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The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 7, Episode 33: The Perfect Reading Ambiance + Finding Hidden Gems
01:02:33
On this episode of Currently Reading, Meredith and Roxanna are discussing: Bookish Moments: the perfect reading experience and hearing others talk about books Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading...
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- [00:00]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
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]
Roxanna Kasamkara
We're light on the chitchat, heavy on the book talk, and our descriptions will always be spoiler free. Today we'll discuss our current reads, a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.
- [00:35]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom of four and full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And hearing people talk about scary books is my jam.
- [00:44]
Roxanna Kasamkara
And I'm Roxanna Kasamkara, a mom, a marketer and a mood reader living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And this week I'm embracing the capriciousness of this is episode number 33 of season seven. And we're so glad you're here.
- [00:59]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes, Roxanna, I am so glad that you're here. As always, we love to record together and I know we have several books we are really excited about talking together about.
- [01:10]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yeah, today is going to be such a fun conversation. Mir.
- [01:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Absolutely. We're going to have to fight to keep it under two hours or 90 minutes. Like a journey to three pints. We love a 90 minute episode. Okay.
- [01:21]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yes, we really do.
- [01:22]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, so we are going to do a deep dive today about the question of how do you find hidden gems. We hear people talk about that a lot, but how do you actually find them? Spoiler alert. This is going to be a little bit of a one sided conversation because Roxanna is really, really good at it. But before we do that, let's get to our bookish moments of the week. Roxanna, what is yours?
- [01:46]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Okay, well, Meredith, I know March in Austin is beautiful and sunny. I can see in your tank top now. Yes, as you see, I have a shawl and a sweater and a long sleeve. You know, it is snowy and stormy and rainy and we had kind of the wintriest February we've had in many moons. So I'm really sort of embracing that and embracing kind of that snowy snowstorm weather. So at nighttime now what I do before I go to bed is turn off all the lights, open the blinds on all the windows. So I have a wall of windows facing my bed. And so I lie down in the dark with all the windows on, like not open but without, with the blinds drawn open and all the when it snows here, the light turns pink. So this really kind of beautiful glowy pink. And so I just lie in bed and have this glowy pink light come in. And then Kieran always sleeps beside me. And then when Aziz comes, he takes her and moves her to her room and we both have our Kindles and we put them on dark mode. And it's like the most beautiful kind of sensory deprivation experience after a day of just extroverting. To just sit quietly in that pink light and in the dimness and watch the snowfall and read books is like my favorite favorite moment of the day.
- [03:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, that sounds wonderful. And yes, the perfect way to kind of just bring all your senses down and really, really prepare for sleep. And to be able to share it with, with Kieran too is really, really nice. Those are gonna be great memories.
- [03:16]
Roxanna Kasamkara
I love it. I love it. Okay, so I wanna hear more about your horror books and where you're hearing about them.
- [03:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. Well, I've talked about one of my favorite podcasts is Talking Scared. The host, Neil McRobert, is just one of my favorite readers and he talks about books in a way that, I mean, I listen to him hoping that he will rub off on me. He just talks about books so wonderfully. And he did an episode recently on Victorian Psycho, which I talked about on last week's episode. So, you know, this was a five star book for me. He had a conversation with author Virginia Leto about her novel Victorian psycho on episode 226, which dropped on February 11th. I definitely, of course, as always, recommend reading the book before you listen to that episode because they do get into it all the way through. But it gave me so many aha moments. It gave me so Virginia Leto was a fantastic guest. She was really, really fun to listen to. Really got into her process and what her, her thoughts were. She was writing different parts of the book. It was just one of those episodes of a book podcast that made me say this is why I listen to book podcasts now. I don't always love episodes that are about one specific book. I prefer, you know, compendium podcasts like ours. But this, this particular show I like a lot and this particular episode I highly recommend. So if you were interested at all, when I talked about Victorian Psycho, you're going to, you're going to want to take a listen to that on Talking Scared.
- [04:53]
Roxanna Kasamkara
I just love that when I read a book I love and then I find the perfect podcast, you know, that complements it. It just takes the experience up so much, especially when the author, like, you know, when you talked about Victorian Psycho to me, it just seemed like such a different kind of book. So to get insight into what the author was thinking and her particular sense of humor and, you know, style and her process. Sounds so fascinating. Like really feels like it would bring that book to life in a different way.
- [05:22]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. And there were multiple times, I mean, I felt like I kind of had a lock on the book and what it was about and what its themes were. There were a few things that I hadn't even thought about that just had light bulbs going off over my head. So it was a really great hour long conversation. All right, let's get into our bookish conversation. What is your first book that you want to talk about this week?
- [05:43]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Okay. My first book is my first five star and maybe even my best book of the year already. Meredith. It's the Frozen river by Ariel Loughton. So I am late to the party on this one. It has a hundred thousand reviews on Goodreads, but I had to bring it because, Meredith, you know, you heard me talk about this. This was an incredible reading experience to me. I am bereft now that it's done and I just want to make sure everybody hears about it.
- [06:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I was literally concerned for you when you were done. It was one of those books that I just knew you were going to have such a hangover afterwards. But then that's what we have to like. We have to give that. We have to experience that in order to love a book that much. So it's bittersweet.
- [06:29]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yeah, exactly. I knew when I was reading it, I told you this is the book. When I'm finished listening to this, I'm gonna just be in the deepest book angle forever. But I couldn't, I couldn't help it. It was so good. So this I'll just see. And people are like, what is this book about? Well, it's historical fiction, which I never read, to be honest. Not because I don't like historical fiction. It just doesn't usually, you know, those covers with the women on their backs, it just. The women are not on the backs. You have the backs. I just heard that's a different genre. Yeah, no, the backs of the women on the covers. Let's be clear. It's that, you know, I just, even though those. I think sometimes they. I do a disservice to the books because I assume the books are all the same and there's. The stories are all the same and they're not. It's just that the covers are similar and I, you know, I just go past them for better or for worse.
- [07:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Well, and also publishers be better. I mean, really, I started thinking about this in our A recent bookish conversation about Historical fiction about. Oh, you know what it was the Fabled Book review. And this came up and I was thinking, you know, the treatment of historical fiction novels is not unlike the cartoony treatment or the Fabio treatment of romances, where it's kind of this like, oh, well, women just. They're just women's books. So let's just plop the same cover on it over and over again. I mean, it just feels very, you know, pointed to me. But anyway. Frozen River. Yes.
