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The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 8, Episode 23: Slow Reads + How And Why We Rate Our Books
00:57:00
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Foreign.
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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.
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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.
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I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz. I'm a mom and a Mimi and a full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And my word for the year is experiment.
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A
And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona, and I'm planning some 2026 reading projects. This is episode number 23 of season eight and we are so glad you're here.
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B
Kay, do you know what else this is? This is our first regular episode of 2026. So it feels like a new beginning of its own.
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A
It does. You know, Meredith, I was thinking about that because a lot of times we spend this first normal episode of the year talking about our goals for the year and we didn't do that this year. But it kind of works into what we're talking about anyway. For me, yeah, it's kind of all.
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B
Part and parcel with it. Our deep dive today is going to be about a question that we got, which is about star rating, one of the most debatable issues in the readerly life. So we've talked about this before. We have a lot of new listeners welcome in. If you are new to us and this is your first regular episode of Currently Reading, we are happy to talk about star ratings and how we use them. How we don't use them. Why? If you don't rate your books with star ratings, you might want to or not. So we'll get into that later in the show. One little piece of mischief right at the top of the show is that next week is going to be its own kind of special episode, right? An episode that people love to hear. We are going to hear the top 10 books of our guest hosts, Roxanna and Mary. They're going to come in next week. They're going to take the reins for next week and they are going to give us the rundown of their favorite 10 books of 2025, which I know a lot of you guys are looking forward to.
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A
That episode always blows up my TBR just like the big one does for everybody else. So I'm thrilled.
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B
I never know exactly what Roxanne Roxanne is my reading partner, and so I know what books she has read, but I don't know how she's ranked them until I actually hear the episode. So it's. I look forward to it a lot. All right, let's get started, though, the way we always do with our bookish moment of the week. Katie, what have you got?
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A
All right, Meredith, this week, as you know, for me, is very busy in nerdy spreadsheet land. I have been doing reading logs and customizations and such, but interspersed with that, I'm doing some of my own planning for 2026, some goal setting. I've decided to, alongside my reading partner, Katie Proctor, tackle the complete stories of Flannery O' Connor in 2026. The Bookshelf Thomasville has their own podcast called from the Front Porch, and they're doing this as well, and they have episodes that they're going to release every week. They call it their Conquer a Classic so series. Katie and I are not positive that we're going to stick with their schedule, but we do both have a copy of the book and we are going to read it together very slowly and keep some of our regular reading going. I am also considering, and I floated this idea to my eldest today. He has decided my Micah has decided to dive into it by Stephen King. And so I offered to him this morning that we could read it together. I bought him a huge copy. You know, it's like four inches. It's so gigantic. And he was like, what is this? I'm all, buddy, that's the book you want to read. He's like, well, I was going to get it on audio. Yeah, it's 45 hours on audio, buckaroo. Like, what? What are you going to do with that? So I told him we could read. He could just tell me how much he read every day and I'll stay caught up with him. And then if there's ever a moment that really blows his mind, we will have that moment together. I love a longer project like that. I love fitting in really big brick books into my reading, but it's hard to manage with the podcast and trying to stay up on my current reads. So I'm excited to have a couple of these plans for some really big books this year and see how it goes. And buddy read with Micah. It's been a while since he kind of picked up something just because he wanted to, and so leaning hard into that makes me very excited.
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B
There's a lot about it that I think lends itself to you doing that. Reading that with him side by side. So I think. Yeah, yeah, I think that'll be great. Well, my bookish moment week has two parts, but the first part is very, very aligned with what you were just talking about. We're thinking about reading goals, we're thinking about what do we want to do this year that we've never done before. So two things for me, I going to do an organized slow read of the Cromwell series by Hilary Mantel. I have mentioned on the show this is a. A series of books. There's three of them that I have wanted to read forever. I have tried multiple times and there's a lot of Thomases. There's a lot of Thomases, including the main character, Thomas Cromwell. So this is historical fiction. I think maybe all three. But at least two of the books have one Man Booker Prize. So this is high literary. This is something that I want to read. But I think that doing it in an organized way in a community of people is going to be the way to do it. Enter footnotes and tangents, which is started by a guy named Simon Hazel. And he does a read a year long read along that's called the Wolf Crawl, which one of our bookish friends mentioned in our book Bookish friends Facebook group. And I was like, what? I didn't even know it existed. I didn't know it had such a cool name.
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A
It is such a cool name though. Wolf Hall, Wolf Crawl. God, Amazing.
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B
It's so good. And it's really. This is the third year I think that he's done it. So you. It's only about 30 pages a week. The three books, you know, were read are read back to back. And then it's just a few pages a day, I think like four pages a day. And then every week he drops a podcast episode or some and some additional resources that delve into the history, the art, the all the different pieces, the different strings and threads that you can pull that add to the experience. So I'm very much looking forward to that. I have convinced a bunch of currently reading bookish friends to do it too. We shall see. But I'm excited to conquer that in 2026, so that's going to be fun. I feel like 2026 is going to be a year where we're going to hear a lot about slow reads and I love it. Our good friend Laura Tremaine, of course is doing a slow read of the Stand over on her sub stack, which is called Slow Read the Stand. And she's doing it with the woman who Co hosts, Sarah Stewart Holland. I always want to say Taylor Holland. That's wrong. Sarah Stewart Holland, who is excellent. The two of them are great together. And if you have always wanted to read the stand, get yourself over there and do that. Because I read it last year, I'm going to be listening along this year. I think they're doing great stuff. The other thing that I'm doing, Katie, that is completely new, that I have never done in my whole history of being a reader that I'm going to experiment with is I am going to use the tracker that you created for all of us at currently reading to track my tbr.
