Season 8, Episode 9: Car-cuteries + Narrative POVs

Summary

Currently Reading – S8E9: “Car-cuteries + Narrative POVs”

Hosts: Meredith Monday Schwartz & Kaytee Cobb
Release Date: September 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Currently Reading dives deep into the world of narrative points of view (POVs) in fiction, exploring how first, second, and third person narration affect the reading experience—and what makes a novel “voicey.” Meredith and Kaytee also share their current reads, ranging from deliciously soapy royal YA to haunting literary fiction and compelling non-fiction. The episode is packed with book recommendations for the new season (think witchy, cozy, and atmospheric for autumn), alongside an engaging discussion about how personal preferences for POVs shape our bookish decisions.

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Bookish Moments of the Week

[03:31] Kaytee:

• Kaytee shares excitement about her DIY renovation—a new bookshelf in her kitchen, perfectly housing her beloved cookbooks and moving one step closer to her goal of having books in every room.
  • Notable exchange:
    • “That's where happiness lives. Books in every room.” – Kaytee [03:11]
    • “Even the bathroom? Because I think a bathroom shelf sounds great.” – Meredith [03:24]

[03:50] Meredith:

• Meredith recounts attending Jen Hatmaker’s book launch ("Awake") in Austin, beginning with a delightful “car-cutery” (car picnic) organized by her friend Betsy.
  • The event was deeply moving, combining humor, vulnerability, and plenty of Kleenex.
  • “Ten minutes in, I am like, where are those Kleenexes?... It starts out with a gut punch like no other and then goes from there to be filled with so much authenticity.” – Meredith [06:48]

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Current Reads

1. American Royals by Katharine McGee

[09:47] Kaytee

• An alt-history YA imagining an American monarchy descended from George Washington.
• Kaytee enjoyed the soapy, fun drama among Beatrice, Samantha, and Jefferson—the royal siblings.
• Highlights the cliffhanger ending and recommends it especially for teens looking for an accessible, slightly romantic royal read.
  • “It is soapy YA deliciousness. It is milkshakey and fun. I love this book.” – Kaytee [12:28]

2. A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandana

[14:43] Meredith

• Cozy, magical fantasy set in Lancashire; the MC, Sarah, a witch stripped of her powers, runs an enchanted inn.
• Lovingly praises the book’s emotional honesty, well-drawn romance, and “sweet without being syrupy” tone.
  • “It’s predictable in the best way—like your favorite comfort food. You know what you’re getting, but that’s why you ordered it.” – Meredith [16:47]
• Audio edition gets a strong recommendation as a perfect autumn listen.

3. These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore

[19:57] Kaytee

• Massive but engrossing 800-page history, tracing the ideals and contradictions of America from 1492 onward.
• Kaytee champions Lepore’s engaging, accessible style—making complex history relatable through stories of real people from all walks of life.
  • “Lepore reminds us that the past is an inheritance, a gift, and a burden.” – Kaytee [22:35]
• Assures listeners the book maintains objectivity and balance, covering modern political eras without partisanship.

4. The Hounding by Zenobi Purvis

[24:49] Meredith

• Atmospheric, feminist literary fiction about five motherless sisters accused of witchcraft in an 18th-century English village.
• Notably, the sisters’ perspective is never directly given—building tension by seeing them only through others’ eyes.
  • “What makes this book really brilliant is that we never get the sisters’ point of view. We see them entirely through other people’s lenses... such a smart narrative choice.” – Meredith [26:47]
• Highly recommended for fall and book clubs.

5. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

[29:29] Kaytee

• Pulitzer- and Women’s Prize-winning novel that reimagines David Copperfield as the story of a boy growing up amid poverty and addiction in contemporary Appalachia.
• Kaytee is deeply moved by the vivid voice and humanity of Demon, the narrator.
  • “Over and over again I wanted to grab Demon by both shoulders, this fictional character, and hold him close...” – Kaytee [31:29]
• Recognizes it as challenging but rewarding, predicting it will end up on her yearly favorites list.

6. The Carpool Detectives: A True Story of Four Moms, Two Bodies, and One Mysterious Cold Case by Chuck Hogan

[34:05] Meredith

• Real-life crime: four ordinary moms form an amateur sleuth team during the pandemic and solve a 15-year-old disappearance.
• Praises the themes of female friendship, reclaiming identity beyond motherhood, and the satisfying conclusion.
  • “They fundamentally change how cold cases will be approached in the future. This is what happens when you combine determination, intelligence, and the kind of friendship where someone will literally dig through a ravine at midnight with you.” – Meredith [37:31]

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Deep Dive: Narrative POVs & The Power of Voice

[40:01] Discussion begins, prompted by listener question from "Kylie"

Key Points:

• POV Basics Recap:

  • First Person: “I/we”; can be single or multiple narrators (“Greek chorus” discussed).
  • Second Person: “You/your”; often appears as confessional or letter format. Nearly universally disliked by both hosts for feeling forced or “lazy,” especially in thrillers.
  • Third Person: “He/she/they”; can be limited (external actions/thoughts of focal character) or omniscient (all characters’ minds, “god-like” narrator).

• Voice vs. POV:

  • Both hosts agree voice—how a book feels in its narration—is far more important than the technical POV.
  • “There’s point of view, and that’s kind of an objective thing... The voice comes from within.” – Kaytee [50:19]

• “Voicey” Novels:

  • Sarah Dickinson’s concept of “voicey novels” is discussed—books where the narrator’s personality shines so brightly it hooks the reader regardless of POV.

  • Notable Voicey Examples:

    • Piranesi by Susanna Clarke — “the voice hooks you right away” [49:59, Meredith]
    • Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
    • Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
    • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
    • Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
    • Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

  • Meredith on “book flights”—reading samples of several books to see which voice grabs you most—is the best way to find the right book, since reading preferences can be so personal.

• POV Resources:

  • No great database for searching by POV; Goodreads/Storygraph reviews may mention it, but mostly you need to sample the writing yourself.

• Takeaway:

  • “They’re not going to remember if you were first or third person, sister, but they’re going to remember if you were voicey, because they’re going to remember how you made them feel.” – Meredith [52:11]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “What are we doing there? And it feels like... you know, that space always screamed patriarchy to me.” – Meredith [02:30]
• “I love the way they split up the work based on their individual skills, their working geniuses, and they collaborated through late night group text threads...” – Meredith, re: The Carpool Detectives [36:03]
• “Voicey novels... that element is a huge element in a book being successful for me.” – Meredith [53:29]

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Book Flight: Choosing Your Next Read

[56:25] Meredith’s Wish at the Fountain:

• Encourages listeners to try a “book flight”—sampling a few books before committing—to let your heart and the narrator’s voice guide you.

