Ep 422 - Books for Every Mood!

Summary

Reading Glasses Podcast Summary: Episode 422 - Books for Every Mood!

Release Date: July 31, 2025

In Episode 422 of the Reading Glasses podcast, hosts Mallory O’Meara and Brie Grant delve into the intricate world of mood reading, offering curated book recommendations tailored to various emotional states. This episode, titled "Books for Every Mood!", provides listeners with insightful suggestions to enhance their reading experiences, regardless of their current feelings or circumstances.

---

Introduction and Current Reads

The episode kicks off with Mallory and Brie discussing the challenge of creating a comprehensive list of books to match every possible mood.

Mallory O’Meara (00:19): "This episode was so hard."

Brie Grant (00:22): "This episode took me no less than 30 years to do it."

Despite the difficulty, the hosts express their enthusiasm for helping their audience navigate their reading lives. They briefly share the books they are currently engrossed in:

• Brie is reading "When the Wolf Comes Home" by Nat Cassidy, a novel blending elements of surrealism, fantasy, and horror centered around a girl’s encounter with a wolfman monster.

  Brie Grant (01:19): "It's called when the Wolf Comes Home. It's about this girl who is kind of a failed actress living in Los Angeles..."

• Mallory is listening to the audiobook "The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman" by Nico Stratus, a memoir intertwined with dad rock songs, exploring her journey as a trans woman and her relationship with music.

  Mallory O’Meara (03:12): "It's a memoir in song. So every chapter is a different, like, dad Rock song... If you like music, if you are a person who music really means a lot to you, you have to read this book."

---

Listener Feedback

The hosts take a heartfelt moment to share and respond to listener feedback, highlighting the profound impact the podcast has had on their audience.

Sarah (07:00): "Reading glasses has shaped my life in wonderful and profound ways too... I knocked away that book slump and have read more every year since, getting all the way up to 74 books last year."

Mallory expresses deep gratitude for Sarah’s journey, noting how the podcast not only rekindled her love for reading but also inspired her to engage with local bookstores and libraries.

Brie Grant (07:25): "What a wonderful... This is why we do the show."

---

Book Club and Community Announcements

Mallory and Brie announce the selection of "The Bewitching" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia as the Glasser Voted Book Club Pick for October, aligning perfectly with the upcoming spooky season. They encourage listeners to join their book club through Maximum Fun to engage in virtual discussions and events.

---

Main Content: Book Recommendations for Every Mood

The core of the episode revolves around selecting books that cater to different emotional states. The hosts define mood reading as choosing books not by genre but by the reader’s current mood, allowing for a more personalized and fulfilling reading experience.

1. Joyful

• Brie recommends "Catfishing on Catnip" by Naomi Kritzer, a blend of humor and dark themes that ultimately maintains a happy tone.

  Brie Grant (14:45): "It is a happy overall book... I promise it ends well."

• Mallory suggests "I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself" by Glynis McNichol, a memoir celebrating female pleasure and personal joy set against the backdrop of summer in Paris.

  Mallory O’Meara (15:15): "It's a very happy book... About how rare it is for women to just go off and do stuff like that and how especially mothers."

2. Angry/Upset

• Mallory picks "Which Side Are You On" by Ryan Lee Wong, a literary fiction novel addressing contemporary anger through the lens of activism and generational dialogue.

  Mallory O’Meara (17:00): "It’s amazing activist generational dialogue... It feels like helping you make that anger productive."

• Brie recommends "The Eyes Are the Best Part" by Monica Kim, a gripping story about a young woman who channels her anger into becoming a serial killer.

  Brie Grant (19:43): "This is what I would do when I was angry, upset. I don’t want to work through it. I want to be angry."

3. Silly/Funny

• Brie suggests "A Villain" by John Scalzi, a humorous tale about a substitute teacher who inherits a supervillain business.

  Brie Grant (21:09): "He has to become a supervillain. And it's funny. It's silly."

• Mallory recommends "The Newtown Librarian" by Kathy Anderson, a funny and queer-centric story about a disgruntled librarian navigating life in a small town with quirky characters.

  Mallory O’Meara (22:02): "It’s laugh out loud funny and just so much fun and very, very queer."

4. Romantic

• Brie picks "Book Lovers" by Emily Henry, a romantic novel about an editor seeking love in a small town, sparking her deep appreciation for Henry’s work.

  Brie Grant (23:41): "It sparks my love for Emily Henry in like a real way."