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See, I heard you say this on Instagram and I was like, hold your horses. Here it is. I don't know. Okay. I'm excited, though. I want to see how this plays out for you. Yes.
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And it will be an experiment. It may be a wolf of failure. And by the time we record again, I've completely given up on it. So I'm not holding myself accountable to this. I'm what I want to see if it works for me. I want to see if this additional layer of tracking, which basically just means I. I'm only gonna track my tbr. For my Kindle. I decided I'm really just gonna hone in on one aspect of my reading. I went through my kindle. I chose 25 books that I consistently say when I see them, I really wanna read that. And now what I'm going to try to do, I gave myself, like, a variety. Because I am a mood reader. I gave myself a variety of books. I'm going to try to prioritize those. I've pre. I've entered them in the tracker, which means as I read them, they will port kind of seamlessly over to my, you know, my tracker. Tracker. The regular tracker.
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A
Yes. Instead of doing double the work, that's a new thing that we're trying out this year.
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And that's how you got me. That was the piece that got me over the hump of this. So that's what I'm going to do. So two experiments. We shall see how these things go. But that's. That's what we want to do. Right. I'm filled with experimental energy for 2026.
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A
Excellent. I love it. I'm so excited for us.
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B
All right, let's get into our current reads. Katie, what's your first current read of 2026?
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A
Super. So my first one for this week is matched by Ali Condie. This is a book from 2010. It is the start of a series. And it was just the right amount of dystopia for me in 2025. And that's because 2025, sometimes I wanted a lot of dystopia, and sometimes I was full up, you know? So in this near future world, we meet Kasha, who is a young adult. She's 17, so she's right on the edge, the cusp of adulthood. And she's a member of the society, Capital S, capital S. Within the society, much like in the Giver by Lois Lowry, which is one of my favorite books from childhood, there are officials and algorithms and computer programs that decide all the important pieces of your life for where you're gonna live, what your job is gonna be, who you're going to marry, and more like it's. It's. Everything is planned out for you to live your optimal life. When we meet Kasha, she is heading toward her matching ceremony, where she will find the perfect person for her. She will be matched. What luck. When her best friend Xander shows up on the screen, It's a face she's known her whole life. This is a person that has lived down the street from her. And now they'll get to explore their relationship in a whole new way when they start courting officially. But before the screen fades to black, another face flashes up before her eyes. The strange and quiet boy Kai, who she's only met a few times. But she knows that there's some darkness in his family and in his past. This has never happened before, so she's not sure what's happening. The Society has everything perfect. Why would she see two different faces the day after this strange ceremony? Kasha also has to say goodbye to her grandfather because his time has come. In the Society, every member dies at a certain time, and their funeral is planned for their 80th birthday. They have a banquet and time with their family and their loved ones, and then a quiet drift toward death, surrounded by the people who love them best of all. But the matching ceremony is not the only thing that is a little bit off lately. And Kasha is trying to put together clues that just don't seem to add up. If this society is perfect and everything goes exactly as planned, why are there so many unanswered questions? And who is she supposed to be with? And what happened at her grandfather's goodbye ceremony? This is YA bridging to adult like I said, and it centers on some of my favorite pieces of near future dystopia. If you've read and enjoyed books like the Giver that I already mentioned. Or the selection by Kiera Cass. Or even the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. You'll find plenty to love here as well. People who don't like it, though, really, really don't like it. And especially those who felt like it was a ripoff of the Giver, although I found it had plenty of original ideas and content inside. Or those who hated the Giver and therefore hated this too. The romance sections of this one are very tame. The love triangle is much less angsty than most. This is not like will they, won't they? With multiple people the whole way through. And the society structure is interesting and thought provoking and it had me keeping my ears and eyes kind of like, prickly while I was reading it. You know, like, ooh, that's such an interesting idea. I was glad to read this one. It's been sitting on my shelf for many years. Finally picked it up and it was a hit for me. This is matched by Ally Conde.
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B
Yeah, that society structure is the piece of the premise that's most interesting to me.
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A
Right? I mean, well, in any society where they're like, you know what, it's okay, you don't have to make any decisions. We understand exactly what you need. You live in District 12. I'm like, mm, I don't know about this. Like, it gets me. It gets me all like a squirrel right away.
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B
A squirrel that. I love that.
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A
Give it to me, give it to me. I want it. Okay.
