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The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 7, Episode 43: Bookish Get Togethers + Virtual Reading Retreats
00:57:15
On this episode of Currently Reading, Meredith and Mary are discussing: Bookish Moments: bookish get togethers and bookish connection events Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately Deep Dive:...
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- [00:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Foreign. Hey readers, welcome to the Currently Reading podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently. And as you know, we won't shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.
- [00:25]
Mary Heim
We are light on the chitchat, heavy on the book talk, and our descriptions will always be spoiler free. Today we'll discuss our current reads, a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.
- [00:35]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom of four and full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And I love to talk about books at all my jobs.
- [00:43]
Mary Heim
And I'm Mary Heim, a therapist and mom living in Wisconsin. And I just want to be with book people all the time. This is episode number 43 of season seven and we are so glad you're here.
- [00:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. Mary, I am so glad you are here. It is so good to talk to you.
- [01:01]
Mary Heim
It is so good to talk to you, Meredith. I'm so excited for this episode today.
- [01:06]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. Well, and you might be able to hear from my voice that I am a little bit suffering from the flu. My middle schooler, now high schooler, I can't even believe that brought it home in the last week of school. And so I might sound a little bit like that. But Mary, if there is anyone on the planet who is chicken soup for the soul, it is you. So I am so excited to be talking about books with you today. Before we do that, we have a little bit of mischief that we need to manage because it is the first Monday of the month and that means that we are going to talk just a little bit about having you guys, if you haven't already, join us as a bookish friend on Patreon. So we do this at the beginning of every month, just one time, because this, the fact that what we do, what we do on Patreon is what enables us to keep the big show commercial free all month long, which we know tons of you have told us is the number one reason that you love being a bookish friend. But if you also maybe you're heading into summer and maybe your schedule changes a little bit as you get into summer, you might have a little more time in the car carting kids around. You might have more freedom and flexibility and you might want more bookish content in your ears. You, this is a great time to join us on Patreon. For $5 a month, you get so much additional content all the way back five years ago when we began our Patreon. All of that content is available to you. We don't gatekeep any of it. So now might be the time to join us. And then of course you get that content, you keep the show commercial free and you get the community of our Facebook and Discord groups. Pick your poison between those two. Each one are fantastically active groups of book friends who love to be in community with each other. So it's a great way to support us if you love what we do. And it's a fantastic way to just add to your bookish life. So consider going to patreon.com forward/currentlyreading podcast and join us. All right, Mary, that is our Mischief managed for June. Are you ready to talk about some bookish things, including our Deep Dive, which is going to be on virtual reading retreats?
- [03:27]
Mary Heim
Yes. I am so excited to talk about this today, Meredith. I am ready to preach the gospel of the virtual reading retreat for sure. But first, I bet we've got some great I've got great books to share today. I can't wait to hear what you've got.
- [03:40]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, let's start out with our Bookish Moment of the week. What's been the most bookish thing this week for you?
- [03:46]
Mary Heim
Well, Meredith, my Bookish Moment of the week is an especially fun one. We could not have timed this recording better because about just about a week ago I hosted my first Bookish Friends meetup in Wisconsin. This was the first time I've been meaning to do this for years. The rest of our, you know, you and Katie and Roxanna have been saying for the longest time you need to meet up with Bookish Friends. It's the best thing ever. And it just kept not working out in my life. And then finally the stars aligned and we had our Midwest Bookish Friends meet up last weekend for a very, very long time. One of my husband my favorite bookstores is a little gem in Madison, Wisconsin, nestled right next to a bakery that has excellent gluten free treats, by the way. And this bookstore is called Mystery. To me, it started out I think in about 2013 as exclusively a mystery murderful bookstore and has since kind of over the years transformed into just a sweet little bookshop that's got a bit of everything. But you know that they are going to give you great mystery and murderful recommendations. I think that's still still at the core, but it's one of our favorite hidden gems. Every time we would take a trip to Madison, which is really only about an hour from where we live, we had to stop. They are a little bit of a smaller bookstore. But what they lack in square footage, they absolutely make up for in excellent curation. The whole store is just filled with gems. Anyways, this meandering story is to say that a good bookish friend of mine on Instagram, Hillary, bought the bookstore at the beginning of this past year and immediately asked if I would want to host a bookish friends meetup at the store. I literally jumped at the chance and we hosted it last weekend and it was such a joy. We had full run of the store after hours. We had a great little crew of bookish friends all shopping and chatting. Hillary Mystery to me's shelf talkers are all post it notes on books around the store. It's so, so fun. And she just filled the store with post it notes curated for what she thought our bookish friends would really enjoy. It could not have been more of a blast. I came back to our Airbnb and I told my husband, I feel like I just ran a marathon. If there's ever a doubt in my mind that I still have plenty of extrovert in me, it was getting to spend all of this time with our bookish friends and having it just fil my cup to bursting. It was so much fun. I cannot wait to do it again. It was so good.
- [06:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It looked like such a good time, and I am so happy. What, What a sweet thing for Hillary to open up to the bookish friends and all the. I mean, I just love that so much.
- [06:15]
Mary Heim
It was perfect. We had a blast.
