← The Currently Reading Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
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 already know, we won't shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.
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A
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 sometimes books can be confuzzling.
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A
I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona. And I think book festival serendipity is even more magical than library serendipity. This is episode number 34 of season eight, and we're so glad you're here.
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B
Oh, that's a high level. That's a, that's a, a high level of serendipity Book festival.
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A
It really is. And it's hard to manage. You can't just like walk into a book festival every weekend when you've got an extra hour, Right?
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B
Exactly. That's what makes it so, so high level.
- [01:14]
A
Confuzzling, Meredith. That's what we're going to be talking about in a minute. But first, I'll let everybody know that our deep dive today is about our reading traditions. This is from a listener question, and I'm excited to get into what kind of traditions we have around our reading lives and. But first we'll get started the way we always do with our bookish moments. What is confuzzling you lately, Meredith?
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B
Well, okay, this is one of those things where I'm like, I don't think anybody outside of the people who are listening right now would understand this. Maybe this hasn't even happened to you, Katie, but every once in a while I'll read a book that I'm totally into. Like, I'm very much enjoying the entire process. I'm not bored at all. But it just, it seems like it's growing in length as you're reading it.
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A
Yes.
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B
Here's what my notes, My notes say, preparing for this show. Just parts of sentences, long books that you want to read. But why are they so long? But then they're not so long. A book is only as long as a book is. Why? Why? These are.
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A
These are my existential crisis.
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B
I know I was reading this book and I just felt like I couldn't wait to get back to it. I was Putting in good amounts of time reading it. I had it in two formats and I just kept going. How can I only be at 38%? How can I only be at 42%? I am really putting in the time on this book. I have to go look at what the actual page length is. You'd think because I had a print copy, I would know. I forgot to go look. But I will go look at it. It was the red. It was red Winter, by the way, which. Which I fully enjoy. I've now finished. I did make it to the other side.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. If I remember from the IPL, that one is between 5 and 600 pages. So it is decent length.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But. Yes. Why are long books so long? Agree.
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B
A book. A book can only be as long as a book is.
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A
I know. How does it do that? Weird. Like metamorphosis in the middle. That makes it longer. It's weird. Let me see.
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B
It's 544 pages. And.
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A
And I enjoyed.
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B
Yeah, I enjoyed every single one of them. But I just. It took me a week to get through that book. And you know, for us, a full week on a book when we're not on break or something.
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A
Especially if you're dedicating two formats. That's right.
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B
And I was giving it time, so I got on the other side of it. I'm now started a new buddy read and we're gonna make some good progress.
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A
Okay. So my bookish moment is that, of course, last weekend when I was not here, I was at the Tucson Festival of Books, which, with something like 140,000 of my closest friends, it keeps getting bigger.
- [03:51]
B
That is really, really a large book festival.
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A
It really is. It's a lot. And this year, it. It felt more like a lot than it has in years past. I know they had a big dip for Covid and it's been like, steadily tracking upwards since then. But this year we had a harder time, you know, getting tickets to ones that were ticketed and then things that weren't ticketed. There were long lines. So you just weren't sure if you were going to be able to get in there or not. It just a little. It was like a little too big. Right. But we had a great Saturday night dinner with 15 bookish friends and listeners, saw each other and met up at various panels throughout the weekend. I probably saw 20 to 30 people that either knew me or that I knew, which was very fun. Many of us shopped those booths like books were never going to be available ever again. We were like, did you bring a wagon?
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B
Did you bring a rolly cart? Did people bring wagons? Like, did people.
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A
Oh, yeah, people bring wagons.
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B
Oh, wow. Okay.
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A
And it's actually. It's really this. I wasn't going to talk about this, but Tucson Festival of Books has a big kid element to it because it does take place on a college campus. So there's a YA tent, There's a middle grade focus. There's a children's story tent where they're always reading storybooks with blankets all over the ground and it's shaded all the time. So parents bring their kids. They'll bring, like, triple strollers, and one is just full of books, and the other two have babies in them. Like, it's very bookish and family friendly, which is really fun.
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B
I love it.
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A
Because of the overwhelm of people, though, we did end up having to make pivots sometimes to the sessions that we had planned to go to, because, you know, we're standing at the door and they're like, yeah, seats are gone. No more room at the end, folks. So we pivoted from one where I wanted to go see Martha Wells and John Scalzi, which sounded delightful.
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B
Yes.
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But of course, Martha Wells just had a big adaptation come to Apple TV this year with Murderbot. So that was very full. We pivoted and went to one with Kathryn Newman and two other authors who I had never heard of, but I love Kathryn Newman. She wrote Sandwich, she wrote Rec, which I just talked about a couple weeks ago. That session, which we didn't intend to go to, was hysterically funny. These three authors kind of braided together their interview in a way that made me want to be best friends with all of them. We were like, are you guys going out for drinks afterward? Because we would like to join you. It was so delightful. And then the same happened when we went to see the Romance in Arizona panel, which was four actual friends who are all romance writers in Arizona that get together and have coffee, and they just because of that, the way they already know each other, they had the best conversation, but it was all just serendipity. Like, we had made plans and those plans were foiled, or there was a kerfuffle and we ended up moving things around. And then that's where the magic actually happened. And I love that because we couldn't have planned the magic. It just happened.
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B
That is so much fun. I think it's really fun to listen to groups of people, especially friend groups, talk like that. It's really fun to see dynamics between people that Know each other really well.
