Spring 2026 Moms, Dads, and Grads Recommendation Show, Part 1

Summary

Book Riot – The Podcast
Spring 2026 Moms, Dads, and Grads Recommendation Show, Part 1
Hosts: Jeff O’Neal & Rebecca Schinsky
Date: May 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this special semiannual episode, Jeff and Rebecca open their digital mailbag to offer book recommendations for spring gifting—focusing this time on requests for moms, dads, grads, and (to their delight) a record number of “treat yourself” self-recs from listeners. Expect vivid, personally tailored book suggestions across genres, shout-outs to favorite and new releases, and lots of bookish banter between the hosts. This is a lively, insight-rich episode for readers seeking gift ideas, fresh recommendations, and a sense of companionship in their reading journeys.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Evolution of the Rec Show: More Listeners, More Self-Care

• This year, a notable trend: most requests are for self-gifting, not just for moms or grads.
  • Rebecca: “I’m so happy to help you find a book for your mom or your mother-in-law, but we really love it when you’re ready to treat yourself...” [02:26]
• The show will run in two parts—this one “front-loaded” for Mother’s Day, with more dad and grad requests to follow.

The Art of Recommending: Hosts’ Method

• Both hosts intentionally broadened their catalog, considering both perennial favorites and “fresh blood.”
• Jeff references David Epstein’s new book Inside the Box and the creativity of using constraints:
  • “One of the recommendations there is to be more creative is, like, take your ready-made solutions off the board... So, you’ll hear some of our favorites, I’ve got some new...” [03:29]

Recent Reads & Frontlist Foyer (Sponsored by Thriftbooks)

Jeff and Rebecca highlight recent reading and why these books stood out:

Fame Sick by Lena Dunham (Rebecca)

• A memoir of celebrity, illness, and self-reinvention.
• Explores the intersection of being young and thrust into fame, chronic illness (endometriosis), and addiction.
• Rebecca draws broader connections to culture’s treatment of young women:
  • “It made me want to go back in time and hug Lena Dunham and be like, I’m so sorry we did this to you.” [15:44]
  • It's a thoughtful, redemptive exploration of how Dunham reclaims her own narrative.

American Fantasy by Emma Straub (Rebecca)

• “Peak Emma Straub”—50-year-old woman, boy band nostalgia cruise, multilayered POVs that go beyond fandom clichés.
• Entertaining, insightful, and “perfect for summer.” [20:00]

Go Gentle by Maria Semple (Jeff & Rebecca)

• Both hosts rave: rapid-fire reading, full of plot and sharp character work.
• “It’s a love story. It’s a heist. It’s… a stoic philosopher, tutor to these rich people. There’s bomb plots and art heists. There’s so much in there.” [21:28]
• Jeff: “For me, this might be sort of peak, I don’t know, pleasure reading.” [21:45]
• Accessible to book club and general audiences—“an extremely Swiss army–friendly recommendation to people.” [22:47]

Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez (Jeff)

• A Great Gatsby retelling set in 2006–08 Brooklyn, focusing on ambition, authenticity, and gentrification.
• Immersive for those familiar with Brooklyn or looking for a fresh historical lens.
• “I thought it was a really cool portrait of time and people…” [23:33]

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Listener Q&A: Recommendations & Riffs

1. For Mothers Who Love Colleen Hoover-Style Reads

Request: Fast, popcorn reads; enjoys Colleen Hoover, Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparks.
Recs:

• Emma Straub – “So reliably a popcorn read.” [27:40]
• Taylor Jenkins Reid – Especially recommend reading synopses to find the right fit (“Daisy Jones & The Six,” “Evelyn Hugo,” “the tennis one”).
• Jasmine Guillory – “Super fun contemporary rom-com.”
• Go Gentle by Maria Semple – “Plot heavy… great character dynamics. You’re going to want to go to Paris and solve crimes with your friends after you read…” [28:37]

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2. For the Eclectic Mystery & Speculative Fan (and Grad-to-Be)

Request: For wife, likes Sue Monk Kidd, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, T. Kingfisher, murder mystery; for daughter, forensic anthropology grad, loves romance (Helen Hoang, Julia Quinn).
Recs:

• The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas— “A horror gothic, set in post-independence Mexico…” [30:09]
• Abby Jimenez & Ali Hazelwood (daughter) — For engaging romances.
• Jasmine Guillory & Sarah MacLean (historical & contemporary romance for daughter).
• Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, God of the Woods by Liz Moore (for mom—literary thrillers with punchy writing). [31:03]

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3. For Lit Fic–Loving Mother-in-Law Who Wants to “Learn Something”

Request: Enjoys “Ordinary People”; likes “serious,” learning-oriented books.
Recs:

• Claire Lombardo – The Most Fun We Ever Had (multi-generational family lit fic).
• The Fraud by Zadie Smith – “Historical perspective about events that really did happen that are also managing to be a commentary on current life…” [32:56]
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles – Historical, immersive, “super readable.” [33:26]
• Nickel Boys & Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead—depending on whether heavy or lighter fare is desired.

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4. For Literary Spec Fic & Uncertainty-Loving Readers

Request: Wants to “not know what’s happening”; books: Never Let Me Go, Leave the World Behind, Sea of Tranquility.
Recs:

• The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • Both “show don’t tell,” readers discover the world as the characters do.
• Percival Everett’s novels—“Just jump in. Let Percival Everett do his thing.” [39:04]
• I, Claudius by Robert Graves—Epic pseudo-memoir, classic of historical fiction.
• Paradise by Toni Morrison—Lyrical and ambiguous.
• Matrix by Lauren Groff—Subtle historical, exploratory.

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5. For Saga Lovers (Multigen POV, “Under the Radar” or Backlist)

Request: Epic, multi-generational novels; recently loved Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.
Recs:

• Small World by Jonathan Evison – “Knows how to start with a bunch of people in a bunch of different places and then pull all the threads together... very Dickensian.” [42:50]
• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
• Beyond the Bedroom Wall by Larry Woiwode – Deep “gray wolf” backlist.
• Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin — “Not as long, but in heart, it is a saga.” [45:45]
• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (nonfiction that reads like story).

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6. For the Newly Restless Solo (Female) Traveler

Request: Woman entering her “middle age crisis,” wants quiet, meaningful travel writing—NOT Eat, Pray, Love.
Recs:

• Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNichol – Solo travel in Paris, embracing solitude, “good inspiration…” [47:24]
• Alone Time by Stephanie Rosenbloom – More straightforward solo travel memoir.
• This Land Is Your Land by Beverly Gage (with caveat from Jeff—wants more personal touch).
• The Woman I Think About at Night by Mia Kankimäki – Japanese writer visiting places tied to female artists, a blend of travel, intellectual, and life journey. “An intellectual history and a travel memoir and a midlife crisis memoir all at the same time.” [50:54]

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7. For the “Secret History”/Classics Grad

Request: Daughter, dual degrees in trumpet performance & classics (esp. Ancient Greek), loves The Secret History, Crime and Punishment, Medea.
Recs:

• The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood — “Got there first.” Feminist retelling of The Odyssey from Penelope’s POV. [51:46]
• Circe and Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – Well-known Greek retellings.
• James by Percival Everett – “Does name check a bunch of philosophers.” [53:10]
• Han Kang (esp. We Do Not Part), Katie Kitamura – For vibes and ambiguity.

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8. For the Underlining/Feeling/Beautiful Prose–Loving Reader

Request: Short books, beautiful prose, not needing much plot. Bonus for queer authors. Past loves: Maggie Nelson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carmen Maria Machado, Claire Keegan.
Recs:

• Palaver by Bryan Washington – “Quiet, thoughtful, walks around Tokyo, thinks about things... Brian Washington doing Brian Washington things...” [55:15]
• Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri – “You’re gonna underline, you’re gonna feel things...” [56:03]
• Stonyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood – Beautiful, contemplative prose (recurring rec this episode).
• I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante – “Beautiful sentences, real feelings, the plot is the transition.” [57:08]
• Light Years by James Salter – “If you haven’t read James Salter and you care about sentences, I do not pass go…” [58:57]
• Splinters by Leslie Jamison – Contemporary memoir, compared favorably to Salter.

