← The Currently Reading Podcast
The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 7, Episode 42: Replant Your Reading + How To Talk About Books In The Wild
00:59:40
On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Meredith are discussing: Bookish Moments: reading slumps and how to replant your reading life Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately Deep...
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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 bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.
- [00:33]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom of four and full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And I wish that reading slumps had better timing.
- [00:42]
Katie Cobb
And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona, and I'm thinking about replanting my reading life. This is episode number 42 of season seven, and we are so glad you're here.
- [00:53]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, that sounds interesting.
- [00:54]
Katie Cobb
I'm like living in allegory land right now. I don't know where I am.
- [00:58]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I like it.
- [00:59]
Katie Cobb
It's fun. It's fun.
- [01:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm very interested in that, y' all.
- [01:03]
Katie Cobb
Today we are going to talk about how to talk about books without making people roll their eyes at you, which is a little bit of a, of a cumbersome deep dive to spit out on the off the cuff. But we're very excited to get into this topic. It was requested by a listener. So first we'll get started the way we always do with our bookish moments of the week. Meredith, what is yours?
- [01:24]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, well, my bookish moment of the week is actually not exactly of this last week, but it's when I was on vacation in Hawaii, I got into a massive reading slump in the middle of not only a week of vacation, but a week of vacation that was really well designed to give me a lot of reading time. And I just want to kind of call out the fact that that is one of the most frustrating things when you're in a place where you're like, I'm going to be able to just read and read and then nothing you pick up feels good to you.
- [02:02]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [02:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
You just can't, you just can't get into it. I had a Kindle full of options, so it's not like I was stuck on vacation and didn't have access to books that I might want to read. I just, for whatever reason, I, I read. But everything felt very mid and everything felt very like bleh. And so I just want to say that it happens. I feel like a lot of people are talking about being slumpy right now. April was a terrible month for Me may has been marginally better, but not that much. And so, yeah, when you go on vacation and you really think this is going to be a lux luxurious time of reading, I mean, this wasn't a reading retreat, but I have heard of people slumping during a reading retreat and that has got to be the worst. Worst. Yes, this was a step up from that, but still, I just want to kind of normalize that. Sometimes when you want to feel like reading, you don't necessarily feel like reading. So when that happened to me, I spent time texting with friends or talking with my best friend who I was with, or even I let myself do a little bit of brain rotting on TikTok. Sometimes you just have to let yourself do that. So it's not exactly the world's most fun bookish moment of the week, but it was where I was.
- [03:24]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, I mean, that happens. I think. I think it's so important to recognize that and to not think it's the end of the world. Right, Right. Yeah, it happens to me too.
- [03:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. Especially at those inopportune times.
- [03:38]
Katie Cobb
For sure. All right. For me, this weekend, I did some puttering around the house and I decided to replant multiple houseplants of mine because my fiddle leaf, fig, I replanted it probably six months ago. And in the last, like three weeks, it's gotten three new leaves. It is just thriving. She is living her best life. She's so excited. But it took time, right? Like, first it had to get used to this brand new pot, and now it's just happy as a little clam. So I want all my plants to be that happy. While I had my hands in the dirt, I was thinking about what it might mean to replant my reading life. What does that look like? It's been up and down, slumpy, of course, over the past year with periods of like, fallow ground and periods of growth. But I was trying to imagine what replanting would be. How do I fertilize it, how much light does it need? And what window in my house gives it that right? How big of a pot does it need to fill it up but still have room to grow and not look like this pathetic little plant sitting in the middle of like a big giant pot? So I think this could potentially be a whole deep dive topic. But for now, I'm thinking that fertilizing it means having a robust TBR that hits all my sweet spots. Pots. The light aspect is about making my environment conducive to attention and focus and enjoyment. And the pot that I grow in is allowing for bookish serendipity, space for the wheelhouse to expand, allowing myself to become a different reader because I'm in a new season of life. And it's okay if it doesn't look like it did before because my pot is bigger and I have room to grow. This bookish moment is a little bit metaphorical allegorical, I guess, but it's where my reading thoughts are today.
- [05:19]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. I love that allegory. And I like the idea of us each thinking through what that might look like for us. I think that's really fun.
- [05:27]
Katie Cobb
It's fun, right? I was like, like literal hands in the dirt and I was like, oh, I've got it. I know my bookish moment right now with my hands in the soil.
- [05:35]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, maybe I feel like I have been slumping for a few months now. 2025 has not been a banger reading year for me and it hasn't been bad, but it has not been that fantastic. And so maybe that is kind of what I need is a little bit of repotting.
- [05:55]
Katie Cobb
Yeah.
- [05:56]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
A little bit of expansion. I just kind of went on a jaunt the other day when I was doing some requesting of library books because I had planned to go to the library this weekend and do just like a bookish serendipity run through the library. Didn't end up being able to do that, but I did some. I did that basically digitally. And what I found myself being drawn to is thinking about, like, summer is often a really satisfying time for me to read classics. And so what do I want my summer classic to be? So I kind of let myself do a little bit of googling, do a little bit of chat gpting and figure out like, okay, what. What road do I want to go down? And so I did some holding, putting on hold some books that might fall into that category and they'll start to come in this week. So, yeah, that feels a little bit like repotting or moving into a little bit of a bigger pot because I just keep feeling like I've read a lot of books. Although today I have. I have three books to talk about that I liked a lot. I had a. I've had a lot of mid reads and that's something that. That is the worst case scenario for me.
- [07:00]
Katie Cobb
Yes, agree. Absolutely. Going through my list of read books and being like, I don't want to talk about any of these.
- [07:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. Because they weren't bad, but they weren't great. And I don't really have anything interesting.
- [07:12]
Katie Cobb
To say about them.
- [07:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
That is worst case.
- [07:15]
Katie Cobb
Absolutely. Totally agree. Let's talk about our books, though, because I also have a great crop of books today. So. Okay, let's get into it.