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A
Yes, indeed. In fact, fun fact, Jen DeLuca was moving to Tucson and Sarah T Dub, who just recently kind of broke onto the scene with Burning with Benefits. And now Honey Be Mine already knew of gentlemen. So she just, like Erin Moon with Jamie golden, started messaging her on Instagram like, hey, when you move here, we're going to be friends. And she manifested it. She made it happen.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I think that's so fun.
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B
That is very fun. It doesn't always work because I have been, I have been trying to do that with Jen Hatmaker and no dice, no dice so far.
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We're going to put, keep putting that energy into the universe.
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B
When I say I've been trying, I've been thinking a lot about it, but I haven't actually done anything.
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A
And yeah, energy into the universe. We got it.
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B
And I've been in places where she's been three different times and I've never had the guts to even talk to her. So it makes it hard to be friends when one of us insists on not speaking to the other one.
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Yeah, she's probably thinking, gosh, I wish Meredith Monday Schwartz would just walk up to me and talk to me sometime.
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I'm positive she knows who I am and she wants to be friends with me. Both of those things.
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A
Yeah, See, we're manifesting it. That's what's happening. Let's talk about some books, though. What have you got as a current read this week? Or three of them even?
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B
Yes, I have three of them. I have one that's kind of light and fun and great on audio. I have one that I honestly was not even sure until two seconds ago that I was going to talk about on the show, period, because I think it might make a lot of people mad. And I have one that is a five star, a hundred star book. So an interesting mix of current reads for me today. The first one is that one that is light, fluffy, feel good, a little bit romantic. This is the Inn at Pin Glass Cove by Lauren Westwood. Here's the setup. Our lead character is Juno Cartwright. She's recently separated from her cheating husband and she's the mom of two teenagers who I actually really liked in the story, which is interesting because normally I don't. I like those two teenagers. And surprise. She has inherited out of the blue, a crumbling ancestral inn perched on the Cornish coast. It's not a surprise to any of us, but it was a huge surprise to Juno in the book. So it's on Pin Glass Cove. So she arrives there with the plan that most of us would have, right? Like, get in there, assess the situation, prep the place for sale, get out. But of course, the inn and the people around the inn have other ideas. Lauren Westwood tells the story across two timelines. We've got present day Juno and then we've got 1820 Bess. Bess is from 1820. She's a young woman at the heart of a bunch of legends in the town. So this is a pirate situation. This is also a fixer upper in situation. There's a lot of things going on, but all of them are really delightful. All right. I thought about how I wanted to describe this book, and my overwhelming feeling is that this can best be described as Kate Morton light. And I mean that in a really good way because I love Kate Morton. I love her sprawling, atmospheric, dual timeline novels with gorgeous settings. And of course, there are secrets that are threaded between, you know, between the generations. I love them. But sometimes you want the feeling of a Kate Morton without that full commitment because she writes chonkers. And in this case, less emotional weight, a little bit shorter, a little bit breezier. It's exactly what Lauren Westwood, who I'd never read before, does here. So you're not as wrung out and devastated as with a Kate Morton, but you do have that dual timeline. You do have that atmospheric old house. It's an inn and there's legends and, like, layered legends and layered mysteries. But it's doing all of that in about 2/3 the intensity. Think of the difference between, like a full Kate Morton experience and this with, like, midday television when you're home sick. If you're a Gen X reader. You know what I mean by that? Like, it's the television that doesn't demand too much of you. That's kind of what this story is. I listen to it through Libro fm and I think it might have been an ALC pick through Libro fm. I waited for the right mood. When that mood arrived, when I wanted something interesting in my ears, but not demanding, something I could follow while doing chores. But it wouldn't matter if I missed a sentence or two, this was it. And it delivered. I finished the whole thing in just a little over six hours. You remember, I listened at 1.5 speed and the narration was really good. Now, yes, we have to address the elephant in the room, which is the inherited English property trope. It's. It's everywhere. It's everywhere on this show because I keep reading them clearly. Clearly. I really, really like this particular trope. I like secrets. I'll never get tired of it. It's my lifelong dream to surprise inherit a property in England, and Lauren Westwood gave me that experience for six hours. So I It does have some predictable elements, no question. But what I liked is that Westwood takes a couple of those predictable elements and puts enough spin on them to make it feel fresh. Like there were a couple of moments where I caught myself thinking, oh wait, wait, that's what we're doing here. Like in a well played kind of way. So just enough of surprise to keep the whole thing from feeling tired. I gave it four stars. This is not a book that's going to knock you sideways or demand that you pay close attention, but it is a book that's going to give you a really good time and let you live on the Cornish coast for a few hours, think about doomed lovers and pirate crews and sunken treasure, and then send you on your way feeling like you spent your reading hours. Well, that's this book. This is the Inn at Penglass Cove by Lauren Westwood.
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A
I think I would like to visit Penglass Cove.
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Yeah, it's just nice. It's just nice. And sometimes when the world isn't feeling nice, it feels good to have it in your ears or on the pages.
