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The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 7, Episode 47: Reading Life Temp Check + Pressing Books Into Each Other's Hands
01:01:47
On this episode of Currently Reading, Meredith and Kaytee are discussing: Bookish Moments: readerly badges and DNFing books Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately Deep Dive: we check in on...
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- [00:00]
Meredith Mundy 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 Mundy Schwartz
I'm Meredith Mundy Schwartz, a mom of four and full time CEO living in Austin, Texas, and I'm kind of scared at how good I'm getting at dnfing books.
- [00:42]
Katie Cobb
Ooh. I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona, and I have a new reader scout badge. This is episode number 47 of season seven, and we are so glad you're here.
- [00:53]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, yeah, Katie, it is, it is. It is rough going over here with the dnfing.
- [00:58]
Katie Cobb
I actually am kind of proud of how many books I've DNF'd lately. So I'm calling it a win, even though I hear what you're saying.
- [01:07]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes, yes. No, it definitely can and should be seen that way. All right, we will let you know that a couple things, our deep dive today is going to be a reading temp check. Right. Every few months we're trying to incorporate how are we feeling about our reading, what's working, what's not. And then because today is the last regular episode of season seven, there will be multiple special episodes still coming up, and Katie will let you know about that. But we are going to press a book into each other's hands that we have agreed. We did this two years ago, right, Katie?
- [01:46]
Katie Cobb
Yeah.
- [01:46]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Last year, readers picked for us. This year, we're going to go back to you pressing a book into my hands. Pressing a book into your hands. That we are agreeing, sight unseen, that we will read over our summer break. And then when we come back for season eight, we will come back and talk about our thoughts on it. So we're going to do that later today.
- [02:05]
Katie Cobb
Yes, I'm excited. Although I had a bit of a, like, internal crisis about it, so it's.
- [02:10]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
One of the more difficult things that we do, I think.
- [02:12]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
- [02:14]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay, let's then get started like we always do with our bookish moment of the week. Katie, what is yours?
- [02:23]
Katie Cobb
Okay, Meredith, I did get a new reader scout badge this week, which is what I'm calling it because I'm trying to frame it in a positive light. I, as a 41 year old woman for the first time, had to get reading glasses this week, which is very exciting for me because I like, even when we do our Hacha Cha videos, I see the other three of you with your gorgeous glasses and you just look so smart and readerly. And I'm like, look, I'm not a real reader. Guess what? When you turn 40, your eye muscles get lazy is what my optometrist told me. I had not had an eye exam in about 25 years. Turns out my vision is still perfect, but my reading muscles are tired, so I had to get little readers. I'm still getting used to them because that's a different thing to have to like put on different eyes to read and then take them off to look far away at my children or whatever's going on with them. Yeah, it's an adjustment, but it does feel very like my kids were like, look, you look so smart, mommy, you look so fancy.
- [03:22]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right. I mean it, it is fun when it first starts and, and definitely at 41, you know, I think most of us begin.
- [03:29]
Katie Cobb
I had a good.
- [03:30]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right. The slide. Right. It's like a 10 year period of time. I do remember just never going to the eye doctor except, you know, like every decade or so now I'm like, wait, has it been a year? Because I feel like I need to go back. I need, I need new glass.
- [03:46]
Katie Cobb
Yeah.
- [03:47]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
At some point, the slide. I'm 51 and so at some point the slide apparently slows down.
- [03:52]
Katie Cobb
It's supposed to plateau. She told me. Yeah, yeah.
- [03:55]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
So that will be nice. Just because, you know, new glasses, even with good insurance are expensive and I have to, I have a three glass situation that's happening now. So that's when it gets really exciting where you need computer glasses, reading glasses, and then like progressives that allow you to drive and watch football games in real life, like that kind of thing. So I'm always going back and forth between one of my three pairs of glasses.
- [04:20]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. She was like, well, we could give you progressives so that you could look down and read and then they would just be regular glass on the top. And I was like, no, I don't think I want to wear them all the time. And now having the reading glasses, I'm like, oh, yes, I understand why people would choose to do that. Yeah, I get it.
- [04:35]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah. And I don't think I, I didn't make the move until I needed a prescription on both, you know, long and short distances.
- [04:43]
Katie Cobb
So.
- [04:43]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah. But don't worry, Katie, you'll get there. Everyone does.
- [04:47]
Katie Cobb
I'll adjust to it. Yeah. And she was like, listen, it happens at 40. The fact that you made it to 41. Good job, you.
- [04:53]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Exactly, exactly. And you do get to buy sexy glasses.
- [04:56]
Katie Cobb
Mm. Mm. That's exciting.
- [04:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right, well, as I intimated, my bookish moment of the week is just my thought on how good I'm getting at dnfing, which is a skill that I think all of us who read a lot need to hone. I think it's a really important skill, and it adds to my reading life while also giving me some kind of complicated feelings. But it did get me thinking, Katie, you're DNFing a lot, and I'm DNFing a lot. I historically don't keep track of my DNFs in any way, but the reading tracker, the spreadsheet that you get for being a bookish friend of the currently reading podcast, does include a way to keep track of your DNFs. And so I was thinking, I wonder if people would like it if we built in some sort of quarterly, monthly, I don't know, segment where we kind of pick some highlights of our DNFs, and maybe we. Maybe there are some through lines that are telling us something about who we are as a reader right now.
- [06:02]
Katie Cobb
Right.
- [06:02]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Maybe there are some hypey, buzzy books that we're dnfing not because we hate them, but just because they're not right for us right now. So what do you think about that?
- [06:12]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, I'm definitely up for it. I do feel like I have an ebb and flow to my DNF ability, which could be one word or it could be the ability to dnf, but. So I do enjoy, like, looking back at. Okay, well, here's what went kind of sideways during that part of my reading year. Or those things all have something in common and I should stay away from them going forward. This spreadsheet you put in the beginning of it, just like you normally would logging a book, you click the DNF box and then stop logging after that, and it pulls them over to a separate sheet so you can make additional notes or say, who recommended it. So, you know, if that person is regularly giving you things that you don't necessarily like. So it has some fun functionality to it.
- [06:54]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Now, see all that I didn't even know because I've never used it, but. So it, like, creates a. A wall of shame.
- [07:00]
Katie Cobb
It does for your recommender. Yes. Yeah.