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B
My first book is similar in that it had a societal structure that was new and different and very interesting to me. And this is a book that I mentioned as one of my superlatives in the best or in our best of 2025 episode. This is a book called Turns of Fate by Ann Bishop. Here's the setup. So our lead character is Detective Beth Fahey, and she has just started with the infamous 13th Precinct, the one precinct in their town that handles cases involving beings who operate on completely different rules than humans. Where words have actual power, intentions can literally shape reality, and a wrong bargain might cost you everything. Her first case sends her across the river to Destiny park, the controlled zone where humans can safely visit this mysterious isle of weird. Weird is the home to the arcana, supernatural beings who aren't quite what folklore promised. And definitely you do not want to mess with them. So what starts out simply as an inquiry. She needs to ask some questions about a ghost gun that was used in a murder over on the human side of things quickly pulls Beth deeper into a world where the dead ride trains to their Final destinations, predators literally become prey. And there and her own secrets might be stranger than anything that she investigates. I liked this book so much. It is an under the radar gem that I feel like everyone should be reading. So I found this through that Penguin Random House email newsletter that I keep talking about. It is a magic newsletter for this reader. It somehow manages to unearth the most interesting books that I've never heard of. And I don't know how it does it. The premise of Turns of Fate immediately of course, gives me tainted cup vibes. There's this detective investigating strange crimes in a world where the rules are not like our world. This is a. This was a solid 4.25 star read for me and I want to be really clear about why it didn't quite hit 5 stars because I think that's going to help you figure out if. If it's right for you, if you go in at the right time. And it's going to help you know that there are a few triggers, including domestic abuse and bullying in a high school setting that you should know about. Okay. The world building is fantastic. I have never read Anne Bishop before, but I got several DMS from people when I posted about this on Instagram saying that they had read her extensively and that she's a gifted writer. And that is absolutely true. Bishop weaves multiple storylines through this really atmospheric story, including there's a desperate author seeking escape from a very abusive relationship. There's some missing teenagers who took an exceedingly wrong turn. And this escalating tension between the humans who fear the arcana and the arcana who really, really have had enough of humans and human arrogance. I loved the magic structure, if you can call it that, of the arcana. It's very cut and dried and very fair. Everything about their society is very fair. And like intention based. It appealed to my enneagram Type 1 Rule following tendencies big time. That was probably the number one thing that I loved about it. But I will say that the middle section of the book, and it is kind of a long book if I remember correctly. It's like maybe 450, 50 pages. I read it on my Kindle, but I think I looked at it, it's right around there. The middle section lagged a little bit. I never wanted to set it down. I never was considering dnfing it, but I found myself kind of pushing through to get back the momentum of the early like first half of the book. And the truth is that I loved the characters. I loved Beth. She's the linchpin of the story. We're trying to figure out in the story why it is that she feels more at home with the Arcana than she does with her human colleagues. And we're watching her navigate the human world and the Isle of Weird, which is W, Y R D. Okay, okay.
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That's how.
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That's how it's spelled. And that, like, watching her kind of have a foot in both worlds was very, very interesting. And there were at least five other characters that I was so invested in. And the ending is so good, it made me hug it. So while it wasn't the five star, perfect, tainted cup kind of mashup that I was hoping for, I finished this book knowing that I will definitely want to go back into this world again. And I will. This book is Turns of Fate by Anne Bishop. And I'm so glad that that little penguin Random House guy put it in my inbox.
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A
Hats off to him. Little gold star for the penguin Random House guy.
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B
Little orange penguin y guy.
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A
Yeah, we love that. Okay, that sounds great. And I'm so glad that it worked and that, you know, I love finding an author that you're like, I think I want more of this in my life. Let's see what else she's got for me.
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B
What I know I want more of is the mashup of fantasy and police procedural forward slash murder. Like, that's. I know that that's a sweet spot for me. So more of that, please.
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A
One of the things I always want more of in my reading life is Cults. So my second book this week is Cultish by Amanda Montel. At the time this one came out, I had already read and loved Wordslet, which was Montel's breakout hit from 2019. But in 2021, when Cultish released, I felt like it was everywhere. And as our long term listeners know, that means Katie's never going to read it. So I put it on my TBR and I just let it sit and simmer for a long time. And this summer, it was finally time. Actually, it wasn't even time. Then I bought a copy so it could simmer closer to me.
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B
You turned up the boil?
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A
Yes, I turned it. I turned it up to a boil. And so I finally prioritized it and I dug in. Now, just like with her previous work, Montel here is looking at language and the way that we use it. This is about cults, but it's not true crime about cults. And I want that to be really clear because it seems like people who are disappointed with this really Wanted the T and the cultiness to play a bigger role. Yeah. So here she's looking at language and the ways that we use it. And in this case, she's looking into the ways that cults use language to encourage fanaticism. She covers the gamut from Jonestown and Heaven's Gate to Tupperware and essential oils to fitness groups like SoulCycle and political groups like QAnon. She just pulls back the curtain on how people fall for, are convinced by, and then decide to stick around and stay in groups that push their comfortability envelope a little bit. Many of us, myself included, love to read about cults and dive deep into what makes them tick in fiction and nonfiction. But if you're like me and you love words and language, you you start to wonder how the founders convinced so many people. You're like, but this sounds crazy. Why would you? It's the words they use. They get so many people to jump on board and stick around when the demands get more and more onerous, up to and including, as we know, the most extreme examples of mass suicides. That's where cultish comes in. When I first picked up this book, I thought it was like when I say I'm bookish, right? It's an adjective where it says, I am a person that loves books. I have a bookish personality. But that's not what she's using it as. Instead, it's more like the suffix in the word English. It denotes the language itself and the ways that it's used and wielded in order to communicate meaning and influence others. Oh yeah, I think all of us thought the first option, but it's really the second option. And of course, influence involves large scale machinations as well as something seemingly small like Instagram posts or peloton leaderboards. She shows how even the organizations that don't seem to be cults on the surface that we wouldn't label oh, that's a cult. Use much of the same language and syntax to create cult like followings and to create that desire for more. Which gives us the crux of this title. Montel does a great job weaving humor and occasional juicy peeks behind the scenes to show her research. It's narrative nonfiction at its finest in that it's unput downable, absolutely scintillating, and does exactly what it sets out to do. I loved reading this one from COVID to cover, but I'm also glad I waited at least four years from when it released so that I could take it in at my own pace. This was excellent. It is Cultish by Amanda Montel.
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B
Oh, and I remember when that came out, it was everywhere.
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It seriously was everywhere. Okay.
