suitors in her 70s, and she finds herself very surprised to be in such a... what's she going to decide?

[00:34:08] So just seeing, where is Sybil's life going to take her when she finds herself in this exciting place she did not expect to be in her early 70s. There is narrative drive, and yet, I don't believe it's like a, oh my gosh, race through the pages kind of book.

KELLY: Sure.

ANNE: And that's not a dig in any sense. That's what to expect from it. That's a different kind of emotional experience than what I think you'll find here.

KELLY: Okay. That is very helpful too. Again, I put this one on my list not knowing a lot about it, but having you describe it makes me definitely more interested in it.

ANNE: Inspiring, hopeful, uplifting, interesting. I think those are the words that have come out of your mouth that I think apply to The Correspondent as well.

KELLY: Are there any books based off of the ones that I've had on my list that you feel like I should add to my list?

ANNE: Oh, absolutely. Okay. For historical, have you read anything by Kim Fay?

KELLY: I don't believe so.

[00:35:07] ANNE: Well, let's add one of those to your list. This is not a "should," this is an option. She, I believe, just has two novels out. Her debut was Love and Saffron, which is about two women in California and the Pacific Northwest—I think a small island off Washington State Coast—exchanging letters that began because somebody wrote a food column and the other one wrote a letter to say, "Hey, I enjoyed that." And they strike up a correspondence that becomes a friendship.

But the one I would recommend for you based on what we've talked about today is Kate and Frida that came out more recently. I believe it came out last spring, spring of 2025. And it takes place in the early 90s, but it really feels like historical fiction.

And it begins when Frida, who's a young California-born aspiring war correspondent, she's based in Paris and she writes to the Puget Sound Book Company, which feels very much like Elliott Bay Book Company, if any of you Seattle dwellers know it, to request a book because she couldn't just hop online and order one in the nineties.

[00:36:09] And Frida's letter is chatty and she sounds young. So the shop manager, when she opens it, taps their bookseller in her 20s, Kate, to respond. And Kate does have a tie to Imogen in Love and Saffron for anyone who's read that book and is paying close attention.

Kate writes back, handles a request, but also includes her own personal note and a friendship is born. So these women are exchanging letters slowly. Like this friendship is blossoming at the speed of international airmail. It's slow. But these conversations that begin about their favorite books expand into the realms of, like, making big decisions in your twenties and finding love and friendship and family relations and also career ambitions.

These women are in Seattle and Paris, so we get to see slices of both cities. But Frida does want to be a war correspondent. And the story takes her and the reader to some places that I really did not expect that were dark and difficult and based on things that unfolded in her part of the world in the 90s.

[00:37:17] But Kim Fay is so gentle with the way she holds the reader and accompanies Frida to these dark and unexpected places. I think this will be one of those "hard topics made"... I'm really struggling with what the right word is here, but for now, imperfectly, we're going to go with like a "hard topic made bearable" to the reader.

Also, there's so many fun little notes for readers in here. Like they talk about being card-carrying bookstore addicts and just singing the praises of bookstores and what makes them so amazing. Like, you'll definitely want to go visit one or twelve after you read this. And they're constantly exchanging book recommendations. And those are so fun for a certain kind of reader to look up and consider reading next. How does that sound?

KELLY: Well, I love that. I like the book references that you just mentioned, but also the friendship over time and writing letters back and forth. That sounds like a really great read.

[00:38:12] ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Also, you said sea turtles. I have only ever read one literary fiction novel that has largely revolved around sea turtles. And it's not my favorite novel by Gail Godwin, but I wonder if it might have special appeal to you. Can I tell you about this?

KELLY: Definitely.

ANNE: Okay. So this is by Gail Godwin. We've talked about her books on the show before, especially Father Melancholy's Daughter, and... oh, her next one in that loosely connected series is called Evensong. She's also written Flora, Queen of the Underworld, Old Lovegood Girls just came out in 2020. She's written some nonfiction as well. I know Ginger has really enjoyed her book called, I think, Heart. And I am so sorry if I'm getting that wrong.

But this book, Grief Cottage, is a novel. It came out about ten years ago. And it's set on the Florida shore. I do not remember the part of the state, but it's about this young... I think he's 11 or 12, but there's this young boy who ends up moving in with this reclusive aunt who's an artist, has always kept to herself, never had children, always seemed a little distant and maybe a little bit scary.

