[00:00:00] BRIGID MISSELHORN: What am I going to do with this dust jacket?

HOLLY WIELKOSZEWSKI: I can't deal with it. It's distracting.

LEIGH KRAMER: It just stays on.

HOLLY: It bothers me.

WILL BOGEL: It's a jacket.

LEIGH: It's a jacket.

WILL: The book just wears it. It just stays on. You don't have to do anything with it. It just stays on the book.

BRIGID: I like my books naked.

ANNE BOGEL: 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.

[00:00:38] Today we're shining a light on our Patreon community and the types of conversations that happen over there every Friday. For members of our bonuses and events and all-inclusive tiers, we share a new bonus episode every week from a regular rotation of topics. Our bonus episodes include Mini Matchmaking, where I do a speed round of book recommending in the format you hear each week on this podcast, Dear Book Therapist, where I tackle tricky reading questions or conundrums, and Industry Insights, where I bring you along to explore unknown facets of the publishing industry.

We also make episodes dedicated to bringing you a whole bunch of great books on an interesting theme or topic. We often feature conversations or solo episodes from members of our team there, like our Starter Guide collection, One Great Book episodes, and Wild Card conversations on bookish topics that come up in conversation in our comment sections, or at team meetings, or are sometimes suggested by our Patreon members.

[00:01:33] Another perk of being a patron at the bonuses and events tier, or all-inclusive, is automatic access to our marquee events, like our recent Fall Book Preview Unboxing, and our upcoming Team's Best Books of the Year event coming in January 2027.

In our episode today, we are sharing three popular Patreon bonus episodes to give you a sampler of what we do every week in that community. If this episode sounds like something you'd like to hear more of, come join us at Patreon. That's patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.

This past summer, we also rolled out our new ad-free episodes tier, which I know many of you have been waiting for and asking for and are really loving now. That tier is for one thing only, and that is the delivery of ad-free episodes, and it does it really well. But the ad-free episodes tier does not include those weekly bonus episodes, so make sure to check out the options on our Patreon sign-up page to choose the right fit for your reading life right now.

[00:02:29] We are kicking off today's episode with a fan favorite bonus from our ongoing Industry Insight series. I hope you'll hear some useful ideas and fascinating insights in this bonus.

Hey, readers, it's Anne, and I'm here with a special just-for-you bonus episode. Recently, I had the pleasure of circling back with some of my favorite booksellers for the State of the Bookstore episode we made for you and aired in early March.

Initially, like I said here in the discussion thread post, we'd envisioned that we would have a single episode with six bookseller interviews, and then we got so much good tape we couldn't bear not to share it. So you haven't actually heard part two of that episode yet, but it's coming, and in it, you will hear from Alison Frenzel and Elizabeth Barnhill of Fabled Bookshop in Waco. Alison is the co-owner of the bookshop, and Elizabeth has been Fabled's book buyer since before they even opened in late summer 2019.

[00:03:23] During our conversation together, and I'm sorry to say, this was after we stopped recording, we were talking about spring and summer reading and all the books coming out, and Elizabeth made a comment that I thought was worth putting in front of you today. She said her favorite books of the year are consistently the ones that come out between January 1st and the first week of April.

Now, if you're not familiar with the publishing calendar or with Elizabeth as a reader, you might posit that she starts strong on her New Year's resolutions and then fizzles. Or maybe you would think it was situational. But she didn't say she reads her favorite books in the first 30% of the year. She says they're published then. I thought this would be a good opportunity to look at the publishing calendar and what kinds of books are typically published when.

We're talking about why certain books come out at certain times of the year. So let's start by saying very clearly that oftentimes the book's release date has nothing to do with its seasonality. None. Sometimes that pub date, and when I say pub date, I mean publication date, I think you know that, let's be sure here. The pub date is what it is simply because that's when the book is ready.

[00:04:29] To give you an example, Laura Vanderkam, who writes primarily in the productivity space, once said that after she went through the process of book proposal to contract, the next available spot in her publisher's production calendar was May. And so she went on to write her first draft, then go through editing and copy editing, galley proofs, the whole shebang, she hit all her deadlines, so it did in fact have that planned May release date.

Because each of her subsequent books followed the same basic timeline, many of her books ended up coming out in the spring. But her most recent release didn't follow that same timeline. Tranquility by Tuesday came out in October because that's when it was ready, and that was fine.

Also, that's the book Laura talked about when she was on the podcast earlier this year, and I think we both mentioned then that we are in a writing group together, and this is exactly the sort of stuff we talk about in that group.

The general balance of the publication calendar is a consideration when publishers are choosing release dates for their books. Even though sometimes it does not appear to be the case, publishers do aim to plan their releases so they're nicely staggered. They don't want all their big releases, when I say big, I mean the books that they have decided in advance to print the most copies of, to give the most marketing support to before they even know how the readers are going to respond.

[00:05:44] They don't want all those big releases to release on the same day. And by that I mean both that Macmillan, say, wants to stagger their own Macmillan releases so they're not in competition with each other, and they also don't want to go up against too many big books from Penguin or Hachette either. Sometimes this does not work out at all, and it seems like a zillion major releases come out all on the same day.

April 2022 famously saw several major, major Tuesdays. That was due in part to the pandemic and how it wreaked havoc with publication dates and timelines, in part to the fact that despite everyone's best intentions, this happens sometimes.

But even this year, just in the course of my Summer Reading Guide prep, it seems like May 2nd is going to be a dizzyingly big publication date, with scads of heavily promoted titles dropping all at once. That's not a huge surprise, as April, May, and then September are historically big months to release books.

[00:06:38] To give you a bit of insight into how editors might think strategically about timing, my editor and I were once discussing a certain title, and she said, "I made that book a bestseller," which sounds maybe a little audacious, but she went on to specifically explain that she'd done it by changing the release date.

The book in question had been slated to come out in the midst of a jam-packed September. So seeing that it did have potential to hit the list, and when an editor talks about hitting the list, they mean The New York Times Best Seller list, she moved it to August, where it had much less competition and did in fact hit. Maybe that doesn't seem like playing fair, but today is about the reality, not how things should be.

So let's go back now to Elizabeth's comment about how her favorite books tend to be published between January 1st and the first week of April. That's not about when the books are ready or the publisher's desire to spread their offerings evenly throughout the year. That is about the seasonality of the publishing calendar. So let's look at that next.

[00:07:37] Generally speaking, there are three seasons in publishing: spring, summer, and fall. Sometimes books are, on purpose, deliberately published in a certain season. If a book has a seasonal hook, it's far more likely to come out in that season.

Every derby book that has ever existed has probably been published in April. That is a real thing. I'm in Louisville. The derby is the first weekend in May, except when the pandemic one time made it in September. If a book has a seasonal hook, it'll come out in that season, usually.

Here's a really obvious extreme example. Hannah Orenstein's book, Head Over Heels, is about a retired gymnast coaching an aspiring athlete as she trains for her first Olympics. So this book was slated to come out a month before the 2020 Tokyo Games, the ones that got postponed a year because of the pandemic, but the book did not. But independent of such a strong hook in the actual book, the publishing calendar follows certain rhythms.

[00:08:31] So listen in as we talk about it, and while you do, think about Elizabeth's comment about her favorite books publishing between January 1st and the first week of April. You'll get a good idea of what she enjoys in her reading life.

We'll start with January, obviously big for any kind of story of new beginnings and fresh starts, and also a big season for self-help, personal growth, and career books.

February is for books about love and sometimes books that are adamantly not about love. For example, you may remember from the Spring Book Preview that Stone Cold Fox, a... I thought, deliciously devious novel about a scheming social climber determined to marry into the 1% and attain forever freedom from her ruinous past and do whatever it takes to make that happen. It cheekily came out on Valentine's Day.

[00:09:16] February is also a big month for poetry. March, April, and May are huge months for publishing. I remember talking to Mary Laura Philpott when her book got assigned an April release date, and she was freaking out a little bit saying, "Ah, they put me in April. I feel like I have a lot to live up to. Yikes." Her book was great, just by the way. She did fine.

But April means something to authors. March is a big month for spring releases and books expected to be popular with book clubs. In fact, two of our summer 2022 Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club selections were published in March: Bonnie Garmus' Lessons in Chemistry and Peng Shepherd's The Cartographers.

March and April are also huge for historical fiction, and late April is when the big summer releases start coming. Like this year, the new Emily Henry is landing April 25th.

May sees memoir, romance, and books tied to Mother's Day and graduations. May to August is when we see lots of fantasy, adventure, science fiction, and thrillers.

[00:10:14] June sees beachy reads. This is Elin Hilderbrand's publication month, just to give you the flavor, and it has been for a long time.

July and August see a lot of mysteries and thrillers. For many years, Louise Penny's books came out in August, and readers knew they could depend on her to deliver a new book every August. When her husband Michael died, she thought she would take a year off from writing while she grieved, but ended up turning to writing for comfort. If this all sounds familiar, we touched on this topic when she was a guest on What Should I Read Next?

She did actually go on to write a book that year, but that book wasn't ready in time for her typical August release. The publisher couldn't even make that happen for Louise Penny, so that's the year she shifted to November, and since then, her books have come out every November. But back to the August Louise Penny left behind, on the whole, it tends to be a quieter month before that typically packed September.

[00:11:04] September issues in the season of literary fiction. Generally speaking, heavier, more serious, hear my air quotes there, come out in the fall, with September and October being the biggest months for this genre.

October is for the spooky stuff, horror and suspense.

And November is really interesting. It tends to be a light month publication-wise. Some of that has to do with the broader cultural landscape, like relatively few books come out in the Novembers of presidential election years. Publishers don't know what's going to happen, what public sentiment will be, if they'll be spending money. They don't go there.

But two categories are considered welcoming for November releases, and those are children's books and cookbooks. Remember, we're talking about publication dates being thin, but book sales are huge in November and December. However, most of those books that are selling are deliberately released well before Thanksgiving, so they're already in stores and have some momentum behind them when the holiday shopping blitz begins.

[00:12:00] Some exceptions of late that might give you a feel for what kinds of books are released immediately before Black Friday are the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook, Ann Patchett's These Precious Days, and Michelle Obama's The Light We Carry.

Now for December. Nobody wants to be a December release. Some wonderful books publish at the end of the year. I truly do not understand, but would like to if you have any insight, who would want their book to come out the last week of the year when readers are busy and distracted and the best of the year lists are already out? Book sales continue to be strong in December and right on into January, so perhaps that's part of it. I do not have the answer here.

I hope it's clear that while exceptions abound, there is a life cycle to the publishing calendar, and it could very well be impacting your reading life. If you think nothing looks good on Bookstagram in July, or that everything looks good on Bookstagram in July, it might not be your mood or mindset, but the reality that new books overshadow old on social media, plus a certain kind of book is more likely to be published in July.

[00:13:00] Or if everything on the new release table looks good in September, or nothing looks good on the new release table in September, that may very well be about your taste as well. We're not talking about these factors today as good or bad. Instead, we're looking at how things are, and I'm inviting you to reflect on what this may mean for your reading life.

Readers, thanks for joining me on this bonus. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments as always. Till next time, happy reading everyone.

[00:13:28]

ANNE: We'll be back in Patreon on Friday, October 30th with our next Industry Insights episode. That one is dedicated to the personalities of various literary awards.

Next up, we're sharing a recent bonus conversation among members of our Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next? team. Our team members often pair up to talk about reader-ly topics of interest in our Patreon community, and this fascinating and delightfully detailed conversation about how our team members approach buying books sparked a lot of great conversations. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

SHANNAN MALONE: Say hello, y'all.

BRIGID: Hi.

WILL: Hey, everybody.

HOLLY: Hello.

LEIGH: Hi there.

SHANNAN: As Anne would say, let's get to it. So to start us out, I'm curious, how many books do you read per year, each one of you?

WILL: Do we need to self-rank before we give the answer?

SHANNAN: What do you mean by that?

WILL: I'm going to be the lowest. I think 42.

SHANNAN: 42.

WILL: I think I read 42. And I bet that's less than everybody, but...

SHANNAN: No.

WILL: No?

SHANNAN: I was about 40 last year.

HOLLY: I think last year I was 65. I'm usually in the 60 to 90 range. It just really depends on the year.

BRIGID: This is interesting, because I'm about 80 to 90, around there. Almost always 79 to 88, somewhere within there.

SHANNAN: Which is wild to me.

HOLLY: That's a very specific number.

BRIGID: Which is wild. That's wild.

SHANNAN: And Leigh.

LEIGH: And I am on the high range, around 200 per year. Last year was 187, and the year before was 223.

SHANNAN: Will, we did self-rank.

WILL: Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did.

SHANNAN: Unintentionally.

WILL: Also, I probably could have guessed that too, like put them in order. I'm amazed by you all that have a 30-book range, because I said 42, I just made that up, but 40 to 44 every year. It's almost always exactly the same.

[00:15:29] SHANNAN: It is. And out of that number of books that you read, how many do you actually purchase? Because we're talking about adding the books to the actual physical library or digital library.

BRIGID: I have an exact answer to this from last year because I kept track of it with...

WILL: Research.

BRIGID: ...Donna and Shannan. We kept track of some of these things together, and a spreadsheet, of course, that Donna created. And of the 80 books I read last year, 10 of them I had purchased in print. But I only bought 14 new books last year. I feel like that's a good percentage, 10 out of the 14 I read. But now that's talking new books. Used books is a totally different number.

[00:16:22] SHANNAN: So you mean you purchase new books. I mean, you purchase old books and used books.

BRIGID: I purchased 14 new books, and I read 10 of them. They were 10 of the 80 I read. But I also purchased a lot of used books. Those I did not include in the new book count.

SHANNAN: So we really don't know how many because honestly, I don't know exactly how many I have purchased. I know how many I have let go of, but I don't know how many I actually brought in. I'm beginning to track that now.

[00:16:56] WILL: But you keep track of how many you get rid of?

SHANNAN: Yes.

WILL: Okay. I mean, because it's like a tax deduction? You're keeping your little [Goodwill?] receipts or something?

SHANNAN: No, it's more of a... I have my library in Goodreads, so when I get rid of them I have to take them out and I know how many-

WILL: You mark it off.

SHANNAN: ...that have gone out of my house.

LEIGH: And Shannan, you have a guest post about this topic coming up on the blog soon, so people can look forward to that.

SHANNAN: Yes. Thank you, Leigh. And now I'm nervous. Anyway, Holly, what you got?

[00:17:39] HOLLY: So the last year or two I've been really focused on trying to read through books I have bought in the past and have not yet read. So this past year I purchased seven books total, and I read 11 books that I'd purchased in previous years and hadn't read yet, and then everything else came from the library or whatnot.

SHANNAN: Now, we know you're a digital nomad, so are these physical or digital books, or are you counting them as the same?

HOLLY: I count them the same when I'm doing my stats as far as purchased and everything like that. But I do read mostly digital, but I still have a pretty good stack of physical TBR pile books that I'm working my way through also. And I like to take one of those with me on every trip and leave it in a little free library somewhere when I'm done.

LEIGH: Aw.

SHANNAN: Leigh.

[00:18:30] LEIGH: I do have a spreadsheet for all of this. And actually I did a bonus episode about this. This was one of my goals from... I feel like maybe it was two years ago where I wanted to read everything that I purchased within a month of buying it.

SHANNAN: Yes, I remember this.

LEIGH: Now, I have kind of fallen off with that. I'm still doing a pretty good job, but I'm not as militant about the one month rule. But because I track everything I read or I put it in the spreadsheet, I know that I have purchased around 100 books per year. And it's probably 70% e-books, 30% physical copies. But I will say also I'm a heavy, heavy library user, so most of these are something that I've gotten from the library, loved it, and then purchased after the fact.

[00:19:27] SHANNAN: So that's going to get to the crux of the conversation, which is what I wanted to talk about. But Will, I don't even know if this is appropriate question for you. I think when I'm looking at books, I'm thinking about you personally because I know books come in and go out, and come in and go out with Leigh's help sometimes, as Anne has told us. But how much do you bring in for yourself?

WILL: I mean, I'd like to say I don't buy books, but that's not actually true. I bought two books last week. I bought two books last week. I don't buy a lot of books, though, no. Yeah, pretty much no. Three or four? I don't know. I think people know because we've definitely talked about it a number of times. We have a used book sale in town that we love. And I usually buy half a dozen there. But then, I mean, going to a bookstore or whatever, that doesn't really... I don't do that.