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B
My second one is also nonfiction, and this was one that I did as a part of my morning reading and I'm really, really glad I did. This is called Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain. Have you heard of this one?
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A
No, but I just finished Brene Brown's newest book and she talks about creative visualization in that one.
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B
Interesting. Okay, so this one in. In Creative Visualization, the author delivers a. A really deceptively simple yet revolutionary premise that your imagination isn't just daydreaming. It's the most powerful creative force that you have access to. Like, full stop. Long before manifestation became a buzzword, Gawain laid out the practical blueprint for how our thoughts and mental images actually shape our reality. So this isn't about wishful thinking or waiting for the universe to, you know, sitting around and just like waiting for the universe to deliver. It's about understanding that when you combine clear mental imagery with focused intention, you're essentially programming your subconscious to recognize and create opportunities that align with what you visualized. So there's a lot of brain science here. This is not woo woo. It really is not woo woo. It's not like the Secret and Oprah in the late 90s and all of that. This is. This is very, very practical. Athletes have used these exact techniques to break world records. Entrepreneurs often in their origin story, will talk about using it to build their businesses. And this book lets us know that we can use it too and helps us figure out exactly how. Now, this topic has always been one that I'm very interested in. I've seen it happen in my own life. But I picked up this particular book when Betsy and I went on a little near excursion to the Painted Porch in Bastrop, which is Ryan Holiday's bookstore. Right. He of the Daily Stoic. And you know that the thing that's interesting about the Painted Porch is that he only sells books he personally recommends. And there on the shelf was Creative Visualization. It was published in 1978. So what makes this book interesting is that Gawain doesn't. Again, she's not telling you. Just think positive thoughts and then wait for the magic to happen. She's leading you through that brain science which lets you know, like, okay, I can see why this is so powerful. I can see why it works over and over again. The real meat of the book comes when you get into the nuts and bolts of the different kinds of visualization techniques. So there's not just one approach that works. Gawain is offering visualizations for when you want something really specific, like landing a particular job, or maybe you want to meet your new really close friend. She's got techniques for more general work, like removing obstacles or connecting with your higher self, I guess would be the way to say it. And one technique that particularly resonated with me was her exercise for creating your ideal place, like your happy place in your mind. This is something that I've actually done for years to help me fall asleep or to get back to sleep if I wake up at 3 o' clock in the morning. You create this detailed world in your mind and the magic is in getting really specific about it. And that's kind of the deal with the entire book. It's about carving out time to think deeply about what you want or what you need, about what brings you peace and joy. Our brains are such incredibly powerful tools. And to someone with a lifelong anxiety disorder, I can tell you that my brain has the ability to make all sorts of things feel real. To me, the difference is, is in whether those things are helpful or harmful. And what Gawain is offering in this 40th anniversary edition that I found at the Painted Porch is essentially a toolkit for channeling mental energy toward good things instead of anxious spirals. So if you're curious about visualization but you're skeptical of that woo woo factor, this is actually a perfect place to start. This is the time of year where a lot of us are putting together vision boards. That is creative visualization. That is a real tangible tool. So if you are interested in that kind of thing, if you maybe did the Artist's way or you read the Artist's way, and you were really interested in the way that different practices like morning pages can bring about real difference in your day or your. In your life, or if you liked more recent books like Atomic Habits by James Clear, then Gawain is coming at it from an angle that I think you would really appreciate. I loved this book and I think about it all the time. And I actually have done several of the visualizations. This is Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain.
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A
Very cool. I love it. Did you say 1978?
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B
1978.
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A
1978. Yeah. It's amazing. It's like, let's all find the newest, coolest thing. But this has already been around for coming up on 50 years.
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B
Yeah, no, exactly. And it's written. It like, it's just written as if it were I mean, it's been brought up to date, but it's brought up to date because it's been in print all of that time and again. I gotta say, I'm kind of a Ryan Holiday fan girl. So when he really recommends something, it has weight to me. Yeah, I have a tattoo from a stoic principal solely because he got me into. Not like him personally. He doesn't have any idea who I am, but like his online presence, his books have gotten me into it. So when he recommended it, I was like, okay, this is going to be more than just some flighty fluff. This is really going to have substance, and it really does.
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A
Very cool. Okay. More like flighty fluff for my third one, which we love.
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B
We love flighty, fluffy.
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A
God, and this book is so good.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Okay. So my third book this week is called when the Tides Held the Moon by Vanessa Vita Kelly. Underrated gem. Underrated gem. I love it, y'. All, I'm gonna paint you a picture. Let me tell you a tale of a circus, mermaids, and a daring escape. I am going to take you to New York city in the 1910s, and we will meet a found family and a dastardly villain. Allow me to introduce you to Benigno Caldera, or Benny, as his friends call him. And by the end of this tale, we will be friends with him. He is an orphan and an ironworker, but not an artist. However, when the man running a shady sideshow called Luna park commissions a new piece that needs to be both beautiful and strong, he is amazed. Completely blown away by Benny's work. So amazed that he invites him to join the crew. The sideshow crew. Luna Park's the circus. When he proves his loyalty, Benny also gets to learn their biggest secret. That this tank will hold a new exhibit. A merman stolen from the east river of New York City. A living, breathing miracle of nature. A creature of myth and legend, with bluish gray skin and sharp teeth and the power to speak through touch. He's so cool.
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B
We need more mermen. Can we just say that we need more mermen?