- [07:06]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, that's a list no one wants to be on.
- [07:09]
Katie Cobb
Right. And then it pulls it over to the stats sheet and it's like, top DNF recommendations. And it'll say, like, this person gave you three books that you DNF'd. Take a note.
- [07:18]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, that's interesting. Okay, so we'll continue to mull, maybe over our summer break, how we can add in something. And certainly you guys, let us know. Let us know on socials, let us know via email. Let us know what you think about incorporating a little bit. It's not gonna be a lot because we don't wanna spend a lot of time talking about books that didn't work for us right now, but it might be an interesting thing to add into the larger mix.
- [07:43]
Katie Cobb
I do think it's more interesting than what are you pre ordering right now? Or what are you excited to read that's coming out soon? Because those lists are similar for a lot of people. Right, right.
- [07:54]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Readily available through a lot of sources.
- [07:58]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, definitely.
- [07:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay. All right, so let's talk about our current reads. What's your. What's your first one for this? Last regular. Last current read for a while.
- [08:11]
Katie Cobb
So it is. Yeah. But then we get to build up our little treasure stash of all the books that we read over summer break, which is one of my favorite things to do.
- [08:19]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
From your lips to God's ears, Katie.
- [08:21]
Katie Cobb
Okay. My first one this week, Meredith, is a romance. It has a purple cover. Basically, it was made for me.
- [08:29]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Lovely.
- [08:30]
Katie Cobb
A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke by Adriana Herrera. Holy Hannah. This gets a. Holy Hannah. This was so good. Okay, this is the third in the Las Leonas series of historical romances. Bodice Rippers Regency by Adriana Herrera. I've brought all of them to the show. First, we had a Caribbean heiress in Paris, which I brought to the show on the first episode of season five after it was on the indie press list by Cafe Con Libros in Brooklyn. Then I brought an island princess starts a scandal to episode six of season six. Now we are wrapping up season seven, and I'm happy to tell you that this entire series is just a hit for me. Since romance series usually do not build on each other, there are no spoilers for previous books in this series. When I set up the third one for you in A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke, we're focused on Aurora Montalban, a physician, a doctor fighting for the rights of Regency women to control their own bodies and fertility. So she's like a women's doctor. It's a risky endeavor. So she Maintains complete control over every part of her life because it's dangerous, especially her love life. She runs an underground clinic for women where she may help a woman prevent pregnancy with her abusive husband, treat an infection, or deal with pregnancy complications. Aurora oftentimes works undercover of darkness and needs a safe space to reliably run her clinic, where she knows women are not going to be accosted on the way there, stopped by police, etc. Thankfully, we have Duke Apollo, Cesar Sinclair Robles and he steps in. He's the only black peer of the realm and most of the aristocracy is just waiting for him to screw up. He hadn't really considered this part of things when he forced his father to acknowledge his existence instead of writing him off as a bastard. But needs must. So now he's a peer of the realm and his skin doesn't match anybody else's and they're all looking at him like he's a freak. The two fall into bed together as part of their business arrangement. Aurora wants to reclaim her own pleasure after a young adulthood filled with abuse, and Apollo is just the man for the job, and he certainly is. But their relationship becomes more entwined and more complicated and it starts to become obvious that their bedroom activities and every other way that they are involved in each other's lives are actually making them perfect for one another. But they each have a past and the stakes are getting higher in and out of bed, so they have to figure out if that bond is strong enough to survive those outside forces. This book was delicious with a capital D and it was a perfect end to this series as a whole. There are three sisters, so we knew that it was going to be three at the beginning. Each of the Leones sisters is strong and brilliant and passionate and they make for perfect Regency darlings while also giving us a totally new perspective on the era. Adriana Herrera is now on my auto buy list going forward, but especially if she puts out anything else historical Regency. Give me the petticoats, give me the bodices. All of it. Which she does in a really beautiful and new way. I did get to see her at the Tucson Festival of Books in March. I went to a panel with her on it talking about putting characters that we don't see in into historical romance. So there was a trans author, there was a. There was a black Dominican author in Adriana Herrera, one other lady. And it just, it was so well done that I became. I stan her. I'm on her team forever and ever. This one was phenomenal. It is a tropical Rebel gets the Duke by Adriana Herrera.
- [11:54]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, you know, I loved a Caribbean heiress in Paris and this. It's so good. Everything about her writing is so evocative. It's so. It's got all the stuff that I really, really like. So this is a major romance co sign for me. This author.
- [12:10]
Katie Cobb
So good. So good. I love it. And she has like a blue book, a pink book, and a purple book in this series. Like, they're just. They're just beautiful and I love them.
- [12:18]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
The covers are really beautiful. All right, Katie. As promised, I am bringing my annual Riley Sager thoughts to the show as my first current read. I just finished With a Vengeance, his brand new release this month in June. So this is With a Vengeance by Riley Riley Sager. Here's the setup. In 1942, six people destroyed lead character Anna Matheson's world. So 12 years later, she is finally ready to meet out some justice. She has orchestrated the perfect revenge scheme. And she lures all six conspirators onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago. So they don't know why they're there. Her plan is to confront all of these people who have wronged her and her family, to get them to confess to their crimes and then deliver them straight into the hands of FBI agents who are waiting in Chicago. But here's where things get complicated. Anna's carefully laid plans go completely off the rails when one of the passengers turns up dead. Suddenly, it becomes clear that someone else on this train is playing their own game of revenge, and they're not going to stop until everyone is six feet under. So now Anna has to figure out, does she protect these people that she hates so much just to get them to the end of the line, or does she just let happen whatever's going to happen? But the train is moving. There are no stops, and there's nowhere to run. So this is a setup. It's a great setup, right? It always is with Mr. Sager. So every year, I commit at least one morning or one afternoon to reading the new Riley Sager. Sometimes, as you've heard me talk about, I'm richly rewarded with a few hours of page turning. Satisfaction. I'm thinking of home before dark. Lock every door. And for me, although it's very divisive, the house across the lake. Other years, I'm mad as hell because the book was terrible. I'm looking at you Survive the night. And then there are the meh years. And unfortunately, summer 2025 gives us another book in that category. With a vengeance is mid and that, if I'm being honest, is being generous. I'm giving Riley credit for a couple of things. He's explored a new time period here. This one set in 1942 and then in 1950, and a new structure. This one, a mix. A hearty mix of two Agatha Christie classics. Murder on the Orient Express and Then There Were None. And it's that mix that is one of my issues with this book. It was so derivative. Katie, don't get me wrong, I love books that are an homage to the great Dame Christie. Some authors do it really well, like Peter Swanson's Nine Lives. But this one feels exactly like what would happen if you asked ChatGPT to mix two great mysteries with a few new characters and and make it written by Riley Sager. Now, not that I'm saying that he used AI to write this book. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that there's something about it that was even thinner than his other books. The setting should have been interesting, and yet it wasn't. We never had a chance to sense any of the magic or majesty of this classic train ride that they were on. And as for time period that barely came to play. The characters were flat cutouts of classic mystery novel characters. The greedy thief, the smarmy cad, the brassy blonde, and on and on. And even our main character, who we most need to feel at least some sympathy or some sense of why for, is just a limp noodle with nothing about her that makes me root for her. And I know, I know we don't need Riley Sager to be great at characterization. Usually his plots save us from boredom at the very least. And though I was able to finish this in one morning, I did it with my eyes rolled so far back in my head that I feared for my long term ability to see properly. The plot was just absolutely silly, with twists upon twists that, rather than making it interesting, just tied itself up in knots. By the end, the plot was simultaneously somehow overly complicated and embarrassingly simple. And I was just plain exasperated. But will I read his next book next summer? Yes, I will. This one is With a Vengeance by Riley Sager. What are you doing to me, Riley?