[00:20:33] SHANNAN: Which brings me to the ultimate question. When do you decide to add a book to your physical and/or digital library? And Leigh, you had-

WILL: I was going to say I feel guilty because I just said I don't go to bookstores and I don't buy books, but I did buy two books last week, so I want to clarify. So why don't we just jump right in here?

SHANNAN: Okay, go ahead, Will. Jump right in.

WILL: As you said, we have a lot of books, and a lot of books come into our house. So I read a lot of books that Anne gets, and she's like, "Oh, I think you might like this." I read a lot of library books. Those are the two ways I generally read books. I generally only buy a book if I think I can't get it somewhere else. So if I see a book... I'm trying to think a book I bought last year, because I just bought two books last week, but I'm thinking last year. I can only think of one book that I bought.

[00:21:28] We were in St. Louis, and we stopped at The Novel Neighbor, and Holland was there, and Anne was talking for a while, and so the kids and I were shopping, right? And I was like, "Actually, I think I am going to buy this book. I've never heard of it. It seems right up my alley, and it's possible it's at the library, but it is very distinctly possible that it's not at my library." So I bought a book that I thought, "This is the moment, and I don't know that I could get it again." Of course, I could take a note and I could buy it online and what... I'm sure I could get it again. But for the most part, they're books that I feel like I can't get ahold of.

The two books I bought last week, same thing. One was a sort of philosophical treatise on design. I don't even know what kind of bookstore you would buy that in. I don't know what section it would be in. I came across it and I'm like, "This sounds really cool," so I bought it, just like that.

[00:22:18] And same thing with the used book sales. Our used book sales have tons and tons of what I would call library books. I don't need those. I can get them at the library any time. But then I come across something and I'm like, "Oh, well, this is not going to be in a bookstore because it's more than a few years old, and bookstores just don't keep copies of stuff that's not new unless it just continues to move. So I'm not going to come across it in a bookstore, and if I don't browse the library the right way, I just won't ever find that book again kind of deal. So those are the books that I buy.

And especially for the used bookstore... Well, actually, you know what? Even traveling. Even traveling, going to bookstores, buying souvenirs, I don't always read them. So those are the books I buy, but I... Leigh's 30-day rule, I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

SHANNAN: All right. Leigh, you were starting to say something about why or when you buy books, so please tell us more.

[00:23:19] LEIGH: So library first as much as possible unless it's not available at any of my libraries. And I do search near and far because I am on a budget. But I will pre-order a book from a favorite author. Like I just got a signed copy of The Paris Match by Kate Clayborn. And that is 100% worth it to me. Also, I'm friendly with Kate, so this is not me being a total punk, but I told her a compliment that I wanted her to write about me.

BRIGID: I love this.

LEIGH: And I've done this a couple of times, and she goes along with it. She's great. Again, we are friendly. I don't do this to every author. But part of it is to make her laugh when she's signing, and part of it is because I wanted to have something nice about myself forever emblazoned in a book that I love.

[00:24:19] SHANNAN: I love that.

LEIGH: So there's that. Also, special editions can be tempting, but again, it has to be a book that I know that I'm going to love. I rarely buy books that I haven't read, because I really want to get it from the library, because it really... I struggle with buying a book and then hating it. It just feels like such a waste. But if I get it from the library, the author's still getting that money, and I am saving my money. So that is a good gamble for me.

And then I love going to McKay Used Books whenever I'm back in Nashville, and I will sell stuff back, so I get a lot of credit from them. That is where I will get a lot of my out-of-print romances that I want for my romance history project that I'm doing with friends or just books that I love in general. That's where I will pick them up.

[00:25:22] Also, a lot of e-book deals. If it's a book that I love, I'll kind of wait until it goes on sale. And sometimes they don't go on sale, and maybe I'll just eventually get it because I want it anyways. But I feel like those are the usual metrics. Oh, thrift books also is another used source. Yes, Will. I can see Will is [crosstalk 00:25:48] for me.

SHANNAN: You guys can't see this, but Will is raising his hand, y'all.

WILL: I got a question. If you've already read the book, does the 30-day rule apply? I'm confused.

LEIGH: No. No. No, the 30-day-

WILL: Because you already read it.

LEIGH: The 30-day rule doesn't apply anymore. This was a couple of years ago. I'm more lax about it now.

WILL: Mature.

LEIGH: But if I got it from the library, then I've already read it. It goes on a separate column on the spreadsheet, the already read column, as opposed to the month by month column of here's what I have purchased and what I need to read in a timely manner. So I don't feel like I'm wasting my money on stuff that I'm never going to get around to, and reducing the clutter.

WILL: I see.

[00:26:34] SHANNAN: So do you ever think... and this can be for everyone. Do you ever think, "Oh, that sounds so great," when you hear about it or see it in the bookstore, and you're like, "I'm going to buy that now"? Has that ever happened to anyone, or is that something that generally doesn't occur in this group?

LEIGH: A book that I've never... I didn't know about it and I encounter it in the bookstore, and then...

BRIGID: I can count on one hand the amount of times that's happened to me.

WILL: Really?

BRIGID: Yeah. Usually...

HOLLY: I do that a lot.

BRIGID: You do that a lot?

SHANNAN: Okay, Holly, share, please.

HOLLY: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Brigid.

BRIGID: No, go. I'm very intrigued.

HOLLY: I do that a lot. I have four different categories where I buy a book, and I'll tell you all four of them in a minute, but two of them fall under this situation. One of them is when I'm traveling, because if I go to an international bookstore, my goal is to discover a local author I've never heard of before and buy a book. So in that case, I have no idea what I'm going to find, and I just wait and see what I discover.

[00:27:43] The other situation is if I go to, and this is often usually when I'm traveling, but if I go to a bookstore and there's an event with a local author that's sitting at a table selling their book, I will often buy a copy to support local writers. And then I often don't know what I'm getting in that case, and it ends up going eventually to a little free library. And sometimes those are wins, and sometimes they are not at all, and that's okay, because I'm supporting local writers.

SHANNAN: In a percentage, how much of that happens for you out of the books that you do buy, percentage-wise? Do you know that?

HOLLY: I don't have that data, but I would guess it's actually a fairly high percentage because of the travel purchasing situation. And that also ties back a bit to Will's comment that those are books I could not easily acquire in any other context because they're either from an Australian publisher that doesn't distribute, or it would cost me $60 to have the book shipped to the US or whatever. So that's actually a pretty high percentage of my new book purchases. Or book purchases. Sometimes they are used.

[00:28:53] SHANNAN: Go ahead and tell us your other categories.

HOLLY: My other two categories. So a slight caveat is I used to buy digital books for my Kindle like it was going out of style, and since they've locked down all of their DRM things, I have not purchased any Kindle books since then because I object. And I'm still figuring out what my plan is for e-reading going forward other than Libby and my library.

But usually at the end of the year I go back through my five-star reads, and I look at that list and say, "Do I want any of these to exist in my permanent physical library?" Because most of the time those are books I've gotten through the library or some other transient context. And I will typically end up adding, depending on the year, maybe one to three of those to my library kind of for long-term that I think I would either want to read again or it's a favorite author that I'm kinda building my library or it just made a really, really strong impression on me.

[00:29:47] And then the last one is... well, I guess it's sort of twofold. I already kind of talked about books that I can't really get other places, and that also includes hard-to-find books in the US, it's not just internationally.

But the last category is what I call business expense books. So say I'm working on a book list for a post and I'm like, "Oh, I want to read these books to consider for this," if I buy those with my own money, I then count those as a business expense on my business ledger. I don't count those necessarily in the same way as I count personal books.

SHANNAN: I love the idea of going through the year and seeing the five-star reads that you had, and then saying, which ones do you want to add? I need to do that because I set a book budget for the year, y'all, and it's gone already. And I'm like, it's April. And we haven't made it any space. Now mind you, it's a very small budget, which is probably part of my problem, but I'm like, "It's already gone and we're already in April."

[00:31:03] LEIGH: Wait, does that factor in the stipend that we get? This is our great work perk.

SHANNAN: Yes. What Leigh is referring to is the great work perk that we have of a book stipend. It's not seasonally, I think, is more... is appropriate. No, that does not factor in. I am referring to my own personal dollars. And I had a number in my head, and it's gone. I'm like, this is a problem. Brigid-

LEIGH: But it's not because you still have some stipends coming your way.

SHANNAN: Well, I mean, I still...

LEIGH: So I mean, your personal may have run out, but...

SHANNAN: I actually just started over. I mean, I have money to buy books. I mean, that's what I'm going to do. But I'm like, "Okay, from now we're only going to spend this amount of money," which is part of the reason I wanted to have this conversation. Brigid.

[00:32:01] BRIGID: This has been fascinating. I wish everybody listening could see my face every time somebody has said something because I'm either shocked how close it is to what I do or how different, how different, you guys. So, first of all, when I said 14 books at the beginning, those were new books from a bookstore, new books. I did not include digital or audiobook. And I would say I buy about one audiobook and one Kindle book, or an e-book, not necessarily Kindle, because I do sometimes buy from bookshops, e-books.

Anyways, I usually buy about one a month of those. And the majority of the rest of my books buying is from used bookstores. I love a used book, or from the book sale at the library, my local library. Not just the big one they do every year, but they have a whole shelf. So I look at that shelf every time I go in.

[00:33:00] But here's where I'm different. I do not like buying a book that I've already read. That's very, very rare for me. I have kind of... you guys, I'm probably not going to surprise you. I have a hierarchy, a whole process of how I decide to buy a book, and it's like a pyramid. So it's, like everybody else, can I get it at the library? Because I would say the majority of my reads are from the library, whether they're in audio, e-format, or hardcover.

Second, it's... and I'm going to say sorry to all authors who do this, if you are writing about a British, Irish, South African, Nigerian, or Australian character, I'm listening to that in audio. I'm never going to buy it in hard copy. I'm sorry. I want to listen to those books be read to me in those accents. So that's number one. Now, does it have map-

LEIGH: That's not apology-worthy, though. You're still listening.

[00:33:59] BRIGID: I mean, I'm still consuming the book and I'm still reviewing it, but I will never buy it in hard copy. I will never. This is a daily thought of mine. Even at a library, if I see a hard copy of something that I'm interested in reading and it's got an Irish character, I'm like, "Nope, I'm going to be listening to that," so I'm going to have to go get it electronically.

Does it have maps? That's a big one. If it has maps, then yes, I'm more likely to buy it in print. Does it have recipes? I love a fiction that has recipes, so I like to own ones myself that have recipes in them.

LEIGH: And Brigid had a guest post along those lines that we can link to in the show notes.

BRIGID: I do. I love a book with recipes, and I love a novel with recipes. Cookbooks also, but I love a novel with them. Does it have illustrations like a graphic novel, or is it mixed media, like there's emails and messages or newspaper clippings printed within the book? Those I do like to buy a book that has that.

[00:35:04] Like Holly was saying, is it something hard to find? Is it an indie-published print, or is it from a place where I would normally never be able to get it while traveling? Because I do buy the majority of my books while traveling.

Then the next is I like a paperback. So I'd rather buy a paperback than a hard copy. And then is it poetry? Poetry I like to have a hard copy of that. And then I kind of have a very specific... is it written by these or is it part of this series? Is it written by Kerry Winfrey? Is it written by Rainbow Rowell? Is it part of the Empyrean series from Rebecca Yarros? And I say this not because I even really love those books, I'm okay with them. But you can listen to a bonus episode where Anne talks about the special editions and the industry insight, and she kind of tells a little bit of a story of how I accidentally bought a first edition painted edge Fourth Wing. And so now I have to buy all the first edition painted edge ones. I don't make those rules. But I got to.

[00:36:20] And then I really like fun copies of Anne of Green Gables. And then I also love the 81, 831 romances, so those are it.

But then lastly, this is lastly, if I still have gone through all of these and it doesn't quite fit, if it's a book that my mother-in-law or my mom would like to read after, I buy it in print. Because they love to read in print, and the majority of the books that they get in their hands that aren't used copies from used bookstores are books that I give them. "I read this, I think you'd love it." So that's usually…

SHANNAN: Now, are all of these things written down, Brigid? Do you literally have a checklist, when you look at the book and you go, "Check, check, no," or is this just mental?

BRIGID: I have a mental checklist, and I literally run through every single one of those depending on the book.

SHANNAN: Wow.

[00:37:13] BRIGID: And then I also do keep a notes app for very specific authors. One I didn't mention is Tessa Dare. I keep a very specific, do I have it? Have I read it? Here's what's the situa... is it signed? But no, I do have it written down now because I wanted to make sure I had it all copied down so I could tell y'all and not forget any of them. And it is now in my notes app. So if I ever forget it.

LEIGH: I have a notes app too for any book or author that I am looking for, especially when I'm at a used bookstore.

BRIGID: Oh, I also keep Leigh's. She didn't mention that, but I also keep Leigh's wants in my note app. Because I love hunting for used books, not just for myself. So I look for Leigh when I'm out and about.

LEIGH: And I have a couple of friends that I look for their stuff as well.

SHANNAN: So the list that you have in your app, is that a list of books, or is that a list of criteria that you're actually checking off?

[00:38:14] BRIGID: For me, it's books, and now I also have the criteria one, thanks to this recording.

SHANNAN: And you prepped the criteria because of this bonus. Leigh, is it just a list of books?

LEIGH: Just a list of books.

SHANNAN: Readers, y'all thought...

LEIGH: Oh, but I'll throw in...

SHANNAN: I mean, I thought that I would had overthought this.

LEIGH: No, this is not overthinking. This is because when I'm in a bookstore, I cannot remember all of the different books, because I... especially at McKay's. If you've ever been to a McKay's, it is a huge warehouse of a place. It can be overwhelming. And when I get in those stacks, I get very distracted and I can forget about especially the out-of-print ones that I don't necessarily remember offhand. I need to be able to look. And also any recent five-star books that I got from the library that I do want a copy in my home, a la Holly's approach.

[00:39:09] SHANNAN: I wasn't saying you were overthinking the reason why you had the list. It's just I was thinking, am I overthinking this process of trying to figure out what books I'm going to add and how I'm going to go about it? And as Anne would say, and Ginger also would say, "It's never just you."

LEIGH: Never just you.

SHANNAN: So I feel so much better about myself.

BRIGID: I feel like we're in good company with these, for sure.

LEIGH: Definitely.

SHANNAN: I have noticed something. I get put off by the plastic covers on library books recently. That is a recent thing. Is that just me?

BRIGID: They don't bother me.

LEIGH: Doesn't bother me.

BRIGID: But I've had other people say things. And I don't post a ton on my Instagram, but a lot of times if it's a book that I enjoyed from the library, I'll post a picture of it, and people have said something like, "Oh, that shiny library cover."

[00:40:05] HOLLY: I'm not a fan.

SHANNAN: You are not a fan.

BRIGID: You're not a fan.

HOLLY: I'm not a fan, no. Again. I pretty much only get digital, audio, or paperback from my library because I don't like the crinkly plastic cover.

SHANNAN: Once again, readers, it's not just me. So excited. Because I will not want to go to the library and get a book if it's in hardcover. I literally will be like, "Uh-uh, I don't want to," because I hate the way it... And it distorts how pretty it is, also. It feels like it doesn't give me that experience.

Now this is a recent phenomena since I started buying books, which probably happened in 2019-ish. So before then, I was a definite library user. And I think COVID tripped me up too because even though you could get books from the library eventually, I was like, "I don't know where this book has been." I'll just either do digital or buy it.

[00:41:05] HOLLY: I have a follow-up comment too, though.

BRIGID: When you are re...

HOLLY: Sorry. Sorry, Brigid. I was just saying I hate dust jackets in general. So even if I buy a hardcover of my own, the first thing I do is take the dust jacket off and put it somewhere else.

BRIGID: Why?

HOLLY: I can't read a book with a dust jacket on it.

BRIGID: That was literally my question, Holly. Of course that's... You stole the words right out of my mouth. Do you guys take the dust jackets off?

HOLLY: Never.

BRIGID: Because that's why I like paperbacks better, because I don't like dealing with, what am I going to do with this dust jacket?

HOLLY: I can't deal with it. It's distracting.

LEIGH: It just stays on.

HOLLY: It bothers me.

WILL: It's a jacket.