“If you have not tried it, just give it a try. Take five books, read a little bit of each one and see if one of them grabs you... My heart wants what my heart wants.” – Meredith [57:00]

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Wishes at the Fountain

[53:54] Kaytee:
Recommends Starling House by Alix Harrow—a “voicey,” atmospheric, gothic haunted house story perfect for October:

“It’s atmospheric and haunting and you do run the risk, I’m sorry to say, of making it your entire personality for the rest of the year.” – Kaytee [55:41]

[56:25] Meredith:
Wants everyone to try a book flight as a way to find their next great read.

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Key Timestamps

• Bookish Moments: [01:31] – [07:52]
• Current Reads: [09:47] – [40:01]
• Deep Dive (Narrative Points of View): [40:01] – [53:54]
• Wishes at the Fountain: [53:54] – [57:06]

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Tone & Style

The episode is warm, witty, and conversational, with both hosts unapologetically opinionated, reader-friendly, and deeply passionate about the mechanics of storytelling as well as the joy of the reading life.

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Useful for New Listeners

This summary covers readerly recommendations for autumn, helps demystify narrative point of view, and offers practical strategies for discovering your next favorite book—highlighting the value of strong narrative voice over rigid technicalities. Whether you’re seeking a “soapy” royal romp, a cozy magical inn, wrenching literary fiction, or discussion of how to match your mood to a book’s narrative style, this episode delivers.

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Happy reading!

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Hey, readers, welcome to the currently reading podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently. And as you know, we will not shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.

[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 bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.

[B]

I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom and a Mimi and a full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And I love a car picnic.

[A]

And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona. And I believe books belong in every room of the house. This is episode number nine of season eight, and we are so glad you're here.

[B]

All right, I know that I got you. I piqued your curiosity with the car picnic.

[A]

I can tell. What in the world? How is that a bookish moment? Okay. I'm very intrigued.

[B]

It is definitely bookish, for sure. And we are going to get to our bookish moments in just a little bit. But let me tell you that we are going to do a deep dive today, answering a question that is about narrative pov. So, like, first person, second person, third person, and also voices and how that plays into what we like, what we don't like, and how we make our choices. All right, but first, let's get to those bookish moments of the week. Katie, what have you got?

[A]

All right, Meredith. I have been sporadically sharing, but I've been making some really good progress on a DIY renovation at my house. I have this space under the stairs, and I'm changing the configuration around a little bit. But. But one of the things I'm most excited about is that because of the way the walls are, that have to stay where they are. I will have a bookshelf in my kitchen.

[B]

Oh, nice.

[A]

So fun, right? So, like many home chefs, I've got a number of tried and true cookbooks that I love. I had them in a weird cupboard over the kitchen desk that they put in every 1990s and 2000s home. When we had one of those.

[B]

I have one of those. Yep.

[A]

Which, like. And it's like a junk drawer and sometimes you put coffee there, but, like, it doesn't do anything anymore. Right. So that's going away. And that cupboard is gone. But mostly that was wasted space. There was like a spot to pull a chair in and sit down and take notes, I think, while you were on the phone. Like, why would you need that.

[B]

What are you. What are we. What are we doing there? And it feels like. You know what it feels like that space always screamed patriarchy to me for some reason. Like, ma', am, come on, little lady.

[A]

Corner, and take a note for me, would you? Yes.

[B]

Here's your little. I have my entire office. Here's your little space in the kitchen.

[A]

So you don't have correspondence, Right?

[B]

It's probably not at all supposed to be that, but that's how it always sounded in my brain, for sure.

[A]

Well, a girl has to keep her cookbooks somewhere. So after pulling off some drywall and figuring out how to mess with the space in the right way, I came up with this bookshelf idea that will be part of the entrance to my walk in pantry. It'll be plenty of space for my cookbooks, a small charging station for devices, and some lower open storage. I'm so excited. I'm just thrilled because it's one more step in my goal to have books in every room in the house. And, I mean, that's where happiness lives. Books in every room.

[B]

Even the bathroom? Because I think a bathroom shelf sounds great.

[A]

I have a shelf over my toilet, but it has toilet paper on it. What kind of books would I put in there? Maybe a daily poetry book. I just don't spend extra time in the bathroom, honestly. Yeah. Hmm. I'm gonna have to think about what kind of books belong in there. Maybe just bookish art.

[B]

Yeah, right. Exactly.

[A]

You can make it bookish. To bookishness. Okay, I like it. What's your bookish moment?

[B]

All right, well, I'm gonna tell you about this car picnic, and I am going to make it bookish. So last night I went with Lexi and Betsy, and we went to Jen Hatmaker's book launch for her brand new book, Awake.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And we had a car picnic unexpectedly, because Betsy is the mom of our group, which I snackies. I'm so often. I'm not the mom of the group. I'm so often the leader of the group. Having a mom of the group is really, like, feeds my soul. She always has crackers when I have a random blood sugar drop. She's always like, here's your Ritz crackers, Meredith, and here's your sip. Do you need a sip? Do you need a sippy of water? I didn't think to bring a bottle of water, but Betsy's got one for me, so I appreciate it very much. Well, yesterday we're on the way to this book event, which we were all. It was downtown In Austin was really excited. It was put on by book people and it was at kind of an awkward time that we had to go. So, you know, it wasn't like dinner time, whatever. She brings this car picnic of like sourdough bread, almond butter, different kinds of sweets and chocolates and crackers and cheese. And she brought and I mean, just all the things that you need when you just want like a little nosh before you go into an event. You know, it was just. Anyway, it's like a car Cutery. Yes. But like all very car appropriate things.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Did she snackle boxes?

[B]

She had several. It wasn't a snackle box, but she had several different, like cold storage things that were all very cute.

[A]

She's the best.

[B]

I love that she's. Yes, she's the absolute best for stuff like this. But anyway, bookish because we went to the event, got a copy of the book pre signed, which was great. It was such a great event. It was so. So this Awake is her new book. It's her memoir about when her marriage fell apart in July of 2020, which she's been very public about what she'd gone through as far as going through that piece of things and building her life back and, you know, surviving and now really thriving. She does a beautiful job in the book of pulling all of that together. But it was such a personal event. Like she had her sisters and her four best friends come up on stage and like they all talked about what those. Like eight weeks after everything imploded happened. And it was. I mean, it was funny. Cause we walked in and I mean, first of all, someone should have been selling iced coffee and sleep gummies in carts outside of this thing because there were more perimenopausal women there than. I mean, that's the entire. It was hundreds of perimenopausal women. And when we walked in on the. It was at this big church and there were Kleenex boxes on the pews and everyone's like, what? That's weird. We're here to see gent.