[00:39:27] But this child, Marcus, goes to live with her after his mother dies and he ends up being immersed in her world and discovering things about her and his family he never suspected. But there's also this cottage nearby from which a family disappeared during a hurricane a long time ago. And he's so captured by this story and he's heard there's ghosts there and he's a little bit scared but mostly needs to know the story of what happened to the people who lived in that home.

This feels very Southern, a little Southern Gothic-ish, almost. But throughout this book we know that the sea turtles are nesting and laying eggs and there's this sense of expectation, like, will it go okay? Will anything interfere with them? Will the people leave them alone? Will the weather be hospitable? I wonder if literary fiction, feels a little bit historical, that incorporates sea turtles might be a different kind of also hard-to-find read for you.

[00:40:35] KELLY: Definitely hard to find. I mean, sea turtles, throwing that at you was very random and I appreciate you thinking of something that incorporated that.

ANNE: It's possible what you want is a good, like, I don't know, National Geographic photo book or a nonfiction, like descriptions of how it all happens, but this is a little bit different take that might... I mean, like Google can't really take you to a place like this.

KELLY: No, I think what you're describing is actually right up my alley because it is a dream to go, you know, to a beach when the sea turtles are going through that process of laying their eggs or protecting their eggs. I'm from Arkansas, there's not an ocean here, so it's kind of... It is definitely a travel-related experience that I can imagine being at. And also the story that is going around with it, I think would add to it more than a National Geographic type of book.

ANNE: Well, I'm curious to see what you think.

KELLY: Yes, definitely.

[00:41:36] ANNE: I think there's so many places you could happily go for novels. I'm wondering about the Dear Mrs. Bird series. The author name eludes me right now. I'm wondering about The Gown by Jennifer Robson. I spoke with Nikkya on the podcast just a few weeks ago, a reader recommended Vanessa Miller's The Filling Station, which is about, as a starting point, the Tulsa Race Massacre. Hard topic for sure, but handled so compassionately and, to the extent as possible, gently in those pages. I think that would be a great read for you as well.

I think the more recent works of Patti Henry, Charmaine Wilkerson... there's some nonfiction books that I think would serve you well. Martha Hall Kelly could be a good one, perhaps especially her new one, The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Society. It speaks to lesser-told history. Are any of those already on your radar or on your list perhaps?

[00:42:31] KELLY: No, I don't think that they are, Anne. Especially what popped up to me from that was the Martha's Vineyard book. One of my great-aunts lived in that area.

ANNE: Did she?

KELLY: So I've been interested in that area.

ANNE: The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Society, which talks about Martha's Vineyard's role in hosting army drills and also she tells this fascinating story in her author's note, Martha Hall Kelly does, about the rumors and whispers about German U-boats in the area when her grandmother was growing up in the World War II era. And that was the inspiration for this story. I think you may enjoy the story and also reading the inspiration.

And I forgot to say, I do think the previous books by Sadeqa Johnson could also be a very good fit for you.

KELLY: Okay, that's good to know.

ANNE: Okay, you want to talk about reviews?

KELLY: Yes, please.

ANNE: Kelly, what would you like to do with your reviews that you feel like you're not getting to now?

[00:43:28] KELLY: I guess having confidence to put together thoughtful reviews that are helpful to me. And I guess if I put them on a public platform like Goodreads, that they would be helpful to other people as well.

ANNE: Okay, I like the way you're thinking. If I remember correctly, writing reviews will help you figure out what you think and also preserve that when you go back and look at it later.

KELLY: Definitely. For a while, I wasn't even giving ratings to my books because I just recorded the books I read and I didn't really even say, you know, if it was a two or three. And so I've just started to do that, and that's been helpful. So I imagine this is the next step that will be even more helpful.

ANNE: Okay, I love that for you. Some of you readers know that we have several classes about how to review books in our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club archives. So that information is there, but I'm going to give a few quick tips.

[00:44:22] So when we're talking about writing a good book review, we're not just talking about writing a plot summary and we're not talking about just a real quick verdict that "I liked it" or "I didn't so much." What we want to do is weigh the book on its merits, sometimes place it in the literary spectrum, like, say, "what kind of book is this?" A good review also helps the reader vet selections as they're thinking about what they may enjoy reading next.