- [07:57]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yeah, but I'm with you because they also give them titles like the Paris Woman and the Paris Wife and the Blah blah, Blah's Wife, and they all have the same titles. And then the stories are very different. The writers are doing good work, but you can't tell it because the titles and the covers all look the same. So.
- [08:12]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right.
- [08:13]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Anyway, for Better, for Worse, this one, I think came up in my Goodreads. And I saw it and I saw that it had a really high Goodreads rating in all these reviews. And so I was like, okay, you know, I really, this year I'm really trying to be more experimental and diverse, not like more diverse in what I read and try new things. So I thought, okay, I'm going to pick this up on audio. To be honest, I was a little bit getting in because a big, long historical fiction in audio. I just feel like, oh, my God, it's going to take me five chapters to get into. No, that is not this book. You are in the second you start it. So this book is set in 1789 Maine, and it follows Martha Ballard, who is a real character, by the way. She's a midwife with an iron will and an unwavering moral compass who finds herself pulled into a harrowing murder case when a man's body is discovered frozen in the Kennebec River. And that happens. Chapter one. You find out somebody almost drowned and they found this body and you're in.
- [09:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yep.
- [09:08]
Roxanna Kasamkara
First glance, she's supposed to just record the details. It's just another entry in the meticulous journal she keeps about her work. Because she also, you know, because she's the midwife, she also has medical background. So then sometimes they call her in when cases like this happen to sort of record the medical details as they're investigating. But she quickly realizes that this death is anything but ordinary. As she begins investigating, she uncovers a web of violence, betrayal, and dark secrets lurking beneath the surface in this tightly controlled community. And here's what really hooked Me. You know, Martha isn't just a passive observer or a woman caught in unfortunate circumstances. She is a force. So she was actually. Martha Ballard was the first midwife that we have records of at this time. And the way Lauhen had drawn this character, you know, this isn't just someone who delivers babies. She's a healer, she's a confidant. She's a record keeper in many ways. She's a protector of women. She is a fierce enneagram one. She also knows things about people that others don't because she is privy to the most private experiences of their lives. Right. And that, of course, makes her a target. So when the town's most powerful women try to silence her, she refuses to back down. But what happens when the very act of seeking justice puts her own life at risk? You know, Meredith, I love books with strong, intelligent female protagonists who are constantly underestimated. And Martha is exactly that. What I love most is that she's in her 50s, she has a long, loving marriage. She has grown children, but she has. This is not like a happily ever after story. You see the ebbs and flows of her marriage. You see the ebbs and flows of parenting adult children. And then you see her frustration in the community of being dismissed, of being sidelined because she's a woman of her expertise being dis. You know, just trivialized. And you. You see kind of the sheer weight of what it means to hold knowledge in a time when knowledge is power and how she just so smartly wields that. It's really such a beautiful book. The atmosphere, you know, you really feel the harsh realities of frontier life. And what I love the most is it's really, really beautifully written. I think that's what drew me in. And I have a few quotes I'm going to read, if that's okay. Mare.
- [11:23]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, I love it. You know, I love it when we bring quotes. That just brings it alive.
- [11:27]
Roxanna Kasamkara
I love them, okay? Especially this book. So here's one that I love. So she's talking about her and her husband. Here we are in the twilight years of a long love affair, and it has recently occurred to me that a day will come when one of us buries the other. But I remind myself that is the happy ending to a story like ours. It is a vow made and kept till death do us part. It is the only acceptable outcome to a long and happy marriage. And I'm determined not to fear that day whenever it arrives. I'm equally determined to soak up all the days in between. Isn't that such an interesting way of thinking about, you know, marriage and age?
- [12:02]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. I love so much everything about this character and where she is in her life.
- [12:08]
Roxanna Kasamkara
She's so great and she's so punchy. Like, she comes upon this trial where there's a woman's being accused of witchcraft, and she says, it's an unimaginative accusation, and frankly, one I'm tired of hearing. Witchcraft as though there is no other explanation. For a woman who excels at her work, you can hear her snarkiness and that, you know, she is. Pulls no punches. Like, if you ever wanted a woman to have a voice and fight back, read this novel. Because you'll just. Every time you're like, yes, you go ahead, you tell them, Martha. It's one of those. So I will say it's. Yeah, it's very satisfying, especially if you're feeling like your voice is maybe curtailed these days. Now, this is a book about, you know, midwives. And so, of course, there's child. There's graphic childbirth. So I want to be really specific about the triggers here. There's sexual violence and rape. So, you know, just be cautious going in, you know, read those. Know those triggers. I usually. Those are triggers. For me, I found this book so absorbing that they didn't bug me. The childbirth was very graphic. It is, you know, childbirth in the 1700s. But I found it added to the story and it wasn't. Yeah, it really added to the story and kind of brought her to life. So for anyone who loves historical fiction with depth, the kind that doesn't just tell a story, but really feels relevant to here and now, read the Frozen River. This one will absolutely stay with me for a very long time to come.
- [13:31]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The only thing I love more than me finding a book that I really, really love is when you find a book that you really, really love and where I'm just getting voice memo after voice memo about this book, this. And you know what? I just finished a book, like, a half hour before we sat down with that I ended up not liking at all. You're going to hear about that. And also with a main character that I desperately disliked and wanted to not be in the company of anymore. And so I might jump into the Frozen river next because I feel like I really need, like, a main character I can embrace.
- [14:07]
Roxanna Kasamkara
First of all, I would say there's almost no one I would not recommend this book to. So if you feel like the triggers won't. Won't bug them, I would hand this to Almost anyone for you, particularly Meredith, because you're an enneagram one. You have such a sense of justice. Martha has that. And I really feel right now, when we feel like just for all sorts of circumstances, if you're feeling you don't have a voice and things can't go your way, you know how satisfying it is when somebody in a TV show or a book says exactly the right thing and you're like, yes, that's what I wanted you to say. And you said it. And not in a trophy predictable way, but like she does this and it ends with her doing just the right thing. So it's. Oh, see, it's so satisfying, this book.