- [07:24]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. So I'm going to start us out with a work of true crime that actually just came out this past Tuesday. So it is available right now, and I really, really thought it was well done. I read a book called Murder in the Dollhouse, the Jennifer Doulos Story by Rich Cohen. All right, so if the name doesn't sound familiar to you, I'll let you know that this book traces the life of Jennifer Doulos, who was Ivy league educated mom. I think she had five kids. They lived in this huge Connecticut house. All the trappings. Right. And then early One morning in May 2019, Jennifer Doulos goes missing after dropping her kids off at school. From there, we get the mystery of her vanishing. Her body has actually never been recovered. And then we get a very carefully reported journey through one of Connecticut's most contentious divorces because she was going through a divorce at the time of her disappearance. And. And the unraveling of that marriage and then the shocking aftermath of everything that happened that ended up with her estranged husband, Fotus Doulos, taking his own life before he could go to trial. All right. This book was a reading experience for me that was really good. It was really engrossing. It was memorable as all get out. Even though I read it a couple of months ago, as I did that setup, I had so many details of this book going through my mind, but it was also an experience that I would call a little bit odd. So Murder in the Dollhouse by Rich Cohen came up as an arc for me. I immediately requested it because I've always been really interested in this particular case. Jennifer Dulos has one of those had it all stories that I find hard to resist. So I was hoping for some gripping true crime. But what I wasn't thinking I would get is the very thing I always want, which is an explanation. The why of how inexplicable things like a beautiful mom of five in upscale Connecticut going missing. How did the. How does that come to pass? And that is really why I read true Crime, if I'm honest. And maybe it's why I love crime fiction so much. It's that puzzle to solve at a human level. I'm always wanted to wanting to know how someone could end up in these horrible situation. How could the murderer arrive at a place where he was compelled to commit such an unspeakable crime as this. But you rarely get that in true crime. We get some answers, but you very rarely get those really deep human answers. But in this book you do. That's because this book goes all caps deep. The author, Rich Cohen seems really invested in telling this story, like the whole of this story. He's an experienced writer with magazine articles from Vanity Fair and Wall Street Journal and he's written TV shows for hbo. But here he seemed invested in a totally personal way. And when I did some looking into him, I found that he was born just three years after Jennifer Doulos. And he also lives in Connecticut. He's Jewish like she was. And he seems to have run in a lot of the same circles. And the impression I get is that her story felt in large part like his story. Because he gets deep into the why of Jennifer Farber than Doulos life both before and after she married Fotus Doulos, the man who we know brutally murdered her. We get the answers as to what went into the psyche of this beautiful rich daddy's girl who was brought up in New York City and why she finally ends up with Fotus who is handsome but psychopathic. From the get in Cohen's hands, we understand these choices even if we also wish we could stop them from happening. We also get an extraordinarily deep look into the divorce that ended up being the reason for the murder. It's amazing how much info Cohen was able to get, but we are there for the hundreds of filings that were made in this divorce. We see the emails back and forth between the couple as their marriage collapses. And we hear from witnesses who knew that at some point Fotis would become irrevocably violent. It's a slow speed car crash with a damage zone way, way beyond just the two people at its center. And Rich Cohen takes us into every single aspect of the story, including the crime which is incredibly detailed, the COVID up which is incredibly complicated and how the police caught Fotus. I say this experience was strange because I'd read and read and read and I was only a few percentage further and it yet I was just sucked in the entire time. I almost felt like I would get so deeply sucked into the reading of this book that I would have to shake myself to move on to other things. It was, it was really, really engrossing. So if you love well done true crime, grab this one which came out on May 20. This is murder in the Dollhous. The Jennifer Dulo Story by Rich Cohen and, man, this one is going to live rent free in my head for a long time.
- [12:53]
Katie Cobb
Sounds good.
- [12:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes.
- [12:56]
Katie Cobb
Okay, so you're talking about the court filings and the emails. Does it have, like, a mixed media element to it or.
- [13:01]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
No, I mean, in that, you know, when you're reading an email and, you know, it doesn't have, like a super visual element to it, but, you know.
- [13:09]
Katie Cobb
Not like the subject header and then re. Re. Re. Kind of.
- [13:12]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay, Right. I think the most important thing is that he had a lot of access to things that enable you to hear the story through the actual people, even though right now, like, he couldn't interview them.
- [13:26]
Katie Cobb
Right, right.
- [13:28]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
So you. You have a really strong sense of what was actually happening in these people's minds.
- [13:33]
Katie Cobb
Right. Hmm. Yeah. That's giving me feels of the book that, you know, I was finishing on Friday when we weren't recording, or on Saturday when we weren't recording.
- [13:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Mm.
- [13:43]
Katie Cobb
Similarities in the storyline and a true crime element. Love it.
- [13:47]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I would say if you. If you're freshly going through a divorce, might want to put a pin in this.
- [13:53]
Katie Cobb
Right. I'm probably not gonna read it right now. Well, point. Well taken. Point for you.
- [14:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes.
- [14:00]
Katie Cobb
All right, interesting. Okay. Although I do have a Meredith recommendation as my first read, but it's from the Wayback Files.
- [14:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay.
- [14:08]
Katie Cobb
Part of my crop of great reads for today. My first book this week is My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brody Ashton and Jodi Meadows.
- [14:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love this one.