LEIGH: It's a jacket.

WILL: The book just wears it. It just stays on. You don't have to do anything with it. It just stays on the book.

BRIGID: I like my books naked.

HOLLY: Nope. Can't deal with it.

SHANNAN: So I have a question about that to Holly. Holly, what do you do with that? Do you literally have a bin full of dust jackets?

LEIGH: Do you like throw them away?

HOLLY: I just take it off when I'm reading it, and then once I'm not reading it, I put it back on.

LEIGH: Same.

HOLLY: ...and I put it on the shelf. I just can't have it on while I'm in the act of reading it.

BRIGID: This is the same. I think, Holly, this is a birthday twin thing because I have to take it off.

SHANNAN: This has been very informative

WILL: This was fascinating.

[00:42:10] SHANNAN: And fascinating. I am going to go and write down my rules and feel good about the Summer Reading Guide season and my new budget that I am starting over.

LEIGH: Oh, can I offer one tip for people if they don't have this already?

SHANNAN: Absolutely.

LEIGH: I recommend downloading Libib, L-I-B-I-B. It is an app, and you can scan the barcodes of your books, and so you will know exactly how many you have. And when you are in a bookstore, and you're like, "I really love this book, but do I have it?" I can open up my app, and I can type in the title or the author and see if I already own it or not, and then you don't have to buy any duplicates.

WILL: Oh, this is amazing.

LEIGH: There are other apps along those lines but Libib is the one that I've used for several years now.

WILL: We have bought duplicates at the same used book sale. So we didn't have it at home, but then we came home with two copies. It's like, I don't know there's any preventing duplicates. But yeah.

[00:43:05] SHANNAN: Who else intentionally buys duplicates?

WILL: Intentionally?

LEIGH: Well, I do buy duplicates of some things.

SHANNAN: Yes.

WILL: Certain books.

SHANNAN: I know our book club community manager, Ginger, has several copies of certain books. Does anyone else do that?

BRIGID: I only do it for Anne of Green Gables.

LEIGH: A Prayer for Owen Meany, Persuasion, and then Sierra Simone is one of my favorite romance authors, and I have multiple copies, multiple editions of hers. But I don't consider them to be duplicates.

WILL: Because you're looking for...

LEIGH: Because they're different editions.

WILL: Different editions, yes.

SHANNAN: You collect the editions.

BRIGID. Same. Same, yeah.

SHANNAN: Fascinating.

WILL: There are a couple books I would snap up any time I see them, just because I don't come across them and I want people to have them and whatever.

SHANNAN: So you're buying them to give them away maybe?

WILL: Yeah.

SHANNAN: Okay.

[00:43:56] WILL: I'm kind of stingy about loaning out my books. So if there's a book I don't want to let go of, but I'm like, "Oh, I want to recommend this to people," but I don't actually want to give them mine because who knows what's going to happen.

LEIGH: Yeah, I do the same thing. A friend who I am still friends with, and that should tell you how much I love her, she dropped one of my books in the pool, and I have not loaned any books to anyone since. She did pay to replace it.

SHANNAN: So sad.

LEIGH: But I was like, never, never again. I know everyone's probably on the floor right now in horror.

SHANNAN: Horror. Horror.

LEIGH: This was 20 years ago. And we're still friends, but I was very angry at the time.

SHANNAN: Again, this has been so helpful to me. Thank you so much. And I know it is going to be helpful and fun for our listeners. Will, Holly, Leigh, Brigid, thank you for joining me.

[00:45:00] ANNE: For more from our Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next? team, be sure to check out our bonus episodes archive on Patreon, or explore our team members collection there.

We are wrapping up today by sharing a One Great Book bonus episode. In these periodic bonuses, I, or sometimes a member of our team, tell you all about a book I love from my own shelves, usually in about 10 minutes or less. This collection features a range of titles from contemporary fiction to classics, middle grade to nonfiction, genres of all sorts, everything in between.

In the episode we're sharing today, I'm discussing a favorite title that's been recommended and discussed here on What Should I Read Next? several times at this point. That is The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard.

[00:45:46] Hey readers. It's Anne, and I'm here with a bonus of One Great Book. "No one should have to read it for the first time." Perhaps that's not the kind of comment you'd expect to hear about an award-winning novel, one that contemporary writers have referred to as a self-contained masterclass in writing fiction.

For example, Lauren Groff says she reads it once a year, and has for nearly two decades now, because these pages teach her everything she needs to know about writing a novel. And yet, these words were famously spoken by Shirley Hazzard's husband about what is arguably her best novel, The Transit of Venus. No one should have to read it for the first time.

As someone who picked up the book after hearing trusted readers and writers rave about it, I see his point. I picked up my copy several years ago expecting only good things, wholly unaware of her husband's warning. It is true, there is a precipitous amount of foreshadowing in this book.

[00:46:46] In fact, the book's very first line, "By nightfall the headlines would be reporting devastation," is a decent summary of the entire story for the rereader. What's more, Hazzard tells us plainly in the opening pages that one of her characters will die, and how that happens, and yet it means absolutely nothing to the first-time reader, since they are not yet acquainted with the man or any other character.

Perhaps such things are exactly what Hazzard's husband had in mind. I don't know. But for me, the vexation of my first read was that I just didn't get it. I did not understand the story or why it mattered. The writing was gorgeous, sure. Hazzard famously revised each page upwards of 20 times in order to get each word to fall in exactly the right place. She worked on this novel for 10 years, but I was bored. I didn't know what was happening. I could not keep the characters straight, and I didn't even care.

[00:47:40] But then, right about page 75, it clicked, and by the time I reached the spectacular and spectacularly devastating ending, I was ready to flip to the beginning and start again right then, because I knew this time I'd be riveted.

The Transit of Venus takes its title from a rare astronomical event of the same name. In fact, it's one of the rarest astronomical phenomena that can be predicted. A transit is similar to an eclipse, and observed from Earth, it looks like a small black dot on the face of the sun as Venus passes between it and Earth.

The pattern isn't complicated, but it is a little tricky to describe. The complete pattern repeats every 243 years and includes two pairs of transits eight years apart. So there will be a pair of transits, a transit being that eclipse-like passing of Venus in front of the sun, a pair of transits eight years apart, and then a gap of 121 years, and then another pair of transits eight years apart, that time followed by a gap of 105 years.

[00:48:48] If you're listening to this and you didn't observe the last transit, you have missed it for a lifetime. The last transits took place in 2004 and then 2012, and we won't see the next pair, well, no one will see the next pair until 2117 and 2125. It comes as no surprise to hear then that Hazzard's novel is laden with pairs of things: a pair of sisters, a pair of lovers, of sickly sons, of watches and umbrellas that carry great meaning in the story.

This is a story of missed connections, of missing the point, of meeting the right person but at the wrong moment, of not realizing key truths until it is too late. The plot by which Hazzard explores her really philosophy of living, I think, is this. Sisters Caroline and Grace Bell are orphaned in Australia when their parents die in a ferry accident, and they subsequently travel to England to make a new life under the guardianship of their oppressive and soul-crushing half-sister, Dora, which Hazzard based largely on her own mother. That is another story.

[00:49:54] Grace is fair-haired and complacent, pleasing, and soon enough she marries a wealthy bureaucrat who may be smug but is absolutely smitten with her. Caro is dark-haired and independent-minded, and a kind astronomer is smitten with her, but she has already fallen in love with a dashing playwright who is married but so charismatic, Caro fails to recognize how horribly he treats others, including her.

The story follows these characters for decades, well into their middle age, and we see the choices they make and where those choices lead them. All the while, Hazzard is showing us what she believes to be true about romantic and filial love, about the nature of intimacy, and about power dynamics in relationships.

I read this novel for the first time at age 40, and I never had the opportunity to learn what I would have thought of it had I read it for the first time at 18 or 25 or 32. But I do suspect it's one of those novels, like Crossing to Safety, which I love, that is best appreciated at a certain age. Readers, I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

[00:50:59] The novel may not be hospitable to first-time readers of any age, but I sincerely hope and have reason to think that those who persevere will find it worth their while. Not that they will love it necessarily, but that they will appreciate the scope of Hazzard's story and her skill in its telling.

It would be a joy, I mean, a nerdy joy, but a joy, to excavate its pages in a book club or English seminar, to tease out every moment of that foreshadowing we talked about, to explore the meaning of that spectacularly devastating ending for hours.

I do find this is one of those books that is near impossible to adequately discuss without acknowledging the ending aloud, as it colors the meaning of every word in the novel. The first read may not be easy, but many find it to be a hard novel to read only once.

Calvino once defined a classic as a book that is never finished saying what it has to say. Great works not only bear up under, but improve upon repeated rereadings, revealing new things to the reader each time. I think we can safely say The Transit of Venus is one of them, and for that reason, I would call it one great book.

[00:52:09] We started today by quoting Shirley Hazzard's husband, and I'd love to tell you a little about her personal life before I sign off. That personal biography is charming and way more fascinating on first encounter than the first seventy-five pages of The Transit of Venus, if I can say such a thing. I think I can.

That husband I keep quoting is Francis Steegmuller, a novelist himself, as well as a translator of Flaubert, biographer of a handful of French writers, including Jean Cocteau. They met at a party hosted by Muriel Spark that was attended by Shirley Hazzard's numerous friends from The New Yorker, who published her nonfiction for years, which was largely based on her experiences working at the UN, a job incidentally, that she abhorred. She also wrote several nonfiction book-length works about that time in her life that are critical of the UN, but what I want you to imagine here is the circles she was running in.

[00:53:00] Another lifetime close friend was Graham Greene, but she met him in an altogether different manner, far from New York parties. I'm going to quote Hazzard's obituary from The Guardian to tell what happened in an Italian cafe in the late 1960s. "Hazzard was completing the Times crossword while sipping coffee in the Piazzetta, the central square on the isle of Capri one morning, when she recognized a man at the neighboring table as Graham Greene. In the course of conversation, he began to quote a poem by Browning, but stalled at the last line. Hazzard supplied it." The poem was The Lost Mistress. The line, "Or so very little longer," and the ensuing friendship lasted a lifetime. Hazzard even wrote a short memoir called Greene on Capri, which I haven't yet read, but hear from some of the same people who loved Transit, that it is excellent in its own right, and particularly as a window into the rest of her life, her non-writing life.

[00:53:57] Finally, I have to confess the reason Shirley Hazzard has been top of mind for me all summer, and bundle that reason with a book recommendation. When I was in Paris in July, I read Antoine Laurain's new release, An Astronomer in Love, which I just found out the transliterated title would be The Whims of the Stars, which I just love.

This book was translated from the French by Louise Rogers Lalaurie and Megan Jones, and published here in the US on June 27th of this year. But it was published back in early 2022 in France. The transit of Venus sits right at the center of that story. You can even see the astronomical occurrence depicted on its cover.

The novel unfolds in two timelines. In 1760, King Louis XV's astronomer sets sail for India, where he hopes to observe a transit while he can. The conditions have to be perfect, or he'll get one more shot in eight years, and then that's it. He'll be dead before the next one occurs. So 250 years after King Louis XV's astronomer sets sail, in Paris, a real estate agent finds himself in possession of this same astronomer's telescope, which is soon to bring both chaos and new love into his life.

[00:55:08] I talked about reading this book and reading it in Paris, and why it was the perfect book for that leg of our trip, in the recent episode I recorded with Will about our summer travels. That's number 389, and it's called Anne and Will's European Reading Adventures.

Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed this sampler selection of Patreon bonus episodes. A quick heads-up that we're taking next week off before returning to your podcast app with a brand-new episode in the beginning of November. But we will have a brand-new Patreon bonus episode next Friday, so come on over and join us in Patreon if you can't wait for new book talk in your earbuds.

Find the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. And make sure you're following along in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow our show on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext. We love to see what you're reading lately and the titles you've discovered thanks to our show.

[00:56:08] And make sure you're on our email list for regular updates on new episodes, merch, events, and more. 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.

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.

REBECCA SCHINSKY: Now we're committed to the metaphor, Anne.

JEFF O'NEAL: I'm the [panelist?] out of it. I'm working on something. You guys keep going. I'll figure this out.

ANNE BOGEL: Okay, we're just whiteboarding this as we go.

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.

Today, I'm joined by two readers to discuss what it means to be well-read these days. Is that even a thing, what that phrase might mean, what the idea brings to our own reading lives and why it's worth exploring.

[00:00:45] Readers, we know many of you love to tune in each week to this podcast, and we're thrilled to now offer the option for an ad-free What Should I Read Next? experience. Our new Patreon ad-free episodes tier makes it possible for you to get ad-free episodes right in your regular podcast feed for five bucks a month.

Your monthly or annual Patreon subscription to our new ad-free tier makes it possible for us to offer this alternative, and we have already heard and seen the enthusiasm from many listeners about this new option. We are so glad it's working for you.

To get in on the ad-free action, visit our Patreon page. You will see three options there to join us. Our ad-free episodes tier, which includes ad-free episodes every week, just like it says. Our bonuses and events tier, which hasn't changed a bit. This tier includes our Friday bonus episodes and our seasonal events like Fall Book Preview and Summer Reading Guide, but not ad-free episodes. Finally, our new Patreon all-inclusive tier, which is priced at 10 bucks a month and gives you access to everything we do on Patreon.

[00:01:46] Here's a quick tip. If you join Patreon via the app on your Apple device, the pricing you see will be higher. The reason is Apple charges a commission and we can't control that or disable it. It does not come to us. It goes to Apple. So keep that in mind when you're deciding how and when to sign up. We'd love to have you join us on Patreon at whatever tier suits you best right now. Find out more and sign up today at patreon.com/whatshouldIreadnext. That's patreon.com/whatshouldIreadnext.

Readers, today I'm joined in conversation by Rebecca Schinsky and Jeff O'Neal of the Book Riot Podcast: Zero to Well-Read, as we take a deep dive into what that phrase means. This is a topic I've been thinking about a lot in recent years, and I'm thrilled to host this conversation today.

[00:02:34] After hearing a bit about Rebecca, Jeff, and their respective reading lives, we explore how each of us thinks about what it means to be well-read and how our personal working definitions have evolved through the years. We reflect on the idea of literature as an ongoing conversation, what it means to feel at home in that world of literature, and how reading well and being well-read are related but distinct concepts. Plus, we share plenty of favorite titles along the way.

The reading life is a journey, and one I would say almost all of us here are on together. We're not just talking about what being well-read and reading well means to us or what they mean abstractly, but also about how deciding what well-read means to you and what kind of vision you have for your own reading life can help you cultivate readerly satisfaction, combat distraction, choose what to read next, and even build community. This is a great conversation with something for every reader. Let's get to it.

Jeff and Rebecca, welcome to the show.

REBECCA: Thanks so much for having us.

JEFF: Thank you for having us, Anne.

[00:03:37] ANNE: Oh, the pleasure is mine. Thanks for coming on. The idea of being well-read is a concept that we love to talk about in our community, and I've been thinking about a lot lately, so I'm so excited to have this conversation with you all today. I'm sure some of our audience members are regular listeners of yours, but others are meeting you for the first time, so would you just give us a little glimpse of who you are? We do this with all our guests. Rebecca, start us off.

REBECCA: Sure. I'm Rebecca Schinsky. I'm the chief of staff at Book Riot. Jeff and I have been hosting the Book Riot podcast together for 14 years, I believe, where we talk about news in the world of books and reading, and just a little bit over a year ago, we launched Zero to Well-Read, which we're here to talk about with you today.

My background was originally I intended to be a psychologist, but I dropped out of grad school and became a bookseller just at the right time, and around 2008, I started a book blog, which is how I eventually met Jeff online in the days when Twitter was actually good.

ANNE: Oh, when Twitter was good.

[00:04:34] REBECCA: It was a beautiful and brief time.

JEFF: That's how old we are, Rebecca. That's how long we've been doing this, Anne, is when Twitter was good.

ANNE: And I told my mom I was going to meet somebody I'd met on Twitter, and she was afraid I was going to get murdered.

REBECCA: Totally remember that.

ANNE: But it was good then.

JEFF: It was good.

REBECCA: It was good. We met in person for the first time at a Book Expo America, back also when that was a thing, before BookCon.

ANNE: What year was I there? Did I pass you in the hallway?

REBECCA: 2010, I believe. I think it was the spring of 2010.

ANNE: I think 2015 was the first year I went.