- [14:51]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. I love it so much. All right, excellent. Okay, so my first book that we are going to talk about is a book that we read together and is to me a book that falls into the category of hidden gems. This is a book called Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luquette. Here's the setup. Agatha and her three sisters, they are nuns, have spent the last nine years in a little house together, living a contained and purposeful existence dedicated to their faith and to their treasured and beloved mother, Roberta. They work together, they laugh together, they pray together. They are a very close knit foursome. But then the parish that they're living in runs out of money and basically these four nuns have to be reassigned. So they're sent to a town called Woonsocket, which is a former mill town that now has a bunch of wind turbines. And they are supposed to go there to run a halfway house. Their new home puts them into relationship in close quarters with residents of that halfway house like Tim Gary, who's a quiet, wonderful gentleman who's been through a lot and he currently does not have a jaw and the strong willed and a lot of backstory lawnmower Jill. But the real challenge for these women comes when Agatha is pushed out of the nest. She has to go find a job outside of just the home where they're living. She goes to teach math at a local all girls high school. And she's forced to navigate the world independently for the first time in her entire adult life. All right, this simple and yet extraordinarily complex novel surprised me on every level. Yeah, it's a surprise because it's a debut. And the author, Claire Luquette, has definitely sprung forth into the literary world in a way that she seems very fully formed. Yeah, it surprised me because when I started it, I went in blind. I had very little knowledge of what it was about except for the fact that years ago it had been recommended to me probably because I had mentioned I we love books about nuns. It was a surprise to me because the first 75% of this book is very different from the last 25%. The first 75% is very simple. There's nuns, they live with. You know, there's this one nun, she lives with three other nuns. They do good works in low income areas. It's very simple. In fact, the chapters are very, very short. And they seem sometimes to almost be a series of vignettes, more than a novel. But it is a novel, and our story moves forward in a way that is surprising because in that first three quarters of the novel, there's a lightness, there's a humor. Our lead character, Agatha, is young and she's still trying to figure out what being a nun means to her. The ways in which she can be useful and live into her faith. The ways in which she and her sisters can make better the lives of the people who live with them in this halfway house called Little Neon. There were several times where I was laughing out loud and it was really nice. And then in the last quarter of the book, the tone changes a lot. And I don't mean it changes more than it should. It actually does this piece really well. But some shifts happen in our lead character and the writing shifts with her. By the end, I was sad and disillusioned and emptied out. And I think that maybe that's exactly what the novel set out to do. In fact, I'm fairly sure that that's what it set out to do. The fact that the entire book goes back and forth between very prosaic things like getting a pack of chips out of a vending machine to contemplating the greatest mysteries of our minds and our faith is a testament to this incredible writing, as we've discussed. Roxana, I read this with you and I'm so glad that I did because we both agreed that it's the kind of book that, if we had read it alone, might not have finished it.
- [18:52]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yeah.
- [18:53]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Not because it isn't good, but because it's quiet and it isn't our normal reading, but it's the best kind of reading that we do together because we were on this strange journey with each other and it gave us so much to talk about. So this won't go down in my list of very favorite books about nuns because it did make me so very sad by the end. But also it will go on my list of memorable books about nuns, and I will Continue to add to that list because for better or for worse, religious life is inordinately interesting to me. This is Agatha of A Little Neon by Claire Luquette. Roxanna, What. As we sit here now, a bit after we've read the book, what are you thinking about? Good old Agatha?
- [19:36]
Roxanna Kasamkara
So I love that you brought this, Meredith. I love the way you talked about it. So at the end of last year, when I was going over my list of books that I, you know, were my favorite, I decided I was going to read less books that I liked and more books that made an impression on me, if that makes sense. I, you know, last year I was very subjective. If I didn't like a book, I put it down. If I liked it, I ended up reading a lot of the same thing. And there were a few books. The books that stood out to me the end of the year, I wouldn't necessarily say I loved, but like Hotline. But they made an impression on me and I put Agatha in that category. It is masterful. I think authors that can follow a trajectory of someone, whether it's an age, you know, they grow in age or they grow in maturity, or they lose their innocence. Like that kind of chronological kind of change of a character where they start one way and end another is so hard to pull off in a book. Like I think of Anne of Green Gables. One of the reasons I love it is because 11 year old Ann at the beginning of the book is so very different from 17 year old. And at the end. But you, there's. It's seamless, right? This one, you see the seam, but you see why. So, you know, at the beginning you're right. Like, I thought this was a almost like an absurdist, humorous, kind of interconnected.
- [20:53]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Like slice of life.
- [20:54]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yes, yes. And I thought it was hilarious. And we were texting each other, I was like, this was so funny. And I can't believe, like, because it was really absurdist, you had no idea what was coming next in terms of. It was very fresh. There was never, you know, a trope in there. And I would be like, oh my God, Lawnmower Jill's reaction to this or this thing. But then in the middle, I was like, okay, I'm getting kind of a bit tired of these, like, is it just this woman and this slice of life stuff? But then I realized she's trying to do that because Agatha herself, right, is getting a bit like, what's the point? You know, at the time you're thinking, what's the point in the book? Is the time Agatha is thinking, what's the point in the book? And then there's a couple of kind of pivotal things that happen that are very sad that have her questioning her faith and she ends up being a very different character. And as you said, the tone changes and just the things that happen in the end kind of leave you with like, it's a bit of a gut punch because this author, Luquette is not. She doesn't explain anything to you. Like there's a scene with that her mother superior where she just leaves you there. You know, she has these little vignettes. They're very short, they end and you're like, like, she doesn't explain you the grief in there, but you feel it. And it just feels so powerful, for sure.
- [22:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And we had some rousing conversations about nuns and like, who's paying for these people? What's the result we're looking for? Yes, the church. The church as a business entity. We had some. Some really. And then of course, lots of conversation about faith. And it was very, very interesting book. So, yes, I'm. I'm so glad that we read that one. All right, what's your next one?
- [22:28]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Okay, so my next one is Ruin Road by Lamar Giles. Here's the setup. Sometimes a little fear is a good thing. But what happens when it disappears entirely? And what happens when you're someone who has spent your whole life being feared? That's the premise of Ruin Road by Lamar Giles, who is by the way, the brother of Tiffany D. Jackson.
- [22:49]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right.
