← The Currently Reading Podcast
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- [00:00]
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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 readerly deep dive, and a little something bookish before we go.
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I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz. I'm both a mom and a Mimi and a full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And I love big, audacious book adaptations.
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And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona. And I love the high of a book. Rec immediately taken. This is episode number 32 of season eight and we are so glad you're here, Katie.
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B
That is the best.
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The best.
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It really is. Like if you're at a bookstore and you like recommend a book to someone and then you see them check out with it and you're like, yes, yes,
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such a win, y'. All. We will let you know right here at the top that our deep dive today is how to audiobook, how to actually do it, and then how to pick the best books for it. But first, we'll get started the way we always do with our bookish moments of the week. Meredith, what do you have for us?
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B
All right, Katie, I have two things that I want to talk about today. So first of all, my kind of formal bookish moment of the week, the one that I had prepared for the show, was that the Count of Monte Cristo adaptation came out with Sam Coughlin. It came out on streaming. I have the PBS app. So I mean, I, I'm hearing that if it's going to be on PBS Masterpiece here in the states on March 22, which is as you guys are listening to this next week. But if you have the PBS app, which why wouldn't you because all the, you know, Masterpiece mystery and everything, then you can watch it now. So I've watched just the first episode. This is my weekend treat for myself. So I've watched the first episode. I'm really liking it. It's a beautiful, beautiful production. It's eight episodes, a little over an hour, I believe, for each episode. So they are at least giving us eight hours of content for this, what, 1100 page book as you or maybe you don't if you're a new listener. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my two favorite books of all time. The Other one being a gentleman in Moscow. And I have really been looking forward to this one. And after the first episode, I have high hopes. I think I'm gonna like it even better when Sam Claflin grows his beard for the next episode, because I think fully shaved. Sam Claflin is giving me these mixed signals between, am I young? But then my face doesn't really read young, but then I don't have a beard and my skin reads young. It's like a sexy baby. And it's kind of like, no, nobody likes that. Nobody likes that.
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I love Sam Claflin. He stole my heart in the Hunger Games years ago, whenever that was first adapted to film. I think he was in film. 3 and 4, maybe. Or 2, 3 and 4. Finnick Odair for life.
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Oh, he is in Hunger Games.
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Oh, I'd forgotten Trident. Oh, man. Yeah, that was like an awakening for me.
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B
Interesting. I had forgotten about that. Okay, my second bookish moment of the week is I just kind of want to mark the moment in time and then ask you how you're feeling about it. Yesterday, the big Sarah J. Maas news dropped. Now, as we're recording, Today is Friday, March 6th. So as you're hearing it, this news is old, but I just feel like I want to like Sarah J. Maas, of course, Court of Thorns and Roses went on Call Her Daddy podcast and did this huge, long, really interesting interview. I don't know if you've gotten a chance to listen to much of it, Katie, but it's a very interesting interview with her, with Sarah Dumas as a person and talking about her kind of her journey and her writing and how she does all of that. And then she announced that we are getting three more, at least ACOTAR books, and two of them are coming out in October and then in January, like, just in the next little bit. So does this even, like, ping your radar, this news?
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Oh, of course. I've seen it everywhere. Although your account was the first one I saw it on, Meredith, so way to be breaking news for at least me.
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B
Okay, well, Holly Farrell was my breaking news, so I will. I will give her that.
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A
We give credit where it's due. I am torn. Like, I'm very excited for the ACOTAR fan group as a whole. Like, I'm very excited for us as readers, for people who love big news in the reading world. I, of course, read each of those books a long time ago. It's been a long time since I read A Court of Silver Flames. Silver Flames, my favorite in the series. And I don't want to reread all of them. So does that mean I'm going to be totally lost? I just don't know.
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Yeah, I think there are probably going to be a billion and 20 different ways on, like, primers.
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Yeah.
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Like, to. To get. I mean, for me, Roxanna and I read them much more recently, so, like Silver Flames. We probably will reread Silver Flames just because it's our favorite one of the series. And especially now that we've heard Sarah J. Maas talk about what her journey was. And it explains so much of why that book is so affecting in ways that. That, I mean, I like the whole series. Don't get me wrong. If I had the time and the wherewithal, I would absolutely reread all of them before just because I really like them. And so, yes, it's going to be everywhere. Yes. Everyone can roll their eyes about, you know, that's totally fine. But I think we need to give credit where credit is due for her as an author and what she's done to the Romantasy industry.
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Yeah.
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And to the business of books in general. And every dollar that the little ones come in and spend on Romantasy is another dollar that is helping our bookstores and our libraries and our everything, you know, keep going. So I'm a big fan of that series. I haven't been. I haven't read. I haven't been successful with her other series, but I'm a big fan of that.
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A
That's my other question, though, because big fan forums, Right. Are talking about how there are connections between the Throne of Glass series, the Crescent City series, and the Acotar series. And here in this next book arc is where we're going to start seeing those connections come to fruition. Are you planning to read any of the other series knowing that, or just rely on the Internet?
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As I mentioned, bookish friend Holly reached out to me yesterday and said maybe now's the time to read Crescent City.
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Yeah. She posted today her picking it up off the shelf.
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Yeah. I mean, what I will say is if the. If Romantasy, the genre in general is interesting to you or you love these, like, connections or reader orders or all of that, Holly's literary magic is really the account to follow because she really deep dives into a lot of this stuff. So I don't know, we'll figure it out. But it is a moment in time. I love a big, splashy moment, moment in the book world. It's. It's fun, it's good for us, you and me, Katie. It's good for the industry as a whole. It's good for readers as a whole when people are really talking about stuff like this. So what's your bookish moment of the week?
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Yes, well, Buzzy books are always a bookish moment for me. But of course, my bite sized intro was about how it just never gets old when you give a book recommendation and someone just takes it with no resistance. Right. So my first bookish moment is probably, I should apologize to everyone who has ever had to be like, katie, I know you're not going to read this, but I. You should. And you would really like it because
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B
it's so nice, because you can dish it, but you can't take it.
