← The Currently Reading Podcast
The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 7, Episode 36: Heart Pounding Reads + The Downsides to Book Podcasting
00:58:08
On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Meredith are discussing: Bookish Moments: heart pounding reads and bookish goodies Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately Deep Dive: the stuff...
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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.
- [00:24]
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 book at 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 my favorite thing is a pulse pounding read.
- [00:42]
Katie Cobb
I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona, and I'm all about the bookish accessory. This is episode number 36 of season seven and we are so glad you're here. I need some pulse pounding. Meredith, I would like that.
- [00:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. I have been having it this week, so I'm going to talk about that.
- [00:58]
Katie Cobb
All right. I'm sure it's one of those like Fitbit checks on you. Are you okay? Which I love.
- [01:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Exactly.
- [01:06]
Katie Cobb
All right, y'all, it is episode 36. That means I'm driving. Which means I'm going to tell you that our deep dive today is we're going to talk about a post from the Bookish Friends group in which somebody wanted to know what are some of the downsides of having a bookish podcast? What's not the coolest thing? So we're going to have a conversation about that, see where it goes. But first we'll get started the way we always do with our bookish moments of the week.
- [01:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, Katie, the reason that this came, I actually was thinking about doing another bookish moment of the week. But up until literally three minutes before I had to get up and come in here and start recording. All morning I have been reading the ninth book in the Louise Penny series, How the Light Gets in, because we're getting ready to do our Deep dive on that episode for A Journey to Three Pines. But what I had forgotten about this book, and keep in mind this is, this is my third time reading this book. What I had forgotten is as we, you know, people talk so much about the Louise Phinney Three Pine series and like, oh, I can't get through the first three books. And we talk a lot about that early part of the series. But what I think gets kind of lost in the shuffle or is only spoken about for people who are reading all of the theories or deeper into it is how once the series hits its stride at book like four Five, six, and then on. These books are so pulse pounding. This particular novel has a two plot thread, right? Like an A plot and a B plot. In this particular book, both of them are so pulse pounding that, yeah, I expect my Fitbit is going to be like, do you need me to start a run exercise for you, Merit? I mean, I'm in the last 15%. I'm trying to go slowly because I'm trying to close read so that we can talk about it on the show. And I am having the hardest time slowing myself down. I just want to devour it whole. I just want to get to the end. Because, of course, one of the great things about my brain is that I don't actually remember exactly how any of this wraps up, even my third time through. It's a complete surprise to me. So. Oh, it's just so good. And this. This feeling of reading a book that you just are so mad that you have to set down because you need to go do something else, even something you really enjoy doing. I think it's one of the top three best readerly feelings. Top three best moments in the bookish life.
- [03:30]
Katie Cobb
Yes, agree. I. Okay, so I'm on record as having, like, a card catalog in my brain, right. Like, I keep a lot of details in my brain, but I don't remember every single moment of every Louise Penny book. Right. I read them years ago, especially that one. However, I do know that book nine, how the Light Gets in, is still my favorite one of the entire series. Like, I am so excited for this next episode of Journey, the Three Pines, because it has my heart in a way that none of the other books do. But you have to have gotten there with her. You have to have gone on that journey. You have to have gone to the monastery in book eight, even if you don't love that book or that setting. Oh, I love it so much.
- [04:09]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. Because the gut punches are not gut punches unless you have all of it. Right.
- [04:15]
Katie Cobb
Exactly.
- [04:16]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The series has to be read.
- [04:17]
Katie Cobb
Right?
- [04:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The series has to be read in order. Yeah. But this one, interestingly, is one that, as I announced, like, hey, you know, we're. We're going to record really soon. Go ahead and make sure you're doing your reading to keep up with it. So many people DM'd me saying, this is my number one favorite of the entire series. It's in the top three for me for sure.
- [04:40]
Katie Cobb
It's.
- [04:40]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I mean, it's just so good. So, anyway, this bookish moment is less about. I mean, it is about the series of Course, because I'll evangelize that until my dying day. But it also is just about that feeling of reading a book that just. You are so in it. It's like the things are happening to you. It's just masterful. It's my. One of my favorite things.
- [05:01]
Katie Cobb
So, so good. I love that too. My bookish moment is as I mentioned in my bite size intro about bookish accessories. Also, I will acknowled elephant sound in the room which is that I have had a cold this week. I'm a little bit stuffy sounding. I feel great. But if you're noticing that my audio is slightly different, that's why it's not the old timey audio, it's the regular audio. Just a. Just a different Katie. So last weekend I went to downtown Gilbert, which is my little town now that I live in and the one I grew up in with a friend. And we hit up the farmer's market and one of the two new bookstores downtown. Within six weeks we had two separate brand new indie bookstores open in downtown Gilbert. This newer one is called the Bookish Shop. They've got coffee and snacks and are definitely focused. This is a romance and fantasy focused bookstore. They have an online subscription called the Bookish Box where they make special editions of really beautiful books. And those monthly titles come with fun bonus items. You can grab those items in the physical store now that they have a storefront in Gilbert. So I treated myself to a new desk mat. It's right here on my recording space. Right in front of us. Meredith, I will send you a picture as soon as we're done recording. It makes me deliciously happy. It's covered in really cute illustrations and names of tropes. So right in front of me it says Marriage of Convenience. The Secret Heir. Fated Mates. The Chosen One. Enemies to Lovers. Found Family. Like some of my very favorite things. And they're just here like as part of my decor, which I, you know, for six and a half years at this point we've been doing this recording thing. And I really love making my space feel like Katie. This is a very special space. You sit down, you record, you work here. And also it brings me joy. So I have a currently reading mouse pad and then this like trope desk mat. Now they also have homegoods and jewelry, but this little desk mat is where it's at for me and it is bringing me bookish delight. I'm so happy.