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9. For the Literary Criticism & Theory Enthusiast

Request: Looking for literary criticism/theory focused on authors or on reading as an act—already has Serpell on Morrison.
Recs:

• Literary Theory by Terry Eagleton – “A survey... accessible considering… you’ll need to pay attention, but not so abstract...” [61:04]
• Professing Literature by Gerald Graff – On the profession and pedagogy of literature.
• Playing in the Dark by Toni Morrison – Short, impactful take on American lit.

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10. For the Purposefully Child-Free Book Club

Request: Books about being purposely child-free in a world of parents.
Recs:

• No One Tells You This by Glynnis MacNichol – “Memoir… about her 20s and 30s, intentionally single, intentionally child-free.” [62:55]
• Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed edited by Meghan Daum – Essays on life without kids.
• Two Is Enough – A more technical (older) classic on opting out of parenthood.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Colleen Hoover is a gateway drug and then... car.” —Rebecca [27:37]
• “If you haven’t read James Salter and you care about sentences, I do not pass go, do not collect $200, get thee to James Salter.” —Jeff [58:57]
• “You’re gonna underline, you’re gonna feel things.” —Rebecca [56:03]
• “This, for me, might be sort of peak, I don’t know, pleasure reading.” —Jeff on Go Gentle by Maria Semple [21:45]
• “I miss Sarah Vowell.” —Jeff, in a reverie for personal-voice travel/humor nonfiction [48:35]
• “I think about them all the… complicated setups for trapping the mice that show up in this book all the time... Stonyard Devotional really stuck with me.” —Rebecca [56:41]
• “Let the books pile up. You can continue to pile on—the literal pile.” —Jeff, on parents’ TBR maintenance. [54:50]

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Quick Reference: Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:35] – The self-recommendation trend & episode structure
• [11:39] – Recent reads: Fame Sick by Lena Dunham
• [18:14] – American Fantasy by Emma Straub
• [20:00] – Go Gentle by Maria Semple
• [23:14] – Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez
• [27:37] – Recs for the Colleen Hoover reader
• [31:03] – Spec & romance recs for grad mystery fan
• [32:56] – Recommendations for lit fic–loving mother-in-law
• [36:07] – Literary spec fic & “feeling lost” favorites
• [42:50] – Multi-generational saga suggestions
• [47:24] – Memoirs of quiet, solo travel
• [51:46] – Grad with classics degree—Greek retellings
• [55:51] – Underlining, beautiful prose recs
• [61:04] – Literary criticism/theory book suggestions
• [62:55] – Books for child-free readers/book clubs

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Tone, Language, and Vibe

Conversational, witty, intellectually playful, deeply reader-centric. Both Jeff and Rebecca riff off each other with inside jokes, favorite recurring topics (“let the books pile up”), and a blend of reverence for beautiful writing and candor about literary tastes. The show is warm, inclusive, gently irreverent, and always geared toward the joy of reading widely—for yourself or for those you love.

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End of Part 1 – Spring 2026 Recommendation Show
More dad and grad requests to follow in Part 2!

Transcript

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

This is the Book Riot Podcast.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I am Jeff o' Neill and I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's a fun podcasting day for us, Rebecca, because we get to do two of our favorite things or half of one of our favorite things and our other favorite things. Today is the first half of our Springtime Moms, Dads and Grads recommendation show. Our semiannual turn to the digital mailbag to get recommendation requests and then service them to our beloved readers and listeners out there. The First Half Rebecca had a smart idea to move it around. It's going to be a two parter. The first half you're listening to now. The second part will be out as our next regular podcast episode, but you have front loaded some of the Mother's Day stuff for us. Rebecca. Very smart of you. There's also in this batch a lot, as Rebecca noted to me just a minute ago, a lot of self request recommendations and we like them not just as well, but maybe Even better than recommendation requests for other people.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. I'm so happy to help you find a book for your mom or your mother in law but we really love it when you're ready to treat yourself and you're looking for a specific kind of book or a vibe or experience. And the majority of the ones we received this year were actually listeners seeking recommendations for themselves which I think this is the first time it's really tipped this far in that direction. But we do always love those. As you were saying since this is running before Mother's Day but our next installment will be next Wednesday like a week and a half from here after Mother's Day we'll get more dads and grads and self requests in on that one but a super fun round of recs lower on the dad recs. We're not going to get to bust out as many of our usual go tos but I can see from the notes that we do both also have some fresh blood to offer up some new titles.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I was trying I think because so many of them were self recommendation requests and they said I like the kinds of books you've recommended before. I was trying to reach a little further. I'm also reading a book about the utility of constraints and like how taking your ready made things.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes, the Epstein.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, David Epstein also. I'm so sorry to all the Epstein's out there. It's not your fault. This is David Epstein new book. I can't actually remember the name of it. It's about constraints. I think it's called Boundaries but we'll talk about that. I'm not done so I'll keep that for. But I was like okay. One of the recommendations there is to be more creative is like take your ready made solutions off the board. Right. Just don't, just don't do that. And so you'll hear some of our favorites. I've got some new but I tried to go back into my own mental catalog a little bit more than it's

[Rebecca Schinsky]

called Inside the box.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes, right. So we're gonna do that and then right after this half of recording we're going to be recording our summer new release draft which will be showing up the Patreon I don't know soon after this happens because summer May is upon us and it's beautiful here at 76. The flowers are blooming. Feeling like some are there. I have my long list of 22 to draft from each of us draft 10 titles. If you're new to this or haven't forgotten how we do this and our goal there is to win your vote and you meaning one of our podcast listeners, but specifically a Patreon listener because that's who can listen to it and vote on it. And we get pride and then we also get the number one overall draft pick there. It's a fun way to look at the books that are coming out. This is not a comprehensive review. It's like not everything that's we're I think the highest rated book or not the. The on the Goodreads like summer preview. Like Most there's like Nick 40 because there's a bunch of fantasy and commercial romance which we are not that craven. One of us might be sometimes and I'm not gonna name who that is

[Rebecca Schinsky]

but really we're like to pander.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The book Riot Pod Listener we think is a different kind of reader. Meaning we're gonna project onto them what we are interested in.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. Yeah, it's. It's supposed to be like a well rounded basket of 10 books for the season. Some of them are ones we're personally looking forward to. Some of them are just like the general vibe. And we will do an episode later in the year closer to like early summer about our most anticipated titles for the rest of the year, which is more personally curated to our taste.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I still feel like I need to find some content creator for. I guess I did this once, like just the books I'm just interested in. It's like the deals, deals, deals version of just stuff I saw in catalogs that I'm like, here's something that exists. I may never read it or not. And I don't know what that would necessarily be, but this is our way of doing a preview that's a little bit different. So look for that in Patreon. If you haven't joined us, go check out patreon.com bookriot podcast. You get exclusive. You could. It's not just that you can get all. All the drafts we've ever years and years in the Patreon. Not every. We used to be in the main feed there. Check us out on that side we got. I think that's it. Oh, on the zero to well read feed right now you've got Interpreter of Maladies that's currently out and we've got, let's see, 90s fave. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the 90s fave. We actually, you know what? I think we got a recommendation request. We may not get to that. The perks of being a Wallfire, I just realized, may be a good fit for anyway. We'll get to that as we get there, but let's first do our sponsor break.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Sponsor Voice 2]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