- [22:49]
Roxanna Kasamkara
So Ruin Road delivers a mind bending mix of horror and thriller. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm the anti Meredith when it comes to murderful things. But this one wasn't too much for me. Despite elements of the supernatural, to me it struck just the right balance between unsettling and unput downable. So the reason I chose this is, as I said, I'm really looking at different experiences and reading through the lens of characters. Different, different experiences that they have been through that maybe puts me in their shoes. And this one I felt was so interesting that way. We follow Cade Webster, who is a high school football star with a scholarship to an elite school. So on paper he should be thriving, right? But as a big black man moving through the world, he's constantly met with fear. Fear that turns into assumptions, into barriers, into danger. It follows him everywhere, shaping how people treat him before he even opens his mouth. One night, he's in a strange neighborhood and spotted by a couple who thinks he's casing their community. And they call the cops. Desperate to avoid a dangerous encounter with the police, Cade ducks into a pawn shop and makes an impulse buy. Something that, without him realizing it, grants his wish. He wishes people would stop fearing him. And suddenly they do. What an interesting premise, right? I wanted to read how Giles explored that. And you know, what does it bring to light? Like how, you know, does it deliver on this? Like, you know, how do people react? So at first, you know, this is very liberating for Cade. There's no more clutching purses when he walks by. There's no more wary glances in the hallways. But then things start to unravel because people aren't just unafraid of Cade, they're unafraid of everything. So fights break out, risks are taken. People make reckless choices with nothing to hold them back. And Cade realizes that when fear disappears, so does self preservation. And the consequences spiral fast. Now he has to figure out how to put everything back before it's too late. This was a fun, fast YA supernatural thriller that also delivers social commentary on race, fear and power dynamics. But it's never too heavy handed. And also I will mention for you, Meredith, the football is a huge element here. There's a lot of football because he's a high school senior and a football star. And it's really interesting how Giles plays with that. Like, what is it like to go onto the field and face a team who is completely unafraid? You know, to face an opponent who is completely unafraid. So they really have to tweak their strategy. It's super interesting. Now, the ending does get pretty wild and some may say it goes off the rails, but I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really unique. So if you're into thought provoking thrillers with a side of unsettling horror, Ruin Road needs to be on your list.
- [25:35]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. And so I. Not only is Lamar Giles Tiffany D. Jackson's brother, it's her twin brother. Did you know that?
- [25:43]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yes, I did. Isn't that amazing?
- [25:46]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. And I read a book by him called the Getaway that I liked very, very much. So Ruin Road is very much on my list because I loved the Getaway. It's still one of my favorite covers for a YA horror novel. So those twins, incredibly talented. Yeah.
- [26:03]
Roxanna Kasamkara
And it's so interesting to me that they both write kind of YA horror. And that's why I was surprised. I hadn't heard of Lamar Giles before. But you know, Tiffany Jackson obviously blurbed this book and said, my twin brother is amazing at this. And so I Was like, well, I gotta get this on my list. So it's. Yeah, it's great for us. It'd be great to share with Jackson, too, and read it together, I think, for sure.
- [26:22]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, yeah. With the football angle. All right. I am going to bring a book by one of my favorite authors that comes out tomorrow, and I've been waiting to talk about it, but I'm so excited to talk about it. It's called when the Moon Hits yous Eye. John Scalzi. John Scalzi, of course, wrote Starter Villain, one of my favorite books. You know, the one with the cat on the COVID Oh, yeah. Love John Scalzi. And also Kaiju Preservation Society. Okay, here's the setup of when the moon hits your eye. And the setup is. The setup is weird. So the. This whole thing, you're just gonna have to take it with a gigantic grain of salt or chunk of cheese. All right. In this story, the moon has turned into cheese, literally cheese. And now humanity is facing the most bizarre astronomical phenomenon in history. Our novel follows a huge cast of characters over the course of a full lunar cycle as each one of these characters grapples with this scientifically absurd event. We've got astronauts who have to deal with it, billionaires who have to deal with it, because, of course, they consider it an opportunity. We've got, you know, we're finding out, what does Saturday Night Live do with something if something like this happens? Like, we're in the studio, we've got bank executives trying to keep the financial world from crumbling. We've got professors trying to make sense of the senseless to their kids, and presidents navigating global panic. So we've got all of these things going on in this story, and I'm not going to say anything more than that, but it's a fascinating premise in a book that's done really well. So here are my notes. John Scalzi has done it again. That's what I wrote as soon as I closed the book. He's given us a book with a bonkers premise and somehow not just made it work, but made it amazing. John Scalzi wrote two of my favorite books, Kaiser Preservation and Starter Villains. So when you start a book of his, you know, to hold the premise loosely and just walk through the door to see what you're going to get. This worked so well in this case. Not only did I not know exactly how he would make this silly premise work, but I definitely didn't expect the format of this book. And that's both where it almost Lost me. Thankfully it didn't, because it's also where it absolutely won my heart. This book is no question a novel, but it's also interconnected short stories. There are a few storylines that appear throughout the book, but they're very like the when they appear, it's very separated by several things in the middle. So what it really is is a book that zooms out and says, okay, this really crazy thing happened here is how it affected different ways of life. That's basically what this book is doing. So you're sitting in a NASA clean room lab looking at moon samples because the moon samples on Earth, they also turned into cheese at the same moment. And you're getting the scientists reaction. You're in the boardroom of these huge banks, like how would they handle a world where maybe life isn't going to continue as we know it for very long? And we sit in on that SNL taping and we see that sometimes tragedy makes really cheesy comedy and sometimes that comedy lands like a lead balloon and on and on. It's all done with Scalzi's trademark humor. He forever makes me laugh and I think he does dialogue almost better than anyone out there. And we do have that connective tissue of a few recurring points of view that weave us through and then land us at a really lovely ending. At least I thought the ending was wonderful. But that piece might be controversial. I tell you this because if I'd known this, I wouldn't have had that moment maybe 30% in where I was giving the book a little bit of side eye. I was saying, I love you John Scalzi, but do you have a plan? I decided to trust him and I'm so glad that I did because not only did he have a plan, he had a full five star novel ready to give to us. In the Afterword, which I highly recommend that you read after John Scalzi tells us that to his thinking, these three most recent books, Kaiju Preservation Society, Starter Villain, and this one, form a trilogy of a sort. Not that their stories are connected, but he says in each book he's putting humans in situations beyond their comprehension and seeing if they can rise to the occasion. That's what I love about these books too. That and the fact that they all made me snort laugh. This is when the MOON hits your eye by John Scalzi. And it's out tomorrow, March 25th.
- [31:18]
Roxanna Kasamkara
You know what makes me laugh most about this, Meredith?
- [31:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah.
- [31:22]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Is thinking about him pitching this to his agent as a publisher and being like, wait Wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, so you thought that the cat villain was the crazy idea. I have another one. And then, like, you know, what can you say? Like, he delivered a blockbuster, so you go with it, and then you're like, oh, yeah, poor editor. Like the poor publisher in bed at night being like, oh, my God, what's gonna happen?