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A
More mermen. Yes. Bring it on. Yes. When Rio the merman is captured and kept in the cage, he stops eating. And he certainly isn't interested in being a sideshow spectacle. At least not until he starts to form a connection, a bond with Benny. Through their conversations, Benny learns that Rio is not as terrifying as he appears. He is smart and well traveled and kind. He loves his undersea family, and he has strong opinions like some other people. I know that blue gray Skin and those sharp teeth and nails matter far less than what's in that strange merman heart of his. But a cage is no place for a creature of myth and legend. And Ryo gets sicker and weaker as the performers hatch a plan to save him, risking their very livelihoods, the circus itself. Hell, half of New York City at this point. This book was stunning. It was stunning. It was gorgeous in both words and illustrations throughout, which were drawn by the author herself. I got my paper copy from Aardvark Books, but then I fell behind on reading them, so I canceled my subscription before I read this one. But this book made me want to join again because it was so fantastic on every level. I gave it four and a half stars, and that's only because there were sections like you mentioned for your first read, Meredith, that felt the slightest bit long to me. And at 450 pages, it had plenty of room to roam, even if we had cut it by maybe 50 pages. But between the circus and the mermaids, the mermen and the derring do, and the strong sense of place, it hit every high note for me on all the metrics. I don't use the Cawpile rating system, but, mm, it would. It would have nailed it. I loved it. I think you all will, too. And I think it needs more people to fall for it. This was phenomenal. It's when the Tides Held the Moon by Vanessa Vita Kelly.
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B
And just so we're clear, this one isn't sp. Like, spicy.
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A
There is a romantic element to it, but this is a two worlds situation, so it's. It's almost entirely emotional. Okay. That romantic element. So, all right. Yeah, excellent.
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B
So zero Chili Peppers.
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A
Zero. Maybe one like the. The door closes.
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B
Got it.
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A
Okay.
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B
All right. My third book is one that actually is in my top 10 books of the year, but I hadn't brought it to the show yet, and I said in that episode, I'm going to give it a full treatment because it absolutely deserves it. This is the Ghostwriter by Julie Clark. Katie, did you read this book?
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A
No, but I used to love a ghost writer show when I was growing up on pbs, and it's giving me some lovely nostalgia. Feels okay.
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B
I think when you say that, you might be saying ghost writer. Like one who rides a ghost.
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A
No, writer with the. Oh. It was like a pen that could write on its own.
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B
Oh, got it. Okay, perfect. We're in the right real house then.
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A
Okay, perfect.
- [32:07]
B
You're right here with me. Okay, so here's the setup in June 1975. The Taylor family was torn apart when their teenage two of their three kids, their teenagers, Poppy and Danny, were found dead in their Ojai, California home. The surviving sibling, Vincent, the middle child, spent the rest of his life shadowed by accusations that he was the one who had killed his sister and brother. And he just could not ever shake these accusations, even as he built a very successful career as a horror writer. His daughter, ghost writer Olivia Dumont, has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is Vincent Taylor's kid. She does not want that toxic connection made with her career. But then she's offered a job to ghostwrite what she thinks will be her father's next best selling horror novel. And she's just broke enough to take the job. She's been having a very hard time.
- [33:05]
A
So she's ghostwriting for her dad, for her dad.
- [33:08]
B
But what she doesn't know is that Vincent is not writing another thriller, another horror novel. After 50 years of complete silence, he is finally ready to tell the truth about what happened that night in 1975. And he wants his daughter to be the one who writes the book with him.
- [33:27]
A
Okay.
- [33:28]
B
It's got a banger of a premise, no question, but so many thrillers do.
- [33:34]
A
Yes.
- [33:35]
B
So I was very surprised when this ended up being a five star thriller because it delivers something so rarely found in the thrill. I'm actually saying thriller really specifically, not like mystery or crime fiction. I'm talking about thrillers. It has some real emotional depth to it. This book sits right at that sweet spot where mystery becomes thriller. And I absolutely loved it. Julie Clark nailed it. I've actually never read her before. I know she's had a couple of books that have been big hits, but this one just drew me in with the fantastic reviews that it was getting. So part of what makes this book stand out is the way that she handles the family dynamics. The relationship between Olivia and her father Vincent in like Current Day is rendered with such painful authenticity that I found myself genuinely gut punched, genuinely got punched multiple times while reading it. This isn't your typical, like, family dynamic where everyone's a cardboard cutout. This is messy and complicated. This is a deeply human relationship that feels really real. And it just felt really real to me. I'm also estranged from my father, so I'm sure that I was bringing some of those things into this. But it's just written very realistically, like how them seeing each other again after years with like, all of the stuff between them would be so fraught. It was done really, really well. The structure here is also really smart. And I. That is something that I care a lot about. Clark uses these shifting points of view and a dual timeline, both. So she's using both of those things. One in present day Ojai and then one in 1975. And she handles that beautifully. The mystery's complex, keeps you engaged in turning pages. There is never a pacing problem here, but she never lets the mystery become so convoluted that you need a flowchart to follow along.
- [35:31]
A
Right.
- [35:32]
B
And that's harder to pull off than it sounds. Or at least we know from books that come out that are. That are. Get that piece wrong. Like I said, pacing is wonderful. The momentum builds without rushing, and it lets the emotional beats kind of breathe while still maintaining the page turning element of it. I would say if you loved the God of the woods, this would be an excellent read for you. Both books share that literary mystery sensibility where the investigation matters, but so does the psychological landscape of the characters we're following. And this just. This is just a book that reminds me why this is my genre. It's smart, it's emotionally resonant. It trusts its readers to care about more than just who did it. Although we very much care about that, too. This is a very entertaining read. This is the Ghost Writer by Julie Clark.