You know, it's a, it's, this is a Monday episode, Rebecca. So we on our Monday episodes we do front list foyer because it's sponsored by thriftbooks.com so before we get into our own recommendations here, we should talk about some of our recent reading. You know, thriftbooks.com if you're, if you're mailing a gift to your mother or grad or a dad or yourselves driftbooks.com free shipping on orders over $15 in the US and then you can get a bundle because you can get used books. You know, I'm finding stuff five, six bucks. You could put a few things together here. We've got a mix of newer books, but plenty of older books that you could find used. I'm going to highlight a couple ones that I think you can find probably pretty cheap because there's a lot of them out there. You also every purchase gets you closer to a free reading reward. So you're buying your gifts, you know, recoup a little for that yourself. No one's mad at you. Everyone wants to do that. That's another way to do it. I am guessing I didn't check Rebecca, but every book we're going to talk about today, you can find either new or [e-mail] certainly if there's in print you can find it. But a lot of editions. Maybe you need the Spanish edition of Perks of Being a Wallflower. I bet you could find it on Thriftbooks.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I actually found it on Thriftbooks this morning when I was for book, the Spanish edition, I was, I was going after like first edition book cover and it kept serving me. The Spanish one kept showing up in the list.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's amazing.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yep.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Rebecca, what have you read of late?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I listened to Fame Sick by Lena Dunham. It's great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Very interested in this. It's great. Tell me more.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This feels to me like it's in line with sort of the rethinking, reframing redemption that we've seen around like Britney Spears and Monica Lewinsky and some of these like women who when they were quite young, became quite famous in culture or pop culture and were treated pretty badly by the media and the Internet.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, we piled on because they're not perfect, I guess. I think that's what we did to these people.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Dunham was 24 when they filmed the pilot for Girls. Like a 24 year old person, still pretty fresh out of college, who was doing creative work and then was all of a sudden a showrunner for hbo which is just a bananas position to put a young person in.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And the show, I've seen some of the PR around this and that's one that I saw because I've been circling this because I don't think I've seen Girls. Like I know of it, so. But I found her very, very interesting.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. And I mean I watched the first few seasons of Girls. It's like as it was airing, it's provocative and like there's a lot of nudity and it's frank about sex and it's frank about relationship dynamics. And these girls are far from perfect and you know, and they are like young, privileged white women. And that was a lot of the criticism that was leveraged as well. But like Dunham just became sort of this dumping ground for like public animus about all of the things that she represent. At the same time she was suffering from a really terrible endometriosis. And this is one of the ways that Sick in the title comes to mean a bunch of things, but like terrible endometriosis she is on. She eventually starts taking pain pills, she's tried all kinds of medication. And so the fame Sick of the title refers to like the ways that being famous has made her sick, but also sort of a Lovesick version of it like that longing for fame and the extents that people will go to to be famous or to not let everyone down around them. Like she talks repeatedly about just wanting to interesting art like that. That's the thing that drives her and this is the position that she found herself in. Like huge success, but also just also pretty. Like early social media days when girls was coming out and people were awful to her. So just trying to manage all of that, manage her fame, manage her personal relationships. You know she was. She owns up to it to being quite messy when she was a young person. But like from this solidly middle aged perspective, I really felt like how could anyone who was that young in that position not be messy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

There's just no way around it. But then also really opens up about unintentionally becoming hooked on pain pills, not even realizing that she was hooked on them. The treatment that she underwent to address both that and the endometriosis, what recovery has been like. And then this sort of reframing of how she even understands herself and the way that she was treated in the media. Like she says in the book and she said in some interviews that she's always annoyed people, that they've always had this response to her since she was a young girl girl and she had felt like responsible for trying to figure that out and explain is it her

[Jeff O'Neill]

precociousness or what's her own understanding of what that is or her what is it?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Good question. Like one of the things she hangs it on is both of her parents were artists. She grew up in New York in these very like pretty boundary pushing art scene and like New York will do that and an art scene will do that and that she just didn't have much of a sense of like what the world in general is going to find to be provocative.

[Jeff O'Neill]

What the Overland Park, Kansas HBO subscribers. We're gonna think about all this stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Also writes, you know, openly and generally pretty lovingly about all the people that she worked with, even if they were difficult. But like the, the inside workings of the famous person is not what this book is about. This is really like a woman who has been remarkably famous and treated all kinds of ways publicly, sort of really taking back the conversation with. For herself. I found it to just be really thoughtful. It made me want to like go back in time and hug Lena Dunham and be like I'm so sorry we did this to you.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But it's quite good. I really recommend it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't know if I think I Maybe talk. Because I did read not that Kind of Girl, which I liked and I very much enjoyed by her my sense then and not having seen girls, maybe that was the right art for her to make at the time. I kept thinking, and as I've been interested in Lena Dunham and felt sympathy for her on the behalf of all the bad people in the world, it's like I think this person maybe just should have written novels. You get protected in a different way. You're not out on Front street all the time. Like let's Sylvia Plath this up. Let's Joan Diddy. Like those people still get plenty of grief. But it's way different than being a celebrity. Celebrity. Well, yeah, I think she's much more interested in art shaped things than celebrity shaped things. Oh, 100 star shaped things.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. She just, I think chose to tell her stories in the form of TV and movies.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, and who would turn it down? Like Sex in the City is a huge. Let's do Sex in the city for 20. It's a great idea. And that maybe not for a 24 year old to run, maybe.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. She stars in it. So it's not just the art that she's made, but a lot of it is her personal story. It's her body literally on the line and right out there for the public to comment on. And of course, like public commentary on women's bodies is always a dumpster fire. But she's not conventionally beautiful and not conventionally thin. And that has had all sorts of consequences for her that she's now just.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And not interested in conventional sort of media training kind of answers. Right. She's more interested in the world and interesting than sort of like, yeah, we had a great time and I hope everyone enjoys it and sort of leave it at that kind of stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Everyone finds a finder.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She just wants to make interesting art. And I think understanding that about her puts a lot of the rest of it in perspective. But I was, I'm happy for her that she's gotten to tell it herself and to really, you know, own all of the parts of her story that she's owning here.

[Jeff O'Neill]