- [14:18]
Katie Cobb
Oh, my God. Okay. Meredith pressed this into our hands on episode one of season three, which is now like, almost five years ago. That's crazy. That's a long time ago. Right. But it took me almost five more years to read it. It was gently recommended to me as a book that would probably make me laugh when I said I wanted some of that and it delivered. Here's the setup. King Edward is heir to the throne of England as the only living son of King Henry viii. Yes, that King Henry viii. But King Edward is on his deathbed. He has an inexplicable illness, slowly bringing him closer and closer to the grave. It is strongly suggested that he marry, but he's unlikely to produce an heir in time. So instead, his advisors press him to hand over the kingdom to his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, the historical eight day Queen of England. However, this is an alternate history retelling. So rather than a speedy eight day reign, here we enter a world of humans who can change into animals. The Edians is what they're called oftentimes at will. Jane is hastily married off to Lord Guildford Dudley to secure her spot as Queen and secure the throne for her family. But the only issue is that her fiance is a secret Edian. Every night, without fail and without intention, he turns into a horse. Not a bird or a lion or something sexy. A horse with no ability to change back like the rest of the Edeans. Until sunrise, his changes are controlled completely by daylight. This is quite a surprise to Jane upon their wedding night. But needs must. And as Edward succumbs to his sickness and she is elevated to the throne, it becomes ever more imperative that she A help her husband get himself under control and B figure out what happened to Edward's body, because it's definitely strange that no one has produced it for her to mourn properly. He's her cousin, he's the king. Where is his body? This book, y' all, I am so mad at myself that it took me so long to finally pick it up. It was delightful and so much more fun than it had any right to be. It was. It's a triple authored book like, which is amazing in itself. How do three people work together to produce not just this, but they're on like seven or eight books into. We've got the Janes, we've got the Mary's, there's so much fun stuff going on. It was not on my 2025 bingo card, but I'm so glad it was suggested first by, well, by many people. But the one that I attributed in my reading log was Readingdays on Instagram who pushed it back up my TBR after Meredith first added it. The quick pace, the nods to history while veering wildly afield and the political intrigue of the Tudor court were all exactly what I needed. I have all the others, as well as the screen adaptation on my to be read and to be watched list now as it could not have delivered better for me. Thank you to reading days and long ago, five years ago. To Meredith for getting this one into my ears. I absolutely loved it. This was My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brody Ashton and Jodi Meadows.
- [17:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Well, a couple things. I absolutely love this book and I think instead of you being mad that it took you so long to get to it, I actually think it probably found you in exactly the right time.
- [17:38]
Katie Cobb
I probably did. I may have dismissed it.
- [17:40]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right, you may have dismissed it. But I think more than anything you were really ready to laugh.
- [17:46]
Katie Cobb
Right?
- [17:46]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Like the cause it's really funny and it just, it's so. Doesn't take itself too seriously. It's that perfect blend of. I guess it's not a blend. I love funny fantasy.
- [17:59]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [18:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
You know, it's not super high stakes. It's not war. It's not. Whatever this was, you know, this was like cozy before. Cozy fantasy was cool.
- [18:09]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [18:10]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
So, yeah, this is. It's a favorite series for me. I think I've read three in the series and I always think, oh, the next time I run into that at the library, I'm going to go ahead and grab it because that's how I've grabbed them all. It's just. I just see them at the library and I just grab it. Yeah.
- [18:25]
Katie Cobb
I loved it so much, I actually made Katie read it immediately afterward. And then she got sick. So she was like, listen, I've already watched the entire series and I've started my. What's the next one? My Plain Jane. Like, she's like, I'm. I'm fully in. And I was like, oh, I did that. Yeah.
- [18:39]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And I tried to watch the show, and this and this often is true for me, what I can take in my reading or what I love in my reading doesn't translate to what I love in shows. So maybe that's good because I don't have a lot of overlap. So the show didn't necessarily work for me, but it did make me say, oh, I really love these books.
- [18:58]
Katie Cobb
Yes, Yes. I find that's true for me, too. Like, I'm always like, oh, I wish I could get great British Bake off in a book or Ted Lasso in a book. But then when somebody's like, well, this book has those vibes, I'm like, yeah, not really. And I don't really like it.
- [19:12]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's tough. Or it'll be like a weird. Like, you'll like, you'll find it, but in a weird place. Like, I wouldn't have expected to get great British Bake off vibes in this murder mystery.
- [19:23]
Katie Cobb
And yet, magically, here we are. What's your second book, Meredith?
- [19:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Here we go. All right. My second book is another book that I really, really liked. And this falls into the category of sometimes you all just have to listen to me talk about a book that you don't care that I read because it's the third in the series and you're going to become progressively sick of hearing about this series. And I don't care because I'm reading the Wheel of Time series and I love it. This is book number three, the Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan. All right, so this book, to me, this third book is where the series really, really, really for this reader finds its footing and spreads its wings. In this installment, we are following our lead character, Rand Al Thor, as he grapples with his destiny question mark as the prophesied Dragon Reborn, a figure that people both fear and hope for throughout the entire land. But here's what what really makes this book fascinating and took it to the next level for me. Although it bears Rand's title, the Dragon Reborn, we experience most of the journey through the eyes of this group of people who are racing to catch up with him, his friends Perrin, Matt and Egwene. As Rand makes a dangerous solo journey to the Stone of Tyr, claim the magical sword Kalindor, and either prove or disprove his identity once and for all. All right, setting up thirds in series sucks. I just said a bunch of words that don't mean anything to you if you haven't read the first two books. I realized that Use your fast forward button, friends. That's what it's there for. All right, if it seems to you who know my reading well that I am moving through these huge, huge chonkers fast and faster, you are not imagining things. I am. And that is going to get worse. Because this book was so good. The first two books have been good. This book was great. I loved every single page of it. Every single scene made better of course, because as always, I'm reading this series with Bill Largent, who's my patient guide and my chief question answerer and because I can't really get into the nitty and the gritty of this book without spoilers. What stands out to me about reading this series, and I think this applies toward any really long series that takes a ton of investment, is that great series are written in a way that you are in from the beginning. To a certain extent, you have to have something to hang on to for you to want to get through those first couple of books while the world is being built. Again, remember, this is high fantasy. The highest of the high fantasy. Not the highest, but like it's this is high fantasy. Then, after You've read about 2,500 pages in the series, which is roughly the page count at the end of this one, book three, you are finally, finally starting to figure something. Some things out. Concepts that had felt super complicated and too hard to understand are now starting to make sense. You're pulling some of those threads together. Heck, I was even starting to make some bigger conceptual guesses about what might be happening by the time I got to the end of this book. And that felt like progress to me. Kind of like when you learn anything of value. It's fiddly and weird at first, but also enjoyable. But then when you get it, what a feeling. But that is just part of the genius of Robert Jordan. What he's doing here with these characters and their individual arcs is so interesting. And the dude can write a battle scene. But what Bill and I were discussing is that some of our favorite scenes in all three books, but especially in this one, are not those big battle scenes. They're the scenes that are much more prosaic. Moments between two women talking about their magic. Or a scene in a blacksmith's smithy that will. Will forever be burned in my memory. Robert Jordan is a fantastic storyteller in the big moments, but maybe most especially in the smaller ones. And once again, I'll give you the recommendation that Bill gave to me at the start. Listen to the audiobook. I do a combo read of audio and print because that's really helpful to me. Spellings of the characters and place names are a thing in this. In this world. But the narration here by Kate Redding and Michael Kramer is so good. And I can't imagine listening to anyone else tell this story. Story. I am in people. I am so dang invested in this series that you need to prepare yourself that you're just going to have to hang in with me and either listen to me talk about this series or fast forward through it, because I am not stopping now. This is the Dragon Reborn, book three of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.