[A]

I get it.

[B]

Jen's a good time.

[A]

Yeah, it's a good time for sure.

[B]

Ten minutes in, I am like, where are those Kleenexes? I am like, you know, so. Yes. But it also was filled with tons of laughs. Just like the book. The book starts out like, I challenge you to read that, the first page of that book and not finish it because it starts out with a gut punch like no other and then goes from there to be filled with so much authenticity. And so much pain, but also an amazing redemption story and inspiration story and absolutely fantastic. So whether you're a longtime fan of Gin Hatmaker, like I am or not, I highly recommend her book Awake. And we had so much fun going to her launch, which she was so kind to have here in Austin before it actually comes out on Tuesday. She was like, I want to have it with like, my people and make it a very Austin event. And it was really, really great. So car picnic just. Was the cherry on top just so special?

[A]

I do not get to go to her event here in Phoenix, which is doubly depressing because Sharon McMahon is coming with her. Yeah, it is like I screamed when I got the email. I was like, oh, I cannot wait. I had already. And it'll be. Micah doesn't listen, so it's not a problem. Micah's birthday is the day before and I bought him tickets to an event that is on the day of the Sharon McMahon Jen Hatmaker event here in Phoenix. So I am already committed. And if I wasn't, I mean, oh, I was desperate to go, but I'm gonna give myself a good mom award instead. And I'm doing a thing for my kid that he's very excited about.

[B]

Well, I don't know if it's gonna be like ours, but at ours, you know, you could buy a virtual ticket and so you could watch it and I'm sure there's going to be a playback of that. Ours was co hosted by Trisha Yearwood and I like Trisha. You guys know I'm not a big music fan. I like her. I think she's incredibly talented. I. They're, they're really good friends. And that conversation, like Trisha Yearwood, it was really like watching a conver, like listening to a conversation between two really good friends as if there wasn't anyone in the room. I mean, it was really authentic without throwing anybody under the bus or you know what I mean? I really respect the needle that Jen Hatmaker is threading here because I think she's doing it really well, sharing her own story, but also not telling a villain victim story that other people aren't there to defend themselves. You know what I mean? Just like, that's a hard needle to thread. She's doing a beautiful job of it. So we had a great time.

[A]

Good job her. Excellent. I'm so glad. I'm so excited to get this book in my hands.

[B]

Yes, highly recommend. Highly, highly recommend. I had read like half of it before I even went to bed last night. It's one of those books that go super fast. Okay, let's talk about some other current reads. Katie, what are you reading?

[A]

All right, Meredith, my first one is one that you pressed into our hands a long time ago. I'm going to talk about American royals by Katherine McGee.

[B]

Oh yes.

[A]

So this is an interesting and fun time to talk about this book. So let's pretend for just a second that the good old US Of A. Has a monarchy instead of a presidency, and we don't vote anymore. But instead of stepping aside after serving as president, George Washington stayed on as king and started an American royal dynasty. So now instead of regular elections, we have royal weddings and royal babies and we shout Long live the King. At public events instead of God Bless America. Well, that's a fantasy. Or maybe it's a dystopia. Either way, it's the world that Katharine McKee imagines in this book from 2019, which Meredith brought us way back in season two of the podcast. Now, it may have taken me six full years to finally open it up on my Kindle. Pretty sure I bought it as you set it up the first time. I don't even buy books on Kindle anymore, but it was just waiting for me for the right moment, and it was a perfect fit for my reading life when I finally picked it up. Here's the setup. Beatrice and Samantha are the princesses of America. Beatrice, as the oldest child, is the first one in line for the throne as queen. She will be America's first queen regnant, which has been brought up her entire life because she is next in line for the throne, and she's it's the first time a woman can take the throne without having to be married first. It's very exciting. The Washingtons, just like in England, had a spare for their heir, except they ended up with twins, Samantha and Jefferson. Each of the siblings is distinct, and each reacts to the pressures of being America's royal children in a different way. They're not children, they're young adults. They're 18, 19, 20. As Beatrice's time to ascend to the throne draws nearer, she's suddenly finding all her royal responsibilities stifling. Especially the part where her parents would like her to start considering who she might like to marry. Samantha, as the spare to the heir, has embraced a devil may care attitude. She does whatever the F she wants. She breaks rules, makes headlines, and doesn't give a flying flip what anyone thinks. Except for that one boy, and she definitely shouldn't want him. But it's fine. And finally we have Prince Jefferson, America's most eligible bachelor. Not like the TV series, like the actual prince of America who always has multiple women vying for his heart, but especially the one who everyone assumed would become a princess and the one that he grew up alongside. So there's four women that we're kind of following in this story. It is soapy YA deliciousness. It is milkshakey and fun. I love this book. I enjoyed the way each of the characters was developed, and I loved imagining the White House as, like, a bastion of royalty. Please remember, though, that this book is the first in a series and the end is a cliffhanger.

[B]

And that's, like, one of my biggest memories. I was like, are you kidding me?

[A]

R you kidding me? S h me. But I'm okay with it. Remember, I have been getting very good at saying, I don't care about your cliffhangers. I am abandoning ship right now. So I'm all set now on imagining America as a monarchy in this series, not in the real world. But I'll just leave it as it stands, which was plenty of fun and delight. A bit of kissing. Only mentions of sex off the page. Absolutely appropriate for your teens, your older teens. If you would like a more adult treatment of the same idea with America as a monarchy, please be sure to visit Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Then you can watch the movie and listen to our popcorn in the pages episode about it as well. If you want the soapy fun of following the princesses of America on and off the page, imagining them off the page, then American Royals by Katharine McGee is the way to go. And. And, you know, just deal with it. It's a cliffhanger. Like, you can keep going. Meredith has brought the second one to the show, so you can go and check and remember what she said about it. And I think. Third one. Did you ever read the third one?

[B]

I didn't read. I don't think I read the second one.

[A]

I thought you did read the second one.

[B]

Uh, no, I hadn't. Wasn't out.

[A]

You were just so mad.

[B]

Yeah, I was mad because, like, it's majesty. Yeah. I just bought it on Kindle. Cause I was like, I totally meant to go. Like, I was mad because I would have gone straight into it.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. See, I don't have this problem. I'm just. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, well, that's the benefit of waiting six years.

[A]

I'm all done. It's fine. But it was. It was absolutely delightful. I gave it almost five stars because it was exactly what I needed at the time. So, again, this is American royals by Katherine McKee.

[B]

It's so much fun. I absolutely loved, love that book. And now it's been plenty of time and I'm not mad anymore and. And the book is out. I think I'm going to read Majesty just because that fits such a specific mood for my reading.