For all of you out there that have. I know we got some middle grade and people have kids in tweens. It's still pretty difficult to find movies, especially where, you know, younger girls are taken seriously and you know, they're not subject. They are subject to the world, but they also have some agency in it. Lena Dunn written and directed an adaptation, this movie called Catherine called Birdie. It's available on Amazon Prime. That's amazing. It's, you know, set in medieval times and the main character is like the. The oldest daughter of landed gentry, sort of minor kingdom and all the pressures that come along with that. But it's quite lovely and delicious. And Rowan and I watched it on a cold winter's night when Names and Michelle were out of town and we still talk about how great that was. So you know, that and that kind of girl, just her own writing. She's a book nerd herself. Like I'm just interested in Lena Dunham, so I'm so glad. I think I will listen to this eventually.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's great on audio. Like it's really. It was one of those where I was like voluntarily doing the dishes so I could listen a little bit more. I also plowed through American Fantasy by Emma Straub. I read this on a flight like Peak Emma Straw. This is about a boy band nostalgia cruise. It's a. Our main character is a 50 year old woman who's recently divorced. She's supposed to be going on the cruise with her sister who is the big fan of this boy band.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, she supposed to go to this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And then her sister doesn't go for reasons. So she goes on the boy band nostalgia cruise by herself. She gets assigned to this random roommate who's been on a whole bunch of these and she kind of gives herself over to the experience of like rabid fandom, but she still keeps some critical distance from it. And like some of it is really weird and this character comments on it. I think the book would have been fun no matter what. But the thing that Straub does that elevated it for me was we get that main character's perspective. But then we also get the POV of one of the guys in the band who like, he is also in his 50s. He's been doing these dances for 35 years. It has shaped his life in ways that he's not so sure he's down with anymore. We get to be with him in this overwhelming experience, being on this trapped on a boat with a bunch of people who have had a horny crush on you for their entire lives. And then the third perspective is one of the women who works for the like tour company that is like producing the cruise and managing the guys. So there's sort of all of these different inputs about what this cruise and what this kind of fandom means to people. It's really sweet. There's like a little bit of a love story just a little bit over the course of the five days, but mostly just really funny. Straub is a huge boy band fan herself. I saw one of the members of the New Kids on the Block, Locke went to one of her book events, which is great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, my God.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. But you get like, if you are early to mid millennial, like, you know, on the elder end of that, you're gonna get a lot of the references and you can see that these characters are like, oh, that guy is the mashup of Donnie Wahlberg and AJ from the Backstreet Boys or whatever. It was really. It was a really good time. It's perfect for summer.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Terrific. I've got a couple to talk about here. I will be mentioning them further in our recommendations, but I'll. I'll bump them up here. One of them we got asked about specifically, so that was fortuitous. I didn't really time that. I will. I guess I will just sort of merely and enthusiastically plus one to Go Gentle by Maria Simple. I don't know what else to say about it. I think. I don't know. I don't want to presume to know what people who are reading the Abby Jimenez's and the Emily Henry's of the world are looking for. I think, though, whatever that is, that's what I want from Go Gentle by Maria Semple because it's great characters. Spoiler things generally end up okay for people. There's a love story, but the. The references and the dialogue and the sentences and everything else is just plus one. Like, it's if Nora. It's sure. Amy Sherman Paladino, Nora Ephron, somewhere in the mix there. Simple as written for TV before. She's just smart. She just writes great characters and great dialogue and it's kind of everything. It's a love story. It's a heist. It's actually as you said, and you said this and it still was less which Coven apartment building than even I thought it was going to be.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's like.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So there's like different premises in here at the same time. She's a stoic philosopher, tutor to these rich people. There's bomb plots, there's art heist. There's so much in there. I read it in like 20 hours, like, like an afternoon. And then the next morning, boom, right through.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I read it in one day, giving this book a lot of, like, that was my Saturday.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's this. For me, this might be sort of peak, I don't know, pleasure reading. Right. Because it's. It verges on and really does Cross over into. There's ideas and there's, there's other stuff going at the same time. But I, I would read 50 of these if this was like PG Woda House or Agatha Christie with her. 40 of these from her. I'd read them all. Yeah, I have this question for you. Tell me, was there any part of you that thought she would do a follow up with Adora Hazard as the main character? Could we do the Further Adventures of Adora Hazard? This book is selling. Book club.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

New York Times bestseller. What do you think about that?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I hope so. Or like build out the universe and do a bunch of them from the perspectives of the different, the different coven members. That's interesting because they all, they're all smart and interesting and cool jobs and one of them shows up in a surprising place near the end of the book. I mean, I am going to be down for whatever Maria Semple wants to try. Like there's not a Maria Semple novel I haven't tried. I'm just glad to see her kind of return to the form and the sharpness that I expected after her Chico Bernadette.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think this is an extremely Swiss army friendly recommendation to people. Mother in laws. I think, you know, you could give it to a mother in law. The women aren't as old as I was expecting because I'm older now. They're like in their late 50s. And I was thinking 70s, but they're not in their 70s. But you know, they have teenage daughters or maybe a little bit older. They're divorced, they're single for a variety of reasons, but you know, things happen and whatever. But it was a rip, roar and read.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's great. It's so much fun. I'm so glad you liked it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I did. The other one I'm going to talk about right now, quickly, Last Night in Brooklyn by Zochila Gonzalez, which you've heard me talk about her before. Adidas, Ana Dimonte's last last. And then Olga Dies dreaming her first two books. This one, I didn't realize this, but it's a Great Gatsby retelling set in Brooklyn in like 2006 to 2008.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I just saw that headline about it somewhere a couple of days ago and I was like, how do I feel about this?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I didn't know anything about it. I'm glad I didn't because I, I just didn't want that lens. I also enjoyed myself figuring it out. Like you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out at some Point. But it's not in the comps that I saw. And on the covers. She does mention it in the acknowledgments. I was like, sure. It becomes so obvious at some point. Point. So the main character is a 20 something, you know, grew up in Brooklyn and in the world of non pre, non gentrified Brooklyn. So they're Dominicans and black people and people of color who are differently upwardly mobile in different ways. She has gone. She went to this character, I think went to Yale or Brown or whatever and then became an advertising copywriter into assistant whatever. So she's one level. But then there's people that, that started and then ascended above her in her same sort of milieu. They become finance bankers who went to Yale and buy houses in the Hamptons and this kind of thing. And long comes this character Lagarza, who is this woman who has become an ascendant fashion figure in the world. And she, her, her fashion brand is going to ipo. She's gonna expand into menwear and perfume. But come to find out that person, Legarza wants our main character to introduce her to this person. So it's very Gatsby to Daisy thing. Gender flipped, racial flipped. All things move around, but the dynamic is very similar. And that's cool. You know, I don't know that I needed the gas because the fun of this for me, I was living in Brooklyn in some of these neighborhoods around this time. Now, I wasn't, you know, of the same demographic or even social class, but there were bars that she mentions that I went to. Like I was pointing, I was like, look, look, look, it's bar tobacco. Oh my God, look down here. It's. It's the Brooklyn Inn in places that I knew a little bit. It. I was an early white gentrifier, I guess, to use that where I was coming from. Though we were there quite a bit earlier and did not. I had grad school stipend money. So I wasn't gentrifying much of anything by then. But this, this era and like we also get sort of sense of what's happening in the background. There's some stock market housing crisis bubble fomenting. Like that's part of the thing that's going on. Barack Obama has not yet given his big Senate DNC speech. But this world is like they're kind of picking Hillary versus Baroxide. That thing is starting to happen a little bit. You know, we have some. A character gets an iPhone, which is a big deal, right? Because it's just starting to come out there. I thought it was a really cool portrait of time and people and I don't know that maybe the Gatsby stuff helped Gonzalez like structure it or get the deal or whatever. And look at this and try to reframe it. Because it's about ambition. It's about longing. It's about where you came from and where you're going and authenticity. It's a quick read. 229 pages. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really good. And I. I'm glad I didn't because I'd like you. I think I would have been like a great Gatsby retelling. I really into this. But it doesn't. I don't think that's what you're there for. That's not what I found the book to be most interesting about. I thought the character scene development is really cool. Yeah. That's the last night of Brooklyn Pies. All right, let's get into our recommendations. We get. We had interesting books to talk about. So we blabbed a little bit longer than maybe we normally would. Especially at the beginning of a show. Rebecca, would you like to read or do the first rec round?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Why don't you read the first one?