- [06:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. That is the perfect accessory for your desk.
- [07:01]
Katie Cobb
It really is. It's so perfect. I just want to, like, send one to everyone that has a desktop because it's not super useful for a laptop, but for a desktop, it's very nice to have, like my keyboard and my mouse all nicely arranged. So let's get into our current reads. What is your first book this week?
- [07:19]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. I have three books, each one really different one from the other, but three that I enjoyed very, very much. The first one is down among the Sticks and bones by Seanan McGuire. Katie, how have you read this series of novellas from Seanan McGuire?
- [07:36]
Katie Cobb
I haven't. I almost picked up at the Tucson Festival of Books a bound volume that includes the first three because then I could just have all three at once. And I decided not to. But it's not because I don't love it. I love especially the COVID and that it's like a dark fairy tale. So I do want to hear more about it.
- [07:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. So down among the Sticks and Bones is the second installment in what she calls her wayward children series. It's a series of novellas, but they are absolutely so fantastic. This one is, I mean, the, the structure is that we have in the first book, we, we meet these children that all have some very specific things in common and they've come to live at this home. And then each of the other novellas that follow deep dives into what happened to bring the kids there. So they're kind of like prequels.
- [08:30]
Katie Cobb
Okay.
- [08:31]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Very, very interesting. So this one does stand alone. You could just read it if you wanted to, but I loved starting with the first one and then going here. So here we get to deep dive into the backstory of twin sisters, sisters Jack and Jill, who we briefly meet in the first book. These girls have been, they've been the victims of their parents kind of ego driven parenting from day one. Jack or Jacqueline was molded into her mother's perfect little princess and Jillian became her father's substitute son. He had really, really wanted them to have a boy. But at 12 years old, they discover a mysterious staircase in an old trunk that leads them down to a place called the moors of Gothic Wonderland, or Wasteland really of it's always night there and there are mad scientists and vampires and it's just a kind of a mixture of a bunch of horror tropes all together in this one. Wonderland, dark fairy tale setting. What makes this creeptastic setting so great in although I really, really love the blood red moon that hangs over the entire landscape is how Seanan McGuire explores the twins paths. Once they get to the moors because then jack apprentices with Dr. Bleak, a brilliant scientist who has very questionable ethics. And Jill, she takes up with the the Master, who's a very powerful vampire with deadly charm. And the story examines what it's like when your childhood shapes you and how you can be transformed, for good or for ill, when you get freedom from that childhood. Okay, Holly Farrell from Holly's Lit Magic is my book twin. And she direct messaged me when she read this book and said, I know that you read the first one. You need to drop everything and read this. And I did. She's one of the few people that can boss my reading like that. And you really, really should be following her account, by the way, at Holly's Magic, because she's doing some amazing things, especially if you love mystery and fantasy genres. Fantastic. Follow. So Mira Grant is the same woman as Seanan McGuire. For those of you who don't know, remember, we read into the Drowning Deep and we made that book famous. This is the same author, but a very, very different kind of writing here in this first book, like I said, you're introduced to this group together and then, then we get to deep dive into Jack and Jill's story here. And this one is a humdinger, both from its construction perspective and its writing perspective. And also the world building that is done in such a short amount of time is amazing. I love that these novellas let you dip in and out of these worlds. And every single one of these worlds is fully constructed. And this one, of course, is evocative of a very haunted moor. We've got the land of sticks and bones. It's a land of shadowy landscapes and werewolves, vampires. It's really memorable. And then we've got the way that Maguire actually writes the words on the page. She is so good in this series. I love the way that she develops her characters and the landscape. In fact, I wanted to give you just a little taste of the writing because I think this particular bit is going to let you know whether or not this series would be a good fit for you. This is a description of an angry mob. See them now, two girls, almost women, but still not quite, not quite, running hand in hand across the vast and unforgiving moor. One wears a skirt that tangles and tears in the bracken. The other wears trousers, sturdy shoes and gloves to protect her from the world around her. Both of them run like their lives depend on it. Behind them, a river of anger split into individual bodies, running with the unstoppable fury of the crowd. More torches have been Found and lit. More. Pitchforks have been liberated in a place like this, under a sky like this. Torches and pitchforks are the native trappings of the enraged. They appear without being asked for. And the more there are, the deeper the danger. The crowd glitters like a starry sky with the individual flames of their ire. The danger is very real. I love her writing in this book, in this entire series. I also love the way that the narrator voices the story. Not the narrator of the audiobook, but the actual narrator of the story. You feel the entire time that you're being taken by the hand by this omniscient narrator that knows not just this story, but our overarching story and is kind of helping you put everything into context as you're reading it. It's a really effective narrative device that she uses, and I love it from the very first paragraph. I couldn't recommend the series more. I'm so glad that Holly made absolutely sure that I read into it further, and I immediately bought the next one so that it's on my shelf and ready to read. This second one is down among the Sticks and bones by Seanan McGuire.
- [13:50]
Katie Cobb
Sounds so good. And lately, I know that this probably goes without saying, but I have been loving, like, a perfectly crafted novella where it's like, I can read this in one sitting and feel like I got this whole little, like, beautiful nugget of a story. So fun.
- [14:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. I mean, right now it's sometimes. I mean, I've also still been getting into big books, but sometimes that. That just perfect novella is exactly right. It's just the perfect way to spend a little bit of time. The first book, in this series, by the way, is called Every Heart a Doorway. And I do recommend that you read that one first just to give you that overarching context.
- [14:31]
Katie Cobb
Okay. I love that. We're not animals.
- [14:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. Although this could stand alone. You could read this one simply as a perfectly crafted novella. You really, you really, really could. But I just. And the other thing is that I had gotten that first one from the library. I ended up buying it as I decided to read further into the series because I like to be able to go to the first one, remind myself of kind of their part in that story, and then read the novella that's about the backstory because it just gives that extra texture.
