← The Currently Reading Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript245 lines
- [00:00]
Katie Cobb
Foreign.
- [00:11]
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 won't shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.
- [00:25]
Katie Cobb
We are light on the chit chat, heavy on the book talk, and our descriptions will always be spoiler free. Today we have a very special episode for you.
- [00:33]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I'm Meredith Mundy Schwartz. I'm both a mom and a Mimi and a full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And top 10 lists are both super fun and super challenging to make stressful.
- [00:45]
Katie Cobb
And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona and 2025. Katie was a new and different reader. This is episode number 22 of season eight and we are so glad you're here, Katie.
- [00:57]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It's our favorite episode of the year.
- [00:59]
Katie Cobb
It is, Meredith. This is always our most downloaded episode of the year. Y' all love a top 10 list and that means we have to go through the stress of making a top 10 list, right?
- [01:10]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
We had to make some difficult decisions to create our best books of 2025, but it ended up being a pretty good reading year if one that was a little bit odd for me. But we're, we're definitely going to be able to get into that. We're going to get down into the weeds of our reading year.
- [01:25]
Katie Cobb
Indeed we are. This is one of our favorite episodes of the year. We've got stats, we've got titles, we've got superlatives that we're very excited to get into. But first, we have a little bit of mischief to manage.
- [01:37]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
We do, Katie. And let me tell you this, we have a lot of new friends here listening to us on the Currently Reading podcast and we are so glad. We are so grateful that you've come, no matter how you've come, whether it was through word of mouth. Thank you to all our loyal listeners or from the New York Times piece about the best podcast for book lovers. We are so glad that you are here. So we want to tell you that one of the things about Currently Reading is that we do not have ads. There are no commercials in Currently Reading for any of the big show episodes. But the first show of the month, we always take a little bit of time to do our own little in house mischief. That's what Katie's talking about. We this is where we remind you that in addition to listening to all of our big episodes like you are right now, you can also join us as a bookish friend. And that means you get so much more goodness, don't they Katie?
- [02:34]
Katie Cobb
Oh yes, indeed. So we do have a paywall. It's a very low barrier to entry, but it has so much good stuff behind it. And that, that is how we make sure that we can keep making this content for you and keep it commercial free, which is one of our favorite things about currently reading.
- [02:50]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right? So it's $5 a month and you get our indie press list episode every single month. We work with an independent bookstore and they create a stack of five books that are not the ones that you're seeing everywhere. Katie and I talk them through. You get a chance to support an independent bookstore. It's a great way to discover brand new to you books. We also have All Things Murderful, which focuses just on mysteries and thrillers, which I do with Elizabeth Barnhill. That's once a month. And we do Love and Chili Peppers, which Katie does with Rebecca Hoffer. All about romance and all of the spiciness. And in addition to that, you get our Facebook group which has almost 3,000 incredibly smart, incredibly welcoming readers. If you don't have a lot of readers in your real life, this is where your next group chat is going to find you. This is where your next buddy Read is going to be found. This is where your next book club is going to be found. You are going to love this Facebook group. It is all the reason to be on Facebook. In addition to all of that, it's January. You're going to want to get our reading Tracker. This is a spreadsheet that so many of us use to track our reading. You can do it simply or in a very in depth way. Katie, you've created an amazing spreadsheet and you can get access to that, all of that for $5 a month. It's a book bonanza. There is no question. Now, if you're on the fence right now, you can join us with a completely free. You can join us because we're having a free trial for a few days after this show launches or drops. You are going to be able to join us completely for free. You can get in there, you can download things, you can listen around, see what you think of it. And then if you decide to stick around and join us, then you get the reading tracker too. So it's a really, really low effort, low risk way of joining us and I think you're absolutely going to love it.
- [04:50]
Katie Cobb
Yes, we would love to have you take a peek behind the scenes. Get into the currently reading Bookish friends group with us get into all the bonus content we have over there. And then maybe after that week, you'll decide you just can't live without us and you'll keep the show commercial free.
- [05:06]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
We hope so. We hope that you will join us. All right, Katie, that's our mischief managed for the entire month of January.
- [05:12]
Katie Cobb
All done. Now we get to just talk about books for the entire rest of the month, which is our favorite thing to do. That means that today we get to get into, as mentioned, our favorite episode of the year. We're going to talk about our top tens lists, y'. All. We are counting down from 10 to 1. We're going to intersperse it with some fun superlatives. But first, let's get started with some overall stats. Meredith and I both use the Reading Tracker in order to figure out what's working best for us in our reading lives. And that's what we're going to get into a little bit now here. So, Meredith, what do you want to highlight for us from your reading year?
- [05:45]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right, so overall, when I take a look at my my year overall, my stats bear out what my gut had kind of been telling me. And the story of 2025 for me was that it was not my year for new releases. So in 2025, for whatever reason, the books that came out that were all over Bookstagram were just not ones that were calling to me or if I try, it's not say all of them, but the vast majority. I just felt like this year I wasn't in the zeitgeist, like, you know what I mean? And some years are different than others. 22, 23, I felt like I was. So I was having to force myself to read back list because I was reading so much front list that was not 2025 for me. And my top 10 list really, really is very backlist heavy. So it bears out what I'm saying here.
- [06:39]
Katie Cobb
Interesting. Yeah, I found myself feeling the same in that 2025 felt like a very different reading year for me. But then when I went back and looked at the overall stats and I used my previous year's outline for my best of year list to prepare for this one. So I had all those stats readily available to me. It turns out it was actually really similar in some ways and really different in others, my backlist, like yours, went way up. It was 68% of my reading in 2025, which is crazy. And that for that I'm counting anything published before 2025, it doesn't mean that that author has A newer release, it just means that they didn't publish it in 2025. The book that I read, it was. I read more fiction this year than I normally do. I bumped up my audio again, which was a goal of mine, to actually bump up my print, so it didn't work out. My number of books for the year, almost exactly the same as 2024, and I could have sworn it was going to be far lower.
- [07:37]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
What was your number?
- [07:39]
Katie Cobb
It was230.230.
- [07:41]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay. And so that was right around where.
- [07:43]
Katie Cobb
You were the year before for 2024. Yeah. But throughout the year, I felt like, oh, I'm just not reading as much, and we'll just see what happens. It turns out it was almost exactly the same number, which is very strange to me.
- [07:58]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
That's interesting. I was at 127, which was down 10 from 2024, which is obviously. That was 137. And I felt like I read in a. More. I didn't beat myself up. If there was a period of time where I had, like, a couple of days where I didn't jump into the next book. I guess I gave myself a little bit more grace this year, and I think that probably accounts for that drop in the aggregate number. But when I look at my actual pages that I read, I was really not down that far at all. I was at roughly 42,000 pages for the year, and in the previous year, it was like 43, 500. So it was like a little bit up, but not that much more. I read a lot of novellas this year, but then I also read a few. A few chonkers. So that, again, balanced it out. Average Pages per book, 334. That feels really, really normal and average to me. I read 64% female authors to 36% male authors. A little bit more. A little bit more male authors this year, but I had an average star rating of 4.1, which is. This is the metric that I really pay attention to.
- [09:15]
Katie Cobb
Right.
- [09:15]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
So I don't really care about how many books I read in the year as long as I can keep up with the show. I don't really care about average number of books. You know, it's interesting. Like, they're interesting numbers, but my metric of success is how many books AM I rating? 4 or higher. And for me, it was 80. I had a successful book percentage of 88%, which. That is by far the best I've ever done, which tells me that my picker is getting better. And I am telling you, it's because of the way I'm tracking my reading, there are a few specific things that I track that have absolutely made it so that I make better choices for myself.
- [09:58]
Katie Cobb
Right? Yes. I have continued to see my average star rating creep up slightly over the years. And I know it has to do with figuring out what's working for me and then leaning harder into it as much as I possibly can.
- [10:11]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
And so here at Currently Reading, obviously, you guys know we call this reader know thyself. This is the thing that we preach more than anything else. The more you know what works for you, the more successful your book percentage is going to be and the happier, more satisfying your reading life is going to be. And that is what we're trying to accomplish at Currently Reading. We're trying to give you the tools that you need to have the most satisfying reading life possible.
- [10:38]
Katie Cobb
Indeed. Do you have a top genre for the year or a top recommendation source that you want to share?