[A]

Yes, yes. Right.

[B]

It's just really like a Friday, Friday night read. All right. My first book is also that perfect book when you're in the mood for it, because I read A Witch's Guide to Magical Inn Keeping by Sangu Mandana.

[A]

Oh, good.

[B]

And I loved it. It was so good. And I wanted to bring it today because it is so good for this time of year, if you like that spoopy kind of Mary Heim sort. All right, here's a setup. Our lead character is Sarah Swan, who used to be one of Britain's most powerful witches. Used to. Because when you resurrect your great aunt from being dead, which you are not supposed to do at all like a good idea, the magical guild tends to take a dim view and suddenly you are stripped of most of your powers and you are running an enchanted inn in Lancashire with said newly real, live dead aunt Jasmine. Oh, and then there's also a sort of villain, talking fox, who is chaotic but also really charming. And we've got all kinds of characters that. That come along with her magical inn. And then enter Luke Larson, who is a magical historian. And he arrives on a dark winter evening. His intentions are mysterious. He's got zero interest in the kind of madcap world that's going on in the inn. But he does find himself being drawn to our innkeeper, as we hoped that he would. All right, as I mentioned, I loved this book. Betsy told me that it was sweet, but that I'd like it anyway, and she absolutely nailed that. Here's the thing about cozy fantasy. It can so easily tip into saccharine territory. But the author here knows exactly how to walk that perfect line, at least for this reader. This book is sweet without being cloying and warm without being syrupy. And it has a grounded depth of emotion that really I wasn't quite expecting. Now, when you go in, you know exactly where this story is headed. Sarah and Luke are going to fall for each other. The found family at the inn is all going to become a real family. The guild is going to cause problems. Every single beat lands where you would expect it to, like watching a perfectly executed rom com, for example. But what works is that the author Makes you genuinely care about what happens along the way in that very sweet journey. It's predictable in the way that your favorite comfort food is. You know what you're getting, but that's exactly why you ordered it. This was my experience of this book. There's that groundedness like I talked about. There's an emotional honesty underneath all the coziness. Sarah is not just a grumpy witch dealing with quirky in guests. She's also processing real grief about the life that she lost and the magic that was taken from her and the isolation that comes from never quite belonging anywhere. That's a big part of Sarah's story. And then there's the romance, which starts out, of course, with Luke being very icy and closed off and it slowly works them together. There's a real chemistry here, though, not just a plot mandated attraction. I was rooting for these two. So if you liked Legends and Lattes, the Spell Shop, this one hits those same comfort read notes and it brings its own distinct voice. If you've already read Cinco Bandanas, the very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, then you know that she has this kind of magic down pat, creating worlds that you want to live in and characters that you would want as friends. This book, by the way, not a sequel to that other one. They apparently are not even in necessarily the same world, so absolutely standalone. This is A Witch's Guide to Magical Inn Keeping by Sengu Mandana.

[A]

I am so glad that you clarified that at the end there because the covers are similar enough and then the style of title is similar enough that I wasn't sure if I needed to go back. I read Secret Society three years ago.

[B]

Yes, it totally. I have never read it and so this one completely stood alone and I did it on audio and I just highly recommend it that way. It's a lovely audio experience. It would be fine in any format, but it was a lovely audio experience and it is perfect as we transition from September into October. It's that perfect light, cozy, nice witchy vibe.

[A]

Sounds a little bit like what I had hoped for from House of Frank, which didn't quite hit but has that magical inn keeping B and B style in the background.

[B]

Yeah, and the chaos of the like all the cast of characters. It kind of has that like a cerulean sea element because it has this cast of side characters. But you're always so happy to find out what shenanigans they're up, they're getting up to. Right. And it's just really, it was a really sweet reading Experience. I liked it a lot.

[A]

Good. Okay. Okay. My next one this week is nonfiction and nobody's gonna want to read it, but I really liked it, so I'm gonna talk about it anyway. I read these Truths by Jill Lepore. This is a chonker of a book, right? The official publisher stats is that it's 960 pages, but 150 of those are notes and index and all the things that happen when you write a huge history book because it's so big. It's been sitting on my shelves for years at this point. I had already used a Libro FM credit to buy an audio copy of it, probably also years ago, because I knew I would never sit down and, you know, sprain my wrists actually reading through it. So when I knew I had many hours of listening ahead of me for my big road trip this summer, this one showed up in my audiobook, Roulette Spin. And I decide there was not a better time to dive in. So once we take away the notes and the index and everything, this nearly 800 page book starts with 1492 to tell American history over the course of centuries. Now, do I have qualms with starting with the arrival of Columbus? I do. We all know this land was peopled well before Europeans arrived, but we have to start somewhere. And Lepore chose 1492. So she goes from there and she outlines and dives deep into the history of this continent and then colony and then country over the next five centuries. The title these Truths comes from the US Constitution line that we hold these truths to be self evident. Lepore asks if the history of the United States has upheld these truths or betrayed them. She traces back through our history, examining politics, technology, journalism, law. She mostly leaves war and battles and all of that to the side of this book, knowing that if you're really interested in the Revolutionary War or the Civil War or the Vietnam War, you can go read about those and get a really in depth historical perspective on each of them. But she doesn't give us any detailed descriptions of battles and negotiations. She just notes that the politics were involved in all of those decisions. And in the spirit of the Small and the mighty by Sharon McMahon, already brought up in this episode, Lepore takes time to profile Americans from all walks of life. She gives us little sketches of movement leaders, presidents, suffragettes, mischief makers and architects. Architects of social movements rather than buildings. Right? Lepore reminds us that the past is an inheritance of a gift and a burden. The United States was born of contradiction. The blurb says Americans themselves are descended from slaves and slave owners, conquerors and the conquered immigrants, and from people who have fought to end immigration. In a conversation with a friend the other day, we talked about homeschool and how I had taken my kids last weekend to see Les Miserables. I told them that when I was a student in school, I probably would have said that history was my least favorite subject because I thought it was so dry and. And boring. But the fact that we have ways to bring it to life now has really impacted me and made it one of my favorite things to learn about Hamilton. Les Miserables Suffs. I'm so excited I get to see Suffs this year. Six right? Like, those pieces have brought history to life in a totally new way. And Jill Lepore's book is wide reaching and intimidating to pick up, but it reads like the new school of history for those of us who fell asleep drooling on our textbooks in class and just had to make it through. Lepore brings history to life in a really engaging and she's part of the group of historians who are illuminating it for the rest of us. I listened to all 800 pages of this book and gave it four and a half stars. And my very short review says, well written all the way through. Never felt long. Some surprises. But mostly this reinforced the learning I've done over the years since I started homeschooling my own kids and really got to know history in a new way. I really loved this. And it's not a new book and nobody else is going to want to read it, and that's totally fine. But if you do want a broad overview of American history with these very cool vignettes, I highly recommend these Truths by Jill Lepore.