- [36:23]
A
Okay. Does this make you want to pick up some of her other books?
- [36:26]
B
Yeah, I think she has one, if I remember correctly. I think it's called the Last Flight.
- [36:29]
A
The Last Flight is the one that I associate with her name, although I also have never read her.
- [36:34]
B
Yeah. And I know that that was also highly rated. I haven't looked to see, like, where Ghostwriter is versus that one, so I would be very open to it. That's one of those ones. If I ran across it in the library and it just caught my eye, I would grab it up immediately.
- [36:48]
A
Yeah.
- [36:49]
B
All right, Katie, let's get into our deep dive here. We're going to talk a little bit about star ratings. And we got an email from a bookish friend, Carrie, who said this. She said, hello. I am desperate to know how you each decide what you're going to, what rating you're going to give a book. Like, what's your rubric? What's your formula, your process? I just get more curious after every episode in an attempt to be more intentional and engaged with my reading, which. Good for you, Cari. We love that. I'm trying to reflect on each book I finish, however I struggle when it comes to giving a star rating. I've tried to establish A guideline to help when listening to the podcast or reading others reviews. But my ratings are always significantly lower. Am I too hard on the books I'm reading? I don't think I read a single five star book in the past year.
- [37:44]
A
I.
- [37:44]
B
But I also didn't hate or regret reading any of them. I went back through the books that I've given ratings to and here are a few. She said A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Meredith gave it five stars, which I did. She gave it two and a half stars. Aristotle and Dante. Katie, you gave that three stars. She came in at two and a half stars. Wives Like Us. I gave it four stars, which that seems low to me for how much.
- [38:09]
A
I liked that book.
- [38:11]
B
Plum Psych. She gave it three stars. And then Victoria's Victorian Psycho. I gave it five stars, she gave it three and a half stars. She said, I know it's not an exact formula, but I'm definitely curious about your thoughts. Okay, Carrie, first of all, you just might not be a reader whose tastes align with me. So first of all, one thing for you to know would be like, hey, if it's a five star book for Meredith, it's probably only going to be a meh book for me. For me. But what if. But I think where we need to start, Katie, with this question is a question that is it comes up when we talk about star readings. What is a successful book?
- [38:51]
A
Yes, yes, exactly.
- [38:53]
B
Like where is your. What does three stars mean to you and Carrie? Unfortunately, the answer, the. The very tldr answer is we aren't. How we rate it really only matters to us.
- [39:07]
A
Right?
- [39:08]
B
Right. And how you rate your books only matters to you. So as long as you know what a three star book means versus a four star and a five star, then I think you're all good. What do you think about that, Katie? I know you were grabbing your face as I was reading this.
- [39:26]
A
Part of it for me is in Carrie's message. She says, am I reading books too harshly? Because she didn't give us single five star rating in all of 2025. And that's when I grabbed my face because either that means that, yeah, she might be being too harsh, or it means that she's not great at picking for herself. She's not finding those books that are really going to knock it out of the park for her. And both of those make me sad as a reader.
- [39:53]
B
Well, so if we were talking to her in person, what, what we would definitely be saying is, okay, but do you have. Have had five star Reads. Right, Right.
- [40:02]
A
In your lifetime as a reader. Right.
- [40:04]
B
And I'm sure the answer to that question is yes. Carrie, when you hear this episode, maybe go ahead and comment in the Instagram feed. We'll do a post about this episode. Let us know. Because I'd want to know what are those books? And then what are the commonalities in those books? And so that would be a place I would want to start with asking this question because that's a core. A core question. If we zoom out even further. Okay. Do you need to give star ratings to books? Not every reader does. And I would say this is a reader know thyself question. Are star ratings helpful to you in your own reading? Is this something you need to track because you don't have to.
- [40:47]
A
Right. That's certainly true for a broad swath of readers. It could be that you are the type of reader who only wants to know that you are reading. And that's good enough. That is as much as some of us ever need to hope for. Maybe you keep a single notepad. My co host on one of our Patreon projects, Bumi Ishola, she basically does this. She keeps a spiral notebook and just writes down books and she puts a single star next to them if she really liked it. And that's it. That's the entire denotation that she has. And she doesn't do statistics and she doesn't try and figure out which genres are the perfect fit for her. That's good enough for her reading life because that's how she wants to spend her energy in this area. And then there's people on the flip side, like me, and even further on the flip side, like some of our bookish friends who want to track every single metric and give each of them individual star ratings so that they can then see their reading life at this very granular level. Whoa. Which is also fine. Yeah, Right. They want to have star ratings for this and this and also this. And that's okay. I'm not going to make a spreadsheet that has 14 different columns that have a star rating because that feels like too much. But you do you. If that's what makes your reading life tick the right way, that's okay. So I think that is the first question. Is it worth rating with stars at all?
- [42:08]
B
And the next question is. Right. The next question is, what result are you looking for? So star readings are something that have always been helpful to me. I've been keeping a reading journal. Now we call it a reading tracker. Of course, I Use the currently reading Reading Tracker. But before, when my reading journal was literally just in a notebook, I always used star readings because that was a quick way for me to be able to. To know what my best books of the year were. But also it really helped me be able to make recommendations to other people.
- [42:36]
A
Yes.
- [42:37]
B
So let me run through. Just so that we're answering a question that she definitely has. Let me run through kind of how I think of the star rating system. Now. I track with quarter stars. That's another decision that you have to. That you can make if you decide. Okay, Yes, I want to do a star rating. Do you want to do whole stars? So 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5? Do you want to do half or do you want to do quarters? I do quarters because I feel like it gives me a little bit more insight into exactly what I thought about a book. It's a. It's a shorthand for that. So three stars for me, like a 3.00 is. Let's start in the middle. It's kind of. It's. It's fine. Three stars.