- [10:44]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes. And I will just say, Let me, let me just kind of put this in here from a format perspective. My digital format. So I'm about 44% on my, my Kindle, 41% print, and then 13% audiobook. And so those are all about where I was last year. That digital number keeps going up and the, the print number kind of goes down in a correlated way. Audio hovers right there at that same. That same place. And that's just because of the season I'm in in my life. I've been in other seasons where I did most of my reading on audio when I was doing a lot of commuting. Okay, genre. Nobody's going to be surprised that my most read genre is mystery, thriller. There's absolutely no question. My second highest is fantasy, which makes it was no surprise to anyone. But poetry was 4% of my overall reading, which is by far the highest. It's still a small number, but by far the highest poetry has ever been in my entire life. I read five books of poetry this year, and I'm really happy about that. It's still a small number overall, but it was a place where I wanted to give more time and attention, and I absolutely did. This year. 2025 was a big year in nonfiction overall for me. It was 17% of my reading, which is way, way up from the past five years. So my brain really turned that direction this year.
- [12:19]
Katie Cobb
Interesting. I like that. I was not super surprised, but a little bit delighted to see that my top genre of this year was romance, with 22% of my reads, followed also by fantasy, 20% of my books. And the thing that really stood out to me that was of note this year is that I tagged fully 14% of my books as literary, which is way up from previous years. This year, I was much more willing to settle into a story that was maybe a little dreamier, maybe a little more descriptive, maybe a little more mental effort than I had put into my books in the past. And it played out well for me. So it made me happy to see that I wasn't scared away by the literary tag when I was doing my reading this year, which was delightful.
- [13:09]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
That's one of the most interesting things when we look back on our reading year, and it's so dependent on what happened in our life, Right? Like, we've both had years doing the podcast where we were like, man, for me, it's like, no nonfiction, a ton of popcorn thrillers, like, just that really light reading. Because I had years where I just didn't have the bandwidth for more than that. And then other years, like, you're talking about, where it's like, no, I read some classics, I read literary fiction. I read more character driven, less plot driven, because I just had that brain space to be able to do that. So if that's not your year this year, that's fine, because you will have other years where your brain wants to do that.
- [13:47]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [13:47]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
So, Katie, I said earlier that there were several things that I was tracking that helped me make really good decisions for myself. And two of the things that I credit for that 88% positive rating for me is that I track my recommendation sources, and I track the publishing houses of the books that I read. Those two things have been incredibly instrumental in me knowing what books I want to prioritize. So this year, as with every year, the biggest source for me is books that are written by authors that I've read before. And so that category for me, I call author forward slash series. And 41 of my books, 32% of my books fell into that category. So that's always kind of my biggest bucket. I'm revisiting authors that I've loved before. And then, of course, we know that Elizabeth Barnhill is a fantastic recommendation source, especially for mysteries and thrillers for me. But this year, she is not number one. The number one recommendation source for me this year was library serendipity.
- [15:03]
Katie Cobb
Ooh.
- [15:04]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
And that means I went to my library, I picked a buttload of books, sometimes just because of the COVID or the title or a shelf talker, something like that, and I just put it in my bag, took it home. And then I did book flights through those books and chose what ever appealed to me based on reading the first little bit. And I just let my library kind of juju take me through the year, and it ended up 13 books, 10% of my reading, and an average rating of 4.3. So those were really successful. So library serendipity, some of the ones that are right up there, though, obviously Elizabeth Barnhill, Betsy Eikenberry has recommended five books to me, and those were really successful. Roxanna recommended eight books to me. Those were really successful. And then I'm always looking at our Bookish Friends group, and they recommended several that I really, really loved. So tracking my recommendation sources, what about for you? What are your top recommendation sources?
- [16:08]
Katie Cobb
Well, my very top is once again, my reading partner, Katie Proctor. She and I read together a lot. So between the books that we read together and the ones that she read and then pressed into my hands, that was 40 of the books that I read this year. That's a lot. That is a lot.
- [16:25]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It's a lot.
- [16:26]
Katie Cobb
The Indie Press list was actually my second highest after that. That was 30 of the books that I read this year came from either the indie press list or the Indie press list bookstores in our Best the Rest series, they just really were hitting it out of the park for me, and they had very high ratings. And then strangely, Libro FM was my next one. And that usually means that I picked it up because they gave it to me as an alc over on Libro. I love that benefit. I love Libro FM so much. And then you were right behind that one, Meredith. So I read 20 books because Libro FM gave them to me. And then I read 19 because, as we say on the show, Meredith made me do it. The way you talk about books, we all know, all the listeners know that all of a sudden we're like, well, I need that right now. I need it right now in my hands.
- [17:12]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I gotcha.
- [17:13]
Katie Cobb
I gotcha. You got me 19 times this year, which is a lot.
- [17:16]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, and so I should put a little number on when I talked about the Bookish Friends again, our. Our Facebook group just for currently reading Patron subscribers. Ten of the books were ones that were recommended in that group with an average rating of 4.4. So again, another fantastic source for. For books for me. And we learned to recommend to each other. So that's. That's really, really helpful. What about publishing houses, Katie? Do you find that to be useful for you?
- [17:44]
Katie Cobb
Because so much of my reading is in romance. There's actually, there's not a lot of variation there because Berkeley is the biggest romance publisher. So I had nine published by Berkeley, seven by Random House. Those were my top two. And then some of the other bigger publication conglomerates like Harper, William Morrow, the one that stands out to me as a very high rating is both Atria Books and Flatiron. They continue to rise up in number of books and high ratings. So I continue to intentionally follow what they're putting out.
- [18:21]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Absolutely. Minotaur is that for me. Minotaur is consistently. That is of course, the publishing house that Louise Penny is out of. But a lot of my favorite mysteries are out of Minotaur. If I see Minotaur is a publisher on a certain book and I'm like, I don't know much about it. I will automatically download it or put it in my bag because those work for me. Atria is another one that works for me. This year, Random House really, really worked for me with six books, an average rating of 4.4. And one of the recommendation sources that consistently works for me is an email newsletter from Penguin Random House. Again, mostly mysteries and fantasy that are going to come to me this way. But for some reason, that is one email newsletter that more often than not, if they recommend some backlist title randomly, it's going to be a huge hit for me. So that's something to look out for this year. My big loser publisher, which doesn't mean it's a loser publisher, but it was not help. It was not good for me, was Grand Central Publishing. And there were four books with an average of 3.7. And again, Del Rey down there at just two books, but 3.8. Del Rey was my loser publisher of last year. So again, doesn't mean it a hundred percent of the time, but it is something. It is a data point to watch and it can help help you prioritize books that are going to work best for you.
- [19:47]
Katie Cobb
Yes, let's see. I have Grove Publishing, two books, 3.6 star average.
- [19:53]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay.
- [19:53]
Katie Cobb
Bummer.
- [19:54]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah, exactly. All right, Katie, so we should get into our top 10.
- [19:58]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, that was a lot of. A lot of deep diving into the stats and the mechanics of what makes our reading life work. So let's see how it played out. What actually rose to the top for us this year. And we do have a lot of superlatives. So as I was thinking about this episode, Meredith, I was thinking maybe we should start with a superlative so that at the very end we end with our top books of the year. Okay. So do you have a superlative you want to bring to us first.
- [20:25]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right, Katie, what about the book or books that you will recommend the most from the books that you read this year?
- [20:32]
Katie Cobb
This is a fun question for me, actually, because mine is actually a book of poetry. I know that I will be recommending A Rebellion of Care by David Gate most often in the coming year and probably the years to come after that. I think it's a perfect gift book size, but it's so much more than a gift book. It's not like, Flip to page 38 and fill in your dreams for the next year. Like, it's not that kind of book, but it holds your heart in the way that you would want a really great recommendation to do. And I just love David Gate. I want to be friends with him.
- [21:07]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah, that's real. That one burrowed right in for you.
- [21:11]
Katie Cobb
It surely did, yes. What about you?
- [21:13]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I have a couple. So the one that I immediately thought of because I've just recommended to so many people is so Far Gone by Jess Walter. Now, I didn't read a lot, clearly, you will see in my top 10, I didn't read a lot of straight fiction this year. It is clear to me that my brain wanted things that are outside of the norm. But so Far Gone by Jess Walter is so good, so readable. It's the one about the guy who. He's basically, he's estranged from his daughter. They had this big fight, this big blow up, and then he goes and lives kind of out in the boondocks. And then one day, his daughter and his brings his grandchildren. And basically she's like, I need your help. I need for you to take the kids for a little while. I'm having some marital troubles. And then it goes on from there. Jess Walter is just a masterful storyteller. This is so accessible. These characters feel so lived in and the pages fly by from a plot perspective. But also, you are really, really, really, you recognize these characters. They feel like people that, you know. That's a book that I feel like I could put in almost anyone's hands, and they're really, really going to enjoy it.