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A
It's so nice when people are like, you are right, I should read that book. And then they just do it. And I'm not that person. And I feel bad for all the times that I've not been that person. But I was reminded of how lovely it is this month when I was talking to the priest at my church. I'm an Episcopalian, very involved with my church community. I have a great relationship with our rector, who's named Reverend Monica. So Monica let me know she had been gently suggested that she should read some fiction books and lean into joy and fun rather than just like, you know, all the hard that's happening in the world right now. She's very well informed. So she asked me for recommendations. Yay. And we were driving around one night. Less than a week later, we were at a separate meeting. She had finished the first book that I recommended. She was already on to the second one. Today I checked in with her again. She let me know she loved both of them completely. She's obsessed, obsessed. She immediately has started a third. Like, she's just, she's like, absolutely boss my reading. I didn't know where to find joy and you are dispensing that for me. And it gave me such a high that I was like, this is it. This is my bookish moment. Peer pressure and drugs all rolled into one. It's so great.
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B
Did I go into a fugue state or did you tell us what books you recommended to her?
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No. So the first one is all the Lonely People by Mike Gale was the first one. And that's just such an easy book for me to recommend to almost anybody, but especially somebody who kind of leads a community and encourages community connection. It's so perfect for her. And then she went from that into the Day the World Came to Town by Jim Defeati and I am gonna take her to see come from away because of that. So all good things, like, I'm just so. I'm just so thrilled that she loved the books that I recommended.
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B
Yes, those are really, really good ones. And then, I mean, I thought you were gonna say search from Michelle Hanniban. I was like, ooh, that's probably one that Rector Monica would enjoy.
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Yes, Reverend Monica probably would enjoy that one. Although she is still kind of a baby at our church. She's only a year and a half in to leading our church. So I think her, her own search may have been a little too recent. It's fresh. Like maybe when she's like four or five years in, I could be like, hey, you want to like relive that memory lane? Here's a great book.
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Got it.
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Got it. Okay, so, all right, let's get into what we've been reading though. Meredith, what have you got?
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Okay, well, I have a bunch of crime today. I've got a bunch of moider today. But I've got three different kinds. I've got classic from a series that is my second favorite series of all time. But I'm not sure I've ever brought one of the books as a current read. Because it's a reread. Yeah, I did a reread. Then I've got a horror book that I was really looking forward to and hated.
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Yay.
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And then I've got a book that was a five star read for me and scared the tt out of me. So we've got a mix. We've got a mix of things. Let's start first with what I would consider more classic police procedural. And this is a book called the Night She Died by Dorothy Simpson. So short little setup here. Our lead character is my beloved Luke Thanet. Think Gamache. Absolutely. You can absolutely think Gamache. Here, Luke is called to investigate the death of Julie Holmes, who's a young housewife that she's just been found murdered in her Kent home. The whole series takes place in the UK in the town of Kent. She was beautiful. She was kind of a puzzle. Julie was the kind of woman who captivated everyone she met, but she kept everyone at a distance, right down to her own husband. And then Inspector Thanet begins to dig into who she really was. And he realizes that beneath her very carefully controlled exterior, there were a lot of secrets and several people who were obsessed with her. So all the makings for murder. So the night she died is you're only going to be able to get this series. It's the first in the Dorothy Simpson series, and you're only going to be able to get it either in your library or. Actually, I think they may have just reissued the series. I know you can get it on your E reader. Sounds cozy. It's very British. It sounds very gentle and tea soaked. Right. But actually, this true blue British police procedural has some real bite to it. The murders in this series, each one of them have some teeth. They're low on gore, but very high on methodical investigation. And I love that. So this is a real deal for police procedural fans. This is a real, like, tried and true. Twenty years ago, I double checked. It was 20 years ago. I fell in love with this series and I went to a bunch of, like, library book sales and I ended getting all 15 books in the series. I'm very proud of my collection of original 15, all 15 books in the series. I got them. I think the whole. The whole bunch of them was $15 total. But I found them, like, over time, and it was like a little treasure hunt. I devoured every one of them. Back then I was reading a lot with my sister as I transitioned away from just reading cozy to. To reading more like crime. And so she also really, really loves this series. It's a special series in our hearts. As I said, it's my second favorite mystery series of all Louise Penny's Three Pines books. In fact, looking back, I'm pretty sure that Luke Thanet and his wife Joan are the prototype for Armand and Rin Marie Gamache. They have that same solid marriage, that same partnership where the home life matters as much as what's happening in the case. And then I decided, when I decided to revisit this first book after all these years, I was honestly nervous in the way that you are when you revisit books that you, in your mind, you'd consider to be such a beloved favorite. But it absolutely holds up. When Dorothy Thanet created, what she created here is this alchemy of murder mystery. And if you mix that with like 1950s family television, again, proper police procedural. Luke Thanet and his partner, Sergeant Mike Lyneham are doing the leg work. They're following leads, they're making mistakes and circling back. But you're also getting warm, grounded family life where nothing truly terrible takes place at home. I love it. Over the course of the series, you get to watch this family grow from a young couple with small children in this first book, which was super fun because now I've read all the way through. When these same children are adults, it was fun to go revisit them when they're tiny. And that long character development arc is catnip for readers like me who want people to kind of live with over time. The writing has a very understated quality to it. Think Petey James and Ruth Rendell were thoughtful, character driven, psychologically astute. There's nothing showy about it. It's smart and layered and the kind of thing that you're. You're paying attention to what people aren't saying as much as what they are saying, just like Luke Thanet is doing. He is methodical and intuitive, and he treats people with genuine respect, even when he's investigating with them and seriously suspecting them. There's just a decency about him that makes spending time in his head a real pleasure and a safe place for me. I get into a very specific mood and want this kind of main character. All 15 books are available on Kindle, and they're all on Kindle Unlimited, which is fantastic news. I'm so glad that past Meredith added that detail into her note. Future Meredith had not remembered that. Otherwise, you're hunting them down like I did at your library or at library book sales. But if you're a police procedural fan who wants a perfect mix of solid detective work and characters who care about living full lives, this is a series that you will love. I do. It's a series on which I accept no criticism. This is the Night She Died by Dorothy Simpson, and it opens our series,
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a new, old series for all of us to enjoy.
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Yes, I always have. This is always my first recommendation when people say, I've read all of Louise Penny. What now? This is such a good comp in a lot of ways for Louise Penny, but it's so under the radar because Dorothy, I mean, she wrote these a long time ago.
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Yes, I love that. And I know that was an early, early press for Meredith. We just talked about the press list again last week, and that's way back there.
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That actually might have been why it got into my mind.