REBECCA: Book Riot launched in 2011, so we've been working together ever since, talking about what's happening in the world of books and reading, new releases, recommendations, all the things that we're passionate about. Book Riot tries to cover all of the areas of the reading world, so you get the literary fiction, but also all the genres, categories, young adult, all that good stuff.

So I'm mostly a literary fiction reader. I read a lot of also narrative nonfiction. I love a memoir, celebrity memoirs, great memoirs by people you've never heard of, the whole gamut. That's me.

ANNE: All right, Jeff, tell us about yourself.

[00:05:36] JEFF: I'm an old academic by trade, believe it or not, a long time ago. I started my book blog in 2010 largely so I could write about books in a way that wasn't happening in my formal education, colloquially and with a certain passion and personality and individuality that I was really missing. I met Rebecca and a bunch of other people and was looking to get out of academia, frankly. And my friend Clint Cabler had been reading both of our blogs. I had been writing every year to my friends and family at 10 books to read from this year, as a Christmas card. And Clint and I met in college, and he had been reading the books that I was recommending every year, including Bolaño's 2666, which he won't let me let down.

REBECCA: You will never live that down.

JEFF: I'm never going to live that down. So I started writing that blog, met some other people. Clint was coming off another gig, and he's like, "You know, what if we got some of these people together and put them under one banner?" Because there's a different kind of energy around book blogging. It's hard to remember now in this era, but it was the New York Times and book review sections in 2010 to 2011.

[00:06:38] And people weren't taking romance seriously in the way they're taking it now, or a young adult or even popular fiction of that time. And we did. So we gave ourselves six months to see if it was a thing, and it's become Book Riot state and became a thing.

At those old days, we had, what, three to five posts on the site. Rebecca, and I was writing two to four of them in any given day between my teaching gigs and having two young children. But eventually it gained steam, and I could slough off the teaching that I was doing and take it on full time. So it's been terrific. So it's been a real thrill. And I'm grateful to Rebecca and everyone that's been with us for a long time. We've had readers who have been there since the very beginning.

This particular show, to segue, is something I think Rebecca and I have been germinating on for a while, where there's all kinds of readers, but the core of what someone thinks about when they think about reading is the great books. And we can talk about what the great books are, aren't or should or should not be. But people want to know what they are, want to have read them, or want to have some experience with them. And yet there are so many, and it can feel so daunting. Why is today the day I'm going to pick up Dostoyevsky? Today, literally today, why would I go pick up Dostoyevsky even if I wanted to?

[00:07:43] One thing Rebecca and I found, too, is we like talking to each other about books. We do book clubs on individual, more contemporary fiction on the regular show, kind of as a one-off. But we had this feeling that there was something there for a longer-form show — our shows are about 90 minutes, typically — that is for all kinds of readers, whether you've read the book recently or you're never going to read the book but you know something about it that's entertaining and educational. But it's also about ideas, it's interpretive at the same time.

So you're going to know a little something about Cormac McCarthy or you're going to know something about Toni Morrison in the course of the show and what that book is about in the publication history. But then you'll get into part English class, part book club, I believe is the phrase Rebecca came up with that we use a lot of the time because people do want to have that kind of experience around a book that can sustain that kind of a conversation, but they don't have time to take a community college class. Their book club may not pick up these kind of books unless you find yourself in a classics or great books kind of a situation.

[00:08:45] We don't limit it to just great books. We're talking about contemporary things, things that maybe were influential in their own way. I picked up Twilight for the first time in the course of this so that we could talk about the Twilight phenomenon as part of our reading. But people want to be... they want to strive towards the thing they understand to be well-read. I know we're going to talk about that contract there today. But I found too that in our algorithmic-driven universe there's something really cool about reading something that's not trending and talking about it in a long-form way that's not amenable to getting sliced up into 30 or 60-second bits.

REBECCA: I think the timing has been really important for us. That we were feeling it individually and we were hearing it from readers, from book people. That they were feeling like their attention spans were fragmented. They were having a hard time connecting deeply to books. They wanted to be doing less scrolling. They wanted to be reading deeply. And we wanted to respond to that. And frankly, we wanted to give it to ourselves an excuse to really sink deeply into books, either books that we had loved a long time, books that one of us has loved and the other one has never read, books that we've been wanting to approach but we're just never going to have the excuse in our busy personal and professional lives to get to. But it felt like the right moment for exploring this kind of reading together.

[00:10:04] ANNE: I'm chuckling because from where I sit, I well understand how the work you're doing publicly really impacts the way you read privately.

REBECCA: Yes, I bet you do, Anne.

ANNE: Jeff, you use the word striving and thinking about reading a certain kind of books. But first I want to get more of a... I don't know if it's a starting point or a baseline exactly, is a vital information for the composite picture of Jeff and Rebecca as individuals, as readers. On What Should I Read Next? We are always asking our guests to share three books they love. Without explanation, without qualification, not necessarily the top three, but three books you love for your own reasons. And I'd love to hear y’all’s. Who wants to go first?

REBECCA: Just the list, not a lot of-

ANNE: Tell us a little bit. Tell us three sentences about each.

JEFF: This is the hardest thing I've ever been asked, Anne, just to say the books and say nothing about them. Didn't you just hear what we were doing on Zero to...? Okay, I got you.

[00:10:58] ANNE: Well, see what I tell myself to make myself feel better when I have to answer a question like this is the answer could be different tomorrow or next month or actually 20 minutes from now. It could be different after you got hungry or had a snack or went for a run or I don't know, had a good night's sleep. Looked at your bookshelves and were reminded of something.

REBECCA: I've made this list like seven times over the last 24 hours since you told us you were going to ask us this today. And I was like, should it be faves? Should it be things I loved recently that were surprising to me? And I think I'm going to go that route. Jeff and I are on the record in so many places about our longtime favorites that I love to be surprised by a book.

I think three that really did that for me in the last few years were The Fraud by Zadie Smith. I almost didn't read it because the pitch really put me off. And thank goodness that Jeff sent me a text that was basically like, "Bro, don't miss this." And we read it, we book clubbed it together.

[00:11:58] Matrix by Lauren Groff. I love Lauren Groff, but I was like, "I don't know, nuns in the 13th century?" Groff tends to write in, or had been tending to write in really contemporary moments. And I'm so glad that I picked that up. I thought it was the beginning of a new era and a very exciting era of Lauren Groff.

And The Road by Cormac McCarthy was recently my most surprising and reading experience of the last several years. I had never read it. We just read it together for Zero to Well-Read. And the gap between what I expected the book to be and what it actually was and how much it moved me was just... there was an ocean of difference between my expectations and what the book turned out to be. And there's almost nothing better in a reading life, I think, than that kind of discovery.

JEFF: I'm going to go... there's so many, as you could say, but these maybe are more specific and revealing about me. I'll go with something that I first read when it was out of print because I was actually reading the wrong book, Anne.

REBECCA: You gotta tell them this story.

ANNE: You gotta tell us what happened.

[00:13:01] JEFF: Rebecca knows which book. It's The Orchard by Adele Crockett Robertson. It's a memoir written by Adele Crockett Robertson who was managing her family's apple orchard during the Depression. She was actually working as a young journalist when her father became ill, and the family apple orchard maybe was going to fall out of the family. So she leaves her job, I believe it was in Boston, moves up back to the family farm in Maine, and tries to make a go of running an apple orchard. So I love a memoir about a job. That's something I just really enjoy. It's one of the great ways of finding out about the world is to someone who can write a sentence and then also tell you about how the thing is done.

But there's a meta story around it too where she wrote this thing and then put it under her bed. And not until she died did her daughter discover this whole story and the manuscript. So then she published it later ex post facto. Holt was the original publisher. Then it went out of print for a while and now it's back in print. I'm thrilled to say, but you can find it wherever you can get used books. You can find a new one too if you're out there looking for it.

[00:14:01] I don't know if there's an audio. We talked about this with you before, Anne, that I love a memoir on audio specifically. I did this in print. I love the story. I thought it was beautiful writing in a really tender story, and I love the meta story about it. I like a meta story. I like a book about reading. I like to know things about the people. So that one's fascinating too.

The book that I was probably the most blown away by the last few years is Solito by Javier Zamora, which is his chronicle of migrating from South America to the U.S. as I believe eight or nine. Do you guys remember? He was eight or nine years old.

REBECCA: He was really young.

JEFF: Really young.

REBECCA: Before teenage years, for sure.

JEFF: Yeah, before teenage years. And he grew up to become a poet, and this was his memoir of that time. Told with a beautiful unadornment where he really lets the bare experience of the story tell the story. A remarkable restraint for a poet, though I guess one thing poetry is about is restraint to some degree. But I think about that book a lot. I've recommended it a lot.

[00:15:07] And then Rebecca's also heard it, and listeners of our show have heard me say my pick for the book of the 20th century in America at least is Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. It does all the things to use a contemporary description. It is a synthesis of his own life's work. His own backstory about it is fascinating. But the story of a young Black man trying to make in his world. It's a bildungsroman. It's a roman à clef. It's a satire. It's a parody. It's a horror movie. It's social satire. It's a political novel and it's avant-garde art writing all right into one. It is the American odyssey/inferno that really is delving into the great American political question of: how do we think about race and how do we deal with it?

Someday we'll get to it on Zero to Well-Read. We really have to eat our Wheaties because I find it so difficult... I feel like I'm ever doing it justice even in talking about it for 30 seconds. So those are my three.

ANNE: All right, you thought that was a difficult question, but I would love to hear, why do you read? When you pick up a book, what are you looking for? And not looking for an exhaustive answer, but just give us a glimpse of what you find in books and reading that you don't find elsewhere or that you want more of from your books and reading.

JEFF: I'll go first.

[00:16:17] REBECCA: We're just going to stare each other down until one of us goes first.

JEFF: I think one of the reasons we've podcasted together for so long is I think we're looking for a similar thing so maybe we can improvise and go back and forth here a little bit. But the world is so rich, Anne. It's a big world out there, but it's difficult to experience much of it, any of it, even if you're a big traveler like Rebecca is. And even if you do, the interior of other people's lives is largely inaccessible to you, even for people you know quite well.

To my mind, there is no art form like books for getting inside the interior of another person. We just don't have access to it in any different kind of way. So that when you read, you are really doing emotional education, as Susan Sontag described reading. You are getting a sense of how other people think and feel even if there's fictional because even that fictionality is, to use Alison's phrase, it's transmuted through the alembic of the writer's genius into something that we can understand.

[00:17:13] It's kinda like Neo plugging that thing into the back of his head in the Matrix and learning how to be a helicopter pilot. That's the closest we have. I could never be an orchard keeper during the Great Depression. But if I read a really good memoir about it, I sort of was maybe for a little while or as close as I'm ever going to get. And I find that to be as rich of a way of encountering the world as is available to us here on this mortal coil. So that's me.

REBECCA: I think similarly for me. Obviously, everyone who reads reads for multiple reasons. There are moments in my reading life that are about entertainment. There are moments that are about escape. But it's mostly I want something new and alive and transcendent. Like Jeff is talking about, a book that gives me a new lens on the world or on what it means to be a person on the varieties of experience and how we relate to and understand each other, and those moments of... I keep describing them to Jeff on the show lately. It's like, well, I just want to lean back and throw my hands in the air, be like, Art. You know, where you read something that is so moving that you can't believe that someone was able to actually put words to that part of the human experience or to capture this feeling that you've had that you could never articulate, but you thought maybe you were the only one who felt that way or thought that way, but an author is able to articulate it. That both reflection of the experience and the opening of the lens to... there are so many other ways that people are in the world and so many experiences.

[00:18:52] And I think also just the consistency of the human experience has been really validating to read as we've done this show and gone back into great books from hundreds and hundreds of years ago to be like, oh, we've been worried about the same things. People are always worried about the same things. And it's, can I connect? Do other people understand me? Am I good? And will my life have had meaning? And that those through lines are in almost every work of art, but that they come across... they can be expressed in so many different ways is really exciting to me.

ANNE: I'm jotting down how I love books that both express how I know it to be in the world, but also help me discover what it could be like to be in the world or what it's like for other people. So we have the idea of well-read lingering out there on the horizon and your show is called Zero to Well-Read. And I want to talk about both those elements, the zero and also the well-read.

[00:19:50] One of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you all is in our spaces, like What Should I Read Next?, Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club, on the blog, so many of us are clearly captivated by: what does it mean? Is it true today? What does it look like? Am I well-read? How can I be well? When I say I'm well-read, what am I even saying? And there's so much to discuss there and discover, but I'd love to know what do you find interesting about this idea? What makes you think, yes, let's talk about that for hundreds of hours on a podcast for years.

JEFF: I think for me... maybe a little bit origin story about the idea for the show that goes back to, I wrote this post a while ago and it did really well on the site. And I think it was called Zero to Well-Read, Rebecca. Is that what it was called, the actual post?

REBECCA: It was Zero to Well-Read in a Hundred Books. And I think the setup was you could be like an alien who landed here.

[00:20:43] JEFF: If they came down today and they wanted to be well-read, and they could only read a hundred books, here are the books. These would be my picks. This is not definitive. I'm just one person. But that was the thought exercise. I think inherent in that, you can see the tensions within the idea of Zero to Well-Read or the idea of being well-read because a hundred... some people would say that's way too many and some people are going to say you're not even starting. Right? So I think the breadth of people's own definitions of it is part of the game.

I'd also like to distinguish, if I can, between being well-read and reading well. I think those are connected, but maybe distinct kinds of ideas. If you have never read a book at all, let's say you're starting to, you are this alien who happens to know English or it's something that can be translated into the language you speak from world literature, you're not going to be well-read. But you can start reading well today.

[00:21:31] And that's one thing Rebecca and I are trying to do for ourselves and maybe model a little bit is what does it mean to read well? Because that's the yellow brick road to this mythical Oz of being well-read is to read well, to read with attention, to know something about literary history, to know something about the author, to have some felicity with understanding how literature can work, what to look for, to pay close attention to specifics, to also look at themes.

I think you can probably get a primer in how to read a book and start reading better, and reading well in an hour or two wouldn't take that much time. So that's not the problem. The problem is doing it while you're actually reading, right? How are you approaching these books you're reading?

There are certain kinds of books that we read because we're trying to pass 90 minutes waiting for a plane. That's a great use of books, wonderful use of books. That's not what I'm looking for most of the time for me. And you can get that feeling Rebecca had of throwing your head back and saying, "All right, and that's wonderful." But also, I think you want to take some of that with you to understand that something like what went into it, because it's not magic, believe it or not. There's this "books are magic" thing, which I understand why people say that, but this is the work of humans trying to make something for other humans in a long line of people making things for other humans.

[00:22:41] And having some sense of that history helps you understand and get more out of. And that's the ultimate goal for me. It's not that you're ticking off some box at your A-levels at Oxford. It's that you yourself are getting more out of your reading experience. And whatever that more looks like can be different.

And if you're the kind of reader that I am and Rebecca is, and it sounds like you are at least some of the time, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, is you want to feel connected to the great big whatever, right? And that is enriched by knowing how the thing is made, and what in that sequence of words you're reading one after another contributes to the making of that thing.

I think it's actually a bit flipping rather than a specific series of practices to try to read well. I don't think you're going to go a checklist, like check your oil, check your temperature gauge, all that. It's more of a "I'm going to read with a different kind of eye where I'm interested in looking at this specifically, looking at details and seeing how they comprise the whole and what it does to me and what my reaction to them are". So that's reading well. I guess maybe I'll throw it to Rebecca to talk about the latent anxiety people have about-

[00:23:41] REBECCA: We hear about this from several angles. And for me personally, what's interesting about the idea of well-read is very much that it's a journey and not a destination. Even the title of the show is kind of a joke because there's never a day that the trophy descends from the heavens and they're like, "Jeff O'Neill, you've done it. Now you're well read. The race is over." Someday, maybe on the next anniversary of the show, I'll send you a trophy.

And there's this, I guess to pull Jeff's word from earlier, striving is, I think, part of it for some people. For me, what's interesting is seeing the ways that the great books are connected to each other and the iterations of literature over time. That everyone refers to the Greeks. Everybody refers to Shakespeare. When you pick up The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which is only like 30 years old, not even 30 years old, she's referring to everybody. And that book is the OG of dark academia. It's not a big, classic, super difficult work. But that, quote unquote, serious literature builds on itself and that the writers are in conversation with each other.