- [17:06]
Katie Cobb
I feel like now you're just reading them with a vengeance.
- [17:09]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Like, yeah, yeah, it's a habit more than anything.
- [17:13]
Katie Cobb
Oh my gosh. Okay, well, I do like that he branched out into historical. I like that. You know, sometimes we do get to wonder, now, was AI involved in this? And like, I know you said that's not what I'M saying here, it's not. And we've had authors say, like, oh, yeah, I used AI for this, or it's become very glaringly obvious in various worldwide news publications that AI is overstepping sometimes and hallucinating at other times. And so I just, like, I want us to be able to hold authors to that higher standard and say, like, we know you. You can do better.
- [17:48]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Exactly. It is. It's very interesting how that aspect of things is becoming more a part of the conversation, more a part of what we're thinking as we read. And it will be interesting to see how authors can take that on, because to a certain extent, I mean, you know, he had the idea to mix these two books and what would happen if. And, you know, so it's. It's only going to become more a part of the conversation and certainly something I'm thinking about when I read.
- [18:15]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, most definitely. Okay. My second one this week is nonfiction, and it came to me from our mutual friend Morgan Tallman. So, you know, it's gonna be good.
- [18:25]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I love Morgan so much.
- [18:27]
Katie Cobb
She told me about Uncommon Measure by Natalie Hodges. So she had one of her readerly premonitions and sent it my way, simply saying, I was reading about this book and I felt like you needed to know about it. So she hadn't read it or anything. She just like, gently placed it in my lap and walked away, which is the perfect way to recommend things to me, right?
- [18:48]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It is.
- [18:49]
Katie Cobb
Luckily for me, it was named as the big library read this summer. So I had no problems getting my hands on it immediately, as many of my libraries had unlimited copies on both audio and. And ebook. So I snapped it up right away. Natalie Hodges was a young violin prodigy. She is a Korean American who was put into lessons at a young age, but by no means the youngest. She was not a two year old in lessons. She was like a six year old, as were her siblings. But Natalie really excelled, far exceeding the dreams of her parents and what they thought that she would be able to do. She continued her rise through lessons and local orchestras and then onto the national stage. But as she became a young adult, her performance anxiety forced her to give up her dreams of becoming a solo violinist. In this book, which is deliciously nerdy, Natalie tells her story through the lens of time. Because time is so pivotal in music, right? We count in four, four time. Or we keep, you know, six, eight, time. There's so many cool time signatures with regard to music, so she plays with it a lot. She brings in the ways that philosophy approaches time as well as neuroscience and the ways that we perceive it as it passes. She also talks about the ways that quantum physics views time and its properties. She plays with the ideas of structure and rigidity present in classical pieces and then looks at improvisation and the ways that other musical styles and instrumentalists are influencing the classics. She talked about one instrumentalist who will sit on stage and have somebody in the audience hum a ditty, and then she will improvise something that sounds like classical music that is completely new, which is a stunning ability and not something that Natalie has been able to grasp for herself. So she spends a lot of time kind of talking about that aspect of things. This book actually paired extraordinarily well with a concert that Shad and I went to in May, right after I finished this memoir. We went to see the Phoenix Symphony perform Beethoven ex Beyonce, a mashup of the two musical greats. It was a totally new way of hearing both types of music as they layered over each other to form something new, but completely different. While we bought those tickets six months before and I picked up this book on a whim because of Morgan, I couldn't believe how beautifully the experiences combined to make something wonderful happen in my reading life. Oh, that I could make it happen over and over again. Natalie Hodges story is one of excellence Mixed with anxiety, exceptionalism, and model minority prejudices that she faced. She's willing to dive into her own life, her parents, their marriage, her siblings growing up, what it looks like to have something really great and have to give it up for your own mental health. And then she intersperses it with the science and her observations of the musical world at large, and it really made it something special for me. I'm glad Morgan popped it onto my radar. Exactly. When she did, this was uncommon measure by Natalie Hodges.
- [21:44]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, that sounds really, really good.
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Katie Cobb
It was so interesting, and I really had no idea what to expect, except I knew it was about music. Like, that was it. That's all I had.
- [21:52]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right. Well, in your trust in Morgan.
- [21:54]
Katie Cobb
Right, Exactly. And I did send it to Roxanna immediately afterwards. And I was like, I know you brought a fiction book that had some of these elements in it. She was like, oh, my gosh, you're right. So I think she's gonna read it too, which I'm excited about.
- [22:06]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah, I think she might really like that. All right. My second book is also Some romance, which I don't bring a lot, but I really, really liked this one. I've been kind of in this mood lately, so I've read. I've read. I've actually read, I think, four romance books in the last little bit. But the kind that I like, which are very different from the kind that you like. All right, so this is the Midsummer Bride by Katie Wilde. Here's the setup. So Princess Elena of Evermore is an exiled royal, and she is living on borrowed time because she is literally dying from some mysterious illness, and she's desperately searching for a warrior powerful enough to help her fulfill an ancient prophecy that could restore her to the throne that her treacherous uncle stole from her. So she's trying to do all of this while she's also, like, fading physically. Enter Warwick, a brooding. Because, of course, a brooding barbarian warrior who specializes in righting the wrongs for both the living and the dead and who's currently in a dungeon and scheduled for execution. Okay, just my perfect.
