← The Currently Reading Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hey, readers, welcome to the currently reading podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently. And as you know, we won't shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.
- [00:25]
B
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.
- [00:35]
A
I'm Meredith Mundy Schwartz. I'm both a mom and a meanie and a full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And I have a bookish holiday I celebrate once a year.
- [00:45]
B
And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona. And I am now getting a daily dose of poetry. This is episode number 15 of season eight, and we are so glad you're here.
- [00:55]
A
All right, Katie, I would be willing to bet that you know what my annual bookish holiday is.
- [01:01]
B
I'm pretty sure I do. Because when we skip that holiday, somebody gets a little cranky.
- [01:07]
A
That's definitely true. That's true. All right, we are going to get into that, but first let me tell you that we are going to do a mini deep dive this week. An unexpected one. We hadn't expected to talk about this, but we had to. Those top six book rankings, Katie, lots of unexpected things came from that.
- [01:30]
B
Yes. The people had opinions and things to say that we did not expect.
- [01:35]
A
Absolutely true. So we are going to talk about that and we are going to reveal during this podcast episode the person who won the giveaway. So make sure you listen there.
- [01:46]
B
Did you draw a name?
- [01:47]
A
Not yet, but we're going to.
- [01:49]
B
Oh, right here. Online. On air. We're doing that on air. Oh my gosh.
- [01:52]
A
We are going to do it. We are.
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B
That's exciting.
- [01:55]
A
All right, Katie, let's first though, before we get to that, let's talk about our bookish moments of the week. What's yours?
- [02:02]
B
All right, Meredith. I was thrilled this week to get an email from listener Dana who let us know that the National Poetry foundation will send a daily poem of the day email to you. And all you have to do is subscribe. It's free dollars, which is my favorite number of dollars. Dana sent this to us because I asked for David Gates specifically to create a poem a day calendar that I could tear off a page each day. As. As you might remember from two weeks ago when I talked about his book A Rebellion of Care, this is a much earth friendlier option and exposes me to all sorts of poets and themes and topics, which I love from the email. You can also click through to read a biography of the poet if it really speaks to you. You can go back through the archives to read previous poems of the day on their website or additional poems that that poet has released through the National Poetry Foundation. I think it's such a great way to get a tiny dose of poetry each day. I'm only a few days in now, but I look forward every experience a little bit of poetry, and it's making me very happy.
- [03:00]
A
I love it. That was a perfect answer to that particular wish that you had. And I was sorely tempted myself. I decided not to just because I knew that you were going to do it. You would be reporting back to us. And also because I'm getting my poetry in other ways. I didn't want to kind of do the very same thing that I'd been talking about, like reading too many books at once. Didn't want to be doing too much poetry at once. But it's a great idea. I'm so glad that something like that.
- [03:26]
B
Dana would even know about that. Yes. And be like, ah, I have the perfect solution. Y' all don't sleep on the email if you have the perfect solution. We definitely want to hear from you.
- [03:35]
A
Yes. You can solve a lot of people's issues if you do that sometimes.
- [03:40]
B
Exactly.
- [03:40]
A
All right, Katie. Well, this week I got to celebrate my favorite of all bookish holidays, if I'm lucky, if we all are lucky. It happens once a year in the fall, and that is Louise Penny new release day. The Black Wolf, the 20th book in the Three Pines series by Louise Penny, came out last week on October 28th. And I just. I always look forward to it. As you guys know, I have a system. I have a process. I've had the alc. I've had the audiobook of this for months, the Black Wolf. But my process is to wait till release day, get the hard back, clear my decks, and open it up and really get some time with it. I'm trying very, very hard to. To read it and carefully instead of just gulping it all up. This is different, of course, because this book and the previous book, the gray wolf, the 19th and 20th books of the series, are, for the first time in the series, what Louise is calling sibling books, which means that they are two books that tell one story. So we kind of ended on cliffhanger for 19. Now we're going into 20. I am really happy so far. I'm only about 40% of the way through again, forcing myself to go slowly. But so far so good.
- [05:00]
B
Good. I'm so glad. I'm so glad to hear that because there are a lot of feels around that book.
- [05:06]
A
Right after the 19th book, I was literally in tears. I was so disappointed and so worried that this next one is going to be the last one. So luckily she's doing lots of touring right now. I got last week I did the Barnes and Noble virtual event the night before the release, which was really great. It was an hour long interview with her and it's always so interesting to hear about her process. But she also said very clearly there and in other tour stops so far this week. People have been so kind to tell me she's talking a lot about the fact that the series is going to go on for a long time. She has no thoughts whatsoever about quitting. So all shall be well.
- [05:45]
B
We love that.
- [05:47]
A
No lo to Mary, which she says a lot in the books, which means be not afraid. So Nola to marry Nolo to Mary. Be not afraid.
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B
Be not afraid.
- [05:55]
A
Yeah. So we're going to try to hold on to that. All right, Katie, let's talk a little bit or a lot of it about our current reads. What's your first one you're going to bring to us this week?
