Season 8, Episode 1: Deciding Once + What We Did On Our Summer Break

Summary

Currently Reading Podcast
Season 8, Episode 1: Deciding Once + What We Did On Our Summer Break
Release Date: August 4, 2025

Meredith Mundy Schwartz and Katie Cobb, the dynamic hosts of the beloved Currently Reading podcast, return with the premiere episode of Season 8. This episode delves into their latest book selections, offers insightful discussions on selected titles, and shares personal anecdotes from their summer adventures. Here's a comprehensive summary of the episode, highlighting key discussions, insights, and memorable quotes.

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1. Episode Kickoff and Patreon Highlights

[00:00 – 05:50]

Meredith and Katie begin the episode by welcoming listeners back to Currently Reading. They briefly touch upon the podcast's commercial-free model, supported by over 3,000 Patreon subscribers. Meredith emphasizes the value Patreon members receive, including access to their additional show Love and Chili Peppers, a romance-focused spin-off hosted with Rebecca Hoffer.

Notable Quote:
Meredith: “All of currently reading is commercial free except we do one little ad at the beginning... [but] you guys talk all things romance and that show gets all the chili peppers.” [02:30]

2. Bookish Moments of the Week

[05:50 – 10:04]

Katie shares a heartwarming "bookish moment" from her recent buddy reading experience. She recounts synchronously finishing The Bookshop by Evan Friss with her reading partner Katie, culminating in a simultaneous reading of the final words—a truly exhilarating experience for her.

Notable Quote:
Katie: “I was so thrilled. It was just like a capstone to this long and winding trip that I had been on.” [07:20]

Meredith adds her own bookish moment, inspired by a method shared by Rachel Stott to decide her next read. She grapples with an "earworm" of this decision-making strategy over several weeks.

3. Current Reads Overview

[10:04 – 38:27]

a. Playground by Richard Powers

[10:10 – 14:13]

Katie introduces Playground, praising its intricate narrative that intertwines the lives of two women and two men against themes of climate change, technology, and deep-seated friendships. She highlights the novel's global scope and character-driven storytelling.

Notable Quote:
Katie: “Katie and I read this one together and variously were just enraptured by it, angry at it and obsessed with the different storylines trying to piece these plots together.” [12:11]

Meredith echoes the sentiment, expressing admiration for the book's ability to connect with readers on multiple levels.

b. Until August by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

[14:13 – 18:47]

Meredith presents Until August, a posthumously published novella by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The story follows Ana Magdalena Bach’s annual visits to a Caribbean island, where she engages in a secretive ritual that challenges her understanding of herself and her marriage. Meredith is particularly moved by the novella's sensory-rich narrative and its departure from Marquez's typical magical realism style.

Notable Quote:
Meredith: “It's the final novel written by one of my favorite novelists... It feels like an enjoyable afternoon of reading until you finish it and are left to think about it for days and weeks afterwards.” [16:20]

c. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

[18:47 – 24:10]

Katie discusses I Who Have Never Known Men, a speculative fiction novel from 1995. The story centers on a young woman among 40 women confined underground, grappling with isolation and the unknown world above. The narrative raises profound questions about society, humanity, and personal identity without providing explicit answers.

Notable Quote:
Katie: “It's about the journey more than the answers, for sure.” [23:24]

Meredith adds that while the book may frustrate readers seeking clear resolutions, it offers a deep introspection into human nature, making it a compelling choice for those who appreciate nuanced storytelling.

d. The Game is Murder by Hazel Ward

[24:10 – 28:18]

Meredith introduces The Game is Murder, an interactive mystery novel where readers are invited to solve a decades-old family murder. Set in a London mansion, the book engages readers with witness testimonies, shifting evidence, and hidden motives, culminating in a satisfying resolution.

Notable Quote:
Meredith: “The last 15% of this book was so satisfying that it raised the book rating by a full half star for me.” [26:13]

Katie mentions that reading it in print enhances the sleuthing experience, as flipping through physical pages allows for better engagement with the mystery elements.

e. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett

[28:18 – 32:53]

Katie shares her enthusiasm for The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, a mixed-media novel involving emails, transcripts, and text messages to unravel a cult suicide case. The book’s format makes it highly engaging and difficult to put down, earning high praise from both hosts.

Notable Quote:
Katie: “We filled every corner of my car. I had an ice chest on the way out that I didn't need on the way back.” [44:34]

Meredith concurs, emphasizing the importance of reading this book in print to fully appreciate its structure and immersive storytelling.

f. So Far Gone by Jess Walter

[32:53 – 38:27]

Meredith discusses So Far Gone, a five-star novel that intertwines dark comedy, family drama, and thriller elements. The story follows Reese Kinnick, who isolates himself after a family conflict, only to be pulled back into chaos when his grandchildren are kidnapped by extremist elements linked to his past.

Notable Quote:
Meredith: “Every single sentence was incredibly weird, readable...” [37:10]

Katie echoes the appraisal, noting the book's timely themes and authentic dialogue, making it a standout read for fans of dark humor and family-centric narratives.

4. Summer Break Adventures

[38:27 – 46:50]

a. Meredith's Summer Break

Meredith shares that her summer was occupied with intensive work commitments, including leadership meetings and personal challenges. She candidly expresses that her reading during this period was modest, without any standout projects.

Notable Quote:
Meredith: “I have two jobs... my summer break was I got some reading done, but not anything like fantastic or interesting.” [39:15]

b. Katie's Epic Road Trip

In contrast, Katie recounts her adventurous summer road trip with her four children. Covering nearly 5,000 miles across 16 states and into Canada, they visited nine independent bookstores, met over 50 bookish friends, and acquired nearly 100 books. Katie highlights the joy of connecting with the book community and deepening partnerships with bookstores featured on their Indie Press List.

Notable Quote:
Katie: “We bought nearly 100 books. Wow. Which is a lot of books.” [44:33]

She describes the trip as both exhausting and enriching, reinforcing her role as the extroverted force that energizes their podcast endeavors.

Meredith's Reflection:
Meredith appreciates Katie's ability to handle the extroverted aspects of their podcast activities, allowing her, as an introvert, to manage more behind-the-scenes responsibilities.

