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The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 7, Episode 26: Bookish Geese + Boss My TBR
00:57:05
On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Meredith are discussing: Bookish Moments: audiobook listening and keeping track of book recs Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately Deep Dive:...
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- [00:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Foreign. Hey readers, welcome to the currently Reading podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently. And as you know, we won't shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.
- [00:25]
Katie Cobb
We are light on the chit chat, heavy on the book talk, and our conversations will always be spoiler free. Today we'll discuss our current reads, a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.
- [00:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom of four and full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And I am loving having so many options for audiobooks.
- [00:44]
Katie Cobb
And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona. And I believe TBR management is its own hobby. This is episode number 26 of season seven and we are so glad you're here. As many times as we have to do it, Meredith.
- [00:56]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Hey, sometimes the third time's the charm. Katie.
- [01:00]
Katie Cobb
We're professionals this morning, right?
- [01:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
We do not give up. We can do it.
- [01:06]
Katie Cobb
We can do it. We have a bit of mischief to manage this morning before we get going with our regular episode. It is the first Monday of the month, which means it's time for our single ad for ourselves this month. And we're going to talk about our community, our lovely bookish friends and how they connect with each other.
- [01:25]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes, this, this is the piece that is the most surprising to me, how much joy it brings to me because I'm not usually a big group joiner kind of community ness doesn't necessarily feed me like it does. Other people say you, Katie.
- [01:44]
Katie Cobb
Correct.
- [01:44]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right.
- [01:45]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [01:45]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But our community aspect of what we're doing in the bookish friends group really is meaningful.
- [01:52]
Katie Cobb
It really is. And we say at the end of every show that bookish friends are the best friends. But let's, let's talk about some actual numbers. So we're just about to hit 3,000 patrons, which that in itself is a huge number. 2,400 of those people are over on Facebook. In our Facebook group, it is a very active group. They're always buzzing, they're asking advice, they're building relationships, they're getting spicy about book world silliness. They're sharing their reads. They do it with kindness and genuine assumption of good intent on everyone's part, which is so unique on the Internet right now. It's just a really delightful place to be. You can always find somebody willing to talk about books. In addition, we have a great community going on Discord now, which is admin by our lovely bookish friend, Andrea. It has over 600 people in it. And on Discord you can follow the channels that interest you. So you could follow just the All Things Murderful channel, if that's really interesting to you, or the Find My Book Twin channel channel where people are really genuinely trying to make connection. That has surged in popularity lately because Meta has gotten a little bit silly with some of their policies. They're doing great stuff over on Discord and it's all run in the bookish friend spirit, which is my favorite thing about it. Both of those are wonderful. You can get access to either or both of those groups for just five bucks a month.
- [03:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. Even if you don't want to listen to the indie press list or you don't want All Things Murderful or Love and Chili Peppers is not for you, that is definitely worth the price of admission. You know, my husband and I were having a little strident conversation about the goods and evils of social media and I just realized how for me, I think because the bookish friends group is really the only thing that I really do a lot of on social media, I have a very different view of its place in like my life or in the world. It's very probably Pollyanna, but that's because of this group of people. So thank you guys for being the reason. I'm not saying that I'm like a Facebook or a meta apologist by any means. I mean, don't take that to mean that. But there's a lot of good that comes out of community and social media of different sorts gives us the ability to have that. So I'm really grateful. I'm grateful to you, Katie, because left to my own devices, I probably wouldn't even have created a bookish Facebook group, honestly. And that was you. And I'm so glad that you did that and that you brought this group together.
- [04:16]
Katie Cobb
Well, and it has. We talked about this a little bit before we started recording, but it took a lot of effort at the beginning to create a group culture that we really wanted to see on the Internet. And now it is a self fulfilling prophecy. The bookish friends are good to each other and it's because of the effort that was put forward six years now, six years ago, when it was a tiny group. And those people have helped it continue to be just a really wonderful place on the Internet for sure.
- [04:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
- [04:44]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. So you can join us@patreon.com currentlyreading podcast for just five bucks a month. You get all the great stuff, especially our bookish communities. Mischief managed.
- [04:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. Excellent.
- [04:57]
Katie Cobb
Okay, for our regular episode today, we do have a deep dive for you. We are going to be bossing two new TBR victims we like to call them. They say they're volunteers. We're not sure about that part of things. But first we'll get started the way we always do with our bookish moments of the week.
- [05:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. I just wanted to highlight, really this week, probably five different times, I thought. I am so glad that a few weeks ago Mary Heim brought to the show when she was on. The fact that Spotify for audio is so awesome. I wasn't using Spotify at all. I don't use Spotify to listen to my podcasts. I don't. You know, I just. It just was a place. I had it on my phone. I don't listen to music at all. So, like my husband and son use it for that. So we had like a family plan, but I never used it. And then Mary mentioned the way that it was fitting into her reading life. And I have started to use the heck out of it in a very specific way, which is that Spotify Premium, if you're a Spotify Premium member, which again, I was only because Johnny and Jackson like to listen to music, they give you the ability for a huge number. I don't know how they decide what's included in Spotify Premium audiobook wise and what isn't. I don't. I don't know what the pattern is there, but every book I have been interested in accessing on audio has been available on Spotify Premium. And you get like 15 hours a month, right. So you don't have to buy, you don't. It's not by the book.
- [06:28]
Katie Cobb
Right.
- [06:28]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's by the number of hours, which is the game changer. I still use Libro FM as my primary source for audiobook listening, but when I want to just dip in for an hour because I'm going to be driving and I'm really into the book that I'm currently reading on my Kindle, but I'm going to be driving, but I know that I'm gonna really, after that one hour, I'm gonna really wanna finish it on my Kindle. I don't really wanna buy that title or use a credit on it. Spotify gives me the ability to just listen for an hour. So there's just been a lot of ways that I have that that has been adding to my reading life. I've been using it a lot to prepare for the indie press list. When I have a month where I really Like, I have a lot of stuff I need to be doing, but I also need to prep for indie pressure. It's really useful for that. So just a lot of different ways. I just love it. So that's something I've been thinking about a lot this week.