[B]

How dicey does it get politically? Like for in today's. How dicey does it get given the world we live in today?

[A]

Well, it is a few years old already. She does go into the election of Trump, right? Toward the end. The first election of Trump, Right.

[B]

Yeah. Cause it looks like it. Yeah. It came out 2018.

[A]

Yeah. Just after all of that. So that's right at the very end of what she was able. Able to pull into it. But it's very nonpartisan. Right. She's just talking about it as facts.

[B]

Okay. So people who have any sort of political background would find objective history here. It's not there. There aren't people who feel like it's going to be playing to one particular.

[A]

Narrative or another side. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

Good. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. My next book is definitely not as light and Frothy as my first one, but I still really enjoyed it because we contain multitudes. This is an IPL book that I really, really liked called the Hounding by Zenobi Purvis. Here's the setup. Five motherless sisters living with their blind grandfather in 18th century England. That's all I needed to hear. That's all? That's it? That's the entire setup?

[A]

No way. There's way more.

[B]

Yeah, well, okay. Five motherless sisters, they're living with their blind grandfather. It's 18th century England, and they become the subject of village gossip when a super drunk guy claims that he has seen them transform into dogs.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Talking about things, screaming. The patriarchy. This is set during a terrible drought that's taking place in the tiny town that they live in. And the Hounding explores what happens when a community already suspicious of these unusual girls, latch onto a rumor that feels both impossible and somehow believable. All right, as I said, this came through as an indie press list pick from Fabled in August of 2025. And I read it and could not believe that this was Purvis's debut novel. She is so sure handed with this atmospheric, historical literary fiction that I kept checking the COVID over and over again. Yep, it's a debut. This is the kind of book that's perfect for fall reading when the leaves are turning and you want to feel like you're reading something a little bit eerie, but really, it's mostly literary. These five sisters, the Mansfield sisters are everything. I loved that they walked around their village in a strange little group wearing all black and completely freaking everybody. The flip out.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like, did they do anything to help normalize themselves in this gossipy 18th century English town? Absolutely not. And why should they? Each of these girls just didn't give a flip about what anyone thought. And there's something deeply satisfying about that kind of unapologetic existence. What makes this book really brilliant though, is that we never get the sister's point of view. We have to see them entirely through other people's lenses and in relationship to others. And this is something that really speaks to how we as women are often completely known through how others perceive us, rather than who. How we actually are. It's such a smart narrative choice. We're going to be talking about narratives later, and it adds layers to everything that we think that we understand about these characters. I loved how this story is aware of the Salem witch trials, like within the bounds of the story and that whole historical context, especially through the point of view of Temperance, who's a barmaid. We get this very knowledgeable female perspective on how the real world works. She knows exactly what happens when communities turn on women who don't fit the mold. There were definitely a couple of characters that I wanted to just right hook all the way through this book, but that gave the story texture and it kept me emotionally invested. The ending is sure to frustrate some readers because it doesn't tie everything up in a bow, but I loved it. I loved everything about this short, fascinating work of literary fiction. It's atmospheric without being slow. It's literary but not pretentious. And it is feminist, but it's never preachy. This is the Hounding by Zenobi Purvis.

[A]

I absolutely agree 100%.

[B]

We both finished it for the IPL, right?

[A]

I had not finished it when we recorded, but I was more than halfway through and I have finished it since then. So. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

And I have like five friends who've who also read it right at that time and all of them really, really loved it. This is a really good early fall book.

[A]

Right? And it's, I mean, it's got like that Salem witch trials witchy vibe without ever bringing in burning at the stake or any of that. It's like the vibes behind the witch trial.

[B]

That's what I'm saying. It's like aware of it. It's aware, but it's not what it's about. It's just a really smart take. And this would be a great, like, we just had someone email us saying, like, what should I pick for my book club? This is a great book club pick. It's short, it's totally readable, totally accessible and very discussable.

[A]

Yeah, most definitely. I love that.

[B]

All right, what's your third book?

[A]

Speaking of book club books, I'm like, probably every book club in the country has already read this one. But if you haven't, it's definitely in paperback now. I am finally going to bring to the show Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

[B]

Okay, all right. I want to know what you think. This has been on my TBR forever.

[A]

At least three years, right? Same with the rest of us. So what can I say about this book that's not already been said? Because, I mean, now you know why.

[B]

It'S been on my TBR forever.

[A]

Exactly. Barbara Kingsolver, though, is an auto buy author for me, whether fiction or nonfiction. And this now three year old novel is still her newest book. So I was like, well, if I want more Barbara, I'm gonna have to Go for it. Right? She writes sweeping literary fiction oftentimes, but not always set in either Arizona or Appalachia, the two places she had made her home for most of her life. In the case of Demon Copperhead, we are following a young man in Appalachia. His name is Damon Fields, or Demon, which is what he is called from the very beginning of the story. He's born into poverty to a mother who struggles with addiction. This novel, in first person point of view, details Demon's life from birth onward. It is a coming of age novel, but embroidered with stories of addiction, the opioid crisis, foster care and overall resilience. His one constant, Demon's one constant in his life is his neighbor Matt Peggott, who is given the horribly unfortunate nickname Maggot. Demon and Maggot, it's rough. The two kiddos grow up together and as Demon's mother continues to struggle with substance abuse, Demon is eventually placed into foster care. As is the case with many kids in foster care, Demon is regularly shuffled from home to home, oftentimes suffering abuse at the hands of the people who are being paid to care for him. He makes his way through his town and his life, rarely coming out on top. And because of that, this novel is hard to read. Well, it's not hard to read. It's easy to read, but it's hard to stomach. It's hard to wrap your heart around Demon's voice, not his point of view. His voice is strong and sure and it feels like you are with him in this novel. It is a voicey book. Over and over again. I wanted to grab Demon by both shoulders, this fictional character, and hold him close and tuck him into a safe, warm bed and feed him a filling meal and remind him that he's loved and worthy of love and smart and can do good things. This novel is a nod and loosely based upon David Copperfield. Although Kingsolver and the publisher say you don't need to read the one to understand the other. The other, and I did not. David Copperfield was written by Charles Dickens after his own experiences as a child who experienced crippling poverty in Victorian England. He oftentimes uses his novels to advocate for social reform and to advocate for the poor. So it's really easy to see how Kingsolver made the connections here in her own novel. And it's really easy to find character lists where you can see exactly which characters she has connected from her novel to the Dickens novel and vice versa. While there are critiques of this story, mostly it was beautifully received. And critically acclaimed. It won the Pulitzer and the Women's Prize for fiction in 2023, which is probably why it didn't make it onto my reading list for many years afterwards and many others. But for good reason. I'm not the arbiter of literary prizes, maybe especially not literary prizes, but it's an exceptional piece of writing. It's difficult and heartbreaking, but transportative and personal. I loved getting to know Demon and follow his fictional story, but I was heartbroken for the way that opioids make their way into the lives of these characters and many of the citizens that we know and love, but especially those in Appalachia. I won't be the least bit surprised if this book ends up on my Favorites of the Year list, as it has for so many of you over the past three years. I'm so glad I finally read it. It broke my heart in the best way and made me hopeful for things to come. This is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I love it.