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A
Yes, indeed. The next one that I have does not have any coziness or sweet ends to it, but it does have an inheritance element. So we're going to tie it together that way. I'm going to talk about the man who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa. This was translated by Jesse Kirkwood and the translation matters here. And I'm going to get to why this was a Barnes and Noble Post Christmas impulse buy. I do this every year. I go that week between Christmas and New Year's. They have a big sale and I run a little wild. We'll say I am not sad about it though. This one worked out for me. However, this is not my only book this week that gets a little bit wibbly in the timeline. So if you do not like timeline messiness, you may want to skip this one and my final one this week. My fiction is not going to be a great fit for you. In this one, the man who Died Seven Times, we have a cozy adjacent mystery that takes us on a Groundhog Day adventure. Hisitaro is our main character. He's an older Japanese teen. He's 16, who has known since he was little that he has a timeline issue. Every once in a while, without any input or control from him, a day in his life will repeat itself nine times he will not know the first time that it happens, but when he wakes up to the same day again, everything goes exactly as it did the day before. He can change his behavior and change the outcome of the day, but the next morning it will start all over again and reset completely. Nobody else is impacted from one sleep to the next during these nine times. Each time he can decide whether to let the original timeline play out or if he should mess with it before the day is through, up until that ninth version, which is what will stick. That means that even though he's only 16, to the outside world, he's an old soul, because he's lived many hundreds of days nine times over, so he estimates his age to be closer to 30 years old. This could sound a little bit annoying, of course, until the day his grandfather is set to reveal the primary inheritor of his will at a large family gathering. His grandfather's getting older. He can't necessarily remember all his grandkids names, so he makes them all wear single color tracksuits in different colors. Like you're the red kid, you're the blue kid, you're the yellow kid. That's how he keeps track of them. I thought that was delightful. On the second iteration of that day, when Hisatro wakes up, his grandfather dies, even though he didn't die the first time. And that's weird because normally things just go exactly as they had the previous times. That shouldn't happen unless Histaro himself changed something. So now he has a limited number of tries to attempt to figure out how or why his grandfather died, who killed him, and what actions he can take to prevent it. There's a large family inheritance at stake, a number of aunties and cousins who cast side eye at each other over this entire thing, and no one will remember the investigation that he does in the intervening days, which gives this amateur detective plenty of techniques to deploy. He can try changing who's drinking with grandpa the night before or the night of. He can try changing whether or not he picks up the earring on the stairs or not. Right. He's messing with all these different elements. The publisher blurb here says that this is a great pick for fans of Agatha Christie, but there's quite a bit more humor and weirdness in this title. We should give it some Richard Osmond and maybe even some Matt Haig to round out the flavors of that entree that we're serving. Bookish Serendipity did me a solid here with this purchase. I was drawn in by the title and the Escher like cover MC Escher. Like cover. But really knew nothing about it until I dove into the story. It was an interesting ride and I really liked thinking through the clues as they were laid out. The ending was just the right amount of mind bendy for me to feel like it was time well spent. Even though it's not a tidy bowl like it would be with Christie or Osmond, I ended up giving this one four stars. But it's important to note that while this was just translated recently, which is what put it front and center at Barnes and Noble, it was originally published in Japanese in 1995. So that means there's some 1995 era misogyny and ickiness in the ways that people relate to each other. That would have passed fine in the mid-90s. And it feels yucky to us 30 years later. When I went through and read negative reviews, that was what people were. They were like, ew, there's some gross in here. It's a book from 1995. Right. It's a little different than the flavors that we tend to like anymore. However, I thought it was really fun. I loved getting through this mystery, and I gave it four stars. It was very readable. This is the man who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa.
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B
That sounds really good.
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It really was.
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B
It reminds me of that. Stuart Turton. What is it, the Eight and a Half Deaths?
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I think it's Seven and a Half
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Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Was that it? Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of that. Which is a book that I've actually wanted to reread because I feel like I read it at the wrong. But I like. I like setups like that.
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Yeah.
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Like, what is one thing? Like, what is one element that you could figure out that you hadn't figured out before? That's interesting.
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A
Yeah. Or even. What's the one? Gillian McAllister. She, like, lives it backwards. Right place, wrong time. Wrong place, wrong time.
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B
Wrong place, wrong time.
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A
It's a little bit that, too. Where you're like, every investigation thing you do doesn't impact the future. It impacts only you in the past. Like, it's that kind of mind bendiness.
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Yeah.
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I like that, though.
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I think that's interesting. But I like movies like that, too.
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But you're right.
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Some people just got.
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A
Yeah. So good. All right.
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B
My second book, like I said, I went back and forth. I can't even tell you how much I went back and forth about even bringing this book to the show. Let me tell you why. It is called the Extra and it's by Annie Neugebauer, who's an author that I'd never read before. Here's the setup, and I'm doing all this without notes, the second part, because I hadn't planned to talk about this. So this is all just going to be like. I'm actually just telling you, Katie, like, I would if we weren't even recording. The setup is this. 10 people set out on, like, a guided camping trip. 11 people finish the trip. What Everyone remembers everyone. So what happened?
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A
Okay. Right.
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B
Okay. So the premise. So I heard about this first. I think it was Booktok, et cetera. Tina brought it as a book on the radar, so she hadn't read it yet, but she had heard about it and heard about this premise, and it's such a good premise. So I was like, immediate download. First of all, a couple of things. It's a novella. It's really short. I think it was only an hour and a half on audio for me.
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A
Wow.
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B
So it's really, really, really short. It was like a workout and making breakfast, and it was completely done. The premise is absolutely amazing. I was interested all the way through. Like, Johnny was like, oh, maybe I'll go on your. Your walk with you. No, no. I'm like, I've got to get further in this book. I was really, really interested all the way through. And then the ending, and I'm not gonna say any more about it, but that is the piece that is gonna get people. But then two things. I kept thinking about it over and over again, thinking about the book, thinking about the ending, thinking about all the different, like, layers of WTF that it brings up, because it really kind of messes with your head. And then I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, the Talking Scared podcast with Neil McRobert, and he had Annie Neugebauer on, and they talked about this book. So she is recording what she calls a sequence, not a series. So she is writing a sequence, not a series. That's what she calls it. So there are three novellas. The Extra is the first one. I think it's the Extra. And then the other is coming out in, like, October, and then the Spare is coming out in a couple months after that. They're not. They're in the same world, but they're not a series. And so the conversation that she and Neil had and Neil's conversation about his thoughts after he read the book made me go, yeah, I can't stop thinking. I was mad when I finished it. And that's one thing I really want to say, because I don't want anyone to read. To read it or listen to it or whatever and then be mad at me because they're mad, because misplaced anger.