- [07:24]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [07:25]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Thank you, Mary, for bringing that to us. I had no idea that that's the way it worked.
- [07:29]
Katie Cobb
So smart. And of course, that's a conversation that happens in the bookish friends group too, where people will say, wait, how are you using this so smart to be able to pop in and out of a book that you're reading in a different format. I love that. Okay, my bookish moment this week, I finally managed, and I just want to shout it from the roof rooftops to find a way to keep my TBR list updated and under control. And key here is to keep better track of my recommendation sources. So I'm looking forward to seeing if I can follow through with this all year. But part of that is saying it out loud, because then I'm more likely to do it right. So, based on tips from multiple bookish friends, I've come up with a few ways to keep track of my tbr. Using my reading tracker, I take screenshots of messages as they come in on Instagram, making sure that it includes the book recommendation and the person who sent it to me up at the top. Like, I'm not cropping it to just have the book title or the book cover. And it also has the date. Always, of course, because it's a screenshot. Right. I put physical books on my shelf in a holding area until I've had time to log them in my physical TBR or in my digital TBR before I shelve them into. You know what I mean? Like, so my tbr, as we've discussed, and it makes Meredith crazy, is in a rainbow format, right? So rather than getting a new red book and just putting it in the red section, I put them in a holding area. And then once a week, I want to shelve everything and make everything look nice. And even if I were alphabetizing books, I would feel the same way about this. Once a week I want to put them away, but first I want to log them and say kind of where I got it from or why I decided to grab that. Was it bookish serendipity? Did it fall into my cart at Barnes and Noble? Like, where did this book come from? And once a week I can probably remember that if I wait two months, who knows where those books came from? Right. So I've got the physical books in a holding shelf. I've got my screenshots on my phone. And once a week, sometimes more, if I'm feisty, I put TBR entries on my physical to do list or I make an event in my calendar. Just block off half an hour and put stuff into my tbr and then I can keep track of at least what week I added it to my tbr. I could see how long things usually it before I pick them up. I can keep track of where the recommendation came from. I can update any checkboxes that need checking. So maybe I added something to my TBR and now I do have a physical copy of it. I can now check that box. It makes me very happy and feels very productive without it actually being anything useful in the world. Except for the fact that hopefully over the next few years y'all will have a better idea of where I actually got recommendations for my books. Right.
- [10:10]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I mean, I see that as being really, really useful. I, for me, I've never. I don't keep track of my TBR because I almost feel like I might use the words like, oh, that's on my tbr, which for me is kind of code for I may read that at some point. Right. That's when I've considered reading. I don't keep track of it only because for me, every book in every form is simply an option at every moment. I don't have a plan for that. Right. But recommendation sources is huge for me. You know, I mean, it's a really, really, really great way to be able to know where you're getting really, really good books. So I, with my physical books I put up once a week I. I pile them and then once a week I put them. I put a post it, I go through and put a post it inside where I write the rec, you know, so I know, like, oh, this came into my library on, you know, November of 2024 and then where I heard about it. So I kind of do that similar thing. Then once I do that, then I shelve it in a way that makes sense, which is by genre as opposed to this is a red book, so it goes on the red shelf. So that's where we differ is that then I want it to make sense.
- [11:32]
Katie Cobb
At that point, otherwise I might be losing my mind. Yes, that is correct. I'm a very visual person. I can picture the book and the spine and what color they are. So it makes sense to me to shelf by color and that's fine to Each their own.
- [11:49]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Sure, absolutely.
- [11:50]
Katie Cobb
But the point is keeping track of recommendation sources. And I'm very excited to see how this plays out going forward from here.
- [11:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, I think it's a really smart system. And I do have to say that that TBR tab on the Reading Tracker, I've looked at it more than once going, should I be using that in some. Because I think it could be really useful. So good.
- [12:10]
Katie Cobb
That's a great, robust next year, Meredith. Like, nobody needs to know this. It's only January. But I'm already incorporating that more because now it's more important to me. So of course I'm like adding additional fun things where basically you type in a title and it auto fills all this information from your tbr. I'm so excited about it.
- [12:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Well, I mean, Right. The Reading Tracker is definitely going to have things in it that are interest to you and me. One of the things I was going to say is, you know, would it. Do you think it makes sense to include the advocacy tab? Like people could just ignore it or delete that tab.
- [12:39]
Katie Cobb
They could ignore it or delete it. Exactly. And that's. I would rather have too much than not enough.
- [12:43]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Exactly. Right.
- [12:45]
Katie Cobb
If you need less, find less. It's fine. All right, let's get into our current reads and where we heard about them. Maybe.