5. Bookish Wishes and Community Engagement

[46:50 – 52:40]

a. Katie's Wish: Bookstore Crawls

Katie expresses a desire for readers to embark on their own bookstore adventures, whether it's visiting bookstores outside their usual spots, supporting independent shops, or integrating bookstore visits into their travels.

Notable Quote:
Katie: “I want to encourage all of us to make time for a bookish journey.” [47:00]

b. Meredith's Wish: Deep Book Conversations

Meredith hopes listeners engage with The 10 Things to Tell You podcast, specifically episode 272, which features deep, meaningful discussions about books and life. She emphasizes the importance of profound conversations that extend beyond mere book talk.

Notable Quote:
Meredith: “One of the biggest changes that has taken place for me as a reader since we started the podcast is how much I love these deeper dives into specific books.” [51:30]

6. Closing Remarks

[52:40 – 53:59]

The hosts conclude by sharing their social media handles, encouraging listeners to join their Patreon community, and reminding them to rate and review the podcast. They leave listeners with warm wishes for enjoyable reading and delightful coffee.

Notable Quote:
Katie: “Happy reading, Meredith.” [53:58]
Meredith: “May your coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.” [53:55]

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Final Thoughts

In this season opener, Meredith and Katie balance thoughtful literary discussions with personal experiences, offering listeners both book recommendations and a glimpse into the lives of the hosts. Their passion for reading and the book community shines through, making this episode a must-listen for avid readers seeking their next great book and a sense of connection within the literary world.

Transcript

[Katie Cobb]

Foreign.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Hey readers, welcome to the currently reading podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently. And as you know, we will not shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.

[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.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I'm Meredith Mundy Schwartz, a mom and a Mimi and full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And I am so glad to be back talking about books today.

[Katie Cobb]

And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona. And I have filled my extroverted cup. This is episode number one of season eight and we are so glad you're here, Meredith.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Season eight, we are here. And your head flipped around. You heard my little new nuance.

[Katie Cobb]

I did.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I was like, ooh, it's forever bothered me that I say I'm a mom of four, but I don't say anything about being a Mimi. I'm a Mimi too.

[Katie Cobb]

Of 2.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

No to 3. Our oldest just had a brand new baby girl. No way.

[Katie Cobb]

Oh, you get a granddaughter now too. I know.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

It is so, so, so sweet. So we're so excited about that.

[Katie Cobb]

Oh, this is thrilling.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

We are also excited about season eight. In fact, we are so excited that our deep dive today is going to be, as usual, what we always do the first episode, what we did over our summer break. Because we like the back to school element.

[Katie Cobb]

Yep. Yep. If I could get up in front of a blackboard and tell you all and use a slideshow to present about our summer break, I absolutely would.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

You have a lot to talk about. You could put a whole deck together. Okay. Before we do that though, we are going to do a little bit of business. It is the first week of the month. As you guys know, all of currently reading is commercial free except we do one little ad at the beginning which is an ad for ourselves for our Patreon content. After we do this for an entire month, you get long episodes that have not a single commercial break. The reason that can happen is because we have 3,000 Patreon subscribers who help keep this commercial free, which is one of the big reasons people join us. But Katie, another reason that they join us is Love and Chili Peppers. This is our romance focused show that you do with our favorite friend Rebecca Hoffer. You guys talk all things romance and that show gets all the chili peppers.

[Katie Cobb]

It does get all The Chili Peppers. It also gets a lot of giggles. Rebecca and I have really hit our stride after a full year together now. We just celebrated our year anniversary of Love and Chili Peppers by assigning each other books to read. And they were supposed to be the most unhinged books that we could find for each other. That episode, people were like, listen, it was not safe to drive. While I listened to this episode. It was so good.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

If I remember correctly, VeggieTales was involved in something.

[Katie Cobb]

Yes. I had to read Pounded by produce by GM Ferry. And she read Hedging His Bets, which is a hedgeh shifter. Romance. What in the world is happening? Here's the thing. It has been such a delight to spend a year exploring romance with her, even though love and relationships have drastically shifted in my life over this past year. I was worried when we started loving Chili Peppers that I was going to be like, I don't have anything to say about romance, y'. All. Divorce is terrible. You know what? I still love romance. It still makes my heart pitter patter. It looks different than it did, but it delights me in a completely wonderful way. So it was great to visit, you know, like, romance sections in bookstores this summer and just be like, look, so many people love romance, and we're doing it behind the paywall so that we can really talk about all the things.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Yes, and you do talk about all the things on Love and Chili Peppers. So the super spicy, unhinged stuff. Yes. But you guys also covered the full gamut of romance. Right. So even if someone only likes one chili pepper in their romance, there's something for them to find there, too.

[Katie Cobb]

Absolutely. Just like all things Murderful, we have a listener press section, and we ask people to give us their favorite romance recs. Not everybody wants five Chili Peppers in their romance reading, and so we make sure to incorporate that throughout. We also take time to dive into other aspects of the romance industry that are not just, how spicy can something get in the bedroom? Like, how have covers changed over the years? What does it look like to be body positive in romance? Those types of things, without it being like, let's talk about how many men can fit in one bed.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Right.

[Katie Cobb]

Because that's a different type of conversation.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

It runs the gamut, and I love it so much. It is always filled with a ton of romance titles and a ton of laughter, and that is something that we all look forward to. So if you want to join us as a Patreon subscriber, it's only $5 a month. You get Love and Chili Peppers. You get all things murderful if mysteries, thrillers are your bag. You also get, of course, our flagship show, the Indie Press List, where every month we come to you with a stack of five books from different independent bookstores from all over the country. And we love talking about those. Oftentimes we're bringing in the bookseller to those conversations now. That's really added to it. And then bookish community, of course, in our Facebook group and our Discord groups, both of which are very active. So lots of reasons to join us. And we know that Back to School is afoot. People are beginning to think in that direction. We're all ready to establish a new routine and this is a great time to bring Currently Reading into that routine. So that's patreon.com currentlyreading podcast. You can also find the link in our show notes.

[Katie Cobb]

Mischief Managed.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Mischief managed. Now for the whole rest of the month, you guys get no commercials in Currently Reading, which is a big friggin bookish miracle. All right, let's talk about some bookish moments of the week. Katie, you've had a bookish month. You've had so much going on.

