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The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 8, Episode 28: Reader Speed Dating + CR Style Book Clubs
00:56:08
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Foreign.
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B
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're 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, our readerly deep dive, and a little something bookish before we go.
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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 teachers still make me better at reading.
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A
And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona, and I love the comfort of finding readers in the wild. This is episode number 28 of season eight and we are so glad you're here.
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B
Katie. Have you been out? Have you been out in the wild with readers? Have you been meeting people randomly?
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A
I mean, yes, I'm going to talk about it in my bookish moment, but I'm calling it reader speed dating. That's not what it is, but that's how I'm framing it in my head.
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B
I like it.
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A
Before we get to that though, we'll let everybody know that our deep dive today is about Currently Reading Style book clubs. Because we do a different thing here on Currently Reading and sometimes you can translate that into your book group of choice. So we'll chat about that in a bit. But first we'll start with our bookish moments. And as a lover of all things teacher and education, Meredith, I can't wait to hear what your Bite Size interest intro is about.
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B
Okay, so we heard this week via email from our bookish friend Ilsa, who says this. Hi Meredith, after hearing your metaphor about cooking ground beef, yes, I wanted to share another metaphor for reading that we use with kids a lot. I'm a teacher and a literacy coach, which, by the way, what's a literacy coach? And I love that idea. Here we go. The beginning of a book, especially that 20 to 50%, is like riding a bike uphill. You have to work harder, pump harder, maybe even stand on the pedals. Once you reach that point, when you know the characters or the world building is clear, or you're comfortable in the structure or the writing style tone, then you can coast down that hill and the reading is much easier. You put in a lot of cognitive energy in the beginning, or you need to have patience with what the author is trying to do. But the payoff is there in the second half Ilsa says this metaphor helps kids push through the hard parts to stick with a book. And maybe it's a good reminder for adults too. I like that bookish metaphor of pushing up the hill as if you were on a bike. It's a lot less gross than my ground beef metaphor.
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A
The ground beef one was pretty gross. But it for anybody who's ever stood at the stove, we know what that means, right? If you have ever put. Gosh, I think the day before I listened to that episode with you and roxanna, I cooked 3 pounds of ground beef and I was like, ugh, I hate this part. This is the worst. I don't like how it smells. I don't like anything about it. I'm like, can you just turn into what I want after? Which is perfect for the slog of getting into a book sometimes, right? Exactly, Exactly. Okay. For me, this past week, my oldest kid, who as a reminder is 15 now, he's obsessed with cars. He cannot wait to get his license. He decided he wanted to try a new thing. So he went to his very first go kart race. Leisai. It was fine. It was actually really fun because he was terrible for the first race. But even in the 12 laps I watched him get better and really understand what he was doing. And so by the time he got to the second race, cause the first is a qualifier and then they see them and blah blah, blah. Second race, he was so much better and he cut a second and a half off his average lap time. Like he just watching him be like, okay, now I understand this, this and this and put it together. Trying something brand new for the first time was so fun for me. But it was clear when we got there that most people had been doing this for a while and we were the newbies and we were a little lost. So we got shuttled over to the trackside seating area and I wasn't sure where to sit or how long I was going to be waiting or anything. Thankfully, I found a reader, right? She had her Kindle open in front of her but was looking up, so I knew it was safe to approach. Right, that's the thing, you can't just go interrupting readers. They're going to be mad at you. They brought that device for a reason or that book for a reason. So I asked about the stool next to her and in order to show my own non threatening nature, I made sure she saw my device as well. Like, hello, yes, we are fellow readers here in the wild. It was just that instant connection point. For those of Us who carry a book with us wherever we go. So she took me under her wing, Bethany did, as a more experienced mama, and made sure we knew where we could pick up the paper with lap times and some of the other just pieces of info that we didn't have as newbies. When our kids were both not racing, we sat quietly next to each other and read. And it was comfortable and easy and it was like, it was like reader speed dating, right? I'm like, oh, I recognize that foldable little cover over there. I know that person is going to be kind and welcoming and if she looks up, then I'm safe to talk to her. And it was.
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B
There is nothing better in a new social situation than automatically knowing that there's somebody there who, where you can talk books. Because that is the ultimate easy intro point into conversation with someone that you've just met. So I'm so glad that she was there.
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A
Yes. So easy and fun. But that means that, you know, I was reading, she was reading, and we've all been reading. Hopefully sometimes I'm not reading, but let's talk about what we have been reading. Meredith, what's your first current read this week?
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B
Okay. I have a weird melange of books this week, Katie. It's a strange grouping of books, but, you know, we bring every book that we're reading and at least I do. So there's some, there's some good stuff, there's some unexpected stuff, there's some classic stuff. But we get what we get and we don't throw a fit.
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A
It happens. Here we go. All right.
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B
My first book is called A Violent Age by Sarah Blake. Here's the setup. Our lead character is Ruth, who is a school therapist navigating this new government mandated program that's supposedly designed to prevent school shootings through early mental health care. Except it's turning out to be more surveillance than actual support. Her daughter Lisa is a junior at her at the same high school where she's a counselor. And Lisa is dealing with all the typical pressures of teenage life. She's doing SAT prep, she, you know, AP exams, school dances, all of that. The dynamic of being mother and daughter in the same building at a school where Ruth's professional role puts her in this really difficult position between caring for students and kind of tattling on them. It really creates a dynamic between these two, between this mother and daughter. And that's what this book is about. That's it. So I chose A Violent Age because I really liked Sarah Blake's cli fi mystery called Clean air. I don't know if you remember this one. This is the one where it's like a dystopian society. They have to live in tents because there's this pollen everywhere that is real, that is so heavy, like, people die.
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Is there something blue?