- [22:25]
Katie Cobb
Excellent. Okay, I like it. Let's get into our number tens for our top ten list. What is your number ten spot?
- [22:34]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
So we're gonna make it super easy for you in the show notes to be able to tell my top 10 and Katie's top 10, even though in the show we're gonna be pinging back and forth. So just so you know, like, it's kind of Hard to mentally keep that together unless you can see.
- [22:48]
Katie Cobb
Show notes will have a lot of book titles in them and you will easily be able to tell which ones were actually the top 10.
- [22:54]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
And they're gonna have links, so click and buy it. So.
- [22:58]
Katie Cobb
And timestamps.
- [22:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
And timestamps. Our show notes are good. Thank you, Megan. Okay, number 10. Number 10 is always one of the hardest spots.
- [23:07]
Katie Cobb
I know because it's like it's the last one.
- [23:09]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right. Number 10 is one of the only books that I read that you could call a kind of mystery thriller. And I'm going to use air quotes for the word thriller because they. That's how they want to market it. But this just was so much better than that. It's the Ghostwriter by Julie Clark. That's my number 10. This book was just exactly what I want from a mystery or thriller. Well written, extraordinarily well plotted. I had to find out what was going to happen, characters to root for enough that you, you know, enough puzzle to put together to chew on. It moved fast, but I remember, I remember it. It didn't just like dissipate like cotton candy. This was definitely my favorite mystery of the year for sure. Hands down. The Ghost Rider by Julie Clark.
- [24:02]
Katie Cobb
Excellent. Love that. Oh, gosh. Okay, here we go. Gotta do it. Number 10 for me is you could make this place beautiful by Maggie Smith. Not that Maggie Smith. There are a few honorable mentions that go with this book because I had a year of leaning hard into and loving memoirs of women who divorced in midlife. Right. That was a theme for me this year. That was a big part of my life. So I will add in parentheses awake by Jen Hatmaker. And I thought it would be better than this by Jessica Turner. All three of these books really held my hands throughout a year of really big changes for me, but met me where I was at. I started 2025 already knowing that I was going to be getting divorced and I had to learn more about me and what that would look like. So by the time I read Maggie Smith memoir in Poetry in the summer, I was so jaw droppingly ready to adore her. It was wondrous. And I bought it in paper as soon as it next crossed my path so that I could hold it and have it in my house because I still probably at least once a week go over there and flip open to a random page and feel like this poem was written for me. This page was written for me. I loved it so much. That one was you could make this place beautiful by Maggie Smith.
- [25:17]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I love it when books meet us just exactly. They come to us exactly when we need them. It's just one of the best things about the reading life.
- [25:25]
Katie Cobb
All right, for our next superlative, I would love to ask you which book you read that would be hardest to shelve in the library or in the bookstore or in your own home library.
- [25:39]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes, I read. I'm going to talk about a book here just a little bit because I have not yet brought it to the show. And this, my friends, is why we don't make our top 10 until the actual end of the year. This is a book called Turns of Fate by Anne Bishop. This is hard to shelve into traditional genres because it is equal parts police procedural, murder mystery, and fantasy. Tainted cup fans, this is where we want to be. This is a very, very interesting book about London. If right over the river in London, there's an island, and on that island are people who have some magical powers and they have a lot of rules around how their culture interacts with regulars, with normies. Murders happen. Murders have to be solved, but then there's also some magic. And it is so good. But it is equal parts fantasy and kind of police procedural and absolutely impossible to shelve between those two. So that's Turns of Fate by Anne Bishop. I'm going to give this a whole treatment on the show in the next couple of weeks, but that's kind of just a. I had to. That was just the answer to this question.
- [26:54]
Katie Cobb
Perfect. I love it. Mine is actually one of those Meredith Made Me do it books that we talked about. My choice for this category is My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brody Ashton and Jodi Meadows. This is all the things. It's historical fiction, it's ya, maybe new adult. It's satire, it's magical realism, it's humor. It's everything you could possibly want it to be. All wrapped up in this beautiful little package that you just cannot put down. I hated that it took me so long to finally pick it up because by the time I read it, it was so exceedingly perfect for me and it brought me so much joy.
- [27:30]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It came to you at the right time, but you're definitely right. That is. That's a hard one to shelf.
- [27:36]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. Where do you put it in the bookstore? You could put one copy in each of those locations and everybody would be equally happy to find it.
- [27:42]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yep.
- [27:42]
Katie Cobb
So that is My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brody Ashton and Jodi Meadows.
- [27:46]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I love that one. I love that whole series.
- [27:48]
Katie Cobb
So good. All right, book number nine.
- [27:50]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
On your list, book number nine is Royal Gambit by Daniel o'. Malley. This one is, you know, is one of my best reading experiences. We talk about that a lot. Like maybe a book is not necessarily or top 10, but it's just such a great reading experience. Well, this one ended up being both. Royal Gambit is fantasy, but also it's very hard to explain. You've heard me talk about it on the show. But it is. The premise is this is in British royal society, the Prince of Wales is killed by some sort of supernatural being. So Daniel o' Malley writes this series of books that's about the police force that basically deals with these supernatural beings and when they do bad things. And so one of them has to embed herself into the royal family and has to protect the daughter of the Prince of Wales. And this mishmash of British royal family and royal politics and intrigue plus supernatural plus police force. Again, we I've just talked about kind of two books back to back. This was really where my mind wanted to be this year. This was my favorite kind of book this year. Royal Gambit is funny, it's incredibly Smart. It's about 450 pages, but it feels like a novella for how fast it goes. I absolutely loved every single page of reading it. That's Royal Gambit by Daniel o'. Malley.
- [29:25]
Katie Cobb
Excellent. My number nine spot engendered some strong opinions, including from my partner. Here I'm giving number nine to Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor.
- [29:35]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Ah yes.
- [29:37]
Katie Cobb
Plenty of people loved this book. Plenty of people threw it across the room. It was an absolute win for me though. I oftentimes don't love a book with an unlikable protagonist at its core. But that didn't cause a problem for me in this case. And I really loved the book within a book aspect where we are flipping back and forth between two stories that are happening where concurrently, separately, in the future. What's going on? I loved the way that Nnedi Okorafor made me work for it in this book and this is one that I did read with my reading partner Katie. We finished it together, which really added to the experience because the ending I needed to talk about immediately with the person I was reading it with. So I loved it. This is Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor.
- [30:25]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Excellent. So we should probably just immediately segue to the book that we hated the.
- [30:33]
Katie Cobb
Most wanted to throw across the room. I think that's a great idea.
- [30:37]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Mine was Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. I hated this book. I hated this book so much I was yelling I finished it. So that's saying something about it, right? Like, I definitely wanted to know what was going to happen. It's got a great cover. I just could not stand this book. And you know what? Okay, but this is what. This is where it's interesting. And this is again, reader, know thyself. Katie. One of the things that I realized this year that I don't want to be true about me because I think it kind of makes me sound like a baby reader. But it is true about me, which is that I simply don't like a book if I don't like my main character. I do not want to be that kind of reader. But I have to accept that I am. And I could not stand the main character of Death of the Author. And that was the. That was a deal breaker for me. It's not that it wasn't incredibly well written, because it was. It was that I just viscerally detested her. And again, that's why we need to know these things about ourselves.
- [31:50]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [31:51]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
You know?
- [31:51]
Katie Cobb
Yes.
- [31:51]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
So strong opinions.
- [31:53]
Katie Cobb
Exactly.
- [31:53]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
But you loved it. I hated it. That was a really divisive book overall.
- [31:57]
Katie Cobb
It really was. It really was. And that's okay. We contain multitudes here. I'm really glad it wasn't my number one book though, after. Because I know that we would have hit that superlative at some point and then I would have had to sit there and be like, well, just wait, just wait, just wait. That's my number one. I'm so excited.
- [32:14]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
What's your book?
- [32:16]
Katie Cobb
The book that I wanted to throw across the room, I had to choose because I had two that were very closely tied here. But it's. I'm going with Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown.
- [32:25]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh yeah. Ugh.
- [32:27]
Katie Cobb
This book still makes me so angry.
- [32:30]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Right, but figuring out why you hated it so much is very useful.