[Katie Cobb]

I absolutely have, and I will talk at length about the past three weeks, which were all very bookish for me. But my wee bookish moment that I want to call out here is about buddy reading with Katie, my reading partner. Of course, we hear about her regularly. One of the books I'm bringing today is one that I read with her, but somehow we've managed to make it so that when we are physically together in the same space, we finish our current buddy read. It's not usually intentional, but it thrills me to no end. So on this trip we finished a book called the Bookshop by Evan Friss, about the history of the American bookstore. We had a few fits and starts with both of us traveling miscommunications about which chapter we were reading that day, but somehow that ended up with both of us at the park finishing chapter 13 together. And this time not just sort of together, like within the same day we're finished and we can talk to each other immediately, but actually reading the final words at the same time, which felt like mind exploding for me. I was so thrilled. It was just like a capstone to this long and winding trip that I had been on. To get to sit next to my reading partner and read exactly together.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

That is very fun. I love that moment.

[Katie Cobb]

It was.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

That is something I have never experienced and I hope to one day see.

[Katie Cobb]

And we did it With Death of the Author too. But Katie finished and then there were so many people at my house that I was like, I'm gonna go upstairs and I'm gonna finish and then I'll come down and we can discuss it together. So it doesn't usually work like that where we're physically reading the final period at the same time, but this time was just delicious.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

That is so much fun. All right, well, I have a wee bookish moment of the week too. This is one of those things that I heard at one time in the most just innocuous way. And it has played in my mind over and over again. I'm literally bringing it as my bookish moment of the week in the hopes that it is going to get it out of my like it's, it's like a thought worm.

[Katie Cobb]

Like an earworm. Yeah. Uh huh.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Right. So we had a bookish friend named Rachel Stotts who saw that I had done one of my book flights that I do all the time, right. I do. I like to get a pile of books from the library, usually sometimes from my shelf at home, and then I go through them, read the first little bit, decide what I want to read next. But sometimes I run into a situation where, where I literally, I'm even stuck amongst those five because there's a couple that are calling to me. So Rachel Stott's DM'd saying, I have a method that I made up for myself. It's completely arbitrary, but it's the method that I use in this situation, which is that if I have a tbr pile, let's say I have five books in a pile, I will just decide that I'm going to choose to read the book that is by the female author whose name is last alphabetically in that pile. Okay, it's completely arbitrary. That's what she's chosen. Right, but you could make your own little whatever. Right, but it's kind of like how some people use a flip of a coin, right? Like no matter what, I'm going to flip a coin and it's going to be decided for me. I like having this little arbitrary formula that you pull out for your own self. Or maybe you could even have a couple of them and then it makes your choice for you. I don't know. There's just, it's a thought worm. I can't get it out of my head. Thank you, Rachel, for reaching out to me. Although now I've been tortured with this thought for four weeks.

[Katie Cobb]

I used to homeschool in community, right? We used to have, like a community group that would get together. So I had all these weird, gamey things to bring to community with me so we could do games together. And one of them was my own wheel of fortune that had dry erase slots. So you would spin the wheel and it would land on something and you could write dry erase in there. What we were going to review is what I used it for it. But you could write each title and there and spin it and then you would have, you know, of eight titles. Here's the option. Yeah. Like, you could play with this in a lot of ways. I like it.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

There's literally a million ways that you could do this, but I like just having that thing, you know, when in doubt, this is the one that I will choose.

[Katie Cobb]

Yeah.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

You know.

[Katie Cobb]

Yeah.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

So it's kind of interesting to play with that system.

[Katie Cobb]

I like it.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

All right, Katie, let's get into our current reads. What's your first one that you're bringing to us here in season eight?

[Katie Cobb]

Oh, my gosh. Season eight. Meredith. Okay. My first one for season eight is Playground by Richard Powers.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Oh, yes.

[Katie Cobb]

This book is gorgeous. I mean, if you bought it just for the COVID Same girl, same. This is a beautifully intertwined narrative that released last year. I finally got to it this summer. It spans the globe and the decades, and Richard Powers follows the lives of two women and two men as they grapple with the vastness of the oceans, climate change, computers and their power, and friendships that span cultures and classes. Evie is one of our first characters. She's only 12 when we meet her, but she is breaking ground as one of the first to breathe underwater using an aqua lung and then scuba equipment. She's just a 12 year old kid. Her dad's like, I want to try these out. Get in the pool and see if it works.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Oh, my Lord.

[Katie Cobb]

I know, I'm mind blown, right?

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I think I would be like, I want to try this out. I'm going to get in the pool. Not child here.

[Katie Cobb]

Okay. Exactly. Ina is another female character. She makes art from found ocean trash in her home, and she can't figure out what it wants to be. But every time she finds a new little piece on the beach, she adds a little more to this giant sculpture she's creating. Her home is located on a tiny island in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, so there's all kinds of things that wash up there. Raffi is our third character. He's an unexpected addition to an elite private school where he will get lost in any book. We all Identify with Raffi. Right. He connects with our fourth character, Todd over chess. And then go. A 3,000 year old board game that has infinite iterations and is nearly impossible to master. Todd is absolutely monetarily loaded beyond belief when we meet him. Millions and billions of dollars in his pocket. Each one of these storylines comes together in surprising ways. You're like, wait, Pacific boarding school, 12 year old in a pool. What is happening with these people?

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I love that. I love figuring out how they're going to come together though.