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I think it might have a blue cover. I think it might have a blue cover. But the. The mystery comes in because somebody is, like, slicing open the tents that certain people live in, and then they die when they're exposed to the air. So that's clean air. So I really liked that when I read that a few years ago. So I picked it up and I picked up a violent age because I was like, oh, I didn't know she had another book. This is a short novella. It's 187 pages. I went into it not knowing anything about it at all, which usually works really well for me. This is the exception that proves the rule. Although there was a lot that I liked about this book, I started out completely confused with my. With kind of what I was reading because I couldn't figure out exactly what kind of book this was. I kept waiting for something to happen, like something big, sizable, you know, something that would pull the threads together and make me understand what kind of story was I getting here. But this is essentially, for most of it, a slice of life piece. It's not boring. It's actually really good in a lot of ways, but it defies that easy categorization. And so it left me feeling off balance. And honestly, if I'd known a little bit about what to expect going in, I could have just settled into it. And I think I would have enjoyed it even more, especially if I wasn't waiting for a plot line. I kind of thought that there was going to be like a school shooting plotline happening.
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And there's nothing like some kind of counter to. Yeah.
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B
What does work here and works really, really well is the portrayal of the mother daughter relationship. So, as I said, Lisa is a junior. She's at such a specific age and stage. And Sarah Blake clearly knows kids who are at that age because she captures it really well. And then we have Ruth and the fears that she has as a mom watching her daughter navigate high school, and the fears that Lisa has as a teenager in this particular moment in American Life. Sarah Blake nails all of that. These two genuinely love each other and they value their relationship, but they're also mom and daughter. So there's friction points and rough patches, but there's also a lot of love there. So that complexity was really real to me and I loved that about this book. I've actually thought quite a bit about that since I read the book. But. And this is where I'm going to be honest, I actually buried the lead when I said that nothing happens in this book because there is a thing that happens, a significant thing that happens, and it's so completely out of left field that it's honestly a bizarre choice. I have to be deliberately vague here because obviously I'm not going to spoil it. Part of me wants to, because I know none of you are going to read this, but I'm not going to because we just. I'm just not going to do that. But if you want to know, DM me and I will tell you because it's so bizarre.
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I mean, I want.
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By the time I got to the end, I found myself thinking, wait, did. Did I actually really kind of like that book? Even though that really weird thing happened, I'm still not sure. It's just the kind of choice that makes you question whether the author is brilliant or just completely making things up as she goes. I don't know about this novella. I know that I wanted to be reading it the whole time I was reading it. I know I wanted to find out what was going to happen at the end. But I'm genuinely not sure who I would give this book to or how I would tell them exactly what it is. Because when I got to the end of the book, there's an author's note where Sarah Blake essentially apologizes for writing the book. She says she's sorry that she wrote a book that was too short for her publisher to sell. She's sorry that it's not really ya, but it's not really adult. She's sorry that it's completely unsellable, so she had to self publish it. The honesty, the rawness of that note really got me. And it felt kind of brave in a way that matched the strange, hard to categorize nature of the book itself. So where I ended up on this one was a big shoulder shrug, but in a really wholesome I'm. I am glad I read it kind of way. I think if you liked Clean air and you're okay with experimental work that doesn't fit neatly into a box, you. You would like it. But if you want something that fits into, like, if you want to really understand this is a weird book, y'.
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All. I'm.
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It's really weird book to talk about because I can't tell you this thing which would make it much easier for us to have a discussion about, but it's a near future speculation. Also trying to be a mother daughter story that's also trying to be literary fiction. I'm confused about it and now you all are confused about it with me. This is a Violent Age by Sarah Blake.
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A
We all need the little like, question marks to pop up over our heads right here.
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Yes, I'm very confused. But I have thought about this book a lot. And Katie, as soon as we stop recording, I'm gonna tell you, okay?
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I'm like. I'm like, write it on my hand. Like, what's the thing? Look, I'm doing it right now.
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There is no way on the planet that you could guess what the thing is.
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A
Okay. Yeah, well, hey, sometimes we need a novella. Maybe somebody's looking for exactly that thing. You never know. I have something different than whatever that was because everything is different than that.
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B
It would be so weird if you had something similar.
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A
I have almost exactly the same thing. That's weird, right? Okay, so I am going to tell y' all about Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai. This one's really fun. Here's the setup. Meera Patel is successful and gorgeous and has great friends. And everything is great because she's a romance novel heroine, obviously. Except she can't hold on to a relationship to save her life, despite the efforts of her matchmaker, which is a fun part of this novel and her dysfunctional family. And this is the type of dysfunctional that puts the fun in dysfunctional, which does not always conduct business that's in line with the law, because wealthiness means you could do whatever you want. That string of matchmaker rejections starts with Naveen Desai, the first person presented, who wasn't quite right for her. But now, like, having gone through all these other rejections, she's like. But maybe like, I don't know, like, was my bar too high? Was I just not ready? Who knows, right? Good news. They are thrown back together when Mira shows up at his grandfather's law office to settle her aunt's estate. But Naveen has been handling the office as his grandfather deals with illness. So despite their very brief history, that meeting is unavoidable. And it becomes a bit stilted as Naveen realizes that what should have been just a simple sediment. Here's a little bit of money. Here's a key. Turns into a cat and mouse game of secrets where Mira is hiding what her family has been up to and really not wanting to get involved with it herself. And it gets Worse when the two of them are kidnapped together and this turns into. I know, right? It just like all of a sudden explodes. This turns into a forced proximity second chance. It's not even a second chance romance. It's like a brief meeting. And now we're going to try this again romance. As Mira and Naveen race around Las Vegas, Nevada, trying to avoid jewel thieves and millionaire crime bosses. While Mira knows this mess can all be traced back to her family and she feels really terrible about Naveen being pulled into the drama, it's also kind of nice to have somebody alongside her. Otherwise she'd be doing all of this on her own. So let's be clear here that this is a contemporary romance that bridges on rom com. It's a comedy of errors. It's a. It's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous book. It's a ridiculous premise. I mentioned kidnapping, but I would never put this in the dark romance section of the bookstore. It's propulsive and funny and there's glitz and glam and fun all the way through. Has a little bit of that crazy rich Asians vibe to it because of the ways that they're moving through society. Throughout the story, it was action packed and easy to get into. Kind of like Ocean's Eleven, right? Where you're like, I want to rob a casino with like 10 of my closest friends. I don't know, it kind of sounds fun. Oh, there's a kidnapping. Oh, there's a gun. It's all right. We'll be okay. Like, it just is like madcap and a little bit silly. I, however, I was rooting for Mira and Naveen throughout the story, even as we peel back the layers on her really terrible family. Now, much like the action adventure rom coms that we loved in the 2000s, like speed or even Sandra Bullock's newer movie, the Lost City, sometimes the dialogue is a little thin. Sometimes the plot seems a little bit like the author was just spinning one of those Las Vegas roulette wheels to decide what was going to happen next to her character. It's not a perfect book, but it was fun and delightful and I gave it two and a half to three chili peppers on the spice scale and four stars overall. So this was Partners in Crime by Alicia Rai.