- [24:06]
Katie Cobb
For a third book, I'm very interested, and I realize that some people might skip a third book setup, but I loved the way you talked about that.
- [24:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Really, really good. I'm already halfway through the fourth one, right? It's like I'm almost exclusively. I told Bill, like, I'm forcing myself to read two audiobooks in between. Like, when I get done with one, I'm like, okay, I have to read two other books before I can go on to the next one. But if I mean, pretty much, it's like, almost all of my audio reading.
- [24:35]
Katie Cobb
Oh, so good. I love that. Okay, I. Gosh, which one should I do next? I love all the books that I brought this week. I'm gonna go with. I actually have two nonfiction as well to finish out my three current reads this week, so I'm gonna go with she Memes well by Quinta Brunson as my second one this week. This was great on audio. So a long day working in my front yard. Led me to listening to this one in a single sitting. I was standing, I was sweaty, I was a mess. Right? As you all know, I love a memoir read by the author. And maybe you didn't know before, but Abbott elementary is my comfort show. In fact, I often put it on when I'm prepping my show notes to record with Meredith because it's a workplace comedy without the cringe, which is my favorite thing. So that's all I needed in order to be excited to hear from Quinta Brunson for. Mm hmm, yeah, 293 pages about her life. Had to check the notes on that one. Quinta is the fifth of five children. In fact, her name means fifth in Spanish, although it is an Americanized pronunciation of it. Signed your resident masters of Spanish pronunciation guru. She became breakout famous when Instagram first introduced reels, harnessing her humor to create content that got millions of views. Well, before that was a regular thing. She also produced viral content on BuzzFeed. They had like a video element for quite some time. And here she shows off that she's funny on the page as well as in front of and behind the camera. Quinta takes the time to unpack her childhood, making it so obvious why she looks up to her educator mom and based Ms. Towered on Abbott elementary on her mom as the youngest of five, she had to be loud to stand out. She had to be different. And she did so in various performing arts classes from a very young age. She details her young adulthood and her dedication to the craft. She, like, spent so much time in improv classes, Second City, that kind of thing. From working at the Apple store to make ends meet so she could afford a single burrito at the taco cart to becoming somewhat recognizable and now a voice and face nearly everyone knows. At the point when this book was released, Abbott elementary had just finished filming its pilot season and had been picked up for season two. So she doesn't spend a lot of time, if any, being famous. Like, capital F famous, where people know her. Right. Instead, she's the kind of famous where people are like, don't I know you? Right? Like, it's that kind of. I'm pretty sure I've seen you on the Internet somewhere. It is touched on briefly in the epilogue as she talks about the magic of the Abbott cast working together and how they're like a true family. If you're here for the behind the scenes of a famous comedian's life tea, you will be disappointed. This is more of the elbow grease day in, day out, devotion to the world of comedy. But it's all told with her signature wit and charm. And she's like, adorable and relatable. And I especially loved hearing from her in her own voice. Quinta had me cracking up while I trimmed trees, mowed the lawn, and dragged a couch to the curb for pickup. I was sweaty and filthy, but happy as a pig in poop. This was she Memes well by Quinta Brunson.
- [27:46]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. She is so adorable and so funny.
- [27:49]
Katie Cobb
She's so cute. I want to put her in my pocket.
- [27:51]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love her so much. She is so, so cute. All right, my third book is a very interesting one and I think a lot of people will like this book. It's called Lexicon by Max Berry. Have you ever heard of this book, Katie?
- [28:06]
Katie Cobb
Oh my gosh. This has been on my TBR for forever and I've never picked it up.
- [28:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. It is really, really good. All right, here's the setup. In a world very much like our own, there exists a secret organization of poets who have mastered the art of using specific words as weapons capable of breaking down anyone's mental defenses and taking complete control of that person. Our story weaves together two threads. So one is following Emily Ruff, who's a smart street smart orphan who gets recruited into this shadowy organization and trained at their exclusive Virginia school. And then the other thread we're following is one involving Will park, who's a seemingly ordinary man who wakes up with a needle in his eye and no memory of why he's being hunted by these word wielding assassins. Their stories converge around a mysterious catastrophe in the Australian mining town of Broken Hill, where something has gone terribly, apocalyptically wrong. All right, this is another library find. I had never heard of this book before. I needed so badly something that felt new and different because of the slumping I've been talking about and. But I also needed something to keep my attention, which has been a struggle. My brain has felt very distractible, which is probably the reason for the slump. I also wanted it to be something that was not a new release that I was seeing everywhere. So enter this language thriller. A language thriller from 2013 by an author I've never read before. So check, check and check. This book is a wild ride. It's carefully and complicatedly constructed. It plops you down right in the middle of the action from the beginning, and you need to stick with it for a few pages. As you begin to get your feet under you, you will be confused at first, but that is exactly the point. The construction is careful Like I said, it's also complicated. Max Berry is there to give you something interesting, but he is not going to hold your hand. You are going to have to want to ground yourself in the story. You're going to have to want to pick up the breadcrumbs that he's leaving for you and figure out exactly what's going on. And that process is part of why I really loved this book. It was great to watch the picture of everything come together and there were lots of fun reveals along the way that absolutely kept me turning the pages. And this felt like magic to me at the time because absolutely nothing had been holding my attention. So you could see the hard work that he was doing to set up the story in an interesting way. And you could also see the hard work that went into learning and researching and everything that had to do with lexicography and linguistics and brain science. It was all incredibly interesting, even for me. And I'm not super sciencey. So if you love words, you will love this. But also if you just love a smart dystopian thriller, you will eat this up. There's action for days. I read it with my eyes super wide a lot of the time. So here's what I'll say. If you read the book the Rook by Daniel o' Malley and thought, I love this, but I wish it was just a little bit darker, then this book is for you. If you read Babel and thought, I love this, but I wish it had more high speed chases and gun battles and maybe a sex scene or two, then this is for you. This is a literary thriller for the bookish among us. And I loved it. This is Lexicon by Max Berry.