- [12:51]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. Okay. My first current read. I absolutely know where I heard about it. All right. I need everyone to really, really take a deep breath with this one. Okay. And you may want to feel very free to use the forward button as I talk about this book, because this book is a lot and it's like, protect yourself. Okay. That's what I'm saying. I just want to give you a little bit of a heads up. Little ears may for sure not want to hear about this, so go ahead and be generous with that forward button. All right. I want to talk about a book called True Crime by Samantha Kolsnick. Here's the setup which I am using very, very particularly because it is written in a way that is very evocative of the novel itself and how it is written. Susie and her brother Lim live with their abusive mother in a town where the stars don't shine at night. Once their mother's abuse becomes too much for them to handle, the two siblings embark on a violent cross country murder spree, beginning with their mom. As the murder tally rises, Susie's mental state spirals into irredeemable madness. All right. Oof. Capital Six o's. Oof. This seriously might be one of the darkest books I'VE ever read. Actually, this is definitely one of the darkest books I've ever read. Like maybe top three in my lifetime. I know as soon as I finished this book I needed a little bit of time to figure out even how I felt about it, let alone how I wanted to talk about it. And then I immediately needed to watch an episode of Bluey, which I actually did like. That's how dark. So True Crime is one of those books that I found from the list. Sadie Hartman's 100 horror novels to read before you get murdered. And it was a buddy read with Kiara and Betsy. We were going through that book together, that list of books together. And I am so glad we read this together because we all needed to hold hands and get into a prayer circle afterwards. This is only 135 pages and you are sure as shooting that you would not want it to be much more. This is a hard read. From the very first chapter to the very last, really horrible things happen in this novel. I'm calling it a novel because that's what the author herself calls it. She doesn't call it a novella. So I'm just kind of going along with the way that she describes it. I think that's because this novel, to me, I think that's because when I think about a novella they feel like a little taste of something. Whereas this book is very much a whole thing. Even at 135 pages, barely a little more than an hour, maybe 90 minutes of reading time for me it was very complete. And this is one of those books that I have been talking about a lot where it tackles a very, very difficult topic through the lens of horror. And we see things with a clarity because of that lens that we did not see before. At least this reader did. Reader? The readers that you know in our group did. Our narrator of this story, Susie, is a. A horribly abused young woman and she's a vessel for an awful lot of evil. And then she becomes a conduit for that evil. And I think that she gives voice to a depraved level of lifelong sexual abuse that is really important and is very difficult to read. Make no mistake, this book is incredibly well written. It uses that same spare language that catapults you forward any good, excellent work of fiction. It's visceral and disgusting and I keep coming back to the same word. It's important. Important in that I feel like I understand this topic of sexual abuse, extreme sexual abuse, better now than I did before I read it. Even though I really wish That I didn't, obviously all of the triggers for sexual assault, including incest and rape. And I say those things specifically because this is the kind of book that I don't want you to go in. BL would be a huge disservice to you. But I went into it that way because I've kind of committed to reading this whole. Sadie Hartman's whole book with the just going into them blind and trusting Sadie Hartman. And I'm glad that I did because this was a proper book to be on her list. It was a good recommendation, but I wouldn't recommend to our readers going into this blind. So it begs the question, would I recommend this book at all? And I have to say yes, because I think it's an incredibly high quality novel. Once I started it, I was in. I wanted to find out what was going to happen to this set of characters. And I was also really glad to be done. This is True Crime by Samantha Kolisnik.
- [17:37]
Katie Cobb
It sounds really tough. That is not a book for this reader, not at this time. And I think it's important to remember that, like, it's okay to say that a book is not for you totally to.
- [17:47]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I mean, please do. Especially with a book like this.
- [17:51]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, definitely.
- [17:52]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
We have to. We have to read what is right for us. And we have to protect our peace and ourselves and our experiences very, very carefully with our reading.
- [18:04]
Katie Cobb
On a purely logistical standpoint, I feel like this book would be hard to find because you can't just Google, like, true crime book because. Yeah, like, why would you name a book after a genre?
- [18:16]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
For sure. I've thought about that. And in fact, in my notes, I said, I really. I wondered why this title before I read the book. And then when afterwards I was like, oh, and that title is doing a lot of work. Okay, so there is a. There is a reason.
- [18:33]
Katie Cobb
Okay.
- [18:33]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But it's. Yeah. So just know that the author's name is Samantha Kolesnik.
- [18:38]
Katie Cobb
Okay. And that'll be in show notes. If that's hard for you to spell, we'll figure it out for you. Okay, we're gonna lighten things up because the first one I'm gonna talk about is also a small book, but it's Sipsworth by Simon Van Buey.
- [18:50]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, good Lord. That's the perfect 180, Katie.
- [18:55]
Katie Cobb
Here we are on the other side of true crime.
- [18:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Let's do it. Cause Sipsworth is exactly what you need after you read True Crime.
- [19:02]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, it's like an episode of Bluey. This is one that Meredith brought to episode 40 of season six and therefore at that time convinced me to pick it up. It's a good thing that I did so post haste, because by the time the episode released, every single bookish friend was posting about this book and saying only wonder things, so I probably would have run fast in the other direction.
- [19:23]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right, I told you, you better read it now because that's exactly what's going to happen.
- [19:27]
Katie Cobb
Do it now. Thankfully, though, I was quick on the draw. I picked up this small and sweet story about an elderly woman named Helen Cartwright. She has moved back to the village in which she was raised in order to finish out her last earthly days. She's hoping for an easy death with minimal fuss, like a very proper British woman. But one night she hears a bit of a kerfuffle out front and sees her neighbor drag out an old fish tank and some toys to the curb. When she brings it inside to clean it up and hopefully make it useful again, she is surprised to find a mouse has taken up residence inside the tank. It is this chance encounter that leads to an unlikely friendship and two creatures forming a connection with each other in very unlikely circumstances. More so this is not just a story about Helen and a mouse. It's a story of the grocer in town who also has a bit of a hardware store, the doctor who lends helpful advice and is not a vet but has some things that he thinks and a story about finding connection when you thought there was no one left to lean on. Helen's son and her husband have both passed away before this story starts, so she is old and alone. She is carrying grief. I adored this sweet little book. I have kept it since then in my in case of Emergency Break Glass shelf. It's a list of recommendations for those who just need a little bit of comfort in what feels like an otherwise bleak time. This is a perfect book for that moment or when you've finished something very difficult that you just read. And for many of us maybe it's a perfect book for right now, whatever is going on in your life, maybe you need a little comfort. Sipsworth. If you did not pick it up last summer when it was literally everywhere, maybe now is the time. This is Sipsworth by Simon Van Bui.
- [21:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, I'm really now kind of obsessed with the notion of people. If anyone reads True Crime, please also at the exact same time, put Sipsworth in your bag. Because I mean it really a We contain multitudes as readers. Right? Because I equally was into each of these books. Yes, right. And I'm so Glad that we can contain multitudes. And I'm so glad that books like Sipsworth are out there that remind you that there is so much good in humanity.
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Katie Cobb
Yes, that's exactly what this book is.
- [21:47]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. My second book is also much different and lighter than my first one. I'm really sorry I started this out on such a down. I don't know why I did that.
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Katie Cobb
One thing to talk about.