- [06:06]
B
Okay, Meredith. The first book I have this week is called the Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong. This is a beautiful and cozy road trip novel. That was a balm. Just like I hoped. Our main character is Tao. She is a fortune teller. She travels with a small wagon and a stubborn mule from village to village telling fortunes, but only small ones. Big fortunes like what's my life purpose? Or will I find and keep love come with big consequences. So she keeps her sights set on the little things like will my cow have a calf or will it rain this week? Or how will my business be next week? When she finds herself in a tight spot, she unexpectedly receives help from two large men wielding big knives. One is an ex thief, mostly reformed, named Silt, and the other is an ex mercenary, mostly retired named Mash. And they do their level best to onto her travels in order to continue their search for a lost child who is dear to mash. As they continue traveling from tiny village to tiny village, Tao and the dynamic duo ask questions about merchants and children and have you seen and do you know? And they answer questions about the small fortunes of the future, but only tiny ones. They are also joined by a baker named Keena and a cat who seems to have a touch of magic himself. And now you're seeing how this novel gets compared to legends and lattes or A Psalm for the Wild Built. It's found family deliciousness with a little bit of baked goods, and the baker adds that touch of whimsy that we didn't know we were missing until she arrived. She's not a professional, she's an apprentice, but she balances the flavors of the book with her open sweetness. While others are more cynical or guarded in their behaviors. The search for the child continues. The stakes get higher when the group realizes that someone is searching for them as well. And the travels through tiny towns continue on, sprinkled with baked goods. This is a comfort book, pure and simple. It's perfect for any time of year or when you hit a break glass in case of emergency moment. Julie Leong gives us fully drawn characters who are just enough to capture your heart, but not enough to pull your heartstrings. The plot is not high stakes, but it's never stilted. It moves at a clip throughout the whole book. I was never bored. This isn't the kind of cozy fantasy that's meditative, sitting around the fire for hours. And that's kind of what you get in Psalm for the Wild Built right. They're just monk and robot out in the forest. So sitting and talking to people. Really. Only the fact that Tao can tell fortunes and the cat has a bit of magic makes it fantasy at all. It feels close enough to our world that even those who think that cozy fantasy is a little too droll or sweet for them might find some comfort here. I really love this one. It hit exactly the notes that I hoped for and it gave me the little warm fuzzies by the end. This is the teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong.
- [08:49]
A
That sounds lovely.
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B
It is lovely and delightful.
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A
All right. My first book is also delightful in its own way and I think perfect for reading at this time of year. This is one that you know, Katie. This is the Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds by Jennifer Moorman.
- [09:07]
B
Yes. I'm so excited to hear you talk about this.
- [09:10]
A
I love this one. All right, here's a setup when 35 year old widow Josephine Reynolds makes a desperate wish that she had never been born. She has no idea that she's about to step through the original door of her ancestral Nashville home and straight into 1927. There she meets her great grandmother Alma, a firecracker of a woman who's running an illegal speakeasy in the basement during the heights of prohibition. She's living out loud and boldly which is a way that Josephine has not allowed herself to be in years. But here's where things get interesting. When Josephine returns to the present, she discovers that history has been altered, which means that Josephine's entire family line, including herself, is starting to vanish from existence. But now she's racing against time to get back to 1927 and change history to save herself. I love this book.
- [10:06]
B
I love this book.
- [10:07]
A
We both know about it because this book came from an Indie press list pick by Words Matter in New Jersey. I knew as soon as we read it for the Indie press list, I said to you, Katie, can I please bring this to the book? I read it at the perfect time. I was in a weird, sad mood, curled up on a rainy day. And this book was exactly the companion I needed. It's such a mood right when you need a balm like that, like you were talking about with your previous book. It's one of these books that wraps your itself around you like a blanket when you need it the most. Now, I had read Jennifer Moorman before I had read her book the Magic All Around a couple years ago, and I really, really loved that one. And I had high hopes when I went into this one. And this one is even better. She hits this really similar spot for me that Sarah Addison Allen does with that gentle magical realism that makes you believe that impossible things could happen right in your kitchen. The thing about the time travel element too, here it is there, but it's not complicated. It's actually pretty straightforward time travel mechanics. Don't look at it too closely because then you'll ruin all the good stuff. And that would be sad because.
- [11:15]
B
Guilty.
- [11:16]
A
Yeah, the good stuff here is really, really good. This is Jennifer Moorman at her magical realism best, blending time travel and the glittering Jazz age while also still exploring how grief makes us wish ourselves away and how sometimes we need to go backward to go forward. The relationship between Josephine and her long ago relative Alma is the very heart of this story. These are two women from different eras who teach each other about living authentically and finding yourself again after loss. As I said, Alma is this firecracker of a woman. She runs a speakeasy, lives loud and proud, and Josephine, who had been sleepwalking through her life since her husband died. But to be fair, even a little bit before, she really needs to remember what it means to live. Plus, if you have ever thought about what living through the 1920s or being in a speakeasy would be like, this book takes you there. It just delivers in atmosphere and in place and time so perfectly. It's very well researched. You can tell that Mormon did her her homework on the Jazz age because it shows in every flapper dress, every song playing on the on the record player, every secret password whispered at the speakeasy door. This is a fast read with short chapters. I read it in one long afternoon and the ending is entirely predictable. You can see it coming. But what I learned is predictable doesn't mean less than perfect when it's done right and when you're in the mood for it. I loved all of the characters, even some of the minor ones who could have been throwaway characters but weren't. And I did have some moments of emotion at the end of this book.
- [13:03]
B
Oh, yes.
- [13:05]
A
I will admit to that. This book is perfect for readers who want their magical realism with a side of sparkling history and who don't mind if your ending is a little bit predictable as long as the journey is worth it. If all of those things sound perfect for you and you've always imagined yourself in a flapper dress, this is your book. This is the Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds by Jennifer Moorman. And her last name is spelled M O O R M A N. And.
- [13:34]
B
Who of us has not imagined themselves in a flapper dress?
- [13:37]
A
I absolutely have. I think I would have been so cute in the 20s.
- [13:41]
B
That fringe and when you spin it like flares out. Oh, so cute. I love it.
- [13:47]
A
Love it.