- [31:53]
Katie Cobb
I need to move this up. That was all catnip. I don't.
- [31:56]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's super fun. It's very summer blockbustery. Kind of like I want to go see Mission Impossible this weekend and it's kind of that mood.
- [32:06]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, the vibes.
- [32:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But smart.
- [32:08]
Katie Cobb
And I'm such a word nerd. Like I could live in this book.
- [32:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes, it's.
- [32:13]
Katie Cobb
Why have I not read this?
- [32:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's very word nerdy. I didn't. I thought the same thing when I saw it. It was like this came out in 2013. It couldn't be more up my alley. But again, people go to the library. Like, we all need to get out of the new release stacks. I really feel so strongly about that. And like go into the other parts of your library because that I'm finding is where is where the stuff that is really working for me Is where. That's where I'm finding it.
- [32:43]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. I mean, it. It was marked as want to read on my Goodreads already, Which I stopped using Goodreads like two or three years ago. So it's been on my TBR for a period of time. I don't know.
- [32:56]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Why are you looking at Goodreads right now? Can you tell me? I don't remember if I. I haven't yet seen what the Goodreads ratings are on this.
- [33:02]
Katie Cobb
3.91.
- [33:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay.
- [33:04]
Katie Cobb
Over 39,000 ratings. Okay.
- [33:06]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah.
- [33:07]
Katie Cobb
Which is not. Which is not bad at all. So on Storygraph, it's slightly lower. 3.87.
- [33:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Where it probably drops off for people is, like I said, is. It is. You have to pay attention. It's not a book that I think would be super. That would super work at the pool where like every two minutes, mommy, watch. That's not gonna work for the flow of this book. It's not literary, but it's somewhere in between. I did a lot of reading of it on the airplane, and it was a great plain book for me because I could just like, get into it. But I also wanted to turn the page to.
- [33:45]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, I love that. Okay. Mine's kind of the opposite of that. It's not a plain book for sure. This third book is A Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkle.
- [33:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay.
- [33:56]
Katie Cobb
This is the second book I've read by Margaret Rankle. I liked the first one fine. It wasn't a standout or a keeper, but I enjoyed it for what it was. So it did take me some time to finally agree to read this one with Katie. Not much time to buy it, mind you. It's beautiful inside and out, but I had to be talked into picking it up and I. And so I am grateful that I did. This is a collection of essays that would be perfect for a morning read. Meredith. Or a lunchtime read, Roxanna. It is a series of 52 essays, one a week, so they're very short, one a week, that chronicles Rankle's backyard over the course of a year. Each one is between two and eight pages long, so they're an easy ask for a short break from work. And oh my Lord, is it stunning. There are regular full color illustrated plates throughout the collection created by her brother, Billy Wrinkle. The ones that mark the start of each season of the year are especially stunning. Like, take it out of my book and put it on the wall, except then I damage my beautiful book.
- [34:56]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, I love books like that.
- [34:58]
Katie Cobb
This book is the perfect companion if you loved the Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan or World of Wonders by Amy Nezika Mattel, it would also be Friends on the Shelf with Braiding Sweetgrass or the Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, or even An Immense World by Ed Yong. Basically, I'm recommending it to everyone who loves nature and beautiful observations written by intelligent women. It demands to be read in paper, and while I can't speak to the audio, I would accept a tandem read as an option. But the paper must be in front of you. You must have the paper. There are essays in here that made me laugh out loud, some that made me tear up with a nostalgia or cry a little sad tear. Because there's a lot of animals in a backyard, right? Especially in Tennessee, so it's lush and verdant. And also there's a circle of life element. There's baby birds that don't make it and baby rabbits that have a rough time of it. It's cleverly rooted with a strong sense of place and ties to her family. It made me grateful, asked me to look up and notice, and gave me a new appreciation for the creatures and plants in my own backyard, which are very different from Margaret Rankles, Even my dumb, dumb dog. I am so very grateful that I picked it up finally, nearly two years later, because I did give it five glorious nature filled stars. This is a Comfort of Crows by Margaret Rankle.
- [36:24]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, that sounds really, really great. I love a two copy book. A book that, that you have to have two copies of to do. Like, either because you want to own it and give it away, you want to own one and tear pages out of another one and then frame them. You know what I mean? Like a two copy book.
- [36:41]
Katie Cobb
I wish it would be so pretty as like a series of four framed images for each of the four seasons of the year.
- [36:48]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
That's a good idea. You should do that, Katie.
- [36:51]
Katie Cobb
I should. Or even just one frame and you switch out the one that's in the front seasonally so that it's like this new beautiful thing that you're looking for.
- [36:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It would be fresh all the time to your eye.
- [36:59]
Katie Cobb
Ooh, I like this idea. It might happen. It might have to happen.
- [37:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I like it too. All right, good.
- [37:06]
Katie Cobb
Okay. Those were our six books of the week. And maybe we got a few eye rolls. Maybe we were a little weird sometimes, but we do this as our job. So let's talk about how normal people talk about books. How do you talk about books without people rolling their eyes at you? I did go back and look, and Jesse Lane is the one who sent us this deep dive idea.
- [37:26]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Love, Jesse. I. You know, I think this is especially appropriate for us to talk about Katie, because I think maybe we get put in this situation where we could be eye rolly more than other people because of what we do. Right. So my husband is notorious for everywhere we go. That is bookish. He. He will tell. Absolutely. Actually, I have a few. My husband and a few friends of mine in real life will be like, she's not telling you this, but she's a book podcaster. And I'm always like, stop. But then what that does is people are like, oh, you must know a lot about books. You must want to talk about books. And then you kind of become that person in your life. Right. And then you feel like, okay, this.