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A
If you. If you send it to Meredith because
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B
I was mad, and I had recommended it to two people when I first started it, and then I immediately doubled back to those two people, and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on. Maybe don't read it because the ending. But I think when there's a book that does such a good job of introducing these possibilities of, like, what could have happened? What could make something like that happen? And it just got in my head and I. The more I thought about it and the more I heard about their conversation, the more I was like, there's actually really something to that reading experience, even if it made me mad. And I immediately pre ordered the next one because Annie said that there's more information about the first book that you do learn in the other ones, but that there's never going to be. She's like, if you're a person who wants, like, every I dotted and every T crossed, the way I write is not going to be for you. And I admired her for saying that, too. So I decided to bring it because it's such a great premise and it was a really interesting reading experience in the moment, and it's been interesting to just chew through it in the days since. But don't DM me if you get mad. Please don't be mad at me. This is the extra by Annie Neugebauer, which, it'll be in our show notes, but her last name is spelled N E U G E B A U,
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A
E, R. Oh, I typed it out when I. When you started talking, just to guess. I got really close.
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B
Did you get it? Yeah. That's a tough one. That's a tough one.
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A
Yeah, I figured there was some German vowel combinations in there. All right, well, I am looking forward to other people messaging you with their thoughts about that. That's what I'm excited for.
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B
I mean, I do want other people to read it because I'd really like to be able to talk about it
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A
with people, just not to place their feelings on you about it. I think that's a good idea.
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B
Maybe. Maybe give it 48 hours before you DM me about it.
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A
Let it simmer. All right. All right. And do you. Will you be able to link the podcast episode that you listen to as well in the show notes?
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B
You think the talking scared? Absolutely. I. Yes. And you know you guys know I always recommend Talking Scared because Neil just does a really good job interviewing authors. It's the only podcast I listen to that interviews authors because normally I'm just not interested very much. Sarah from Bookshelves Life does it and I think she does it really well too. But Neil, I listen to every episode because he just really pulls out interesting things from these authors.
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A
Very cool. Okay, my second book this week is nonfiction and it's one Meredith that you got me to read, but you talked about it more than a year ago, so it was up for me. I'm going to talk about Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. I loved this. I loved this. I loved how thought provoking this book was. So Meredith brought this one as a current read on episode 16 of season seven, which is what officially put it onto my TBR. But like all the rest of us, I did watch the Bear on Hulu and or on FX and Hulu and this book is featured prominently in a number of episodes. So that was the first time it like pinged on my reader radar. Will go Dara is the restaurateur and manager and owner behind Eleven Madison park where he was during the writing of and before reading this book that was named the number one restaurant in the world. But this book starts with Will and his business partner Daniel having a meeting in 2002 in which they make it a goal to make it to that number one spot in the world after the conference in which they were named number 50 in the 50 best restaurants. So they wanted to move from the bottom spot to the top spot. That was their goal and they were willing to mountains to do so. What follows in the book is the events that took place prior to that meeting, how Will got into the restaurant industry, his path to ownership at Eleven Madison park and his goals before and during his time there and then those next few pivotal years in which he and his team pursued unreasonable hospitality within the space and the business that they had built. This is touted as memoir and a business book and I picked it up because of the memoir piece of things. Right? I am a memoir reader whereas Meredith is our business book reader. But what I found inside was much more applicable to my day to day life than what I expected because I'm not a business person or not in name right? It's been many years on the podcast now that y' all have been hearing about my personal mission and method of building community and neighborhoods and connection. That is where my like sole purpose is, is making those friendships. We talk a lot about how Meredith and Roxanna became buddy readers because of that connection that I made. I love that. That's like my finding unicorn space, right? And while Will Guidara is doing so within the context of a business and a paid relationship, those principles that he talks about here are universal. The subtitle of this book is the Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect. And the stories, especially about the legends, capital T, capital L. The legends, which are instances of hospitality that aren't necessarily expensive, although sometimes they are, but are excessive or unreasonable in really beautiful ways, were the ones that really impacted me. He talks about how to find those spots in conversations or in people's lives where that unreasonableness toward hospitality can find its way out. His TED talk drills down, especially on a single legend moment serving a $2 hot dog in a four star restaurant, and how it impacted the guests that he was serving there that night. I read this book on paper and each time a legend was mentioned, especially I wanted to like do Annie B. Jones things where I tear the edge of the page so I could come back to exactly that spot. I. I adored it. I thought it was so interesting. This idea of it doesn't have to be one size fits all. Everybody needs the same thing to feel special. It can be this one thing that is $5 is just as important to you as this one thing that for this other couple was $1,000. And both of them meet a need that you didn't even know you had. But now you feel seen and appreciated and loved as a person and as a consumer of whatever this product is. I also, of course, love a look behind the scenes at kitchens and restaurants, and that part added extra interest for me. It was easy to read, not at all esoteric, and it gave me lots of great ideas. When Meredith brought this to the show, I talked about how it might be useful in the ways we create space for our bookish friends. And it absolutely applies there as well. But the beauty of this book is that it applies universally to interpersonal relationships, being in community, and it can be read by anyone and they'll get great info from it. I'm so glad that I finally read it. I'm so glad when Meredith Ross is my reading. Even a year later, it went directly on my keeper shelf. I loved this. It was Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guattara.