- [13:47]
B
Yes. I also loved this book. Even on that first indie press list episode about it, we just both gushed. I mean, loved it. Yeah. Absolutely stunning.
- [13:56]
A
I keep thinking about it, too. I read it a couple months ago, but I keep thinking about it.
- [14:00]
B
Yes. And there were two in that episode that you claimed to bring to this show. So every time I go down my list, I'm always like, oh, those ones are set aside. Those are Meredith books.
- [14:10]
A
There you go. We checked one of those off.
- [14:12]
B
Yes. All right. My second book this week is nonfiction. I'm going to talk about the Bookshop by Evan Friss, which is nonfiction. So Katie and I read this book in July as I grapes across the center of the country. And we finished it together at the park one morning on the night before we finished our trip.
- [14:30]
A
I love that.
- [14:31]
B
The final night at her house. And we don't ever. We don't hardly ever get to do that with our buddy reads, but we pulled it off this time. It's our nonfiction sweet spot. This narrative nonfiction about something we either already love or grow to love during the course of the book. And this one is perfect for all Bookish readers, which means every single one of us. Evan Frist uses this narrative nonfiction book to detail the history of the American bookshop and the way it developed into an institution of its own and became the center of public and cultural life, especially for us, for the readers. This book includes photos of bookstore setups throughout American history, starting from Benjamin Franklin's bookshop in colonial America all the way to Parnassus Books is featured in Nashville, Tennessee, owned by our beloved Ann Patchett. It also includes a profile of bookstores that kind of certain bookstores at the end of every chapter that kind of encapsulate the idea of that chapter. Mostly these are still current stores that you can visit today, so you could plan a lovely bookish road trip, even just hitting the bookstores mentioned in this book. Bookstores are special places, of course, we already know that, but I loved this journey where we got to really understand the ways that they shape us as readers and writers and the ways that we shaped them throughout American history. They push the envelope with regard to politics and thought leaders. And there are bookstores that cater to specific subsets of society. Queer bookstores, black owned bookstores. There were even Nazi bookstores during World War II, and each of those had its own place within American culture as a whole. There are endangered bookstores and ones on the front lines against book bans, and all of them are represented here. I was delighted, delighted to get to see photos of department store bookshops which were the first superstores. They were oftentimes located on another level to the apparel shopping part. So it could be bakery basement, it could be very top level, but they included tables full of books laid out with women dressed in their 1940s finery that were browsing, usually with gloves on and like hats and everything. Browsing the bookstore gave me a totally different view while also feeling like I could lay a negative over a current day bookshop with people of every style of dress inside and have those same tables and just swap them out for different people. Interviews with booksellers, a bucket list of indies to visit, and a broader grasp of the overall history of one of my very favorite places to be and visit made this one an absolute gem. And to finish it next to my reading partner, my bestie Katie, after an epic trip with my children, specifically curated to hit as many bookstores as possible. Chef's Kiss the story begins, like I said, with Benjamin Franklin's first bookstore in Philadelphia takes us all over the country, including talking about Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Rip, Drum and Spear, which was which was owned by Oscar Wilde. And again, those Marshall Field & Co. Bookstores in Chicago, just all over the place. If you think that I've missed something, I promise it's in here. They talk about Exile and Bookville in Chicago, which I've been to, which was very fun as well. So two centuries of history about the American bookshop. I couldn't get enough. I absolutely adored it. This is the Bookshop by Evan Frist.
- [17:41]
A
Well, that sounds very interesting. And Katie, we have managed to do something we very, very rarely do, which is to bring two very, very similar books to the show. Because my second position is also nonfiction and it's also about books.
- [17:56]
B
No way.
- [17:57]
A
It's called A Manifesto or how to Build a Library by Ian Patterson. This is a book that I found on our trip to London and I had to get it and I read it immediately. Here's a setup. Ian Patterson is a lot of bookish things. He's a poet, teacher, translator. He was a bookseller at one point. More than anything, Katie, he is a lifelong collector. He is building when he writes this book, what he is calling his last library in his Suffolk, England home. And along the way, he's written this passionate argument for why reading isn't just a nice hobby, but is a necessary part of being human. He makes the case that we literally think with the tools that reading gives us, that we live within limits. Language itself. There's no literary snobbery here. Patterson gives equal weight to Agatha Christie and aurvant garde poetry, arguing that all reading matters, from those golden age detectives to the most challenging experimental works. This book is part memoir, part manifesto, part practical guide to building your own library. Nick explores everything from from what Ian Patterson calls the bookshop minute, which is apparently what his family called it. When he would see find a bookstore. They'd be driving along, he'd find a bookstore and he would just pull over. He's like, I'll just be a minute. And they're like, oh, but it's a bookshop minute. Like air quote, right?
- [19:27]
B
Like girl math.