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Okay. See, there's so much good stuff in there. All right. I love it. So my first book this week is actually the next book in Katie's unexpected book flight about influencers and celebrity. Because a couple weeks ago, I told everybody about Everyone is Lying to you by Joe Piazza. So many people have read that. So many people tagging me. They are loving it. So that made me very happy. So today I'm going to talk about Courtroom Drama by Neeli Tubati. Alexander. This author is local to me, and this is her release from 2025, which my friend Laura talked me into at her store, literally a bookshop in downtown Kilbert. She was like, katie, I think you need this one. I listened to what Laura says, although it did take me time to read it. She also did not get through the Katy Wall, like most people don't. So here's the setup. Sidney is so excited for jury duty, and we would probably assume that it's because she watched the show on Amazon prime, right? Because that's the only reason any of us ever got excited about jury duty. But in this case, it's not true. It's because she knows that the case of Margot Kitsch is on the docket. Margot is one of the original cast members of the Housewives spinoff. It's not Real Housewives. Right. It's novel Housewives. It's called Authentic Moms of Malibu because it can't be called Real Housewives.
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Sure.
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So Margot is on trial for the alleged murder of her husband Joe, who is also well known from the series because the entire cast, we know their whole families, Right?
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That would be very exciting if that happened, right?
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It is exciting. Sidney, though she fudges the truth a little bit about how much she knows about the case and the stars because she is such a huge fan. She's sure that Margot needs her help to be found innocent. She needs somebody on her team on that jury, right? It's a little shady. It's a little shady. It's a high profile case. So the jury is sequestered in a rundown hotel outside of town. They're given strict instructions about talking to one another outside the courtroom, which would be fine, of course, although it's far less exciting than Law and Order made it think it would be. That intrigue and excitement does ramp up a little when she realizes that Damon, her best friend from childhood, who she hasn't seen since his family abruptly moved away a decade ago after some secrets were revealed, was also chosen for the jury. The courtroom drama continues in and out of session because Sidney and Damon are talking through the way that their young relationship imploded when he moved away. And when they're in the jury box, they gently press their legs together where nobody can see them. It's a little bit scandalous. Sidney realizes that the case that she was so sure that she knew the answer to when she read the news and recalled Margot from the show is probably a lot more complicated than she thought. So this is second chance romance with diverse representation And a fun reality show adjacent plot line. The setup, though, as you can tell, is a little bit complicated. We've got like the reality show, we've got the lying to get on the jury. We've got this old flame. Like, it's just a lot in the blender to make this smoothie. The forced proximity nature, though, of jury sequestration made for some really interesting situations. And I want more of that in my reading. So if any. Like, I've read Steve Kavanaugh and a few of those. But I like that, like, pressure cooker of these are the people you're stuck with. Right. It's why I like reading about people having to go to Mars too, because they're all stuck together and you got to figure out those interpersonal dynamics. So I liked that part. It was a weird way to set a romance. But it's important to note here that there's a lot of lying in this book in order to get into the jury box in the first place. And then lying about how much she knows about the case, lying how much they know each other. Because they ask all the members of the jury, do you know each other? And they're like, well, I mean, a long time ago we used to know each other. Well, that's not true. Right? This is all lying. When lies come to light, we have to deal with those ramifications. It's a lot of untruths about a jury book. And the suspension of disbelief was a lot for this reader. My favorite four star review is from an actual lawyer named Elliot1996 on Storygraph. And she says, I will preface this by saying this book was well written and had a really engaging plot. However, if you're a lawyer, you're going to be disturbed at all of the inadmissible character evidence and jury misconduct. I also kept screaming objection out loud. Like the judge in the book could actually hear me. Elliot was displeased. I'm not a lawyer. I don't even play one on tv. But same girl. I enjoyed this. I rolled my eyes a lot. And I know Meredith would hate it on a lot of levels. And all of those things can be true at once. Yes, this is courtroom drama by Neelie Tubati Alexander.
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All right, yes, you're absolutely right. All of those things are true. As soon as. As soon as you have somebody who's doing bad things and then we're supposed to root for them, that I just can't, they just exit out my little ear out. I can't. I can't do it.
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Okay.
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My second book. Oof. Okay.
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Oof. We got big opinions. We gotta. Oof.
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B
Oh, big opinions. And also a huge side helping of disappointment because this is an author that I was so. I was so looking forward to this book because the book is the Caretaker by Marcus Cleaver. Here's a setup. Our lead character is Macy Mullins and she is in an awful financial spiral. She's completely broke and of course her rent needs to be paid, she needs groceries. She has a younger sister depending on her. So when she stumbles across a Craigslist ad offering ridiculous money for just three days of caretaking work, she does what any desperate person would do. She ignores every red flag waving in her face. Sure, the posting feels vaguely ominous. Yes, the homeowners in this upscale community seem more than a little eccentric. Three days. How bad can it be? What Macy doesn't realize is that this isn't your typical house sitting gig. The job comes with a set of rights R I T E s she must follow, and the consequences for breaking them or trying to leave are far more dangerous than she would ever have imagined. Okay, I hate to say this, and you guys know, in eight years I have said it less than the number of times I could list on one hand, but this book was bad. I don't say it lightly because writing a book is incredibly hard work and I have enormous respect for anyone who finishes one. But I have to be honest with you about my reading experiences. And this one was so rough. This is especially painful because Marcus Cleaver's debut We Used to Live Here is one of my top 10 horror books of all time. So I was excited counting down the days for this one. This book was such a mind bender. It had a lot of potential with its creepy, atmospheric, you know, setting and its premise. And I did think about it a lot afterwards, but the sophomore slump is at play here. The. The setup. I think part of why I was so upset about is because the setup has a lot of very interesting places that it could go. This could have been a truly thoughtful, horror tinged exploration of what it's like to live with ocd. The compulsions, the rituals, the catastrophic thinking. The bones were there for something very special. But no, instead, what we got is a book where nothing is ever explained. There are plot holes you could drive trucks through, and character motivations that are either unclear or just flat out make no sense. And that is what got me. Because this book managed to be simultaneously boring and confusing. Which is a terrible one to punch if you're going to keep me in the dark about what's happening and why. At least make the journey gripping, right? Or if you're going to slow walk me through the story, give me some answers along the way. But boring and confusing together. That is a reading experience that had me wanting to throw my Kindle across the room. I wasn't alone in my frustration. I will admit to going to Goodreads and checking out what other people were saying because I felt like maybe I was going crazy or like I had missed something. But in fact, most of them talked about having the same issues. They, like me, found the main character, Macy, absolutely maddening. This dum dum has one job and she can't follow the most basic instructions. It makes no sense. I was willing to go along with it at the start because I wanted to trust Marcus Cleaver. And some ambiguity really can be a great reading experience at the beginning. But if you end up leaving your readers feeling like entire chapters were accidentally deleted before you went to press, you've got a problem. If you loved We Used to Live Here like I Did, I would really temper your expectations on this one. If you haven't read We Used to Live Here and you love smart horror, please, please go do that. That will be a much better use of your time, in my opinion. I was so, so disappointed by this one. This is the Caretaker by Marcus Cleaver.