[Katie Cobb]

Exactly. Yes. This novel is quiet and internal and character driven, but also propulsive. We've got again spanning the globe, spanning the oceans. We're going underwater, above the water. It's also very specific to our time. It grapples with AI and wonders at the creatures of the Pacific. It faces colonization and global impacts and the hunt for resources worldwide. Katie and I read this one together and variously were just enraptured by it, angry at it and obsessed with the different storylines trying to piece these plots together. It made us want to travel and had us guessing at the connections. And the ending left us baffled. In fact, as we finished up this book, we had ideas. We discussed about what we thought had actually happened at the end and what Powers intended with this story. We disagreed. Katie and I disagreed. So I reached out to book boyfriend Bill at an unlikely story in Massachusetts because his one minute with Bill is what caused me and then Katie to buy this book in the first place. His email response made me fall even deeper in love with him, which is amazing because he's already our book boyfriend. He gave me a detailed multi paragraph essay response and finished with I hope that helps. Like I said, it's been a while and at least 150 books since then, which cracked me up no end and proved why we love him so very much. Katie and I both really ended up adoring this book. It hit so many of our favorite things with a focus on nature and then technology, intricate characters that we really fell for, and a book that left us asking questions of each other and the world around us. We gave it four and a half and five stars respectively and I've already pressed it into the hands of one of our other favorite Bills, Bill Largent, as I think it will be right up his alley as well. This is Playground by Richard Powers.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Oh, it sounds so good. I love that one. Yes, I love that. What a perfect one to start out the season with.

[Katie Cobb]

I know, right? And it's like summery and beautiful and oh, I love it.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Okay, well I am also Bringing one that on several levels, is perfect for starting out season eight. Katie. We'll see if you can figure out the different reasons, but one of them is that it is called Until August by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Ooh, yes, the Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Here's the setup. Every August, Ana Magdalena Bach takes a ferry to a small Caribbean island where her mother is buried. Ana has been happily married for 27 years to her husband Domenico. They've got children and they live a contented life. But for one night a year after laying gladioli on her mother's grave, Anna does something that surprises even herself. The first time that she does it, she takes a lover, a different man each time, just while she's there on the island. Then she returns home as if nothing has happened. This annual ritual becomes her secret rebellion and her deepest mystery. Even to herself. She can't even explain why she needs it. As the years pass and Anna approaches 50, these August encounters become more than just physical escapes. They are a journey into her own internal self, her own desires, and the woman that she might have been. Now, this is a posthumously published novella, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's only work, which features a female protagonist and is in a more intimate vein than his sweeping epics. It is, of course, a rumination on marriage, middle age, and the parts of ourselves that we keep locked away. So it's these little books that get you, right? Or at least for me, or actually, maybe it's the great ones that get you, because this is, as I said, the final novel written by one of my favorite novelists. And his sons decided that they wanted to publish until August because Gabriel Garcia Marquez had worked on it so hard, despite the fact that in the last decade of his life, which I did not know, he was in some fairly serious mental decline. And apparently, and this is controversial, Garcia Marquez himself had said that the book doesn't work and he thought it needed to be destroyed. So imagine my shock when I read this novel and I thought, I am not sure the last time I read something that is this crystalline, perfect. This is not Marquez in the Style of Love in the Time of Cholera or one of my favorite books of all time, 100 years of solitude. This is much more straightforward and much more modern. The language is very simple, unlike in those two great works, and the plot is also very simple. But here's the thing. It's all very sensory and straightforward and just kind of an enjoyable afternoon of reading until you finish it and are left to think about it for days and weeks afterwards, which is what happened to me. Until August. The sense of place is fantastic. I don't think the specific island where most of the action takes place is ever named. But I could feel the heat and hear the buzz of the insects all around me. I could even hear the music. And I can never hear music when I'm reading same. It reminds me a lot, in fact, of a book that I still think about, the Council of Animals. One that is deceptively simple on the surface, but does a lot of heavy lifting underneath. So obviously it must be said, I am a 50ish woman who's been married for the majority of her life. So I spent a lot of time contemplating the interior life and the motivations and actions of our lead character, Ana Magdalena. And while I wouldn't have done some of the things that she does, I surely understood it. And that's the thing. It's always amazing to me when a male writer can write from the point of view of a woman and have it ring this truly. But Garcia Marquez absolutely does it here. I will say that I had a quibble with the ending. I won't go into it obviously, because I wouldn't want to spoil anything. But if you do pick up this book, message me and let's talk about the ending, because I have thoughts. But my biggest takeaway is how much I'm loving picking up little known books by greatly known authors and digging into them a little bit deeper. This is Until August by Gabrielle Garcia Marquez. And it was a game changer for me. Katie.

[Katie Cobb]

Oh, and here we are in August, ready to discuss. I love that I can. Yeah, I can see many through lines there. Why, that would be a perfect book for a certain person at a certain time.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Exactly, exactly. Love it. All right, what's your next one?

[Katie Cobb]

A little bit different, a little bit interesting. I'm going to talk about I who have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Hartman. This is a book from 1995. It was a listener press by Tara at the end of season five during the summer of 2023. But 2025 is when mood raider Katie showed up. And she was like, you know what? We should read this random little book. Sometimes it takes us a bit of time to get through those presses. But this one hit at just the right time for me. Here's the setup. Our unnamed narrator lives underground. She's part of a group of 40 women who have all lived inside a cage for her entire life. She's the only person who's young, who has no memories of the outside world. They have no clock, no concepts of day or Night, they only have this young woman's maturing from baby to child to teen to young adult to show them the passage of time. She has questions about the people outside the bars that bring them food. It's always the same food. She has questions about her own body. She has questions about the relationships that the women have with each other. One day, just as they're about to receive their food, the cage is unlocked. And then an alarm sounds and all guards immediately leave their posts, leaving the cage door unlocked, never to return. The women emerge from underground for the first time in more than a decade, unsure what awaits them above. Our narrator, the young woman, knows nothing about this world. She has no memories of it at all. But soon she proves to be the key to their survival. This book is also quiet, more so than playground. It feels otherworldly, like you're stepping into a place that is familiar, but not. It leaves its readers questioning the society we find ourselves in, this earth that we inhabit together. Where is this other place that we've entered? In this story, it speaks to friendship and community. Because these women love each other. They have built bonds over years together, but also isolation. There's no one out there. What will they find when they emerge from this underground bunker? It asks more questions than it answers. This is speculative fiction, written by a woman 30 years ago. Jacqueline Hartman was born in 1929, so she was 65 when this book was translated into English. She does have various other titles to her name in French, but only one other that was translated into English. As far as I was able to find, she's well learned, was trained as a psychoanalyst, and even within this book, the main character craves knowledge and learning on a deep level. I, who have never known men, feels like a fever dream, maybe an alternate history and a TV show that I would watch with my mouth hanging open if it were on TV today, but was written 30 years ago and also feels timeless. I thought it was so well done. It's a short book. It went out of print for a few years and was just recently republished maybe two or three years ago with a new foreword that made it relevant again in our time. And I'm so glad that Tara pressed it two years ago so it could find its way into my reading Life in 2025. This is I who have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I'm so glad that you read that. I do have a question. So for me, with a premise like that, and I think you said it and I think I knew what you meant when you Said it with a premise like that, this reader will be frustrated if we never get answers to anything. If a reader historically, is frustrated by those kinds of things, not, like, all the details, but if. Kind of like, if this is supposed to be a rumination more about human nature and less on what the h is happening, this reader will be frustrated.