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, I will. Happy to do that. My mom has read a lot of Colleen Hoover lately and thinks I'm a snob for not reading them. Let's also be okay with being called a snob. It's okay, you know. Only words can only hurt you if you let them hurt you. And I'm willing to absorb a snobber too. Let me just give that to you. First of all, dear listener, what should I give her for Mother's Day instead? She likes the fast readability and popcorn read, as she puts it. My mom has like classic mom books like Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparsh in the past. Love Story. Not necessarily necessary. This is from Natalie. Rebecca, we could do worse than try to, you know, complicate the mom read on our. We could. We could add some things here. Is that okay?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Colleen Hoover is a gateway drug. And then car.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, there we go.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's further down the path. It's convenient that we were just talking about Emma Straub because she's one of my recommendations here. She's so reliably a popcorn read. Her books are really fun. You turn the pages, they are well written like this. Truly upmarket. It well written. But it's mostly about the story and what's going to happen to these people. I think just take a look at the Emma Straub oeuvre and decide which setup sounds like the one that your mom will be most interested in. But there's really not a dud in the bunch so I would just direct you to go there. Same deal for Taylor Jenkins Reid. Like my gateway to her was Daisy Jones and the six. That's a really fun experience, but atmosphere is also really great. Maybe your mom would prefer the Evelyn Hugo book Taylor Jenkins Reed or the tennis.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Did she tennis? There's a tennis one?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Just go read the synopses. Also, I'm not going to miss an opportunity ever to recommend the Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory. Just a super fun contemporary rom com.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think the Taylor Jenkins Reid look at the synopses and sound. I think that's maybe the best shaped answer here. So I'm glad you picked that out. But I'm just going to get it over with and say go. Go Gentle at this point because it's, it's very plot heavy. So there's a lot of plot, but there's also good character dynamics and relationships that's built into it. It. I will not try. I will not besmirch anyone in recommending Go Gentle, but I think it, the dialogue and the setup, it's more fun. Actually. The Colleen Hoover can be quite heavy in subject matter. I think what Mary Semple does is fun. You're going to want to go to Paris and solve crimes with your friends after you read Go Gentle by Marie Semple. So that's my one. All right there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Next one is from Chris, who is double dipping. First, we're looking for a recommendation for Chris's wife for Mother's Day. In the past, she's really enjoying enjoyed the work of authors like Sue Monk Kidd and Sarah Addison Allen. More recently, she's been really intrigued by Sylvia Moreno Garcia and Yang Zi Chu and found delight in the writing of T Kingfisher, Sarah Beth Durst and Sangu Mandana. And of course, he says, I can't really describe her reading preferences without a bit of murder in the style of Lucy Foley, Jane Harper and Richard Osmond. Then double dipping to ask for a daughter's recommendation gift. She's coming out of college this spring, heading to grad school in Scotland to continue studying studying forensic anthropology. I would like to be friends with her. And while she has generally enjoyed murders and mysteries, her downtime has been more recently voracious romance from Helen Wong and Julia Quinn. Where do we go from here?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm gonna sidestep the romance one because you're gonna handle that better. You have the things and we're gonna recommend some of these same things also. That's what book talk is for as far as understand as far as I understand at this point. But in terms of the I really logged on to the Sylvia Marino Garcia because I have a book that I like like for comps for that. It's called the Hacienda by Isabel Kanas. It's a horror gothic. So it's literary but it's horror gothic. It's set in post independence. Yeah, I think it is Mexico. And the someone marries into a household where the house may or may not be haunted. Reader it is. And then why it's haunted and who it's haunted by. And then what happens? It's a quick read. It's super compelling and atmospheric and like really really immersive. So that might be be a fun one at the same time. Let's see. I guess that's where. Yeah, that was my pick for the for the wife this Mother's Day. Okay. What do you have on the romance adjacent front?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, well for for wife I also just wanted to shout out Marie Helene Bertino. Just something interesting and voicey. I think Yellowface by RF Kuang might ring her bells. And you can do God of the woods by Liz Moore for the romance. For daughter, I think take a look at Abby Jimenez. Like I've read some of the Ali Hazelwoods. From what I can put together from reviews, Ali Hazelwood and Helen Wong are in like a pretty similar zone. And Abby Jimenez seems to have reviews that indicate better writing than what I personally found in Emily Henry. So I'm going to go for Abby Jimenez again, a Jasmine Guillory shout out. Just take a look at her lineup and pick one. And since your daughter likes Julia Quinn who writes historicals, nobody does historical romance better than Sarah MacLean in my book. My humble opinion. So check out Sarah McLean as well.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Cool. All right, I am up next. Hi Jeff and Rebecca. First of all, thank you for okay, blah blah blah nice things about us. I'm looking for a recommendation from my mother in law who reads lots of lit fic, something I really don't get much into and should. She's a fan of Judith guess, Ordinary People and the like. She can take serious heavy content, but ultimately she says she likes to learn something when she reads. I'm an acquisitions editor of trade nonfiction publisher and can't for the life of me come up with a meaningful book to give her this Mother's Day day. I work with books every day. But I love to ask for thoughts from fellow book lovers. So your expertise is graciously appreciated. Thanks always, Taylor G. All right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

For the ordinary people tip. I looked at Claire Lombardo. She writes these big multi generational family stories just about like who screwed up and how they got screwed up. I prefer the most fun we ever had, but she's got a couple. And then for the mom likes to learn something when she reads reads. I think this is a thing that I would also say about my reading. But then when I went back through my reading spreadsheet like what are the novels?

[Jeff O'Neill]

A cool prompt. I think this is a very interesting question. I agree with you.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

When I did the like what are the novels I've read where I learned something? Because I just tend to read a lot of nonfiction for that stuff. It was, it was trickier to answer than I thought. But I landed on the Fraud by Zadie Smith, which will give you some historical perspective about events that really did happen that are also managing to be a commentary on current life, contemporary events. Because Zadie Smith can work in all time zones, but it's also really readable and if mom reads a ton of litvik, she's going to be just fine jumping into something that Zadie Smith is doing.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I've got a couple recommendations that are differently vibed, I guess, to put it mildly. So a gentleman Moscow immortals, you've heard us maybe talk about this before. It is historical fiction set in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution. The main character, sort of minor gentry and if you know anything about what went down there, the minor gentry didn't fare especially well during the Russian Revolution. And in a mechanism that I cannot recall strikes a deal to remain alive as long as he stays within the confines of this upscale hotel in the middle of Moscow. And so he is trapped in this hotel and he lives quite well in this hotel, but he's trapped in it and he's watching events unfold around him, but then also figuring out how to live, how to find happiness here, how to found relationships here. So you learn a lot about the Russian Revolution and this time of Moscow in this period that I think a lot of people don't know about, especially in the west, including me. You get really good character, super readable tiles does a lot of great historical fiction. I think a lot of the towels would rules of civility, the Lincoln highway would also very much fit this. But I think this is the best like this is the best of them. And I think it's resonated with a lot of readers. I'm going to do a two for. For Colson Whitehead, depending on your vibe. So the first I'm going to do is Nickel Boys, a short novel set in the 1950s. Right. 60s maybe. I can't quite recall at this time. Centered on a real story of a particular. I don't even know what you call these reformatory. There's not enough air quotes in the world for these reform schools.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Real Jim Crow nightmare stuff.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes. Where young black men were incarcerated. For lack of a better term. I guess that is the term. And then subject to other cruelties beyond merely being wrongfully incarcerate. It's a horror novel set in a. Around a real place in real stories. So there's that version of reading historical fiction. And you and I, Rebecca, think this may be Whitehead at his best. Even though it's quite different than other things written. If you want something a little more light. I think Sag harbor by Colson White is an interesting for this because it is set in a black enclave in the Hamptons. So these are affluent black people on vacation. And even that is not complicated. So you get some American history that you don't get told very much. Much. It's much more of a regular. Regular. It's a more familiar kind of coming of age summer story set in a place with the kind of people who don't usually get those kinds of stories. And it's funny and weird because Colson Whitehead is funny and weird and a great writer. So those are my three picks for you there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I love those. All right. Next is from Colette, looking for recommendations for literary spec fic. Because I'm looking for that feeling when you don't fully know what is happening, but you love not knowing. Plus great sentences and ideas. Colette, you should come sit by us.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I know. Do you have Colette? What are you. Give us some.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. She says this isn't to say that I need resolution and all the answers. In fact, it's better if I don't get them. Books like this that she's loved are Never Let Me Go, Clara and the Sun, Leave the World behind, the Candy House Glyph and Sea of Tranquility. We have also loved a lot of those. And then if we can accommodate a second request, she's also looking for literary historical novels. Books where I learn something about a person or a moment in history. But it's not straightforward historical fiction. And she cited the fraud here along with we do not part.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

What do you think?