- [38:09]
Katie Cobb
Happens to me too.
- [38:09]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Are they talking to me about, like, do they really want me to tell them what books I think they might want to read? Or is it like, they're just doing this because they feel like they have to, or do they. They ask me a question. They want one recommendation, and I can't stop myself from giving 10. So, like, I feel like I've had to really think through how to not be annoying in my real life when I'm talking about books, but also maintaining that privilege of being able to recommend books to people when they really want it.
- [38:40]
Katie Cobb
Yes. And this happens to me as well. It just happened at a restaurant the other day with the person I was with being like, did you know this person talks about books professionally? She would love to give you book recommendations. And I was like, that is not why I'm here, though. Oh, my God, please stop. So it's a whole thing. I think it's important to note that even for us, it is not our single defining personality trait. Right. Like, we do have other things we could talk about. So if we need to pivot, that's okay. You know, you don't have to be worried or ashamed if you don't want to talk about books with us. And I think it's important to kind of make that clear in a conversation if you want to avoid the eye rolling.
- [39:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Absolutely. That's not at all. Like, I can talk about a lot of things.
- [39:25]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [39:26]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Does not need to be like, you want to talk about Shauna, the mom. I'm your girl.
- [39:31]
Katie Cobb
More like weird birds. I'm. I mean, Exactly.
- [39:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. So I think one of the. One of the. Kind of. One of the things that I've done that is both helpful to me and I think is really helpful to the people that I might be talking to is that I've kind of put up this boundary where I'm like, I. If someone's like, tell me what I should read. Well, what do you like to read? Oh, I'll just read anything. I actually have put up a boundary where I won't proceed further with that. I will be like, okay, I want to give you a really good recommendation, and I can't do that if I don't have some sense of either what you have loved in the past or what you're in the mood for right now. So give me a couple crumbs of something and then we'll move forward. So I think part of it is we need to read the room. And then I think part of it is that we need to start with the person and, and what they, what season there are in their. In, in their life, what they've loved in the past or might be looking for. Getting a sense of them is something that I just, like I said, I've put a boundary up around that where I'm like, this needs to happen. But as it a regular person in real life, I think it's really helpful if readers, we readers all, everyone who's listening is probably this person in their friends and family's life. I'd be willing to bet most of the time. I think it's really helpful if we readers teach these laypeople, Lexi was calling them lay people the other day. Teaches laypeople that you, in order to get a good recommendation, you have to. There has to be some information shared because that teaches them about how to make choices for themselves.
- [41:11]
Katie Cobb
Right? Yes. I draw that boundary similarly. But I usually say I really pride myself on giving exactly the right recommendation. So in order to do that, I need some more from you in order like to. To keep going with this conversation. Right? Because it's true. I mean, it's great if you throw out like, okay, well, the best book I read lately was this. But. But if that's not going to be a hit for that reader, then your knowledge has been mined for naught. Right? I mean, because that's not why we read, is to be able to tell people one favorite book. And that's not, I'm guessing, why most people are listening to this podcast, because I think that's a huge part of being able to give recommendations even outside your wheelhouse, is to hear people talk about books that are not going to be for you for whatever reason. Like when Roxanna and I record together or when you and Roxanna record together. We're like, here's a Roxanna. She will never touch this book, but I can tell her all about it and then someday she might be able to recommend it to somebody else. Right?
- [42:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. And don't get it twisted. Ms. Roxanna loves to hear about gory. You know, like she loves. She just doesn't want to read it, but she loves to live vicariously through it.
- [42:18]
Katie Cobb
Exactly. Okay. So I also love to have kind of two baseline questions once we get into that. Like, okay, I'm actually going to give you a recommendation that I think it's great to be able to answer for yourself and then be able to start with broad strokes and go deeper. So my first question is, what kind of genres do you read? That's just like a broader, you know, maybe at that point somebody's eyes glaze over and then they're not. They don't actually want your recommendation. Right. It's kind of a weeding out question. Well, I mean, if you were like, if you were in a bookstore, which section would you go to? Because if you're just gonna wander aimlessly through the new fiction or new releases, then maybe you're not actually identifying as a reader in this time of your life. And that's okay. But I'm not gonna spend 45 minutes trying to draw you into conversation about books as well.
- [43:16]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right, Exactly. And I think that that's part of it too, is the reading of the room. I think that's a great question to ask because it does get you really quickly to this, to answering the question that your point is we need answered. Is this someone who. I just need to give them really legit any book and they're going to be like, great, I just have a book in my bag, that's all I needed. Or is this someone who's looking for the right book? Knowing the difference there will help you save your own time, but also will make it a more enjoyable experience.
- [43:51]
Katie Cobb
Definitely.
- [43:52]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
You know, just if, if it's just like, if they just need to have a book in their bag, just give them project Hail Mar and send them on their way.
- [43:59]
Katie Cobb
Yes. Right, Right.
- [44:01]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
We don't need to spend 45 minutes with that. And sometimes I think we also need to ascertain whether they want us to recomm. I think we automatically go into book recommendation mode. I think a lot of readers do that, but sometimes they just want to talk about books because maybe they don't have anyone else in their life life that like, they legitimately may want to know more. What were your favorite? You know, what's the last great book that you read? Right. Which I know we all get that question, and then our eyes glaze over because we can't remember.
- [44:38]
Katie Cobb
Right. Every book leaves our brains immediately. Correct.
- [44:40]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
You know, find you a way to be able to quickly access that if you can. Because having these conversations with people, taking them up on it when you can, you'd be. I mean, lots of times you can really get people back into the reading life by doing that. So it's a little bit like proselytizing, like, if they're open. Answer the question, people.
- [44:59]
Katie Cobb
What is it? The Watchtower. It's like a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet.
- [45:02]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. Like, don't. Yeah. If they.
- [45:05]
Katie Cobb
If they answered the door, be ready. Hand them the pamphlet.