- [19:28]
A
Right. And he also talks about the subversive power of reading, why physical books as objects still matter even in our digital age. He weaves in his own story, from being a very lonely child obsessively collecting books, to being a widower, rebuilding his life as he constructs yet another library. And that is where this story is most interesting. Alright, you might think that a book about books would be preaching to the choir. After all, as you just said, if you're listening to this podcast, you're already sold on reading and books and bookshops. We don't need to sell you on that. But actually, Ian Patterson's manifesto, as he calls it, isn't trying to convince you to read. It's giving you permission to be as completely, unapologetically obsessed with books as you probably already are. I found this one at Goldsboro Books in Covent Garden, and I saw it on the counter and I was like, oh, I'm. Can I. It was like there were stacks of them, and I took one to buy it, but then they're like, oh, wait, it's not actually released yet. But then it was only because the author was going to be there the next day. They immediately were like, but you can. No, it's totally fine. You can buy it now. And I'm so glad I did, because then the next day we were leaving, so I couldn't have gone back, and we took the train to Scotland. This is what I read the entire trip there. And let me tell you, this guy, Ian Patterson, is a capital R reader. It is the defining feature of his personality. And there's something deeply comforting about having someone with serious literary credentials tell you that, yes, it's normal. It's even laudable to organize your entire life around books. The part that hit me like a ton of bricks was when Patterson wrestles with balancing his compulsion to read with being a good husband and father. His kids would moan and groan, as I said, when he'd pull the car over after spotting a bookstore. And there's this beautiful tension throughout where he's both celebrating and interrogating this obsession. The portions where he talks about his book collections are wonderful. You can feel the actual love that he has for these, for books as objects. But then there are parts where he has to cull his collection at various points in his life because he's moving, he's retiring. You know, there's one part where he's a kid and he has to cull down his collection. It was genuinely hard to read because it feels like he's having to choose amongst his children, which, dare I say, might be a little bit unhealthy. This isn't just someone who loves books. This is someone who is really, really obsessed with books in a way that I found occasionally veered into the clinical, if I'm being honest. But what makes this book more than just bibliophile navel gazing is how Patterson democratizes the entire enterprise. As I said, no reading is bad reading. He's not a snob at all. Patterson argues that reading isn't escapism, but it's the foundation of how we think that we literally live within our language. He's just making a case that in our current political and cultural moment, wide reading isn't just nice to have, it's actually essential that the citizenry be reading to have maintained perspective and hope. Here's what this book did for me. It sparked a fascinating conversation between me and Betsy in Edinburgh as we were traveling there about how we think about our own libraries. It's a fascinating topic and one that this book brings into high relief because what result are we trying to achieve with the books that we have in our home? Are we collecting and cherishing displaying our books like trophies? Do we want to keep them private? Do we want them showroom new with dust jackets protecting them from light? Or do we want them to feel used and read and lived in? Patterson's almost religious devotion to his library building made me examine my own relationship with my books. Am I a curator or a reader? Can I be both? His extreme position forces you to locate yourself on the spectrum of bookish obsession. I think this book works best as a memoir manifesto hybrid, though there are moments where you might worry about Patterson's level of attachment. I think it's perfect for readers if you've ever felt guilty about buying yet another book, even though you have dozens unread at home, or anyone who's trying to explain to non readers why they have to have multiple copies of the same book. If you're looking for practical library building tips or a how to guide, this is not it. Think of it more as a long wine fueled conversation with the most book obsessed person you've ever met. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes concerning. Always passionate. This is Books, A Manifesto or how to Build a Library by Ian Patterson.
- [24:09]
B
Interesting. Not all, not necessarily related, but I read this week not bringing it to the show A Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control and it talks about how perfectionism is not something that we need to overcome. It's an asset and it's okay to be a perfectionist and there are multiple types of perfectionist and it's not a mental illness. But I'm like oh, I wonder if Ian Patterson has has some of that tendency in him where it's like I'm not just a book collector, I want the perfect collection. Yeah, because he would and that's how his manifests.
- [24:42]
A
He talks a lot about like he really, I mean I think we've all experienced this. He really spends a lot of time escaping his life by reading. And again We've all done that. But of course, you know, he seems to do it maybe to his own detriment sometimes. Maybe to the detriment of a relationship with a kid or a marriage. And he talks about how he would just stand in front of his bookcases filled with books that he owns and that he. Many, most of which he's read. And he would just stand there and in his mind, he's thinking about all the things that are in the books that he's looking at. But to other people, it looks like he's just standing and staring at a wall of books.
- [25:25]
B
I mean, I do that too.
- [25:27]
A
Exactly. So there's a lot of moments like that where you're like, I get it, dude. Like, I get it.
- [25:32]
B
Right?
- [25:32]
A
You know, so it's. It was a. It was a very, very interesting read.
- [25:36]
B
You know what really gets me is when somebody else comes into my house and they stand and stare at the bookshelf. Oh, yeah. Then I'm like, are we best friends? Like, what do you see? What stands out to you? Can I psychoanalyze you because of it?
- [25:49]
A
Yeah, it's so. I think looking at people's bookshelves is the most fascinating thing.