- [23:15]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [23:16]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It's like Jack Reacher, who I'm also obsessed with in a dungeon. Just any rights, wrongs for. Okay. Anyway, when Elena offers him a fake marriage proposal that could save his life and give her this warrior that she needs to take the throne back, it seems like the perfect transactional arrangement. But Katie, $25 for you to guess what happens next, because nothing about their connection is transactional. And Elena finds herself questioning whether she can trust this fierce man with her kingdom and more importantly, with her heart.
- [23:57]
Katie Cobb
Well, can she, though?
- [23:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right?
- [24:00]
Katie Cobb
Exactly.
- [24:01]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right, so I think this review is probably pretty okay. But obviously this is a spicy, spicy book. So little ears. You know, I love it when I can move to romance on the heels of some really dark, really serious murdery books. And that's exactly what I did here. Also, I want to point out the fact that this was a book that I read as I had the. The flu. I was really, really sick, and I dipped into my break glass kind of emergency books that I keep there for exactly this reason. This is a category of books that I go to if I get sick or Johnny and I get into a big fight or I have a terrible day at work. I have this folder of books on my Kindle and some books on my real life shelf that fall into this category. And I highly recommend this if this works for you as a reader, because what I knew I needed was something completely different from the three books that I'd recently finished. And also, I needed something that wasn't going to take too much of my brain. And the Midsummer Bride was perfection. It was all the fairy tale vibes because we have this frail, evil question mark queen. We have the good and upright and incredibly built, gorgeous male lead character who's like a barbarian. So of course he's like 7ft tall and he's got it. And also not all of that. And also this genius level intellect. Everything you could possibly want in a hero. Just clutch all of my pearls. They are enemies to lovers in the best possible way. And then there's a really lovingly built world around them that gives you all the curse so dark and lonely vibes that you could possibly be looking for. And they have a love story that's both believable and really sweet. That's an important element for this reader because I love when they actually fall in love with each other. Now this is usually the part where I tell you that this is not very spicy because that's what I tend toward. Not in this case. Dear readers, this is a 4 out of 5 Chili Pepper Spice ranking. Lots and lots of sexy time described in quite a bit of detail. I like this book so much that it might have made my very, very small five star romance list, but I ended up giving it only four and a half stars for one particular reason. I knocked a half star off for the profligate use of the word slicked as a verb. This is not for me. It drove me nuts and not in a good way. But the rest of it was very much pitch perfect. This is the Midsummer Bride by Katie Wilde.
- [26:50]
Katie Cobb
Okay, well, I'm not sure I can get behind slicked being used often either. Unless it's hair slicked back is fine. Right?
- [26:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It was over and over again.
- [27:03]
Katie Cobb
Rebecca and I are gonna do an episode about our icks in romance and like, those weird little niche things where it's like, I just can't do it when the hero has my son's name or whatever it is.
- [27:14]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, this one has the word ick right in the middle of.
- [27:18]
Katie Cobb
Really does. Like, it's begging to be icked, right?
- [27:21]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes, or slicked.
- [27:23]
Katie Cobb
But yeah, that's awesome. Okay, well, I love that it was such a hit for you and, you know, just a little find and replace. I'm pretty sure we've asked the book fairy for this in the past and it could be even this one verb. I want you to replace it with something else, please. Thank you.
- [27:38]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
So many other options.
- [27:40]
Katie Cobb
Get out of thesaurus. Enjoy. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, that sounds delightful. And you know I love me a four chili pepper book.
- [27:50]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes.
- [27:51]
Katie Cobb
Okay. I brought Gosh, what I think might be the perfect book for me as my third book this week because it's my last one of this season and I had to end on a very high note. So I'm going to talk about Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver just as summer started to heat up around here. Meredith, I just told you it's 111 today. It was 116 yesterday. It's. It's disgusting outside. But right before that happened, when it started to get a little balmy, Katie and I decided to pick up this book as a buddy read and it had been sitting on our shelves for years. Prodigal Summer was first published in the year 2000 and features what I'd call a braided narrative. It's a single timeline, but multiple points of view. The really fun part about this book is that each of the three Tresses in the Braid has different chapter titles. So first we have Deanna. Her chapter titles are always There's a Number and then it says Predator as her chapter title and each of them has their own. Deanna works for the Forest Service and lives in a remote cabin in Appalachia. She cares deeply for the land and the predators and the animals all the way down the food chain, but people she could probably do without. That is until Eddie shows up toting a hunting rifle and contrary to everything she believes, she decides to let him in. Also, he's lovely. Also, this book has orgasms in it, which is a little unusual for Barbara Kingsolver. So take a note. Okay, next we meet Lusa, a young wife who has transplanted to a small town where everyone knows everyone else. Her chapters have the subtitle Moth Love which is a little bit odd, but it works with her story. She's an outsider to a close knit family who is well educated and from a big city. She has a different ethnic and racial background than all the rest of them. She's attempting to make connections and make her way when her still relatively new husband dies in a tragic accident in the first chapter that we meet her, leaving her alone on the family farm with his sisters and their families wondering what gives her the right to stay. And finally we have Garnet, a curmudgeonly old widower. His chapters are called Old Chestnut Cut off from the World. His next door neighbor, Ms. Raleigh has some very different opinions about farming and pesticides than the ones he is interested in pursuing, which leads to some not so neighborly scuffles between the two of them because they share a fence line and if you don't use pesticides that impacts my farm, etc. Each of these stories is firmly rooted in Appalachian community as Kingsolver writes so well, it's part of her blood. At this point, the sense of place is so potent it feels like you can smell the mown grass, the fruit on the trees, and the goats eating the kudzu on the back lawn. She lets us walk through the forest and hear the rustle of small living creatures and the song of birds that we cannot see through the leaves. While it doesn't seem like much happens in this book, it's so beautifully written that I didn't mind at all. I would have happily spent hundreds more pages with each of these characters in subsequent seasons. This one all takes place in one humid Appalachian summer in the valley in the mountains, surrounded by trees. There is some sexy time, as I mentioned in this book, that I was not expecting early on in the story and then sprinkled throughout. It's very sparse, but it is worth mentioning in case that's something that's going to bother you as a reader. Right? As I finished this book, I picked up at the store not to read yet the Shell Seekers. I don't know why I've got them put together in my head, but this long standing community, interwoven storyline, minimal plot, phenomenal character. Has me thinking that it's going to be the summer of these like stunning authors that just write beautifully for me and I am looking forward to it. This 25 year old book was five stars for me. I was so glad to share it with my Katie. We both ended up loving it. Even though that very first chapter transition, we were like now who is this? What in the world? Who is this person? No, Deanna, Lisa and Garnet absolutely stole our hearts. We adored it, both of us. This is Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.