- [45:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But here's the thing, and I think that this is the piece that takes practice. Maybe there are probably some people who are naturally really good at it, but most people, I would say, probably need some practice is what I call the hook em or lose them element of things, which is when people.
- [45:25]
Katie Cobb
Trademark.
- [45:26]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. When people want to talk about books, when they ask me a question as a reader, like, well, what's the last book that you just couldn't put down? Or that was five stars for you. Or what's the last. Even just what's the last book you read? Be ready with a short, sweet, kind of punchy way of talking about that book. If you launch into. So, like, in the first hundred pages, our protagonist is struggling with big things of grief and loss and you lost them.
- [45:54]
Katie Cobb
Yep, yep, yep.
- [45:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But if I was talking about lexicon, for example, and I was like, I just read a book that was literally about words that can kill people. You've got them immediately. So if you can come up with a punchy way of recommending a book with really, really quickly, kind of like an elevator pitch, then I think that's really helpful. The other thing is, for most readers, emotion will trump themes any day of the week. So you can talk about instead how a book made you feel rather than giving them a huge long plot summary or talking about, you know, narrative structure, those kinds of things. So lead with emotion.
- [46:37]
Katie Cobb
And I think that one of the keys there is that whatever book it is, it does not have to be the best book you read recently. Right. What are they going to do? Do go back and check, make you give your star rating? It's okay. Have it be whatever that book is, the one that you can hook them with. Right. This is something that I've still got on the top of my mind, even though Meredith, for example, you read that, what, three or four weeks ago. It's not necessarily even the best book you read recently, but it is something that has a catchy single sentence summary that you can then be like, okay, look, I can see the sparkle in their eyes. They're a little excited about this idea. I can get a little more into it. Oh, and if you liked that one, I actually read one last year that has a similar construction to it, but it's about a magical school. Right. And then you can go from there into Babel and it can become a branching tree. But it's okay to have it be just that one little shoot of recommendation. And it's whatever is easy access, top of mind, easy to describe rather than, well, the third book in the Wheel of Time series series is phenomenal. I do recommend that you read all 1800 other pages first and then you'll be there. It's gonna be great, right?
- [47:49]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, definitely not casually recommending Wheel of Time to people. But I take. But I take your point. I think too. I mean, to further that point, being able to. I mean, we do this, everybody does this on podcasts, but it works really well in your real life with people who don't listen to podcasts. Use comps or mashups that will really like if you. It's like the Bachelor meets the Hunger Games, but with aliens. Like use that kind of thing that can ground people quickly and into a story and give them a sense of what that book might be about. That is just a really quick shorthand that they can use. And again, we're talking about two. We're using movies as our example.
- [48:34]
Katie Cobb
Right.
- [48:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
We don't. You don't. For us as readers, we would use books as our comps, but for the general public, maybe you want to use a TV show that you like if you really love Succession, but you actually wanted there to be someone to root for, you know? Yes, that kind of thing can be really helpful.
- [48:50]
Katie Cobb
Definitely. Yes. I love that.
- [48:53]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The last thing that I want to say about this, and this is a little bit woo woo. But I feel really compelled to say it because it's something that figures so strongly for me in my personal life about talking about books with people. I often times will. If I get into a bookish conversation with someone, I'll do all the things that we've talked about and they'll be interested. And you can especially tell that they're interested if they're like, if they're. If they get their phone out and they're like making notes in their notes app about the books that you're talking about. Great. Give them more. If they're, like, looking at their smartwatch and, you know, whatever. Wrap it up. Up.
- [49:30]
Katie Cobb
Read the room.
- [49:31]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Read the room. Wrap it up. You're done there. But. So I'll ask all those questions and I'll give them a couple of straight line recommendations. And almost always, and I do this on the show, too, when we. Especially when we boss people's TBRs, there will be some other book that. I don't know why it is above my head for this person, but I will almost always share that book with that person. Because so many times that book that makes no sense, that recommendation that makes no sense will be the one that people come back to me and they're like, that was exactly what I needed. And here's why. So if your intuition is give. Is feeding you a book that doesn't make any sense, just add it. Just, you know, be like, I don't know why, but I feel like this one might work for you.
- [50:17]
Katie Cobb
And.
- [50:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And, you know, let. Let them know about that. So listen to your bookish intuition and.
- [50:22]
Katie Cobb
It can be an ongoing conversation, right? Like, maybe not the waitress at the restaurant. That's not a thing. Right? But if you meet a new friend and Johnny throws you to the wolves at the party, oh, my gosh, she's a book podcaster. I can't wait to let you two go talk about books. That's great. But you can be like, you know, there's another one on the tip of my tongue. I don't have it right now. Is it okay if I send it to you later? And then guess what happens? Oh, my gosh, the most fun thing. My friend at church, this happens with her, Toni will come to me and be like, oh, I just finished the third one in that series. I don't want to read the fourth one because I'm worried that now I'll be all done with that series and I'm going to be so sad. And it's like, okay, well, we can have an ongoing conversation about what might be the next right thing for you. Because she has allowed the give and take element of it in a way that's different than, like, well, we got to have our one book conversation. I hope it was great for you. That's like One Night stand book recommendations, which is a very different thing.
- [51:19]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right? I mean, it's. It is a really good way to further that conversation. I have a lot of in Real life friends that started out just as a mom on the football team who was like, oh, wait, you might be able to give me some book recs. And then it went into, you know, texting, when it went, whatever. And so. And now we're friends. So that's a. It's a really great way to do that. But as readers, just, you know, do it when they seem really interested, it.
- [51:45]
Katie Cobb
Yes, yes. And make bookish friends. They're out there, right.
- [51:50]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And if they see. If their eyes seem to glaze over, make the pivot, like, get really good at pivoting and being like, okay, we've talked enough about fictional characters. How's your actual life? Like, make the graceful pivot.
- [52:02]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. Have a way to get out of the conversation in a nice way. I like that. All right, let's scooch on over to the fountain. Meredith.