- [25:53]
B
I love it. Okay, well, speaking of sleeping through life because you're doing other things, this is. I'm making a connection here. You ready? My third book is called I Leave it up to youo by Jin Woo Chong. This one was put onto my radar by Amy Allen Clark, who has been a longtime source. Great book recommendations for me. I finally picked it up this fall and found a dysfunctional but charming family story inside to get started. Jack Jr. Wakes up. That's the start of our story. But it's a shock to everyone. He has been in a coma for just a little over two years after a strange car accident that left his family with more questions than answers as he gets his bearings and realizes he can't even really move his body. And his nurse Emil gets over his shock at seeing Jack's eyes open for the first time. He figures out that a he's been in a coma for two years and he has to navigate a world that he doesn't recognize because the world kept moving forward. Even though Jack Jr. Hasn't talked to his family in eight years. Make that 10. Because of the coma, he finds that his Manhattan apartment is gone and the life he was living prior to the accident has disintegrated. Including his long term boyfriend and the love of his life having left him behind. So he has nowhere else left to turn. He moves back home and has to restart his relationships. He's been sleeping through life with his parents and his brother, who are all strangely thinking that he was never absent at all. He's like, well, I basically stopped talking to you guys. And they're like, yeah, you were just a little distant. It's fine. So they didn't realize that they had basically been cut off by him. His parents own a struggling sushi restaurant called joja that Jack Jr. Was set to inherit before he shut down communication with the family. As Jack settles back into his life, the one he was sure he wanted to leave behind, he starts developing new facets to himself that he had thought gone and buried. Like the relationship he can now pursue with his nephew, currently a gangly teenager who used to be just a little kid when he last saw him and talked to him, or that budding friendship and maybe more with his nurse, Emile. But second chances are not always clean. They come with renewal and hope, but also the mess that was left behind the first time. This family has to trudge through plenty of hard and face up to the ways that they've failed each other over the years before they can move forward with a new path. I said at the start of this setup that this was dysfunctional family drama. And there is some dysfunction here, but mostly it's just family. This is not like rich people being awful and conniving to each other. It's just the regular dysfunction of a family. A family that imperfectly loves one another, that hurts each other and has to ask for and find forgiveness. A family that's incomplete, with an empty space at the table. When I first started this book, I thought I was going to be annoyed with Jack Jr. Throughout the story. He's a. He's a little abrasive when he's first waking up. Of course, he's been asleep for two years, so I had to give him a break on that. But instead, he grew in me in a way that I really appreciated. And by the end, I was putting myself in his shoes. I was imagining a world in which you've slept through the past two years, which, I mean, sometimes that feels like a dream come true, right? And it gave me a few Sleeping Beauty vibes. But I liked the idea of waking up to something just a little bit off kilter to what you thought you knew. The story had plenty of humor woven throughout to keep it from getting too heavy or hard. Jin Woochong has a debut novel called Flux that is not as highly rated as this one. In fact, it has not good reviews, but I'm enamored enough with his characters and the way that he built them in this novel and his writing style that I'm willing to at least give it a shot for now. This was a great pick, and I'm really grateful to Amy for making sure it was on my radar. It is. I Leave It up to youo by Jinwoo Chong.
- [29:26]
A
Very, very interesting. Okay, good. All right. My third book is one that was also very interesting. It's a book called the Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards. Here's the setup. It's 1999, of course, the dawn of the Internet age and six really smart young graduates been handpicked by an eccentric psychology professor to spend the summer at his countrywide estate, creating something truly new and revolutionary. One of the world's first online dating sites powered by psychological profiling. The group includes Will, our narrator, who wants to be a writer, the brilliant Lily, who becomes obsessed with developing a secret side project called the Wasp Trap, and four other idealists, each bringing their own expertise to this cutting edge project. Something goes terribly wrong that summer, dark enough to shut down the entire venture immediately and to scatter the group for 25 years. Now, in the present day, Will, the wannabe writer, received an invitation that he cannot or he decides not to refuse because he could have a reunion dinner at Theo and Georgina's stunning Notting Hill townhouse. These are two of the of the other people that were involved. What starts as an evening of catching up with old friends quickly transforms into something far more fun sinister when the group discovers that they are trapped. That's all I'm going to tell you. All right. When Elizabeth Barnhill told me about this book on all things Murderful, I immediately knew that I wanted to read it. It sounded so good. It has a great cover. I love the title. The Old friends unite and secrets Come out trope is, I've said, a trope that I am really, really tired of. I feel like I've read all thousand variations of this, but it turns out I hadn't because Edwards brings enough fresh elements to the table that I stayed interested the entire time. The 1999 tech startup angle feels particularly smart, capturing that specific moment when the Internet was this shiny new thing full of possibility, but nobody really understood the downsides of it yet. If you combine that with some of the other psychological profiling elements, you've got something that feels both nostalgic and eerily prescient. But the pacing here is what really works. Mark Edwards knows exactly how to structure this book with these short, punchy chapters that make you just one more night all the way through finishing it. It's got a dual timeline, as I said, which could have been clunky, but instead creates a really nice rhythm back and forth where we've got revelations in the present that send you back to understand them and understand what happened in that previous that summer so long ago. The writing itself is smart, it's not showy, but it's also not bad, which you often get in thrillers. He doesn't waste time with unnecessary flourishes, but he's ratcheting up the tension instead. Now there is a twist. The marketing materials want you to believe that you'll never see it coming. And while it is definitely satisfying, it clicks into place in that deeply pleasing way where breadcrumbs, you know, have formed a path. But I. I wouldn't call it unpredictable. If you're a seasoned thriller reader, you probably spot some of the turns coming, but that was okay with me. I just definitely wanted to be transparent about that for this, for this book. I think if you like Lucy Foley, especially the guest list, this is going to be a really, really good fit for you. I think you'll find a lot to like in this book. I know that I did. This is the Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards.
- [32:56]
B
And we have a thriller that actually delivers on the thrills. Right. Because we get disappointed so often by like, okay, you said thriller, but meh.
- [33:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, this one was really good. All right, Katie, let's talk about this thing that we did that we kind of expected to be a nothing burger.
- [33:14]
B
Well. Or like something interesting that it wasn't going to turn into anything or grow its own legs.
- [33:19]
A
Right. Or something interesting to us. But I guess so. Two weeks ago, we did a deep dive based on Rebecca Hoffer's suggestion. Hey, take the top book of the last X amount of years. We chose six years and. And rank those. And we did that. And we found it to be really difficult. So of course I was like, everyone else must share our paint. And so we said, hey, I, you know, I said, hey, if you. If you want to do this, like, we'll do a giveaway because this takes some time to pull together all of this, to think it through. So many people did it, Katie. Like, I am so surprised by how many people decided to actually go through this process and come up with their ranking of their top six books of the last six years.
- [34:07]
B
Yes. Because it is a lot of work. And you know, one of my favorite things about the comments that People made about this process is that when they listen to. Listened to us do it, they thought we were being overdramatic.
- [34:21]
A
Yeah.