- [32:35]
Katie Cobb
Exactly. And it was the fact that Dan Brown, A, treated his readers like they were idiots and B, wrote like he Learned in the 1980s that you end every chapter with a cliffhanger. And he is going to hold on to that writing advice until you pry it from his cold, dead hands. It was so awful. It was just not a fun experience. And even though I really liked the central knowledge that he was trying to impart about consciousness and the ways that consciousness works, and I want to learn more about that, Dan Brown was not the fount of knowledge there that I wanted him to be, it is closely tied with the time Traveler's Wife, unfortunately, by Audrey Nefenegoria. That was a rereading experience that went very poorly for me. Right.
- [33:19]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Which is one of my favorite books. I absolutely love that book. But. So it's important for you to know as far as the Dan Brown, that you can really be into the premise of a book. But if you're being condescended to or just treated like a dummy all the way through, you're not. The premise isn't going to matter if you're. If it's. If you're being, like, talked down to in that way or, you know, treated like a ninth grader, then you're not gonna enjoy it.
- [33:47]
Katie Cobb
Yep, exactly. Okay, let's get into our number eights.
- [33:52]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right. Number eight for me was A Winter's Promise by Christelle Davos. This is fantasy, I'm telling you guys. Not all of. Not my whole list is fantasy. But there's a lot of fantasy on my list this year, no question. Like, that hit hard for me. Winter's Promise is a great example of fantasy that I love. This is not romantasy. So that's. That's something to really note about my top 10, that I was really thinking a lot of fantasy, not romantasy. So A Winter's Promise has a little bit of romance. It is not the focus. This is a book that was a. That was by a French author. So it's a work of trans. In translation. It is beautifully written. It has a good, gorgeous magical construct, which I love. Our lead character, a lead character who I absolutely adored can move. She can use mirrors to move between different places. It's really gorgeous magical construct. Overall, there's a lot of different magic that people have in this world. The world building is done very, very well. And what I said in my notes is a kind of zips together what I loved about fantasy this year. Richly drawn worlds that don't take forever to understand, political machinations that involve figuring out who to trust and possibly who you need to murder. And enough development that I care about my lead characters. Winter's Promise delivered on all of this and has a gorgeous cover. So that's A Winter's Promise by Christelle Davos.
- [35:27]
Katie Cobb
So good. And it is a thing that we've noted in past years as well, that the things that rise to the top for us are not always the books that we read the most of. Right. If murder and mystery is most of what you're reading and then only one made it to your top 10, but fantasy was your second most genre and a Bunch made it. That says something about our reading and our enjoyment of it. So it's worth noting. My number eight spot goes to My Friends by Frederik Bachman. A new novel from Fredrik Backman has always been a reason to throw a small party in my house. I love his writing. This year was no exception. This story is beautifully moving and laced with humor and friendship and found family and the ways that we grow and change. It's so much about childhood and the friends that shape us, and then it's about adulthood and the people that saw us all the way there. It's about the power of art. I could go on and on, but suffice to say that Louisa and Ted especially are deeply moving portraits of humanity and community. And this one is within my top three of Fredrik Backman's books as an author for me, which says something because I really love a lot of his books. But My Friends, My friends, y'. All. Y' all are my friends. But My Friends was phenomenal. It's right up there. It's like that or the Beartown series as number one. Okay. I love it.
- [36:55]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, I love it when a new book from him is a fit for you. I absolutely love it.
- [37:01]
Katie Cobb
Me too. They are not always. There are some books of his that I do not appreciate very much at all. So that was My Friends by Fredrik Backman. Okay. A new superlative. Let's talk about.
- [37:13]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, I know which one I want to do.
- [37:14]
Katie Cobb
Oh, okay. Let's do it.
- [37:16]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Let's do the book that made you most uncomfortable.
- [37:20]
Katie Cobb
Okay. This is the most 12 year old I'm going to get in this episode, so I'm going first. Okay. Mine is. It doesn't sound like it should make me uncomfortable. It's called Eager by Ben Goldfarb. I loved this book. It was so good. But it is all about beavers, Meredith. And you cannot in this day and age walk around telling people how you're reading a book about beavers and now you think beavers are so cool and they're just like beaver, beaver, beaver. You can't do that in the year of our Lord 2025.
- [37:52]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah, it sucks for beavers. I feel like big beaver needs to take the name back because really, truly. Exactly. But I love that you deep dove into a really cool animal.
- [38:03]
Katie Cobb
It is so amazing. I cannot highly recommend this enough and it's one that I just finished, so it hasn't been brought to the show yet. Y' all know though, that I love like really getting to know an animal. And again here, 12 year old so getting to know beavers intimately was just really special to me. And the ways that they just permeate the entire United States and then they're all over the world as well, and they really shape the landscape and they could change climate change. Like, they are amazing animals. And I just want to talk about beavers all the time and I can't because that's weird. So it made me very uncomfortable.
- [38:40]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
My favorite thing about all of this is that the book is called Eager. That's Eager.
- [38:45]
Katie Cobb
It's so good.
- [38:46]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Perfect.
- [38:47]
Katie Cobb
I love it so much. What is yours?
- [38:49]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right. The book that made me uncomfortable, but that I'm really, really glad I read was a book I actually read at the very beginning of the year, and that is Sandy Hook by Elizabeth Williamson. And this was, yes, partly about the tragedy that took place in Sandy Hook, but more about the aftermath and about the legal battle between the parents of Sandy Hook and Infowars Alex Jones and that trial set of trials and everything that was related to that was absolutely fascinating. It was. Elizabeth Williamson is an amazing journalist. It's written with a very journalistic approach. It's not written histrionically. It's very straight ahead in its narrative. And it was just a story that made me uncomfortable because it was so fraught with sadness. And then of course, you're very angry as you're reading it when you see what these parents were made to go through in addition to the tragedy of losing their children. And also I felt like it was a. I felt like I needed to read it to like, stand as a witness to what they had been through. So that was an excellent book that have stayed with me all year long. Sandy Hook by Elizabeth Williamson.
- [40:07]
Katie Cobb
Partners. Well, with so many that we've read over the years and brought to the show as well. Okay, we are on book number seven of this top ten list. What is yours?
- [40:18]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Okay, my book number seven is my only work of nonfiction. It is not going to surprise anybody. It's Forensics the Anatomy of crime by Val McDermott. And this is a book that is just. That's written by. It's nonfiction. It's all about the different forensic sciences. And Val McDermott, who is a Scottish mystery writer, does an amazing job of going through each one of them and illustrating where that particular forensic science got started. Like how it came to us, how far it's come, how it's used, how it sometimes is used, is misused, how it can go very wrong. It's illustrated with really interesting real life cases. The way that Val McDermott handles this book. I read it with rapt attention for weeks. I'm going to answer the question that so many people have asked now. I read it in print. I bought it in London and I read it in print. My version has blowflies on. There's a blowfly illustration on every page of the book. They do not move with in any particular way when you flip through the pages. I know a lot of people wanted to know that. I mean, they do move in kind of an interesting way because you're flipping through the pages. But I couldn't, I couldn't detect any rhyme or reason to it. But who cares? Because just the fact that they're there on every page delighted me endlessly.
- [41:41]
Katie Cobb
I will say I picked that one up in the bookstore this past weekend and the US version does not have the blowflies. So if anybody wants those blowflies, they do need to order from Blackwell's or Waterstones.
- [41:54]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, that's exactly what you need to do because that. Oh, those blow flies. They make it. They make it.
- [42:00]
Katie Cobb
I didn't buy it because I was like, well, no blowflies. Why would I even put this on my shelves?
- [42:06]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yeah, 100%. I, I annotated the heck out of that book. You should have seen me. I was just like a little detective all the way through making notes.
- [42:16]
Katie Cobb
Love it.
- [42:17]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right, what's your number? Seven?
- [42:19]
Katie Cobb
Perfect. My number seven is probably the oldest book on my list. This year it's Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.
- [42:26]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh yes, Backlist.
- [42:29]
Katie Cobb
It is. Backlist. It is a 25 year old novel that took me completely by surprise. This year. Barbara Kingsolver was my most read author with three books. Although I did reread all of the Amari series with my kids, which was another three books by Bebe Alston. Her breadth and depth in every story she tells continues to astound me. And while I also read Demon Copperhead and loved it, Prodigal Summer took my top spot for sheer delight. Love of nature, the way she transported me into this beautiful forest and the relationships that she built on the pages. I loved this book so much and it's 25 years old and that makes me very happy. I love discovering that something has been on my shelf for years just waiting for the perfect time.