- [52:12]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. I brought three books today to the show that I really loved. And my wish today is that this next book that I was going to talk about was a book that I really loved, because I love the novels of Windleberry, which is a surprise to everybody, I think. But really, Windlebarry is really an amazing novelist. So when I ran across his book of poetry called A Small Porch Sabbath, Poems together with a long essay on the presence of nature in the natural world. Sounds like a banger, right? I immediately picked it up and opened it up for my. My morning reading, y' all. I could not. With this. I. You know, I'm trying to get into poetry. I'm really trying to become a poetry reader. Oh, this was just too much. It was just too florid. It was too. It was beautiful, but just, like, long. I'm really realizing that I prefer short poetry. I like to memorize poetry, so. Poems that go on for pages and pages about the natural world. Not for me. So. And then the. The second half is. The half of this is a long essay about the natural world and, like, everything that we're doing to the natural world, and. And it was all just too much. So I. I was disappointed, which I know I shouldn't be, because we want what we want in our reading, and there's no shame in that game. But I really wanted to. Like the poetry of Wendell Berry.
- [53:44]
Katie Cobb
Yeah.
- [53:45]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But I just don't think I'm there yet. Maybe at some point in my poetry reading career, I will be there. This one was not for me, but in the coming weeks, I will have another couple works of books of poems that I did really, really love, so. So never fear. We Continue. We persist.
- [54:03]
Katie Cobb
Well, maybe 70 year old Meredith will like Wendell Berry.
- [54:06]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Absolutely, 100% that could be the case. And I do like Wendell Berry. I do. I really, really do.
- [54:12]
Katie Cobb
That's what I mean.
- [54:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. His novels are very different from his poetry.
- [54:16]
Katie Cobb
Okay. I feel like that is true a lot of times, but do you feel like now having read some of his poetry that you can see that style within his is novel writing. Like, can you see the family tree resemblance there? Because sometimes that's fun by itself.
- [54:33]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I feel like he's like drunk or on mushrooms or something when he writes poems.
- [54:38]
Katie Cobb
Too much in the natural world, huh?
- [54:39]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Very, very natural.
- [54:42]
Katie Cobb
All right, well, my fountain wish this week goes along with our deep dive. I wish to always have the right book for the person in front of me. Me, whoever that is. Right. I had a few excellent bookish recommendation sessions this week. Right. First, I hosted a pool party at my house yesterday and had some 30 to 40 teenagers in my home. It was great and also exhausting. But a few of the kids kept gravitating toward the bookshelves. So I took them by the hand and I went over to my outgoing books section of my bookshelves and I told them they could take, take literally anything they wanted. Some of them I know well, so I chose a few specifically for them. Physically pressed them into their hands. Others I would give a little one sentence elevator pitch about a title and a few keywords to see if that sparked anything. And if not, I would pivot and let. We played like bookish Ouija. Right. That's what we were doing on these bookshelves. It was delightful to see these kids leave with. With armfuls of books. Somewhere between two and ten books each. They lit up in a totally different way. They were like nerd heaven. You mean actually take these home with us? I was like, you don't even have to bring them back. It's not a library. You can just take them home with you. They were thrilled and it just lit me up. Everybody was so happy. The others involved. More one on one conversation. A server at a restaurant, like I mentioned, figuring out a bookish connection there. Being able to pinpoint the taste a little and have them start writing down titles in their phones while we talked to each other is the best kind of affirmation about my card catalog that lives in my brain. I love getting to use it, to deploy it and to sprinkle it around like wildfires, wild flowers in the world for good. That is my wish that I would always just get to have like Would you like this little taste of a book? Because I have the perfect one for you and that it will light up the world around me. Pink splash.
- [56:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. That is so much fun. Teenage Meredith would have plots. If I had gone to someone's house like that and been like, take anything that you want. I mean, that. Yes. I think that's so great that you did that. And really.
- [56:54]
Katie Cobb
And I had, like, fairy loot copies that have, like, the beautiful sprayed edges. So the girls especially were like, what?
- [57:01]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. This one. Yes. That feels like a treasure. Right? Like, yes. I mean, that is just so much fun. So fun being able to do more of that. Really, really would, you know, that's. That's a wish that I've had for a long time. How to figure out. Because there are very few things that bring me more joy than to have a conversation and to come up with some recommendations for people. We should figure out a way to do that, like, within our group more. I know that we have to be. We don't. Like, there has to be, like, a balance between, like, never doing it and being deluged by it.
- [57:35]
Katie Cobb
Doing it every day. Yeah.
- [57:37]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. Like, you there. And I think that's part. But, like, I love it when people DM me and they're like, I've loved these four books. Is there a backlist title that you would recommend for me? Like, it brings me so much joy.
- [57:48]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [57:49]
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, Meredith.
- [57:57]
Katie Cobb
Monday Schwartz on Instagram and you can find me Katie@notesonbookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Puttivong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of megansreads full show notes with.
- [58:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The title of every book we mentioned in the episode and timestamps. So you can zoom right to where we talked about. It can be found in our show notes and at our website@currentlyreadingpodcast.com youm can.
- [58:22]
Katie Cobb
Also follow the show at Currentlyreading Podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreadingpodcastmail.com and if.
- [58:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
You want more of this content, you can join us as a bookish friend on patreon. It's only $5 a month and you get a ton more content. You get bookish community and you keep this show commercial free. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts and shout us out on social media. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience. And Katie, apparently people listen to us all the way this far into the.
- [58:56]
Katie Cobb
Show to the very end of the episode.
- [58:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it.
- [58:59]
Katie Cobb
So fun. Bookish friends are the best friends. And bookish conversations are the best conversations. Thank you for helping us grow. And let us talk to you about books every week.
- [59:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. Until next week.
- [59:10]
Katie Cobb
May your coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.
- [59:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Happy reading, Katie.
- [59:14]
Katie Cobb
Happy reading, Meredith.
- [59:22]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I had a spicy dream about Paul Hollywood recently. I've been watching great British Pray golf.
- [59:26]
Katie Cobb
He could be in my dreams every night and I would be fine with it.
- [59:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
He's that older, zaddy, the silver fox that I, you know, the grump. He's. Oh, anyway. Okay.
- [59:38]
Katie Cobb
Oh, a little growl. Okay.