- [34:21]
B
That it couldn't really be that hard. I mean, come on, girls, get it together. And then they did it. And they're like, I sat down and it was horrible. And I hated every second.
- [34:33]
A
There was so much hand wringing in the angst.
- [34:38]
B
Yes. It was like being in a teenager locker room. Like, it was just angst pouring out of people.
- [34:43]
A
It really was. So we ended up having five, as we sit here today, 555 comments on that thread.
- [34:50]
B
On Instagram.
- [34:51]
A
On Instagram.
- [34:51]
B
We also got emails, we got comments on the regular website and the bookish friends went bananas within the private Facebook group. Right. So many people.
- [35:02]
A
Yes. And that was really where the fun started. Right. Like, as we said, as we saw so many people joining us on the Instagram thread and will post a link to that. The giveaway is closed by the time that you guys are listening to it, but we'll post a link to that post in the show notes. So you can go right there. Because once we realized that more than just three people were going to do this, then it started to get really interesting to see both how people felt about the process. Right. Which got into things like, man, that was hard. Yes. That's always the first thing. But also things like, I'm so glad that I've been tracking my books, or I only started tracking my books two years ago. I could kick myself for not starting sooner. Or, you know, I mean, there was just like so much. And then, then we started having all these conversations about, okay, what does this top six quote unquote mean about who you are as a reader right now, who you have been, you know, all of those kinds of things. What was your biggest takeaway, Katie, from this exercise?
- [36:04]
B
Well, so one of the other comments that I saw relatively often, and I actually had a conversation offline with our friend Brady Parkin about this, he said that there were some years that he would have taken three from and it would have made a great top six. And some years that he just didn't have a great reading year, and he would have rather eliminated that top pick entirely. So he's like, well, if I was choosing just the actual top six from the past six years, there are some that would have edged out the ones that made it to the bottom of this list. But that's not the exercise. Right. So he compared that to. We kept saying the terrible phrase of you have to kill the baby. You have to Pick one to actually make it to the top of the list. And he was like, it's not really that. It's more like a different sperm found the egg. Like, it's a different, It's a different choice that I was having to make. Rather than getting rid of my number two from 2023, which is actually one of my favorite books of all time, that one was already gone because it was number two. So I thought it was interesting that when people looked back at their top 10 from previous years, sometimes they had big feelings about like, but how could, how could this not be one of my top books of all time if. But it wasn't within the spirit of the rules. Right. So I thought that was interesting.
- [37:19]
A
It is. It's a very, very interesting exercise. There's a lot of different ways, of course, we could, we could say, you know, just pick your top 10 books of all time. Like, right. Like we could say do an all time list. I mean, we definitely could. And I think that would be an interesting thing to do. This at least gives you a little bit more structure in pulling together what your, what your possibles are. Right. So, you know, I liked it for, for that reason.
- [37:45]
B
We also had quite a few people say that they could tell within their rankings when they started listening to currently reading. Because after that they were seeing, you know, three years in a row or four of the five or five of the six years where their picks, their top pick of the year was something they had heard about on the podcast for the first time. And it changed. It pivoted their reading life in some way.
- [38:06]
A
Right. Which is this. I'm glad that you said that because one of the things that I just as an individual person thought about was why it's so important. Like, I feel so much weight on my shoulders to not only read front list books, to bring, I know both you and I do. To bring back list to the show. Because otherwise I feel like if you and I are reading all front list and that's what we're talking about, and then that's what people are reading, which is not to say we're the only place where you get it, but we're, you know, if we are one of the primary places that you get it, then we're all reading in this one kind of pool of 25 books. And you've heard me talk about that before. I hate that. So that's one of the reasons why it's really, really important to me that we bring, you know, I try to do a lot of my reading in the backlit list so that we can have some of these older books rise up to the top for, you know, for some people, which just makes this exercise more interesting. One of the biggest takeaways that I took from this and, and I will say that it a little bit, I really, really, really was doing some hand wringing of my own about this because I thought it for my own self. And then other people said the same thing. A lot of us who read a lot of mysteries and thrillers said, you know what's interesting about my top six done this way? There's not a lot of mysteries and thrillers. And it kind of made me go, because I've noticed that for my own self when I do my top 10 of the year, a lot of times my, like, top three are not mysteries of thrillers. And I've really done a lot of thinking about why that is. And you know, I think, I mean, obviously I think we know that it's because when we choose our top book of the year, it probably is, or even our top top 10, but certainly our top book of the year, it's probably a book that was either unexpected or different or blew your doors off in some not normal way.
- [40:01]
B
Yes.
- [40:01]
A
And if for those of us who read a lot of mysteries and thrillers, it's what we really, really enjoy, but they can kind of start to blend together. So our top is naturally going to self select to be the ones that are different in some way, the ones that surprise us in some way. So that's kind of my theory. But for a while there, I was like, why am I not reading enough great mysteries and thrillers that. That my top six is almost all that, you know, like. And then so many other people were saying the same thing. So I just think that's an interesting part of this exercise when you look at hundreds of people's lists.
- [40:36]
B
Yes. I had a similar realization for myself in that I know very consistently for years now. I've read about 25% nonfiction, and I love nonfiction and it hits in a great way. But not a single one of my top books of the year for my number one spot was a nonfiction pick. So I actually went back and I looked at all six of those years and just went down the row until I found the first nonfiction book on the list. It was usually somewhere between three and six down on the list, but I ranked those. And it was not nearly as hard. Ranking my number one book of the year was a much harder exercise than ranking my top nonfiction read of the year. Even Though I'm more likely to say than a nonfiction book. Book changed me as a person or, like, changed the way I view the world, because I'm learning about what's actually right in front of me. But it doesn't hit in the same way, which is interesting to me.