- [06:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Excellent. Excellent. All right. My bookish moment of the week is that this last week we hosted a recorder at Here Comes the Guide. My day job. We do what we call a connection event. We're a fully distribute team. We don't have an office, so we do a lot of things to try to stay and feel connected day to day. But one of the things that we do is we do this quarterly connection event, and we've done several different things. Like, one time we built terrariums while we chatted with each other. And one time we did art while we chatted with each other and we did an escape room. We've done like. We've done a lot of, like, we're really, really good at virtual connection fun. But this time they did. And I don't plan any of these events. This is not my skill set. If you haven't. If you haven't realized connecting people is not my skill set. But luckily I have so many colleagues who are so, so good at it. And this quarters was a bookish connection event. And they, in advance, they had everybody kind of. They chose five different genres. And you kind of said, okay, this is my main genre. And then from that, they paired you up with another hoppy, which is what we call each other. And then you sent each other your favorite book that you've recently read in that genre. And so we received those. And at the event, we broke out into our genre groups because there's 45 of us. So we broke out into the smaller genre groups. I think there were 10 in the mystery murderful genre group that I was in. And then we shared with each other, like, why we had chosen that for the other person. And so then the net effect is we all got to hear about all these fantastic books that many of, you know, many people hadn't heard of before and exchange our thoughts on all of those. It was so fun. We also did, like, while we were chatting, they had sent bookmarks that you could, like, color or you could do art on, or you could whatever, like, while you're chatting, so you have something to do with your hands. It was so great. And they've put together a spreadsheet with all of the recommendations so that we, you know, we have that we have an actual spreadsheet of that which I can share with the bookish friends. I asked them if they. If they were okay with that. So I'll see about putting that into the show notes. But it was just such a great time to talk to people who, of course, I know and love anyway. But it's so much fun to get to hear what they're loving reading or where they are in their reading lives, because we have people who are in, you know, we have people who absolutely love to read and read all the time and people who. It's just not their jam at all. And how do we convince them to maybe try something? So it was really, really fun.
- [08:48]
Mary Heim
That is so fun. And what a great way to like, you know, it's so much more than a let's hop on a zoom happy hour. I love that you had that right, the bookish connection. And way more fun than just your. Just your average usual reading connection. That's so much fun. Meredith.
- [09:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It was really fun. And about half of the people, it was so hilarious. But one of the things that you could do if you wanted to, you never have to. But they could dress up as their favorite bookish character.
- [09:15]
Mary Heim
I love that.
- [09:16]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And so we had about half of the people dressed up, and we had some of the most excellent. One of our bookish friends, actually, who's who's my colleague, Whitney Werling. She dressed up as Ove.
- [09:28]
Mary Heim
Amazing.
- [09:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It was so good.
- [09:30]
Mary Heim
It's incredible.
- [09:31]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It was so, so good. So anyway, it was just. It's always fun with those. I try not to be that person, like, in my, in my day job, I try not to always. I try not to talk about books a lot because, like, they know they come to me for book. Right. But I don't want that to be, like, the thing that they know about me. Right. And so it was fun to be able to lean into that part of my personality.
- [09:51]
Mary Heim
I love that. That is so cool.
- [09:52]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, it was really, really fun. Okay, let's start talking about some of our current reads. Mary, what are you bringing this week?
- [10:00]
Mary Heim
Okay, Meredith, my first book this week is actually three books, but I'll talk about the start, the start of this little series. It is the Girl and the Galdurian Lightfall and its subsequent sequels by Tim Prabert. This graphic novel series is easily going on my top 10 of the year for 2025, and I am so excited to share it with y' all today. So, okay, here's our setup. Deep in the heart of the planet Earpa stands the Salty Pig's Tonics and Tinctures, home of the wise Pig wizard and his adopted granddaughter, Bee. As keepers of the Endless Flame, they live a quiet and peaceful life, crafting medicine and potions for the people of their world. But one day, Bea's life is turned on its head when she runs into Cad, a member of the Galdurians, an ancient race thought to be extinct. Cad believes if anyone can help him find the rest of his people, it's the Pig Wizard. But when Bea leads him back to her home, only to find that her grandf father is gone and all he's left is a jar containing the Endless Flame and a mysterious note. Bea and Cad set on an epic adventure to try and bring him back home and before eternal darkness snuffs out the flame and blankets their world in darkness forever. So, Meredith, this is like, right? This sounds real fantasy.
- [11:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
This is very, like you said, Pig.
- [11:15]
Mary Heim
Wizard more than once, Pig wizard. Multiple times. But let me just tell you, early on this year, for a couple reasons, my reading was just feeling broken. And our dear bookish friend Betsy was like, you know what? Let's read some graphic novels. Reset your reading. And she put this one on my radar. Friends, I am not a huge graphic novel person. I enjoy them whenever I read them, but I feel like I am blind to what is out there. Unless someone Explicitly puts it in my hands and says, read this graphic novel, right? Like I'm not keeping up on graphic novel publishing news the same way that I am for standard fiction or nonfiction. I am so glad that Betsy put this one on my radar because I fell head over heels for this incredibly coz. Adventuresome, well thought out world. The art is just beautiful. I mean, really, my goal with reading this book was like, let me fall headfirst into something that feels like a hug. This like magical world, right? This very cozy fantasy that I just kind of knew looking at this book like this is gonna be a balm. Like I said, I'm kind of cheating today because I absolutely binged the first three books in this series within a matter of days. So while I'm just bringing the first one today, technically I am really pressing this whole series into your hands. The first installment is fun and cozy and page turning, but as the series progresses, it became abundantly clear to me that this is actually a pretty light handed but still allegory for our times that hit me exactly where I needed it to back when I read it in January. Both for my own personal life, but also with the state of the world right now. I am chomping at the bit for book four to release. And if you, like me, need a reset or an escape or just a shake up to your reading life, please give these a go. I really loved them. That is Lightfall the Girl and the Garian by Tim Prebert.
- [13:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay, I had to look this up on Amazon when, as you were talking about it because I just had to get a sense of what. Of what? This.
- [13:11]
Mary Heim
Who is the pink wizard? Right?
- [13:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
This is so beautiful.
- [13:16]
Mary Heim
Yeah, they're gorgeous.
- [13:18]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And I mean you. You won't. Graphic novels are not something that I like you, Mary. I don't have a lot of experience with them, but the. The art here and of course everything that you just said about it. Balm is the right word.