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A
I hate it when that happens.
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B
And there's so much that I can't say, obviously, because Spoilers.
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A
Right.
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But you were talking about good old attorney Elliot, who was yelling. Objection. I was yelling expletives like, what are you doing? And then when nothing gets explained.
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A
Okay, okay.
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That's it. That's all I'll say.
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A
Oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, we like to be invested in the books that we're reading.
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B
Sure.
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And sometimes when you're yelling at the book, it's because you're invested, but. Yes. This doesn't sound like the right combination of investment and return.
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Yeah, it's like, don't wind me up and then give me absolutely nothing.
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A
Exactly.
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B
I'm going to be angry and I'm going to leave.
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A
Exactly. Oof. Oof. All right. Well, that's where the oof came from. Open oof and a closed oof. Yeah. Okay. I have, for my second book, nonfiction, from one of my favorite queens, Barbara Kingsolver. This is Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver. And it. It's an older one, which is why you're making that noise.
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B
I haven't heard of it.
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A
Yeah. So Katie and I continue to slowly whittle away at the essay collections of Barbara Kingsolver. Essays are our favorite thing to read together. So we've read so many that now we have to, like, separate them out with fiction and other things that we don't necessarily love as much. But every time I am just struck by how much I love her writing and the way she puts words on the page from year to year, from decade to decade. Because in this collection, we are going back to 2002. Many of the essays circle around the pivotal world events of 2001. Right. This came out right after 9 11. She is reflecting on the World Trade center, the fall of the Twin Towers. And unlike most of her other nonfiction works, which are kind of ephemeral and universal, they're about nature, they're about family, they're about moving from one place to another. They have kind of a universality in their tone and their sense of place. This one is very firmly ensconced in that bubble of time right after 9 11. She was asked to write essays multiple times in those weeks and months following September 11, where she discussed the ways that fear and community walk hand in hand or lead to division. So she wrote these essays and collected them all into this book the following year. It's a lot of sitting in that changing world. And while we read this book right at the end of 2025, it also feels really applicable right now. We are once again a nation at war in the Middle East. And Kingsolver's writing about the ways we cleave, which is one of those really cool words, right, where we cleave together and we cleave apart during times of national trial, are very 911 specific, but also not right. You're reading it and you're like, yes, I remember this from 9 11, from 2001. And also, why does this feel like she wrote it recently? I've also, as I mentioned, seen Come From Away twice in the past two weeks, and I'm seeing it at least four more times from tonight through the next three weeks. This play is about September 11th and the way a community rallies during the days after September 11th. It's about that friction of living in community and loving your neighbor and also being fearful and whole, holding all those things together. And Barbara Kingsolver puts all of that tension into her writing here. It's beautiful, artfully chosen words to what are universal experiences. We all had that pushing away and pulling together feeling. I'm so grateful always to get to be in and sit with her writing over days and weeks. This is not a book that you just binge read in a single afternoon. And I especially love discussing it and reflecting on it with Katie. The good news for all of us who love her fiction is that we have finally had an announcement that Partita is coming out later this year, which is her first novel since demon copperhead in 2022. I've already pre ordered it, of course. Cannot wait to read it. Long live Barbara Kingsolver. And long live this collection. This very specific, small, beautiful collection. Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver.
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B
Boy, no pressure after Demon Copperhead, huh?
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A
I know, I know. You like when the Pulitzer.
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B
Yeah, maybe she doesn't feel pressure like that because she has such a long. Like, who's she? Who does she need to prove herself to?
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A
Yeah, right.
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B
All right, well, my third book was absolutely five stars for me. And it is by an author who I also am working to be a completist of. This is a book called A Box Full of Darkness. It's the newest from Simone St. James. So in a box full of darkness, St. James takes us back to Fell, New York, if that's familiar to you. It is, because it's the same deeply unsettling town from the Sundown Motel, my absolute favorite of her books.
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Books.
- [30:03]
B
But you don't need to have read Sundown Motel to read this one. In a Box Full of Darkness. It is the late 80s and we have three estranged siblings. We've got Violet, Veil, and Dodie. And they are drawn back to the town that they left very suddenly, nearly two decades ago. The reason? Their little brother Ben, who vanished during a childhood game of hide and seek and never was found, has apparently returned as a ghost with a chilling request. Come home. These siblings grew up in a spectacularly dysfunctional household in a town where bad things happen all the time. Mysterious drownings, unexplained deaths, kids go missing, super creepy motels. And each of them, each of the siblings left carrying their own baggage. Violet, in particular, still sees dead people, including a terrifying presence. And so she and all the siblings are very hesitant, but they feel that they must go back to fel and to the house that they grew up to confront. Not just the mystery of what happened to Ben, but all the deep family secrets that have been cracking the foundation of their lives. Okay, Nobody, nobody, nobody does ghosts better than Simone St. James. That is a hill I will happily die on. I will plant a flag on that hill. I will lay down and let my corpse rot cold on that hill. This book is exhibit A For why I feel that way. This is hardcore. It's a hardcore ghost story. Not ghost as a metaphor or ghosts as a vague atmospheric device. Full on terrifying. Why are you here? And why did you just scare the out of me ghost story? And what makes Simone St. James so good at it is that she doesn't just describe the ghosts well in the moment, right? The creeping dread, the. The hair that stands up on the back of your neck. She, unlike Marcus Cleaver, good friend Marcus Cleaver, she does a remarkable job of explaining why they are there. There's always a reason, and that reason is always tangled up in something deeply human and deeply painful. The way that St. James writes, the town of Fel gets right under your skin. Every single thing in that town has a very specific smell. And it's evocative, if not mostly pleasant. But you're right there the whole time. You know, it's kind of setting that makes your living room feel a little colder while you're reading. Like, it just settles in. What really stands out about this particular book is the sibling dynamic. As I said, Violet, Veil and Dodie, they are siblings with this traumatic past. They are. Are messy, complicated, memorable people, Each one as individuals. None of them are perfect. And Simone St. James does not. She leans into their imperfectness. The way they remember their childhood, the way their memories overlap and contradict and fill in each other's gaps, is really real to me. I have this very same thing with my sister and brother, right? And it's actually a piece of the story that I loved. The way they experienced each one of them, their childhood, differently. These are people who were shaped by the same set of traumatic experiences, but they came out of it. And those experiences affected them in three very different ways. And watching them navigate being back together again in that house that holds all of those really bad memories, but also good ones, is compelling, really compelling. Simone St. James weaves together a genuinely creepy ghost story with this deeply emotional family drama. And she really is asking questions, forcing us to kind of look at ourselves and how our own childhood trauma maybe is still affecting the way that we're adults today. This one, more than any of her other recent books, all of which I've really liked, reminded me of that classic in her canon, the Haunting of Maddie Clare. That's her debut, and if you love her work, you need to make sure you've read that one. There's a really similar rawness to the supernatural elements and a similar willingness to go all the way with the ghost story. Truly, she's in A category of her own with this kind of book. And I will continue to read through everything that she's written. I gave this one five stars. And if you love this kind of book, this is going to be perfect for you. This is a box full of darkness by Simone St. James.