- [43:17]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I love it so much. I love Barber King Silver and I read that one back in the day, like probably, probably 20 years ago.
- [43:23]
Katie Cobb
Right.
- [43:24]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
So, yeah, her work holds up in a big way. That was. That's one of those authors that I would love to be a completist.
- [43:30]
Katie Cobb
Of. Yeah, Katie and I are working on it, for sure. We're getting close. We're getting close. All right. I am going to throw in a superlative here that is a little different from what we normally do. I want to hear about the best picture book that you read aloud to. Well, for you, it'll be your grandkids. For me, it'll be my kids. But what rose to the top for you, Meredith?
- [43:53]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
This was really easy. My ba. I have two grandsons who live near to me, so I have them a lot. And I have so many books for them.
- [44:01]
Katie Cobb
Right. I mean, this is the perpetual dilemma. Yes. But instead, I read this one 365.
- [44:07]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Times, and that's exactly what it was. They both chose the same book over and over again, and that was no David by David Shannon. Do you know this book?
- [44:20]
Katie Cobb
I do. I do.
- [44:21]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
My grandson Jeffrey, who is 3, almost 4, he just loves David's shenanigans. He is so affronted by the different things that this child does in this book, like tracking in mud into the house or playing with a baseball bat inside and breaking a vase. And Jeffrey is just.
- [44:45]
Katie Cobb
He.
- [44:46]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Before we even start reading it, he'll be like, Mimi, he's gonna hit the vase with a baseball bat. Or, Mimi, he's gonna reach up for the cookies up where he.
- [44:54]
Katie Cobb
Spoiler alert, Jeffrey.
- [44:57]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I read this book at least a hundred times in the past year.
- [45:02]
Katie Cobb
Oh, I love that. It actually pairs really nicely with mine, which is the Creature of Habit by Jennifer E. Smith and Leo Espinosa. This is a book about a little creature that lives on the island of habit. And he wants to do the same things every single day. That's what brings him joy. And eventually another creature shows up, a small creature that he gets to show. Like, here's how we do the things. We go say hi to the fish. We eat an orange and a banana every day. And then that creature is like, but I want to try something new. And the creature of habit is, like, pulling out his hair, like, oh, my gosh, you can't. And eventually they have to learn that, like, it's okay to choose something new sometimes. Maybe Jeffrey would like the Creature of Habit. It's okay to choose a new thing sometimes. It's really. It's beautifully illustrated. It's really wonderful. And it's this great look at, like, just because we've always done something the one way, you can keep doing it that way, and sometimes you can do something a little different.
- [46:02]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
This is definitely one that I need to get for my very Very, very type one baby boy, Jeffrey. There is no question. I'm gonna add this to my list because I would love. Well, I would just love to read another book, Katie, honestly.
- [46:14]
Katie Cobb
I bet. I bet you would. I love that. Okay, book number six on our list. What is yours?
- [46:20]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right. Book number six has been everywhere. So much so that Katie, I did not even want to put it on my list because I'm so sick of hearing about it.
- [46:30]
Katie Cobb
But it's probably my number two.
- [46:32]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I'm gonna be so fast, I am just not even going to spend any time on it. It's the Correspondent by Virginia Evans. It is fantastic. Sybil forever. Sybil for president. Sybil for my mentor. I absolutely love her. The book is excellent. I ended up crying. That's all I'm going to say about it. If you haven't read it, what are you doing? It's got 4.57 on, like, 120,000. It's so highly rated. It's so good. It's so everywhere. It had to be on my list. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know it's been everywhere.
- [47:03]
Katie Cobb
Okay. Yes, it's true. I had the same reservations. I ended up putting that at number three. So I'm just gonna scooch everything else up because there was a lot going on with my top five especially. But the Correspondent was one of my top books of the year. Again, it was three. We're gonna put it here at six. That's okay. I didn't bring this as my own current read this season, but season eight, episode 11. I mentioned it briefly. Meredith brought it as a full treatment book, which is what we call it when we bring it as a current read on season seven, episode 40. What matters here is that it's epistolary. Like, it's. So we're talking about likable and unlikable protagonists a lot this episode. Yes. Sybil for President. I loved this character so much, it made me want to write letters and keep a lifelong journal record of myself. So, like, I don't do any of those things. But I was inspired and moved anyway. Oh, so good. I love this book, and it does. It makes me so mad that every. It's on everybody's top 10 list.
- [48:04]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It's just like it is. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see the COVID again. But I absolutely loved it. And as far as characters, this is really my sweet spot for the kind of character that I love. I don't need a character that is perfect in Fact, if a character is too perfect, it's not interesting.
- [48:21]
Katie Cobb
Right.
- [48:22]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
But a character that is so lived in and that you can root for, that you want good things to happen to, and that reveals themselves. I mean, Virginia Evans reveals Sybil to us in the most amazing way. That was really the reason that the book was so. Was so good. I mean, it deserves all the accolades that it's gotten. It deserves to be on all of the lists. But I know that you and I are trying to do, like, we never want to. We never want our show to be.
- [48:50]
Katie Cobb
Like all of the other predictable and everybody else's. Yes, exactly. We're special and unique little flowers.
- [48:56]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, I mean, we just want to get more than that. I think. We just want to give a unique experience to our listeners so that they're not like, oh, I've heard this a million times before.
- [49:06]
Katie Cobb
Indeed. Okay, our next superlative best audiobook.
- [49:11]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Katie, what was your best audio experience of the year?
- [49:15]
Katie Cobb
Best audiobook. This one almost snuck into my top 10. And when I first listened to it early in the year, I was pretty sure that it was going to be on my top 10. But it was woodworking by Emily St. James. This one, the audio production was done really well. It also had a full cast, which really often works very well for me. So there's something like eight narrators. The author is one of those eight narrators, which also works really well for me in my audio. And it brought this story to life, which is about a trans woman kind of coming out in a small town and a young girl that is at the t that she teaches at the high school where she works, where it was really beautifully done. And longtime listeners do know that I have a trans sister. So I love a storyline that. That centers trans voices. And this one, I sent it to her immediately, and I said, you need to listen to this one right away. The way that they dealt with things like dead naming and other people's interactions with her really made it sing in a beautiful way for me.
- [50:16]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Excellent. My number one audiobook experience was this book, Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead. Now this. This Book Will Bury Me was right up there with, like, could have been my number 10, like, ghostwriter. And. And this book Will Bury Me were right there at, like, 10 and 11. I had not read Ashley Winstead before. This was absolutely a. The audio experience was me ironing things in my home that did not need to be ironed. I mean, really, Johnny's like, why? Why are you ironing our towels, Meredith? That really doesn't need to be done. And I'm like. But I have to keep listening to my audiobook. This book is just such a well done thriller. It's. It kind of riffs off of the Idaho, the Idaho murders that took place. Kind of takes that as its jumping off point. Absolutely. Well done. Fascinating, propulsive as all get out. I just could not stop listening. This was definitely my favorite audiobook of the year.
- [51:14]
Katie Cobb
So good. Okay, we have made it to our top five, which is unfortunate because the angst is just going to get worse, y'. All. Yep. Yep.
- [51:23]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Well, let me say my angst was in the bottom five. Like my angst was in because the top five I kind of like the top five came into place really easily for me. This, this top five was really strong. Number five for me is north sun or the Voyage of the Whale Ship Esther by Ethan Rutherford. This is literary fiction. Recommended to me by Liz Heine, who said, meredith, you have got to read this book. You are absolutely going to love it. This is another one of those books that's hard to shelve because it's, it's literary fiction. It's also kind of fantasy. It's also historical fiction. It's also a book about ships. And, and it is absolutely haunting. It is. It makes you think, it makes you slow down. You have to give it some time and attention, but the payoff is there. I wanted to read every second of this book again the second I finished. This was just one of those books that it made you work for it, but it was so worth the investment of time. I loved this book so much. Really creepy, ethereal, weird. What the heck did I just read? But in the best possible way. So north sun or the Voyage of the Whale Ship Esther by Ethan Rutherford. Oh, I love this book. So memorable.