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You know, you said madcap Katie, and.
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A
That, that's one of your turn offs.
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B
It's one of my book turnoffs, which reminded me of something I meant to say at the top of the show. You know, we're doing our new newsletter reader, Know Thyself newsletter. And every other week, this newsletter is going to go out and it asks you one question per email about your reading life. Like, the first one obviously was like, are you a mood reader or planned reader? It's like the most obvious question. But the issue of what are three words that turn you are like catnip to you. And what are three words that really turn you off? I think that would be a really good topic at one point, because if we know those words, like, when you hear someone say a word where you're like, oh, my God, whenever someone says madcap, I just know that book's not for me. That's really interesting data.
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Right. 95% of the time. That's true for me. For satire. Right? Exactly. Okay, well, I liked everything you said until that.
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Not that, but that's a good bit. That's a good indicator for me that helps me make better choices. So you saying that reminded me to tell people, hey, if you want to get our newsletter, go to the currentlyreadingpodcast.com website and sign up. Okay. My next book is another one of those books that nobody's going to read, and I'm glad I read it. But I also was, like, finishing it and going like, I wish that somebody else had just read this because I really need to talk about it. Somebody else, please. Just like, am I going nuts? Am I going crazy? This is a book called Speedy Death by Gladys Mitchell. Here's the setup when the renowned explorer Everard Montjoy fails to appear for dinner at a country house gathering to celebrate his engagement to Eleanor Byng. The other guests are annoyed until he's discovered drowned in the bathtub. But here's where author Gladys Mitchell throws you a curveball that you would not have seen in 1929. Mountjoy isn't who everyone thought he was. Enter Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. She's a psychoanalyst. She's a therapist. This book was written in 1929.
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A
It was written in 1929.
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Not just was written, it is written. This is a Golden Age mystery.
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A
Okay.
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Written in 1929. The lead character, Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, is a therapist. Like a psychoanalyst, which is what they call them back then. And an amateur detective who crashes the party with all the subtlety of just a rhinoceros bull in a china shop.
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Okay.
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Mrs. Bradley sees murder where the others see an accident. And she is not about to let Inspector Boreing absolutely his name bungle the investigation. As more attacks happen in the household, Mrs. Bradley must untangle this web of secrets. Yada. Yada, yada. Okay, so you might think that this mystery, written in 1929, featuring an author who is the. A colleague of Agatha Christie, would deliver another sweet Miss Marple type who maybe knits while she's solving crimes, but you are in for the surprise of your life. Now, I found this book because when I was reading Ian Patterson's books, a manifesto on my trip to Scotland, when I read that book, he mentioned that some of his favorite books were this 66 book series written by Gladys Mitchell. And I was like, it's a 66 book series that I have never heard of, ever. And this woman is a colleague. Like a. What's it called? What's the word I'm looking for?
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A
Contemporary.
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A contemporary of Agatha Christie. I need to find it out. And it was on Amazon or it was on Kindle so I could get it. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley could not be more different from Miss Marple if she tried. And I have a feeling Gladys Mitchell did try. So here's the thing about Mrs. Bradley. She is described as being. These are words in the book. Small, shriveled witch, like, with a cackle, that would make the Wicked Witch of the west jealous. She's a psychoanalyst, right? She's a therapist who cheerfully admits that we could all be murderers given the right motivations. And she seems to find the whole business of this murder investigation completely amusing. This is not your grandmother's cozy detective, unless your grandmother was particularly sarcastic and potentially homicidal. And if that's the case, I need you to DM me because we need to talk about that.
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A
That sounds fun.
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So what knocked me sideways about this book were a couple of twists. I read it on the train from Edinburgh back to London, which turned out to be the perfect setting for this British mystery. And I am not kidding you when I say that there were two times that I literally gasped out loud. Poor Betsy was sitting next to me and she was like, are you. Are you all right? I'm like, this book, this book. Mitchell throws in some plot developments that were totally scandalous for 1929 and things that would actually raise eyebrows even today. I'm not going to go into details without spilling this craziness, but again, I wish that we had a spoiler podcast instead of a spoiler free podcast, because let's just say the victim isn't who you think they are, and there's just a lot of surprises. Now, the mystery in and of itself isn't particularly complex. The whole whodunit is fairly straightforward, and if you've read any Agatha Christie or other Golden Age mystery, you'll probably figure out who the culprit is before the big reveal. But what saves it from being just standard is that Mrs. Bradley herself is a force of nature. You don't really even care about the whodunit element of things. She's so cynical and amoral in the most entertaining way. And watching her navigate this mess, and it is a mess, with total detachment, is genuinely fun. But what surprised me most was how Gladys Mitchell, the author, handles the ending. Without giving anything away, I will say that something happens that made me wonder how on earth there are 66 books in this series. Mitchell clearly had zero interest in following conventional rules of Golden Age detective fiction. And honestly, good for her. If you're wanting to read more Agatha Christie vibes with clear moral lines, this is not your book. But if you want to see what happens when someone takes the country house mystery format and gleefully sets it on fire, then you will have a blast here. I know I did. This is Speedy Death by Gladys Mitchell. What a weird rabbit hole, right? Like, I never would have found it but for that other book. I like to, like, wrap. I like to rabbit hole books like that.