- [13:31]
Mary Heim
Yes. And let me say this. The second and third novels, like, there's real stakes. Not really in the first one, but in the second and third. There are real stakes. But I'll share a little bit more about this later. But when this kind of hit me at this particular point in my reading life back in January, I was like, there's no hope. There are lots of hard things are happening and there is no hope. And the world does get a little. It does feel a little hopeless. There's like real stakes. But what I loved is the investment in these characters and their hopefulness and they're like, listen, I know I'm just talking about a graphic novel here, but it really reminded me there are good things to fight for in the world, and when we are feeling hopeless, there is hope. I cannot tell you enough. This was absolutely the right series at the right time, and I. I'm, like, ready to reread them over and over again whenever I need that reminder. It's such a balm. It definitely gives off Monk and Robot vibes with maybe a little bit more stakes, but it is that kind of, like, it's all gonna be okay, but, like, there is hard stuff in the world, but we keep on going.
- [14:41]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Absolutely. And those kinds of books, we need to be able to know where to go to grab that when we get into that place, because sometimes when you're in that place, you don't have the wherewithal to go figure it out. So I like to load some of this stuff up into my home, into my Kindle, so that if that happens, I'm like, boom. I. I just. Like, I can go. Just grab it.
- [15:06]
Mary Heim
Yes.
- [15:06]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right then.
- [15:07]
Mary Heim
And I can't recall if this is the case on all three of them. And I wish I could tell you the name for this feature, but I read it on my iPad because I got it from the library, and it does the cool thing where the pictures are almost a little interactive. Do you know what that called, Meredith?
- [15:22]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I don't know what that's called, but I was just going to ask you.
- [15:25]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [15:26]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Because this is available on Kindle Unlimited. And so I was just gonna say, is this something. No, it's not. I wouldn't do a graphic novel on my Kindle.
- [15:34]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [15:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But I have had really good luck with doing more visual stuff on my iPad that's through Kindle Unlimited. So I was just gonna say, do you feel like this would be a good idea? So I just downloaded it because I want to have that there.
- [15:46]
Mary Heim
Yay. Yes. Yeah, I read it on my iPad. I got it from the library because I was like, whatever, graphic novel, this will be a good one to like. I read and reset and move on. I read them all on my Kindle through Libby, and then I went and bought the physical copies to put on my shelf because I loved them so much. So the iPad, Kindle experience, or any kind of your phone. Right. Kindle app on your phone. I don't typically read like that, but I did in this case, and it was totally worth it.
- [16:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. Excellent. Okay. Yeah. It looks like the first one is on Kindle Unlimited, and the other two are Available on Kindle, just not through Kindle Unlimited. So good. Excellent. That is a really. I love that. I love that so much. All right, well, I am also going with a middle grade choice, one that was absolutely five stars for me and may very well make its position on my top 10 of the year. And this is the Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science. So good by Kate McKinnon. Okay. And we heard about this from you, Mary. I had to bring this today because I listened to it and absolutely loved it so much. I haven't been doing a lot of middle grade.
- [16:59]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [16:59]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
In the last couple of years, it just. I just haven't been in that place. This hit the sweet spot for me. So you guys have heard about this before, but if you haven't, let me just set it up for you. Our lead characters are the porch sisters, Gertrude, Eugenia and Dee Dee. They are square pegs in a very round hole that is the town of Antiquarium. This is a town where girls attend etiquette school, everyone is properly prim, and heaven forbid you own any dog that isn't a Bichon Frise. The girls live with their adopted family, where their cousins all have names like Lavinia. In fact, I think they are all named Lavinia, including the memorable Lavinia. Steve. By far my favorite of the best, Lania. And their aunt has an impressive collection of brooches. But a disappointing lack of books. And these science loving sisters do not fit in into this Lavinia filled world. So after being booted from yet another etiquette school, the girls are expecting to be shipped off for good. Instead, they receive a mysterious invitation to a new school run by none other than Millicent Quibb, an infamous mad scientist with worms in her hair and oysters in her bathtub. At Millicent Quibb's school, the pizza might be deadly. The school bus runs on durable power, and the dean of students is literally a hermit crab. It's dangerous, delightful, and exactly what these sisters need to feel that they belong. But just when they're settling in, they're tasked with saving their town from an evil cabal of nefarious mad scientists. As happens to all of us. And of course, madcap action ensues. Okay, I started this actually back on our reading retreat after I had read a really dark and very gory book, Victorian Psycho. I knew I needed a pivot and something totally, completely different. Enter Millicent Quibb. Mary, you had already raved about it on the show And I knew I wanted to read it and do it on audio, because that was your advice. And of course, everyone who knows Mary, you know, if she gives you advice, you take it. The audio production of this delightful middle grade novel was perfection. I'm not sure I've ever listened to anything like it. It was literally a performance more than a reading of a book. Kate McKinnon, of course, from Saturday Night Live, embodies each and every one of the characters, and her sister chips in for a few, too. And she's also so good. I could see them, hear them, and more than anything, I giggled at their antics, because antics is the right word here. Lots of this book is pure, joyful silliness, but done in the smartest, most female empowered way possible. The heroes here are the nerdy stem girlies. And I love how they were front and center for all the actors. Kate McKinnon proves what we already know. It's the stem kids who are going to rule this world, and we just need to get them out of middle school. Basically, I laughed out loud through this book. In fact, I had to set it down during lunch for fear that I might choke on a baby carrot. That's a real story. So this is a wonderful treat for any reader. And know that if you do it on audio, which again, is the way you need to do it, know that the PDF that comes with the book, which Kate mentions several times in the audio itself, is totally worth downloading. I had to do it on my laptop because the Libro FM app wouldn't let me do it on my phone, but it was worth it. The illustrations add hugely to the story. There will be a second in the series, and it will be auto downloaded for me the day it releases. Three cheers for the Poarch sisters. This is the Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by The illustrious Kate McKinnon.