- [41:32]
A
Yeah. Yeah. This year, I would have more of a shot at making a list like that or kind of thinking through it like that, because I've read so much more nonfiction this year than any other year that we've done the show. Katie, there were a few books that rose to the top, and you did some figurine for us.
- [41:49]
B
I did. I played in the spreadsheets because that's my brand.
- [41:53]
A
That's where you're a freak.
- [41:55]
B
I am a freak in the spreadsheets. But y' all said that that's okay because you love me. Anyway, so we played around in the spreadsheets a little bit. We have a 10. A top 10 list of books that showed up on those top six lists over and over again. Interestingly, I. We can probably. I don't know if you want to read all 10 of them or if we can just. Just put them in show notes for this episode, but remarkably, Bright Creatures was the one that showed up most often. It showed up on almost 10% of all the lists for these entries. But the top number one pick, the book that showed up most often in the number one spot was Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. It was interesting to me that those are not the same. Right. That's a whole thing. There was one nonfiction book that showed up on that top 10 list. It was the Anthropocene, reviewed by John Green. There was one book that is way backlist from before we even started the podcast, and certainly backlist to all these books showed up in the top books of many people. Lonesome dove by Larry McMurtry. That was interesting to me because, like you said, we do try to read backlist, but a lot of these other books, other than probably Homegood Wing by Yaa Gyasi and Still Life by Louise Penny, are books that were released in the year that they made it onto people's top 10 lists.
- [43:14]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:15]
B
I mean, a few of them are.
- [43:16]
A
Not Lessons in Chemistry. And remarkably Bright Creatures do fall into that category of books that fall, you know, for me, kind of are in that. Oh, everyone's reading the same. The same book at the same time, but especially Lessons in Chemistry. But each one of those are ones that are different within the genre that they. That they live in. Right. Like there was something markedly different about it. Sparkly, you know, new, fresh, that I can definitely see making it someone's top, you know, top book where they're like. I just. I can remember everything about my experience reading that book, which is something that you see. People say a lot about it.
- [43:54]
B
Well, and there were quite a few historical fiction picks on that. Top 10 of the top sixes.
- [43:59]
A
Frozen river was everywhere.
- [44:02]
B
Right. And then Hamnet by Maggie o'. Farrell. Homegoing, as mentioned, Lessons in chemistry. Demon, Copperhead, which starts historical and comes to current day by Barbara Kingsolver. We've got a little, like, touch of sci fi with Project Hail Mary and the Midnight Library, which is like, what, Magical realism. Maybe we would put that. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.
- [44:25]
A
Yeah, no, I would put that in fantasy.
- [44:27]
B
Okay, full fantasy then. Yeah.
- [44:29]
A
I mean, it's not dragons, but yeah. Okay.
- [44:31]
B
Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha. So we've got. We've got some interesting representation. And like you said, there's one mystery on here. It's still life. And everything else on this top 10 list of the titles that showed up the most often is not mystery. Even though we know that we have a huge contingent. Contingent of all thing. Murderful Lovers. So that disconnect was happening for everyone.
- [44:55]
A
Well, right. And the other place where we saw a lot of people say the same thing was I read mostly romance.
- [45:01]
B
Right. Within the romance genre. And there was. I don't think there was any romance on my top six either. And that's 20% do a whole show about it. 20% of my rating some years. So. Yeah.
- [45:12]
A
Right. And. And I think what it speaks to is it's good for us to have a mix of books that are well within our wheelhouse, that just are just easy and feel good and. And feel familiar and are interesting and entertaining. And then also some books that push us out because those may end up being ones that make more of an impression on us. The other thing that I think was really interesting and useful for this is how. And I made this comment on the bookish friends group is this is having this kind of information in a list form, like where you can like, look at all the comments on something. It makes it really easy to say, oh, that person might be like a good book twin for me.
- [45:53]
B
Yeah.
- [45:54]
A
Like five of her six top books of the year were mine too.
- [45:57]
B
Right.
- [45:58]
A
And I can sort of. Maybe we can start chatting a little bit. Maybe we could do a buddy read. Maybe we could just kind of pay attention to each other a little bit more. It's a good way to find a bookish friend, is what I'm trying to say.
- [46:08]
B
Yes. Or a reading partner or somebody who is almost the same as you, but a little bit different to push you out of your wheelhouse and your comfort zone. Yeah. Which are all great ways to read.
- [46:18]
A
Exactly right. I absolutely love it, and I'm so glad that we did it. But, Katie, let us choose our. Let us choose our giveaway winner. So, okay, we have 555. So we're using the Instagram post as we said we would, in all the places we told people, like, hey, this.
- [46:37]
B
Would happen on Instagram. Yes. Yeah.
- [46:40]
A
And I want to use a random number generator, because I'm going to generate a number and I'm going to ask it to go from 1 to 555. And it gave me 461.
- [46:56]
B
Fun. That's a really big number.
- [46:59]
A
It is a big number.
- [47:00]
B
Oh, I get to count by myself. Okay, well, I've got an. I've got a winner for us, then.
- [47:04]
A
All right, Katie, who is our winner?
- [47:08]
B
This person was comment number 461 on that Instagram post. It's Christy Peetz. She said this was so hard and fun. Apologies to all my favorite books that got left out. I appreciated having the notion of what books would you tell. Would tell you who I am to guide my choices. Number six, Harry's Trees by John Cohen. Number five, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Number four, the Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osmond. Number three, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Number two, the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. And number one, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsol from 2023. Great job, Christie. We will message you directly. You'll already know that you won by the time you hear this on the show, but we cannot wait to chat with you. Yay. And get you your prizes.