- [15:04]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, I like that. Well, and as we know now, they are being sold as a bound set with 1, 2, 3, all in one book. So you're supposed to read them together, right?
- [15:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I don't know. For example, I know that I don't want to go immediately into the next one because the worlds are so different that I feel like if I like back to backed them the impact would be less just for me. But I do. But it is great to be able to buy them all bound together to have them.
- [15:32]
Katie Cobb
Yes, yes. And I think it's up to like six now. I think so. I'm hoping they continue to do kind of bound together volumes so you could have just a beautiful collection of all of them. Okay. My first book this week is called Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri. This is a romantasy novel. It's part of a duology that came out in 2018 and 2019, but I didn't read it until this year and I don't know why. It's just what happens. Books find us when we need them.
- [16:02]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Exactly.
- [16:02]
Katie Cobb
Here's the setup. Mare is our main character. She lives alone in the mountains, far from civilization, only making the full day trek to town when she needs supplies or to check the post office. She is the illegitimate daughter of an exile. Her mother had a beautiful face and wondrous Earth singer magic, but Mare can barely remember her because she died when she was very young and now she's facing homelessness because the government has discovered she owns her home and has demanded an exorbitant amount of back taxes, which she'll never be able to pay. It's just this insane amount of money. It is with this heavy burden on her shoulders that she is heading home. At the start of our story one day when she comes upon Imperial soldiers with a prisoner. A sexy one. They demand that she quarter them in her home, giving them room and board and give the prisoner space in her barn. He has been badly beaten and she uses her Earth singing magic to heal his wounds. Which is when she comes to the attention of the Emperor's mystics. These soldiers are appropriately impressed, but she does not want their attention as she is dragged into a political war between the powerful and the powerless. She also starts to learn more about her homeland, the divided forces that shaped her, and the ways that they want to tear her apart. The very gods that created this world and power structure might now seek vengeance if she fails in her attempt at resistance against the powerful. Okay, this was so good. This was so good. I don't understand it. I know that I bought this book on a whim at my local indie a few years back. It was already used at the time, so it has been sitting on my shelves with a used book sticker on the barcode from changing hands. It has a gorgeous cover with this like sickly sharp curved dagger on it. But it doesn't fit into the mold we've seen created of late where you can just like press, print, repeat over and over again with Romantasy being a huge draw. That's because Tasha Suri was kind of early in this game. 2018 is only a couple years after a Court of thorns and roses came out. So this is early on in Romantasy becoming this big deal in the booktok world especially. However, this book deserves to be read. It has some of my favorite tropes in it like the ones on my desk mat including different worlds, arranged marriage, the desert and the spirit, the spiritual daiva, which is like a being that lives in the desert and comes out of the sand. The best kind of misunderstood monster. You can't help but root for them. I loved the way that Mare has magical powers, but they aren't the one solo thing that defines her. She is much more complicated than loner who doesn't know how to control her magic. The chosen one, right? Because of the world building at the outset, this one does take a little bit of time to get into. You have to give it, I would say at least 15% to get into it. It's a 450 page book, so that's not nothing. But it's also not going to drown you in details. By the time it catapulted me all the way in, I was ready for the adventure. This is, like I said, the first in a duology and it does lead into book two. But it's not the type of cliffhanger that left me raging or diving for the library website. More like there's more where that came from, which I really love for a duology. Like, okay, I want to continue this story, but you didn't emotionally manipulate me into thinking that I will die without it in my hands. Immediately. I enjoyed this. I'm looking forward to more from this author. This is Empire of Sand by Tasha Souri.
- [19:35]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And also there is a lot to be said for a duology.
- [19:38]
Katie Cobb
Oh my gosh. I love a duology. Right? I love a novella. I love a duology. Let's just like normalize fitting things in exactly the right package.
- [19:46]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right? Exactly. Like a movie. That's like a hot hour 40.
- [19:50]
Katie Cobb
Oh my gosh. Yes.
- [19:52]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
A movie does not need to be three and a half hours.
- [19:55]
Katie Cobb
Anything under two hours, you have captured me. I love you.
- [19:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah.
- [19:58]
Katie Cobb
Thank you for that. That's a perfect movie.
- [20:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, now for something a Little bit different. My second book is nonfiction. Again, who dis with the nonfiction new podcast, who this? Yeah, almost every week I think see myself bringing nonfiction because I'm reading so much of it. I'm excited about it. This one is the Situation Room by George Stephanopoulos, co written with Lisa Dicke. I am completely fascinated by this book. George Stephanopoulos pulls back the curtain on what might be the most consequential and secretive space in all of American governments. The Situation Room in the White House. This was of course created after the Bay of Pigs fiasco when Kennedy was president. This is a suite of rooms that has been become the epicenter where 12 presidents now have faced the most harrowing crises. And this is where they make the decisions that ripple across the globe. So what makes this book so compelling is not just the high stakes moments, and there are plenty of those, but the way that Stephanopoulos and his co writer Lisa Dicke weave together the extraordinary and ordinary aspects of how this really powerful space functions. So each chapter takes us inside a different presidential crisis. He uses minute by minute transcripts for things related to Kennedy after Reagan was shot. Nine, 11, even going all the way up through the first ever account of what happened on January 6 from inside the Situation Room. So my question to myself was, can a work of political nonfiction be considered a palette cleanser or, or a page turner? Because this book was absolutely that. This was another success from my library browsing. I picked it up just as I was at the library. I was like, oh, I heard this talked about on Sarah's bookshelves Live. And I was like, oh, I definitely want to dip, at least dip into this. And I was between two really dark works of mystery like crime fiction. This was the perfect palette cleanser. George Stephanopoulos and his co writer are really talented at writing page turning work of narrative nonfiction. And it does help that I am completely obsessively fascinated by anything related to how the day to day kind of inner sanctums of government work, anything having to do with the Secret Service, Oval Office, Air Force One, all of this made this book perfectly in my wheelhouse. I read this one really fast, partly because of the way it was written, partly. And it. I just, I had to know what was going to happen. In each section. There's an entire section on everything related to the communications in the situation room on September 11th that was heart pounding. This is our theme of the episode. I've read a lot about that day, I've heard a lot about September 11, but this was an angle that I had never gotten before. Did you know, for example, that the woman who at the time ran the Situation Room happened to be with President Bush when he found out about 9 11. I also didn't know that at point they had to rush to get Air Force One into the air and that they were worried because they were worried it was going to be hit by a surface to air missile. And so they did this like almost straight up hockey stick takeoff to the point where the woman who was in charge of the Situation Room, she was on Air Force One at that moment. She went weightless. And President Bush himself had to make sure that she didn't float up into the air and then come crashing back down and potentially really, really hurt herself. That was just an angle that I had never heard of before. And those kinds of specific details about the inner workings of this incredibly crucial part of our nation's security structure had my attention wrapped the entire time. So if you love insider tales, you will definitely want to pick this one up. I did it in print, but I have heard from Sarah's Bookshelves Live that it was great on audio. This is the Situation Room by George Stephanopoulos with Lisa Dicke.