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Yes, I love that, too. You're so good at this, Merida. Because you're right. Like, nobody. I don't want to read that, but I kind of do. I don't know.
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Okay, at the end, when we get done recording, I'm going to tell you what happens at the end of that one, too.
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A
Oh, my gosh. Now I have double notes on my hand. Okay. Okay. My second one this week has a drowning in it, so we're making a connection here. My second one is called A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid. I must have been in an academic mood at the end of 2025, because I am. My January reading was thin on the ground, so I am pulling from 2025 books to be able to continue to do the show right now. Because right now, I just last week talked about history lessons, academic mystery. Right. I have another academic mystery to bring to you this week, but this one is heavily laced with fantasy. Ava Reid has been on my radar for a while. Meredith, I think you are the one who told us about the Wolf and the Woodsman. The Woodsman. Something with the woodsman that's hers. But you're making a face like you don't know what I'm talking about.
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B
No, I do know what you're talking about. I'm having trouble remembering the exact plot of it, but I can, like See the COVID in my mind, yeah.
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Because the COVID is graphic and distinctive. Right? So she's been on my radar, but I haven't picked up any of her books until I saw this one, and we just talked about this too. It has sprayed edges, covered in books, like the shelves of a library down the side of the. And I was like, well, I don't know what that is, but I need it.
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B
Exactly. That's what those editions do.
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A
It was very rude. It called to me on a cellular level. This one is sometimes shelved as ya. It's right on the cusp of adult. Effie is our main character, and she's haunted by a fairy tale. She can't get the fairy king and his visions out of her head, which is why her copy of the book of fairy tales that has his stories in it is worn and tattered. And the author who published that copy of fairy tales, he recently passed. So his estate has just announced a contest to redesign his tattered home, and it is a disaster. This house is a mess, right? Emrysmirdin may have passed away, but his home, which is decrepit, crumbling disaster, it still holds secrets. When Effie arrives, she meets Preston. Preston's a great name. It's much easier than Emerus Myrdin. He is a young scholar, but he's also cranky and standoffish. He's a little bit curmudgeony. He's the black cat energy in this story, and he is bound and determined to expose Myrrodin, the author, as a fraud. This is an epic fairy tale, but it cannot be true. And I'm gonna prove it, right? Like, that's the energy he brings into this. This Mirdin. He's a liar. But while both of them are poking around the home, Effie to renovate it, and Preston to prove that this guy is a liar, they realize that there are dark forces inside this home. Definitely do not open locked doors or, you know, see if a bookshelf will move. And do not go in the basement because it's flooded. And whatever is under that water, we don't want to mess with. Right? Oh, gives me chills. Okay, so this book has enough grounding in the real world to feel possible while also feeling wispy and ethereal. We've had other books like this in the past few years, especially the publisher's. Comp it to the Atlas 6 and Girl Serpent Thorn, both of which I've read, and I can see the similarities there. And also to House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin Craig, which is One that Meredith read and loved and put on our TBRs because, as we've mentioned, that's what she does. In that vein, it also has some of the same feels as Seeing Me to Sleep by Gabby Burton, which I adored in 2023, talked about multiple times. It wants to be Emily Wilde, the Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Fairies by Heather Fawcett, but it can't get there. It can't reach that level because it suffers real bad from a mushy middle. We've got a cool premise. This house, this crumbling house with the flooded basement. Like, I want an amusement park just built on that. And I will go explore everywhere. It's so fun. We've got a fantastic setting, but the characters are not super likable and the plot just stalls about halfway through before getting going again. Like when you have a lawnmower that you need to, you know, yank on a few times to get it running. Just needs a few more good pulls. There's also an element of telling instead of showing here with regard to the heavier themes that she's trying to lace through, which we see a lot with YA authors. But this time it's not done artfully, which is usually when we're like, okay, yes, ya, but give me something to chew on. Right? There's a sexual assault that we find out about pretty early in the story, and Effie is dealing with mental and emotional fallout from that, as well as being told regularly as readers how beautiful she is. Like, they have to be connected somehow for misogyny to be in play. It's like, a lot like, oh, again. Oh, yeah, she's beautiful. Oh, yeah. There's another guy treating her like, oh, yeah, okay. Like just, oh, okay, come on, let's move forward. So overall, I liked being in this world. I really liked being in this house. But I didn't love the characters and the plot got mushy. So I won't continue with the series. Despite those beautiful edges, I was swindled by a pretty copy. I only gave it three and a half stars, but if I could shelve it on my bookshelves, I would shelf it with the page edges facing out, because then it might be worth keeping. This is A Study in Drowning by Ava Reed.
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B
Oh, man, that is such a good premise. But a mushy middle is so disappointing.
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A
Yes. I almost stalled out. Just like that lawn mower. Like, somebody come yank on me and get me reading again.
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B
Yeah, seriously.
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A
Okay. All right.