- [47:53]
A
Absolutely. All right, good job, Christy. Good job to all of you for just playing along with us. This was really, really fun, and I feel like we learned a lot about ourselves, about the group, and hopefully some bookish friendships will start. Maybe even some little book clubs will start around this.
- [48:11]
B
Yes, I would love that.
- [48:13]
A
Wouldn't that be so much fun? All right, Katie, let's do a fountain wish. What's your wish this week?
- [48:19]
B
All right, Meredith. My fountain wish this week is I wish to tell y'. All it's a gold star to talk about my win for both reading and sleep. So a few months back, I talked about a Focus Chamber idea. After I read Stolen Focus, I was Looking into the Brick app and different options for Android users because Brick is not available for Android, I found a few options on just the Play Store. But I have found the actual solution and I love it. I started getting targeted ads by Bloom which works in a similar way to the other company I mentioned. It's a credit card size metal card that you can put in your wallet or leave in a specific place in your house and it uses near field communication to talk to your phone. But what I super love is that there are all these modes for the ways you can set it up. You can set it as work mode, school mode, sleep mode, et cetera. You can add more modes. You can customize which apps are blocked per mode, which is great, but you can also set up a schedule. So every night now my phone basically turns into a dumb phone. It's amazing. I cannot get on the browser, I can't use any social media, I can't use my email, my Google Drive, anything. I can use it to call and text and turn on and off the alarm for my house and some of the things that I need to be able to do even if it's the middle of the night. Google Maps in case I'm out late. But unless I want to walk upstairs to my bedroom, I cannot use it it to waste time and it stays that way until 6am it has done wonders for my reading life because 9pm I'm still awake, but I cannot waste time on my phone anymore after 9pm and it's not like putting a time limit on it through the parental controls because you can be like ignore, I don't care.
- [49:55]
A
Right? Or like focus like the different focus mode, focus mode.
- [49:59]
B
It's like, oh, I'll just, I'll just back out of that. I don't need it right now. Right? Yeah, it's done wonders for my reading life. It's really helped me to get to sleep faster at night and to wake up more rested. Instead of checking my phone as soon as I get up, I might lay in bed for longer because there's nothing to see on my phone. There's nothing to do there. No reason to touch it until after 6am for any reason. This metal card is a one time purchase, allows you to program everything through the app and there's no subscription fee, which I loved. It was exactly what I needed. So this is called Bloom. It works for all types of devices and it has been wonderful and I love it. So my wish is to tell you about it. Pink Splash.
- [50:36]
A
I love it. That's a really, really great one. I think that's a something we could all use. I know I could use that. I'm. I am really. I've been terrible with the scroll lately.
- [50:45]
B
Yeah. I mean, well, when the world is ending, you gotta keep track of what's going on.
- [50:49]
A
All right. My wish is that you guys would give a try to something that I've been giving a try to, which is. And then I know this is going to be surprising in one way to people, but as we get into this time of year, as you know, fall reading in general, and then as we get into winter, it's a really vibey time of year to read. And I find that either having a specific playlist of music that really vibes with the book that I'm reading or. You guys know I love an ASMR room, right? And the more closely related to the book I'm reading, the better. And I have gone to great lengths to have ridiculous numbers of very specific ASMR rooms. But I've been listening to playlists more recently. So when we were reading Katabasis, I was. I was listening to a playlist when I read Discovery of Witches, Shadow of the Wind. These are just a few examples of ones that you can just do a search for a playlist that's related to it. Sometimes it's from the author, sometimes it's from just other readers who've put together vibes. And I. I don't mind music when it doesn't have words and it's not going to make me sad. Like, that's. I don't like music. Music because it makes me sad. But no words, just vibes. It's been really adding to my reading. So my wish is that you would either look into more ASMR rooms to be on your computer or your TV in the background when you're reading. By the way, when I have an ASMR room on our big TV in the living room, my husband and son are less likely to come into that room and like, turn on the TV and started. Yeah, it, like, it kind of of sets a tone in the room that subtly affects everybody who comes into the room. Now, I'm not saying it solves all of our problems. Clearly it does not.
- [52:32]
B
Wouldn't that be great? That's my new wish.
- [52:35]
A
Yeah.
- [52:36]
B
That ams smr can just solve our problems.
- [52:38]
A
Sometimes he'll be like, oh, I. I didn't really even realize that we've sat here for 45 minutes in red and we didn't even turn on the news or whatever. And I'm like, I know. I could tell you hadn't noticed it because you know. So just something to think about. Add all the bites to your reading that you possibly can. I like to make it as immersive an experience as I possibly can. All right, Katie, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me I'm Meredith meredithmonday Schwartz on Instagram and you can find.
- [53:06]
B
Me, Katie at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putavong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of megansreads full show notes with.
- [53:16]
A
The title of every book we mentioned in the episode and timestamp. So you can zoom right to where we talked about. It can be found in our show notes or at our website currentlyreading podcast.com.
- [53:27]
B
Youm can also follow the show at currentlyreading podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreading podcastmail.com and if you want more of.
- [53:35]
A
This kind of content, join us as a bookish friend. There is so much good stuff happening over there. Of course you get all of our extra content. You also get a ton of books Bookish community and you keep this show commercial free. You can also help us by rating and reviewing us nice things only on Apple podcasts and shouting us out on social media. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience.
- [54:00]
B
Yes, Bookish friends are the best friends to us and to each other. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [54:06]
A
All right, until next week, may your.
- [54:08]
B
Coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.
- [54:11]
A
Happy reading, Katie.
- [54:12]
B
Happy reading, Meredith.