- [24:02]
Katie Cobb
Sounds so good and it sounds so perfectly Meredith. Like, of course, over the years we have learned that Meredith loves the White House as like the entry point to any story, fiction or nonfiction. So I'm glad this was a hit book or movie. Yes. How's that? If that would have disappointed you. But yeah, anytime I see anything with the White House, I'm like, oh, I hope Meredith is paying attention to this. But then I'm like, just gonna make sure that she knows about it and walk away.
- [24:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it so much.
- [24:30]
Katie Cobb
So good, so good. I love that it was such a hit. Okay, my next one, I actually, my plan for this episode, I realized, is like a. It's that hockey stick I'm also swinging way up. So I loved the second book, too. I know I loved the first one, but it's just going to keep going up. This one is called Glory B by Danielle Arseneaux. It has a pretty perfect publisher blurb, so I'm going to draw from that. Here. Here's the setup. It's a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory, a black woman of a certain age, has settled into her usual after church, ro meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop where she works as a small time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears all the town gossip. But this Sunday, she hears that her best friend, a nun beloved by the community, has been found dead in her apartment. This is very personal to her. When police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced there must be more to the story, and with her reluctant adult daughter, who has troubles of her own, she launches a shadow investigation. In town. She checks out oil tycoons, church gossips and a rumored voodoo priestess. This is the first in a crime series set in the Louisiana bio, and it introduces this amateur sleuth, Glorie Broussard, this black woman of a certain age. It is delicious. I loved it. I got this wreck from my online friend Stephanie Towne. Stephanie and I have a fun relationship. We nearly exclusively send each other reels or videos of children saying swear words. That is the extent of our Instagram DMs. I don't know why, but that makes me very happy. And that friendship developed in a very special way and I'm very grateful for it every time I get a message from her in February, she played what I call her card, which is when someone decides that they're finally ready to send me a book rec. Knowing that like this can make or break whether or not they get to recommend things to me in the future. Right? Here's what she said. I have an audiobook rec for you if you haven't already read it. Glory B by Danielle Arseneaux is an amateur sleuth novel, but it isn't cozy. So funny and narrated by Bonnie Turpin, who I love. It would be a good palette cleanser if you need one. I cannot ever be sure which recommendations are gonna sneak under my fence that I put around my reading life, but this one did and within three days I messaged her back to tell her I had finished it and I loved it. So gold star to Stephanie. Lori is older, like I mentioned, 60s to 70s, mid-60s retiree age, right? And she's a regular at church while running her small time gambling ring, which makes her kind of a fun nuanced character. She has a complicated relationship with her ex husband and there are short road trips in this novel along with somewhat tense run ins with other persons of interest. There's a dog fighting ring that gets a little sketchy, there are stitches, visits to the hospital. This is not like. And then we all went and had scones and had a lovely time at the coffee shop and discussed our theories like there it it gets tense. It's not a cozy, but I adored it. The publisher does comp this to Thursday Murder Club because of that elderly protagonist investing in a crime, but it doesn't have that teamwork element that we love in Osmond's books. It's not like a found family group of retirees. Instead, it's more like a darker version of Vera Wong's unsolicited advice from murderers. Laurie is neither bumbling in her investigation nor a pushover. She's easy to root for, fun to read, and I'm thrilled that this is the first in the series. The second one just came out in March. It's called Glory Days with a Z. And I'm looking forward to it. So this was Glory B by Danielle Arseneault.
- [28:06]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
That sounds really good. Do you think I would like it?
- [28:09]
Katie Cobb
I do think you would like it. I think it has enough darkness and propulsiveness, while also, like, we love an elderly protagonist. That's not like. And then I sat in my chair and I thought for a long time, right? Like, it's interesting. And she's funny and she's smart as a whip, and she's like, I run my own business, which I took from my ex husband because I deserved it. Like, I just. Oh, I loved her.
- [28:31]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm really into books, certainly in the. In the, you know, mystery genre, but all over with protagonists in their 50s and 60s, especially if they are not portrayed as being like, oh, wow, look at her. She's still smart and interesting. Like, if. If it's just. You know what I mean? If it's like just showing how active and vibrant and smart and interesting and sexy that you can be in your 50s and 60s, because that is absolutely a thing, right? I'm really loving those books right now. So it sounds like this might fit into that.