- [31:46]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
For sure. And this one, like I said, it takes a leap of faith. So I have a feeling this one is not going to attract the same level of attention that starter villain did. But I think it's just as good and just as worth reading. And I just. I really like his writing style.
- [32:02]
Roxanna Kasamkara
And I think this is where you are so valuable, you and Katie, because you told me this too. Give it till 30%. And honestly, without that, I would have probably DNF'd at 15. So I haven't picked it up yet. But I do love John Scalzi, and I now know, okay, it's interconnected short stories, like, just knowing that and then knowing, okay, 30%. Give it that. It just helps me manage my expectations so I can enjoy the book for what it is and not what I think it should be. So thank you.
- [32:28]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Exactly, Exactly. And this book you. You have, that's exactly how you need to look at it. Don't you know? And then also, I mean, I just really needed to know how he was going to land the plane on this, and he does it really, really well. Okay, what's your third book?
- [32:42]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Okay, so my third book is called the Baddest Bee in the Room by Sophia Chain. So it's not B, but that's what I'm gonna say on our podcast.
- [32:51]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay. Right. Yes. It's some other word that starts with bee.
- [32:55]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Exactly, exactly. And this book, Meredith, is a ride. So here's the setup. You know, I love a good memoir about an interesting woman in midlife, and this one delivers the baddest. Bee in the Room is a memoir of Sophia Chang's incredible life. From becoming the first Asian woman in the world of hip hop, managing names like the Wu Tang Clan, to giving it all up to become a kung fu master and partner with a Shaolin monk, this woman has done it all. So Chang is a force. She's a girl from the suburbs of Vancouver who moved out to New York at 21 with no experience, no connections, nothing, and walked into the hyper masculine world of hip hop, claimed her space, and made history as the first Asian woman to manage major rap artists and act as a talent scout for a major R B label. Then when she was mid career. She discovered kung fu and became obsessed. She started learning the art of kung fu from a Shaolin monk who later became the father of her children. She spent the next 10 years promoting kung fu in the US when I heard this, I was like, okay, I need to know this woman. More like, who is she?
- [34:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
How did you get a monk to be the father of your child?
- [34:06]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Right.
- [34:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
That seems difficult to begin with.
- [34:08]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yes. Like the whole thing, I was like, how? And then you. I just couldn't even wrap my head around it. So when I heard about this memoir, I had to dive in. And Chang is now 60 and she is as unapologetic as ever. That's what I really loved about the book was her voice. She's funny, she's self aware, she's completely unfiltered. She doesn't hold back about the racism and sexism she's faced, about the way she's been underestimated, or about the moment she's had to fight for her worth. And at the same time, there's this infectious joy in her storytelling, this sense that she knows her value and she's not afraid to own it. Reading this book feels like sitting down with a powerhouse of a friend who is dropping tooth bombs over drinks, telling you to stop playing small and take up space. She makes you believe in your own ability to command a room. And even when the world wants to shut you out. Now, I will say this book is not for everyone. As I said, she's unapologetic. She is 60 and she, you know, owns her choices. And honestly, Meredith, she has made some very controversial choices. There's infidelity in this book. She really owns her sexuality. And I think at 60, that may be hard for some people to stomach. But she's out there. She's still sexual being. She's telling you about her love life and she's owning it. Even on Instagram, she's out there twerking like she's doing her thing. And I think people maybe, you know, that's hard. Like, I actually read a review that was like, I couldn't sleep at night after reading this book because I couldn't believe the choices this woman made. And I, you know, so I think for me, actually, that's one of the reasons I love it. I love memoirs because they give me a window into somebody else's life. Right? It's not about agreeing with someone's life choices. It's about walking the path beside someone and learning from them. This is very different from how I would act. But then I'M not a, you know, hip hop talent artist who is a kung fu master.
- [36:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right.
- [36:01]
Roxanna Kasamkara
So, like, I like learning from people who have walked that path. She is brash, she is bold. But that's what I like about her. I think if you've ever felt underestimated, sidelined, or like you didn't belong in a certain space, the baddest bee in the room will light a fire under you. Sophia Chang is the ultimate example of walking in your own power. And this memoir is like a manifesto that we all need. So that's the Baddest Bee in the Room by Sophia Chang. Oh, and listen on audio if you can. She narrates it and she's an excellent narrator.
- [36:33]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, I love it. Straight, straight in her own voice. That's perfect.
- [36:37]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yeah, it's so good.
- [36:39]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, Roxanna. My third book is one that I think is going to be on my top 10 books of the year. This is the Unseen World by Liz Moore.
- [36:50]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Me too.