[Katie Cobb]

This reader that I'm talking to right now will be frustrated by this book.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Okay? So, I mean, I think that's useful to know.

[Katie Cobb]

We don't get answers. We don't know why these women were underground. We don't know who kept them there. We do know there are other women that were kept underground. We don't know why. Like, there's a lot of questions still left at the end of this book. And she's writing it. Our narrator is writing it like a narrative that gets left behind for someone to find later. And so you're like, I don't know what time this is. I don't know what place we are. I don't know what's happening. I don't know why this happened to these people. It's about the journey more than the answers, for sure. Right.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

So this is a perfect example of Read or know thyself, because you've just given us really useful information that if we know ourselves as readers, is either going to draw us closer. Because there are a lot of people for whom everything that you just said, that's absolute catnip.

[Katie Cobb]

Right.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

They're like, I don't want all the dystopian details and the apocalypse and that. Who was the first person to get sick and all of that. They're like, I don't want that. I want a rumination on human nature and these deeper issues that are going on. And then other people will know. Okay. There's other books that I could prioritize. So read or know thyself.

[Katie Cobb]

Right. And two years ago, Katie, when we picked this for the listener press episode, I was like, that sounds interesting, but I probably won't, you know, like, it did not draw me in at the time. It had to be this Katie that was reading it to really enjoy it.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Well, I will say that I know several very trusted readers who have read it and absolutely loved it.

[Katie Cobb]

Yes.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Usually those people tend to also really love literary. Not only, but. So, like, I think that's useful, too. All right. Really big left turn from no answers to we need all the answers. My next book is called the Game is Murder by Hazel Ward. This one actually just came out. As you're hearing this episode, it Came out, I think the last week of July. Here's the setup. This book is a little different. You are invited to the most unusual dinner party of your life. One where you are not just a guest, you are the great detective. Initial CAPS for great detective. And you are tasked with solving a decades old murder that has haunted the Verriman family since 1974. David Verman and his brother Daniel have gathered 13 guests around their London dining table. All connected to a cold case that everyone thought they understood. A servant was found dead in the basement of the family mansion. And all the evidence pointed to their father, Lord Verriman, as the killer. But here's the thing. You can't just name the murderer and call it a night. You need to piece together how it happened and why. Listening to witness testimony that shifts with each telling. Examining evidence that may not be what it seems. And navigating a room full of people who all have something to hide. When I finished this book, I had to take a second to figure out how I felt about it. Because this book is definitely, definitely something different. It's unlike any other mystery I have read, which we all know is saying something. This book is very interactive. The author wants you front and center in your role as great detective. And she tells you this so many times that I honestly started to feel.

[Katie Cobb]

Pressure like, no one's gonna solve this but you, Meredith.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Right, exactly. And she also tells you several times how closely you have to pay attention. And that started to feel like a threat. My notes say insert nervous giggle here. So here's the thing. It's fun for this reader to be presented with evidence and channel your inner Perot to try to put it all together. And I will give Hazel Ward, the author, this. She plays very fair and all the info that you need is there. But people, there is so much evidence, there is so much testimony and so many witnesses to wade through that it becomes fairly overwhelming. At about the 50% mark, I actually set it aside for a bit and I had to get my second win to finish it. I think I read another like it went really another direction for a while. But I wanted to come back to it because I really wanted to know what the solution was. And that solution was satisfying. Actually, the last 15% of this book was so satisfying that it raised the book rating by a full half star for me. If you like those mysteries of the golden age, I think you're at least going to want to give this one a try. It leans into all those fantastic classic tropes of the genre. This is Something like the Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, with some of the playful kind of meta approach of Anthony Horowitz. Like in Magpie Murders, where we're doing something different with the structure. I'll say that, though. I did this one on Kindle because I had it as an arc. If I did it over today, I would definitely get it in print. The fact is that it wasn't as much fun as I wanted it to be, but it was fresh and different.

[Katie Cobb]

It was.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

And we need that in the mystery genre. So I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this author and this micro genre of meta mystery because I think it can be really, really fun. This is the game is Murder by Hazel with two L's. Ward.

[Katie Cobb]

I picked that one up as a galley as well. So I've been looking forward to you telling us about it because I needed to know. Yes, Needed to know. But I can see exactly what you're saying, because the next book I have to talk about, I did read in paper, and that was the way to do it. So I know what you mean. Like, with a Kindle, you just can't do the same sleuthing.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Right? The flipping back and forth. I would have been like, tagging things. Definitely would have been more fun in print.

[Katie Cobb]

Exactly, exactly. And you're gonna know that that is true about this third book, Meredith, because it's one that you pressed into my hands. I'm going to talk about the Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Katie Cobb]