- [20:48]
Mary Heim
Oh, Meredith, I am so thrilled that you loved this one. It just cannot. I cannot rave about it enough. The other day, I remembered that my husband hadn't listened to it yet, and I was like, woody, download this right now. Why are you not listening to this book right now? It's so good. I'm so thrilled that you loved it.
- [21:07]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It really hit the spot for me. It was just the. The perfect audio. I loved it so much.
- [21:13]
Mary Heim
Yes, I will follow Kate McKinnon into the. Wherever she wants to take me seriously.
- [21:19]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, what's your next book?
- [21:20]
Mary Heim
Okay, Meredith, my next book is Set Piece by Lana Schwartz. Set Piece is the famous person, normal person romance novella that I want every romance reader to throw in their vacation bag this summer because it was perfection. Our main characters CJ and Jack meet for the first time as CJ helps Jack fend off a horde of admirers at a bar thanks to his steamy breakout TV role that has thrust him into the spotlight. After these two share a quick tryst, their paths don't cross again for about five years, but when they do, there is now a whole lifetime in between them. Jack is now a bona Fide movie star, CJ is a single mom to a 4 year old, and they now just happen to be working on the same film adaptation of the Great Gatsby. Their chemistry hasn't faded in the slightest, but they are not the same people who met five years ago. Meredith this was such a well written romance plus novella, right? We say romance plus when it's more just, it's about more than just the chemistry. Chemistry. There's real, real people having a real romance here. I was so excited to bring it to the show this week because not only did I really, really enjoy this one and longtime listeners know that I enjoy romance, but I'm also very picky about what kind of romance I really enjoy. But I have also become a bit of a fan girl for the publishing house that brought this novel to market. This is published by 831stories, which is a modern romantic fiction company that prioritizes pleasurable reading. Zero guilt here and the romance genres. Joyful and enthusiastic fans, which are their exact words. I love that 831 publishes romance novellas. Sometimes when I read romances or rom coms I'm like yes, give me a whole story to sink into. A lot of times though, I just kind of want to escape for a couple days, maybe read it in a day. And these hit the mark perfectly for me on that. Most if not all of their writers are fairly under the radar and their entire brand is just cool. It's so cool and it's so joyful. And on top of these novellas they've got really fun merch for romance readers and just a really fantastic mission to normalize and take the guilt out of romance reading. I think the tide has turned a lot in the last 10 years on romance reading anyways, but they really make that their whole brand and I love that. I really, really loved this book. I love a 30 something romance, especially when one of the characters is a parent, which really does kind of play into the story. Here we've got imperfect characters who communicate well, and work through their problems and figure out how to be adults in a romance. And I just thought this one was smart and quick and super fun. It is going to be perfect summer beach reading. And if you like this one, they've got a whole backlist of novels that they have put out as well that you can dip into. That is set piece by Lana Schwartz.
- [24:02]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love how much you're paying attention to the publishing company because this really does make a difference, especially in the example that you just gave. Right. It's a publishing company that has a point of view. And if that point of view works for you, you need to be. I mean, this is another reason why tracking the publishing company can really, really make a difference.
- [24:22]
Mary Heim
Yes. Yeah, it is. It's a really fun. I'm all about their whole vibe. And I feel like this really showed me what you and Katie have been kind of preaching right from the beginning. Meredith of like, pay attention to who was putting out the books that you enjoy. That is another beautiful way into building your reading life. Your richest reading life. Especially when it's kind of a more niche sub genre like this one or an indie publisher. They're certainly. 831 is certainly not under the radar. But if any of our romance reader fans have not discovered them yet, I am excited to open the door for them to this today.
- [24:58]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I wonder if they're from the Monterey Carmel area in California, because that's 831 is their area code. I just wonder if they are.
- [25:05]
Mary Heim
I wonder.
- [25:06]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay. All right. My next book is Along My Journey in Becoming an Agatha Christie Completist. I have another one, you guys. This is Lord Edgeware Dies by Agatha Christie. This is a good one. Here's a setup when the glamorous American actress Jane Wilkinson casually mentions to Hercule Perrault at a Savoy dinner party that she'd like to get rid of her estranged husband, Lord Edgware. The Belgian detective politely says, no, that is not the kind of work that I'd say do. But within 24 hours, the super baddie Lord Edgware is found dead in his study with a stiletto in his neck. And Jane becomes the prime suspect. The catch? She has what appears to be a rock solid alibi, having been seen at a high profile dinner party with 12 distinguished guests at the exact time of the murder. You gotta love a locked room that is not a locked room. This. This book is a glittering example of Agatha Christie's brilliant brain. This one published in 1933. So I said recently that I had been proud of myself for skipping a book of Agatha Christie's. And this is the book that I. I skipped over one to get to this one. Skipped over the Mystery of the Blue Train. That's because Agatha Christie herself said that the Mystery of the Blue Train was her least favorite one and that this one was one of her favorites. And it's easy to see why. We have Hercule at his brilliant best. We have him sol an absolute Gordian knot of a puzzle, which has him also at his happiest, which is always fun to read. You can also really feel that Agatha Christie herself is finally getting her own feet under her again after a decade that for her had a lot of personal strife. There seems to be a sharpness, a real desire to tell a story and take the reader along for a ride. She seems to be herself again. This is exactly what happens in this story. There are all kinds of charact, some in high society, some in the theater world, some in the American film industry. We have multiple murders and we have so many potential murderers and motives. Again, the concept of fair play is so crucial as to why I love Agatha Christie's novels. She's always one step ahead of us, and yet the clues are there. She's not trying to get one over on us. She's just trying to arrive at our destination first. And she does. This is not her most emotional book and is definitely not one where we get deeply drawn characters. This book is all about the puzzle and the plot. And for that reason, it is short and fast. It was exactly what I needed on the heels of one of my long, long wheel of time reads. And it allowed me to check one more box in my list of Agatha Christie books that I have both read and loved. This is Lord Edgware Die by Agatha Christie.