- [29:09]
Katie Cobb
I think you should give it a shot. And it is Bonnie Turpin. We haven't talked about her in a while because I feel like she's kind of pulled back some on the narration she's been doing. But this one had her, like, trademark signature, you know, vocal stylings. I love listening to her. Not everybody does, and that's okay. But it was great on audio because of that for me.
- [29:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, well, for my next read, we are going to return to a favorite, favorite, favorite auto buy author for me, and I'm gonna bring today Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz. All right, I love Anthony Horowitz. I absolutely love him. Marble Hall Murders is the third installment in the Susan Ryland series, and it gives us exactly what we loved from Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, that delicious meta fiction kind of construction where the lines between reality and fiction get really blurry. So lead character Susan Ryland has left her Greek island life and her ever so sweet boyfriend Andreas, who is just one of my favorite characters. She's left them behind and she's returned to England where she reluctantly takes on editing a manuscript by Elliot Crace. Eliot is the grandson of a legendary children's author who died 20 years previous to our story. Here's where it gets juicy. Eliot believes that his grandmother was murdered and he's hidden the killer's identity inside his Atticus Pun detective novel manuscript. So Susan obviously has to go in and read the story within a story. It's set within a glamorous French villa and the parallels between fiction and reality start stacking up in really dangerous ways. All right, I love me some Anthony Horowitz. I love the books that he's written about Sherlock Holmes. Of course, he was given permission by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle to continue the Sherlock Holmes series. I love His Word Is Murder series about Detective Daniel Hawthorne. And I love my favorite of all that he writes is this series starring Susan Ryland and Atticus Pund. Marble Hall Murders is obviously the third and I think it's the final in this series and it is a banger. It gives you everything that you want, all the things that you've come to love about Anthony Horowitz. We of course have this book within a book structure. All three of the novels have that, where you get the the full novel inside the other novel. Those novel novels featured Atticus Punt, who is, if possible, an even better Hercule Poirot than Hercule is. Atticus is wonderful and sweet and kind and incredibly smart and I just love him. And I'm now realizing that Atticus Pund is what would happen if you put Hercule Perrault together with Armand Gamache. You would get Atticus Pund and that is why I love him so much. But also to hearken back to what we were just talking about. Susan Ryland, our 50, like 55 year old lead character, is smart and mouthy and she's a great editor. And she also continually finds herself in trouble with her authors and all kinds of other people. And it's this character that really keeps me coming back to the series. I love her. I feel like we would be really good friends if we knew each other in real life. So the structure of this story is very similar to the ones in the past. And for that reason I was surprised that it didn't feel tired to me, but it didn't. This story somehow managed to feel fresh and it somehow managed not to bore Me. Even though it is all of 592 pages, there definitely were times where I felt that length a little bit. That's what she said. And if I had been the editor, I would have cut out some extraneous details, I think. But Horowitz doesn't lose the story to those details. He keeps us on track and takes us all the way through to a satisfying ending to not one, but two novels. I loved it. I do want to say that if you haven't read the series, I highly recommend it. Especially if you love Agatha Christie or Richard Osmond's writing. The series is so much fun. And when you do read it, be sure to double back and watch the PBS Masterpiece Mystery versions. They are some of the best book to movie adaptations that I have ever seen. In fact, I think a case can be made that the adaptations are better than the books themselves. And that is saying a lot. Anthony Horowitz is also a screenwriter. He writes the screenplay of the adaptations. I think that's why they're so well done. This is Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz. And it comes out, by the way, like a month from now.
- [34:05]
Katie Cobb
Perfect. Oh, so glad. It was a hit. That makes me very happy.
- [34:09]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Anthony Horowitz is a machine. I mean, he just puts out so much, but he does it really, really well. He's a. He's a wonder.
- [34:19]
Katie Cobb
Okay, this is not related to that, but this week I was watching a video about Stephanie Holmes, who wrote A Night a Dark and Stormy. A night so Dead and Stormy. I know the book you're talking about. Yeah.
- [34:36]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Which I loved.
- [34:36]
Katie Cobb
Dead and Stormy.
- [34:37]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's in a bookstore.
- [34:38]
Katie Cobb
And she's blind. She's legally blind. Right. So I was watching this interview with her. She's this New Zealand author and she writes like 40,000 words a day. She's just like a powerhouse. She can write a book in three days. Like the rough draft, I was like, stop. What is happening? It was just this completely like the authors that can be like, now it's time to write a book. And then they just sit down and they just do it. Just astonishing to me. So amazing.
- [35:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. I mean, Anthony Horowitz has to be like that because he writes for tv, he's writing in multiple series. Yeah, for sure.