- [36:50]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yep. All right, here's the setup. Our main character is Ada Sebelius. She is a homeschooled science prodigy raised by her brilliant, eccentric, and socially awkward single father, David. They live in 1980s Boston where David directs a computer science lab. So this is their entire world. Ada spends her days at the lab with David. She's there with the early computers and the early computer scientists, these really great academic minds. And by the time she's 12, Ada is both a genius and she's painfully shy, having spent time with almost no one else other than her father and his colleagues. And then something happens and I refuse to tell you anymore, do not read the Amazon blurb. I can't even believe how much of the book that they give away. I loved going into it completely blind, but I want you know, I needed to give just a little bit of a flavor. So after, of course, reading God of the woods and loving it so much last year, Roxanna, you suggested that we revisit some of Liz Moore's backlist and you chose this one. I had never even heard of it and I'm so glad that you suggested it and the that we both went in blind. I literally never even read a synopsis, so I had no idea even what genre the book was in. That was a really fun way to go into this book if that's what you want to do. I'll say right now, this book was fantastic. It's a four and a half star read for me and I highly recommend it. So if you want to go blind, hit into the book. Hit the fast forward button right now and you won't have any more of my thoughts on it. To solely your thoughts. But even after having finished the book, I'm not sure I know exactly where in the bookstore I would shelve it. It's a genre mashup. It's beautiful literary fiction. It's slightly dystopian. It's a little bit of a mystery. It's definitely a family drama. And it's one of those books that requires all of these. These really boring words to describe it. Words like poignant heart rending. The kind of prose that punches you in the gut. It's filled with characters that. That are drawn so clearly and so deeply that your heart is outside your body as they travel through what's going on with them. I read this book in three large gulps and that's saying a lot because I think it's over 450 pages. I had intended to read it slower because Roxanna, you and I were going to be doing it as a buddy read, but I just couldn't stop reading. I got so involved with what was happening to Ada, our lead character, and what was happening with her father and all found family around them. I just couldn't. I had to see where it was going to go. And this book is so beautiful and it's so much about found family. If that is something that you love in your novels, you are going to love it here. But that is not all you're going to get. I've been trying to figure out what it is about Liz Moore's writing that connects this book with the God of the woods, which was of course, such a juggernaut this year. And when I was in about the first 15% of the book, I couldn't see what the connection was. It felt like it was written by two completely different people. I didn't also really know where the book was going, although I trusted from the first paragraph that I wanted to be wherever it was going to be going. I couldn't tell what it was about these two books that would make me know they were written by the same author. But now that I've finished it, I can. Both books have a very interesting construction. Both the Unseen World and God of the woods are playing with rotating timelines in a way that is very interesting. And it's constructed in a way that those rotations really serve to tell the story in the richest way possible. That's true of both those books. And they're united in that each one of those books draws characters so fully that it feels like they could just step out and ask you to go get a piece of pizza with them. Lismore writes both men and women equally well. I find that amazing. This book, the Unseen World, also deals with some things around large language models that are fascinating and of course very much in the zeitgeist right now with everything related to ChatGPT. It also deals with some things related to virtual reality that I wasn't expecting, but I found to be both really interesting from a tech perspective and really heartfelt. This is just one of those books that feels like it is everything a great novel is supposed to be. It makes you feel really deeply, it keeps you turning the pages, it makes you care about the characters, it gives you settings, characters that you're always going to remember and themes to chew on for yourself and in discussion with somebody else. There's no question that I now and Roxanna, we both together are going to become Lismore completists. Even though I know that going that means I'm going to read Long Bright river, which is a book that has been everyone really loves. It's about a topic that's difficult for me, but I am willing to go with Liz Moore anywhere, including a story about a topic that's difficult. This book, Unseen World, definitely had that and I'm very glad that I went on this journey with her and with you. Roxanna. This is the Unseen World by Liz Moore and I highly recommend that you pick it up.
- [42:08]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Oh, I'm so glad you brought this one, Meredith. I agree. This will probably be on my top 10 books of the year as well. I loved this one.
- [42:16]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh my gosh.
- [42:17]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Oh. Finding a book that delivers beautiful characters like is character driven, but also delivers an intricate like a plot you cannot see from a foot away, like you have no idea what's going to happen. That kind of an intricate plot. And then it's also beautifully written. Those three together are so hard to find that I was just, I think that's what wowed me the most is that in the beginning I was so taken by the characters and then there's a point. So I will say it's very character driven and I was loving it. And as I was reading it I was like, okay, this is getting really sad, Meredith. And you said just keep reading, it's coming. And so if you're reading and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't know where this is going. Not where this is going. I like it. But this is a lot of character and it's sad. Trust Liz Moore. It's right. She brings it together.
- [43:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
She's not going to keep you there forever.
- [43:11]
Roxanna Kasamkara
No. And she sticks the landing.
- [43:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Like, yes.
- [43:15]
Roxanna Kasamkara
There was a point in this book where there's one character where I was like, I just, I loved this character, and now I hate this character. And there's no way that Liz Moore can redeem this character because clearly this character is just crap. Like, there's no way. I can't imagine. And you know what? At the end, I'm not even gonna say the gender. I loved this character. And I couldn't believe how she had turned it around on me. I really, I had to go back through the book. It was so good. Like, people who could do that, authors who can completely take me from one place to another. It didn't feel manipulative at all. She did it in a way that made complete sense. But I was so amazed by her ability to take me on that journey.
- [43:53]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, she is, she is so good. And I mean, this is such a hidden gem. And I, I, I saved this for last because I wanted to use it to segue into our discussion about finding those hidden gems. And a lot of times, I mean, the, A lot of times it is for your reading. For my reading. This is not true for everyone. But that combination of character and plot when, when those things are working together are sort of. It's equally plot driven and character driven. Those are where the majority of my five star read.
- [44:29]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree.
- [44:31]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. And a lot of this, these hidden gems that we find are ones that fall into that category. So you brought this up as a deep dive topic, Roxanna, So. And I think it's a really, really good one because I feel like this is the hidden gems are the holy grail of the reading life. Right. Or one of the holy grails. You always want to find that book that's, like, been sitting on the library bookshelves. I mean, Unseen World, I think is 2013.
- [44:58]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yeah, I remember correctly.
- [45:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. It's been sitting on the library shelf for 12 years or the bookstore shelf for 12 years. Why isn't everyone reading it? That is the holy grail of my reading life, finding those kinds of books. Now when I look back on my reading journals, a lot of times, you are bringing these books to me. So I really want to ask you, how are you finding these hidden gems? You. You need to tell us because you're doing it better than almost anybody.
- [45:28]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Oh, well, thank you, Meredith. I think I have really focused on hidden Gems because of a couple of reasons. I read mostly only backlist now because I'm often disappointed by front list and by hype. And it's not because those books are bad. They're not bad at all. It's just that when people are hyping up a book, I just find they're sometimes overly positive. And I go in with a lot of expectations. When something is backlist, I will read like with this with Unseen World, I'll read the blurb, I'll look at the rating on Goodreads, and then I just go in and I don't have expectations because I haven't heard anybody talk about it. So for me, because expectations is such a big part of my reading, I looked last year, like any books from Instagram, any books from NetGalley, they had such high ratings that would go in. And most of the time, not all the time. Like, if a trusted source like you for example said, no, Roxanna, this is a really good book, then I will read it. But otherwise I tend to largely ignore them. And if they're really good, they'll come up in the best of the year lists. And so I'll read them then. So I skip all front list and I only pick up back list. And how I do it mostly is by listening to old book podcasts. So I've said this before. I find that, you know, I think a lot of people stumble, like, oh my God, researching these things, like who has died, right? So I listen to podcasts as a relaxation thing and I love to go back and listen to old podcasts. So I've said many times, you know, I listen to an old podcast that's now defunct. It's called Get Booked. I listen to it because they do primarily POC LGBTQ reads. It's a book recommendation, so. And they have like hundreds and hundreds of episodes. But I would recommend there's seven seasons of currently reading. You know, there's so many books you guys have recommended or go back to Murderful or Katie Reads Too much. Like, if you're a bookish friend, there are so many hidden gems. Go to the listener presses, right? Like, there is so many you can just listen to and get a good sense of the book. Or I'll sometimes listen to from the Front Porch because there's so many seasons of that. And just listen to it. And I listen in a very, like, I'm doing the dishes, I'm cleaning up, I'm going for a walk. I kind of phase in and out. And then as I hear a book, I'll look it up on Goodread Reads. So Goodreads to me is really like my Rotten Tomatoes. I find that it really does a good job for me of being like, okay, this is a book that's going to hit, and then I'll read a few reviews and then that's it. I don't usually read the blurb or anything too much, so that's where I find a lot of my books are from. These podcasts I also, of course, look at because I like to read books set in other countries from authors of those different countries. I look at a lot of those lists. So I'll look at the. Obviously I'm in Canada. I look at Candid Reads because I like their lists. I look at the Australian Fiction Prize, the Nebula and Hugo Awards. You know, as I said, I've started to read novellas because sometimes I want a bit of a world, but I don't want to spend 400 pages in a big, deep fantasy. Oh, my God, there's like novellas I've never heard of. In fact, like 19 out of 20 I will never have heard of. So I look there, I look at somebody introduced me to the uk, the Bailey Gifford Prize for nonfiction. I sometimes just Google, you know, awards in other countries, awards in Australia, awards in UK awards and whatever, and books will come up. Or I'll listen to Backlist podcast best of lists for 2018. Let's say just go back and hear. So I, you know, there's. I don't spend a lot of time researching, but I'll just list. I'll just listen or read aimlessly. And then when something sounds like an interesting premise to me, or like with Unseen World, it was like, okay, we really loved that book. Wow, she has such a backlist. We've heard about some of these, but this one I haven't heard of. And it sounds like she's doing different things in all of her books, so why not pick this one up and see, right?