- [34:35]
A
Nailed it.
- [34:35]
B
And you know what? And just as I was finishing that up, I'm sitting here in my. On YouTube, you can see I'm sitting here alone in my house, and I just. Out of the corner of my eye, the side where my hair is, I just saw the door of my office open very, very slowly. And then my.
- [34:53]
A
Is it Lou?
- [34:54]
B
I hear a scratching noise right next to me, and I almost jumped out. And it is.
- [35:00]
A
It was Lou who.
- [35:02]
B
I'm showing you on camera right now.
- [35:04]
A
Oh, my goodness. Lou scared me.
- [35:09]
B
Oh, my gosh. Okay.
- [35:10]
A
But we haven't gotten to see Lou lately. Sometimes we see Blue in the back, but we don't usually get to see
- [35:15]
B
Blue is back there on the chair. He's just right around the corner of the chair.
- [35:18]
A
Yeah.
- [35:19]
B
He knows what to do during podcast recording time.
- [35:22]
A
Hypothetically. My children do, too, so they're. They're almost as good as your pets.
- [35:28]
B
Oh, my gosh. Okay. My heart is just. My heart rate is just starting to come down.
- [35:33]
A
Well, I have something very calm to talk to you about, which you've read and you've loved. And part of this is a Meredith made me do it because I'm doing the exact same thing. And I'm putting eight books into one slot here because I'm going to talk about the Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon by Beth Brower, volumes one through eight. Yes.
- [35:54]
B
This is not a Meredith made me do it. This is a Roxanna made me do it. Roxanna brought all of us. Us into this.
- [35:59]
A
Yes. I have my whole timeline worked out here, but the short story is that I finally did it. I dove into Emma and. And I was just gonna take a little taste, but I just drank it down in one giant gulp. I finished all eight books in February in about two weeks. As soon as I finished one, I would go straight to the next one, which was very helpfully aided by the fact that multiple libraries that I'm part of right now have like. Like, 70 to 100 copies of each audiobook. Oh, wow. I had no weights. I could just blast right from one to the next. So I went back and checked to make sure. But I first heard of these books because Roxanna told Meredith to read them when Meredith brought them to the show. The following week, I recorded with Roxanna, and she brought them to the show. So I got to hear about them two weeks in a row. At the end of the year, Mary and Roxanna mentioned them as some of their favorite books of 2025. So now it was three of the four of us. Right? And I was like, oh, no. Peer pressure, finally. And the real nail in the coffin for me was that Rebecca Hoffer and I invited Katie Proctor again with her on this episode to guest on Love and Chili Peppers for March and discuss Emma M. Lyon as part of her reading life. These were also Katie's favorite books of 2025, and she's read through the entire series twice now. But this is not something we read together. I did agree that I'd at least dip into those first few before we recorded that episode. And now here we are, the whole thing.
- [37:24]
B
I've only done the first. I've only done the first one.
- [37:26]
A
You've only done the first one?
- [37:28]
B
Yeah. Because I felt like I couldn't go any further because I. I just felt like everyone's reading them.
- [37:33]
A
I know, I know.
- [37:34]
B
But I. I'm gonna. I this. You know, I. As soon as I don't have to bring every bit of what I read to a show, I will read them.
- [37:43]
A
I know. I was sitting there and I was like, well, this is, like, fully half my reading for February was just this one series, but. Right. That's fine. It's fine. Just a brief setup. I know y' all have already heard about this, but we start in 1883. Emma M. Lyon has returned to London to claim her life in the charming neighborhood of St. Crispian's and live at Lapis Lazuli House. Oh. Where her dastardly cousin Archibald has essentially been squatting and squandering her inheritance for the past few years, especially on his collection of mourning robes, which are like silk robes you put on the morning before you dress for the day. As she settles into that new community and gets to know the residents of the neighborhood, she documents every day in her journals, which we get as unselected entries. Just the entirety of her thoughts and her actions, even when they don't always show her or her life as picture perfect, Emma is endearing. She's an ingenue. She's delightful in what she doesn't know. Like, you don't know what you don't know. Right. She has aims to build a personal library, starting with a single seed book of Shakespeare's plays that her late father illustrated Each volume of this series ends with an accounting of her library as it currently stands. So at the end of book one, you get a couple more books and then at the end of book eight, she has like 10 books to tell us about. Like, it's very fun to see that library grow over time. She takes on a tenant in book one, a surly photographer who walks with a limp from an injury long ago. She builds her community further and introduces each volume with a cast of characters. So start of the book, we get a cast of characters. End of the book. Book Emma's personal library, who we've met up to this point, including a sharp and witty Duke, the young vicar of the local parish, a notorious con man, a local store owner that she affectionately refers to as the pirate, a group of young men known as the reprobates. 10 and more. Each volume builds on itself. You cannot read these out of order. They cover two months of Emma's life in St. Crispian's. Eight volumes in. We've just passed the first year at Lapis Lazuli. How. And there are expected to be 24 volumes in total, at least in the series. Yeah, these have also been recently traditionally published. They started coming out years ago and recently we're giving a full publishing treatment in the US and are in that progress in the uk. So availability over there has been a little bit spotty for some of our readers. When and if you can get your hands or especially your ears on this series, it is lovely and calm and kind and. And community oriented and you just sink into it and live there in joy and comfort and reassurance. I'm so glad that I picked it up and I just allowed myself to be swept away by Emma and her cadre of misfit found family delightfulness. Like I said, this was featured on Love and Chili Peppers as well. So we're doing a deeper, longer treatment of it over there for the March episode. But I like so many stars. I started out with four and a half for each volume. By the time I got to I think six, I was giving them all five stars. And they do get longer. I would consider the first probably three novellas. They're, you know, three and a half hours, four and a half hours on audio. Very quick listen. Book eight is 12 and a half hours on audio.