- [35:16]
Katie Cobb
He's gotta be ridiculous. Okay, this next author does not write like that. He only has two books. But I love both of them because I am going to talk about this Changes Everything by Tyler Merritt, which is my nonfiction pick of the episode for me. I have gone up and up and up in this episode to my five star read that I would give additional stars to just for extra sparkle. It was that good. Tyler Merritt has been on my list of beloved authors since his first book, which is called I Take My Coffee Black. I have very powerful memories of where I was and what I was doing as I listened to that book. Narrated by the author Tyler Merritt, he is joined in the studio by his producer, his mom, and various other pivotal members of his life as we get to know him. And that's when I fell head over heels. That one is mostly memoir. Here we're taking a pivot right As I Take My Coffee Black was releasing. Tyler was diagnosed with cancer. So this book is accurately subtitled a surprisingly funny book. Book about race, cancer, faith and other things we don't talk about. He goes there with us for all of it and it is surprisingly funny. I read this one on paper and then I would listen to the audiobook chapters, which I have never done before. Typically I either read and listen at the same time, which I call a tandem read, or I read a chapter or a few chapters and then I listen to the next chapters in the sequence, right? So I'm going back and forth, which I call multiple formats, but I've never done. Basically double dipping the same exact book in two formats at two different times. It was an interesting experience. I was trucking along, double dipping this story until I got to a chapter that details or gives details about the story of Emmett Till. Of course I know this story. I just talked about it not that long ago when we talked about the Trees by Percival Everett. I have read it multiple times before. I'm familiar with the details, but the way Tyler brings it to the page brought me two tears, brought me to my knees. From that point on, I only read this book because I couldn't put myself back into it for the audio. So then the audio fell away. I just couldn't do it. That still left room though, for Tyler to both make me laugh and cry. I had a brief exchange with him on Instagram telling about telling him about when my oldest son and I read a chapter together while waiting in line. Somewhere Tyler shares a nitty gritty story about having issues with urination post surgery man part. While it wasn't funny in the moment for Tyler, I'm sure, my God, Tyler made me laugh until I couldn't breathe as he recounted this story. And then Micah came and sat next to me and asked what was actually wrong with me. And I had him read this story with me and we laughed until we cried as we read it again. Because that's what Tyler Merritt does. He humanizes the biggest things. The struggles with faith when things don't go as we planned. The difficulty of facing human failings and forgiving anyway. The terror of a medical diagnosis, and the way that each person's story is so unique as they travel the road of a diagnosis and recovery or not. His writing is a gift. It's an invitation to both joy and empathy. And the man is a real one. The way he holds both deep faith and also loves a well placed F bomb means he speaks exactly my love language. I love a Christian that knows how to use an F bomb. That is my love language. The audio of this one before I had to jump out is also exceptional. Tyler's doctor comes into the studio with him. He's again joined by his mom. He has these candid and unedited conversations with his producer. He attempts to sing Broadway show tunes, but is told he cannot for copyright reasons. It is a delight. Pick this one up in any format and let Tyler invite you into his story. I guarantee you will be changed for the better because this changes everything. The book is this Changes Everything by Tyler Merritt.
- [39:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. I love, love, love Tyler Merritt. And this is a book that I. Yes. All the yes for this.
- [39:14]
Katie Cobb
All the yes. He's so wonderful. I'm just so grateful that he, like, exists in the world to invite us in. Like, okay, put those. Put those away. Put those emotions away, Katie. Right, let's.
- [39:28]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
We have to talk about other things.
- [39:30]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, let's talk about some other things. Let's have a mini pity party. No, that's not what we're doing. We are going to talk about what we don't love about talking books, publicly. Being a book podcaster, having a book podcast. So, Meredith, where did this deep dive come from?
- [39:46]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right, Right. And so we've mentioned before, we're doing a lot of deep dives right now that are answering questions that you guys have. And so that. I mean, we love being able to do that for you. This one came in from a bookish friend named Lana, and she says one thing I would like to listen to Katie and Meredith deep dive on would be, what do you not like about being a bookish podcaster or publicly reviewing books? We all know that you guys love your job, but sometimes even when you enjoy something, there can be parts that you hate or drive you crazy. Crazy. I would love to know what those are. And that is really true. Right. Like, as we were thinking about doing this deep dive, I mean, I've been actively mulling this for a couple of days now, and overwhelmingly, and I think this is true for you too, Katie. There really isn't a lot of downside to being a book podcaster who gets paid for doing what they do. Right? Like, they're. It's just kind of the best job in the world. So I want to approach this really carefully because I don't want to complain about something that is really the best thing in the world.
- [40:52]
Katie Cobb
That is so true. As I was preparing for this deep dive, I was also thinking about that really annoying phrase, love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life, and how, like, I kind of embody that. And I think it's annoying, like, because I love doing this. And you would think after, what are we up to, 300 some odd episodes of the big show, it would start to get repetitive or boring or, like, I would get burnt out. It hasn't happened. And it's really like, I love getting to do this. And so even when I tried to come up with some dislikes, they're super small in the grand scheme of things that I had to really like. I mean, I guess maybe that could be considered something hard about this. So. Yeah, right.
- [41:39]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I mean, there are some things that we. Maybe you could say that we step kind of carefully around. Right. Like the bit. The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is that someone said something in the thread on this that really struck with me, like, do you ever fantasize about being a civilian reader again? And there. There are times that I know for. For each of us, we think, what would it be like if we could just read without having to think about anything related to the show? Whether it meant how much we read. Right. Quant quantity, the kinds of choices that we make. Because to some extent, we make some choices, or I'll just speak for myself, I make some choices about my reading based on what do I think is going to be interesting to talk about on the show. Right. We maybe don't talk about a book that's been everywhere because it's been everywhere, even if we really want to read it. But, you know, we created our format to be like, it's literally just what are you currently reading? Like, we. I purposely, when I created the format, I asked myself the question, what is the format that you could do for a really long time? And I knew that I couldn't sustain reading on a particular topic for a really long time or that kind of thing. And so the. The idea of just I'M just going to talk about the books that I'm reading. That's the freest, best kind of format that you could possibly have as a book podcaster. It's probably the number one best decision we made about the show was just saying, look, we're really not going to read in any way other than what we would, as much as possible, what we would read as normal people, right?
- [43:18]
Katie Cobb
Yes, definitely. And that has been true always. Like, we may be selective about which books we're bringing as a trio. I know you and I, every single week, we're like, okay, well, I was gonna bring this one, but then I swapped it out because I didn't want two that were too similar in my three current reads, or I didn't want it to feel like I was only talking about mystery, romance, whatever. Like, even if maybe that's a lot of what we've been reading lately, we will swap things out and slot things in in a way that feels balanced and varied. And because of that, I think about that as I read too. Like, okay, Katie, you've been doing a lot of whatever lately. Are you sure you don't want to put in a little bit of something else? Not because you need to push yourself outside your wheelhouse? It's still stuff I want to read. I just will intentionally make sure that I'm pivoting regularly to have a lot of variety in my reading. The first thing that came to mind for me, and it's, again, it's such a tiny thing. We had to work really hard and intentionally in year two of the podcast to build our Facebook community into a place that we wanted to be, that people were just lovely all the time, that stayed really focused on books. And so we did really great work laying a foundation there. It rarely needs any kind of. Like, I think we could both go on vacation for a full month, not even stop in, and nothing would happen. It would be totally fine. Especially because there's people that have been there for six years and they know what's supposed to happen. They know that you're supposed to put your title in your post or that we're gonna try not to talk about blahbity blah, that's gonna get everybody riled up, or we're not gonna yuck people's yums. And so the only thing about that is that when a situation comes up and there has to be, like, an arbitration or an admin, whatever gives me the ek.