- [27:59]
Mary Heim
I love that. Meredith, it's so fun getting to listen along to your completionist journal journey. And I am not familiar with this one at all. So it sounds like a good one to add, like something about it feels maybe because you described it as, like, quick. Right. And it's all about the puzzle. I was like, oh, that feels like a good summer. A summer read pickup for me.
- [28:20]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I think Agatha Christie on audio, the Hugh Frazier narrations, I think they are some of the best poolside reads for the summer. The, they, they're, they're, they're quick, they're easy to follow. It's so, so good, actually. Lord Edgeware Dies. Interestingly, I have learned as I've gotten deeper into this world, and I have my reference book, which is called Perrot. It actually is one that is often listed in the top 5 of people who kind of have studied Agatha Christie.
- [28:50]
Mary Heim
Oh, cool.
- [28:50]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Like Agatha Christie experts. This is often in their. In their top five. So that was interesting to me.
- [28:56]
Mary Heim
Oh, I love that. That's so cool. All right, well, you sold me. It's gonna be a pool read for me this summer. Love it.
- [29:02]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, excellent. Okay. So your third book?
- [29:05]
Mary Heim
Yes, Meredith, my third book this week is Three Apples Fell from the sky by Naren Avgarian. So I'm taking a bit of a hard turn from my first two books this week. If any of our listeners follow me on Instagram, they might know that unfortunately, we lost our son Henry in pregnancy around four and a half months along back in April. I'm sure it is no surprise to any that this particularly tumultuous pregnancy and then this really devastating loss really did a number on my reading. After I had delivered him, I was just finding myself so wanting to be lost in a book, and I just could not get one to stick. This novel, which is a Russian novel in translation, is probably the last thing I ever would have chosen for myself to read in such a delicate and tender time. Especially because borrowing this phrase from Roxanna, I'm Pretty sure in 2020, all I could handle was the equivalent of mental mashed potatoes. And I think that's what I was assuming I would want to read after this loss. But when all of my usual contenders just weren't working for me, I thought, maybe I need a hard left turn and to try something totally different. And so this one really worked. Let me tell you a little bit more about it. In the tiny village of Meron, nestled high in the Armenian mountains, a place where dreams and curses and miracles are taken very ser seriously. A close knit community of elderly adults bickers and gossips and laughs, untouched by the passage of time. A lifelong resident, Anatolia is happily set in her ways. Until, that is, she wakes up one day, utterly convinced that she is dying. She lies down on her bed and prepares to meet her maker. But just when she thinks everything is ready for her to depart, she is interrupted by a surprise visit from a neighbor with an unexpected proposal. So begins the tale of unforeseen twists and unlikely romance that will turn Meran on its head and breathe a new lease on life into this forgotten village. Meredith, this book was such a delight in such an unexpected way. First and foremost, I was astounded at how beautifully this book was translated. Obviously, I cannot speak to the original text, but the prose was just magical. And I was truly just amazed by what a feat it must have been to translate a novel that, to my understanding, was so incredibly popular in Russia, kind of in its original translation, and make it feel like, yes, it's. This could have been the original iteration of this book because it was so well done. While this story does have a fair bit of death and tragedy to it, ultimately it is so hopeful and so beautiful and so full of life that again, it was really a balm for my soul in a really hard time. A completely different kind of balm than my graphic novel set at the start of this episode. But it really, really worked for me. We walk through the years with this village that has been almost left in time. All of the young people have left for places, opportunity, and everyone there just seems to be biding their time until the end. We grieve with them and love with them and watch some really beautiful things begin to bloom in an otherwise seemingly dried up and hopeless place. This one, like I said, is both an international Sensation, translated into 12 languages, and one that I had never really heard anyone talk about before. And so I hope that my sharing it today can put it on the radar of someone else who needs a little reminder of the endless hopefulness of life in a dark time, that is Three Apples Fell from the sky by Nareen Upgar.
- [32:32]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm so glad that you brought that one. And I'm so grateful that books have been able to be there with you when you needed them.
- [32:41]
Mary Heim
Yes.
- [32:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And, you know, so I really appreciate you sharing that. And you know that we all have been wanting to also carry you through all of this as you've traveled through it. Yeah, for sure.
- [32:52]
Mary Heim
Thank you, friend.
- [32:53]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay. Very awkward left turn that.
- [32:56]
Mary Heim
I should have given you a warning. It's okay. No, no, all the way left.
- [33:02]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I want you to talk about any books that means that are meaningful to you. And also, I'm just cognizant of the fact that it's a weird emotional shift.