[00:24:56] Toni Morrison was in conversation with Faulkner. Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright are in conversation with each other. Hemingway and Fitzgerald are in conversation with each other. A lot of people writing today are in conversation with those guys. And it enriches the reading experience to pick up those references and to see the scaffolding behind everything.

The anxiety that we hear from readers is that, what if I go to a cocktail party someday and people want to know my take on Dostoyevsky? This is the joke we make. That doesn't really exist, but people feel that way. Or that in the comics world, they would joke about it as "name five Robins". It's like, "Oh, you're into comics, name five of the Robins." These tests don't really exist, but readers feel like they do. And we want to help fill in those gaps for people. You want to understand why this book was a big deal or why it's important.

But we also get messages from the flip side of people who are like, "Well-read isn't a thing. And anybody who cares about it is a total snob." I think that that comes from this literary insecurity that you're talking about as well. There's not a moral valence to reading the great books that I spent last week reading, I don't know, East of Eden. It doesn't make me a better person than someone who has been reading popular hits or who reads a lot of genres.

[00:26:16] But there is a social commentary that people ascribe to the idea of being well-read. And they think that maybe if you care about being well-read, you're inherently judging their reading choices. And we are actively working against that. Read whatever you want. You don't have to care about being well-read in our definition of it.

And there are many areas of the reading world where we're not well-read. Neither of us is an expert on science fiction or fantasy or horror. There are many corners where we are... actually we are conversant in a couple of corners. We are not conversant in most of the corners. And I think that's true for anyone, anybody who has their pockets of reading interest, even any experts, that we're trying to say, "Okay, so if you're interested in reading in this particular way, we want to talk about the great books, but we also want to help you be conversant in pop culture phenomena."

[00:27:07] Like Jeff was saying, we've covered Twilight. Right now we're reading The Shining by Stephen King. We will do some of those big pop culture hits that have been important to readers along the way. That's part of being conversant in the literary landscape as well.

ANNE: Now, I've heard you say great books a couple of times. I hate to ask this question, but we have to, as a point for conversation. And readers, I just want to say, I hear from a lot of you that you want to know definitions of things and how they work. And there are no answers from the sky, from on high for so many of these questions. But there are interesting topics where we can define things as a starting point to discuss them.

So I'd love to hear y'all's working definition of what it means to be well-read. And in our conversations, among the readers I know and my team and even y'alls, because I was on Jeff and Rebecca's podcast, we'll make sure that you have links to each show available to you, I've been thinking about the idea of well-read ever since, and I've realized how much my own working definition has really altered, has evolved in the past 10 or so years. But what is your working definition of well-read right now?

[00:28:16] REBECCA: I think it's some combination of familiarity with the classic canon, the kind of English class staples. Plus, for us, the Book Riot philosophy that that old canon that's mostly dead white guys, we support those books. We're interested in those. They're important to the history of literature, and they're not the only thing. So how do we update the canon with representation of a variety of voices, familiarity with more contemporary kinds of stories, and that being conversant with big contemporary pop culture hits. Like understanding what's important in the world of books and reading, why the world turns as it does, and being conversant and familiar with the hits of the past as part of that.

When Jeff talked about that post that he had written of Zero to Well-Read in 100 Books, this podcast is kind of a melding of that idea that he had. And I had been nurturing this long, but kinda simmering on this idea for a long time of something around the modern canon and what would be 21st century books that would help you become well read and that trouble the idea of the traditional canon that bring in more voices. We're both interested in that.

[00:29:31] But the idea for the show clicked when we realized that we should merge those two things, merge the caring about classics and the books that have defined literary history with an equal interest in more contemporary and a more diversified reading landscape.

JEFF: That initial list did include... I think it had Fifty Shades of Grey on it, for that reason.

REBECCA: It did. People were mad.

JEFF: And I think this is important to say, too, is that we're not making policy here. We're not really making an argument for what you believe as being well-read should be. This is really a descriptive one of what we're trying to do, and what we're interested in, and that includes, I think, probably a more traditional idea of well-read, which is sort of Oedipus, you know, Homer to... Oh, Morrison maybe, you know? Like you sort of stop somewhere in there.

[00:30:21] But I am interested in understanding what actual readers are doing now, sort of almost anthropologically. So Rebecca and I, on the main show and personally, will take on, you know, I read Theo of Golden. Not my favorite book in the world, but I wanted to know what was going on with Theo of Golden because I find that interesting.

And that will change. Every year we have a different list of like, okay, here's a couple, just have a sense of what people are reading and caring about what's going on. But for me to be well-read, I do have, you know, probably the stuff you've heard of. Like, what you imagine would be on my list is on my list. It's Shakespeare, it's Homer, it's Virginia Woolf, it's Jane Austen, it's Sophocles. I'm an Americanist by trade, so it's more into the present and into the future, into the contemporary.

And I think Rebecca and I also are really interested in doing a little prognostication about what books are coming out now or what writers are working now that may survive the slaughterhouse that is time when it comes to culture. Most of the things die. Most of the things will not survive.

REBECCA: Almost everything.

[00:31:21] JEFF: Almost everything doesn't survive in terms of people caring about it. But some of it does. Is that going to be Ishiguro? Is that going to be Jesmyn Ward? Is it going to be Murakami? Is it going to be Sarah J. Maas? You know, we don't know, but we find that very interesting.

And having some familiarity with that conversation is built into my definition. So it's much more of a chronologically holistic idea than I think most people hear when they hear great books or they hear well-read. They think, you know, mahogany books and leather armchairs and respiratory diseases from pipes. I like to think of it as a living document, a living canon rather than a past canon.

REBECCA: Yeah, it's not the checklist out of the back of the Harold Bloom book that Jeff found at Barnes & Noble when he was 15.

JEFF: Though I did start there. That is where it started.

ANNE: Although a list like that is a good place, a good way to get you thinking.

JEFF: You got to start somewhere. I think that's the idea of the show, too, Anne, is like, people are like, "I want to be well-read. Where do you start?" Like, "I'm not really sure."

[00:32:15] REBECCA: I mean, we hear from readers all the time, our listeners, who are like, "When are you going to do this book? How come not this one?" I program the podcast and the task of making the list of the first 50 books we were going to talk about and making it as, like, what's important to us, what's important historically, but also what has a big adaptation coming out because people will be interested in that, or what's hitting an important anniversary. You can read the Zero to Well-Read episode list as a checklist, but it's definitely not prioritized. It's not like we started with the most important book or the least important, and we're working our way to the most important. They're all in the mix, but each one of them has something to say and is important for a different reason.

JEFF: Can I throw a question, Anne? I have a hypothetical for you. I've thought about this before. I don't think Rebecca's even heard me say this, which is something.

ANNE: Love a hypothetical. As long as you're not going to ask me to choose 50.

[00:33:07] JEFF: No, no, no. Rather than think of a definition, I imagine a scenario. When someone who has this literary anxiety and they want to be well-read, but they're freaked out about it, I imagine that what they want is something like this, is if someone could ask them if they read a certain book, and they would say yes, and they'd have at least something somewhat interesting to say about it in 30 seconds. That is my sense of what people actually kind of, quote, "want" if they have an anxious or internalized desire to be well-read at some point. That they could do something like that, that they will never be caught with their literary pants down, for lack of a better term.

ANNE: What's the question? I have thoughts.

JEFF: Does that sound right to you? I mean, when you hear people being worried about being well-read for themselves, like they don't want to have someone ask them, "Have you read Baudelaire?" And they're like, "Oh, no, I haven't."

[00:34:01] ANNE: I mean, when we're wrapping our heads around a concept and a state of being, because I have come to think more of being well-read as a way of existing in the literary world. And like even more than that, in the world. It's like who you are as a reader and a thinker, as a person. But you can't plot that on a chart. You can't check that off in your journal.

But now I really think of being well-read as stepping into the... ooh, what's a good metaphor? Maybe you already have one. For now we're going to go with river Stepping into the river of literature, capital L literature, as one long, millennia-long conversation. And there's no getting caught with your pants down if you are someone who's learned to speak this language, who's comfortable in this ongoing stream of literature. There's only curiosity and interest. And like, "No, I haven't read that, but tell me more." That is a way to be part of the conversation.

[00:35:06] And something I'm really intrigued by, and have been thinking about a lot for years now, not just because of this conversation, is how I think being well-read does mean able to read well. To have the accumulated skills to navigate difficult texts, and also background context to understand things that you as a reader would have missed 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago. But that idea of reading well and being well-read is circular, I believe, to a large degree.

I remember 10 years ago reading Middlemarch, and... look, this has happened with plenty of other texts. Maybe it would have happened sooner if I hadn't gotten such a grounding in Shakespeare in high school and college. But reading Middlemarch and being like, "Oh, I can finally see the root source of all these allusions I can instantly see I've been missing in all my reading life." Like, I didn't know what it meant for somebody to be called a Casaubon or they talk about a Dorothea or the way Aphrodite's cited in that book. They just went clear over my head because I hadn't read it. I wasn't familiar with the source material. I didn't know.

[00:36:08] That's just one way that reading one of those canonical works changed the way I read going forward. Like, I was that much further into the river. I hate that metaphor. We'll adjust it later. But would you talk to me about this idea how reading well begets being well-read, ad infinitum?

REBECCA: I think it's really grounded in curiosity. I'm so glad that you brought that word into the conversation, because there are people in the world who do the thing that Jeff described of like, "Oh, you haven't read Baudelaire. You don't count as well read." But I don't think that that person-

ANNE: How could one claim?

REBECCA: Right. I don't think that that person is engaged in the same-

JEFF: No, they're not.

REBECCA: ...pursuit that we're engaged in.

JEFF: No.

REBECCA: Because in my experience, and I think I can speak for Jeff on this too, the more that you stand in this river, because now we're committed to the metaphor, Anne. The more that you-

JEFF: I'm the panelist out of it. I'm working on something. You guys keep swimming, I'll figure...

ANNE: Okay. We're just whiteboarding this as we go.

[00:37:01] REBECCA: But the more that you exist in this way, where you're trying to practice reading well, so you're picking up books that you understand to have some important piece of context in the literary pantheon, and you're trying to apply your skills and to sharpen them, the more aware you are of how much there is that you haven't read and that you'll never get to, and that this is a never-ending pursuit.

Again, we never arrive at well-read, but for every 100 classic books that we talk about on this podcast, there are thousands that we'll never get to, and there are millions that have been lost to time that at some point were important to somebody. So I find it to be like a curiosity and a humility of that there is this... Like, it's exciting that we get to build up our own knowledge and understanding in these ways, but every book we pick represents like thousands of books that we're not talking about, thousands of books that we're not reading. Most of them are lost to time.

[00:38:01] Go back and look at the National Book Award nominees from even 30 years ago, and you will not recognize almost any of the titles. Very few books stand the test of time. But those books were important in their moment. In 1997, people were pointing at those titles and saying, like, "Some of these are going to be it, and some of these are part of being well-read." And to be open and exploratory about it rather than prescriptive.

I find that it's, to go back to your original question, the circle of reading well and being well-read, I do find that it feeds itself because you pick up on something in a book and you feel like, "Oh, I just sharpened this skill." And that skill comes with you into the next book that you read, and then you feel gradually over time like you can take on more challenging books or maybe the books that you've been daunted by or intimidated by in the past.

[00:38:52] I had a really intimidating reading experience with Salman Rushdie my freshman year of college, scared me off of his fiction for like 25 years. And I didn't saddle up to do Rushdie again until the first season of Zero to Well-Read, where I thought, Partially I've had 25 years of reading since then. I've developed a lot more tools. I'll have a great buddy with Jeff. But then when you climb that mountain, you've read something that was previously too difficult for you, there's no better way to bust your literary imposter syndrome. Like, okay, what's next? Like, what else seems hard?

JEFF: I go, "I'm going to live forever. I can do anything."

REBECCA: Art.

ANNE: I think there's a real interesting tension here where I think being well-read as a way of being, to me, speaks so much to being comfortable in the world and at ease, and feeling confident that you can read for understanding and be confident in your own understanding and have some freedom from the question that plagued so many of us for years, decades, that is, Am I doing this right? Do I get what's really happening?" And that you're confident to poke at ideas and challenge assumptions, and look deeply into the surface of what the author's trying to say and contribute your own ideas.

[00:40:07] But also being so not at ease in other ways. Like recognizing that some new but also classic canonical works are bewildering and strange. And maybe you don't understand them, but why and what's going on there? And for all these questions, how can reading in community deepen your understanding of the texts and push you to notice things that you didn't notice on your own, and in those ways help you become a better reader and a better-read reader as well.

JEFF: I do think it's very difficult to be the kind of reader I think a lot of people want to be without having to articulate something about your reading experience, whether verbally or written or some other ways. Because I think the first obstacle people have, if this is something they're wanting to engage in or trying to engage in, is getting out of the "I like this, I didn't like this" paradigm. That is largely how we talk about books in a casual way online and other ways. "Did you read that?" "Yeah, I liked it." And that's kinda what people generally are looking for.

[00:41:06] That's not to say your own experience of a text isn't germane. It is. But liking something and not liking something can get in the way of... Not get in the way of. It can become a substitute for engaging with that text in some other kind of a way. And the best way to engage with something like this is, like, I'm a thinking talker. Most of us get our best ideas and understand what we think when we're writing or when we're speaking, because in that process of articulation, you have to crystallize and consolidate and organize what this internal roiling thing you might be thinking or feeling is.

So, you know, reading Vineland by Thomas Pynchon by yourself is a different experience than talking with someone about it, writing something about it. And that's hard to do individually, and that's one reason we have the show. But then listening to other people have a conversation, I'm like this when I'm listening to a pod, I'm like the ghost joining in the conversation. It's articulating and clarifying my own thinking there.

[00:42:08] So having some other venue, I guess what I'm saying, Anne, to sort of process that reading experience you just had. It can also then cement it into your memory. That certainly does it for me when Rebecca and I talk about something.

But here's another thing. The Q rating of any book that we do on the show goes up about 5,000% if we talked about it for 90 minutes. We did not love Wuthering Heights. I'll just say that. You know, at our reading experience together, I'll speak for you, Rebecca-

REBECCA: I suffered.

JEFF: But after talking about it for 90 minutes, I'm not sure that it's one of my favorite books of all time, but I got something out of it, and it was that reading experience was enriched and deepened just for that. I think that's another thing for people to think about. And it's easy for me to say because I've got a running buddy here, and this is my job.

[00:42:49] But if you find you pick up Middlemarch, which is a wonderful text with lots of allusions that you can also read as just a great book on its own, and then you're at the end, you're like, "What did I get out of that?" I think that's a very valid and difficult question to answer, Anne. Like, what do you do with all of that experience at that moment?

ANNE: What did I get out of that? Okay, I like that.

REBECCA: I love this notion of reading in community. One of my, I think, perpetual hot takes is that book clubs are overrated because you're trying to solve for the happiness and, like, taste of so many people. Like, 8 to 10 people is too many people to try to like ring everybody's bells and have a deep conversation about something. When we get a question from listeners about, like, "How can I do this better?" I'm always like, "You need one book buddy." My reading life, and I think Jeff's reading life are meaningfully different because we get to talk to each other.

[00:43:40] There's something really valuable about one or maybe two, maybe you have a really small book club with a couple people who are like-minded but different enough from you that their thinking will open things up for you and will challenge you, that we come to conversations. I walk away with new thoughts about a book because Jeff is a different human than I am and brings a different perspective and might have a different take or help me open up my understanding of something. I'm going to appreciate different things than he's going to appreciate.

But you can even read in community with yourself, that I think the step zero is reading with a pen in your hand if you're reading in paper, or getting familiar with the highlighting features if you're reading digitally, that notice to be more present to your reading experience rather than just letting the words wash over you, noticing when something strikes you.

JEFF: You're right. That is step zero, Rebecca. Absolutely.

[00:44:32] REBECCA: Right? Noticing when something feels important. Mark it down. One of the enduring and repeated surprises of our show is that we do a little segment on each episode about notable quotes, and we will come with the same quotes without having talked about them.

REBECCA: Out of a 400-page book, we'll have 10 of the same ones.