- [40:58]
B
Really?
- [40:58]
A
Okay. So it's definitely. We're looking at like full book length and they get more complex as well. So if you're. There are some like, plus elements we would say to some of the stuff that's happening. With those ancillary characters especially, it's so great. They're so wonderful.
- [41:14]
B
Roxanna is, like, so consternated by the fact that I haven't read all of them. And she's like, but they get so, like, there's so much more depth that happens as you go. And I was like, I didn't need. I loved the first one. Like, I.
- [41:26]
A
Right.
- [41:26]
B
I absolutely loved it. But it is good to know, to set expectations that they do get meatier and they get longer and, you know.
- [41:33]
A
Yes. Once I knew that I wasn't stopping with book one, I started paying slightly more attention. And a lot of people will say, when you get through three of them, like, especially once you really know the neighborhood and the people, that's when you really start to find a flow, because it's not world building. But she is kind of setting up that universe. Right. That little Saint Crispian's neighborhood. I don't know this for sure, but I would love it if there were a map included of Saint Crispian's because I know there's one drawn by one of the characters. So I would like it in the books or somewhere that I could purchase it and live there. I don't know.
- [42:07]
B
I keep wondering if this at some point is going to be the next Bridgerton. Like, it's been so beloved. I could just really see someone scooping it up. And especially because she's saying that she's going to write for a really long time.
- [42:19]
A
Yeah. Oh, it's so special. It's so lovely. And okay, everybody talks about the audio. I did do these on audio. Genevieve Gaunt, she's in the Harry Potter. It didn't matter. She did a great job. But it was like I just needed somebody to be consistent through all of them and tell me this story and be Emma. And she's great at being Emma. So all of her previous, like, I don't care what else she's done. I'm sure it's great. Good for her. But, like, if that did not draw you in, even though it's given, like, top billing a lot of times, it's okay. You don't have to know who Genevieve Gaunt is or any of the characters that she's been in previous iterations of her career to love these books and to love them on audio especially. Yeah.
- [42:59]
B
I don't know anyone who's done them in print, but I almost feel like I would. For me, I would be more likely to read them if I did it in print. Just the way that my reading is which of course leads us right to our deep Dive.
- [43:10]
A
Right. And that is actually a thing worth talking about with regard to our Deep Dive, which is about how to audiobook. So this is a listener question from Amanda. She says, I'm sure you've covered this one, so I should go search the archives, but I'll throw it out there. What tips and tricks do you have for someone who struggles with audiobooks but wants to get better at them? I recently switched jobs and now have a long commute, a few days a week. I want to use the time to listen to audiobooks, but I struggle with them. I think I get too easily distracted by traffic or thinking about the day's tasks. I've started by listening to books I've read already, so if I get distracted, I won't miss much. It's been lovely to listen to the Three Pines series showing up again this episode, but I'd love to listen to something new along those lines. How do you choose whether to listen to a book or read it in print? So this is a really. This is a two part deep dive question. Right. The first is, what's the process for getting audiobooks into your life? And then second question is, how do you choose which books are better on audio than in print? Yeah. Right, right.
- [44:12]
B
And you are, of course, famous for being a fantastic audiobook listener. It is. Remind me, Katie, what was the percentage of last year that your audiobook listening was.
- [44:22]
A
Yeah, it's usually between 60 and 70% of my reading is audio. So I care deeply about this issue. I'm an evangelist for audiobook listening. For sure.
- [44:32]
B
I'm only 10%. So with the current season that I'm in right now, I've certainly been in seasons where I read where it was a lot more.
- [44:39]
A
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I have done a very unscientific study about this, but based on more than a thousand responses, it is easier to listen to an audiobook through earbuds than it is through a speaker. So that is actually my first piece of advice for our friend Amanda, is that if you are driving in your car, it feels like it should be easy to just add your Bluetooth to your vehicle and push play. Right. It's harder to focus on both things at the same time if it's just in the air around you than if it's going into your eardrum. And I don't have actual science about the this. I just have anecdotal evidence from this weird survey I did on the Internet. Right.
- [45:18]
B
It's at least worth a try. Let's Put it that way.
- [45:20]
A
Exactly. Exactly. So if you can unpair or pair your earbuds after you get into your car, usually that's a good way to get it to route that direction. But going through your earbud is my first piece of advice. And then it sounds counterintuitive, but especially if you end up with drifting attention, and we all see this occasionally, speeding it up rather than slowing it down is the way to counter attack that Audiobook narrators are intentionally precise, right? They're very slow because they don't want to have to retake a full sentence because they paused weird in the middle or couldn't get the tone of that word just right. So they speak much slower than we listen to normal conversations. Or then you read a book especially. This is really easy to see. If you have the book in front of you and the audiobook in your ears, your eyes are skipping down the page faster than the reader is reading because you read much faster than that. So if it feels like a 300 page book that you've already read especially is taking forever, it's because if you sat on your couch, you'd probably read it in four to six hours. And if you sit down and listen to it on an audiobook, it's going to take 10 to 12 hours. And that's. It's just like, it's just so much slower. So start at 1.25. Pretty much anybody can listen at 1.25. My youngest kid listens at 1.75 and she's like, this is fine, whatever. Right?
- [46:38]
B
Right. Now, I will say that the way I think about speed in audiobooks is really different from you. I, first of all, do not have a set speed. My speed varies by the book that I'm reading. So I might listen to one book at 1.25 and I might listen to another book at 1.8. My average is about 1.5. But. But every book is its own thing, first of all. So I, I always, I have to really listen to get a sense of it. And I default to slower rather than faster for me. For me, fast is not better with audio. And I feel like that. I really want to say that because I've talked to a lot of people who feel that way, but they're like, I feel really embarrassed because I feel like it's become a thing on bookstagram to be like, faster is better or faster is like a mark of readerly expertise. And I just want to say that, yes, it's fantastic to be able to listen to things Faster. And some people can really do that and they can really enjoy it and take it in. People ask me all the time, like, but Katie's not actually, you know, taking in those books. They're like, no, she actually does. She absolutely does. A hundred percent. I've seen it in action a million times. That is not my journey.
- [47:51]
A
Right. And, and that's certainly not what I'm telling Amanda to do, is start at 2.8. Like that. That's nonsense. Right? That little bump up in speed can help with attention. But I'm not ever saying, like, just jump to where you can't understand.