[Jeff O'Neill]

So you know my mind. I'm gonna Give two on the first and one on the second. I did a couple. My mind went to a couple of. I don't like the term because it's inaccurate post apocalyptic books. One is the Dog Stars by Peter Heller, which you've heard us talk about on the show. And like most a lot of literary genre doesn't do a lot of explaining of what's going on. You have to sort of piece together what the world is. Is. You know, Station 11 by only St. John Mandel would fit this as well. But part of the fun and interest is getting from context clues of what the read with the characters are thinking, feeling, experiencing what's happening and what the dynamics are. So it's clearly not historical, I would say. Also, I don't know. We were talking about the Road in a different context recently. But the Road by Cormac McCarthy is very show don't tell and you have to figure it out on your own what the dynamics are. And both of them are propulsive and pretty plot heavy. I would also say this Never Let Me Go and Clara and the sun are the best examples of this. There aren't many of them out there. Rebecca like that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's a rare.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's a rare thing to see. So Dogstars slash Cormac McCarthy's the Road I would put before you. I went into my bag a little bit for the historical novel Request I Claudius by Robert Graves came out in 1934. And it's sort of told as it's a novel and the pitch is sort of autobiography of someone in the court of these men, these emperors and rulers and senators that ruled Rome and become a phenomenon. There was two of them that came in a quick succession. Robert Graves wrote it only because he had bills to pay, but then it became the thing he got known for. It's an amazing story and that sometimes, like I like to go shout out to annotated right. Of going back to look at these things that were phenomenal, forgotten about, about. I read it a long time ago and just raced through it and I was picking up on your Wolf hall comp. It was the Wolf hall of its day, but for ancient Rome and maybe where we got the meme of like men think about ancient Rome. I think it might be Robert Graves fault in 1934 that this was something that people did. So that's what I've got. Peter Heller and McCarthy for the first and I Claudius by Robert Graves for the second.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I was just catching up on the Margo's Got Money Trouble adaptation last night. And Nick Offerman's character is reading I Claudius in the latest episode. Like I couldn't tell you the last time I thought about I Claudius. And Now I've got two mentions in 24 hours.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's what I'm here for is to be the second mentioned. Great.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Good job you're coming after Rufy Thorpe and Nick Offerman. It's not not bad company to be in for this. Like you're dropped in and you don't know what's going on. You're totally right, Jeff. Like, this is pretty uncommon. I think this is a run, don't walk to the works of Percival Everett. Like also just read the synopses but the synopsis. This is with most of his books not going to get you that far and just jump in. Let Percival Everett do his thing. It also reminded me of my favorite Toni Morrison, which is paradise, which takes a little while to unfold and figure out what's happening.

[Jeff O'Neill]

White girl. First you're like, what? What? What's happening?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, that opening line. I mean, come on. Maybe also Matrix by Lauren Groff, which is is not it's not super straightforward, but it's not as weird as it sounds. And it does just take some time to like figure out what she's doing with the language and build out the world that her characters are in. Because it's the 13th century. I had nothing for literary, historical, not

[Jeff O'Neill]

my yeah right in for us. My dad just was talking to me about the director, which you really like too. It's funny to see the second issue that I've got a question for you, Rebecca. As we're talking, what about Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler for the dropping you and you have to figure it out.

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[Jeff O'Neill]

more on the road. Tip Right. If you're looking for post apocalyptic literary

[Rebecca Schinsky]

stuff, it's pretty, from what I remember from like 6 months ago, pretty upfront about the shape of the world they're in now.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I guess that's. Yeah. Maybe more true.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Anyway, but I think that's worth a look. Yeah, I feel like we're not that far away from your dad getting his own segment on this podcast.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

You know what?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Think dad would enjoy? I think everyone might enjoy my dad and I interacting around books. Also, if you. If you want to, there's a zero to well read episode about Parable of the Sewer that you can read, you listen to before, after, you know, help you make your decision. If that's something for you. At the same time, I think I am up next. I love a sweeping multi generational saga. Bonus points if the POVs change. I love the 8th lock life, shout out, Get Booked podcast. Oh, there's a. There's a callback. Recently I've loved the Seven Daughters of Dupree Buckeye, the Love Songs of W.B. du Bois. That's a favor to all of you out there. It is pronounced Dubois, believe it or not. What can you recommend that's maybe been under the radar or backlist? Thanks. Look forward to your episodes every week.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Small World by Jonathan Evison is the first one that I thought of here. Big multiple points of view that runs over a couple of centuries in the like, starting in the early life of American history and up to contemporary like early 2000s ish characters who find out that their families are entwined in all sorts of ways. And it deals with race and class. Excuse me, race and class and the like sort of broad. The broad. All the broad themes of American history are prevalent and present in what goes on for these characters. But Evison really knows how to spin a story. He really knows how to start with a bunch of people in a bunch of different places and then pull all of the threads Together in a way that's really satisfying. We overuse Dickensian for stories that manage to do that. But Evison, I think really exists in that tradition. I loved Small World when it came out several years ago. Less direct, the Joy Luck Club. Again, shout out zero to well read. But multi generations, it's short stories but you move between the mothers and the daughters and the mothers are sometimes hearkening their stories back to like their early childhoods or previous generations. So you really do start to construct like a hundred or so years in these families lives. I really found that to be a valuable reading experience when we did it a few months ago. And then Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, which came out, gosh, almost 20 years, 15 or 20 years ago now, was the one that put him on the map. And then of course Oprah picked the Covenant of Water. I think Cutting for Stone is still the star in terms of literary quality, the way that he tells the story. And again, similar to the Evison, how all of the threads come together at the end.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I've got a couple ideas. One is deep backlist that not many people have heard of that was very well regarded at the time. It's beyond the Bedroom Wall by Larry why Woody came out I think in 1971. It's a multi generational story of the new Millers who emigrate to North Dakota from Germany in 1881. And they follow them for a good long time and it's. I think this is maybe exactly what you want. I don't actually remember how much POV movement around there is within generation, if that makes sense. But you do follow, follow multiple generations. I think this is a gray wolf joint. So we're really a 50 year old gray wolf title. Rebecca. I'll take all the well done anyone wants to throw on me for that. And then it. The epic part of it. I don't know, did she. Did we ask for an epic here or just a saga? Yeah, I don't know the saga line, the saga meridian. But I want to, I want to say that Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin ticks a lot of your boxes. It's just not as long as you might expect from saga. But it's the story of this family, these people moving up from the south from like the 20s into the 50s. The point of views change. We did different perspectives. It's. If not in length and in heart, it is a saga, I would say. So I would shout out also Go Tell on the Mountain by James Baldwin is something to check out there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

On that tip, if you have not read, it's nonfiction. But if you haven't read the Warmth of Other Suns by Sharifah when she

[Jeff O'Neill]

was on stage, that might be the right there. Actually. Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, Sharifa talked about that as being nonfiction. That reads like fiction. It really does. You will turn those pages, but you get so many different generations and perspectives and the way that Wilkerson moves between all of them and then also pulls it all together. It's just a masterclass in how to tell that kind of history of, of a people.