- [32:03]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Man, I love me some Barbara Kingsolver. You know, I haven't read Demon Copperhead yet, so my question is, do you think that people who read and love Demon Copperhead would also really like Prodigal Summer? Like would that be a good next King Solver for them?
- [32:20]
Katie Cobb
That's a really good question, Meredith. Demon Copperhead is also on my summer TBR because I'm like God, I finally need to read this. I love her so much. She has never not been a hit for me. This is a very special type of writing for her though.
- [32:35]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay, well her Goodreads ratings are like through the roof. They are through the roof on a lot. I mean, obviously she's been writing forever, so wow. I mean I've never really looked at it all of a piece like that. But yeah, her Goodreads ratings are really, really good.
- [32:50]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, she's incredible. And, and I don't feel like, you know how some authors, it's like, oh, well, that's the 25 years ago her. And now she writes this, like, grittier, darker. And I do think I've heard some of that stuff about Demon Cropperhead. Like, it's, it's a hard. It's a hard read. It has a lot of, like, difficult in it for a number of reasons, but I don't think I've heard. I wish she would go back to writing the way she did. I think she still is, at her core the same writer. And, and that is just really impactful and amazing. So I'm. I'm excited. This summer is going to be Barbo Kingsolver summer for me.
- [33:25]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, I love it. And you live in just the perfect place for it.
- [33:29]
Katie Cobb
Hot, hot, hot.
- [33:31]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes. All right. My third book is also very much a Meredith book, although it is not murderful in the way that you would normally think about it. But this other kind of part of what I love this book is. The River Has Roots by Amal El Mokhtar. Here's the setup. In the enchanted town of Thistleford, sisters Esther and Isabel Hawthorne have a family obligation that's been passed down for generations. They sing to the ancient willow trees to keep the magical compact between their family and their land. The sisters couldn't be more different. Esther is drawn to the mysterious world of Faerie that lies just across the River Lys, while Isabel wants nothing more than to preserve their quiet life together. Their sisterly bond seems unbreakable, until a greedy suitor starts making moves on the family's land. And Esther finds herself torn between her devotion to her sister and her growing attraction to Rin, a shape shifting fae who keeps appearing to her as a. As the wind, an owl, and finally, as a captivating musician trying to entice her to cross over the river into the world of Arcadia. This novel has the feeling of a fairy tale told around a campfire, complete with the knowledge that something darker lurks beneath this beautiful surface. This is a retelling of the traditional murder ballad the Two Sisters, but El Mokhtar has transformed it into something that celebrates sisterhood rather than, as in the original, destroys it. And has created a story where magic is called grammar and language itself has the power to reshape reality, which is a trend, a theme I'm seeing in several of the books that I've been reading and loving lately. This idea of magic as words, words as magic. So, Liz, hein reached out to me directly about this book and said I really think that you need to read this. This is a total Meredith book. So I put it on my TBR because I always prioritize books that Liz tells me to read, especially when they are more in the literary realm then when this book was a favorite pick on the fabled book review last quarter I purchased and immediately opened it up. These are my two top recommendation sources and they were both letting me know it is a Meredith book. You know I love a fairy tale. It's one of my very favorite kinds of books to read. And interestingly it is when people ask me if you could study anything that you would make no money on after you get a degree in it, I would do a deep dive master study into fairy tales. I'm that obsessed with them today. In what's being published right now, it's hard to find a book that is purely fairy tale. Usually we have a fairy tale that's a retelling. We have a fairy tale that's murdery. We have one like the one I just talked about. A fairy tale, but make it romance in the river has roots. We have a pure fairy tale. And this means we have a beautiful lush spring and summer like nature. Just gorgeous setting that we would expect in a story like this. We have fairies and magical trees. We have a river that mostly flows north to south except when it doesn't. And just as we need in a pure fairy tale, we have characters that are very, very good and have characters that are very, very mysterious. And then we have characters that have murder in their hearts. And so all of this together makes it the perfect Meredith read. The language puts it firmly in the literary fairy tal up. This is a beautifully written book by the critical darling, co author of the book this is How We Solve the Time War. If that name sounded familiar to you, that book is literary sci fi. But this one is literary fairy tale and it is my happy place. The language is beautiful enough that I often felt that it would be best read aloud and I found myself doing exactly that, reading it to myself aloud. I'm just a sucker for lands filled with treasures and beauty and creatures and also deep dark forests with very old magic. I love crones and houses you stumble upon in the woods. And believe it or not, I am a sucker for a true love story. The kind of love that makes your heart hurt. That's what we have here and I was totally taken in by it. If you loved a curse so dark and lonely the second time I'm mentioning it in this episode, but thought, I wish it could also also be nominated for a booker. Then this book is the book for you. This is the River Has Roots by Amal El Mokhtar.
- [38:18]
Katie Cobb
Sounds so good. And of course, I've seen this one everywhere, have not been drawn to it, but it sounds beautiful. Is it long?
- [38:27]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
No, it's not super long. I mean, it's not really short, but.
- [38:30]
Katie Cobb
It'S not really long because this is how you lose. The Time War was almost novella length. It was like maybe 150 to 180. So it was this very quick, breezy read. I've been thinking a lot about fairy tales lately too.
- [38:44]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah, Katie, maybe this one was on the shorter side. It didn't stick. I didn't make a note about that. So that piece of it is not sticking out to me.
- [38:53]
Katie Cobb
Right.
- [38:53]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
But it was the language and the just evocativeness of place. Yeah, that really. And then that, you know, the love story that just makes your heart hurt, which is a very specific romantic kind of place for me.