- [21:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay, my next book is a business book. Again, you guys know I'm doing my morning reads. That's why we're getting more of these business books. This one is the horribly titled and I will touch on this later, Getting Naked. Oh, I hate that.
- [22:11]
Katie Cobb
Doesn't sound like a terrible title to me.
- [22:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Well, it's a business book, Katie. Anyway, it's called Getting Naked, but it's by Patrick Lencioni, one of my absolute favorites. So the setup is that this is a business fable. Again, you guys know my obsession with business fables. This is a business fable about shedding the three fears that sabotage client loyalty.
- [22:33]
Katie Cobb
And it's a shirt, pants, and underwear.
- [22:35]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, well, metaphorically naked in this case. So this was supposed to be my morning reading book. I drank it in in a single sitting. Oops. This always happens with Patrick Lencioni's books. I love him. About 10 years ago, my CEO coach turned me on to a book called the Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. And since then I have read multiple, multiple of his business books. And that, of course, is what this is. It's a business book. In this case, it's a book that really gets into the nuts and bolts about building a client focused service business. This is told as many of his books are in the form of a business fable. And I've said here on the show that I love this format because these books go down like milkshakes for me. I love to read books that have to do with businesses. And that's exactly what this is. I also love that oftentimes he writes these business fables from the point of view of someone who does not believe in the tenants that he is exploring in the books. Because then he sort of hides these tenants within the story. And of course, by the end of the book, our narrator has become a believer. It's a swing up, and I love a swing up. For some reason, writing it like that always just makes me so happy. I can't wait to see this person's mind being changed as they see these business principles being practiced in real life. That's what these business fables do. They give you a real story that you're reading like you would read a novel. And then of course, you're learning along the way. I've said before that Patrick Lencioni is probably the author whose overall business ethos, whose way of thinking about being a CEO and running a company, is as close to mine as any author I've ever found. So reading his books is a way for me to sharpen my saw as a CEO. Lots of his books have primarily to do with leadership, but in Getting Naked, he's really talking about running the sales arm of your business. In this case, this book, we have a consulting firm who's trying to sell their consulting to various clients. And then we have the big, brash kind of San Francisco huge consulting firm. And then this one that we're following is this small boutique firm. And of course our narrator is from the big brash firm and he gets thrown into learning how the smaller boutique firm does their business. And in reality he realizes that not only is the way that the small company doing their business better, but it is in fact scalable. I love it. I also really think that this book would be incredibly useful whether you're running a consulting firm or I think it would be useful for anyone who does sales of any kind. My day job as CEO of Here Comes the Guide. That's what we do. We sell advertising to wedding venues. And so there were multiple things in this book that had me figuring out new ways that I want to train my newest staff in interacting with our clients. The only thing I didn't like about the book is what I said at the beginning. It's got a dumb title. It just feels super clickbaity. And I It didn't need to be named that it's written back in 2010 when I kind of feel like a clickbait title like this was very de rigueur. It's all about the fact that being real as humans as we do, our business is probably going to be better business than pretending that we are automatons. But Getting Naked, I don't love it. So we'll overlook that one small issue. I get so many people asking me for a list of my favorite business books and what I always want to do is just say, just go read Patrick Lencioni. Start with the advantage and then just go down his list in order that he wrote them. You will be incredibly well served. This one is called Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni.
- [26:14]
Katie Cobb
Wow. I'd upvote the nakedness, but I guess it sounds good.
- [26:18]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes, it was very Very good. If you run any kind of service business or you are a part of, not even if you're running it, but if you're a part of, if that is part of your job. Highly recommend this one.
- [26:30]
Katie Cobb
Okay, interesting. I like that. And is this one like these business fables, are they shorter or are. Yeah, I mean, you're saying single sitting, right?
- [26:40]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, it was like 200 maybe. I don't know, but like 200 to 225. But super short chapters. Okay, so we love that. Really fast.
- [26:50]
Katie Cobb
Okay, excellent. Okay. My second one this week is called the Night Ends With Fire by KX Song. I picked this one up at Brightside Bookshop right before they were IPL partners with us in August. The Arizona bookish friends road tripped up the hill to escape the heat because August in the Phoenix area is horrific. Nobody come in August, but Flagstaff is really lovely and I was seduced by shelf talkers and sprayed edges in this case. And this is for good reason. This one was a hit for me. Here's the setup. Maylene has been a dutiful Chinese daughter for her entire life, but now it's time for her to draw the line. Her father intends to sell her into marriage in order to secure her bride price, and it will continue to fund his opium addiction. It's the same reason that he's dodging the Imperial draft the summons asking him to report to the battlefront. The three kingdoms are at war and they need all the fighting men they can get at the front. When Maylene discovers that the man her father is planning to sell her to is an abusive a hole, she opts to take matters into her own hands, chop her hair and join the army as a man instead. Does this sound familiar? Yes, it does. If it feels like the darker timeline version of Disney's Mulan. Ding ding, ding, you've hit the nail on the head. Although there are plenty of fun nods in this book to the Disney version of this tale, Maylene is not just relying on a lucky cricket to get by. She is also imbued with the power of the sea dragon. This is much more than Eddie Murphy as Mushu saying dishonor on your cow. It's a powerful force and that power draws her in as a protagonist. Maylene ends up being kind of morally gray, and I love that for us as readers. She is angry about her lot in life as a young woman and the anti feminist sentiment of China at the time, and she is desperate to change things in that way. This is a book that embodies the Ragiest parts of feminist rage literature. For me, the writing was lacking a bit in that it felt a little bit more like YA than adult writing. And it's shelved as adult, but the main character is only 18. So it felt okay to me that it was a little bit more YA feeling. It didn't take away much of the enjoyment for me. There are darker themes here as well, which I enjoyed because they added depth to the story. So while this wasn't a five star read for me, I did enjoy it enough to see where the author goes in book two of this series, which is due out in August of this year, when I will once again need to escape the heat of Phoenix. It's called the Dragon Wakes With Thunder. This one, just a gorgeous, gorgeous copy. It's the Night Ends With Fire by KX Song.