- [28:41]
B
Well, my third book, thank the Lord in Heaven, is a five star. Works on every single level. A lot of people are going to want to read this book, so I'm really glad to be back on firm ground here. I really prefer to be talking about books that I think a lot of people are going to like, and this one is so good. This is a book called the Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan. This is a debut, which I don't really care about, but I said like I cared about it. I feel like that's what book podcasters always are like. And this is a debut like that matter somehow. So that's why I said it. Okay, here's the setup. Private investigator Annie Gore is scraping by. She literally, as we meet her, is hawking her watch to cover bills when a young man walks into her life with a case that has been cold for a decade. He tells her, ten years ago, three little girls vanished from a tiny mountain town tucked deep in the North Carolina haulers. One came back, the other two were never seen again. Now the brother of one of the missing girls wants answers, and he specifically wants Annie, an outsider who understands mountain people because she used to be one. Annie joined the Air Force right out of high school to escape the exact kind of fraught Appalachian childhood that this case is trying to drag her right back into. But as I said when I told you she was hawking her watch, the money is too good to turn down this man and this case is definitely going to cost her. So if you're someone who loves a very well written mystery with a fierce, capable, root forable protagonist and a setting so atmospheric that you can smell the wood smoke, then you are going to need to grab the Witch's Orchard. Seriously. Like I said, I want to press this into the hands of every single reader who says I like to read crime fiction more than anything else. This is five enthusiastic stars from me. My library recommended this one in their weekly Instagram posts and blessed them forever for it because this was one of those reads. Where was it? Everything clicked for me, the layers in this story are so satisfying. Author Archer Sullivan has built something really intricate and purposeful here. So many mysteries are sloppy on some of the points of the mystery, and this book proves why getting it right matters. The puzzle, the clues, the way everything folds together is perfection. Sullivan understands that mystery readers want to play along, so she gives us everything we need to do to do that, but she still manages to surprise us. What really makes this book sing is lead character Annie gore. She's a PI, which normally, you know, I prefer police and not PIs. And I'm not A big private investigator reader. But Annie is tough and funny and deeply human. She's capable without being a superhero. She's smart, but not unreal. Like she's not insufferable. She's got rough edges, but not in a stereotypical like, look at my rough edges kind of way. She just has a backstory. She feels like someone who's actually real. And I often think that a really good piece of crime fiction lives and dies by its main character. And Annie is the kind of investigator that I would just follow into any case, any book, any time. And then there's this setting. And I do like books set in Appalachia. This, this is something that I. I don't know why, but I. I mean, it's a beautiful part of the country. It's very atmospheric. And sul, the author is a ninth generation Appalachian herself and so you can feel that authenticity in every sentence of the book. It unfolds in a super atmospheric way that wraps you in Blue Ridge fog, local folklore about witches and crows in a community that's got way too many secrets for its own good. This is the kind of place where it just seeps into your bones. So, yeah, if you're looking for like, what does it comp to? Yes. Other books set in Appalachia, but really for me, I kept thinking about this is a little bit old school, but Margaret Marin, she has a series, I think it's set in New Orleans, the Deborah Knott series that's atmospheric and community dynamic driven in the same way. So I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It's the kind of debut that makes me think this might be like another really, really big author in the crime fiction arena. And I'm so here for it. This is the Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan.
- [33:11]
A
Excellent.
- [33:12]
B
Oh, I like this one so much.
- [33:13]
A
I'm excited about that one. That sounds good. I also like Appalachia. I'm going to blame book tenders for that, although I don't think it necessarily started with them. But my further obsession, it's probably from them. Maybe Barbara Kingsolver too. Yeah.
- [33:28]
B
For me it's True Detective.
- [33:29]
A
Okay. I also have a mystery for my third one. This is more traditional thriller y mystery and it's relatively new. It's Everyone is lying to you by Piazza. Have you seen this one?
- [33:41]
B
I have seen this one, Yep.
- [33:42]
A
Okay. This is a trad wife murder mystery. So this is a peek into influencer culture. And when I finished it, I immediately pressed it into the hands of my neighbor, one of my in person bookish Friends who needed a quick and easy propulsive read. This one delivers. Lizzie, our main character, is a struggling magazine writer. She's hoping for a big break or something to at least break her out of her slump. She's like a young mom. She's always, like, wasting her time watching reels, especially those of Rebecca Sommers, the trad wife Instagram influencer who shares her perfect life on her gigantic ranch with her five children and her gorgeous husband. Everybody is great. It's all perfect. It's all in, like, neutral tones. And they, like, make bread every day, right? I was picturing Joanna Gaines, even though that's not how Rebecca is described. But Rebecca used to just be Bex when she and Lizzie were best friends in college, and they did everything together, including getting drunk and holding each other's hair back when they dealt with the consequences of their drinking. Right? Until Bex disappeared without a tr, leaving Lizzie wondering what she did wrong until she showed up as this new person online. Like, hi, you just disappeared off the planet. And now here you are and you're like this famous lady with millions of Instagram followers and a perfect life. Like, what's happening? But they haven't talked to each other in years. At the beginning of the story, Bex has reached out, offering an inside scoop on her new business venture and an invitation to Mombomb, which is a conference where she will be the headline speaker. When Lizzie shows up to Mombomb and starts learning about influencer culture, including things like chicken influencers, which had me just rolling, laughing, she is overwhelmed. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
- [35:21]
B
Chicken influencers, like, people who cook chickens?
- [35:24]
A
Raise chickens.
- [35:24]
B
Oh, raise chickens.
- [35:25]
A
And they, like, are known in, like, the chicken communities. And everybody wants to be that cool of a hen influencer. It's just like, a hint.
- [35:34]
B
A hinfluencer.
- [35:35]
A
A henfluencer. I think there's something like that. I think they might say henfluencer, but it's just like, I was like, gosh, the Internet is weird, man. It's crazy over there. Yeah.
- [35:45]
B
Love it when people are in love with really nichy things.