- [52:45]
Katie Cobb
Yes. Even hearing you talk about that one is very memorable to me. So I can see it. I can see it. My number five is going to this Changes Everything by Tyler Merritt. Tyler. Okay, this is a memoir. It builds on his previous book, which is called I Take My Coffee Black, in which he introduces himself to us kind of. He had introduced himself through a reel that went viral on social media during 2020, but here we are, already friends, and he invites us into the piece of his story that started after his first book released. He was diagnosed with cancer, and that's a hard thing, but he brings his at this point, trademark openness and humor and depth of feeling and warm invitational style along for the ride. Shout out to Megan, who sent me a video of him when she got to meet him at a book festival, talking directly to me, which just absolutely made my reading year. Because this book was so impactful for me that I actually was tandem reading it, which is what we call it when you're reading the paper copy in front of you and listening to the audio. And I became overwhelmed by that experience and I had to abandon the audio in order to only read it because it was too many feels at one time for me. So I had to set the audio aside and only read it on paper. I loved it so much. I couldn't handle it. That was. This Changes Everything by Tyler Merritt.
- [54:16]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I love it. Just your face as you talk about it and when you talked about it, when you brought it for a full treatment on the big show, it's just so clear how much joy it brought to you.
- [54:24]
Katie Cobb
I love him so much. It makes me so happy. Okay, let's do some Two mini superlatives. Which is the shortest and longest book that you've read this year? We contain multitudes as readers. Boy, we've got all of them.
- [54:39]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
That is definitely true. My shortest book at just 94 pages was one of those five books of poetry. My favorite one of the year, A Little Daylight Left by Sarah Kay. Fantastic little collection of poetry that I loved so much. My longest book of the year. Actually, my longest three books of the year were the three books of the Wheel of Time series that I read. The biggest one clocked in at 704 pages, which was the Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan. So I continue to make my way through that series and because of those books I realized that I didn't read a lot of other big chonkers this year because I wanted to be sure that I saved my bandwidth for those. So in 2026, one of the things that I do want to do is prioritize a couple other longer books just because I really love to sink into a long book.
- [55:29]
Katie Cobb
Yes, me too. All right, Shortest book for me this year was actually another Fredrik Backman, it's the Answer Is no, which is a novella that he released this summer. It was only 68 pages and I got it as a freebie from Amazon. They have those like Amazon first reads that you can grab. It was not my favorite novella by him, but it has a lot of the same vibes as his other work, so it was still satisfying. The longest one I read this year was these Truths by Jill Lepore, 960 pages of history, of US history. It didn't feel long though. I liked the. I loved the way she gave us this really broad view of American history while also drilling down into special little highlights of certain historical figures. So for that reason, it moved along plenty for me.
- [56:16]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
That's the biggest compliment that you can give a big. I mean, that was last year. My book was the Stand and I was like, man, that's like a thousand pages, right? I did. It felt it went faster for me than some 300 page books that I've read. So that's what you're looking for in your big chonkers.
- [56:34]
Katie Cobb
Exactly. Actually, my oldest son has just decided that he's going to pick up it by Stephen King and I bought him a paper copy, even though he wants to read it or listen to it on audio as well. And he was like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me with how big this is? 1100 pages.
- [56:51]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right.
- [56:51]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, buddy. That's what you're signing up for with Stephen King.
- [56:53]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
One page at a time.
- [56:54]
Katie Cobb
Yep, no problem. All right, let's get into book number four. What do you got?
- [56:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right, book number.
- [57:02]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. You said no angst. Liar. Okay.
- [57:06]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
This is actually a place of angst. This 4, 3. This 4, 3 is a place of angst. I'm going to make a game time decision here because I'm just, I'm feeling it. Number four is the Unseen World by Liz Moore. So my reading partner Roxanna and I are working our way through Liz Moore books. And of course the God of the woods was the one that was such a gigantic. I mean, I feel like everyone, and it's fantastic, but we picked up the Unseen World and we, we were like, I can't believe that this is the same author. It's just as good, but couldn't be any more different than the God of the Woods. The Unseen World is about. We follow a daughter of a very famous scientist, computer scientist father. She's raised and homeschooled by him and as she gets older, he begins to have some early onset dementia. And things go on from there. There is a mystery that's being solved. There are secrets that are being kept. There are memories that are disappearing and need to be salvaged before they're gone forever. There is found family. There is an amazing father daughter relationship. And then there is just the light filled prose by Liz Moore, who can tell a story so brilliantly. This is one that just, it's just. Luminous is the right word. We loved this book. We've recommended it to multiple people. Everyone who's read it has loved it. The Unseen World by Liz Moore. This is a backlist book that is One of those books that's going to make you say, why isn't everyone reading this right now? Why isn't this the top of the New York Times list? Like, it's so good.
- [58:44]
Katie Cobb
Yes. Love it when it happens. And that is true of my number four as well, which is this is Happiness by Niall Williams. This novel was pressed into my ears as I finished my epic summer road trip this year. My Heather, Heather, who lives in Colorado and I had just spent two days with her, let me know it was one of her new favorite books of all time. And that was all I needed to hear to pick it up. It is literary and quiet and Irish, which I do love, but the characters are unforgettable and the storytelling is phenomenal. I want to read it again because apparently I do that now in paper so I can savor every word and underline my favorite lines and quotes because the writing and the creation that he did on the page here was truly noteworthy. So that book is this is Happiness by Niall Williams.
- [59:41]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I think a good example of a book that I feel like a couple years ago you never would have touched this with a ten foot pole.
- [59:46]
Katie Cobb
Oh, absolutely. I would have been like, well, that sounds boring. So no, thank you.
- [59:50]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
No, thank you.
- [59:51]
Katie Cobb
But.
- [59:52]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
But it was such a hit for you. I love it.
- [59:54]
Katie Cobb
Absolutely. Yes. Let's lead with that into the best book, Outside of youf Wheelhouse. Meredith.
- [60:01]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
The best book, I mean the. The best books that I've read this year that are outside of my wheelhouse are again, these Wheel of Time books. And of the three that I read, the Dragon Reborn, it's the second in the series by Robert Jordan. I absolutely love it. This is high fantasy. This is not regular fantasy. This is not Romantasy. This is high fantasy. This is. The series is canon in the high fantasy world. Right? It's way backlist and it is just really well done. It is a ton of world building. It's out of my comfort zone because I have to be really committed to being okay with the world building. But the Dragon Reborn, so far, my favorite book of the entire series because it is the one that is most accessible and I really love it, but still pushed me outside of my comfort zone.
- [60:51]
Katie Cobb
Love it. My best book outside my wheelhouse kind of leans into what I was just talking about, which is that apparently I reread now. And so I'm even. I kind of loathe having to say it, but the best book I read outside my wheelhouse this year was the Freaking Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Can you Even believe that this went from a book that I wanted to throw across the room. Yeah. Probably five years ago. Yeah. To a five star read for me. I read it on paper. I previously had read it in audio and did not like it on audio. And this happened for multiple books this year. The Dutch House Erasure by Percival Everett was another one. A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soon Tornvat, which I liked the first time, but I loved the second time. Rereading itself is outside my wheelhouse. But on my reading log this year, I had nine books that I had already read that I reread this year. Nine. That's a lot.
- [61:49]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
That's a lot of rereads for someone who reads for a living.
- [61:53]
Katie Cobb
That's a lot of rereads. And other than the Time Traveler's Wife, it worked really, really well for me. Those eight of the nine books were really great reads for me. And that is weird.
- [62:06]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
So you're saying that I hope Katie is different for me and Death of an Author.
- [62:10]
Katie Cobb
No, that's not what I'm saying.
- [62:12]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Maybe I reread it and love it.
- [62:14]
Katie Cobb
Maybe in 10 years when you're like, listen, I don't need to like you. I can hate you and still want to read your story, but it's going to take a big change.
- [62:23]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It is.
- [62:24]
Katie Cobb
Although I did not like the characters of the Dutch House, the first time I read it, I was like, nobody in this book is nice. I don't like any of these people. And at this time, I just. Oh, I love all of them.
- [62:34]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
For me, it was the step parent element that was very interesting to me. Not that I liked her, but it was.
- [62:43]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, right. I.
- [62:44]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
It was. I could understand it.
- [62:47]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. So good. Gosh, that book is so good. Like, I would just want to go back to, I don't know, 2021 Katie and be like, shh, stop talking. You're gonna regret this someday. And I don't.
- [62:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, I know.
- [62:59]
Katie Cobb
That was my experience then, and I don't regret what I said about it. I'm a different person now.
- [63:04]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
You're a different reader. We are different readers in different seasons of our lives. So totally.
- [63:09]
Katie Cobb
Okay. Okay, book. Where are we? Book three. Three.
- [63:14]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Now. This is serious. This is serious, you guys.
- [63:18]
Katie Cobb
Okay. All right. Yes, yes.