- [29:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
That sounds excellent.
- [29:29]
Katie Cobb
It's so good.
- [29:30]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, that sounds really, really good. Okay. My third book is a little something different and it was absolutely five stars for me. It was a book I was so glad that I read. Oh, I just absolutely loved it. This is the Hike by Drew Magary.
- [29:47]
Katie Cobb
Hike. Okay.
- [29:48]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Drew Magary. Magarry. M A G A R Y Megary.
- [29:53]
Katie Cobb
I would say Magary. If it were an I, I would say Magarry. Why? I don't know.
- [29:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm just. I'm just gonna keep it that. I'm gonna keep Megary the way that. Okay. I'm also going to give you so little setup in this book. These are three books now where I've given very, very little setup for three different reasons. All right? For this one, don't read the Amazon setup. They give too much. All right, here's what you need to know. Our main character is Ben. He's a family guy. Like a from the suburbs family guy. He takes a business trip to rural Pennsylvania, checks into his hotel, and he realizes he has like four and a half hours until the first business dinner that he had, you know, so he's like, okay, I'm just gonna go do a little hike, like kind of right back behind the hotel. Once he sets out into the woods behind his hotel, he quickly comes to realize that the path he has chosen is not the path that he thought he was on. That's all I'm gonna give you. All right. I had heard about this book from several different people, but I never really looked into it, so I didn't really know what it was about. Like, people would be like, I think you'd be interested in this book. And I'd see the COVID and the COVID has a crab on it and I just for some reason was like, okay, just I didn't look further. I should have. It turns out even after I read the blurb, I still didn't really know what it was about. And that's by design. But again, don't go read the blurb. The reality is that this is a book that you just need to go into and you just need to let it be what it's going to be. Because what this book was for me as I read it the very last week of the year was exactly what my reading had been missing in 2024. This book is fun and fast and bizarre. Bizarre is the operative word here. It's not weird, it's bizarre. And I'm realizing that that distinction makes all the difference for me. If you read any sort of rating and review or on the hike, you're going to see some people love it and some people hate it. You're also going to see that both of these groups of people use phrases like what the heck is happening in this book. The distinction for me is that a weird book is where things are happening that literally make no sense. But bizarre is when things make sense but are happening in a way that is very out of the normal. I know that that's not exactly properly stated, but that's kind of the closest I can get to to making this distinction. This book is not at all like the library at Mount Char in any way, shape or form, except that they both had me thinking what is happening and also grinning in the same sort of way. For me as a reader, sometimes bizarre is like a carbonated beverage. It's like a 7 up on a really hot day. It's that kind of story you don't expect, and it takes you in completely unpredictable directions, but it gives your brain something to fizz on. It gives it something new to consider. Put put new pictures in your mind about what is possible. The hike to me felt like the part of Stephen King's fairy tale that I really liked, without all the bloat that made me dnf that book. The hike is incredibly imaginative and at its heart is an adventure of the best kind. It's got giants and killer crickets and smoke monsters, but it also has lovely things too, things you'd like to conjure out of thin air if you could. I loved the whole scope of imagination that Drew Magery used here. It's fizzy and fun. The hike also left me doing a heck of a lot of ruminating about a lot of different things none of which I can say in this conversation because it would be spoilery. But what I will say is that I loved this book and I immediately pressed it into my husband's hands physically, and he read it and came home early one day to discuss it with me because he had to talk about it the moment it was done. It is such an excellent book and it's an excellent book to share. I think you'll probably feel the same. This was the Hike by Drew Magery.
- [34:00]
Katie Cobb
Okay, well, you sold me. I. Oh, it's so good.
- [34:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Katie, this one you would like.
- [34:05]
Katie Cobb
Okay.
- [34:06]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, you would like this book.
- [34:07]
Katie Cobb
It feels like that's true.
- [34:09]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. You specifically would definitely like this book.
- [34:13]
Katie Cobb
Okay, yeah, I'm gonna find it. I'm gonna get it.
- [34:16]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And by the way, that crab that turned me off is now such a favorite character that thinking about crab is making my eyes.
- [34:24]
Katie Cobb
I see you a little bit misty.
- [34:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Like that's. Never judge a book by its cover.
- [34:30]
Katie Cobb
Listen, I don't need to be falling in love with any more types of sea creatures. So like arthropods under the water need to stay far away from me. It's a problem. Okay. My third one this week is called the White Girl by Tony Burch. This book found me and I'm glad it did. It's backlist published more than five years ago and it jumped off a table into my basket at my old indie bookstore, Garcia Street Books in Santa Fe, but I didn't know what it was about. Tony Burch, though, is a well established Australian Aboriginal writer. And this is historical fiction that one of many that he's published over the last 15 to 20 years. Like he's done a lot of writing. Here's the setup. Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. This first little paragraph, this is from the publisher and I liked it. After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair skinned aboriginal children from their families. When a new policeman arrives in town determined to enforce that law, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect those that she loves. Odette, this main character, this grandma, she is phenomenal. She is a fiercely protective grandmother, one who desperately wants good things for her daughter and who will do whatever it takes to help her granddaughter and the people she loves. She is strong and resourceful. And in this book, which is set in the 1960s, her story sheds light on the policies of child separation that the Australian government perpetrated at the time. It's very much a US centric view of the world that's at fault here for me, but I knew and have read about the ways of indigenous families and children that have been the ways they've been treated in the US and Canada over the course of the 20th century, but had zero idea that very similar policies were in place in Australia with regard to Aboriginal communities. Much like the Dry by Jane Harper, this novel is centered in small town outback Australia with a location change to Melbourne about halfway through, and Birch does a phenomenal job just setting the reader right there firmly in place, helping us see and feel and smell and taste the Australian landscape. I loved the journeys via the train, the bustle of the city and the boarding houses, and the interaction with local police. This is not classified as a mystery, but we are trying to find Sissy's mom and Odette's daughter and piecing together clues like amateur sleuths while trying to avoid the actual police. In the meantime, who will separate this grandma and this granddaughter who really love each other? I love the way it was constructed. I ended up giving it 4.75 stars. I just adored this book and I It just jumped into my cart. Like I don't even know how it found me. Just intrigued by the title and the COVID It was so, so good. It's the White Girl by Tony Burch.