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B
And isn't his relationship with his dad so like all the goals, I love his dad.
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A
I love the way, the way he presses in. So good. It's just so good.
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B
Yeah, it was really, really good. We at Here comes the guide we adopted. We really, really took that book to heart. And we, we made multiple changes, too, or found additional ways to really care for our clients in small, inexpensive ways, but once it really mattered. So it's a really useful business book, too.
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A
It's a lot of how I. I've been doing this, but even this new crop of people at the Tucson Fest listener. It's like I'm not meeting up with 20,000 listeners. Right. But those 15 people that made the time that reserved a spot to hang out with me for dinner, making sure I got to talk to each of them, hug them goodbye. Like, that was important to me, that each of them felt really seen and appreciated for being there, rather than like, thanks for being here, you large group of humans. Like, all 15 of you matter to me. And I thought. But I just love putting a new mindset to that. Yeah.
- [29:10]
B
And, you know, his Instagram's a great follow too, because he regularly, I think every Friday he does unreasonable hospitality in the wild. So he gives, like, more and more examples of how different businesses do it. So it's. It's great. I really like him.
- [29:24]
A
Nice.
- [29:25]
B
All right. My third book is my five star. I will press it into everyone's hands book. This is not going to surprise you, Katie, because we talked about it not very long ago. This is Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery. Oh, my gosh, I love this book. Okay, we are. Okay, here's the setup. We're in Cornwall in 1910, which my
- [29:45]
A
first book was Cornwall, Cornish and Cornwall. You're all over. Just in. In Cornwall this week.
- [29:50]
B
I know. That's interesting. Okay, so here we. It's 1910. We're in Cornwall. We are on a remote tidal island off that coast, a paranoid viscount who is connected, convinced that Halley's Comet is about to end. The world has. This is so weird. Has sealed every window, chimney, and keyhole in his house, which is called Tithe hall because he thinks this is the way they're going to survive Halle's Comet. It's already a weird night, and then somebody turns up dead. But by morning, the viscount is very much not alive, murdered in his locked study. And the most obvious suspect is Steven pike, our lead character, the new under butler, second butler, assistant footman. Anyway, he's under butler. He arrived fresh out of prison for a crime he did not commit. That's important to this reader. This is the story of Steven's life. Wrong place, wrong time. And in this case, they've got the wrong guy. But here's what makes this book different and delightful. Stephen's unlikely partner in solving this murder is the inimitable Ms. Decima Stockingham, an 80 year old family matriarch who is foul mouthed, razor sharp and absolutely giddy with delight at all of the chaos that's going on. Decima is less sweet little old lady Miss Marple and more force of nature who's been waiting her entire life for something like this to happen. I really Hope I'm like Ms. Decima someday. All right, to be honest with you about where my head was when I picked this one up. I'd been. I've been reading way too many locked rooms mysteries and I really was not in the mood to pick up another one. They're everywhere. And when we got to make some choices for the ipl, the IPL from an unlikely story and book boyfriend Bill put this one on the list. I did not choose it because I just felt locker room mystery out like it's just too, it's just been too much. But Katie, you luckily had the forethought and you said no, let's really make sure that's on the list. And I, I absolutely loved it. Bill has never steered us wrong and I am happy to say I was embarrassingly wrong to not immediately jump on this book. So what Montgomery does really well that most locked room mysteries don't is that he makes the whole thing funny. It's not cozy funny, not wink at the camera funny. I mean genuinely sarcastic, sardonic, quippy funny. The kind of banter that makes it feel like it exists because these characters kind of can't help themselves. Not because a writer said I need witty dialogue. The difference there also means something to me. I laughed out loud multiple times and somehow the humor never once got in the way of the mystery. The clues are real, the tension is real. And when the solution arrives, it's fair. You could have gotten there if you were paying attention. Montgomery respects us enough to let us play the game. You guys hear me say this all the time. I have to have that piece for a five star mystery. The pacing is perfect. Short, short, punchy chapters make the whole thing fly by. I never once checked how many pages I had left. And as we talked about with Red Winter, this is a high compliment for me. And then there is the best part of this book, which is the duo. I already told you about these two people. We've got Steven, the under butler and Ms. Decima, the 80 year old crackpot matriarch. This relationship isn't tropey. It's it's a dynamic, and it reminded me strongly of the partnership in the Tainted cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, that same older, unconventional genius paired with a younger man who's mostly just trying to figure things out and survive the experience. By the time I got to the ending, and I will tell you absolutely nothing about the ending except this, there may have been tears and we are never going to speak of this again. What I will say is that I adored this book from its spectacular cover and its end papers. Do not miss the end papers. There are clues afoot in the end papers all the way till its final pages. 5 stars. My favorite mystery I've read in a long time. And the fact that this is book one in what is apparently going to be called the Stockingham and Pike series means I will not have to wait very long to get the next one. Hopefully. Of course, you when you think about comps, you're going to hear and think about Knives out and Clue and yes, those elements are there, but I think it's more important to know that there are the funny and interesting and poignant elements of the Thirsty Murder Club with a book A bouquet of how to solve your own murder by Kristin Perrin for that kind of golden age mystery meets modern sensibility. So I know you're tired of locked room mysteries, I feel you, reader. But trust me on this one, it is worth your time. This is the Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery.
- [34:46]
A
So good. I know we don't cast our books ever, but Lady Stockingham has to be Prue Leith, the. The dame of Great British Bake Off. I. I feel like that's correct.