- [35:48]
A
Yeah, for sure. So Lizzie's overwhelmed. She's at this conference, she's meeting all these people. She's like, are you people even real? I don't even understand what's happening. But when Bex's husband, Gray, is found murdered and then Bex goes missing, even though she's supposed to be the keynote speaker, Lizzie is at the center of the investigation. The cops are like, wait, aren't you her best friend? She was like, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. I knew her in college, but Bex doesn't have any friends now. She's just always posing for the camera, right? She is desperate, Lizbeth. Lizzie is desperate to find out what happened again to her old friend and feels like she's being thwarted at every turn by the fact that everyone her around her at the conference is used to putting on a pretty face and showing exactly what the world wants to see. But what's real? Like, what's actually happening? Where is Bex? What happened at the ranch? Right? Lizzie starts uncovering clues left specifically for her, all while trying to navigate this article she's supposed to be writing. Especially now that she's, like, at the center of a scandal. There's the fallout from the murder, including the fact that she can't leave the conference center while they're doing this investigation. Her kids are at home with her increasingly frazzled but still very supportive husband. I could not put this down. I was obsessed the whole way through. I listened to this one. I was finding chores. This is that kind of book. I was like, does my bed need remaking? Do I.
- [37:06]
B
Are my baseboards dirty?
- [37:07]
A
Do I fold every shirt in my dresser? Like, what can I do? I. I, like, reorganized my bathroom cupboards because I was like, I can't. I have to be in this house. I have to be at this conference. There's like a hilltop picnic scene that I thought I was going to die because I was so freaked out by what was happening. It was follows all the way through. It makes sense. I followed every clue that the author laid out for me. I could not wait to see what happened to Lizzie and Bex. And where is Bex and what's going on with the husband and who killed him. I was caught up in this story all the way to the end. I gave it four and a half stars. I loved it. I thought it was so good. And I loved that, like, what is real in the Internet age? Who.
- [37:49]
B
I do.
- [37:50]
A
Yeah. Of it. So good. So this was Everyone Is Lying to youo by Joe Piazza.
- [37:55]
B
You know what it should have been called? Henfluencer Cock a doodle dead.
- [38:00]
A
Well, Vex isn't a henfluencer. She's a trad wife.
- [38:04]
B
I was not prioritizing this book at all. But now that you've talked about it, I feel like I really want to read it.
- [38:09]
A
Gosh, when they're in her house, Meredith, and you kind of figure out how this content gets made, you're like. Like, are all these people living in houses like this where it's like, here's the fake house for everybody to see and here's the real house where we actually live and, like, cook food. Because those are not the same place.
- [38:25]
B
I mean. Yeah, it would have to be, right? Very interesting.
- [38:30]
A
Yeah, it's so good. Okay, those were our six current reads. That was super. And that is how we play currently reading. Right. We do this every week. And that gets us into our deep dive where we're going to talk about what it means to play currently reading with your friends in real life in currently reading style book clubs, which are a delight. And I feel like everybody needs one, honestly.
- [38:53]
B
Yes, I think it's the best way to do a book club.
- [38:55]
A
Yes, I agree. So what, what is a currently reading style book club? Meredith, if you, if you were going to like elevator pitch this idea to somebody who doesn't listen to the show, what would you tell them?
- [39:07]
B
I would say it's kind of like an old school literary society. Right. So instead of picking one book where everyone says, hey, this month we're going to read X book and then we're going to get together and talk about it. You just get together and everyone talks about the books that they've been reading recently. And that could be one book each, that could be three books each depends on a lot of different factors, but that would be what I would describe. Now, there's other ways you could, like, tweak it and make it more like the show or less like the show. You could have a deep dive topic if you wanted to, but just the concept of, hey, we're just going to get together and talk about books some regular intervals. And it's just, to me, it's a great way to have a book club because people want to talk about books, but they don't necessarily want to read. I'm not saying everybody because there is a lot to be said about the normal book club format. Absolutely. But this is just an interesting option. You could form something that you know has only ever done this, or you could maybe work this into your standard book club and like, maybe once a quarter you say, this next month we're just going to do a currently reading style round robin instead of choosing a book for everyone to read. So, like, it can be its own thing or could be mixed in.
- [40:16]
A
Yes, definitely. I do this, y'. All. It's been a bit. It's been a second. But this is how the Arizona bookish friends, this is what we do when we get together because we have people from Arizona is A decently sized state. So some people are driving two hours each direction. We're only doing it once a month, if you can make it, which means you're not always there the month before to be able to say, like, yes, I'm committing to reading this one next month. Right. It's a much looser format and probably half the time we meet at a bookstore first and then go to a local cafe or coffee shop or brewery and get some snacks and some drinks and then play currently Reading together. Or we go to somebody's house and we keep whatever is smaller of the kitchen island or the kitchen table. The smaller space gets the snacks and the bigger space gets the books. And the books are usually a book swap for us. So we're like killing two birds with one stone. Right. Half the time we're going to a bookstore, we're increasing our shelves at home, adding to them. And the other time, I think I just talked about this last episode, actually, Jackie, a local bookish friend, I got a book from a book swap that she brought because that's the other half of what we do with currently reading book club is we'll have a book swap at the end. And that way maybe it's one of the ones that you get to hear about that day. Because I've done it so often with local bookish friends, I have some opinions about the way that works best. Okay.
- [41:38]
B
Yes, I was hoping so.
- [41:39]
A
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think that really, if you want to do this, you could have a book club with 50 people in it. Right. You can't really do that with a currently reading book club unless you're gonna break into small groups. So I think ideal is you cap it at 10, and if you're getting above that, 14, 20 people, you're gonna want to break into groups of six to 10 people each because that's the only way that you really have time to have a back and forth about what people are reading. The show is called Currently Reading. When we talk about our current reads, Meredith and I have always finished those books. They're not the ones that we're in the middle of. That's the other thing that I kind of say with regard to currently reading book club is that it's not actually the one that you're in the middle of. You have an opinion about it, you've finished it up. It's not something that you might DNF tomorrow when you pick it up again, you're done with it and you have something to say about it and try and keep it spoiler free. Yes. Or don't use our name.