- [63:23]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
This is it. This is it. I am going with. No. I know that. My number three. I feel very good about the. The fact that my number three is the Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, which is another book I have not yet brought to the show, which is, I'm going to say, Again, why we don't make our list until the end of the year because this is like a lifetime favorite. This book. This book is one of those books that has my heart. Now it is number three. But for if we're talking about reading experiences, this was one of those books where library serendipity. As soon as I was 10 pages in, I was voice memoing Roxanna saying, I know that this is going to be a favorite book of all time for me and I know I'm going to reread it. Like I want to reread this book so bad right now. The Goblin Emperor follows. So first of all, it's like, it's fantasy and it's like steam like this steampunk world, which is very interesting. And we follow this character. It's an 18 year old boy man, okay? And he is half goblin, half elf. And he is the fourth son of the emperor. But there is a terrible airship accident in chapter one. Not a spoiler. And his father and his three older siblings are killed. And all of a sudden Maya, who has been our lead character, Maya, is a man. Boy. What do you call an 18 year old? I don't know. He's a boy to me. Young man.
- [64:59]
Katie Cobb
He's a young man.
- [65:01]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
And he's not even a man. He's a gol. He's a goblin elf. But he is. Maya is my heart. Maya is my heart. I have not loved a character this much. I could cry right now just thinking about him. He all of a sudden goes from this child of an emperor who's this horrible man who literally like hasn't seen him since his mother's funeral. When he was 8 years old, Maya was relegated out to the furthest reaches of the kingdom, never to be heard from again. Until all of a sudden he's emperor. So he is brought to the capital and now like a lot of the people didn't even know he existed. Now all of a sudden he's the emperor. This book is quiet. This book is about him figuring out how to be an emperor, how to be a part of a family, how to believe in himself because he's an Enneagram one. And he has a really hard time not doing everything perfectly and doing anything for the first time. You don't do it perfectly the way that Katherine Addison writes this character. There's a lot of political machinations here. This is not a lot of action. This is not the kind of fantasy that's like a lot of action. This is political machinations. This is figuring out who you can trust. This is found family. This is finding your own feet under you, Finding belief in yourself. This is getting good at something that you were really bad at to start. I love this book with my whole heart and every body part that I have. This is the Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.
- [66:32]
Katie Cobb
Oh, that makes me want to cry. I love. I love it when a book does that.
- [66:37]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
When it was over, I was crying not because it was sad, but because it was over.
- [66:44]
Katie Cobb
Oh, no, don't cry because it's over. Cry or be happy that it happened. What's that terrible?
- [66:50]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, my God. That's exactly how I felt, though. Like, I just have to be glad that the book exists and I can read it again.
- [66:55]
Katie Cobb
I can read it again.
- [66:57]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
You're gonna hear about it on the show because I'm gonna give it a full treatment. So buckle up, buttercups. But that's. That's my number three.
- [67:04]
Katie Cobb
Okay. Okay. My number three this year is. Oh, gosh, these top three. This was so hard for me. Okay. It was a little sweaty. My. My number three is most ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa. Do you remember when I talked about this, Meredith? This is a Pride and Prejudice retelling, right?
- [67:23]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes, yes, yes.
- [67:24]
Katie Cobb
This is not the first time that a Pride and Prejudice retelling has made my top 10 list. If y' all listened last week to our Revisit of our 2021 list, Pride by Ibi Zoboi was my top book of the year that year. This is a trans centered retelling of the classic story and the way that Gabe Cole Novoa gave us this updated story while staying so true to Jane Austen's heart in this book.
- [67:49]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Oh, my God.
- [67:51]
Katie Cobb
It was so good. I loved it so much. It stole my heart completely. I. I want to read it again. I finished it and bought a copy so I could keep it forever. I love it so much. It's part of this. This series called Remixed Classics. I haven't read any of the rest of them because, really, I only care about Pride and Prejudice, but I just. I didn't think that there were gonna be more Pride and Prejudice retellings that were so good. I thought that it was gonna be like. Yeah, I know, but we've seen this. Like, we know this story. Get over it. No, this one is so good. I cried big, happy tears so many times in this book. I just. It's a good thing that I didn't have to keep that paper copy because it would have been stained, so I. I had to buy a new one, but. Oh, it's so. It's so good. I loved this book. It's most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa.
- [68:45]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I love the title of it too.
- [68:47]
Katie Cobb
Oh, I know. Most ardently, Be still my heart. God, I love it. So good. Okay, so Meredith, for our next superlative, let's talk about your favorite new to you author. Like the author you discovered this year that you're very excited to read.
- [69:02]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes. So this year, believe it or not, I read my first T kingfisher book and I read Sword. I read Sword Heart, which is. I mean, T Kingfisher has so many books.
- [69:14]
Katie Cobb
I know, so.
- [69:15]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
But Sword Heart really worked for me. The other one on the. And that was really easy and really fun and light and Clutch your Heart and Pearl's Romance. But then on the other end of the scale, new to me was I read my first Charlotte Wood book which was stonyard, devotional, very much literary fiction, but very, very memorable. So both of those are authors that I want to read more of.
- [69:40]
Katie Cobb
What about you? I like it. Okay. Mine is like, kind of tricky. So I read an author, Elle Penelope. I talked about her book, which is called Song of Blood and Stone. But when I brought it to the show, I got it confused with another book that I had read at the same time. So I gave a different title for it. Yeah, the one I loved is Song of Blood and Stone by Elle Penelope. It is the start of a series and I fell completely head over heels for this world. It turns out I have read her before as Leslie Penelope in another book called the Monsters We Defy, which I also loved. But I had no idea that these were the same people because this was like a fantasy world building long series with. With some romance in it. The one that I read this year. Whereas the Monsters We Defy is kind of like voodoo horror, like I wanna say New Orleans, 1920s. Like, it has just a very different feel to it. I also loved it. So now I'm like, oh, well, now I need all of everything from this author because they were so good. Both of them were so good. Even though I read them far apart, didn't realize it was the same person.
- [70:49]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Seanan McGuire will get you that way.
- [70:51]
Katie Cobb
And Mira Grant. Yeah, exactly. So good. Okay, number two, you ready?
- [70:56]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I am so ready because number two is. I pretty much knew from the second that I read it that it was going to be in my top three. It's Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito. This is horror. This is hilarious. This is just unhinged, nutty, so perfect in every way. I loved Victorian Psycho. Victorian Psycho is a really, really good way to figure out if I'm a book twin to you. Like, if you read Victoria's like, Victorian Psycho and you were like, why would anyone like that in any way, shape or form? It's gross and disgusting and inappropriate, then that's a really good indicator. But if you read Victorian Psycho and you were like, put it in my veins. Like, I. Like I was. We can definitely be bookish twins because this is just. Virginia Feito just does an amazing job of delivering on the promise. It's this governess who goes to take care of these kids in this house, but the governess may or may not be a psychopath murderer, but you don't really feel bad when these people get murdered. It's so bloody, it's so gory, and it's hilarious. And I laughed out loud a million times. And yes, I loved the main character, even though she was a psychopathic murderer. The heart wants what the heart wants. And I wanted Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito. My number two book of the year. I loved it deeply.
- [72:24]
Katie Cobb
So good. Number two book of the year. This one could have been my top one. And when I read it, I was like, is this my top book of the year? It might be. It was slightly edged out later, but my number two is Take what you can carry by Gian Sardar. This book found me by surprise. This is a serendipity book in a tiny used bookshop in Wyoming. I started reading it immediately, and by the time I finished, I knew it was going to be part of definitely my top 10 and right at the top. This is the story of the Kurdish people of Iran and Syria. And it's so personal to the author, but she ties it into the 1970s and a newspaper in Los Angeles and a photo that changes everything for her and her fiance's family. It brought this story to life in a completely new way, which makes it sound like I know all about the Kurdish people and I know all about the noise. I knew nothing about it. And that is my favorite kind of historical fiction where I'm like, all of a sudden, I have had this new world and this new time and place opened up to me as a reader. I have thought of it probably every day since I read it this summer. I thought it was so good and I've never heard of it anywhere else. So the people that picked it up after that, because of me, every single one of them makes my heart grow three sizes. It makes me so happy. I want this authority just to get blown up and this book especially, it's. Oh, it's so good. Beautifully written. Take what you can carry by Gian Sardar.
- [73:51]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
That was a great find. Oh, it's those sad, those bookish serendipity moments where a book finds you that is pure magic in this very real world.