- [39:06]
Katie Cobb
Right. Well, there's some definite through lines between that, like, strong sense of place, gorgeous language in both of our final reads today, so that's fun to see too.
- [39:16]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah. All right, Katie, let's do a little how are we on time? Okay. Yeah, we're doing okay. Let's do a Reading Life temp check. How are things feeling to you in this very upheaval filled reading time for you?
- [39:34]
Katie Cobb
Seriously, Meredith, the last time we did a reading life temp check, I was like, hey, y' all, guess what? Here's a bomb that I'm gonna drop and then walk away. That actually caused quite a bit of upheaval in my reading life as well. If anybody is curious, that was the March 31 episode where I did announce that I was getting divorced. Now we're about three months later, and that is all finalized. We are on the other side of everything. And it has continued to impact my reading life in different ways. Of course, for right now, I'm finding a lot of comfort in nonfiction. And learning and not, like, how to survive and thrive after divorce. I'm not doing, like, self helpy stuff, but Uncommon Measure by Natalie Hodges. Anti racism. Like, things that have continued to help me feel like I'm growing as a person in the world is where I'm finding comfort. And when I say nonfiction, I never mean true crime. That's Meredith's. Me, you. I never want to, like, be at home as a single woman thinking about who might be on the other side of My door to murder me. That's not on my list at all.
- [40:44]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Sure.
- [40:45]
Katie Cobb
But I do think about education and systems at a whole, as a whole, and the government and I like getting into some of that nitty gritty. So that's, that's kind of skimming up to the top for me, which is an interesting thing. As we already talked about a greater ability to DNF than I was finding at the beginning of the year. And I think that might have been kind of speaking out loud about what was going on with me. I was like, you know, people are okay if I don't have every single type of book on my current reads and it's okay if some of them are not the best, but I want to enjoy my reading life as it comes. So I've been setting down. I've probably DNF'd twice as many books in this, this second quarter of the year as I did in the first quarter of the year. So just really increased that rate. Those are a couple quick observations. I've got some more. But what about you? Where are you at right now?
- [41:39]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, I mean, and I've definitely talked about it on and off this in 2025, for whatever reason, I just have felt incredibly distracted in my reading, but not distracted in all areas of my life. I feel like I'm, my reading is being very affected by the fact that I'm very much, my brain is kind of firing all on all cylinders from a work perspective. And so that's a really good thing because I've definitely gone through times where it was the flip flop of that. So that's really what I think is coming into play for me is that my brain is so busy and has so much energy and kind of juice related to a lot of these different realms work, you know, in different kinds of work that I'm doing that I'm just being pulled over there. And so I'll, you know, I'll try to sit down with the book and this is a weird thing I'm going to try to describe because if there's any group of people that is going to understand it. But this is what I keep coming back to. I keep starting books and really having good reason to think that they're going to be a good fit for me. But I start reading it and it's like I have some filter on my brain that won't let the book like get through to me. Like it'll just be this struggle to settle into the story or settle into the language or like I just can't and then every once in a while, then a book will get through that filter and it'll feel so good that all of I'm like, I actually am being called back to this book. Like, I. I want to be reading this book. I'm feeling really sucked in. But then the other thing that's happened, especially in this last quarter, is I feel like I will get to, like, the first 15% of a book, and I will feel like that's what's happening. I'm being sucked in. I want to read this book. And then all of a sudden, something about my brain will shift and I'll be like, ugh, I don't even want to read this. And it's really not the fault of the books that I'm reading. I mean, sometimes, you know, it. It probably is. But more than anything, I'm just feeling like my brain is being extra choosy about what it wants to let itself get into. And I'm finding myself pulled to things that I'm not normally pulled to, but like reading a bunch of romance and like some really smutty romance, which I don't say in a bad way. I love smut, but it just doesn't always call to me. But what I'm trying to really lean into and be present in is the fact that this is a particular season in my reading. All I need to do, I don't need to. I don't need to fix it. And that's the thing. I don't need to make it better. I don't need to make it perfect. I just need to say, this is where I am. What can I do to optimize it? Lean into it maybe. I do read more of specific kinds of books than I normally would. Great. I'll be back to other kinds of books later. I am leaning a lot more into dnfing. Like, dnfing even quicker. But sometimes later, I just set aside a book that I'd gotten to 45% in, and I realized I was trying to convince myself that I really wanted to be reading this book. And I think I will want to read this book. Like, it's not the book's fault, but I was just having to white knuckle my way through it, and I was like, just stop. Because that's all slowing down my momentum. So I set it aside and I picked up a reverse harem novel. And I was like. Like, the heart wants what the heart wants.
- [45:10]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, I did the same. I think I made it to 60% in a book. The other day, and I was like, I'm done. I don't want this. And then two or three weeks later, I went back to a book that I had DNF'd at about 25%, started it over from the beginning that time. It worked fine. So it. It just is dependent on whatever else is going on at the time. Right? I. The way that you're describing this, I feel like the image in my head is that kind of hesitancy to get into it, or not hesitancy, but effort required is like swimming down instead of swimming up in deep water. Right where it's like I dropped, you know, goggles on the bottom of the pool. I have to get down there. And it's so much more effort to like push your body down into the water because it's pushing you back up. But then once you get there, you can sit on the bottom of the pool, you know, and then you can swim up and it's so easy to swim back up to the top. But you have to, like, put in that effort to get to the point where it's good. I definitely feel that as well. Even reading with Katie, which is usually my very happy place, she'll be like, okay, I read this part and I'm like, I don't wanna.
- [46:23]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah.
- [46:24]
Katie Cobb
And then I do, and then I can keep up. But it's like, first I have to like make myself get into a new book. I am. And that has led to. My reading is still slowing down this year. Right now it's almost the end of June. I'm pretty sure this year I'm going to end at fewer than 200 books. So I went back and looked at my year over year stats in my spreadsheet, which go back to 2017. In that entire time, I've never had a year where I read less than 200 books. And so it's not just, well, less than 300. Like, Katie, get over it. Whatever, it's fine. It's been a big shift and we're talking years difference in my reading life rather than. Well, I've had some slow years and some not so slow years, and it kind of all shakes out and evens out and averages by the end. This is a very different reading year and reading Katie than has been in the past. And I'm trying to settle into that and be okay with it. The other, like, interesting ish thing about my reading life right now is that we're almost halfway through the year. Sometimes towards the end of the season, we will do a right now if you had to make a list of your top five books of the year, what do you think would be on it? I could not. I have two books that off the top of my head, I'm like, those ones will probably be on my top 10 of the year. I have no idea what the other ones are because nothing is percolating up to the top and making sense to me as like, well, that one was like, oh, I will never forget that story. I don't, I don't have that this year. And that, that is what's feeling really more broken than anything else about my reading life right now.