- [37:28]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
This proves my point that books will find you when you need them.
- [37:31]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. And it's been on my shelf for probably three or four years at this point because I moved a year and a half ago. So who knows, right?
- [37:39]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
They will find you when you need them and I absolutely love that.
- [37:43]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [37:43]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Such power in bookish serendipity.
- [37:46]
Katie Cobb
So fun. So good. All right, let's boss some victims for their TBRs. I'm so excited to get into this month's this quarter's picks. We just do this every once in a while. It's fun.
- [37:56]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, yeah. There's no real schedule. It's just when the mood strikes. And these are two really good ones that I'm excited to talk about.
- [38:04]
Katie Cobb
Yes, definitely. So I actually pulled from our two different communities for this one because I knew we were going to be talking about Patreon when we started this episode. So I've got one victim from Discord and one from Facebook today which I'm excited about. The first one is a dear friend of ours on Facebook. Her name is Mari and here's what she says. Me, me, me. Because I say who would like to be a victim. And a lot of times the answer is pick me, pick me. She says, I'm working on clearing my TBR shelf and here are five books that I want to either read or donate and clear this space. So here's what she's got. Book one is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. Book two is Life of PI by Jan Martel. Three is the Fragile Threads of Power by V. E Schwab. Four is the Enchanted by Renee Denfield. And five is the Wildest sun by Asha Lemmy. She says her most recent five star book this year was Cold People by Tom Robb Smith, accompanied by Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty. That was thanks to Meredith and a beloved Auto Buy author for those two. And I asked for a quirk this time for people's. For people's, which I think is a.
- [39:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Good question to help us out.
- [39:12]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, yeah. And so she said her quirk is she tends to have five or six going at a time and do chunks of reading in one book for a few days and then move to another book. So she has like a carousel of reading, but if she's gripped, she will stick with it to the end. So she will not get off the carousel and choose a new animal, which is very fun way to think about our reading. I also have a lot of books going on at once, but I'm never, like everything else off the table, this is the one for me because they're always in different formats. So I like knowing this about Mari and her reading life.
- [39:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
See, I do do that. But I, I will have that happen. And then my toxic trait is then I will, I will get it in all the other. Like, usually, usually it'll be a book that I have in hard, you know, in like a print book. And then I, I will be like, well, now I clearly need to finish this right this second, which involves getting it on my Kindle.
- [40:00]
Katie Cobb
Mm. And pulling it up on Spotify so you can dip in and out of that. Yeah.
- [40:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And that can, that can definitely happen too. All right, Katie. Yes. I thought that this was a really, really interesting group of books to choose from. Many of them I already definitely was aware of. But one of them, the Enchanted, I had never heard of. Me Neither by Renee Dinfield. So that one was one that was really, really interesting. I looked it up and they say that the Enchanted, basically it is for readers of Alice Sebold and Toni Morrison, told from the point of view of a conviction whose magical interpretations of prison life allow him to find absolute joy while isolated from the rest of humanity, and a female investigator who experiences her own personal salvation in her work as a death penalty investigator. So the Enchanted Place is a high security prison. And then we're like in the eyes of this death row inmate who escapes his surroundings by immersing himself in books and reimagining the world that surrounds him. What a fascinating structure. But then I started also thinking about Life After Life and the Fragile Threads of Power, two books that I am aware of. And the theme here. If she were to choose these three books in the order of Life After Life, the Fragile Threads of Power and the Enchanted, the theme between those books is the same world, but slightly altered. So in Life After Life, we have the same. The same world, but sort of doing the same timeline over and over again. In Fragile Threads of Power, we have one place, but in three, but in. In several alterations. And then in the Enchanted, we're saying it's you're in this world, but your imagination is taking you to this altered world. So I like the idea of doing these three as a book flight. Because she reads five or six books on the go, I think that she could do that and get the benefit of the theme that these three books would be bringing to her. This world, but slightly altered, but with. Without feeling like it was repetitive because she could do it within the bounds of reading some other books at the same time. So that's the way I would do it.
- [42:09]
Katie Cobb
Okay, I like that a lot. I also chose Life After Life first, partially because what she says about, you know, kind of swapping through books, but if one grabs her, she'll dig in. And I feel like Life After Life really lends itself to that idea because the main character is living a life over and over and over again. So you could say, okay, I read that chunk for now, I'm sorry, swap to something else. Or if you felt really grabbed, it's great as a binge read as well. So I think that one is just a perfect one to pick up first. My second pick was a One of these Things is not like the other pick. And it was to put the literary historical fiction in the center spot. So kind of switching things up and doing the exact opposite of what Meredith did. Because the other two picks I had were exactly the same. So the wildest son is the outlier on the stack. It has no fantasy or magical realism element mentioned in the storygraph blurbs or where wherever on the Internet, whereas all four of the other ones on their genres mention either fantasy or magical realism or both. So they. They kind of all have a theme together. So I think for that reason, it might be a bit of a challenge for Mari, but maybe she needs to mix up her reading life a little bit. So I put that as second, and then third, I put the Enchanted by Rene Dunfield. It's got the books give us life books help us escape vibes to it that maybe some of us are looking for right now, and that makes most of us want to read more. So I think it'll help us keep her momentum going. So I like that one third as well.
- [43:43]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, that one was very interesting for me. I'm looking into that one myself.
- [43:48]
Katie Cobb
I don't really like the COVID that I found. Oh, I think they could have done better.
- [43:52]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay, okay.
- [43:53]
Katie Cobb
It's like horses and bars, and I'm sure they play into it, but that just like the bars, that makes sense because it's got this, like, prison situation in it. But I don't know why there's all these horses on it. And I don't like that.