- [42:32]
B
Right. I mean, it's just more interesting for everybody, I think, except in a small. A small group, which I totally agree with you, like 8 to 10, I think is a really nice number for something like this. And you know, in a small group, you could all decide, like, everyone can be like, okay, Meredith, I'm. I'm really not going to read A Violent Age. Like, everyone's going to raise their hand, be like, I'm not. Okay, can you just tell? So then, like, you could spoil it in that case. But yeah, for the most part what you're trying to do is say like, hey, this is a book that I read and liked or maybe read and hated or didn't. Didn't like. And here's why. With the, you know, the goal being really great conversation, but also helping each other discover books that might work for us.
- [43:13]
A
Yeah, definitely. Or books that don't. Because we've talked about book twins and anti book twins before. And, you know, we've got a really close personal friend, Lizzie. I love Lizzie. She and I don't read the same, and that's okay. But every once in a while there's this little overlap and I'm like, okay, but that one. Is that a Katie book? She's like, this one I think you should pick up. Or no, no, Katie, you stay away from this one. Right.
- [43:34]
B
And that is another really big argument for book clubs in general, because the same thing happens in a, in a classic book club, but currently reading style book clubs in specific, is that it really gives you an opportunity to get to know a small group of people's reading taste over time. And then you become like a little recommendation engine for each other because you all, without even trying to kind of are on the lookout for, or when you hear about a book, you'll be like, oh, you know what? Lizzie would love that particular.
- [44:07]
A
Yes.
- [44:07]
B
Because, like, now I know what it is that she likes or doesn't like or, you know, that kind of thing. That's another really big argument for being in a book club of any kind.
- [44:15]
A
Definitely also tying back to the Reader Know Thyself newsletter. If you got that newsletter and you were like, don't even talk to me about planned reading. I am a mood reader. Currently reading book club is the right move for you, mood reader. Because for a lot of us, being told what to read the next month is the surest way to kill our reading mojo. Right? So if you're saying, okay, well, I get to read whatever I Want, except for that one that's staring at me right there. And that one I have to read because they told me to and otherwise book club is gonna hate me. Right. Like, I'm sure we're not all like guilting our book clubs like this, but having the ability to say, you know, I can look at anything I read over this past month to bring to book club and all of that was something that I chose for myself because it fit my mood at the time. You can also plan it. You could be a planned reader and still do currently reading book club and let other things guide your planning. Right. A lot of us do themed months or you know, it's February, maybe you're doing Black History Month and you're reading all black authors. Your book club is not going to kill your mojo for that either. Your planning can work with something like this as well. So knowing that aspect of yourself, you can make currently reading book club style book club work for you.
- [45:29]
B
So let me ask you this, Katie. Do you. How do you feel about the issue of do you have like a leader moderator or is it just a free for all? How do you. Where do you land there?
- [45:40]
A
Well, for hours in Arizona, oftentimes if it's at somebody's house, that person becomes the moderator and they will occasionally add an additional game like let's play a game with first lines or everybody bring a, a wrapped book and we're gonna do a blind date with a book to go with our book club or like adding a little element, maybe a theme or whatever. So if we're at somebody's house, that person is the moderator mostly cause they agreed to host. So let's give them a little bit of fun and power. If we're out in the community and we're at like a bar or coffee shop, I'm usually the one who takes charge because I'm busy. Sure, yeah, it happens. But it's also, it's the currently reading bookish friend that are getting together. So when we play currently reading together, it makes sense that I'm the one who steps into that role. So.
- [46:26]
B
Right, okay. Yeah. I think that having somebody who's kind of just knowing that there is someone who's kind of leading that conversation makes a lot of sense. You know that I feel strongly about that now. The other thing that I really like and I talked a little bit about this when I Talked about my 666 book club that we've created, is that this does not have to be in person. It's great when it can be in person, I love it. But also, a lot of us don't have a lot of in real life, bookish friends yet. And so a virtual this can be done virtually just as easily. Would you agree with that?
- [47:04]
A
Oh, yeah, definitely. I don't think there's any reason you have to be in the same room together. Although I was just having a conversation with Rebecca Hoffer on Love and Chili Peppers earlier, and we were talking about, within the context of romance, the tendency toward distraction that all of us are suffering right now. Right. That Netflix has started making shows that tell instead of showing because people will not look at the screen. They'll do other things while Netflix plays in the background. Okay.
- [47:34]
B
Right.
- [47:35]
A
So I do think there's something to be said about having people in front of you and building community that way. And I know that that's hard sometimes. You live on a farm that's three hours from the grocery store and, like, there are no people around. Right. I know that that's an ask. But I do think if you have the option between the two getting together in person or getting together online, both are great. But there is a level of connection that happens person to person because of the lack of distraction. That is different than if you're on a screen together and you can also go answer the doorbell or go change a diaper. Like. Yes. These are things that need to happen. We get it. We know. Right? We are all managing a lot of things. It's different to be in person.
- [48:20]
B
Yeah, it definitely is. I just think that having the option is really, really nice to be able to say if my option is like a can't do it at all or could only do it virtually. Yes. And also we talk a lot about monthly book clubs. I just want to put out the thought that book clubs do not have to be monthly. I think they should be consistent. I think consistency is really great, but they don't. It doesn't have to be once a month. Every other month, once a quarter. We do ours every six weeks. Pick a cadence that works for you and your group, but it just doesn't have to be once a month. Once a month, at least in this season of my life, once a month comes around really fast.