- [48:00]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I'm right there with you. I really am feeling like I have a couple of standouts. But I Really, I mean, 2023 and 2024 were both really good reading years for me. I think where not only was my brain in the right headspace to take a lot of it in a lot of different kinds of reading, but also I. The books that I was picking up were really impactful and so. Yeah. But in the last, you know, six months, I, I do feel like there's been a tremendous amount of mid. I looked at my overall rating right now. I think last year, my overall rating by the end of the year was 4.2, if I remember correctly, maybe 4.3. And I'm in the threes right now. So. Yes, there's also, there's also been that element of like, I'm not finding the core quality of books that I really want, which I know is down, not down to the books, but it's just down to where I, you know, it's a season.
- [48:58]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
- [48:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
And it just will not always be this way.
- [49:03]
Katie Cobb
Well, hopefully we chose some bangers for each other.
- [49:06]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes. So, okay, Katie, so what then? Let's turn our attention to this, this most nerve wracking thing that we gave ourselves the assignment ourselves. The assignment to do.
- [49:17]
Katie Cobb
How did we do this to ourselves? At least when the listeners chose, it was like, well, this is not my. If she hates it, it's not. It's not my problem.
- [49:25]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, exactly, there's that. Plus when the listeners chose, we gave them three books we were okay with and then they chose from those three. Was it three or four, but some group. So there was that element of it too. So this time we are just balls to the wall, can choose anything, total blank slate and we are agreeing to read that book. So we are placing our readerly lives into the other person's hands. So, Katie, I'm going To put you on the spot, I'm going to ask you to tell me, what did you choose for me and why?
- [49:57]
Katie Cobb
Okay, well, I'm going to take you on a little journey because I actually. I was prepped. I was done. I was ready. I had chosen a book, and then I decided to pivot because I got anxious that you would hate it. And. And I'm a little precious about that book. And so I'm like, well, I really want Meredith to read this one. And now, having heard you talk today about how well fairy tales are working for you, I almost wish I had stuck with it. But I'm gonna stick with the one that I pivoted to. Okay. Which I might regret.
- [50:28]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I was gonna say, are you sure? What is your gut telling you?
- [50:31]
Katie Cobb
I don't know, but I don't, like. I don't want to do that last minute change right here on air. Oh. But I kind of want to.
- [50:39]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay. The other thing that you could do is you could. You could say, meredith, here are two. You pick.
- [50:47]
Katie Cobb
I could. And that would work well. Okay, here's what I'll give you. Both are black authors. Because that's what I do to you.
- [50:55]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
No, I love it. I love it.
- [50:56]
Katie Cobb
One is one that you have been talking about reading, and I know for a fact that you have not yet picked it up. Anything from this author. The other one is ya. It does have a little angst in it, but it has some of that fairytale retelling or fairy tale element to it. So I'm interested in getting it into your hands sooner than later.
- [51:20]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay.
- [51:20]
Katie Cobb
Does one of those appeal to you more?
- [51:22]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I mean, probably not the YA and not the angsty, which is why I pivoted.
- [51:28]
Katie Cobb
I was like. I just. I think that it might. There might be portions of this that annoy her. Yeah. So.
- [51:34]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah.
- [51:35]
Katie Cobb
Okay.
- [51:35]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay.
- [51:35]
Katie Cobb
Then we're gonna. We're gonna stick with the one that I did pivot to, which is Razor blade tears by S.A. cosby.
- [51:41]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay.
- [51:41]
Katie Cobb
Yes. Desperate for you to finally get some essay Cosby into your hands. So I'm taking advantage of the fact that I want to say it's been a year or more that you've been saying, I really need to read some SA Cosby. You went to Hampton's Whodunit. You were excited. You met him. You were excited about his writing. We've talked about other books from him.
- [52:01]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right. I did read all the Sinners Bleed.
- [52:03]
Katie Cobb
Okay, perfect.
- [52:05]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
But I. But I have always, always meant to read Razor Blade Tears. Razor Blade Tears is so good.
- [52:11]
Katie Cobb
Okay. So this is my opportunity. This is a phenomenal story. The only reason one might not press it into the hands of someone they love is because his writing is graphic and violent. But Murderful Meredith can handle that.
- [52:23]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I can absolutely handle it. And I just adore him as a human. And this is. Yes. So this is really, really good because this is a book that I absolutely am super excited to prioritize.
- [52:35]
Katie Cobb
Yes. I checked to see if they had made any progress on the adaptation when I was getting things set up for this episode, and everything I find is still from 2021 and 2023. So I don't think they've moved forward. However, our friend Alex Cox does have some insider scoop of who SA Cosby would cast for these two main characters because she went to an author talk with him. So that is kind of a fun little.
- [53:00]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay.
- [53:00]
Katie Cobb
Inside scoop. If you are interested in his casting. She has that intel. I read it in July of 2021. Still one of my favorite books of all time. Did you want me to set it up?
- [53:11]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I mean, just super briefly, just, you know, because I feel like this is a book that has been talked about a lot.
- [53:18]
Katie Cobb
Okay. Okay. So Ike and Buddy Lee are our main characters. They are both ex convicts. They have nothing in common except for that one thing. And also they have both both basically written off their sons who were married to each other, Isaiah and Derek. Ike especially, wants nothing to do with the cops anymore. He wants to live straight and narrow. When the cops show up and say, your son has been murdered alongside his husband, he finds Buddy Lee together. They want to figure out who murdered their sons, and they go out for vengeance. And it's like a journey of blood and guts and pain and also one of redemption and understanding their boys in a completely new and different way. He writes like, heart, passion, justice with this amazing lens. And I just. Oh, it's dark, propulsive, brooding, redemptive. I love this book. So this summer, you will read Razor Blade Tears by SA Cosby.