- [45:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I know.
- [45:04]
Katie Cobb
I hate doing that. I mean, and like, it's our club, right? It's Our fun hangout place that we created. So that's part of the job. But I'm like, can't.
- [45:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
That's one of the worst parts of it.
- [45:16]
Katie Cobb
B. Yeah. Campus does not.
- [45:18]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
No drama zone. Right? We want to know drama zone. And you're right. For the most part, that's exactly what we have. But I agree that that was on my list. Along those same lines, it's not something that I dislike. And this is true for anyone who talks about books publicly, because we decided again early on that we were gonna be honest about how we felt about our books. You. You know, like, what happened to me a couple of weeks ago, when I talk about a book that is by an author that I have really loved because I love their catalog or because I enjoy them as a person in real life, that can be uncomfortable.
- [45:56]
Katie Cobb
Right.
- [45:56]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But I do want to say I talked about a Katherine Ryan Howard book, and I was so grateful the day that that show dropped. I got the loveliest message from her saying, just, Meredith, you. It's totally like, you don't even need to be worried at all. I'm so glad that you talked about the book and how you talked about it was completely fair. And I'm like, we're good. Like, I just so appreciated how kind she was to reach out, because she was like, I got the feeling that you. You might be in your head about this. And I was. And that is. That is something that can be hard for anyone who's talking about books. Books publicly. When you're trying to be honest, but also really respectful, that can be true whether you really liked a book. Also, you know, we really have to think about when we talk about a book that might touch on a difficult topic or be incendiary in some way. And again, that's not something that I dislike. It's just something that you step carefully through because you want to really be thoughtful in how you're doing it. And sometimes, I guess if there's a part I don't like about that, it's that I'll be a little bit nervous afterwards about how that's gonna land. And that just gets. I can get in my head about that, definitely.
- [47:04]
Katie Cobb
And that kind of lends into the other part of publicly talking about books, which is that relationship that you have with Katherine Ryan Howard or with any of the authors we enjoy or with other book podcasters or with people in general on the Internet is, you know, we all know this term now, the parasocial relationship. And the flip side of that is that we've Been sharing of ourselves now for six and a half years on the show. And so sometimes people think they know us in a way that is not actually accurate. Right. Like, well, but you've been part of my life every day or every week, at least for so long now. So that might lead to really great, in quotes, advice for us as humans. And sometimes that's true. Or assumptions about our reading lives or what they think they know about us. And that is just the nature of A, content creation on the Internet and B, parasocial relationships where it's not just that you see a post from us, but that you hear our voices every single week. And so then we have situations like, you know, a couple weeks ago or anytime that we've gotten kind of vulnerable or you can hear deep emotion in any of our voices, where it's a lot. It's a lot to carry to know that it's not just you and yourself and this person that I'm talking to, Meredith, on the screen. But so many other people are going to hear this conversation. They're going to have their own feels about it. They're going to have their own thoughts and opinions about whether it was done correctly or how proud they are of you. And you're like, but I don't.
- [48:40]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I don't know.
- [48:41]
Katie Cobb
You like, wow. Sometimes it's heavy to carry, whether it's the opinion of an author or a friendship with somebody that you've never met in real life or whatever it is that came out of this sharing of oneself online. That's hard sometimes. So. Yeah, but I wouldn't trade it.
- [49:02]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes, right. Exactly. Exactly. I think the last thing that I was thinking about is that sometimes the never stopping, the ceaseless element of the podcast can be something that I wish I could put down for a little bit. And, and we have worked around that really well by finding ways to take an extended break in the summer and take a couple weeks off in the. In December. And that's really, really, really helped. But the, the struggle is real when it comes to, you know, no matter what's going on in someone's life, no matter what's going on, the podcast needs to be podcasting, you know, and so sometimes that ceaseless nature of it can be a little bit like, oh, I wonder what to just be like, not have that.
- [49:48]
Katie Cobb
But I just don't feel like it.
- [49:50]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
For a little while and also would not trade that at all for. It's so much fun. It brings so much joy, it brings so much connection with all of these things that we've been talking about. They are a absolute teardrop in a jug of. Of goodness. That is the podcast, for sure.
- [50:11]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. Our jugs are full of goodness.
- [50:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. Yes. Everybody says that.
- [50:17]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, they're all saying it. They're all saying it on the Internet. Yes. I. Yeah, I mean, I can't reiterate enough times how much I love getting to do this. That not. I mean, it's obvious, right? But the flexibility of being able to sit down with one of my best friends every week and talk about books and then have other people care about what we say and also do fun things with my kids and fit everything in around it. I mean, I would say a few years ago, when we were, like, slaving away at the grindstone, trying to get all the edits done before we even added as much content as we have now, it felt like, oh, well, now we're done recording. Oh, now somebody has to edit that. Oh, now somebody has to make sure it's uploaded. Like, that was exhausting. And I think making that transition, bringing Megan onto the team, making sure that. That we had somebody to pair up with us, to team up with us and make sure that that content was gonna get, like, processed and put out correctly, has been huge. For avoiding the burnout and a lot of the other things that could have been part of this deep dive where we say, like, well, no, I really like it, but, like, God, it's freaking exhausting.