[B]

I'm so glad that it lived up to all the expectation that it so rightly deserved. And I'm thinking again, I want to put a lot of space before I read it. Keep circling around for me. But I'm. I, you know, I love Dickens. So maybe I'll give myself a bookish project at some point to do a back to back, slow and study of David Copperfield and Demon Copperhead. That would be kind of an interesting bookish project, right?

[A]

Yeah, definitely.

[B]

I love me some Dickens. All right. My third book was fantastic. Couldn't be any more different than Charles Dickens. It's called the Carpool Detectives, which sounds really dumb. I kind of hate the title. But it's true crime, and it is really, really good. And it is very serious. Okay, I hate the title. I hate the title. Did I say it was by Chuck Hogan?

[A]

Kind of frivolous? No.

[B]

Okay, it's nonfiction, so it has a subtitle, which only makes it a little less dumb. The whole title is the Carpool A True Story of Four Moms, Two Bodies, and One Mysterious Cold Case. Here's a setup and everything I'm about to tell you actually happened. So it's 2020. Everything's gone sideways with COVID and four moms. They all live, like, close together. Marissa, Jeannie, Sam. They meet at a school bowling fundraiser. And while they're sitting around eating, you know, cold French fries, they discover two things. They have kids in the same carpool circuit, and they all have an obsession with true crime. Well, right on the heels of that bowling night, Marissa had gotten fixated on a local cold case from 15 years before. A couple in their 60s had vanished overnight and their SUV was later found at the bottom of a ravine. And this project then, which started out as just something for Marissa to kind of poke around on a little bit during her pandemic, boredom transforms into something a lot more interesting and a lot more dangerous. These women have zero law enforcement background. They are just regular people. No investigative training. They're not journalists, nothing. They have no business digging through crime scenes or cold calling retired detectives. But they had something else. They had time on their hands. Determination like only moms can have, and the superpower of being completely underestimated. So the fact that these women did this all while juggling their kids, being home, doing zoom school at the same time, which, I will tell you, is a thing, it absolutely made the story so incredibly amazing. But it is completely real. So, so many people recommended this book to me. Literally. I think 10 different people DM'd me about it when they heard about it. And this one was right up my alley. I love true crime, but the Carpool Detectives hits different because it's not just a case about solving a cold case. It's about these women reclaiming their identity when they each won for different reasons and in different ways, felt like that identity had been swallowed up by motherhood. This is my dream scenario, honestly. Working with three other really smart women as a team and each of us bringing unique strengths to the table. I love the way they split up the work based on their individual skills, their working geniuses, and they collaborated through late night group text threads. They covered for each other's weaknesses. This part of the story was really fun for me. It was like watching a heist movie, except no one's stealing diamonds. They're stealing back the agency in their own lives. And also really working to bring justice to a grieving family that had gotten no answers. These women forge a bond together that is both practical and profound. Now I will say this is another one where the audio experience is fantastic. The narrator captures the perfect balance of suburban normalcy and edge of your seat tension. You can hear the group texts pinging and feel the late night research sessions. These poor women stayed up till all hours going through unimaginable amounts of paperwork that nobody else had had the wherewithal to go. I mean, they just were absolute bloodhounds. And the ending is satisfying in a way that true crime rarely is. Not going to spoil anything, but I will say that these women don't Just solve the case. They fundamentally change how cold cases will be approached in the future. This is what happens when you combine determination, intelligence and the kind of friendship where someone will literally dig through a ravine at midnight with you. If you love true crime or stories about female friendship, or you just want that proof that middle aged women are capable of always doing a better job than the mediocre white men who came before them, this book will have you. CHEERING this is the Carpool Detectives by Chuck Hogan.

[A]

Well, I also do not love the title, but I do love the rest of those things like female friendship and women being just freaking badass at what they want to do and just figuring things out. Like women can solve the things, you know, just in life, like give it to a woman.

[B]

Right. This woman is a real. I mean, this case is a really, really, really difficult and layered case that had a lot of physical evidence and it had a lot of financial stuff and it had. I mean, they. And they put themselves in danger in a. Unknowingly. They didn't walk. They never walked into danger knowingly because that would have bothered me because they're four moms with families that they really, really loved. But there were a couple times that they stepped into stuff that they. They didn't realize was going to be what it was. This is a really interesting one. I flew through it on audio, which doesn't always happen for me.

[A]

Right, right. Is true crime harder on audio because you can't flip back and forth? Like sometimes that's something you want to do. Right. When you're putting things together.

[B]

I mean, I could definitely see cases for that. There are certainly lots of true crime that include. And this probably is one of them. I never actually thought about it. That include, like pictures of photos? Yeah, photos of different things. Let me just say that the lack of that here didn't affect my enjoyment of it.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

All right, let's talk a little bit then about our deep dive. We got a question from Kylie.

[A]

I think it's Kylie. It's spelled like Kyle, but she says her name is Kylie on Discord.

[B]

So, yeah, here's what she said. She said, hi. I started listening to the show in 2020 or 2021, so memory may not serve me well, but have you ever done a deep dive into narrative POVs, like your personal preferences? Is there some secret place where one can find out which novel features it without doing a book flight? I'm just not feeling first person these days with the exception of a recent Beatrice Williams, which was fantastic. Am I just a Snob. Am I becoming middle aged and overly set in my ways? Cringe face. Thanks, Kiley. I love it. I think this is a really, really good question. And first of all, no, you're not a snob. We like what we like. Our bookish heart wants what our bookish heart wants. And so go with what is feeling good to you would be my initial answer to our question. And I don't know that we've ever Talked about narrative POVs in a deep dive.

[A]

I don't think we have ever. I think every once in a while we will mention it in the setup for a book or we'll say this really worked for me or this didn't. The only strong opinion I have about narrative POVs is that second person annoys me 97% of the time. And it's very rare for me to like something that's written in second person.