Right. Very true. For this book, you need it in paper. This book, of course, is a Meredith made me do it book, and I loved it. It is a mixed media format, and it's one that format is one that we've both repeatedly said works really well for us. This one does it perfectly. Meredith first brought this one to the show in season six on episode 31, but has mentioned it a few times since then, as well as a favorite Hallett title. Here's the setup. Amanda is a journalist looking for her next book deal. She loves diving deep into cold cases and pulling together all the old information about the case to make it into something new and fresh at the start of our story. It's been 18 years since the case of the Alperton Angels first came to light. The case centers on a cult suicide in a warehouse. The men who died decided they'd rather kill themselves than go to prison. But what's left over is a man who calls himself Michael the Archangel, who did go to prison. A story about a baby who is the Antichrist and two teens who were rescued from the scene of the crime along with a very young baby. The teens, as minors, were shielded from the media and shuttled into the foster care system. No one knows the identity of the Alperton baby, but now that baby is turning 18 and Amanda is determined to find it without knowing its name or even whether it was a boy or a girl. She has a rival author and previous colleague named Oliver hot on her tail, attempting to get the scoop first for a rival publisher. Following emails, transcripts, text messages and news articles, we get to piece together the case as Amanda and Oliver draw closer to the baby and what really happened in the warehouse that night. The mixed media elements of this story make it impossible to put down. It is so easy to read just one more transcript, just a few more emails, just this next text message thread and then find that all of a sudden you've read 200 pages, you have Cheeto chaptered your way through a value size bag of orange dust and you're covered in it. This was my first Janice Hallett book because Meredith speaks so highly of her work and this one in particular, and it will not be my last. I loved the writing, the characters, the format, and the way she lets us play along with the mystery. I love the way it ended and the fact that the setting plays a role even in this format. It feels like, well, if you're just reading text messages and stuff, you're not getting setting, it's just plot. No, not true. We follow Amanda all over town as she travels by every mode of transportation, uses all her connections and gets sucked into the case more deeply than she could have dreamed. This book is a great pick for anyone who wants fictionalized book that feels like true crime. It's a great pick for anyone slumpy who needs a quick win. It's a great pick for anyone who wants a British procedural and examination of a cold case. It's just a great pick in general, y'. All. And if you haven't read it yet, let us both give you the shove into doing so. This is the Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Oh, you know I love it. If she is Cheeto Dust, then just wrap me in it, roll me around.

[Katie Cobb]

In a bag of Cheeto Dust. Love it.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Paint me orange. And I was just thinking, okay, because you loved it because Albert and Angels is definitely it's the same kind of format, but it's different in a lot of ways. And I was Trying to think, like, would it be the examiner or the appeal that I would next recommend if someone really liked? I mean, and I think either one of those would be totally great. You just have to pick your. Like, are you more interested in a theater troupe and middle aged people or are you more interested in a master's class of younger 20s and 30s? That would be the only way to pick because they're both so good.

[Katie Cobb]

Yes, I have the appeal on my shelf, so that will be next for me. But only because it's here and it's available. Yeah.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Yes. And again, I really want to say, if you're going to read Janice Hallett, do it in print.

[Katie Cobb]

Yes, that's absolutely true. Underscore it, write it down, underline three times.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I know that. And I just made a mistake with her latest one and read it on Kindle because it was an arc and I had to read it immediately. Okay, you'll be hearing about that on the show. My third book is a five star book. I absolutely loved it. Maybe on my list of best books of the year. It is so Far Gone by Jess Walter. Here's the setup when former environmental journalist Reese Kinnick punched his conspiracy theorist son in law at Thanksgiving dinner into 2016 and then chucked his smartphone out his car window and disappeared into the woods. He thought he was done with the world's nonsense for good. The world was just getting started. Reese, seven years later, living off the grid. Off the grid in a ramshackle cabin north of Spokane, Washington, with only raccoons for company, Rhys gets an unexpected wake up call when his grandchildren show up at his door with a note from his estranged daughter. The daughter needs him to watch the grandkids while she sorts out her very messy life. But what starts out as reluctant babysitting quickly spirals into something much more dangerous when the children are kidnapped by the people connected to that same son in law's extremist activities. Okay, that's all I'm going to give you. All the other blurbs go further and they should not, because that's all you need to know. Rhys Kinnick is a character you will not forget. I absolutely love him. Okay, so hang with me for just a second because you know that feeling when you're hanging out with family. The kind where everyone is super articulate and full of great stories, but they're also completely bonkers in like the most bonkers way. That's exactly what so Far Gone feels like. Jess Walters, who I've never read before. It's my first book by him has created this group of well intentioned but totally lunatic characters who love each other fiercely but also fail each other spectacularly at different times. The characters lives are messy and real and the book is page turning. What knocked me out about this book is that every single sentence was incredibly weird, readable, and I'm using that word so purposely because this has been really hard for me to find in my reading in the last couple of months, last six months or so, Walter hits emotional notes that are all over the map. There's dark comedy, there's family drama, there's even these mystery and thriller elements. But he never hits any of those things too hard. Even though politics and extremism are woven throughout, the story feels very current. This book is never preachy or straying into territory where it feels like he's beating you over the head with his ideology. Instead, all of that becomes part of a much larger, much more human story about family and connection and what we do when the world feels like it has completely lost its mind. The pacing here is Chef's Kiss. Jess Walter manages to keep things moving without ever feeling rushed, and the dialogue crackles with authenticity. These characters feel like people you might actually know. They're flawed, funny, frustrating, but ultimately they are each in their own way, all of them, son in law included, trying to do their best in impossible circumstances. There's something both hilarious and heartbreaking about watching Rhys get dragged back into the chaos that he was really trying to escape, especially when that chaos involves his own family. So if you love dark humor and family dysfunction, you are going to love this. Walter has this gift for taking serious contemporary issues and finding the humanity in them without minimizing their real impact. I am going to read more by this author. This is so Far Gone by Jess Walter.

[Katie Cobb]

I saw that book at so many bookstores this summer where I was like, why is this everywhere? It sounds phenomenal. I love a book that feels timeless and also speaks exactly to where we are.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

It's very, very current. It's extraordinarily current. And I feel like again, this is a book that has politics and cultural stuff from the last 10 years at its forefront. And yet I would hand this to anyone on that spectrum. That's how fair it is, right? This book plays really fair. So even if you come into it feeling like, oh man, this feels like something that's really going to bang hard at the other side or whatever, it's not. And yet you also are going to feel really seen and heard. And that's my favorite kind of book dealing with these kinds of things, like, let me find my place in it. Let me find my thoughts within this really human story. It's so readable. I think I read it on Kindle. I think it might be really good on audio. I would definitely say do a sample because it might be really good in that format. I could imagine. Because that dialogue is just so crackly.

[Katie Cobb]

Yes. So good.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Really, really good. Five stars. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about our summer break. Katie, I'm gonna go first, only because I don't have nearly as much to say. I did not make as much of my summer break. And yours is. You've got a lot of juice.