- [48:06]
B
Right. So the, the advice that I'm giving is really kind of the. The first piece is be willing to look at each book as its own separate thing and that it might require a different speed to be enjoyable based on a lot of factors. The other thing is that. But I feel like a lot of people feel like they have to white knuckle their way through audiobooks to make sure that they don't lose any. They don't lose anything because their attention wanders. And I use the heck out of the 15 or 30 second rewind button.
- [48:39]
A
Oh, yeah, me too.
- [48:40]
B
I will go back five minutes in a book, and even if I've heard it already, it never hurts for me to hear a small part again. You know what I mean? Instead of being worried that I missed something and, you know, maybe having things not pay, not make a much sense. So instead of feeling like you have to white knuckle it, use the 30 second rewind button. The other thing is that I used to do a lot of car listening. And one of the things I realized was on my commute was when I first got into the car, especially on my way home from work, that if I just immediately went into an audiobook, I would often miss the first, like the first five or ten minutes of my commute. I just didn't take in information as well. Well, so I developed this ritual where I would get in the car and I would listen to like three songs. I had. I lived in the Bay Area, had a really long commute, and so I would listen to like three songs and then I would transition to my audiobook because at that point my brain had slowed down enough for me to be able to kind of go into that mode. So that was just a. A trick that really, really helped me that I wanted to be sure to put in here for her.
- [49:47]
A
Yes, that is such a good tip because there is also a brain space for that. Right. Like, I especially anymore I don't have a commute where I'm driving an hour or 30 minutes by myself really regularly. So most of my audiobook time is what I call puttering. Right. It's I, I have to scoop the pool, so I'm gonna pop in my ear buds and I'm gonna go wander around the backyard and pick up dog poop and like, do the things that are part of being in a house. Or I have to hang laundry and fold laundry or remake, make five beds because a lot of people live in this house. But it's just, it's like busy hands, empty mind work where I can be in the story and listening to it. But. But I'm not in a car doing a commute. When I am in a car, I nearly always have a kid with me where I have to pause it regularly if I'm going to listen to my audiobook so that I can answer questions or talk about where we're going or what did we just do. And do you have any questions about that? Right. Like, there's a lot of interaction even with kids in cars. Especially because most of mine don't have phones yet. But even my teenager, he's always talking to me in the freaking car.
- [50:56]
B
Yes.
- [50:57]
A
I'm like, don't you have an audiobook you want to listen to, buddy? We can both listen. Right? Right. So I don't get like car time alone, which means that's not ideal audiobook listening time for me anymore. And that's okay. You gotta find your space that it works for you.
- [51:12]
B
Right. Finding those moments. I have found for me that one place. Although again, I really struggle at this point with audiobook listening just because I don't have a of time in my life for it. But when I do like my makeup and hair, when I sort of pull myself together 10 to 15 minutes a day, I've just really gotten into a nice habit of turning, of turning on my audiobook then. Or when I blow dry my hair, which takes a long time, I have found that.
- [51:37]
A
But it's loud.
- [51:38]
B
Can you hear with my earbuds? With my, with my.
- [51:41]
A
Oh, because your fancy ones, they'll cancel my.
- [51:43]
B
Yeah, they, they cancel out. Not only do they cancel out the AirPod, what are they? AirPod 2, AirPod 4, Pro, whatever. Pro, whatever. The latest fives. Yeah, they not only cancel out, but they also raise your volume depending on what's happening around you. So I don't even have to like adjust my volume. It just like, you know, does that. So when I do my hair, when I blow dry my hair. That's become another audiobook time for me. So finding those little times. Amanda, maybe it's not in the car that, I mean, maybe it is. And, and I think we can give you a lot of good things to try there. But if audiobooks aren't working for you there, you may want to find another space in your day or in your week that you can do some audiobook listening. Of course, the genre of book matters. We talked about this in the latest reader Know Thyself Exactly Dispatch for in our newsletter and on our substack. That format matters. So figuring out for me, I love to do really propulsive, fast moving mysteries and thrillers on audio, but there are other people who say I can't do fiction at all and I only do nonfiction. So experiment with genre, experiment with speed like we talked about, and then experiment with doing some book flights to find out not only the content of the book, but sometimes the narrator really matters. So do a book flight, listen to that five minute sample before you decide on an audiobook and just figure out because it might just be like if you're listening to Louise Penny and you've got Ralph Kosham in your ears, he is, he goes down really, really easily, Right? So it may be that you need to maybe it's the narrator that really matters to you. So experiment with that.
- [53:24]
A
Yes, I love that. And that leads into kind of my final piece of advice for this because we're going to try and ramp it up is try different audiobook apps as well. There are going to be different features on each one. For instance, audible pairs well with Kindle. Right. If you are tandem reading your book, you can read it on your Kindle and it'll jump, jump to the audible spot where you're, where you're going to start listening. Spotify just introduced Page match where you can scan the page of your book that you're on and it will jump the audio to that spot in your audio. Have you tried this yet, Meredith? It is.
- [54:00]
B
I have not because of the way that I use Spotify, but that's really smart of them, right?
- [54:06]
A
It's so brilliant. Different apps have different speed adjustments or sleep timers if that's something that's useful to you. We already talked about skips forward and back that can be useful. And also the progress bar that can really change how it feels like you're getting through the book. You can have a progress bar that shows where you are in a chapter or where you are in the book as a whole. And depending on how your brain works. One of those might be more useful than the other. And of course, if you're going to use any app to listen to audiobooks, don't forget that Libro FM is the place that will benefit the local indie bookstore of your choice. Not even local to you you anywhere you want in the entire country. Every month you can switch your support or pick somebody that is your ride or die and benefit your your bookstore with a good cause with your listens and your membership.
- [54:53]
B
I love it. Very very good. And the last thing I want to say about it is that audiobook listening is a skill and it is something that your brain needs time to rewire too. So find the best ways for you experiment, do lots of different things, but keep trying because it if it's important to you, keep trying because you will find something that works really well for you.