[Jeff O'Neill]

We may have to initiate some sort of quota for zero to. Well, red pick references. Or maybe not. Maybe that's the point of all this. This is to bring some of those things into the forefront.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I mean, we just tend to talk about what we've been reading recently and our recent reading is impacted more by

[Jeff O'Neill]

that now, I believe is your read. No, you.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's you. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Last year I was in my quiet bird watching, sunrise, coffee drinking, pickleballing, celebrating later 40s phase. That was it. I don't see why we should move on from this phase. Rebecca. I reject the premise.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I love a return customer, so welcome back.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Jeff Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tanner. Huge success. Rebecca Stonyard Devotional by Charlotte Word. Awesome. Now though, middle age crisis setting in. I want to travel. I want to see the world, but I want to do it as a quiet, middle aged solo woman. If you solve crimes along the way, Rebecca, please write mystery sillies based on this. And don't even go but. And don't go by ways of Eat, Pray, Love, which I did love at the time and how I ended up in a spirit tour. Yes, Spiritual, not spiritual of Bali story for another time. These are some of the great parentheticals we've ever received, Rebecca. I appreciate that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

What is a spirit tour of Bali?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think you want to take a look at Mostly Here to Enjoy myself by Glynis McNicoll. She is in this age group with you. Late 40s maybe. She's. I think she's turning 50 this year. She is single, she doesn't have kids. All of that is very intentional. And she has done a lot of solo travel in her life, but this is a chronicle particularly of a summer that she spent alone in Paris. She has, she makes friends there, she meets some men there. She has some adventures with dating, but really about traveling by yourself, celebrating and enjoying solitude and what solo travel can be. I also really liked Alone Time by Stephanie Rosenbloom, which is a more straightforward memoir about. I think she spent a year traveling to a handful of different places by herself and spending in depth time in those places. And it was, it was fun to read but good inspiration from both of those women about how to go somewhere you've never been before alone and carve out, if you're there for a week, just carve out good experiences where you still have some social connection and a taste of the culture. And if you're staying for a longer time, how to build some deeper connections to people who are there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Got a couple of ideas. I talked about this Land Is yous Land by Beverly Gage with Vanessa for Frontless FOIA a week or so ago and I liked it well enough. I had a reader write in to say what you really want is Mary Roach's travel memoir. That's absolutely what I want. Thank you listener for seeing and hear me because I reck you may not have listened to that episode. It's like I want I miss Sarah Val is what I came to is I miss Saral Vowell Sarah Val too. But having said that, I did really like that book. And if you think of it, you know, the American history part of it too. But the parts I really found myself most interested in is Beverly Gage's own experience of like actually being in these places. Like what it was actually like to be there. And the American history stuff is really interesting as well. Maybe it's the age of LLMs and AI. I'm really bird dogging what only this person could write to me at this particular moment. Right? Like, and you know, a lot of people could tell you how bad Andrew Jackson was, but not everyone could tell you what it's like to take a tour of the Andrew the Hermitage at this particular historical moment. As a, as a scholar. You see what I'm saying, Rebecca, like, so I wish that part had been expanded in a little less of the not really backfilling, but just expanding on the other history stuff. So. But I do think it works and I get to suggest this too. I myself dream about a day of like sort of unbounded travel by sort of the claims of work or children or family or whatever. But I think what we need, we need also to prepare ourselves to get a book deal, Dear listener. So pick a lane. Like how can you slice this up? What could be your thing, right? So maybe it's a historical landmarks whatever. So it could be that. So I really like this language. But I'm going to go deeper into my bag here and talk about a book. Let's See, remember my title, the Woman I Think about at Night by Mia Khan Kamaki. I believe that's how you say that. So this was a woman. She's Japanese and was bored and feeling stuck. Stuck. So she left her job, sold all her crap, and decided to travel the world. But her shtick was to go to these places where female artists, noteworthy thinkers, historical figures lived and go there and sort of go in search of them in these different places. So she goes to Tanzania to see where. I forget the woman's name who wrote out of Africa. And then she went to Japan. There's some other people I don't know which was cool.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Well, is it Dennison, I think was the pen name of somebody she had. Anyway, you're right. That's the name on the. The book. But then some other. These Italian lady painters from Florence, some Japanese people I knew nothing about. I thought it was cool because it was like an intellectual history and a travel memoir and a midlife crisis memoir all at the same time. So I think I can do no better for you than the Woman I Think About At Night by Mia Khan Kamaki and Rebecca, if you. Rebecca, who wrote us? Not Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Rebecca. You know who you are. Do think about your future book deal, and I will be happy to blurb your tour of roadside attractions through the upper Midwest or whatever you choose to do.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Great. Okay, next one is coming from Noel, whose daughter is graduating from college with dual degrees in trumpet performance and classics, especially ancient Greek. She loves the secret history, Crime and Punishment, and Medea. Would love a book rec for her.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You know, in. In so many ways. Margaret Atwood got there first. Yeah. And before the Madeline Millification and the subsequent tide of Greek and other mythological retellings tellings, Margaret Atwood wrote the Penipiad, which is also timely because it is the feminist retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope's point of view. Penelope being the trickster, trips the trickster queen of Ithaca who is trying to hold down the fort sexually, politically, emotionally, while Odysseus is off fighting and then trying to make his way back home, which is really like only a hundred miles of sea. Bad job. Odysseus getting back home. And it's. It's terrific. It's not very long, so maybe she. I also don't know. What. Does an ancient Greek classics major find this stuff interesting? Or is it like, I can't believe they did this to my girl when they're doing these kinds of retellings? So I'm not really sure. I'd love to know that. But you know, there's Circe by Madeline Miller, which I love. Like there's a Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which I love. And I think those are good fits. But I'm guessing she's probably heard about these. Penelope is now 20 years old and I don't think it's yet penetrated the book talkosphere of this kind of stuff. So that's where I'm gonna go.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think that's a great recommendation. And I was trying to go with the vibe of like the secret history fiction that taps into that kind of intellectual mode. So James by Percival Everett. Does name check a bunch of philosophers.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And gets into history in all kinds of ways. That might be a fun read for her. Her. I don't remember why I put Han Kang in these notes, but I was

[Jeff O'Neill]

waiting for your explanation. Like that's interesting. Let tell me more. Okay. I'm glad to hear that autocomplete got turned off.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, just. It was a vibe. This was a vibes based thing of like. I think that somebody who can read in the way that you would have to be reading to be majoring in the classics and who's loving things like the Secret History. But Crime and Punishment especially would value the. The ambiguity, the dreaminess. Things are slightly strained of the Han Kang universe especially. We do not part. Ditto for Katie Kitamura. Get thee to the works of Katie Kitamura. But I think the Penelope ad is probably like right to the bullseye. That was a good pick by you.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They should publish a special spreadged edition of the Penelope ad for this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, for Hot Greek Summer.

[Jeff O'Neill]

For Hot Greek Summer.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Let's do it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, there is a hardback edition. That's. It would make a good gift. That's why I was thinking about this because if this is going to be part of a graduation situation, then get the two aspects. Special edition there at this point. Okay, my read is up next. How are we doing on time? Let's do a couple more so we're closer to halfway done. This request is for me because my dad is still two books behind on reading. What I get him, you know. Also I should say, do you need to keep track of if your dad's tbr. Let the books pile up. You can continue to pile on. Like literally pile on the pile there. Short books, beautiful prose. I don't really care if anything happens so long as someone beats on boats against the current. Born back ceaselessly into the past. For those of you keeping score, that is the last sentence of the Great Gatsby 5 by F. Cox Fitzgerald. I want to underline and feel things. Tattoo Rebecca for us.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Maybe we'll change the tagline of zero

[Jeff O'Neill]

to, well read, underline, feel things, podcast. Very cool, Mel. And then bonus points of his Queer if I didn't read that already. Examples. Maggie Nelson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carmen Maria Machado, and Claire Keegan.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right, I'm going to start with Palaver by Brian Washington. Came out last year about a. A young, gay black man who is living abroad. Is it Tokyo? Do you remember?