[Katie Cobb]

Okay, let's first place this in time. So we recorded our last episode of Crush Week on June 22nd of 2025, and today it's July 26th. So that's 34 days that we had off between now and then. That's the kind of time we're playing with here. We know that for y', all, you only had one week without us, but we had a lot of time in between now and then, so that's why it's gonna feel like. Wait, what do you mean, summer break? It was a week during your break. You were doing all these things. Like, that's not what's going on here. So tell us.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

The reason we do this is to try to clear our chakras, right, so that we can come back fresh. We also take an extended break at Christmas time. This is our eighth season, people. We gotta keep it fresh.

[Katie Cobb]

Mm.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Keep it fresh.

[Katie Cobb]

It's like going away in August and taking a lover. You just do what you gotta do. Gabrielle Garcia Marquez.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Keep it fresh. All right. The good thing is it absolutely works, right? So there's no question that we had plenty of time away from the mic, and I was really excited to get back to it. One of the things I do, which is of necessity, will not be forever, but it is of necessity, is that I work. Obviously, I have two jobs, so at Here Comes the guide, I take the month of July when we are off for currently reading, that is the month where we do one of our heaviest lifts as the leadership team. My COO and I get together with every single member of our staff in video conversations. We're fully distributed, so we don't have an office. So we do. We talk to everyone a lot. But this is a more formal time for us to spend with each employee, letting them know what we see in them. Obviously, if there's any issues that would have been dealt with already, but we can really just deep dive with each person, get that time with each person. It's a heavy lift because for this introvert, doing that much talking at a very high connected level makes me tired. At the end of the day, I'm like a wilted flower. But it's so important and it's so valuable and I absolutely love it. So that was a lot of where my mental energy went during that period of time. I also, you know, have had some personal stuff going on that's been kind of hard. But we're navigating and it actually worked out. The timing of everything kind of worked out. So my summer break was I got some reading done, but not anything like fantastic or interesting. I didn't do any interesting projects. I'm a little bit of a bummer, to be honest. So let's talk about what you did because you used your break really thoughtfully.

[Katie Cobb]

I carried the load on this one. Meredith yes, many of our listeners did follow along with my epic road trip this summer. I got so many DMs this summer, but of course there are many who didn't. So that was the majority of my summer vacation. I'm going to run through it, got statistics, of course, because you know me, I'm your spreadsheet girl. But we had a huge adventure and I can't wait to talk about it. My kids and I, four kids and I drove the nearly 5,000 miles over about 70 hours, including stops in 16 states, 13 separate ones and a few repeats and even a jaunt up to Canada. We hit nine independent bookstores, which is it was an 18 day trip, so it worked out to one every other day. But sometimes it was two or three in a row and then no bookstores for a while. And we met up with at least 50 bookish friends. But I didn't take a census, so I'm not totally sure on that number. Not everybody wanted to be in photos or they had to leave before the group photo was taken. So it could have been far more than 50. In my head, it's about 50. The delight for me is that I've never done one like this before. I've done single meetups in places, right? And it was very specific time and place and bookish friends. So I knew people would know who I was. In this case, people recognized me based on my voice. And that happened a few times where because I had my kids with me in a bookstore, I would be talking out loud even if I hadn't found anybody that was a currently reading listener yet. And they would, like sunflowers, like, turn toward me slowly. So I always, after that happened a few times, I would walk into bookstores and try and be in conversation with somebody, whether it was a kid or a bookseller or somebody, so that I was talking out loud because that made it easy for people to find me. And then, of course, because this is one of my big changes for this year, I would meet somebody and they'd say, so good to meet you. Can you turn around so I can see your octopus?

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Oh, yeah.

[Katie Cobb]

They wanted to see it in person, but it was so funny to, like, meet somebody face to face, maybe even give them a hug and then be like, okay, great. Can you pivot? I want to see your backside. Like, what? Yeah. They were delighted to meet Anali, the podcast baby in person. People in Colorado loved meeting Heather, who's been mentioned over and over again. There were friends I've interacted with online for years or even a decade that I got to meet for the first time. So special. Shout out to Stephanie and Jessica, who was an og, awesome, and zoomed with me so many times over the years that I walked in and I was like, oh, my gosh, Jessica is here. Yeah. That was so exciting for me. It was like meeting a celebrity. It was so fun. The best part for me, of course, was that three of these bookstores that I went to are ones that we partnered with on the Indie Press list. And getting to meet them in person, getting to visit these spaces in Prinson, getting to talk with the booksellers one on one, was so special. And then getting to hear directly from the owners about how much the Indie press list means to them, how much they have loved being part of this program, especially at Novel Neighbor over the years. It was so lovely. It was so wonderful to build those partnerships further in this wonderful way. Between the kids and myself, we bought nearly 100 books. Wow. Which is a lot of books. Yeah. We filled every corner of my car. I had an ice chest on the way out that I didn't need on the way back. It was filled with books when we came back because I was running out of room.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Perfect.

[Katie Cobb]

We also filled every other corner of my car with memories and crumbs. My car is filthy. I need to clean it so badly. I finished 14 audiobooks in 18 days along with one paper and one Kindle book. So 16 books overall for this 18 day trip. We fished, we kayaked, we pontooned, we raced turtles, we went to bean hole days, which nobody. I mean, there are questions and I don't have answers for you. Right. Okay. We ate lunch in Canada. We had poutine maple donuts at Tim Hortons. We got really great at packing suitcases, keeping clean clothes separate from dirty ones. And our only casualties were one pillow, a small sound machine, and a jacket. The pillow was mine, which is very sad because it was not recoverable. It was in a hotel in South Dakota. Oh, right. It was such a wonderful trip. We fell even further into love with indie bookstores, their owners, their booksellers. We laughed until we cried together. And we loved each other. And that's what I wanted from this journey, was like, remember that time when we took that huge road trip to Minnesota and we went to so many bookstores and we just had the best time? So, yes, I'm already getting questions. Will you do it again? Will you come toward me in this state? We will do it again. Not today, but someday not today. We will do it again. We're all exhausted, but we had a wonderful time.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I am so glad that that went so well. I'm incredibly impressed with the fact that you did it. It is such an undertaking. But, yeah, memories forever.