REBECCA: We're like, "Oh, that is a thing. That's something here, that the writer... Like, they landed on something important. They hit some emotional bell in a particular way that resonates." When we host read-alongs with our community, it happens as well, where people are like, "Oh yeah, I underlined that, too." But give yourself a chance to notice and then to go back and either talk to someone about what you noticed that struck you deeply or that seemed important, or write something about it.

And this doesn't have to be public. The internet makes you feel like everything has to be some kind of public side hustle. But you don't have to post a public review on Goodreads. You don't have to launch a Substack. We have a good friend, Greg, who's had a reading journal for 25 years. It could be as simple as that. Open a Google Doc and write two paragraphs about the book you just read and what seemed important about it. What were the themes? What is the author trying to say? What moved you? What will you remember about it?

[00:45:44] That in itself... you're communing with your current self, and then you're giving your future self something to come back to, can be, I think, a really expansive and formative part of becoming not more well-read, but more d... about reading more well. Reading well more. I don't know.

JEFF: Reading better, Rebecca. I believe in you.

REBECCA: Reading better.

JEFF: There you go.

REBECCA: I was trying to stick to the formulation of well-read and reading well.

JEFF: I was enjoying you drowning in Anne's River.

REBECCA: Thanks for letting me flail a little bit there.

ANNE: On that note, thinking of all the imposter syndrome I've heard and literary insecurity, noticing what jumps out at you when you're reading is so important. Also, a word of advice, if I may, readers. Don't be precious about-

REBECCA: Don't be precious.

ANNE: ...thinking like, "What will somebody think if they read my highlight? Later will somebody who reads this paperback I've highlighted with my pen in after me go, 'What kind of reader highlighted that sentence?'" Like, don't... Notice what you notice, and give yourself the freedom to record that so that you can actually remember what it is that you noticed. And if anybody needs to hear this, I notice, or I... Well, I do notice, and also highlight the most basic, boring things in my texts, because I want to remember something like, "Oh, this character was 15 in 1967." The smart readers are not highlighting that. "Smart readers," hear my air quotes.

REBECCA: They might be.

[00:47:03] ANNE: But I am, because I might need to know that later for my work or my review or my thoughts. But if you have no idea what it is about a particular turn of phrase that jumps out at you, but it does, like, mark that down. That's how you learn about the author, you learn about the text, you learn about the reader.

REBECCA: And eventually you learn something about yourself when you have a collection of quotes or moments or ideas from books you've read over time. You will start to see themes. It's like, "Oh, I'm a person who's interested in this question. I care about books that do this thing." And that lets you go into conversations with other readers or conversations with a great bookseller or a librarian where you can be like, "Who's exploring this?" A lot of recommendations are just based on the voice is similar or the tone of the book is similar, or they have similar tropes. But I think you really unlock a new kind of reading and like a daisy chain you're making for yourself when you can start to ask those questions of "I really like a book." Like, what we talk a lot about, like fathers and sons, man. I love a book about an old man waiting to die and reflecting on his life. Who's doing that? You know, who's asking these big questions? You can get different and I think more interesting recommendations that way.

[00:48:13] ANNE: And you know, something I've learned from my years on What Should I Read Next? is that talking through your reading life with a friend can be really helpful. Because you may not realize that you keep coming back to the same themes, or that you keep visiting certain topics over and over again. Like, it might take your version of book buddy Jeff or Rebecca saying to you, like, "Hey, what is it with all these books about old men waiting to die? Do you realize you keep doing that?" Oftentimes the answer is, "No, I had no idea. I kept on coming back to, I don't know, tortured female protagonists making choices on bridges in their mid-30s." I need somebody else to point that out to me.

REBECCA: There is something, I think, kind of vulnerable, to use an overused word, about sharing your reading life and your perspectives on books with someone else. One of the things that comes back to you is you get perceived. Like, we see each other in an interesting way, and probably a different way than anybody else in our lives sees us because of the specific conversations we're having and the way that we're having them about books. That's a gift. It's very cool to get to have a book buddy and reflect on your own stuff, but to have somebody who can reflect back to you. Like, "Man, you sure don't like these complicated mothers and daughters, do you?"

[00:49:25] ANNE: But that's worth noticing.

REBECCA: Yeah.

ANNE: I believe that's worth noticing. Okay, Rebecca, you referenced point zero on the road, Zero to Well-read.

REBECCA: Oh, no.

ANNE: Would you all acquaint us with some other stops along the way? Questions to ask ourselves, steps to take.

JEFF: Well, Rebecca, so step zero is notice stuff, right? Do something where you're slowing down. And I was going to build on that, so I'm glad you followed up this way, is step zero is noticing. And so maybe along with that, try to slough off caring about how many books you read this year or how fast you're reading. Because this is a slower kind of reading.

If you're the kind of person who keeps a journal or a Goodreads or whatever, and you've got some identity wrapped up in "I'm the kind of reader who reads X number of books a year," and you want to read well or read better, you may find those things to be in tension with each other. Because reading with a pen in hand is different than reading on your Kindle and just flying through it. Again, it's not worse, but it's a different kind of reading experience.

[00:50:33] I think the thing on top of that is going back to what Anne said about not worrying about what people think of your highlights. Do people hear how weird it is to think about people thinking about people reading your highlights? Like, I hear you say that, and I'm totally with you, but when you think about it, what kind of narcissism is that, that you think someone's going to pick up your book, read it all the way through, and notice your highlighting, and care enough to say something to you about it and feel some kind of way about it?

But that extends to all kinds of things like, are you worried about performative reading, or are you worried about what people are going to s... This is a long way of saying you're doing this for you. If there is no trophy you're going to get when you are, quote-unquote, "well-read" that you can put on your mantle, right? That's not happening, people. This is all for you.

So any part of this experience that you feel sort of the tap on your shoulder of other people saying you should do it differently or why aren't you doing X, you gotta let that go, man. That's not going to help you. This is for you. And all the stuff that's good about it is not going to show up on your Goodreads or on your clothes or your, you know, Phi Beta Kappa pin. You're not going to get any of that stuff. It's all internal.

[00:51:46] I think that's another thing just to be real about. It's all internal. And maybe your reading buddy will see you. Okay, so that's one other person. But you have to have some self... If you want to do this in a way that I think is actually sustaining and actually nourishing, you might be the only one that knows.

REBECCA: I think letting go of external measurements of it or no longer investing in sort of external perceptions of your reading. But to be, I guess, practical in recommendation. Step one is noticing, step zero is noticing, then step one is doing something with what you notice. Talk about it, write about it, make a record of it in some way.

And then after that, be sort of in conversation with those things over time so that the books you read aren't just a series of one-off experiences, but you are actively then working to connect the threads. One thing I deeply believe is that we could have picked a whole different 50 books for the first year of the show, and we would have found a bunch of the same themes. We would have found ways that they talk to each other. We would have had just as alive and enriching conversations about them.

[00:52:54] You will tap into the big ideas, the big questions that art asks, the big things that people are worried about in their lives now and that they've been worried about for as long as we've had art with any substantial reading experience. So also commit to the list you're committing to or commit to the way that you're reading and practice that acceptance that there are still just going to be a million books that you'll never get to.

If you're going to enjoy the ones in front of you, you can't be constantly nagged by the hundreds that you'll never get to. We're both going to die with thousands of books unread that would've been great, but you won't know. It's like you're going to be dead, you won't know. Try to enjoy the ones that you've got right now, I think, is really critical. But I think do let it be reading's internal. Let it be an internal thing. If the social aspects of it, if the posting and the Goodreads and the counting and all of that are constraining you more than they are expanding you, I would say, really try to let go of that.

[00:53:54] I just got asked if I would ever be willing to post my whole annual reading list at the end of the year, and I was like, "Absolutely not." I talk about a lot of the things I read on the podcast, but there are things I read just to see what's up with them. There are things that I finish even though they're bad, because I wanted to see if they would go through. There's a bender that I go on with a series when I'm on vacation. We have all sorts of stuff going on, but it doesn't all need to be for public consumption. And letting reading be transformative for you in the ways that you want to be transformed, I think, is the most important guidepost.

ANNE: I mean, there's so much we can learn and ways we can benefit by bringing that to other readers, and also, we want it to be essentially yours.

[00:54:45] Jeff and Rebecca, last question. For those who are still squeamish, scared, overwhelmed, what's a word of advice you would give? I'll go first. And that is I'd want you to know that reading is something you learn by doing. So you are not going to figure out exactly what to do and then step into the books. You're going to step into the books and then figure out what to do. So pick your next book, or the one you're in the middle of right now, and keep going, maybe with an added awareness of what it is you're doing based on what we talked about today.

JEFF: You stole mine, Anne. Maybe to build on it a little bit is that it is-

ANNE: I'm sure you have more to say.

JEFF: It is okay and normal if you're in the middle of something and you don't get what's going on.

REBECCA: Ooh. You stole mine.

[00:55:32] JEFF: Okay. Well, then I'll give you 90 seconds while I expound on that a little bit. That is completely normal. We talked about it when we did Hamlet and when we did Much Ado About Nothing. Shakespeare is tough, it's different, and the language is beyond, past, wherever, it's away from us, wherever that is. And part of the experience of it is the difficulty and the strangeness. But that's a feature, not a bug most of the time because then you have to engage. This is not easy. It is intellectual and emotional work to understand, to try to get into your bones what's going on with some of these texts.

And you may not ever understand it, and they're not all going to go great for you. It's not always going to go great. I have a household of long-distance runners, and each run is painful because it's just a little harder than the last run, but they're running longer and faster each time, and that's part of the process. It's not as grueling as running a 5K, but there is an element, as you say, as each book goes into it, but that feeling of tension or pain or discomfort is growth. That's a feature, not a bug.

[00:56:35] And then within that, one of the reasons they're hard to understand, one of the reasons you may not get it, they may be discomforting, is by and large the books that survive time, even a decade, they're weird, man. These are weird books. They're doing something different. They've broken the mold in some way. And we find the ones we come back to still have something to say, and they resist your easy categorization of what you think you may know about Shakespeare or you may know about what... Hemingway, I guess, is a great one, where people have a conception of what a Hemingway book is, but then you actually go read Old Man and the Sea, and it's like, yes and, it's that and it's something else.

So I think you may be surprised to find that it is discomforting, but also this is a litany of strangeness going back to Homer essentially, and before. And that strangeness is their sort of a sequential contribution to the human project of figuring out what the hell it means to be human. And that's what's cool to me about it because these are all weirdos. So be weird. Be a weird reader, because they're a weird book.

[00:57:39] REBECCA: I was going to take the "they're all weirdos" point. But I think trust yourself. You're a reader, and you have some of these skills already fundamentally. And trusting yourself as a reader in today's technological era means when you hit something in the book that you don't understand, because you will. Like, there will be weird moments, there will be things you don't understand, or maybe there are unfamiliar words. Mark it, but keep moving. Don't interrupt your reading experience to Google something immediately.

Try to trust yourself that you can put together from context what that word means, or that you will figure out what this strange scene is ultimately about. If you pick up Beloved, there's some stuff in there that's really weird, and you aren't going to know what's going on. And that's the point in some works of fiction. You are supposed to be unsettled. So if you put the book down and you go to Google at the first sign of, "Oh my God, maybe I don't get it," you will interrupt your reading experience, you'll interrupt your flow, and you reinforce the idea that you need to Google stuff in order to understand it.

[00:58:45] But the reading muscle is built just like Jeff's long-distance running muscles by just practicing it. And like, you will be able to do it. Also, you're not going to die if you don't pick up every one of Steinbeck's weird vocabulary terms. You will still walk away from East of Eden having gotten the point, and it will be there for you later. So like, I'm kind of always advising readers, circle the word you don't understand, and if when you're flipping back through the book you still need to Google it to make sense of that passage, then go Google it. But if you can, for the most part, read like you don't know the internet exists and you don't know your phone is in the next room, please don't read with your phone right next to you, then you can start to... Like, give yourself opportunities to figure it out, and that will reinforce the idea that, oh, I can do this. And every one of those is another rep of that muscle getting stronger. And then over time you trust yourself more, and that's really gratifying.

[00:59:39] ANNE: I also want to repeat something I say several times a month on What Should I Read Next?, which is, in the reading life, probably everywhere, it is never just you. It's not like everybody understands the story but you, everybody appreciates the story but you, everybody loves the story but you, everybody reads the story faster than you are. There is no such thing. So I hope that helps you keep going.

REBECCA: Yes, keep going.

ANNE: Jeff and Rebecca, parting words?

JEFF: Boy, that's tough. If you're listening to Anne's show, like, I think probably a lot of this you maybe get in ways that we don't understand, but also do understand at the same time. I think each individual reader is going to have to answer the question themself, like what's their own baggage around the idea of being well-read. If you can let it go, great. That's for you. But if it's something that you actually think about, like you want something different out of your reading life than you're getting now, you gotta do something different, and it probably needs a structure of some kind to get going a little bit.

[01:00:39] So like anything interesting, challenging, and worthwhile doing, it's not just hard, but it's the difficulty isn't the difficulty, it's the repeating the difficulty over time that's hard. And that's going to be something they have to decide for themselves, rather like, "Oh, I'm never going to get to this or this book." It's like, well, you're not going to unless you try to get to it. And do you really want to get to it, or are you, you know, come to some kind of honesty with yourself about what you want out of your reading? And know that whatever that is is fine. And you can always start again later. Doesn't have to be today. Can start any time.

REBECCA: I think that you're allowed to care about this. You're allowed to care about being well-read. You're also allowed not to. But like you're allowed to care about it, and caring about it doesn't make you snobby. It also doesn't make you better than other kinds of readers.

JEFF: You can be snobby, though.

REBECCA: You can.

JEFF: But don't. Don't do that either. Don't do that.

[01:01:27] REBECCA: It's not inherently snobby. It's not inherently anything. Like, you can care about this even if it's less popular on the internet to care about this than to be interested in, I don't know, whatever TikTok is into. And those forms of reading have their own va... they add their own value to the literary landscape as well. But if you're listening to this and thinking, "I do want to get something more out of my reading life," it's okay. And it also doesn't mean that your past reading life has been a failure. But we like... we're constantly wanting to expand and to grow in new ways, and there's no better way to do that than books, and to do it through books with people who are also interested in having those kinds of conversations.

ANNE: Whatever it is, it's never just you.

REBECCA: It's never just you. Love that.

ANNE: Jeff and Rebecca, this has been a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining me today.

REBECCA: Thanks so much, Anne.

JEFF: Anne, wonderful. Thank you so much.

[01:02:17] ANNE: Hey readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Rebecca and Jeff. We'll have the links to their podcast, Zero to Well-Read, as well as the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Make sure you're on our email list so you know what's up at What Should I Read Next HQ. We send out regular updates about each week's new episode as well as other upcoming events and news to know. Sign up at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

Be sure to follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Find our show on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext. We appreciate it when you share your favorite episodes with a friend there.

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.

[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: You don't have to be sad about it.

DEBBIE DAY: I am sad. I feel like-

ANNE: This is just data.

DEBBIE: I feel like I brought this half-baked theory, and now I'm expecting you to do all the research and figure it out, so. Sorry.

ANNE: No, this is what we do here.

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, first about Fall Book Preview and our new for 2026 cute little useful lookbook. We have been thrilled to hear from so many of you that you are really loving our Fall Book Preview lookbook. It's smaller format this year. It's 6x9. It's inky, hand-stamped, kind of zine-inspired, and it invites you to dig into my selections for this season's most anticipated books, and some of our team picks, too. But since it's analog, you get to mark it up, take it anywhere, dog-ear it if you want, and refer to it all the time, like for months or years to come.

Our 2026 lookbook stands alone more than it ever has before. You can use it independently of Unboxing Easy. So whether you've already experienced Unboxing, are still making plans to do so, or don't plan to join in Unboxing at all, this year's lookbook is for you.

We also designed it from the jump as being really reasonably priced. You can get it delivered to you, including shipping, for about 10 bucks. Find out more and get your copy. It is analog. We only have so many copies, and we are going to sell them out. So get your copy while supplies last at modernmrsdarcy.com/fbp, that's for Fall Book Preview. Modernmrsdarcy.com/fbp.

[00:02:04] Readers, today's guest, Debbie Day, is joining me from the Nashville area, where she is enjoying settling into retirement and empty nesting. And she's loving having more time for travel, dancing, cooking, spending time with friends and family, and of course, reading, including with the new book club that she helped create.