- [43:21]
A
Exactly what I said.
- [43:22]
B
Three stars is fine. I'm not going to rush out to recommend it to everybody, but if I have a friend who's looking for something really specific and I see that I had a three star for me book, but it really falls into what my friend wants, I would still recommend it to that friend.
- [43:38]
A
Yes.
- [43:39]
B
As we get into 3.25, 3.5, 3.75. These are all books that are. That are fine, better and better. But I'm not shouting them from the rooftops. Right. The three star books, spoiler alert. Are the ones that I am really trying not to bring to the show because they're the least interesting for me to talk about. You don't want to hear me say that book was fine. Anything lower than a three, like when I get to a two, I don't even think this year I had a one. A one would be like, I'm. I'm breaking glass. I'm throwing it so hard against a window.
- [44:12]
A
Right.
- [44:12]
B
I'm returning it to the bookstore. I'm actively telling people on Instagram that I think that this book never should have been. Like, I can't even remember the last time I had a true one. One is. Is. Is so singular.
- [44:27]
A
Yes.
- [44:28]
B
That I just. I can't even remember the last time I gave a book a one star. Two is really like, I did not like that book. And I will talk about it on the show and I will have some spicy opinions about it. I will be able to tell you why I didn't like it. But that's, that's what a 2, 2.25. 2 point. Any of those four is where things start to get interesting. Because 4, the 4, 4.255 and 4.75 is very granular for me. Each one of those is an important step up. Okay. Because 4 is I liked that book. 4.25 is I liked it. And I'm probably talking about it a lot of places. 4.5 is I am talking about it everywhere because I am and I am thinking of particular readers and I am DMing them and saying you must read this book. 5 is I'm shouting it from every rooftop. It may make my top 10 of the year. I am going on and on, on the show about it, you know, that kind of thing. But I think that I'm an easier rater because I had. I read 127books last year. In 2025 I had 16 five star books.
- [45:36]
A
Right?
- [45:36]
B
I have. But I also have friends who had fewer five star books. But their three stars are good. Like so. So that, that's kind of where I want to get to is you have to decide for you where is your like I like that book.
- [45:52]
A
I agree.
- [45:52]
B
Like where's that?
- [45:54]
A
I think that is kind of. Once you've decided you're going to do star ratings, the next step is, is to figure out what those stars mean to you. And when I spent entirely too long writing up things and finding stats and doing notes about this deep dive, I could almost just say ditto to everything you just said. Meredith, because it's the same. I kind of filtered it down to one star is I hated it and I should have thrown it away. I definitely should have DNF'd it or physically ruined it. Two, I didn't like it at all. I wish I hadn't finished it. But I did. And it was probably because either it was assigned to me because of other various projects or I was spite reading it by the end. And I really was looking forward to taking it down on the show. Yeah. Three was fine. It probably was. It was okay for me. There have to be books like that in our reading lives, right? Four, I put as I really liked this. And five, I loved this. I hugged it. It had things that worked for me. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop talking to other people about it. I can't get it out of my. And using those quarter stars is where I differentiate between I really liked this and I loved it. So a large percentage of my reading ends up between four and five stars. And I don't think it hurts anyone to be generous. And I think that was really where I wanted to come down on this, that there's not. You don't get reader brownie points by being a harsh rater of any content anywhere. Right. If you are watching a show that you really like, but every once in a while you pick up your phone because that one scene made you a little bit bored and then you say, well, it was only three stars because every once in a while I was a little bit bored. Nobody wins because of that. You don't get extra like credibility in the world at large. Right. And I feel like that's the same for books that if you're leaning toward three, is I really liked this book and I'm saving five for perfection. And then you're never finding the thing that feels like perfection to you. Maybe it is okay to lean into generosity. There is not a limited number of stars to go around in the universe. You can read 100 books a year and give all but three, five stars. And it doesn't mean you're not a good reader and it doesn't mean you're not a good rater. Maybe you're a really good picker. That's great too. You know, like, I think there's a lot to be said about either a using quarter stars to create some nuance within that and being okay with your average rating for the year. Mine was 4.3 in 2025, but I went way back in 2018 when we started the show. My average rating for the year was 3.77. But I still wanted to have a podcast with you where I talked about books. I was still enjoying my reading life. I have become more generous over time and I don't think it hurts anyone. So. Right.