[Katie Cobb]

Well, and we did make it clear, like, I am the capital E extrovert, especially of Meredith and I. So she talked about how even working her regular job, that was a lot of extroverting over our summer break. And I came back energized every time I was like, more people, more conversations about books. Let's keep going. You know, this is something that really fills my cup and is in my wheelhouse in a big way. That is not gonna work for everyone. Right? There's plenty of book podcasters. Even that would be like, absolutely not. I don't think so. Not ever. No way, no how. For me, it was great.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Well, I am forever grateful that that is a load that you are willing to carry between the two of us, where we go to an event and I can just scurry out the back door and you stay and talk to everybody and everybody's happy.

[Katie Cobb]

Everybody's happy. We all win.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I love it. All right, let's talk about some bookish wishes that we might have. Do you want to visit our currently reading fountain and throw a wish in?

[Katie Cobb]

Yes, let's go to the fountain and throw some coins in. Okay. Mine is. I'm calling it bookstore crawls for everyone. I'm not asking anyone to go on a 5,000 mile road trip. Don't turn away, guys. Don't turn away. Don't run from me. Nobody needs to jump in the car. For 70 hours and travel the country. But I wish for people to travel to the bookstores a little outside their norm. If you live in a small town that only has a tiny library and you have to drive an hour even to get to a Barnes and Noble, I get it. We do not, sadly, have, like, the saturation of bookstores, where there's one every 10 square miles in the U.S. there are bookstore meccas and there are bookstore deserts. But whether you have a favorite you always pop over to that's just around the corner, or you need to make a special trip to a nearby town, or you always have to order online, because getting to a bookstore is simply not a possibility. I want to encourage all of us to make time for a bookish journey. It could be part of your other family vacation or a business arrangement, or it could be a trip just for a bookstore or a reading retreat with a friend that includes a few hours on your schedule that's carefully curated to explore the bookstore in that town. We get questions all the time in the bookish friends group that ask, I'm traveling to this specific town or this specific neighborhood in this city, which bookstore should I prioritize? And the comments are always flooding in. Make the trip. Browse in person. Talk to a bookseller or the person who has picked up your favorite book and is reading the back flap. Just say, I really loved that one. I hope you pick it up. Try your hand at bookstore extraversion. It's completely different than regular extroverting, and it will add so much to your reading life. Pink splash.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Yes. I think that's a great idea. And actually, bookstores are the only place that I would ever seek out conversation. Like, where I would actually go up to somebody and be like, you're gonna love that book. A bookstore is literally the only place where I would start conversation with a stranger.

[Katie Cobb]

It was so fun to have very clear introverts come to these meetups and so gently pull them out of their shells, like, well, what have you read lately? Is there something specific you're looking for today? It's like approaching a shy cat, you know, where you're like, I'm not even really looking at you. We're just gonna stand close to each other and look at the bookshelf at the same time. Right, right. Yeah. Hey.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I mean, that's part of the reason why I love readers so much. They.

[Katie Cobb]

They get it.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

I am that shy cat.

[Katie Cobb]

Just pet her gently. Yeah.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

All right. My wish is that. And this gets into the issue of bookish conversation or the Thought about Bookish Conversation. My wish is that everyone would listen to episode 272 of the 10 Things to Tell youl Podcast. That show has, sadly for all of us, wrapped itself up. Now Laura Tremaine has wrapped it up really beautifully, really intentionally. And that episode 272 is best books lately. It's her conversation with her book club regulars and friends. It is long. It is deep conversation. It is my favorite kind of conversation as an introvert. I don't always love to talk to strangers, but I love, love to get into deep conversations that start out about books, but then they become about other deeper things in our lives. And this episode of the 10 Things to Tell youl Podcast does exactly that in the most masterful way. I always love the 10 things to tell youl Podcast. I especially love the book related conversations. I've been lucky enough, we've been lucky enough to be on her show and be able to talk about books. Katie. Also, I want to say that just last night I finished listening to her secret stuff. Laura still does her secret stuff subset group, and they were having conversation on the Shining, a book that I have never wanted to read for a variety of reasons. I enjoyed that conversation because I'm a subset subscriber. I listened to that and enjoyed that conversation so much. And it's really got me thinking about the fact that one of the biggest changes that has taken place for me as a reader since we started the podcast is how much I love these deeper dives into specific books. And I feel like eight years ago that wasn't something that I was interested in at all to listen to or to be a part of. But now as I've changed, I guess, you know, Journey to Three Pints has been a really big part of that where we deep dive into every episode of the Louis Penny series and we talk for 90 minutes about one book.

[Katie Cobb]

Right.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

So these deeper, longer conversations about one particular book and then the way that that in smaller settings can be about so many other things, it's just something that I'm really thinking about right now. I'm thinking a lot about that.

[Katie Cobb]

Yeah.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

So my wish is that you would listen to that episode of the 10 Things to Tell youl Podcast and see what you think, See if that kind of conversation resonates with you. Because, man, it was just. I listened to it in like three or four chunks because it's long but so enjoyable.

[Katie Cobb]

Well, and we love her book club besties that really add to that conversation. Yeah. That's why those episodes can be so long. It's why we have a hard time trying to keep things concise when we are with Mary and Roxanna. Right. Because it's like those long term established bookish relationships that that opens your world in so many different ways.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

And that's kind of what I've been thinking about. I've been kind of thinking about like, what if there was a scenario where the four of us were talking about a book in a longer form way? How interested would people be if it was behind the paywall?

[Katie Cobb]

Right.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

That's an interesting thing I'm thinking a lot about. Okay, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me on Meredith Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram and you can.

[Katie Cobb]

Find me Katie and all my bookstore extravaganza notifications at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putabong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of megansreads full show notes with.

[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 at Currentlyreading Podcast.

[Katie Cobb]

You can also follow the show at Currentlyreading Podcast on Instagram or email [e-mail].

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

And if you love this kind of content, as we said at the top of the show, why don't you join us as a patreon subscriber? It's $5 a month and you're going to get all kinds of content, all kinds of community and 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. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience.

[Katie Cobb]

Yes, bookish friends are the best friends. Bookstores are the best places. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

All right, until next week, may your.

[Katie Cobb]

Coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.

[Meredith Mundy Schwartz]

Happy reading, Katie.

[Katie Cobb]

Happy reading, Meredith.