- [55:12]
A
You yes, all right, Meredith, before we go, we have some other things to address. Yes, and this is an even episode. So first I am going to tell you about the bookish friend of the week this week. That is Kelly. She had a very specific ask and it goes along with our deep dive a little bit today as well. So I wanted to highlight it. She says. My husband and I are going on a land sea tour slash cruise to Alaska in August for our 30th wedding anniversary. It's 14 days. We start in Fairbanks and end up in Vancouver, bc. I have to wear a scopolamine patch because I'm prone to seasickness. It messes with your eyes and I can't focus in order to read. I know this because I was mortified on our first cruise years ago when I sat down to read a book and couldn't see the words. Tragic. My heart went out to Kelly here, so she has three questions. Does anyone have any good audiobook recommendations for books set in Alaska or Vancouver, B.C. to 2? Or it could be the book setting of a cruise ship 3 or regular books set in Alaska or B.C. and I will search for the audio to see if it'll work for me. She's really taking the time to make sure that she has exactly the right stack for this trip. Thanks in advance. I can't go 14 days without reading in those comments. A treasure trove Again. We have recommendations for Greenwood by Michael Christie, Eowyn Ivey, of course, the Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. A resident from Fairbanks chimed in with recommendations for fiction and nonfiction about her city and then recommendations for local bookstores that might be stops along the way on her cruise ship. They Planned her entire TBR and her excursions for every time she gets off the boat. Kelly, a happy anniversary. Yes. May you have a wonderful trip.
- [56:52]
B
30 years is something to celebrate.
- [56:57]
A
God bless it. Right?
- [56:59]
B
I absolutely love that. I hope you have such a wonderful, wonderful trip with a lot of good reads. Thanks to the bookish friends. All right, Katie, my. In my Before We Go is in the currently curious category, and I am curious about one thing, and it is actually reading therapy that I need. Katie. I need to figure out if I'm gonna stay or go. As far as Wolf hall goes, I am mightily struggling.
- [57:25]
A
Okay.
- [57:25]
B
With. With even reading just a little bit of this book every day. I am 50% through Wolf Hall. I have been regular and consistent with it. I really, really love footnotes and tangents, which is the slow read that I'm doing. As a slow read, it is as good as it gets. But Wolf hall is just. I keep wanting it to start being about something even. It's just feels really beautiful, disjointed to me and like, I can't get the flow. I can't get into it. I can't get into the boat and start going down the river. Even if we're going down really slowly. I, like, keep trying to get in the boat and the boat keeps flat, you know, getting out from under me. So I don't know. Just this week, I finally got to a place where I'm like, I don't know, am I considering letting it go?
- [58:14]
A
Right, right.
- [58:15]
B
I really don't want to, so I don't. I mean, how do you make a decision like this?
- [58:20]
A
Well, I have a couple questions for you. The first is, we know that you tried to pick up Wolf hall before.
- [58:27]
B
Multiple times.
- [58:28]
A
Multiple times. And you thought this one would be the time that you could stick with it because of the external, like, community part of it and the schedule and just having to read a little bit each day. Did you feel the same way about it at that time, that it just, like, dragged and wouldn't get going?
- [58:42]
B
Yeah. And I mean, yes. And this was what I was hoping, like, oh, if you get through the first 25% or the first. First 30%, it really starts to hang together after you've kind of gotten used to the writing style. But I don't. I just am having a hard time being interested in what's happening. And part of that is a lot of times I'm having a hard time figuring out, paragraph to paragraph, who's talking, what's happening, what. It's just. I'm really, really struggling with it. So.
- [59:13]
A
And that's in spite of the additional information that you get from footnotes and tangents. Right.
- [59:19]
B
Because there you're getting. You're getting context, but you're not getting a lot of, like, explanation about. I think, I think what I was hoping for, and this isn't a failing of footnotes and tangents. It's just, I'm sure, a failing of my own reading because I just. I just still am having a really hard time with the writing style and it's not interesting enough to make me want to continue to. To fight for it to this reader. And again, this is not, and I'm not at all saying that this would be true every time that I tried to read it. So I think what I'm going to do as far as having a plan of action is I think I'm going to throw this question out to some of my bookish friends who have read it and just say, hey, if this is how I'm feeling at the 50% mark through the first book, is there a reason to get like, is there going to come a time where it gets a lot easier?
- [60:15]
A
Easier, Right.
- [60:15]
B
Or. Or not easier, where it just starts to hang together more? Is something about what I'm struggling with going to change? And if I can get a little bit of that context, then it'll help me decide if I want to continue with it?
- [60:31]
A
Yeah, I think that. I think that's the right move because there are going to be Die Hards, of course, that are like, okay, if you didn't love it from page three, you're never going to. Right.
- [60:40]
B
Which is a useful piece of information.
- [60:43]
A
It. Right. Yeah. So.
- [60:44]
B
Or sometimes the book is like, look, I hear what you're saying, but when you get to X thing, it really starts to flow. And that's the piece of information that I need because. And this is very different than someone going into a, you know, random group or whatever and saying, like, I'm blah, blah, blah percent through blah, blah, blah book, and I don't like it. Should I keep reading? What I'm doing here is different because I'm saying, here's the thing I'm struggling
- [61:11]
A
with specifically, and I want to keep reading. Is that ever going to change for me? Right.
- [61:17]
B
Or, you know, and also, I really am dithering about it, and it's because I've made it a small financial investment. I've said that I was going to do this. I said to myself that I also.
- [61:28]
A
The sunk cost fallacy, though, Meredith, as
- [61:30]
B
we know yes, exactly. I mean, and that's exactly what I'm like. Am I now just spending good time after bad? You know? So again, I really want to underscore none of this is is the fault of footnotes and tangents, which is a fantastic substack and a great place to do a slow read for sure. So that's what I'm struggling with. But Katie, I think I've, I have a plan of action and I feel good about it. All right.
- [61:55]
A
I like it.
- [61:56]
B
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
- [62:04]
A
find me Katie at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Puthvong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of Megan's Real Reads Full show
- [62:14]
B
notes with the title of every book we mentioned in the episode and timestamps. You can zoom right to where we talked about. It can be found in those show notes and on our website@currentlyreading podcast.com youm
- [62:26]
A
can also follow the show on Instagram at currentlyreading Podcast or email us at hellourrentlyreading podcast.com or find us on Substack and YouTube and subscribe to our newsletter. We're everywhere you want to be.
- [62:39]
B
We we are everywhere. And if you want more of this kind of content, join us on Patreon. As a bookish friend, it's only $5 a month. You get so much more content, so much great community, and you keep this show commercial free. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts and shout us out on social media. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience.
- [63:02]
A
Yes, bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you all for helping us continue to grow grow.
- [63:07]
B
Until next week, may your coffee be
- [63:10]
A
hot and your book be unput downable.
- [63:12]
B
Happy reading, Katie.
- [63:13]
A
Happy reading, Meredith.