- [35:01]
B
Yeah. I mean, yes, I could doubt if Pru could do, you know, Nasty. Yeah, like a Serbic acerbic. Because she's not nasty, but she's not nice.
- [35:13]
A
I think she is off camera. I think she has it in her is what I'm saying.
- [35:18]
B
I could believe that. I could believe that. I think Judi Dench can do a really Good, you know, Ms. Decima too. So just one of my favorite books of the year. Just a joy all the way through.
- [35:28]
A
Oh, so good. I also have one of my favorite books of the year as my third one. So winning all around. I can't wait to tell you all about the Everlasting by Alix Harrow.
- [35:38]
B
Oh, I'm glad you liked this one because, man, I have heard a lot of divisive opinions.
- [35:43]
A
There is a lot of division around this, but oh, I loved it so much. It is, however, my second timey Wimey book of the episode or Jeremy Baramy, if we are fans of the book, the Good Place. And that really turns people away plenty of times, you know, and that's okay. You should know what your deal breakers are. And if you don't like a timey story where you're looping over yourself and doubling back, this is not going to work for you and you should not try and pick it up.
- [36:11]
B
Read or know thyself.
- [36:12]
A
Exactly. Alex Harrow, however, is one of my all time favorite authors. So this was a pre order from Waterstones situation in order to get the gorgeous sprayed edges. Look at these. Oh, and that is gilded on the front. See how shiny it is? Yeah, that's signed. Like it's just the best copy of a book. So we're gonna go on an adventure with a quiet, bookish scholar and a badass lady knight. Do I like the phrase lady knight? I do not. It is reminiscent of Lady Doctor, but it's also how Alex Harrow refers to her hero here. So we're gonna go with it. Sir Una Everlasting. Our lady knight in question is the greatest hero of the land of Dominion. Her story has been told and retold for centuries, inspiring the citizens of the country. Sometimes to valor, sometimes to war, always to glory and dedication. As expected though, the stories of myth and legend are usually twisted and rewritten over the centuries. And what really happened is bathed in shadow. This is very like Madeline Miller esque, right, where we're retelling a story, Greek myth. But this is Alex Harrow's own creation. When Owen Mallory, the scholar and Una's counterpart, decides to study Una as part of his dissertation, a his advisor thinks that this has been done. This is trite. Nobody wants to read any more about Una Everlasting. Pick something else. But he's dedicated and he could never have guessed that a never before seen tome would be revealed to him through mysterious circumstances. And she show up on his office desk with his name on it. Even more so. He could not have foreseen the journey into the past that this book would take him on. Where Owen's story becomes intertwined with Una's not just once in the past, but over and over again. The goal here though, is not to know Una's true story. It's to rewrite it and maybe write history anew again. This love story, this historical fiction, fairy tale, this. This badass woman, right?
- [38:15]
B
She.
- [38:16]
A
I loved this book. I loved Una especially. But the way that Alix Harrow writes her characters and her settings and her plots, it just works for me. It continues to work for me year in and year out. Book in and book out. She hits over and over again. My biggest disappointment this year at the Tucson Festival of Books is that when we had the opportunity to see Alex Harrow, we were last ones through the door. We made it into this room that was too small for the big names on this panel and the microphones were insufficient, so we couldn't hear well. And that, oh, no, broke my heart because I know that what I did hear was her effervescent and lovely self being exactly who I always hoped she would be. We just couldn't hear, like the audience questions or the moderator or the other people on the panel. I was like, can you turn those up? What's happening at the front of this room? I did love seeing this room just packed to the gills because that's what she deserves. This book is perfect for readers who love Outlander, but want it to not be so long. That story, but in a normal sized single novel. And if you loved this one, but you haven't read 10,000 Doors of January, the book that made me fall in love with Alex Harrow years ago, that should be your next stop. This book for me was perfect. Doesn't need anything less than it had, which is a big thing nowadays, right? All the time we're saying, like, could we just take 15% of it out? No. Every word belonged in this story. It didn't need any more than it had. The way it ends is Chef's kiss. Perfection. I loved it. This will be on my top books of the year, and not everyone will. And I'm okay with that. For me, it was perfect. This is the Everlasting by Alex Harrow.
- [40:02]
B
That is all that matters. That is absolutely all that matters. We know what works for us, and knowing those things can save us a lot of time and. Or draw us to the exact right books for us. I think that's really useful and you did a great job of helping us to understand that about this particular book.
- [40:19]
A
Oh, it's so good. I love it so much. All right, those were our six current reads. Now we're going to talk about reading traditions. We got an email from Sophie. Here's what she says. Hi, Katie and Meredith. I was thinking a fun idea for a deep dive could be on reading traditions. For example, I always reread a book on my birthday and New Year's, and if I ever go on a super memorable trip, I love to read a book set in that location during the anniversary month of that trip. Thanks to this podcast and the bookish friends community. I also started a Yoloboka flood tradition where I participate in a book exchange and then read the book. I'm gifted on Christmas Eve. I'd love to hear about if you have any reading traditions, how or why they started and what they add to your reading life. Thanks for everything you do, Sophie. This was so fun to think about.
- [41:09]
B
That's a good idea. It's a really good idea. Although it highlights a part of me that is not my favorite part of me, which is that I'm not very. I'm not naturally good at traditions or celebrations. I'm not a natural celebrator.
- [41:25]
A
Okay.
- [41:26]
B
And I have to work really hard, like, to, like, I do Christmas and I do Christmas. I think I do Christmas well, but I have to, like, really, really work to do that. Birthday, the same kind of thing. Whereas for other people, I feel like it just sort of comes out of them really naturally.