- [51:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I simply wouldn't still be doing the podcast.
- [51:31]
Katie Cobb
There's.
- [51:32]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
There's absolutely no way that I would still be able to be involved in the podcast if we were still doing what we did for the first years of the show. Yeah, it's. It's absolutely. That has been a complete lifesaver and podcast saver. That's why, I mean, yeah, Megan doing what she does is the only reason that I can do what I do on the show, period. End of story.
- [51:55]
Katie Cobb
Even when we have to figure out kind of what to do without Megan, we're like chickens with our heads cut off. What in the world, Right. Are we going to do when she has that baby? Oh, my gosh.
- [52:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right when she's going. And then coming back.
- [52:09]
Katie Cobb
So, yes, she'll be back. It'll be okay.
- [52:12]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
For sure.
- [52:12]
Katie Cobb
Breathe, Katie, breathe.
- [52:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
She'll be back. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. We can always dip in and do. I could dip in and do it for a couple of months, but the idea of doing it long term, unending.
- [52:24]
Katie Cobb
It was the unending nature that was the problem. But here we are still season seven and hundreds of episodes under our belt and the tiniest little quibbles with, like, the way life works sometimes. And, I mean, you can't. You can't get better than that. That's amazing.
- [52:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It absolutely is. And really, honestly, the only. We wanted to answer this question because a lot of people jumped on the thread saying that they were interested, but, yeah, please know that we love doing what we're doing.
- [52:54]
Katie Cobb
Okay. Actually, I do have one more, but it's, again, tiny, and it's applicable this week. Y'all heard me talk about having a cold this week. Ever since starting the podcast and using my voice as, like, a tool every week, whenever I get a cold, it settles directly into my larynx. Like, I lose my voice every single time for at least a day. And then it comes back and I have, like, deep, sexy voice. Like. Like, I can narrate the man's tones in a book or whatever, and I think it's because I've developed it into a muscle, and so now it has to work in this certain way, and there's nothing to be done about that. Like, I take care of it as much as I can, but. But every time I had to push back recording of a Patreon episode this week and be like, guess what? I can't record because I have absolutely no voice at all. And that's a thing.
- [53:39]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It absolutely is.
- [53:40]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. Weird. All right, let's go to the fountain. What are we wishing for this week?
- [53:45]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, My fountain wish is a proxy wish, but once I heard about it, I knew that it needed to be my wish, too. My good friend Betsy had said, okay, I have a wish for the fountain that I just need to make really official, which is I want Victorian Psycho by Virginia Leto to be a graphic novel. And as soon as she said it, I was like, that makes so much sense. That would be Victorian Psycho would be the best graphic novel. It would be so Victorian England horror. Amazing. So that's our. That's our wish that. That. That somehow the universe would grant us that.
- [54:28]
Katie Cobb
It's pretty unusual for an adult novel to get turned into a graphic novel, but I can co sign this. I love the idea of any book being turned into a graphic novel and making it accessible to a new set of readers in a new format. So Pink Splash cosign.
- [54:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes.
- [54:43]
Katie Cobb
Okay. My wish is also borrowed, but it's from a year ago, so I wish for an easy way to find out niche book things. So pulling from the archives of this one, more than a year ago, bookish friend Lori posted this wish And I recently uncovered it from a treasure trove. Laurie wished that it would be easier to find out if a book would be better in a certain format. Like, if it has mixed media elements, it's easy to find that out. And it would say, pick this one up on paper, because whatever reason, right. If the audio has a full cast, maybe the library would let you know on the checkout page. This one's especially great on audio because it'll help you keep the characters straight. Lori's wish asked that storygraph would include this feature, but honestly, I just want the book fairy to do it for me and make it available everywhere. A removable sticker for websites, book covers, etc. That says, Readers say this book is great in blank format and it makes it easy for me to figure it out so that I don't have to, like, start something and be like, oh, oh, wait, there's an email with re, re, re, re. Rewritten 85 times. No, nobody should listen to this on audio. Put it down. Right. I don't want to have to go through that process. So make it easy for me. Thank you, book fairy. Ping. Splash.
- [55:59]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Well, that's a great wish. That would be entirely useful. Did you see, Katie, that our wish from.
- [56:09]
Katie Cobb
Like maybe two weeks ago for.
- [56:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The previously on Update. When you're reading a series that apparently this is now being baked into Kindle.
- [56:18]
Katie Cobb
I am so thrilled. And you can just click it and it will include spoilers from previous books, like, what? Also, what a great use of AI. Just put it in. It's so easy.
- [56:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. Make it easy. Exactly. So I haven't tried it, but I am very heartened by the fact that these wishes, more than you would think these wishes end up being granted. So far. We gotta put. We gotta put the big stuff out there.
- [56:43]
Katie Cobb
Definitely.
- [56:44]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
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 meredithmonday Schwartz on Instagram.
- [56:53]
Katie Cobb
And you can find me katieotes on bookmarks on Instagram. Our show thanks Be to Jesus is produced and edited every week by Megan Puttivong Evans. And you can find her on Instagram at most of Megan's reading reads.
- [57:06]
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.
- [57:17]
Katie Cobb
You can also follow the show at Currently Reading podcast on Instagram or email us especially with your questions at currentlyreading podcast gmail.com and if you want more.
- [57:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Of this content, join us as a bookish friend on patreon. It's only $5 a month and it will give you a ton more content, it will give you a ton of community, and it will keep this show commercial free. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts and shout us out on social media. All three of those things help us to find our perfect audience.
- [57:47]
Katie Cobb
Yes, Bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [57:53]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, until next week, may your.
- [57:55]
Katie Cobb
Coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.
- [57:58]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Happy reading, Katie.
- [57:59]
Katie Cobb
Happy reading, Meredith. There.