- [74:02]
Katie Cobb
Yes. Yes indeed. That's my favorite thing. Okay, so we have one more superlative to tackle, which is something we love here at currently reading. We're going to talk about our most milkshakey or best Cheeto chapter book of the year. These are the ones that just go down so easy you can't get enough. You finish your milkshake on the way home because it's right there. And why not take another sip and you finish the bag of Cheetos because one more Cheeto, it's not going to hurt you. One more Cheeto chapter.
- [74:31]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Yes. We're metaphor heavy in this, but it is. This is good cook Currently reading kind of shorthand. We do talk about milkshake books and we do talk about Cheeto chapters. These are two things that are some of our favorite things in books. And for me, I had a few of those this year, but two that I really wanted to highlight. The first one is the Other side of the Wall by Andrea Mara. She is the author of a lot of books that I've really, really loved. But all her fault is one that recently has gotten a lot of press because it has a really great limited series that has been everywhere. This book is the Other side of the Wall, which I actually think is a better book than all her faults. This is just got a really interesting construct. It is a domestic suspense. It's set in Ireland. It's this woman who sees something in her neighbor's backyard, namely a dead body of a child in a. In like a pond. And then she goes to say, oh my. She goes next running downstairs. Oh my gosh, there's a dead body in your. But there's nothing there. So is she losing her mind? Is the neighbor up to something? Andrea Mara is absolutely one of my most recent finds in the domestic suspense world. Irish domestic suspense is some of my favorite and her book books in particular the other one that has great Cheeto chapters and it's just so milkshakey. It just goes down so easy is the Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson. This is one where there's a mom that's been missing, but then all of a sudden she comes back. But where has she been? Can we trust her? Is it really her? Did she go Voluntarily. Was she taken? What is happening? Holly Jackson does this masterfully. I read this book in a single sitting, in a single afternoon. The reappearance of Rachel Price.
- [76:19]
Katie Cobb
Excellent. Yes, these are. These books in this superlative category are ones that you can handle to like the reader that wants to get started again with reading. Right.
- [76:29]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
I haven't read in a long time.
- [76:31]
Katie Cobb
Super short chapters are the fastest way to hook somebody in mine is the Mysterious Case of the Alberton Angels by Janice Hallett. I loved this book. It is mixed media format, which we love. And that often makes for really milkshakey Cheeto chapters because you are switching from text messages to newspaper articles to emails to just regular prose, back and forth, up and down and sideways. Katie and I read this one together. We devoured it in just a few sittings and anytime I had to set it down, I was angry at the person that had interrupted me. I was like, can you not see that I need one more Cheeto before I get up? I just. I couldn't wait to get back into this story. Addicting. Absolutely addicting.
- [77:16]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Janice Hallett is one of my absolute favorite authors. I am a completist. She always writes in mixed media. She is absolutely brilliant. And the case of the Alperton Angels creeped me the f out in certain places. Like, that's a book I think about all the time because I'm like, why are angels so creepy to me?
- [77:37]
Katie Cobb
These ones.
- [77:40]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
That's a really good book.
- [77:41]
Katie Cobb
Culty and delicious. So good. Okay, it is time for our number.
- [77:47]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
One all over but the shouting. Katie, one more book. This is a book that I'm. I'm cheating a little bit, but then not. Because the way I make my top 10 list, the way I always have, is I just go by the books that the year that I read it. But this book doesn't come out until March. Katie. So I read an arc.
- [78:06]
Katie Cobb
I know what it is.
- [78:07]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Then it's so good that I'm just okay with bringing it as my number one. And you're just, just, you know, just gonna have to pre order it. It is Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hawkhouser. This book, the second that I read it. This is a retelling of Cinderella from the point of view of the stepmother. Like Katie, like you were talking about with Pride and Prejudice. There are some stories that are just so good that they can be told over, retold over and over again, finding different angles, different things to focus on, and they can be really good. I love a fairy tale retelling. This is easily One of the top two that I've ever read. Lady Tremaine, though, is not. This book is not for children. This is a very grown up telling of the Cinderella story told from the point of view of the quote unquote evil stepmother. What we find out, of course, is that people who are often called evil are really just doing the stuff that needs to be done to make it through life. Lady Tremaine is that character. I absolutely loved her. This is about perception. It is about doing what needs to be done. It is very much a story of being a mother and the lengths that we will go to for our children. It is very much about what if the person, Cinderella is actually kind of a priggish jerk, right? But real pretty. And it's about the flip of the story. It's about the underside of the story. It's got a couple of twists to it that I was gasping where I was like, is she really gonna go there? But then it also weaves in the story that we know so well in the most delicious ways where you're like, but how's she gonna do the pumpkin carriage? Just watch the way that the actual canon story is woven in to this very real, extremely well told story that is really a story of womanhood and motherhood. It is brilliant in every single way. The last line of the book I am literally trying to convince myself it's okay to tattoo on me. I've read it 150 times since I finished the book. I love this book with a passion unequaled. This is Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochauser and due out in March.
- [80:39]
Katie Cobb
Due out in March of 2026.
- [80:42]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
But it's so worth it. You guys just go put your pre order in. And the COVID is gorgeous, which we love, of course.
- [80:51]
Katie Cobb
I. Okay, I can do this. I can do this. I've done this one. I could do it. Now my number one book of the year is Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell. Only once ever have I had a non adult book as my top of the year. A YA book. This is my first time ever naming a middle grade book as my top book of the year. But as soon as I closed the last page and probably 50 to 100 pages before that, honestly I knew that this one was going to take that spot. The fact that I read it aloud to my children and they all gave it 1 million stars in quotes is just the icing on the cake. They loved it. And honestly, they love books that make me cry. And if it makes me cry often, they love it. Even more. But this book moved all of us in really beautiful ways and it does what we always talk about with adults reading middle grade. It does really phenomenal middle grade work in that it tackles the hardness of life in beautiful ways. And then it cheers us on in our brokenness, in the hard that we're dealing with around us. To love each other well, to love the creatures around us well, to do whatever it takes to cheer on the people that we love, to find a best friend and be their champion. Oh my gosh, I have goosebumps. I loved this book so much that I won't pick up book two because I'm so terrified that I won't love it as much because I can't love this one any more than I do. There are images from illustrations in this book that I would tattoo on my body and there are lines that broke my heart open in the most beautiful way. I loved it so much. And if you did not love it, this is an accept no criticism book for me. Actually, I can't hear it. That's okay for you. I can't hear it from you. So you can go take your opinion somewhere else because Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell is one of my favorite books of all time. I love it so wholly and completely.
- [82:56]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
And your number one book of 2025.
- [82:59]
Katie Cobb
My number one book of 2025.
- [83:01]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
We did it. We did it, Katie. I am sweaty though, now that we've done it. Now I can go to my Etsy storefront that not mine, but the Etsy storefront that I like to go to. And I every year I have a print made by an artist who does this and it's a print that becomes a shelf with these 10 books on it. And in my library every year I add another frame to my collection and these 10 books will forever gaze lovingly down at me in my library. So I love it. I love that we do this. And of course we want to encourage each of you to do the same thing. Read or know thyself means at the end of every year. Hopefully you've tracked your reading and you can look back and say, these are my favorites. Maybe you don't have 10, maybe you have five. Maybe you just do a list of superlatives, maybe do five fiction, five non fiction, however you want to organize your best. I think going through the exercise is a really great way to end your reading year. Think through it and take into the next reading year what is really working for you. It's a great thought exercise, even though it is a little sweaty.
- [84:13]
Katie Cobb
Mm. It is. It is. We highly recommend it.
- [84:17]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me. I'm Meredith MeredithMonday Schwartz on Instagram and.
- [84:27]
Katie Cobb
You can find me Katie notesonbookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Puttivong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of Megan's Reads.
- [84:37]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Full show notes with 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. Definitely check those out and on our.
- [84:48]
Katie Cobb
Website@Currentlyreadingpodcast.Com youm can also follow the show @currentlyreading podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreading podcast gmail.com and if you want more.
- [84:59]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Of this content like we said at the top of the episode, join us as a bookish friend. This week you can get a free trial. You can get in there and just see if it's the right fit for you. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts and you can shout us out on social media. All of those things help us to find our perfect audience.
- [85:17]
Katie Cobb
Yes, Bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [85:23]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
All right, until next week, may your.
- [85:24]
Katie Cobb
Coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.
- [85:27]
Meredith Mundy Schwartz
Happy reading, Katie.
- [85:29]
Katie Cobb
Happy reading, Meredith.