- [33:11]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [33:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But actually, this is a book that I really liked and was a little bit unexpected for me. So this is a book called the Farm by Tom Rob Smith. Here's the setup. Our lead character, Daniel, receives a frantic call from his father just out of the blue. His dad says, your mom has suffered a psychotic breakdown and I've had to have her commit to a psychiatric hospital. They are currently living in Sweden on a farm where they've gone to have this bucolic retirement. But Daniel's receiving this call in London, but before he can even process getting this call. His mother Tilda calls, she's at Heathrow Airport and she leaves him a message saying everything that you might have heard from your father is a lie. I'm not going and I've not had a psychotic break break. I'm not going mad at all. In fact I need the police. I'm in danger. Armed with a beat up satchel stuffed with what she claims is chronological evidence of a violent conspiracy, Tilda insists that her husband and their neighbors are involved in something far more sinister than simply a mental health crisis. So our story is basically Daniel, who's received these two completely opposing pieces of information, trying to figure out what is true and in fact is somebody in danger of being killed? Spoiler alert. There is lots of murder. This book was way more riveting than any book has the right to be. That takes place 75% at a kitchen table in a conversation between a mother and her grown son. Tom Rob Smith was the author of Cold people, which was one of my top 10 books of 2023 and this book was recommended in our bookish friends group by Col Stanley as a book that she thought I might like. And while this book couldn't be any more different from Cold People, Coley was absolutely right. I loved it. But caveat not everyone will love it. As I mentioned, this book's structure is different. It's got the very interesting setup and then the story is told to us through this long conversation between lead character Daniel and his mom. But that does not at all mean that we are bored. We spend the entire time not only deeply, deeply fascinated by the story that Tilda is telling, but also trying to figure out if she can be trusted. Is she in the throes of a mental breakdown or is she really onto a murderous conspiracy with Daniel's father at the center? It's a roller coaster ride and it takes us from London to this farm on a beautiful river in Sweden. Sweden. Everything there should be idyllic, but Tom Robb Smith puts us in a setting that is decidedly not. It is unsettling, it's uncertain, everything is slightly off. Everyone's reactions in this Swedish farming community are odd. Or is it just that we're hearing the story from Daniel's mom and it's paranoia speaking? I read this book so fast. Not only was I riveted, but also I was fairly uncomfortable, which is right where Smith wanted me. The Cheeto chapters moved the narrative at a brisk pace and I was so happy to arrive at the ending, which I was totally fine with. But dear Readers you may not be. I think the 3.51 rating on Goodreads is down to that ending. And that's an interesting thing because it will not land well with readers who hate tidy endings and it might not land well with people who hate ambiguous endings. It's fairly difficult to piss off both of those camps at once. But I'm an ending slut. Most any old ending will do for me. So it didn't affect me and my 4.25 star rating of this psychological thriller. I just love this author. This is the Farm by Tom Robb Smith.
- [37:07]
Mary Heim
That setup like that sounds so good and you know, this isn't usually my genre, but I'm like, oh my God, I think I need to know. I think I might have to put this one on my tbr. I love it. And now you've got me curious how it can really potentially anger both very strong feeling camps. So I think I have to know.
- [37:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes, this is a very, very good one. It's, it's unsettling for sure, but it's a page turner.
- [37:33]
Mary Heim
Love that.
- [37:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, Mary, we are going to talk today in our deep dive about virtual reading retreats. Now, we've talked about reading retreats many, many times. They can be done, done in all kinds of different ways, but they all basically involve you going somewhere with the point that you're going to do a lot of reading. But a virtual reading retreat is something different and something that I have never done before. So I'm just kind of opening it up to ask you some questions because this is something that you not only have done, but you do on the regular. So would you kind of let us into what led you to virtual retreats and the actual nuts and bolts of how you make it happen?
- [38:16]
Mary Heim
Yes, absolutely. So I, like everyone else in our community, I think is like a reading retreat sounds spectacular and that sounds really great. And oh, I want to do that. And I have a couple friends with whom I have said like, hey, let's put this on deck, let's do this. But it's just really hard to schedule something. Right. You gotta work really far out. And it was something for a while that planning an in person reading retreat. I was like, well, it's like still something that I want to prioritize and do. But I don't necessarily, I didn't necessarily want to wait to make this time to do this thing when I could block off a whole weekend or right when I could schedule something and you know, book a flight. And I was like, I want to do this right now. So I reached out to our, well, our friend Betsy of right currently reading friend of the show. And I had said like, hey, do you want to do this with me? Like, I really. We've been talking about, like, let's have some fun around our buddy reads. We were reading a Christmas book together. This was kind of our first iteration of a virtual reading retreat. And it was like, what's a way that we can make this feel even more special? What's a way that we can really share this, like, reading retreat vibe together with one of our buddy reads without, especially around the holidays, like neither one of us had the capacity to travel and take, take this weekend away. And so that is kind of where this was born. And it was so much fun. Now we have done this, I think maybe two subsequent times and actually this coming Friday we're going to be doing it again. And so I really. That is like the baseline where this started is you want to do a reading retreat, but you can't take a whole weekend or a whole week or it just logistically feels hard to do.
- [39:59]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
You don't have to budget wise.
- [40:00]
Mary Heim
Budget wise, right? You do not have to wait, wait until kind of the pieces fall into place. You can do this right now. So I, for this first one gathered up a couple of fun goodies. I think I grabbed like cozy socks and some tea and cocoa and, you know, readerly stickers and just a couple goodies and sent them to Betsy in a box. And of course I bought them for myself as well. And we blocked a date off on the calendar that this was going to be a. And it wasn't even anything all that crazy. It was, my daughter is going to be at school on Friday. I've got nine to three available. And we just kind of did what worked best with us for our schedules with the hope that we could allocate a large chunk of the day to be reading with zero interruptions as much as is possible and be both reading the same book at the same time. I don't think that's a requirement, but I am going to pretty strongly push for the fact that if you're doing this with someone else, reading the same book is so much fun because you have that real time talking about a book and sharing, oh, I'm at this page right now. Did you get to XYZ place? And Betsy and I were just texting each other throughout the day, but it was so much fun. It's like that magical serendipity when you're buddy reading with a Friend. And you both happen to be at the same place at the same time. And it's not a, oh, text me when you get to this chapter, or, ooh, have you gotten to XYZ yet? We were really tracking along the same same place. And so it felt like we were sitting next to each other instead of in Wisconsin and Texas reading the same book and talking about it. And it was just such a lovely way to feel really connected to this bookish friend of mine across the country to take some time to really sit and focus on a book again. Like I said, I didn't do anything incredibly fancy, but I put on an ASMR Room and Betsy foundation, like a Christmas Instrumentals Spotify playlist that she shared with me. And it really shocked me how much of an impact, setting aside a day to read, how much of an impact that made on me. It wasn't just, oh, I don't work today. I've got stuff to do, but maybe I'll sit down and I want to make time to read for an hour. The fact that I went into this day with the intention of this is my reading routine retreat day.
- [42:31]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right.