- [54:20]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I love it. I love it so much. I'm very much looking forward to that. That's a great choice. Okay. And the book. And I did go back and forth like I I. The book that I chose for you, I'd gone back and forth on. But the heart wants what the heart wants. Katie and I have several reasons, and it's gonna feel punitive, but it's absolutely not. Because I really think that you are going to end up being so glad that you read it. I am gonna force you to read Fourth Wing.
- [54:50]
Katie Cobb
Oh, my gosh.
- [54:52]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
We're doing it. We are doing it. Now. Here's why. Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. First of all, it is one of my favorite books, favorite reading experiences in a decade. Okay? So it's. Besides all the hype, which was absolutely nutty level hype when it came out.
- [55:09]
Katie Cobb
And I couldn't at the time.
- [55:10]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Exactly, exactly. It's legitimately a great summer read. It just is. So I think also that it's great for you to read a romance that's not, you know, that that's romance adjacent, but fits in with Love and Chili Peppers. Right? You guys did an episode on Love and Chili Peppers. You hadn't read it yet. I think that this will be. It will be really interesting for you to read it given kind of that discussion. Also, I think that'll give you a great amount of context as you guys continue to make your way through this new landscape in romance, which is so heavily influenced, at least from a publisher perspective, by Romantasy. And Fourth Wing is just a great example of the genre. I wouldn't ask you to read any further into the series. Everyone I know who has has said, just let Fourth Wing be its thing. Just let it. Let it be its own thing. And I also wanted to give you something that was really different from the last book I signed to you, which was Fates and Furies. I don't think you can find a book that's more different from Fates and Furies than Fourth Wing.
- [56:19]
Katie Cobb
But both start with an F. Yeah, there's an F thing happening.
- [56:23]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Lots of Fs there. And it's going to be a show on Amazon in the not too distant future. And I really think you guys are probably going to want to do a popcorn in the pages on it because it's going to be so much in the Zeitgeist.
- [56:36]
Katie Cobb
You're hitting all the notes, Meredith.
- [56:38]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I know, I know. So really, I can't wait to see what you think. Think about it. I think our listeners will be really interested given how much trepidation you've had about taking the plunge. But really, from the bottom of my heart, I hope that you will find that there's a lot to like about this really spicy, delicious, adventure filled novel, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.
- [57:04]
Katie Cobb
Okay, I'm excited about this. I actually had this book in my hands again the other day because it was on a shelf with other books that I was taking a photo of. So I scooped it into my hands because everybody already knows about that one. So it's like, I don't have to include Fourth Wing in this picture of pretty books or whatever.
- [57:20]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right.
- [57:21]
Katie Cobb
So I was holding it in my arms maybe two days ago.
- [57:26]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Do you have the dragon wing edges that started all the sprayed edge? Okay.
- [57:30]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, I have that. I have two copies of Iron Flame. Why? I've never read any of them. I did not buy any copies of Onyx Storm, though, so.
- [57:40]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
That's all right. I did.
- [57:41]
Katie Cobb
I'll probably never kibosh at that point.
- [57:43]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah, I'll never read it, but I own all the versions of all of the books.
- [57:48]
Katie Cobb
It's ridiculous. I know. But I am, like, it's been looking at me long enough now. And even the Onyx Storm hype has died down enough that I'm not, like, looking at it, like, with that, like, smirky disdain like I've had for years, honestly, at this point. So I'm. I am excited to pick it up and to get into it and to finally check it off my list.
- [58:09]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right. It's been out for two. I think it came out in May of 2023. Somewhere around there. Maybe not exactly May. It's been two years. I really. Yeah. I can't wait to see what you think of it. And I hope. My sincere hope is that you will really enjoy it and just fly through its pages.
- [58:25]
Katie Cobb
Yes. All puns intended. Dragonflight. Right through the pages.
- [58:29]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Exactly.
- [58:29]
Katie Cobb
Exactly. Well, how to Train youn Dragon. The live action just came out too. And so I'm like. I'm definitely back in, like, like, dragon lore feels like. Because that is such nostalgia for me.
- [58:41]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah. And to me, there's just no book that does dragons better than this particular first book in this series.
- [58:49]
Katie Cobb
Okay. Yeah.
- [58:50]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It's just the dragons have a great point of view.
- [58:54]
Katie Cobb
Love it. Okay.
- [58:55]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right. So those are our summer assignments. I will read Razor Blade Tears. You will read Fourth Wing, and we will report back early in season eight, which we should probably take this opportunity to kind of make this our fountain wish, Katie, is that people kind of like, stay with us with this kind of scheduling thing that we have going on in the next few weeks.
- [59:18]
Katie Cobb
Right. As per usual, we will have only one dark week, which will be July 28th. We will come back on August 4th to discuss our summer break and how that went for us. Because for us, we're about to take four weeks off. Off, almost five weeks off, which is very exciting. August 11th, that episode is going to be the one where we talk about these two books and what we thought about them. So if. If that is what you're coming back for Mark your calendars for August 11th.
- [59:44]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Absolutely. Okay. All right. So I love the special episodes. I always look forward to recording them. I love doing something a little bit different. I think it's. I think it's going to be great. That is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me, I'm Meredith at meredithmonday Schwartz on Instagram and you can.
- [60:05]
Katie Cobb
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.
- [60:17]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
The title of every book we mentioned in the episode and timestamps. So you can zoom right to where we talked about. It can be found in our show notes and on our website@currentlyreadingpodcast.com you can.
- [60:28]
Katie Cobb
Also follow the show at currentlyreading podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreading podcastmail.com we love all those things.
- [60:36]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes. And if you want more of this content, if you don't even want the single dark week that you're going to get over the summer, join us as a bookish friend on Patreon for $5 a month. You get so much content, you will never be out of content content. You also get so much bookish community and you keep this show commercial free. You can also, of course, if you love what you're hearing and you want to support us, rate and review us on Apple podcasts, put that on as your homework assignment over the summer. Five star ratings and reviews on Apple podcasts really, really help us to find our perfect audience. And of course, we love it when you shout us out to your friends in real life and on social media.
- [61:21]
Katie Cobb
Yes, Bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals and allowing us to take a summer break. This is awesome.
- [61:29]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes. All right, until next week because we have a special episode coming up for you. May your coffee be hot and your.
- [61:35]
Katie Cobb
Book be unput downable.
- [61:37]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Happy reading, Katie.
- [61:38]
Katie Cobb
Happy reading, Meredith.