- [49:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And I think that is a really great place going, like, really think through what are the authors that I'm loving right now? Do I want to be a completist or do have I dipped more into their backlist? I have another book coming next week by an extraordinarily famous author that I had no idea that this book existed, and I absolutely loved it. So I'll be bringing that next week, too. So going into their backlist for sure, all the books is my favorite podcast to go back that's been, that's been out for Years so long we're currently reading, I mean for so many hundreds of episodes. I do wish that Apple podcasts made it easier to go back and like to say I want to start with their 2018 and then like listen because you constantly have to like it doesn't let you do it in order like that.
- [50:01]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yes, I agree. But that's where I found Ruin Road was actually all the books on their 2024 best of list.
- [50:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, I. I absolutely love going way, way, way back and listening to podcasts from many years ago because that's the great thing about books, right? Because it doesn't matter. It doesn't need to be current. Like it's actually better if, if you know it is really old. So that's a great thing to, you know, to look at. I some of my best backlist gems that I have found, I just have found just literally walking the shelves in my library. That's not very interesting. But when I actually look back at my reading journal, that is what is true for me. And then you and Betsy are really, really good at prioritizing backlist in your reading and then cueing me for books that maybe you wouldn't read yourselves but are ones that sound like I would like them. I found several from both of you that fall into that category. So yeah, and then this is a really weird one, but I subscribe to a few publisher email and for some reason the one from Penguin Random House, I don't know why this is but the email that they send out every week about the their new releases oftentimes will include some books that I have never heard of. So it's not just the big flashy buzzy ones, books I've never heard of that end up being hits for me. So I don't know why the Penguin Random House email hits for me, but that is one that I always take the take time with. I take time to look at that one because I don't know, it just that's been a hit. So you know, and then I think biggest picture it comes down to if prioritizing backlist is important to you and it doesn't have to be. There are a lot of readers who love reading front list because what they want to do is find, you know, be the first to find that new book or that new author and kind of make sure all the rest of us discover it too. Too. Thank God for those readers. Yes, I absolutely love that.
- [51:57]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yes.
- [51:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
So I kind of look at it as like two different kinds of explorers going forward and going backward and then bringing all the goodness to us here in the present. And we are so grateful that, that you do that. So hidden gems are a great, great pleasure. I love them so much.
- [52:15]
Roxanna Kasamkara
So I'll add a couple more things. So, like you mentioned about Penguin Random House, I will say, you know, once you do that, like, we've listed a lot of sources, but I think once you find a couple that really hit for you, that's all you really need to look at. Like, not the all, that's all you have to look at. But if there's somebody listening who's like, God, that seems like a lot of work. You know, you usually find a couple that really hit. So like I said, you know, for me, it's a get book podcast. There's also on Goodreads, an author named K.J. charles, and I've read a couple of her books. She writes romance. She's an extraordinarily diverse reader, and her reviews are excellent. They're articulate, they're beautifully written. They give me a really good sense of the book. They're books I've never heard of, so I often follow her and check hers. I will also ask you, Meredith, because you said it's boring the way, you know, you pick books from the library. I actually think your method of discovery at the library with the book flight is a really unique way. I don't do this, and I think the way you do it is actually one of the reasons you find such great books. So for people who are newer. Can you talk about that a bit? Because I think that would work for a lot of people who love discovery. It's like a. You're doing the TikTok for the physical library?
- [53:25]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, I mean, basically the only skill that I bring to the way that I use my library to discover hidden gems is that I'm. I'm fairly strong. I have a. I have some good upper body strength because my. My entire system simply relies on volume of books. Because I go in there and I, you know, I go around the new releases just making. I pick up any holds that I have, make sure there's no new release releases that I've really been wanting. And then that takes me like less than five minutes. I spend the rest of the time in the library just basically filling up my book bag. My currently reading tote, which is a great tote, by the way.
- [54:09]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yes, it is.
- [54:10]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I can get a lot of books in there. It's strong. I'm yet to snap a strap, which I'm positive, I'm always positive is going to happen, because I will take out 20, 25 books at a time, and I will just pick them up. You know, sometimes it's an author that I've. That I've read. Sometimes it's an author that I've just heard of and I'm curious about. Sometimes it's just a title, a cover. You know, there's really no rhyme or reason to it. I just kind of just like, let myself. I just let the books call to me. And if I pick something up and look in the inside flap and read the, you know, read a little bit there, read a little bit of the first paragraph. I always do that because I want to make sure the read, the actual writing is speaking to me. If it's speaking to me at all. Into my bag, it goes. And then I take 20 or 25 of those, and then when I get home, I do them in groups of five. And I will. Every time I need to start a new book, I will go through and say which one of these five is calling to me in this particular moment. And then the other four will either go back to the library or they will go kind of into rotation again because I. I've been. I'm interested enough to put them back in rotation. So that's my system. It works really, really well for me. I do feel like I've been discovering some backless gems like this, the Seven Sisters, that one, that Lucinda Riley book that I just talked about. Like, I had no idea about that entire series, but apparently it's a big hit for a lot of people. I'm thinking about that book every single day, and I just. I just picked it up totally randomly. So I don't know, is it good podcast book, podcast content for me to be like, go to the library. That doesn't feel very mind blowing, as advice goes. But that's what's been working.