- [42:32]
Mary Heim
I will throw in a load of laundry, but that's about it. Like, this is all that is on my docket today really gave me that guiltless permission to just focus on sinking into a book and really enjoying it. I am a big cheerleader for, like, anticipate your life, find joyful things to plan and look forward to. And they don't always have to be gigantic, exciting international trips, which, while lovely, are not something that we can do on a weekly basis. Right. So having something that was just so normal to really, like, feel like such a special day in my life was such a joy. I'm pretty sure Betsy and I both finished that book in a day. It gave me such a different reading experience of the book itself. I don't often read a book in a day, so I think I enjoyed the book all the much more because I had a chance to just live in that world for six hours. Oh, it was so delightful. I just dumped all of this at you, Meredith, without giving you any chances to ask any questions yet. But that is kind of my. Like, that's what that day looked like for me. And that's kind of been the vibe in our subsequent reading retreats of, you know, they're not all Christmas now, but it's like, hey, hey, let's set aside a day and have our only intention be to connect and read and relax. And it was so delightful. I really, really loved it.
- [43:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I mean, you did a great job of explaining the logistics and also the why behind it. The things that were really, really important. There's so much about this that I love. The accessibility to everybody, to all schedules, to all seasons, to all budget levels, to. You know, there's so I love that absolutely anybody can do this. This, I will just say, is another reason to join Bookish community, whatever that looks like for you. Certainly the currently reading Bookish friends group, we have a lot of people who meet and become buddy readers who want to do this kind of thing together. I love the fact that you can do this one on one with one other person. I love that you sent. I kind of like the idea of someone like taking turns hosting the reading retreat air quotes. Right. Like you hosted that first one in that you put together the treat box and you sent it to your were and then you could trade that back and forth if you wanted to. People could decide they didn't want to have that aspect of things if they didn't want to. I love that you guys read one book. I can really see how reading the same book together in real time would add to that. And you could kind of theme treats or ASMR rooms or mute playlists around that to create a shared experience. Even from afar. You could have multiple people people do this together. You could, like you said, you could be reading different books. But like I. So for example, I could see doing this with someone where we're reading different books, but we say, hey, we're going to. At lunch. We're gonna do a FaceTime lunch.
- [45:32]
Mary Heim
Yep.
- [45:33]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And so maybe we decide we're both gonna splurge on a salad that we wouldn't normally doordash for lunch on a Friday. But we're gonna. That's a treat that we're gonna have. And we're, you know, so we will have read in the morning, we'll read in the afternoon. We'll have our FaceTime lunch and talk about whatever it is that we're reading or the last few books that we've read. It's about creating the experience.
- [45:55]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [45:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And giving ourselves license permission to say I'm devoting this time to reading. Almost treating it like a bookish holiday. It can doesn't need to be tied to a specific holiday. Although a Christmas related reading virtual retreat sounds really, really special. But there's just so many ways you could take this. And that's what I love about it. You could riff on it in a million different ways, but it creates this sense that Your reading is important enough. And reading community with that reader is important enough to create that shared experience.
- [46:33]
Mary Heim
Yes. Because really, I mean, and I'm getting a little bigger picture here, right. But I, at least for me right now, I'm like, all I want is community. That's all I want is my people around me and other people around me, around me, and a reminder of the community, the great communities that I'm a part of. And this is like just such a beautiful way to really create an enforced community in a, like you said, a very accessible way. And it was. It's just really speaks to the part of me that we don't have to. Especially right. If you're in a really busy season with work or you have really young kids. Like, you do not have to splash out in these big, big ways. It could even be, hey, all I've got is an afternoon great, right? Like, you can make this work in a way that works for you. I've seen a couple of friends adapt to this idea and have it more structured. Right. Of we're going to read from 9 to 10 and then everybody's going to go take a hike and then we'll come back in and then we'll FaceTime. And then, like you said, we're going to have lunch. You can structure the day, however, feels joyful to you. I'm pretty sure I said to Betsy, like, I don't know if my attention span is going to hold me to a book all day. It did. I really was shocked at how when I devoted the time and then there was nothing else pulling at my attention, I was able to really fall into that book. But if you are one who knows? I'd like to read for an hour and then get up and, you know, change it up. Maybe I'll go sit at a coffee shop for an hour or maybe I'll go take a break to go for a swim or take a nap or. I think really what the big keyword behind this is is the intentionality of taking the day. And I love that you said, like, doordash, your favorite salad that you wouldn't splurge for or make a delicious breakfast that you typically would not make on a weekday. Right. Or to have things that feel special, like, let yourself live in the specialness of this. It doesn't have to be extravagant to be special and fun. And I just cannot overstate how delightful it. It really has been. Of course, I still want to do in person reading retreats with all of my, my book club and my sister and Betsy and bookish friends and. But this a great way that you don't have to wait until those stars align and you can still have that experience.
- [48:48]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. I automatically could see, like, reading the Three Pines books and being like, let's make a. Like, let's make a baked good from the Three Pines recipe book.
- [48:56]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [48:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And like, we'll make that the day before and like, we'll enjoy that together. Like, there's so many ways that you could. That you could make it match. Also, you could absolutely do a solo reading retreat this week.
- [49:08]
Mary Heim
Oh, yeah, right.
- [49:09]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
You could say, like, yes, the community aspect of it is wonderful, but you could also. And maybe there's room for both of these things for. For every reader. Like, maybe there's room for me to say, I love doing this in community with another person. But also, I'm gonna book because I live and die by my calendar. If my calendar is booked out, literally my assistant can't book anything that day. Day. She literally can't book anything for me that day. So if it's booked out and it's, you know, and I have that to look forward to. Yes. That I'm like, look, I mean, this is kind of, you know, what I'm going to do when the new Louise Penny book comes out, the next Louise Penny book. I'm really hoping it's not the last. I'm gonna book this out for myself and just say, this is a reading retreat. I'm not gonna go anywhere, but I'm gonna make a special something. I'm gonna splurge in a special way for myself and block it out. And I'm. That's. That's what I'm gonna do. And it's gonna can just bite me. Yes. Right?