So what I try to do when I write reviews is thoughtfully engage the work, wrestle with what I found there, note its successes, but also mark its shortcomings. So I like to think about these three questions I'm answering in my reviews. And to be clear, like, I don't write reviews very often, but when I do I like to think about: What is the book about? And I don't mean "it's about a woman who goes on a hike," but like in Heartwood, what are the fundamental questions about what it means to be human? What are the themes that Amity Gaige is addressing in that book? When we talk about what the book's about, that's what I have in mind.

[00:45:29] I also want to know, what does the author think the book is about? Like, what did the author set out to do? And then, what did the author actually do? And are those the same thing? And then, what do I, as the reviewer, think about the result? In other words, what is the author trying to do, did they do it, and what do I think about the result?

And something that trips people up a lot is they judge a book based on what the reader wished it was about or wanted it to be about. And that certainly can belong in a review, but it shouldn't be the rubric. If you wanted a thriller and what you got was a slow-burning mystery, then that's important and good to know and good for you to say for your own information, but should that be a ding against the author? Like, not unless the author told you "this is going to be a scintillating, page-turning, keep-you-up-all-night, race-through-the-pages kind of book."

[00:46:26] Something that I find really helpful also is... you know what, maybe we should have started here, Kelly. You could start with just ratings, and not just like "do you give this book two stars or five stars," but if you can separate those ratings into two categories in your mind, like, how much did you enjoy it, and also a separate rating for craft. Like, was this well done? And then think about the elements you want to consider. Like, it could be characters, plot, setting, prose style, structure, atmosphere. Those things that are important to you, or you could borrow that pretty generic list about elements of a book—how well do you think the author did on those measures?

KELLY: That makes sense. And the teacher in me likes to think about it breaking down into kind of a rubric, but also, I guess, "grading it"—to use teacher terms again—based off of what the intention of the book was rather than just my enjoyment of it, although keeping in mind that, you know, it's important that I enjoy it and that's what I want to be reading.

[00:47:36] ANNE: Yes. So, okay, for the teacher in you, you could really think about evaluating the book on its merits. Like, how well do you think the author developed the characters, laid out the plot? Did the pacing serve the story? How richly was the setting drawn? Was it what it needed to be? What did you think of the atmosphere, the voice, the style, the structure? If it helps you to think through those individual elements, slicing it a little thinner than just "did this book work for you" helps a lot of readers.

You could also ask yourself things like, what did this book remind me of? You know, was it referencing any books that I'm familiar with or have read before? What do I think the author was trying to do, and how well did they do it? And then, on a separate note that maybe isn't a "review" in this sense, but I think could really help you, was, how did this book make me feel? Emotionally, what was the reading experience like? Did I enjoy that? Were there things I wished were different? Were there things I really appreciated? What were the strong points? What was my least favorite part? Were there any places where it sagged?

[00:48:54] I also find "Who would I recommend this book to?" to be a useful question. It gives me a little bit of distance to reflect on what kind of book it is and what kind of reader it might appeal to. And then from that I can kind of look backwards and be like, "Well, am I actually that kind of reader?" Like, maybe I wouldn't have described myself as a reader who likes to take adventures in the great outdoors, but if I find myself recommending Heartwood to people who like to do exactly that, well then maybe I should consider that for myself as I think about my current and future reads. I think you're already there on Heartwood, but just as an example.

KELLY: Yes, definitely. I love all these questions. And I think it kind of goes back to my goal of being more intentional in general about the books and just sitting with them a little bit longer and really dissecting what I like about them. So these questions are very helpful. Thank you.

[00:49:47] ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. We're just going to recap some of the books we talked about. Some I brought to the table first and some you did, but we talked about The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, Kate and Frida by Kim Fay, Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin, and Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. And then we tossed out lots of additional authors including Jennifer Robson, Patti Henry, Vanessa Miller, Charmaine Wilkerson, Martha Hall Kelly. Kelly, of the books we talked about today, what do you think you may enjoy reading next?

KELLY: Well, I think I'll keep the ones that you suggested on my list, but I will definitely add a couple, and especially the Kate and Frida book sounds really right up my alley.

ANNE: I'm excited to hear it. Thank you so much for bringing your personal curriculum to us, and thanks for talking books with me today.

KELLY: Oh, I enjoyed it so much. Thank you for talking to me today.

[00:50:45] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kelly, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Connect with Kelly at rockymountaintot.com. We'll have that link along with the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Connect with our show on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext. Join our email list at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter, where we send out quick updates with a peek at our newest episode and all the happenings here at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Please make sure you're following in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, wherever you'd like to get your podcasts.

Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, Media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.

Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.