- [41:42]
A
Right.
- [41:42]
B
So it's not my favorite part of me. This kind of skirts that same line where I was like, I have a few, but I don't have as many. Or, like, I don't feel like they're super fun.
- [41:52]
A
Right.
- [41:52]
B
They're fun for me, but, like, I don't have any, like, interesting. Like, I always dress in green and hop on one foot on St. Patrick's Day. Or like, you know what I mean?
- [42:02]
A
Yes. I am a person who likes traditions and can lean into them, but I like them to be very low stakes. Like, I am good with a tradition where we always go to zoolights at the zoo, but I am not going to decorate my house in a way that makes other people want to drive to see it. That's too much. Right. Like, I want. I want the mini version. I love our half birthday tradition in our house where that kid gets measured and gets to pick a dessert and that's it. There's no gift, there's no songs, there's no, like, what do you love about, like, it's just very low stakes. And that's my favorite kind of tradition.
- [42:41]
B
Yeah, that's perfect.
- [42:42]
A
I'm also not a huge rereader, as we've talked about. And Sophie, some of the stuff that she's talking about here is about rereading. Right. She always rereads a book on her birthday and New Year's. And then I liked this idea. If I go on a super memorable trip, I love to read a book set in that location during the anniversary month of the trip would be hard for me, but I like it in theory.
- [43:02]
B
Yeah. And I would say that I don't. I wouldn't do that. But I do really, really like when we're. When we go to a place like when Elizabeth and I went to the Hamptons, who done it, or when we went to Maine, when we went to Scotland, I really like to read a book about the place either right before or even while I'm there. Like, I. I definitely do like to do that. But I was thinking, you know, you go to the Tucson Book Festival every year.
- [43:27]
A
That is actually the first thing that I put on my list because now that has become tradition. I'm three years in to visiting the Tucson Festival of Books and the ways that a. It's always Katie and Shad and I and then expanded out to additional people right. In the actual book festival itself. But the ways that that has worked into my life where it's like, oh, we mark it on the calendar as soon as the dates are announced, we start looking at the authors. We get kind of in festival mode before we go making our reservations and getting excited about it. So, yes, Tucson Festival of Books is a bookish tradition. Even though it's this year especially, it was not a reading tradition. I don't think I did any reading while I was there this year.
- [44:06]
B
Sure. Well, I mean, yeah. That doesn't seem like the right thing to be doing at a book festival. Like you should be getting books.
- [44:12]
A
No. But sometimes Katie and I will be co reading a book because we're always co reading a book. That's another tradition I have where I'm. We're always reading something together and usually we try to make it so that we finish a book when we're together. We didn't even do that this time.
- [44:27]
B
Right.
- [44:28]
A
Right.
- [44:28]
B
Well, I every year try to take a reading retreat. Right. That's something that is a really important tradition to me. I always read the previous Louise Penny right before the new one comes out. I'm probably around. The new Louise Penny book is probably the place where I weirdly have the most traditions. Like things I do every time. Like, I always make sure I. I'm not in the middle of any other book. I always make sure that I have to get it in hardback and it has to be delivered by Amazon. I can't get like it. I mean, I can, but I won't read an ALC or an arc. I have to read the previous one right before. Like so I do set up. I'm very weird about. I guess that. I mean that. That really is a big one. One thing I have done many Many years is around Christmas time. I do try to reread a book from my childhood or from my kids childhood. So I've done the Harry Potter series. I've done lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I've done Harriet the Spy. I recently reread Beauty by Robin McKinley, Robin McKinley, which is one of my favorite books of all time. And a book that when I was 16, I went and bought a copy and said, I will read this to my daughter if I ever have a daughter. Like, that book is really meaningful to me. And I did do that. And so rereads around Christmas time. Like that's something that I try to do in January. I love to read a fairy tale. Like that's something that I. January very much feels fairy tale to me. And then Roxanna and I always read the Acotar books together. So when those new books come out, we will drop everything and read those together.
- [46:09]
A
Yes. Excellent.
- [46:11]
B
So I don't feel like I have a great list of traditions, but it was fun to think about that. I do have some.
- [46:17]
A
You do?
- [46:18]
B
And are there places that I want to build in more, like with my grandkids maybe? Like, is there a way to build some? Maybe I could get them into the
- [46:29]
A
Icelandic book tradition. That is also aspirational for me. I love the idea of it. But Christmas Eve, it's like already so busy around that time of year that the idea of adding one more freaking thing makes me want to claw my eyeballs out. So I just can't. I would much rather it be like a New Year's Day reading tradition or something. Which it's my life. Like I could choose whatever I wanted to do. Right. It doesn't have to be Christmas Eve because that's what everybody else does. It's my life. Right. I do around the beginning and end of the year have traditions, Picadillos, where I like to try and not carry over books from one year to the next. So I try to clear the decks. And I like to start the year right with books that I think are either like, I almost always start with some kind of nonfiction that is going to kind of set my tone for the year. So it could be personal growth or something with parenting or homeschooling or something that like something that I want to work on for myself, organization, whatever it is. And then for the fiction, just books that I really think I'm going to love. So then I'm starting the year right instead of like, well, that was a downer for my first book of the year, EW Yeah. You know, so I am more traditional around the end and beginning of the year, but I would like more bookishness, I guess. The other tradition, both of us have this now because of the podcast, we take our summer break. Right. In July is when I can freeball in my book life. Right. So I could get into a big series. I've done that a few times, but it feels less high stakes around July. So even as I look forward to the middle of the year, I start thinking about, like, well, what could I do this year? Am I going to do another big summer road trip? Do I need to start thinking about what that reading could look like again? And if I do, it'll be in July because then it's not weeks and weeks of Katie screwing up the schedule. Right. Like all of that matters. So that's traditional, I guess.