- [44:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Did you see, like. Do you know when it came out?
- [44:06]
Katie Cobb
Yes, I looked it up. I think it was 2014.
- [44:09]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay. All right. So good backlist. I love it.
- [44:12]
Katie Cobb
And it's only 233 pages, so nice. It's gonna be a quicker read as well, which is nice.
- [44:18]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, Katie, you want me to do this next one?
- [44:20]
Katie Cobb
Sure. Yeah.
- [44:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. This next one is from Judith, and Judith is part of the community on Discord. So she also begins her response by saying, me, me, me. She really wants us to choose her for this, Judith says. My most recent five star read was the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness. I struggled to describe my reading because I like pretty much anything so long as it's written well. I love a book where nothing happens, but the writing is beautiful, like Still Life by Sarah Winman or Eve Green by Susan Fletcher. The quality of writing is more important than the top. Love an exciting story, too, and something a bit weird, and I especially love a dark and twisty tale. All right, Katie, what books did you choose here?
- [45:04]
Katie Cobb
Well, are you gonna tell us her five books, Meredith?
- [45:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, gosh, yes. Sorry.
- [45:08]
Katie Cobb
Okay, sounds good.
- [45:10]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Here are her five books, which will be very helpful.
- [45:12]
Katie Cobb
Yes, we should know those.
- [45:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The first one is the Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. The second one is the Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. The third one is A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan. The fourth, the Book of Doors by Gareth Brown. And the fifth, Forever Home by Graham Norton. All right, Katie, now I will ask you, what are your thoughts?
- [45:35]
Katie Cobb
Okay. I thought this was. This was such a unique request because we so rarely get people saying, help me choose for my tbr. All that matters to me is beautiful writing. Yeah, like, nobody. Nobody ever says that to us. And I think it's because we have self selected our own community of readers that are like, we love plot and short chapters. Amen. But beautiful writing is a really great reason to pick up a book. To that end, this is going totally off book here, but if Judith has not picked up Orbital, which I talked about last week, she needs to do that. That's a bonus wreck for you, my friend. And if you have not, just go ahead and put it first.
- [46:10]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I actually am laughing because I also was like, I don't like these choices I'm gonna give you.
- [46:15]
Katie Cobb
She loves beautiful writing. What's she doing? Right, Right. Okay. So, yeah, as far as what's still on this TBR list, none of these, which I've read and loved. Four of the five of these, none of them were like, oh, my gosh. But that one, the writing, that's why this one should be first for Judith. And I think that's probably why they're still on her TBR list rather than these are books that I've already read and loved. So with that being said, I want to say that Natural History of Dragons is the most interesting writing to me because of the, like, diary type writing. And it's. It feels old, like Jane Austen, but it's also dragons. It just has a lot of interesting elements to it, so I'm putting that first. Then I went with Library at Mount Char for a totally turned on your head way to read. She said she likes something a bit weird. This has a lot a bit weird in it. And dark and twisty. We definitely got dark and twisty here as well, right? Yeah. And then I'm ending with the Nightingale, which probably does have good writing, but just like Kristin Hannah does, she tears out your heart. And I think this is her best book of the many that I've read before I decided to jump ship on the Kristin Hannah bandwagon. So I have put that one third.
- [47:26]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. I went off book, so. Okay. I don't want to not do the assignment. So let me say that if I had to choose from these five, the three that I chose are the same that you chose.
- [47:36]
Katie Cobb
Okay.
- [47:36]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The Library at Mount Char, the Nightingale, and Natural History of Dragons. However, what I really want to do is give her a list of three books which would still start with the Library at Mount Char, because I really think that she might really love that one. I also want to say the hike because I feel like that's got some of that same weird but really well done. And then I also think Natural History of Dragons I think is lovely. I think it would be great. But I just finished a book that I'm going to be bringing to the show in the coming weeks called A Winter's Promise. It's fantasy and also just beautifully written. It's got a little bit of a Dickensian vibe, but not written in a difficult to read style. It's very beautiful. It's a little bit weird. I feel like it would be a great fit for her. It's translated from the French. It's got a gorgeous cover. I just feel like A Winter's Promise for Judith would be a really big hit. So that's my threesome library at Mount Charles. A few Natural History of Dragons and A Winter's Promise.
- [48:39]
Katie Cobb
I kind of also want to give her all the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. It's got that darkness and twistiness that she likes. But he is a very exceptional writer. Although you have to like his style of writing to enjoy that book.
- [48:52]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah.
- [48:53]
Katie Cobb
Oh, I love that book.
- [48:54]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Well, and also. Right. Also Zori by Laird Hunt is another one that came to me for her, for sure.
- [49:01]
Katie Cobb
Sorry, Judith. That was like 10 books.
- [49:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yep. Sorry.
- [49:04]
Katie Cobb
Sorry. Not sorry. Okay, great. Let's move to the fountain. I'm excited about this. I feel like you've already alluded to this at some point, Meredith. So I have a little preview of what you're going to talk about here today. But let's hear it.
- [49:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right before we started recording, I said yes. So I want two things that I want that my wish is to kind of communicate to everybody. So I want to let everyone know. And thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have so thoughtfully reached out to ask, when is the next episode of A Journey to Three Pines going to come out? It has been a while, folks. You're not imagining things. We, Roxanna and I, between the two of us, have had a really full last few months. And so we are going to record A Journey to Three Pines. The Beautiful A Beautiful Mystery is the next book. It's the eighth one in the series. We're going to record it in the beginning of February. Hopefully by late February we will have that out to you. So it is coming know that we have a plan. Reading has commenced. Rereading close. Reading has commenced. Also, I'm about halfway through my close read of wicked by Gregory McGuire, as a part of our group, our bookish friends group, we are doing a community read together of that book. I am really remembering why I liked it the first time. But I, as a reader, I read it probably 15 years ago, 10 years ago, a long time ago. I am a very different reader now, and I am enjoying the experience of what I'm bringing to the book now. As an older parent, as a older woman, I'm just. I'm seeing things completely differently. I'm really enjoying the read of that. So if you want to join us, we are going to get together. It's 2:22 that we're getting together for this. Right?