Debbie is grateful that now she's able to better, and especially more leisurely, explore what makes a book really click for her as a reader. She's joining me to share what she's learned so far, especially as she's learned things she didn't expect to discover. And she's looking for new titles that might deliver the reading experiences that she now knows she would like to have more often.

This extra time to reflect on her reading life has led Debbie to discover an unexpected common thread among her favorite books, and that is an interesting structure. Now that she's homed in on this element, Debbie is on the hunt for more such books, but she's not sure where to go look for them. As a structure nerd myself, you know I have ideas for Debbie, and I can't wait to talk about all of it with her today.

[00:03:12] Readers, first a note. Every once in a while, we get some audio gremlins during a recording, and today is one of those days. You'll hear a few small disruptions, especially in the first few minutes, but we think they won't detract too much from your listening enjoyment. Thanks for listening. Let's get to it.

Debbie, welcome to the show.

DEBBIE: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

ANNE: All right.

DEBBIE: Super excited.

ANNE: Thank you for being here. When I saw your submission, I thought, "Ooh." And when our team members saw your submission, they went, "Anne, you’ve got to look at what Debbie's looking for right now." So thanks for bringing it to the show.

DEBBIE: Absolutely.

ANNE: Debbie, we'd love to start by just giving our readers a glimpse of who you are. Could you tell us a little about yourself?

DEBBIE: Sure, yeah. I am calling in from just south of Nashville. I live in a new community, actually. My husband and I moved here recently. We're pretty excited about it because it's kind of specifically designed for community, so lots of things to get involved with and people to meet and friends to make, so we're excited for that.

[00:04:21] I retired shortly ago. I was a preschool director for years and years, but as my children are flying, leaving the nest, just kind of decided to take this time to just spend with my husband and travel and do fun things.

ANNE: Well, that sounds lovely.

DEBBIE: Yeah.

ANNE: Now, Debbie, would you tell us about your reading life?

[00:04:50] DEBBIE: Sure. Obviously, lifelong reader, just one of those people that just obsesses over books. Always remember just hankering to go to the library. I had a kind of a mail order... a book subscription that I just remember just anxiously waiting for it to arrive every month. And then enter high school and college, and the reading for pleasure definitely dropped off, like I've heard many listeners or many of your guests say.

Then after college, you know, raising a family, all that good stuff, I got involved in a book club, got invited to a book club, and that really brought me back to reading again, which has been wonderful. I'm glad to have it back. It's a great hobby. Enjoy it. And love to talk about books, and was able to, in the community that we moved into, start a new book club. So that's been really fun.

[00:05:59] ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Now, Debbie, you mentioned that you have listened to this show for a long time. I'm curious to hear what brings you to What Should I Read Next? in this season, in this role, in What Should I Read Next?

DEBBIE: Sure. As I have more time being retired, have more time not only to read, but to think about my reading life, I've really been trying to figure out what it is that makes a book just work for me. You know, for years and years, I've always... I love cooking, I love food and travel, love learning lots of nerdy things about all that. So I kind of always assumed that all my favorite books somehow tied into food or wine or travel.

And then kind of as I've just been exploring it more, I feel like that's a piece of it, but not necessarily the whole picture. So one of my top three books, I was reading it recently and realized it had nothing to do with food or cooking, and it just... There was something about it that spoke to me, and I kind of realized, I think it might be an interesting structure or an interesting format for a book that draws me in.

[00:07:23] So I really would love some help, A, figuring out if that's accurate, like, if that is truly what's drawing me to books, and then, B, helping explore that more. Like, where do I find books like that? I'm open to exploring new genres that kind of maybe meet that criteria. So, yeah, I need your help.

ANNE: That is an interesting shift between thinking you may be interested in books that are food, wine-related to interesting structures. I love a book with an interesting structure, so this will be fun. Now, you mentioned that one of your favorites got you thinking about this new theory for what really works for you in your reading life. Is now a good time to talk about your books?

DEBBIE: Sure.

ANNE: Okay. All right. Debbie, you know how this works. You're going to tell me three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately, and then we're going to poke at this theory a little bit and see what we discover. How did you choose these books that you brought to the show today?

[00:08:37] DEBBIE: I just kind of looked back at my five-star reads and tried to kind of focus obviously on ones that have really stuck with me, but that in looking back, really maybe kind of match this theory. I'd say that that's kind of how I kind of chose these three, but definitely ones that have stuck with me for a long time.

ANNE: Well, let's jump in. Debbie, what's the first book you love?

DEBBIE: The first book I chose was Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Some folks may have seen the movie, but the book is pretty special. It has a little magical realism story set at the turn of the century during the Mexican Revolution, and it is fun, it's quirky. I feel like that's something else that I have seen as I'm trying to flesh out what a good book is to me. I need a quirky character and someone that I can root for, and Like Water for Chocolate provides, for sure.

[00:09:48] Tita is a young lady, and she is the youngest daughter of kind of tyrannical mother. And just through tradition, she is supposed to never marry, not leave home, take care of her mother for life. That does not jive with the love Tita feels for Pedro. Basically, the mother says, "Nope, there will be no marriage for you," and Pedro instead ends up marrying Tita's sister just to stay close. You can imagine all that ensues in this very complicated, complicated story, family drama.

But what I loved and kind of the food aspect of it, so every chapter opens as a different month of the year, and it opens with a recipe. The recipes tie in with a little bit of the magical realism in the book.

[00:10:55] For instance, she's baking the wedding cake for her sister. She cries tears into the batter, and that has a detrimental effect to all of the guests when they eat the cake. They all end up, well, not only sick, but just in puddles and tears. They feel the deep sorrow that she did when she was baking this cake. No spoiler alerts, but it's also a little tragic, but just a really fun story, just a really interesting story.

ANNE: Okay. Like Water for Chocolate is book one. Debbie, what did you choose for your second loved book?

DEBBIE: My second book was The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister. I'm not usually a completist. I like a lot of variety, but Erica Bauermeister is one that I've read many of her books, not a completist, but many of her books, and really enjoy her writing.

[00:11:57] The School of Essential Ingredients is about a chef who is hosting monthly cooking classes, and each chapter is focused on one of the participants in the class. Her name is Lillian, the chef. Lillian helps them basically through the course of that chapter, during that class, to discover what the essential ingredients to their life, their situation, their problem is. It's also got several endearing characters. I wouldn't say as quirky as Tita in Like Water for Chocolate, but still folks that you can root for.

ANNE: All right, that's The School of Essential Ingredients as your second book. Debbie, what's the final book you love?

[00:12:54] DEBBIE: The third book I chose was, and this I read fairly recently, Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. This book is really what made me open my eyes to say, "Maybe it doesn't have to involve food and cooking to be a top contender." It does have definitely some quirky characters, for sure.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is about an adolescent lady, young girl, with a very quirky mom, Bernadette. A series of events happens that make you understand Bernadette maybe struggles with some serious mental illness, agoraphobia, as a result of a... which the book opens, which I absolutely love, with Bee, that is the adolescent, with Bee's report card. And as a result of doing a great job and getting ready to move on to the planned boarding school experience, Bee picks a trip to Antarctica as her reward.

[00:14:07] So they're preparing as a family to go to Antarctica. Well, series of crazy events. It ends up that Bee and her father do not go to Antarctica, but Bernadette does, and she gets lost. The book is basically the backstory behind how all of that comes to be, and then Bee and her father reuniting with Bernadette in Antarctica. It's not really epistolary, but I especially loved the first half, which was just chock-full of, like I said, the report card, emails back and forth, letters, articles from Bernadette's past. I think that's what really drove that book for me.

ANNE: Okay. And this, I presume, is the one that spurred the realization.

DEBBIE: Yes, it is.

ANNE: Okay. Would you say more about that?

DEBBIE: Yeah, I was like, well... because it's interesting because I actually really loved... and I listened to this on audio. I really loved the first half of the book in particular, and that's where all of those bits and pieces of information, the letters, the emails, all of that was concentrated.

[00:15:29] Then the second half of the book was more just the story, the story of reuniting with Bernadette, and I think that just made me realize, oh, okay, what really drew me in was the different format, the different structure. And then I started looking back at all of my five-star reads, and it kind of dawned on me, oh, okay, most of these have an interesting format, something that just grabs you from the get-go.

ANNE: Debbie, I think you said that you had more five-star reads that matched this theory. What are some of those books?

DEBBIE: Okay. Theo of Golden, of course. Just how the portraits of the people kind of inform the story. The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11. Oh my goodness, I loved that so much. I listened to it on audio. I mean, obviously it's interviewing people, but the way that they're little snippets and they're organized in, you know, the time leading up to and over those horrific hours. But the way that it's laid out and the stories are interwoven was just magical to me. I really enjoyed that book.

[00:16:54] North Woods also. The location, but the fact that it was years, decades, centuries in between when we visit and the fact that they're interwoven, that those stories are interwoven, I loved that. Love an epistolary.

Love & Saffron was a highlight. And The Correspondent. Both of those I loved. And then a more recent five-star that I love, Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin. Short chapters, very short chapters, but they all open with an epitaph or inscription, and some of them were real from real tombstones. Some I think were imagined. That was just a hook that just kept me going. I love that story.

ANNE: Okay. And I'm inspecting those books for hints of food or wine. Maybe a hint, but not like a looming presence in these.

DEBBIE: Yeah. Yeah.

ANNE: Okay. Okay.

[00:17:59] DEBBIE: That would never be a problem.

ANNE: Okay. I mean, if you could answer the question, what is it about an interesting structure, then you wouldn't need to test your theory. But what has come up for you as you've considered what a distinctive storytelling style, not style exactly. Words are hard, Debbie.

DEBBIE: I know.

ANNE: What is it about the structure that's grabbing you?

DEBBIE: I don't know. I truly don't know. I'm like, I need your help. I'm trying to figure out what it is about this that is working. I don't know. I've wondered, is it just because my brain is lazy and I need some thing to draw me in to keep me entertained? I don't know. I'm not sure.

ANNE: Boards and theories.

DEBBIE: Okay.

[00:18:56] ANNE: You have read a... This is not diagnosis. These are hypotheses. You have read a ton of books, and you are curious about new ways to tell familiar stories. Up, down, yes, no, zero to 10 scale?

DEBBIE: I love that. That's probably a strong contender, nine. Nine out of 10.

ANNE: Okay. Hypothesis: you enjoy seeing what writers can do on the page. You enjoy good books. You think about what a story is, and these writers have new ways of storytelling that you didn't know were on offer to you, and you're just delighted to see all the ways there are to tell a good story.

DEBBIE: I like that also. Maybe a 7 out of 10.

ANNE: Okay. You enjoy the kaleidoscopic, multifaceted approach that these structural choices are bringing to the page. Because you're not just hearing from one narrator. You're not just inside one person's head. You're not getting the God view either with most of these. You know, although I guess you get a God-view narrator in the mix in some of these books that you really enjoy. But you enjoy seeing a full picture. It gives you a lot to think about, a lot to engage with, a lot to reflect upon during and after the reading experience.

[00:20:25] DEBBIE: Yes. Yes. I think that's very accurate. And I do love novelty, variety. I think that's a piece of it, too. But yes, definitely I love the multi viewpoints and being able to tease out what drives people.

ANNE: I mean, Debbie, we're certainly missing some stuff, and I think as you bring these ideas into your reading experience, even if they're just simmering on the back burner as you're continuing about your reading life, I imagine stuff is going to keep coming up for you. Like, "Oh, this makes sense. That's why I enjoy that. This is why I find this so satisfying." But right now, anything coming up for you?

DEBBIE: Nothing new.

ANNE: You don't have to be sad about it.

DEBBIE: I understand. I feel like...

ANNE: This is just data.

DEBBIE: I feel like I brought this half-baked theory, and now I'm expecting you to do all the research and figure it out, so. Sorry.

[00:21:25] ANNE: No, this is what we do here, in part. Do you feel like you have enough to go on?

DEBBIE: Yeah.

ANNE: Debbie, you mentioned some of the characteristics of books that just work for you, and when we think about, like, a Debbie Day prototypical read, you said quirky, you said interesting structure. For a long time, you thought food and wine connections were a big part of it, which makes me wonder about a multi-sensory element.

Like, I wonder if you enjoy a fully realized world that really has a lot of various supports in becoming multidimensional. The sensory angles: sights, scents... sight, scent, smells. Do you see what I did there?

DEBBIE: Yes. Yes, yes.

ANNE: It sounds weird, but two of those are the same thing. Really strong visual descriptions, like cues in the wording that let you really visualize somebody or feel like you know what their voice is going to sound like. You know, you can see the trees, you can feel the sun on your back, that kind of thing.

[00:22:31] I mean, I wonder if you like books that really come alive, and the structure is one of the tools by which that happens. But I also hear very clearly in what you say you enjoy that the structure is a component, but you're not going to be compelled by a very intellectual, you said no tomes. We'll talk about what that means more in a moment. That might have an interesting structure, but you're not looking for feats of technical brilliance or a performance.

DEBBIE: Correct.

ANNE: I think the structure is serving a purpose, and that is you fully stepping into the world, or that's a theory we're working on right now. Your experience with that theory to affirm or deny it is essential here.

DEBBIE: That makes perfect sense. I would want to understand a little bit... I would want to look at some of my favorite reads and see, but that makes perfect sense.

[00:23:33] ANNE: Okay, Debbie, I have questions. What does quirky mean to you? Tell me about a quirky character.

DEBBIE: Ooh.

ANNE: What's interesting about a quirky character?

DEBBIE: Oh, I love a quirky character. I mean, definitely Bernadette in Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a quirky character. Just complex and doesn't necessarily do things the standard way, makes me see things from someone's perspective that I may not be anything like.

Just as an aside, I have a... My 23-year-old is on the autism spectrum, and I think she has made me just grow to appreciate quirkiness and seeing things in a different way and just opening up that there's ways to see things other than my way. I just love to see that in a character. I love to explore that with a character.

[00:24:41] ANNE: So they don't need to be like the Zooey Deschanel character in a movie?

DEBBIE: No.

ANNE: Okay.

DEBBIE: No.

ANNE: Okay. I mean, intellectually, I know that you're thinking about the world differently than I am. But I'm wondering if a quirky character for you... That's unavoidable. Like, you just know they're living their life... They see things differently. You just know. It's very clear.

DEBBIE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. Complex, non-standard, and different were my jottings there. You said no tomes. You don't want to read any tomes.

DEBBIE: No.

ANNE: But you love Tata by Valérie Perrin, and that's a pretty hefty book.

DEBBIE: It is.

ANNE: The Only Plane in the Sky, not short. So what's a tome, and what I'm looking for is what kind of books will be welcome and which feel less hospitable to you.

[00:25:36] DEBBIE: I actually am currently reading Tata. It was Fresh Water for Flowers that I read that is a tome, for sure. I definitely gravitate toward a... I say shorter book. It doesn't have to be short. I'm okay with getting really connected with characters over a long period of time, but I think I just like the kind of quick-paced, kind of cut to the chase quickly book. I don't need huge, deep, flowery descriptions of something to feel like I'm connected, to feel like I'm in it, and sometimes those long, flowery descriptions actually kind of lose me, kind of lose interest in that. So definitely shorter, 250 to 400 is probably a sweet spot.

ANNE: Okay. You mentioned in your submission that you're interested in stretching into new genres.

DEBBIE: Yes.

ANNE: Would you tell me more?

[00:26:44] DEBBIE: Yeah. I really do love variety and trying new things and exploring. I've dipped my toe in probably all of the genres at some point, but I'm really fascinated and would love to find things in my non-typical genres, like sci-fi, fantasy, even classics. I would say those are my least comfortable genres, but I would love to find some that kind of test this theory of the structure and see how those land, see if those end up being five-star reads for me.

Also, I'm interested in maybe backlist, older books that might fit this. I tend to gravitate toward newer, buzzy books, but I would also be interested in, you know, some that I wouldn't have trouble finding at the library that fit this new theory.

[00:27:59] ANNE: All right. We are going to see what we can do. Okay, Debbie, you enjoyed Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister, and Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. I forgot to ask you about a book that wasn't right for you. This is not the first time I've done that. Debbie, it's not too late. I don't know if you feel like you almost snuck through and got off the hook...

DEBBIE: I did. Actually, I probably need to talk about my least favorite book, you know, a book that did not work for me, because it kind of blows my theory, so do with it what you will.

ANNE: But it sounds very important. Okay.