- [48:51]
B
I think it, I think it has a lot to do with personality type and the way that, the way that we think about these things. I definitely know that some of my enneagram 5, you know, friends and, and family members, they really, really, really want to think this through very carefully. And this is why I want to suggest to Carrie that it might make sense because you are thinking this through and you're wondering about yourself, like, am I just. Am I just rating too harshly? You know, obviously we want you to think through what were your five star reads and what were those through lines there. So that because we would like what we want for each one of you listening is to have as many five star reads as possible because that makes your reading life really enjoyable and satisfying. But for Cari or anyone else who's feeling this way, I really think that if you're doubting your own ratings, use the Cawpile system for a while. You don't have to use it forever, but I think that using it, even for the next 10 books that you read can be really helpful. And Megan, I'm sure will put in the show notes, the link to. It's the book Riot article that I find the easiest explanation of this. But cawpile, of course, is a rating system that helps you break down your reading experience. And I do think, Cari, it's a great idea for you to do this right after you finish reading the book. That's when I do my ratings. CAWPILE helps you figure out, okay, if I look at the book in terms of characters, atmosphere and setting, writing style, plotline intrigue, logic and enjoyment. Right? That's the acronym CAWPile. If you go through and you give a 1 to 10 rating of each of those and you use the system which is laid out in this article, it will give you then a star rating. And when you do that, you will be able to know that that was your true star rating for that book. I feel like at least that will give you the ability to say, for me, this is the correct star rating. And then from there, do that for 10, 10 books. See how you're feeling at the end of that. You may then be like, okay, no, I have a really good sense and I can kind of let go of working through that whole process. And I just have more of a sense of what I want my rating to be. And I think, Katie, your advice about doing quarter stars for some nuance is a good idea too. So. And again, also, you can feel free, you know, to just say, you know what? I just have no desire to mess with that at all. It doesn't help me when I go to figure out my top five, my top ten of the year. I use my star rating column. I sort by. I sort by that column. And that then enables me to immediately see, okay, These are the 16 books that I really need to choose from. They were my 16, five stars, right? So that's why I do it. That's the result that I'm looking for. So, Carrie, and any of you guys who are thinking about this always, as with everything, think about what is the result that you're looking for. And then hopefully we've given you some tools here to work toward that result. All right, Katie, let's talk about the fountain.
- [51:54]
A
Let's do.
- [51:55]
B
Let's go to the fountain.
- [51:56]
A
Is there a lot of water in it?
- [51:59]
B
Well, the fountain. Okay, that's a good point. The fountain is a place that exists, reader, in your own mind. The fountain looks like whatever you want a perfect fountain to look like. It could be small and burbling. It could be gigantic and Las Vegas. Like, it could have lights, it could have music. It could have very little noise whatsoever.
- [52:19]
A
This could be your creative visualization for how you get to sleep at night as imagining your perfect reader. Fountain.
- [52:25]
B
Exactly. The reason that we're talking about a fountain is because we're about to make wishes. And every week at the end of the show, Katie and I make a wish at the fountain. And it can be about anything. Bookish. All right, Katie, what's your wish this week?
- [52:39]
A
All right, Meredith. This week I am going to wish that we would all pick one small, tiny way to challenge ourselves in our reading for 2026. And this is not to contradict my previous wish from a couple episodes ago that we start small. This builds on that. So if you've been reading and paying attention to your reading life for some period of time, you probably have at least one thing that you think think could be a good change. This time of year, we see people making resolutions to read their shelves. For example, some people are tackling projects like we talked about at the beginning of the show. Community, buddy reads. Some want to read more diversely or to try new things. Whatever it is, pick one. Just one thing to focus on for this year could be reading longer books, building bookish community. And those could be joining a read along or the bookish friends group. If it's to read more books, try bumping your audio speed by 1/10 or setting a reading timer every day to get an extra 20 minutes of reading in. If it's trying a new genre, find a new follow on Instagram or veer from your typical path in the bookstore. Whatever it is, pick one small but measurable thing to tweak in your reading life for this year and then see how it plays out. When we talked about our experiments at the beginning of this episode, we said, and we'll see what happens. Nobody is making us sign a contract in blood that we will only read our shelves all year long. The worst thing that can happen is you decide it's not working for you and you continue reading. And the best thing is that your reading life gets changed in a tangible and life giving way. So Start with a little small thing and see what happens. Ping splash.
- [54:16]
B
That is a great wish. My wish is a lot more prosaic but related in a way. I wish that you would sign up for our newsletter. In eight seasons, we have never done a newsletter. We have never done anything like this. So you we're going to put a link in the show notes but you go to our website and there's a place to sign up there. This is going to be short, actionable only every other week. We are not going to be in your inbox all the time, but it's going to be a lot about some of the stuff that we've talked about today. Different ways for you to know yourself as a reader. With the goal that the more you know yourself as a reader, the more satisfying your reading life will be. The more great books you'll get, the more five star reading experiences you'll have. So that's my wish is that you will join us there. Go to currentlyreadingpodcast.com and sign up. It costs you nothing. And again, I just think this is going to be a fun little experiment for 2026 just to see if we can have some fun around doing a little bit of knowing ourselves better.
- [55:15]
A
Ping splash.
- [55:16]
B
Ping splash. Okay, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me, I'm Meredith, Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram and you can.
- [55:25]
A
Find me Katie at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putabong Evans and you can find her on Instagram at most of megansreads full show notes with the.
- [55:37]
B
Title of every book we mentioned in the episode and timestamps. So you can zoom right to where we talked about. It can be found in our show notes and on our website@currentlyreading podcast.com youm.
- [55:48]
A
Can also follow the show @currentlyreading podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreading podcastmail.com we may answer your question.
- [55:57]
B
We may answer your question. Hopefully we will answer the question.
- [56:00]
A
We'll probably answer your email. We might answer your question. Okay, thank you. Okay.
- [56:04]
B
I was like, yes, I mean we do answer our emails, but you're right, right? Not all make it to the show. All right. If you love this kind of content and you're like, oh my gosh, I have finally found the book podcast. Oh my dreams. Join us as a bookish friend. It's $5 a month. You get a ton of additional content. You get a ton of community and you keep this show blessedly, blissfully, commercial free. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts or shout us out on social media. All of those things help us to find our perfect audience.
- [56:40]
A
Yes, bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [56:46]
B
All right, until next week, may your.
- [56:47]
A
Coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.
- [56:50]
B
Happy reading, Katie Happy reading.
- [56:52]
A
Meredith.