- [50:45]
Katie Cobb
2:22.
- [50:45]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
So become a bookish friend. Join us for that. That read of Wicked. We're going to have a great discussion.
- [50:51]
Katie Cobb
Of it, and we're going to do that on Crowdcast. So it'll be like a live podcast episode happening where we're talking about it live and everybody's there with us at the same time, which will be very fun, only for our bookish friends. So definitely jump on board there. I almost made that my bookish moment this week, which is interesting because I did not like Wicked the first time I read it, and this time I am enjoying it a lot. I'm also about halfway through. It has a lot more to offer than the first time that I read it, which is interesting, right?
- [51:18]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, exactly. I think that if you've been thinking, I don't want to do Wicked because I just didn't love it when I read it when it first came out.
- [51:25]
Katie Cobb
It's different.
- [51:26]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I really feel like we as a species are in a very different place. It's interesting to see how this book has aged.
- [51:34]
Katie Cobb
Yes, big agree. That's not my fountain wish, but I do wish that more people would join us for that. I think it's going to be really a great conversation.
- [51:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. Even if you just want to join us for the month of February, dip into that and then bounce. That's totally fine.
- [51:47]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. Yeah, we love that for you. Okay. My fountain wish kind of relates back to Meredith's first one, which is, I'm going to honk my own horn, not toot it today. I know it's toot, but honk is the operative verb here because our lovely bookish friend Tracy just unveiled her newly named porch goose, which she came to the bookish friends for in help naming. This is the kind of delight that I'm talking about in the bookish friends group. Right. So she asked for assistance, told us some of her favorite Books asked for some naming ideas. Lots of fun, great ideas in the post, which is why it feels so extra special that she chose my suggestion. He has now been christened Inspector Goosemach in honor. In honor of the lovely Louise Penny and her Three Pines series, Inspector Gamache. We all love it. Of course, we're all waiting for the beautiful mystery episode. The good inspector is inside for the winter. He cannot migrate to warmer climes to visit me, but he'll be on her breeding porch all summer helping her solve mysteries. And I'm just so proud. A lot of people know, longtime listeners know that the Internet helped me name my actual human baby. Annalee's name came from a group, a wonderful community on the Internet that came from the sorta awesome podcast when I was pregnant with her. So I really love passing that tradition along and getting to help name somebody's somebody else's new family member. Inspector Goosemash.
- [53:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
That was an absolutely inspired idea that you had. I think it was the clear winner. I am so glad.
- [53:21]
Katie Cobb
It makes me so happy.
- [53:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And it's. If you, I mean, you just have to go look at the picture of that goose and then think about it being named Inspector Goosemach. Because now I'm like, there's so many ways that we could dress him.
- [53:33]
Katie Cobb
What you see in the comments, one of Jen, another bookish friend, said that she makes outfits for her own, her own goose, her porch goose. And she would be willing to make Inspector Goosemash a trench coat.
- [53:43]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay, except he. Okay, but that's not how.
- [53:46]
Katie Cobb
Okay, he needs a sweater.
- [53:48]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
He needs a sweater with a little. A collared shirt underneath and a long sleeve sweater. And some slacks.
- [53:54]
Katie Cobb
Yes, goose slacks.
- [53:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Do you know how much money I would pay for someone to make that goose slacks? I mean, how would they stay up?
- [54:04]
Katie Cobb
He'd need suspenders, glue, I don't know.
- [54:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's a goose. It's a glass goose living. But let's not let that get in the way of the idea of him wearing Gamache's slacks on those tiny spindly goose legs with the feet coming out the bottom.
- [54:22]
Katie Cobb
My real wish for this fountain is that somehow Louise Penny gets to see this, that she sees that Inspector Goosemash exists in the world. And I just, it makes me so happy.
- [54:32]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It really does. I got. And in fact, I showed. So at the beginning of the episode, I said that Johnny and I had gotten into this strident conversation about the goods or ills of social media. And when that came across, I flipped my phone out and I'm like, look at this. Look at this goose.
- [54:48]
Katie Cobb
Tell me the Internet is a bad thing when this exists.
- [54:50]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Tell me there's anything wrong with this porch goose being named Inspector Goosemach by our group. I challenge you. Yeah. So he was like, all right, point made. Point made.
- [55:02]
Katie Cobb
Touche.
- [55:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. All right, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me. I'm Meredith, Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram.
- [55:13]
Katie Cobb
And you can find me Katie, naming things all over the Internet at notes on bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Puttivong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of Megansreads full show notes with.
- [55:26]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The title of every book we mentioned in the episode and timestamps so you can zoom right to where we talked about. It can be found in our show notes and on our website@currentlyreadingpodcast.com you can.
- [55:37]
Katie Cobb
Also follow the show at Currently reading podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreading podcastmail.com.
- [55:43]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And if you want more bookish community, if you want to keep the show commercial free because you love it that way, join us as a bookish friend. It's only $5 a month, and it's a great way to support the show and make a lot of other bookish friends. You can also shout us out on social media or rate and review us on Apple podcasts. All three of those things make a huge difference in our finding our perfect audience.
- [56:06]
Katie Cobb
Bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you all for helping us grow and keep our lives together and get closer to our goals.
- [56:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, until next week, may your.
- [56:16]
Katie Cobb
Coffee be hot and your book be unput downable.
- [56:19]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Happy reading, Katie.
- [56:20]
Katie Cobb
Happy reading, Meredith.
- [56:28]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Do you know that when you said you were gonna honk your own horn instead of tooting it, I just really couldn't get out of my head what you were gonna honk.
- [56:42]
Katie Cobb
You were the one who talked about getting naked earlier. Ma'am, it's a goose. It honks. I had to play with it.
- [56:51]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
No, it made total sense once you said it. But you started out saying you were gonna honk your own horn.
- [56:58]
Katie Cobb
Well, I didn't say not play my own Bazan.