- [49:01]
A
It does. And we have to take into account that there are plenty of readers that read 12 books a year. Right. And that's a great number. That's way more than a lot of people that are not readers. So if you're taking over every single one of those slots for somebody, that's a different commitment level. If you can do it every six months and they have half their reading year to choose from. Maybe they've got something different to share.
- [49:25]
B
Yeah, I think this whole idea of, you know, have a regular get together for bookish discussion, the old, the very, very classic literary society is a great way to have in real life or bookish community regularly. It just creates. It just gives such good options. And, man, it can lead to you discovering a lot of not only books that you've never found before, but a lot of really good friends that you didn't have before.
- [49:52]
A
Indeed. And that's what we all want. Bookish friends are the best friends they are. All right, that was our deep dive. Let us know if you have a literary society. If you've ever done something like this with your own book club, we want to hear about it. Tag us on your posts on Instagram or show us your, like, book club party. We love that.
- [50:08]
B
Oh, yeah. If you are already doing this, definitely let us know. We want to know about this for sure.
- [50:15]
A
Yeah, we want to see. Okay, so before we go, we have a few more things to share with you. I'm driving this episode so I get to start out with our bookish friend of the week. And this week I'm gonna highlight Alicia. She posted in the bookish friends group. She said, I noticed some of my fave books lately have been Japanese translations. Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, the Traveling Cat Chronicles, Convenience Store Woman, as well as mysteries like the Decagon House Murders. I'm looking for some recommendations for similar, especially if they're good on audio. Thank you. And I, I love this about the bookish friends group because as of yesterday, when I pulled this Post, it had 33 comments worth of suggestions. These other ones that she listed, before the Coffee Gets Cold, Traveling Cat, Convenience Store, Decagon House Murders. These are ones that I've heard of. Japanese translations have very specific feel to them. Right?
- [51:06]
B
They do.
- [51:07]
A
And I love that Alicia not only pinpointed that in her reading life, but then said, you know who can help me with this? It's the bookish friends. And the bookish friends said, hold my drink, I will be there. And they just filled up her TBR with comments. There were so many for Kamigaba Food Detectives. Right. What you're looking for is in the library. There's so many great books that have this translated Japanese sentiment to them. And Alicia knew exactly where to go in order to find them.
- [51:38]
B
I hope that I piped in with Confessions by Kine Manato because, man, that is such a good Mystery.
- [51:46]
A
Yeah. And she loves mysteries, too. So if it's not there, I have the link in my show prep document, Meredith. So I'll go check it again afterward and we'll make sure that your comment is there.
- [51:56]
B
Yeah. Because that is one of my absolute favorites of the recent years. Well, this is my first time being able to choose from our grab bag of five other things. And I'll tell you what, I really wanted to do a TBR triage, because I just think that's such a fun thing to do. But I didn't, because you did that last week. I was like, no, no, no, we won't do that two weeks in a row. But I decided to go with a sleeper hit.
- [52:19]
A
Okay.
- [52:20]
B
This is where we can bring back a book that, for whatever reason, has surfaced itself in our minds. And for me, Katie, this was us talking last week. A book surfaced as we were talking about another book. I can't even remember what it was. Yes, Michael. We were talking about Sphere by Michael Crichton. Right. I wanted to resurface the sleeper hit timeline by Michael Crichton. Here's the setup. We've got a group of Yale grad students who are studying history, and they are deep in the trench, like the actual trenches of an archaeological dig in the Dardan region of France. France. So they're like, painstakingly uncovering the ruins of this 14th century castle and monastery, when all of a sudden, all of a sudden, their beloved professor vanishes. At the same time, a disoriented man is found stumbling through the Arizona desert speaking nonsense. And within 24 hours, that man is dead. These two events are connected by a shadowy tech corporation called ITC, which has developed quantum technology that can send people back in time. And now, to rescue their missing professor, these students must do the unthinkable. They have to travel back to 1357 France, where they are smack in the middle of the Hundred Years War. Katie, I read this book so long ago. It came out in 2001. I think I. I know I listened to it because it's one of my favorite audiobooks of all time. I think I listened to it like maybe 2008, to the best of my memory. I know for sure that I listened to it on cd.
- [53:56]
A
Yes.
- [53:56]
B
So that's how long ago I listened to it. But it is the perfect blend of science and storytelling that nobody does better than Michael Crichton. If you. If you liked Jurassic park, you're gonna love this. If you like books with time travel, but you've never tried Michael Crichton. This is the perfect place to dip your toe into this absolute master storyteller. This is my first big sleeper hit. It' Timeline by Michael Crichton.
- [54:24]
A
Excellent. Oh, I'm so glad that you picked that one. Makes me happy.
- [54:28]
B
I love it. I love a shadowy tech corporation too.
- [54:33]
A
Yes. Right. So good.
- [54:35]
B
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, Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram and you can.
- [54:44]
A
Find me Katie at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Puttivong Evans, and you can find her on Instagram at. Most of Megan's reach reads full show.
- [54:54]
B
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 or on our website@currentlyreadingpodcast.com which is where you also can subscribe to our reader Know Thyself newsletter.
- [55:10]
A
You can also follow the show at Currently Reading Podcast on Instagram. Be sure you tell us about your Currently Reading style book clubs or you can email us at make a note inforrentlyreading podcast.com we're big girls now, Katie Info app. We're so fancy.
- [55:26]
B
And if you love this kind of content and you want more of it, join us as a bookish friend. You get hundreds and hundreds of hours of additional bookish content, you get community and you get to keep this show commercial free. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts or shout us out on social media. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience.
- [55:48]
A
Yes, Bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [55:53]
B
All right, until next week, may your.
- [55:55]
A
Coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.
- [55:58]
B
Happy reading, Katie.
- [55:59]
A
Happy reading, Meredith.