[B]

Let's go through the points of view, Katie.

[A]

Let's.

[B]

Do you. Do you want to do that?

[A]

Yeah. So in, in language, right, when you're learning a new language, usually you get to have kind of this tic tac toe board where you can figure out the different points of view. And for me, that was when I really put this together, was when I was learning Spanish and studying Spanish as a linguistics, a Spanish linguistics major in college. So first person includes first person singular, first person plural. And that's when you have narrators that are using I or we. Usually first person is an I statement and you're in one character's head. Every once in a while you'll get what's called a Greek chorus narration where you have kind of an unnamed group of people that is telling the story in first person using we, he came to us, we saw him approach, blah blah, blah, right? That's a Greek chorus narration. But there's not a single first person in those stories. Second person is when the author is addressing you as the reader, which sometimes means it was written as a letter. Sometimes it's a way for them to bring you as the reader into the story. But you're gonna see the word you and your in there. A lot.

[B]

A lot of times in the books that I read, it's in the kind of a non official confession is a way that a second person narrative will come into play.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Like I'm going to tell the story of why I murdered you or what, you know, that kind of thing, right?

[A]

Yes, definitely. And then third person is, I would guess, the most common point of view. It's divided into third person limited which means we get external actions and words of all the characters. What's observable from the outside or third person omniscient, which is when we get to see their internal thoughts and motivations. So the narration would be coming from God in that point. Right. Like it's an all powerful narrator where you can see exactly what's happening inside someone's heart, but it's still using they and he and she rather than. I am feeling this about myself. So those are the three main points of view with some, some plurality on each of them. But yeah, mostly first, second and third. And again, second person usually drives me up the wall. Yeah.

[B]

And I think a lot of us feel that way. I, I agree. That's very much my least favorite to me. Again, the way that I read it, I think, I don't. Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like in thrillers especially we get a lot of that second person or there will, there will be a POV that is done in that second person. And I always, I don't, I don't quite know why it bothers me so much. It feels in those books a little lazy to me as a construct for the book. But I, yeah, I don't, I don't love it. I don't have a preference. Like I, I can read first and third person very happily.

[A]

Me too. Yeah. They don't really bother me one way or the other. I really like a first person point of view that she shifts. Although there are a lot of people who hate that. Right. When you're going from one person's point of view to the next, but each time they're telling their own thoughts and feelings. I see this a lot in romance. Right. First the girl tells her story and she's like, I just don't think that he could love me. And then the guy tells his story and he's saying, she's so hot, I want her to love me back. And the entire time you're getting I. But it's actually shifting from one point of view to the other. I could see, I can see why people would get annoyed with first person, especially if there's a lot of internal angst or turmoil. Sometimes we don't want that. Right. I don't need all your thoughts and feelings if they're all self deprecating. Yeah. Feels like a lot. It.

[B]

I mean, the quickest one to go wrong, I think. And maybe the quickest one to go wrong or really, really right is first person. Because if I start reading it and I automatically love being in that person's head. I'm into the book pretty quickly.

[A]

Yeah, definitely, but.

[B]

And also the opposite can be true where I'm like, I do not have any desire to be in your thoughts for 330 pages. No, thank you.

[A]

Most definitely. Do you have any that are. So a lot of fantasy is told in first person. Right. Fourth Wing is told in first person almost entirely from violet point of view. Acotar. A lot of times we're getting first person. Every once in a while it'll rotate the person whose head you're in. But within Acotar, it's mostly feyre that we are following throughout the story. I did want to point out a Greek chorus that I thought was done really well. A Good Neighborhood by Therese Ann Fowler. This book made me viscerally angry, but one of the things I remember most about it was feeling like the Greek chorus was the way to narrate this story. It's a very interesting way for the neighborhood to tell a story about what is happening to this central family. So I think that one's a really hard one to pull off, but I think it was really done well. Yeah.

[B]

I think about. When I think about narrative point of view really, really affecting a book and making it really effective. I think about Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes where we have multiple points of view, but we. They often, you know, there's. There's a Greek chorus kind of point of view. There's like this. The. The way that those points of view are shifting is so useful in telling the story that that's when that. That sticks out in my mind. But I find Katie, that I am. I don't know if you're like this, but I. If you ask me about some of my favorite books of all time, I'm not positive that I could properly tell you what their narrative like, what the narrative POV is.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I don't know that I'm paying that close of attention to it. And I'm now wondering, is that something I want to track?

[A]

Right. I think I only pay attention to it if it annoys me.

[B]

Right. There might be that. And to answer Kylie's other question, have you found Katie a good place where you can be like, I'm in the mood for a great first person story.

[A]

No, I have not. And even going through. Because I tried to get into Kylie's head here and figure out, okay, well, if this was something that really mattered to me, where would I go? And the best thing I can think of is scanning reviews on Goodreads or Storygraph and trying to figure it out that way or seeing if the AI version of your choice has a decent answer for you. Otherwise, you are looking at book flights and sampling and figuring it out manually.

[B]

Which leads me to. I know that she specifically, and I did take it as a little bit of a very small dagger to my own heart. I felt like that was a very pointed comment that she made, like, maybe we don't want to do book flights, Meredith. And that's fine. That's fine.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's totally fine. If you don't want to do a book flight, you do not have to. But I do want to say, as we kind of segue this topic a little bit to this other related topic, narrative points of view oftentimes are best done in novels that we would describe with Sarah Dickinson from Sarah's Bookshelves Live, she came up with the word voicey. Voicey, or at least she was where I heard it. And I think it's just so perfect. So no matter what POV that we're talking about, is it voicey, where I almost never pay attention to. Well, what ex was that? First person, third person, second person? What I really pay attention to on the opposite side is how voicey was it, because novels that are really voicey, where that voice comes through, are really, really, really effective for me. Some of my very favorites, I would describe in that way some of my most surprising ones, which, by the way, the only way you can figure out if the novel is voicey and it's for you is by doing a book flight.

[A]

Yeah. Or nobody else. Or you don't have to call you.

[B]

You don't have to do a book light, which is, of course, we have a lot of new listeners who've joined us, so I will say a book light for me is where I take five books usually that I've gotten from the library. But you can do it in any way. You could do five audible samples or audio samples. And I just read the first paragraph, the first page, or the first chapter, depending on how much I want to read. And then from those five, I choose if there's one that really grabs me. If there isn't, great. No, no problem. All five go back to the library. If there is, then that's what. When I do that, it is often the narrative voice that is pulling me in really early on. A really great example of this for me would be Piranesi, definitely. Right.