- [48:29]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So we will put up a post around this. We would love to hear. When you guys think about your traditions, do you have any really cool ones that maybe other people would love to adopt as their own? I think that would be really fun to hear.
- [48:45]
A
Oh, I do have one more. I do have a friend who picks up the book page magazine and specifically goes through and texts people that she thinks the books would be perfect for. So I love that at the beginning of the month, it's not even something I have to do, but it's like a reading tradition in that she's making sure that, oh, there's something in book page, on page two, you know, 12 that I think would really fit for you this month. And then here's a picture of the COVID Here's a link to the book. And that's all I have for this month. Like, it's just this really sweet way of, like, showing love.
- [49:15]
B
Yeah, that's a really nice. That's a nice little clipping service that you have.
- [49:19]
A
Seriously, it's so good. All right, that was a short and sweet deep dive. But before we go, we have a few more things to tackle. First is our bookish friend of the week. And this week I went with Nicole Stringer Steagall because she influenced me. So here's what she said. I just finished the Better Mother by Jennifer Vandercloot. Wow. Has anyone else read this? The sense of impending doom and dread was so bad, I had to pull a Katie Cobb and listen at 2.0 speed, which I never do. She jumped up the speed because she had to get through it. Triggers bound for all things pregnancy and fertility, but it doesn't get too heavy, in my opinion. Definitely a popcorn psychological suspense thriller. I think. Think it's five stars for me just for the sheer entertainment value. But I need to sit with it a bit longer. And she posted the COVID It was available immediately from Hoopla for me at my library. God love hoopla. Especially stuff that's like a little under the radar. Half the time it's there. I love it. I downloaded it for my next listen when I finish my current one. I'm listening to that one now, and I'm going directly into Nicole's bookish friend of the week recommendation, the Better Mother by Jennifer Van der Kloot. Red and black cover with a pram on it, right?
- [50:33]
B
It has a pram, yeah. All right. Well, along those lines, I have weirdly, all week, in addition to not being able to stop thinking about the extra, that book that I talked about earlier, I also have had it in my mind. And normally when I go to prepare for the show, that's kind of the. Most of the time, that's the first time I've really thought about, like, what I'm going to talk about. All week I've known that I needed to bring a specific book to the show because I feel like somebody must need to read this book because I like, I keep thinking you have to bring this book this week. And that is a book called the Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.
- [51:12]
A
So good, right?
- [51:14]
B
Brought it before. It's a book that we've prepped, that we pressed. It is one that I've talked about multiple times. But again, I just, for whatever reason, feel like I need to talk about this book. So it's nonfiction, especially some of our younger listeners, like, maybe you guys are the ones who need to really listen to this because this is an old book I didn't even look to see when it came out, but it's been out for a long time because I know it was out for a long time before I even gave it to Devin when she turned 18 and she just turned 31. So it's nonfiction. The idea is that true fear is a gift. So this book is about listening to our instincts and the actual biological and scientific data behind the fact that we are built to have instincts and they. They give us specific signals and clues. And this book is about helping you hone in on that so that you can keep yourself safe. So, for example, he talks about a date that won't take no for an answer. The new nanny who gives you just a weird, uneasy feeling. A stranger in a deserted parking lot that offers help in an unsolicited sort of way. All of these things are things that might be completely innocuous, but they might not be. And our bodies give us a sense of it. So I've given this, I give this book to young women in my life anytime they're going away to college. I read this with my daughter. It, the information in it I am positive has absolutely saved my life. And the stories in it are told in a really riveting way. It's a must read. It's an easy read. It's not one that you're going to have to like, slog through. Somebody within the sound of my voice is supposed to pick this book up and read it. I just feel really sure of that. So that's the Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. Moms, moms, if you have give this book to your daughters, we all need to read this.
- [53:10]
A
Yes, agree. I read this after Meredith pressed it, which may have been season one.
- [53:16]
B
It was early, it was a long
- [53:17]
A
ago press on the show and. Absolutely. And which means I only read it within the last eight years. Right. And I'm positive it has kept me safe in situations, especially, you know, the way my life has changed lately. I am, you know, going on dates and out in the world in different ways than I used to be. And I'm really glad that I've got this one in my back pocket.
- [53:41]
B
Yep, absolutely. And we all have the tools. He Gavin de Becker just helps us figure out how to really, really listen to them. It's really, really useful. 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 at meredithmonday Schwartz on Instagram and you can
- [54:00]
A
find me Katie at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putovong Evans and you can find her on Instagram at most of megansreads full show notes with the
- [54:11]
B
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 our show notes and on our website@currentlyreadingpodcast.com you can
- [54:22]
A
also follow the show at currentlyreading Podcast on Instagram or substack or by signing up for our newsletter and on YouTube or you can email us at Ding ding ding. Hello currentlyreading podcast.com new email.
- [54:37]
B
New email. Everyone pay attention. If you want more of this content. There is so much more. If you want to join us as a Patreon subscriber, it's only $5 a month. You get so much more content. You also get great community and you keep this show commercial free. You can also help us by rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts and you can shout us out on social media. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience.
- [55:02]
A
Yes, bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us continue to grow.
- [55:07]
B
Until next week.
- [55:08]
A
May your coffee be hot and your book be unputdownable.
- [55:12]
B
Happy reading.
- [55:13]
A
Katie Happy reading. Meredith.