- [50:09]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [50:10]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's the intentionality of it. It's giving ourselves permission to do something special. There are so many ways that people could do this. I know that we're going to put together at least one social media post around this, but I cannot wait to hear what the currently reading Bookish Friends community does with this idea. I can just see it spreading little lights going on everywhere because of what you guys have been doing. I so appreciate you bringing this idea us, Mary.
- [50:38]
Mary Heim
I love this. I too, cannot wait to see what the community does and what other great ideas I get from our Bookish friends on how to make this really special. And I really like just. I think that is the truth of whether you do this with a big group or one other reader or by yourself, like, make it special. You deserve to enjoy time doing the things that you enjoy and it does not. You can grab, you know, go to the library and put on a great ASMR room and have this cost you $0 and can still feel really. So yes, I am all about planning for and anticipating joyful things in your life, especially when they are reading aligned and I'm really excited now to see what folks do with this and to get some great ideas from our community.
- [51:22]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, excellent. Okay, let's then go to the fountain and let's make some wishes. What is your wish?
- [51:29]
Mary Heim
Mary all right, Meredith. Well, unintentionally aligned with that discussion, my Fountain Wish this week is also about readerly communication community. I want everyone to buddy read with an unexpected buddy reader. Here's what I mean. My husband and I have an 11 year old nephew who we both adore. He's just the coolest. For Christmas we got him a copy of the Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Zapetis and Stephen Schenken along with the promise that we would read it alongside him first and foremost. I picked well in our gift for him this book because this book was an absolute page turning middle grade delight about a piece Of World War II code breaking history that honestly, I don't read a ton of World War II novels so my knowledge in this area around Bletchley park was pretty nil. And we really really loved the book. But of course the biggest joy of this for me was getting to share it with my favorite 11 year old. I buddy read a lot with my book club and my sister and my husband and our bookish friends, but this was the first time that I buddy read with someone so important to me who isn't necessarily in my bookish circle, right? And it was so much fun. Not only did it feel like a really cool bonding experience with this kid I adore who is quickly becoming his own nearly teenage self, but it also really helped me to read this book so differently and hearing his thoughts gave me great and really interesting perspective. It was a way to connect almost daily with someone who again is so important to me but I'm not necessarily talking to on a daily basis and really connecting in this specific way. I really loved buddy reading with him and the three of us are already plotting our next shared read. It was such a joy. So my wish this week is that our friends consider stepping outside of your buddy reader comfort zone to share a book with someone else in your life and be open to what kind of bookish joy might unfold. This kind of reminds me a Little bit of your bookish moment of the week, Meredith, of maybe you're sharing a reading experience with a readerly friend who maybe reads one or two books a year, but the two of you are talking about it and you're kind of expanding what that bookish chatter looks like outside of your usual circles. It was so fun for me. It was absolutely a highlight of my reading year. But I want to gently encourage this, like, thinking outside the buddy reader bookish community box this week. Pink splash.
- [53:49]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. I love the idea and I think the key there is sometimes us actually saying to some, like, we think about buddy reading all the time as readers. Right?
- [53:59]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [53:59]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
People who don't read like we do. Lay readers is the new term that I'm giving them. They don't necessarily. They wouldn't think like, oh, well, we could buddy read that. Like, I think that's the thing is do the ask of like, hey, do you want to read that together, like at the same time and we could talk about it.
- [54:17]
Mary Heim
Yeah.
- [54:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
For a lot of people, that's going to be a really mind blowing idea.
- [54:20]
Mary Heim
Yes.
- [54:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love that idea. That is so wonderful.
- [54:23]
Mary Heim
Love it. What about you?
- [54:24]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. My wish, of course, with this episode is going to be I want to get a little bit bossy and just a little bit formal. And I want to everyone who's listening, I want you to think about putting a virtual reading retreat on your calendar. And I don't just mean theoretically. I mean I want you to pause the podcast right now and I want you to think, think, what is the day and time that I could put a virtual reading retreat either just my own self or with another person on the calendar. I want you to get really intentional about doing that. Pause the show. Go do that. Come back. You will feel so glad that you did this because every single one of us can benefit. Especially right now with the world feeling so weak, weird. We need some things that are good and kind and community building and fulfilling and self caring to look forward to. So that is my wish. But it's kind of an order.
- [55:26]
Mary Heim
I'll join you. I'll co sign that order.
- [55:28]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Thank you. I knew if Mary cosigns on it, it's not just being bossy, it's actually good for you. Ping. Splash. All right, that is it for this week. Mary, I'm so glad that we got a chance to record together. I love talking about book with you.
- [55:44]
Mary Heim
This was so much fun, Meredith. I loved it.
- [55:46]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right. If you want to connect with us, you can find me. I'm Meredith at Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram Katie is at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited by Megan Putong Evans and she is at most of Megan's Reads on Instagram and.
- [56:03]
Mary Heim
You can find me at Mary Reads and Makes on Instagram Full show notes.
- [56:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
With the title of every book we mentioned in the episode and time timestamps so you can zoom right to where we talked about it can be found in our show notes and on our website@currentlyreading podcast.com you can also follow the.
- [56:21]
Mary Heim
Show at currentlyreading podcast on Instagram or email us at currentlyreading podcast gmail.com and.
- [56:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
If you want more of this kind of content, you can join us as a bookish friend for only $5 a month on Patreon. You get tons more community, tons more content. And as we said at the top of the show, you you keep this show commercial free. You can also help us by rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts and shouting us out on social media or in real life. All of those things help us to find our perfect audience.
- [56:53]
Mary Heim
Bookish friends are truly, truly, truly the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [56:59]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, until next week, may your.
- [57:01]
Mary Heim
Coffee be hot and your book be unput downable.
- [57:05]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Happy reading Mary.
- [57:06]
Mary Heim
Happy reading Meredith.