[A]

That's on my list, too.

[B]

That's an incredibly voicey novel that you don't expect because Nobody knows what to expect from Piranesi. It is one of the best books of all time. And it's that the voice of the narrator that hooks you and then leads you all the way through to find out that Piranesi is nothing like what you thought it was going to be.

[A]

Yes, definitely. I think I want to say Piranhasi is told in first person, But I'm not 100% sure in my head it's first person. But what stands out is the voice rather than the point of view. And I think that's the distinction we're trying to make here, right? Is that there's point of view and that's kind of an objective thing. A novel is told within a certain point of view and it could be a shifting point of view, but it's a stage established somewhere. The voice comes from within. Right, right.

[B]

And by the way, Piranisi uses a first person diary entry narrative perspective, which. One of my favorite books of all time. Could not have pulled that out of my butt if I wanted to. I had no right, you know what I mean? I just. This piece of things I really want to start paying more attention to, because I don't at all.

[A]

Yeah, I do think I'm going to add. There's always new columns in the spreadsheet. I do think I'm going to add a column for point of view and maybe even break it down where it can be multiple select and all kinds of things where you can do interesting things with that column. And then maybe just a checkbox for voicy. And again, that one is far more subjective. It doesn't necessarily mean that everyone would read that book and say, this is a voicey novel. But it's right.

[B]

It's for each person. They would make that decision for themselves.

[A]

Definitely.

[B]

I think those would be great additions. I know for my process. I would have to remember as I make my notes, like, literally, while I still have the book in front of me, I would have to make that decision, put it in my notes, because by the time I go to intercept my cracker, I will not. I will not remember that. And to just kind of wrap this up, Katie, I think that this is kind of goes back to one of those great mantras in life that I return to all the time. And I think it applies here for that quote that we hear all the time. Like, they're not going to remember what you wore or what you looked like. They're going to remember how you made them feel. I think that is what applies to narrative pov. Versus voiceiness. You know, like that's. They're. They're not going to remember if you were first or third person sister, but they're going to remember if you were voicey because they're going to remember how you made them feel.

[A]

Yeah, I like it. I'm going to shout out two or three more that I felt were really, for me, very voicy novels. I just talked about Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I think Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus was a very voicy novel for me. And then the Color Purple by Alice Walker. Classic. Written in an epistolary style, absolutely voicey. And then voicing. This doesn't always mean I loved it either. I will say these books were a little bit on the fence for me, but books by Emily Austin. We just had we could be rats put on the indie press list. And then a couple years ago we had interesting facts about Space put on the indie press list. These are both from other independent bookstores. So we started reading them because that's what we agree to do. And both of those have a very distinct and vibrant narrative voice where I remember years later that that was something that stood out to me about her writing. So. Right.

[B]

I also think about yellowface and everyone in my family has killed someone has a very specific voiceiness to it. So, yeah, I love, I am, I am an absolute sucker for that. Like that kind. That element is a huge element in a book being successful for me, definitely. All right, let's make some wishes at the fountain. Katie, what are you wishing for this week?

[A]

All right, I'm gonna press a book this week, Meredith, and it is a voicey novel. I'm gonna press Starling House by Alex Harrow into the listener's hands. Yeah, yeah. So two years ago in October of 2023, novel neighbor put this on the October indie press list. We're just about to record the 2025 IPL episode. So it seems like the ideal time to remind our friends that Novel Neighbor has been delivering on Octo five years now. They are fantastic at it.

[B]

I just got my stack, Katie.

[A]

Mine's coming today, an hour ago.

[B]

It's a good stack.

[A]

This book is part of that legacy of greatness. So I'm reminding you now. Two years later. It's easy to grab from the library. Perfect for October reading. Here's the setup. Opal is an orphan. She's also the full time caretaker of her younger brother Jasper, and she's desperate to get them out of town. This little Podunk town. She Hates it there, but she's having a hard time making it happen. She's a high school dropout who works part time at the local grocery store and she's just trying to eke out an existence for herself and for Jasper. When she gets the chance to work at Starling House, the gothic, probably haunted, spooky mansion on the edge of town that was owned by E. Starling, a reclusive 19th century author, she jumps at the chance to make some extra cash. Anything that will help further her plans to escape this tiny one horse town. But the reclusive and dour heir to Starling House, Arthur, has been having nightmares that seem to be coming to life around him. And the house seems to be pulling all of them into its orbit. This is a haunted house story. It's got a bit of beauty and the beast element to it. And between that, the gorgeous cover, the phenomenal voiceiness, it's a slam dunk for October reading season. It's atmospheric and haunting and you do run the risk, I'm sorry to say, of making it your entire personality for the rest of the year. If you haven't read it yet, it's definitely time. This is Starling House by Alix Harrow.

[B]

I love that book. You know I love that book. It's so good. And oh God, just everything that you just said about it, I just was immediately back in those pages.

[A]

It's so good.

[B]

That is a book that I wish I could read again for the first time.

[A]

Yes, me too. Definitely.

[B]

Maybe this year I will read Once in Future Witches. Once. And Future Witches, which I once read.

[A]

Once in Future Witches. Yes.

[B]

Yeah, I haven't read that. And that is. I want to be a completist of hers for sure. Because she's got a new one coming.

[A]

Out in October because that is the perfect time for an Alix E. Harrow book.

[B]

It really is. I love her so much. She's a great follow too. All right, my wish is very simple and not at all born out of my feelings being hurt because of Kylie's comment. I want everybody to consider doing a book flight. It is a superior way of choosing your next book. If you have not tried it, just give it a try. Take pick five books, read a little bit of each one and see if one of them grabs you. If they don't, you don't have to read anything. Sometimes I do it and the second one will completely grab me and I'll just be like, f the other ones. I'm just gonna go with you because my heart wants what my heart wants.

[A]

There's no rules. There's no rules.

[B]

No rules. Just write, just read.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

I love it. Okay, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me I'm Meredith at meredithmonday Schwartz on Instagram and you can.

[A]

Find me Katie at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putam Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of Megan's Reads Full show notes.

[B]

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@currentlyreading podcast.com youm can.

[A]

Also follow the show @currentlyreading podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreading podcastmail.com yeah, if.

[B]

You have a question that you want to have us deep dive into, send us an email. That is the best way to get a hold of us. And if you want more of this content, we have so much more behind the paywall on Patreon. You can become a bookish friend for $5 a and you get a ton hundreds of episodes of content. You get to be part of our 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.

[A]

Yep, Bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.

[B]

All right, until next week, may your.

[A]

Coffee be hot and your bowl book be unput downable.

[B]

Happy reading, Katie.

[A]

Happy reading, Meredith.