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it's living abroad in Tokyo. And he's been there for a while. He's sort of set up his life. He and his mom have had a very fraught relationship, and they have not seen each other in, like, 10 years. And mom is coming to visit. They're gonna have conversations with each other, and they're mostly gonna have conversations with people who aren't each other. We're gonna walk around Tokyo. We're gonna think about things. We're gonna reflect on the choices that we've made or the ones that we haven't made. And it's just quiet and thoughtful and Brian Washington doing Brian Washington things. But I know we both really enjoyed that. I think that's a great place to start.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Absolutely.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. You're gonna underline shit. You're gonna feel things. My memory of those is mostly that that, like, not much happens in those stories.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Walking around Italy, feeling things and writing a good sentence.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Just less plotty than other Lahiri stories, which I like it when she has plot. Either way, however, Jhumpa Lahiri wants to do things. But Roman Stories and Stonyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, again, not much happens. I've recommended that a bunch.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think our previous tension in that book. What to do about the mice, that's kind of the big question.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Yeah. What do you do about the mice? And, like, someone is coming to visit this nunnery that's going to maybe cause a hubbub.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But, like, I still think, who's coming to visit the nunnery? Who is coming to visit the nunnery? Rebecca, who is it? Is it the judge from Blood Meridian? Like, who could. Thanos. Who could it be?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I think about them all the, like, complicated setups for trapping the mice that show up in this book all the time. Like, it really. Stonyard Devotional really stuck with me. So those are my picks. I. You have. Oh, you have one here that. I'm mad.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think I hit I think I whacked the mole here, Rebecca, with my first pick. I heard her call her. I heard her call my name. Let me get that right. I heard her call my Name by Lucy Sante, which came out last year, the year before.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it was last year.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And I think I. My hair kind of caught on fire about it on the pod. And then you read it and I think you had the same experience I did. It's Lucy Sante's memoir of transitioning. And Lucy Sante is also a longtime New Yorker writer thinker. And you get some beautiful sentences, you get some real feelings and you get some. The plot is the transition. But there is no plot. Like, there's no, like, is my family going to accept me? Is, am I going to be able to play bass? It's just like going through and the just is doing a lot of work in that sense. I just did. But Lucy Sante thinking and writing along for us what she is experiencing as she is becoming this version of herself that she's been the whole time, but not. But for a variety of reasons unable to fully realize. And the sentence level stuff is quite beautiful. I did on audio. So I was not highlighting. I think that is maybe the biggest demerit for audio for me is I have no good way of highlighting. Yeah, there's just not. I haven't found a way to do it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. The worst, like I've had a couple experiences with audio where I would like pause the audio and then open a voice note on my phone and then what? And try to quote back the thing I was trying to remember. And it just doesn't. It just doesn't work.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A one step game of telephone with yourself of books is not going to work. But I admire the effort.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I know. I will say I used the Spotify page match feature. Just tested it out when I was listening to the Lena Dunham memoir because I also had a digital galley so I could go back and forth and I. I would like some version of that where you can like yell this is the future. I want robots to give us where I could like yell at my audiobook. Like, go back and highlight the last line.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's true if you're. If we both agree that audiobooks count as reading. But there's things that you can't do with an audiobook that you can do, like reread the sentence easily and sort

[Rebecca Schinsky]

of note taking stuff so hard. All right, now go ahead.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Everyone knows this. Everyone knows. I don't know why I'm just feeling this today. Especially because actually I wanted to listen to our next year to, well, read pick, because I hadn't. But I was like, I can't do that for that because I can't do those Light Years by James Salter forever and all. If you haven't read James Salter and you care about sentences, I do not pass go do not collect 200 get thee to James Salter. You could kind of pick any of them. But I think Light Years, which is the standard issue, a privileged marriage falling apart over two decades. But then also, it's kind of like someone who can really cook their scrambled eggs are just better than mine. They're still just scrambled eggs.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But like, that's just, you know what you're doing and the scrambled eggs are different. If it's your scrambled eggs, the best

[Rebecca Schinsky]

to ever do it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And James Salter is wonderful. We both like, you know, all. All of the books. But I think Light Years is the one that I think I refer to more and more, I think, because it is a little bit of. Of like you think, you know, what a marriage falling apart memoir is, but then someone who really cuts to the bone and really sees and really can articulate what those things are like. It hits different and then similar. Along similar lines. Splinters by Leslie Jameson is also a memoir of divorce, but it's also a memoir of COVID and a memoir of parenting. But I put her observations in her sentences right alongside what Salter can do. Maybe sentence percentage. Salter, maybe, you know, if you're sort of scoring. But when Leslie Jemison is, Jameson is doing her thing in Splinters. It's as good as any sentence writer that I know, which is unfair and it makes me very angry because she's still alive. James Salter is dead, so I can't get angry at him.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I hope that Leslie Jameson's publicist hears this and is like, someone's comparing you to James Salter. Let's put it on all of your book, James.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Writers, writers, writers, writers, writers, writers.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We've got. Let's do two more. One is all you and one's all me. So this one is going to be the first one, all you. It's from Brianna. Looking for recommendations for literary criticism or literary theory. They can revolve around somebody's body of work. She already has the book on Morrison by Nawali Serpell or about the landscape of reading itself.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's been a while since I picked up a book of literary criticism for its own sake, so I'm going to go back into the. Well, when I used to read about this stuff for school and teaching and beyond beyond I read. I think I was assigned Literary theory in an early class in my graduate studies Literary 3 by Terry Eagleton, which was a survey of literary theory to that point in time, which was the early 2000s. I'm sure things have developed since then. But maybe you pick up the second volume of Whatever Happens Been Sent then. But I thought it was an accessible considering like it's not meant for people that are going to read Go. Some go gently. But Maria simple not as well. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Anyway, it definitely is a serious business. You're gonna need to pay attention. But it's not so abstract and abstruse that you're going to really flounder. And then Professing literature about Gerald Graff is about the professing of a survey of the profession of literature. Literary profession.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Which I thought so the teaching of it. Syllabi, canonicity. Because I really the landscape of reading itself. I kind of have Laura's McGrath's middlemen in my mind. Thinking about Gerald Graf is looking at the profession of professing and what that means pedagogically and for fiction. But there's also kind of the realities of what goes into it. I would also recommend as a shorty Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's very accessible. That's worth taking a look at. It is her own lens on one way to see American literary history. And then it's Morrison. And if that's not enough, I don't know what else to say to you.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's a great listener.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I will wrap us up here with one more. As a member of a book club that consists of all child free folks, I would love recommendations for any books that focus on the dynamics of being purposely child free in a world where all your contemporaries seem to be mom and dadding it. I recognize this is sort of. Yeah. You don't have to apologize. You don't have to. No caveats. We need no caveats for that. And that is from Jason.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right. There are not nearly as many of these books as there should be. I'm hoping this will be different in like 10 or 15 years. But you can go back to no one tells you this by Glynis McNichol, which is about 10 years older than the one I talked about earlier in this episode. But she writes this around her 40th birthday, largely about her 20s and 30s and the experience of being someone intentionally single and intentionally Child Free. It's a fun memoir. There's some meditations on being single and being child free, but then there's also like the cool affair that she had with a younger man when she was hanging out at a dude ranch for a while. You sort of get a whole thing. Glynis McNichol is absolute goals. If you're looking for more perspectives, Megan Dom edited a collection of essays also a little while back called Selfish, Shallow and Self Absorbed. Common adjectives that are negatively applied to people who don't have children. From a whole bunch of different writers about how they arrived at the decision not to have kids, what their experience of being a child free person in the world has been like, and how they sort of push back on those perceptions of child free people and as selfish, shallow and self absorbed. I don't think you're looking for like a technical one, but also a little bit older and more on the technical tip of like how people decide not to have kids. Two Is Enough is sort of a classic. I can't remember the author's name, but I read it like almost 20 years ago, so it's been out for a while. This is like a corner of nonfiction that could use some development. I think I'd love it. Yeah, listeners, if you have suggestions for these, you can, you can hit us up.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. All right, that brings us to the end of part one of our spring 2026 moms, dads and Grads episode. Look in just a couple of days for you regular listeners, we love you. You'll see that in your feed for your Patreon members. It'll be available a little bit before that, as will this because if you join our Patreon, there's a couple of choices choices to choose from. One is includes early ad free access to these kinds of episodes. The next level includes bonus content including our summer release draft which we are going to record as soon as I get some calories in me. Rebecca, go check out zero to well read over wherever you get your podcast players of choice over there. Thank you all so much for writing in. Always a good time. Well done, Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You too. It was a fun one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

It.