- [55:52]
Roxanna Kasamkara
See, I find it helpful because I'll take out those 25 books, I'll look at that stack of 25 and be like, this is. I'm so excited about it. I'm like, this is too many. And it sits there for a month, and then I just return it because I can't. It's too much.
- [56:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Just how you got to break it down into chunk. You got to chunk it out like that.
- [56:07]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Just that you look at five and when one is interesting, but you. You're not ready yet, you put it in back in the stack. Like, I know this sounds really like in the weeds, but for me, actually, I was like, oh, great. I just have this stack of 12 books right now sitting there, I haven't dived into one of them because I'm overwhelmed. This is what I'm gonna do right after this podcast. So I actually think it's very helpful for people, Meredith.
- [56:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. And Gret, you know, I know another reader who's like, I can't do five, but three is the exact right number for me to do as a little book flight. That three makes me not feel overwhelmed, but it gives me enough choice. The other thing I will say about my book, like. Cause I actually get this question a lot. I oftentimes will read all five, like the first couple of paragraphs or chapter of all five, but sometimes one will grab me so completely that I'm just like, oh, eff it. I'm just gonna. I don't even care. This is. I'm so into this book. This is what I'm reading. And that's what's great about the book flight is that you can. You can do it with reckless abandon because you're getting it from the library. You can really be very reckless with your. The. The way that you do it, very chaotic with the way that you do it. And given the way my life is so like the opposite of chaotic, I like having one part of my life that is just pure chaos.
- [57:16]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yeah.
- [57:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It makes me feel good.
- [57:19]
Roxanna Kasamkara
I love that. Thank you for. For helping us deep dive into your process.
- [57:23]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Absolutely. And thank you for always making sure that you surface books to me when you run across them. I really, really appreciate that. So, okay, let's talk about some wishes at the fountain. What's your wish this week?
- [57:35]
Roxanna Kasamkara
You know, Meredith, my wish was going to be connected to our deep dive, and it was going to be, you know, I wish there was an easy place to find books written with settings in different places by authors. Like, an easier place to find these hidden gems. And then as I was writing this wish, I was like, well, have I actually looked to see if this is possible? And then I looked, and lo and behold, Meredith, my wish was granted. Because there's a ton of sites like this. Not a ton, but a fair amount. So I haven't done a deep dive on these, but I will do them and they'll be in the show. Notes. I found tripfiction.com, which, if you're going on a trip, it's a huge list of books by, you know, country that you can download but that you can go through. There's On Goodreads, I found an around the world. An 80 books discussion, and it has, like, Top African authors, top Ecuadorian books. Like, it had a whole different, you know, you could do a real deep dive there. Of course, you know, I'm sure a lot of listeners know about the Strong Sense of Place podcast, which does different episodes for different countries and places, which is amazing. There was a guest on what Should I Read Next? That did a year of Reading the World. She has a website that also lists all the books she read. And I think I brought in the Fountain Wish a few months ago. The shepherd, which is. It's just a separate dot com. People have a bunch of different book lists. Books on dystopian heroines, books on, you know, like, weird health issues, books on, like, whatever you're looking for, they have it like they said, books with angsty dystopian that are not copycats of the Hunger Games. That was one of the lists in the 10 books. So, you know, anything you're looking for. I think there are places to find hidden gems if you find a couple of these sites. So that my. That was my wish and it was granted. Pink Splash.
- [59:22]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. Yeah. That I'd forgotten about. Shepherd.com, where you can, like enter. It says, like enter your top three reads of 2024 and we'll give you, you know what, we think your next three reads should be like, that kind of thing. It's really useful. All right, well, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on my wish because people don't need to hear about this in detail again. But I do wish that if you have not read God of the woods, read it. No matter who you are, what your taste is. I'm not going to bother you with a summary and everything else because that book has been absolutely everywhere. But it was just named the book of the year by the. By book of the month. And if you're a member, you get to choose one of the top five books of the year. I chose. I had actually read that on Kindle or I read an advanced copy of it. So I got a hard copy of it. It's got pink sprayed edges. Come on.
- [60:08]
Roxanna Kasamkara
I.
- [60:09]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's just, if you haven't read it, read God of the Woods. I just, it's. It's so, so, so good. I. Absolutely. If we were still pressing books, this would be like one of my ultimate presses.
- [60:19]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Well, and this is a book as a mystery reader. I'm not a huge mystery reader like the last couple years, so it's not one I would have read, honestly, Meredith. It was on so many best of lists by so many different readers. If you've been holding out because you're just like, it's not the kind of book I usually like, or if it's so hyped, will it actually be good? I'm a person who is hyperverse, and let me tell you, it's just as good like it really. You will not do yourself a disservice by reading that book.
- [60:44]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And I almost feel like now that I've read the Unseen World, I want to reread God of the woods because now I have, like, even more affection for Liz Moore in her writing.
- [60:52]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Yes, yes. You know.
- [60:54]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
So anyway, ping. Splash. 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 at Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram. Katie is at Notes on Bookmark on Instagram, and our show is produced and edited by Megan Putam Evans. She is at most of Megan's reads on Instagram.
- [61:16]
Roxanna Kasamkara
And you can find me roxanna@roxannethereader on Instagram.
- [61:19]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Full show notes with 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@currentlyreading podcast.com you.
- [61:31]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Can also follow the show at Currently Reading Podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreading podcastmail.com and can I say, Meredith, I've been loving Betsy's social posts lately, so if you're not following on Instagram, make sure you do that.
- [61:45]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes, they've been really, really, really good. All right. If you want more of this kind of content, join us as a bookish friend, you can do that Through Patreon. For $5 a month, you get so much content. If you're looking for backlist gems, that's where you can find it. You also get a ton of community and you keep this show commercial free. You can also shout us out on social media or rate and review us on Apple podcasts. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience.
- [62:13]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [62:18]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, until next week, may your.
- [62:20]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Coffee be hot and your book be unput downable.
- [62:23]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Happy reading, Roxanna.
- [62:24]
Roxanna Kasamkara
Happy reading, Meredith.