DEBBIE: It's probably important.

ANNE: What's the book that's not right for you, and we gotta hear why. Not to your taste, was the timing wrong, not what you're looking for right now?

[00:28:57] DEBBIE: I read it a while back, but it sticks out for sure as a DNF for real. Like, serious DNF. Whether I should or shouldn't be embarrassed, it doesn't matter, but back in the Twilight Saga days, I was a huge fan the whole series.

So I was pretty excited to hear about Midnight Sun when it was coming out by Stephenie Meyer. Again, it seems to fit, like, not maybe structure, but the fact that it was going to retell the whole story from a different character's perspective seems like that would be an interesting catch to me. It did not work for me at all. It seemed ridiculous and nonsensical, and I just... It just couldn't go anymore. I probably read three chapters and just couldn't go anymore. So there's that.

[00:29:57] ANNE: Wait, hang on. You think this one book blows your whole theory?

DEBBIE: Well, maybe it doesn't blow my whole theory. I would have thought this would have been the perfect kind of interesting approach that it would work for me, but did not.

ANNE: Okay. Well, that's good to know. Also, because you like books with interesting structures, it doesn't mean you are going to like every book with an interesting structure. Like sometimes readers will come to me and say, "I thought I liked memoir, but I didn't enjoy this." There's so much variety in any category we're talking about in the reading life, and so many other factors. That's what makes books endlessly interesting, and also means that there's no, like, pat formula that's going to deliver a predictable result every time. Sometimes that's frustrating, but mostly we like it that way.

DEBBIE: Yeah. Yeah. You're right. You're absolutely right.

[00:30:52] ANNE: Okay, so the Twilight Saga book, Midnight Sun, not for you, just to pick up where we were. And we talked about some of the other five-star reads that back up your theory, including Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin, and The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett M. Graff. And we are looking for books with interesting structures that I think potentially you could read and see what they're like for you, what you notice. Do they work, and why or why not? And you're interested in branching into new genres.

Now's a good time to remind everyone, sometimes we get emails that say or ask Anne Anything questions that say, "What's the gap between when you're having this conversation and when you recommend the books?" There is no gap. We're just sitting here live with our no-Google policy, giving books to Debbie and... oh, sci-fi and fantasy. I'm sure there's good stuff that fits the bill. I have one in mind, but I wish I had more.

[00:31:53] Readers, you have the advantage of perusal and contemplation and your own bookshelves. Please come over to the comments at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com and give your recommendations for Debbie. Reading is a group project and a team effort, and it's better that way. So thank you in advance for bringing your recommendations this way.

But Debbie, let's look at titles that could cement your theory. Let's start in what I imagine is a place of comfort for you. Now, you didn't explicitly talk about historical fiction or other works by the authors you enjoy, like Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons. My goodness, there's an interesting structure. Have you read that one?

DEBBIE: I have.

ANNE: Did it work for you?

DEBBIE: Yeah. I really do enjoy all of her work.

ANNE: And there are other authors who write novels that are told in rotating points of view like that that I think you might find interesting, but I don't believe you're going to love in the same way. I'm thinking anything Joan Silber, for example. We have a blog post on Modern Mrs. Darcy, novels told in short stories.

[00:33:04] Gosh, we could talk about the different kinds of interesting structures, like novels that come full circle, or novels that are told where you go straight through, you meet one narrator, and there's a different narrator the whole book. We could talk about novels that are told only in emails, or only in Slack messages, or written as a play, or a sestina, or a partita coming out this fall. There's all kinds of different interesting structures, and we're not categorizing them today.

I will say, you could read nonfiction about creating an interesting structure. I don't see that appealing to you, but maybe I'm wrong. How does that sound?

DEBBIE: Hmm, that piques my interest, for sure.

ANNE: Okay. Well, the one I'm thinking of is a nonfiction book by John McPhee called Draft No. 4. The reason I'm recommending Draft No. 4 is that one of the essays in it that was originally published in The New Yorker maybe 15 years ago, called Structure, is in this collection.

[00:34:05] But he also has a long career writing nonfiction and teaching nonfiction. And John McPhee is a smart guy. You all may have heard Ginger talk about Oranges, I think, on this podcast. Draft No. 4 might have been the first book-length work I read by him. And I just saw it on the shelf at Politics and Prose for half off many, many years ago and thought, "I've heard of him. I'll try that." But he has an essay in there called Structure.

And something I think's interesting about that essay is he says that a piece doesn't really come to life until he can find the structure that is going to underpin all these thoughts, that while they might not be totally disparate, it can't come to life until he knows the best way to tell it. And he works only in nonfiction, but that doesn't mean that the way of thinking about the shape of a piece doesn't apply.

[00:35:01] Also, something he says in this piece is you're not supposed to notice the structure as a reader. He uses the analogy of the human body and a skeleton. Like, you're not supposed to see my bones, Debbie, and I'm not supposed to see yours. Like something has gone wrong if they are poking through.

But the structure holds everything up. Like it gives it shape and form and makes it look good. In the piece, he talks specifically about one piece that he just felt vexed by until he had the moment of epiphany, which he describes, that made everything fall into place, and then it worked.

But these essays are so smart, but also playful and friendly. Like, "Hey, Debbie, let me tell you some things I've learned about what makes good writing work and what prevented the writing from work." Oh, we talked about books that just work. What prevented the writing from just working until these certain things were implemented. But he talks about how he researches, puts together pieces, and then edits it, ooh, with so many details. Just absolutely fascinating. You might care about the behind-the-scenes.

[00:36:14] And I wonder if one of the reasons you like books with structure is you like to get at all sides of your stories. This is nonfiction, but I wonder if this would be an interesting way to get at all sides of the stories you enjoy reading. It really might not be, but you could learn something about yourself if you wanted to give it a try. That's Draft No. 4 by John McPhee.

Now, the direction I thought we were going to is a place that I thought might be your comfort zone. You know, I suppose, like Like Water for Chocolate, it does happen in a different... I mean, turn-of-the-century Mexican Revolution. Laura Esquivel did not write it at that time, so she's got a... It's not historical fiction like top billing, but that is present. But I was thinking about the historical fiction of Kate Quinn, specifically... Oh, now I'm blanking on the title of the book. What's it called? The Briar Club. Is this a book you're familiar with?

[00:36:54] DEBBIE: I have heard of it. It may even be on my Want to Read list. But tell me more.

ANNE: So Kate Quinn's newest book is in the sci-fi fantasy direction, if that makes your ears perk up. But this book, The Briar Club, is more along the lines of what regular Kate Quinn readers have come to expect from her. This book is set during the McCarthy era in Washington, DC, and it takes place almost entirely in this residence called the Briarwood House that works as a women's boarding house run by a landlord that you are not going to like very much. She is not your likable character in this story, but there are lots of likable characters and quirky characters who live in the house.

[00:37:50] So in the shape of the book, we hear from each of the house's residents in turn, but only once. So every resident has her moment on the stage, and then she leaves, and you find out what happened to her later because you're going to want to know, "Oh my gosh, how does that story end?" You hear it from someone else's point of view, and you learn about what she longs for in 1950s DC and why she's there by herself in a women's boarding house with a not-very-nice landlord, and you learn the secret she's keeping from her housemates.

That might not sound wholly unusual, but the thing I really like is the house weighs in constantly. You hear from the house itself more than once. And the house has its own strong opinions about what happens within its walls. The house has been around longer than any of the residents, so in the opening chapter, it tells you some of its sordid history, and then we see things through until the end.

[00:38:57] So you have that structure. You have interesting characters with strong personalities, which is another way I might interpret quirky, if that doesn't sound too off-base to you. And for readers who enjoy history, mystery, stories of complex relationships, secrets, there's a little bit of a magical vibe going on here, and I mean, a good story well told. How does that sound to you?

DEBBIE: That sounds good, too. Do you know about how long that one is?

ANNE: Okay. I listened to the audiobook, which clocked in at 15 hours, so I'm going to say that's like a 400-pager.

DEBBIE: Okay.

ANNE: It's 432 pages.

DEBBIE: Perfect. I love the idea of the house weighing in.

ANNE: It's fun. Now, this one we talked about on What Should I Read Next?. So it may sound familiar as I describe it, but I'm wondering about One Woman Show by Christine Coulson. Coulson is bringing her background to this work in a strong way. She worked at the Met in New York City for decades, and one of her last jobs there before... You know, I was presuming she quit to write fiction, but that's not necessarily true. But one of her last jobs there was writing the 75-word little wall labels for the museum's new British galleries, you know, like the little curatorial notes that appear alongside each work, and she thought, "You know, what if I wrote a novel in that form?" And that's what this is.

[00:40:35] One Woman Show is the life story of this fictional woman named Kitty Whitaker, and it is told solely through these fictional museum wall labels. It's about a 20th-century woman who utterly transforms herself over the course of her lifetime.

This looks like a 200-page book-length manuscript. There's only 75-ish words on each page. You could read this in one sitting. And if you are a fan of an interesting structure or if you're just a nerd about all the different ways a story can be written, we say nerd with great affection around here, or if you really love art, design, museum stories, this would be a good pick for any of those readers. How does that sound?

DEBBIE: That sounds amazing because, which just popped into my brain, my favorite book as a child was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It's hard to not-

[00:41:38] ANNE: I'm laughing because it brings me delight to remember that book exists.

DEBBIE: Oh, I love that book. So this, I don't know, like the Met and the... Yeah, this sounds fantastic.

ANNE: Okay. I'm glad to hear it. I'm not sure how you'll think about this one, if this might be t- well, you know what? I don't know what you think, but you're here. You can tell me, Debbie. Have you read Trust by Hernan Diaz?

DEBBIE: No.

ANNE: Okay. This is literary historical fiction. It's a book within a book within a book, and it's told in four distinct parts, and each one, in order, subtly changes the meaning of what came before, subtly changes the meaning of what came before that, and then turns the whole thing on its head in the final section.

This is set in the early 20th century. It centers around the Wall Street crash of 1929 and goes on into the '30s. So part one is a biographical novel based on the life of an infamous Wall Street trader who, unlike everyone else, basically flourished after the market crash of 1929.

[00:42:46] Part two is an unfinished draft of the autobiography the trader began writing with the help of a ghostwriter to correct the manuscript we just read in part one. Part three is the ghostwriter's story about writing that story, and part four I cannot tell you, because that would be a huge spoiler, but it just blows up the whole thing.

Now, I wonder what you'll think about the emotional tone, but strong characters, interesting characters. Is there a likable character? There's a wry detachment in much of this, but yeah, I think you'll enjoy hanging out with some of these people. You really won't like others, but you're not supposed to.

There are diary excerpts in the story, which makes me think about your love for epistolary writing. But this is one of those books where every time you think you know the story, whoops, you get new information that changes it entirely. How is this sounding?

DEBBIE: That sounds excellent also. I love that.

[00:43:47] ANNE: All right. Now, I am sorry to say that this is not fantastical in any way, but Hernan Diaz's next work is. Somehow in my mind that feels like it helps with the genre thing. It does not. It really does not at all. Okay, let's do two more for some variety.

DEBBIE: Okay.

ANNE: I didn't expect to camp out so much in the historical space, but that's where we are. There's a new memoir out called Troika by Irena Smith. Is this a book you're familiar with?

DEBBIE: It's not.

ANNE: Okay. Listeners, we read this in Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club in September. If you're thinking, "Why have I heard of that?" This is a short memoir that you could read very quickly. It unfolds over the course of a weekend, road trip, actually, and it's a multi-generational tale of three women in one family. One is in her early 20s, one is right about 50, and one is in her 70s. Grandmother, mother, daughter.

[00:44:40] The middle generation is the narrator, and they're going on a road trip, and you are going to hear why, where are they going, what are they up to, what are they doing, but in a way that I have not mapped. I wonder what Irena Smith's outline looks like for this book, or what her chart of scenes on the wall looks like.

But what they are going on is their own sort of odyssey. She is constantly name-checking The Odyssey and many works of classics and ancient literature constantly throughout the story, not just in reference to her love of literature, but also referencing her own life and history.

This is an immigrant story. Her parents, her mother in the car with her, came to the US when she was young, like in grade school. They moved to California. And she talks about growing up between those two worlds and navigating their new world and what that was like, and the stories that were told about the Russian homeland, and going back and forth culturally.

[00:45:53] To give you an idea of the tone of this story, The White Lotus season 2 is also constantly referenced in this story and used as a storytelling device. And this book spoils The White Lotus season 2 and its ending. So readers and Debbie, take note. That is what you're in for. But I wonder if you would enjoy this ride in the car that, in one sense, has a tight chronology. They get in the car, they go for the weekend, they come back, but on the other, wanders all over the place with the help of ancient literature and The White Lotus season 2. How's that sounding?

DEBBIE: That sounds really good, too. I love the nod to the classics and relevant cultural stories. I like that. I like that a lot.

ANNE: Okay, I'm glad to hear it. And we are going to close with a book that I've talked about on the podcast before, but not for a while. I just checked. It's Lovely War by Julie Berry. Have you read this one?

DEBBIE: I have not.

[00:47:00] ANNE: Okay. This is a lot of fun, and this is one of those books that I've heard a lot from readers, "I didn't think that was the book for me, but oh my gosh, I'm so glad I found it." This is historical fantasy that combines a World War I story, a love story, and Greek mythology. The structure is unlike anything I've ever read because in the opening chapter, Aphrodite and Ares, like yes, the Greek gods, walk into a swanky Manhattan hotel during World War II, and soon enough, Aphrodite's husband, Hephaestus, challenges her to show him what love really looks like.

So they're placing a bet on the mere mortals, as the gods want to do. So she says, "Have I got something to show you." And in intercut scenes, she takes the reader back in time to meet four young lovers in 1917 Britain, and she walks us through how each couple fell in love, what they mean to each other, the obstacles in their way, how love is going to win out. So we have these poignant scenes set in 1917, and then we're whooshed back to the Manhattan hotel where the gods are fighting over and over and over again. How's that sounding?

[00:48:19] DEBBIE: That also sounds intriguing. I love the Greek mythology nod. I love that.

ANNE: All right. Debbie, we'll recap, readers, for the books we put on Debbie's plate, but how are you feeling about your interesting structure theory?

DEBBIE: I think you have nailed it. I mean, everything that you've recommended feels like it's totally on spot for the challenge, the interesting structure, and they all sound great. They all sound good.

ANNE: All right. Now it's up to you to road test it. I'll be curious to hear how it goes. The books we talked about today: John McPhee's Draft No. 4, The Briar Club by Kate Quinn, One Woman Show by Christine Coulson, Trust by Hernan Diaz, Troika by Irena Smith, and Lovely War by Julie Berry. Debbie, what sounds good? What do you think you might pick up next?

[00:49:18] DEBBIE: I mean, truly, truly, I think I'll probably tackle them all eventually. They do sound perfect. I think it's a toss-up between One Woman Show and Trust. I don't know. If I had to pick between those two, I could only pick one, which one would you recommend?

ANNE: I don't know, but here's how I would decide. I'd ask myself, do I want an encapsulated reading experience? Because One Woman Show, truly, you will get through very, very quickly. That's going to be over and done. Trust will be a multi-day journey, perhaps multi-week journey for some readers. So I would just let that decide, instead of weighing any other merits of the books. I don't know if you like to let the library decide, if you want to look for something good on audio. I listened to Trust on audio, it was phenomenal. I think I'd want to look at One Woman Show. So if any of those factors help you decide very quickly in a way that doesn't feel as much like a value judgment.

[00:50:26] DEBBIE: Yeah. Well, that's actually perfect because I usually have a book and an audio going at the same time, so I'll do both of those at the same time. I love it.

ANNE: Okay. Debbie, this has been a delight. Thank you so much for talking books with me.

DEBBIE: This has been so much fun, just like a dream come true. Super fun. I, also just if you don't mind, want to say one thing in light of last week's loss. I just think you should know, I see you as the Dolly Parton of the reading world. I do. I just think you are warm and kind and super smart, but not like this intimidating way, and you just bring joy to people.

ANNE: Aw, that is the kindest. Thank you so much.

[00:51:11] DEBBIE: Well, thank you. This has really been a pleasure.

ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Debbie, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Debbie on Instagram @debbielday, and find the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Find us on Instagram and tag us in your reading posts and stories @whatshouldireadnext. My personal account is @annebogel.

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[00:52:13] 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.