• Mallory recommends "Angelica Frankenstein Makes Her Match" by Sally Thorne, a historical rom-com exploring love and ethics through the lens of the Frankenstein family.

  Mallory O’Meara (24:47): "It's the romantic ideal of a romance novel for me... What love is."

5. Despairing/Gloomy

• Mallory selects "Our Wives Under the Sea" by Julia, a surreal exploration of grief and loss, reminiscent of Jeff VanderMeer’s "Annihilation."

  Mallory O’Meara (26:48): "It's all about grief... What grief does to your life."

• Brie recommends "Dark Shore" by Charlotte McConaughey, a dark tale set on a remote island dealing with family strife and mysterious occurrences.

  Brie Grant (28:07): "It's real cold... It's a very dark book."

6. Weird

• Mallory recommends "You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine" by Alexander Kleeman, a bizarre and introspective novel exploring identity and societal norms.

  Mallory O’Meara (29:43): "I cannot say enough good things about it. It’s so strange but I loved it so fucking much."

• Brie suggests "Diary of a Void" by Imi Yagi, a surreal feminist narrative about a woman in Tokyo grappling with unexpected changes.

  Brie Grant (31:49): "It's a really fun, strange, feminist book that goes really bizarre."

7. Cozy

• Mallory picks "Phoebe's Diary" by Phoe Wall, a YA book enriched with illustrations, depicting the everyday adventures and self-discoveries of a teenage girl.

  Mallory O’Meara (45:26): "It's the perfect book when you’re just kind of feeling cozy and content and you want to sit on the couch."

• Brie recommends "Welcome to the Hanyeon Dong Bookshop", a cozy story about a woman relocating from Seoul to a small town to open a bookshop, finding contentment and community.

  Brie Grant (46:42): "She starts hosting author events and meeting people from the neighborhood. It just becomes about like... a warm, cozy life."

8. Bored/Restless

• Brie selects "The Husbands" by Holly Grazio, a meta-narrative about a woman encountering different husbands each time she visits the attic, reflecting her own restlessness.

  Brie Grant (48:15): "A different husband comes down each time. So it's about being restless."

• Mallory recommends "We Ride Upon Sticks" by Quan Berry, a dynamic novel set in 1989 Massachusetts, following a female field hockey team discovering a potentially magical book that influences their performance.

  Mallory O’Meara (49:40): "It's so goddamn good. Just a top-tier Restless Book."

---

Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with Mallory and Brie reflecting on the rewarding yet challenging process of selecting books for every mood. They encourage listeners to reach out with additional mood categories and share their favorite reads.

Mallory O’Meara (47:55): "If you have a type of mood that you really want us to do a book recommendation for, email us and we will do a second one."

Brie Grant emphasizes the importance of community support, thanking their Discord moderators and urging listeners to leave reviews to help the podcast grow.

Brie Grant (51:53): "If you like the show and want to do something nice for us, please rate and review us on the podcast listening app of your choice."

---

Notable Quotes:

• Mallory (00:19): "This episode was so hard."
• Brie (14:45): "It is a happy overall book... I promise it ends well."
• Sarah (07:00): "Reading glasses has shaped my life in wonderful and profound ways too."
• Brie (19:43): "This is what I would do when I was angry, upset."
• Mallory (24:47): "It's the romantic ideal of a romance novel for me... What love is."
• Mallory (29:43): "I loved it so fucking much."
• Brie (48:15): "So it's about being restless."

---

Conclusion

Episode 422 of Reading Glasses offers a thoughtfully curated selection of books tailored to various moods, providing listeners with tailored reading paths to enhance their literary journeys. Whether seeking joy, grappling with anger, craving humor, yearning for romance, navigating gloom, embracing the weird, finding coziness, or battling restlessness, Mallory and Brie present compelling choices to meet every emotional need.

Transcript

[Mallory O'Meara]

Foreign. You're listening to Reading Glasses, a show about book culture and literary life designed to help you read better. I'm author and book devour, Mallory o'. Meara.

[Brie Grant]

And I'm Brie Grant, filmmaker and e reader. This episode, we're recommending books for every mood.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This episode was so hard.

[Brie Grant]

This episode took me no less than 30 years to do it. I.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This episode was, like, a fun idea that I had.

[Brie Grant]

This is how we know we're not mood readers, but we are trying for y'. All. We're trying for you.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. Well, someone wrote in, and a Max Fawn member wrote in with an idea, and I was like, oh, well, let's do that. This. This is. This is a fun idea. This will be a fun thing. And tears, sweat, blood. But it's all for you, folks. It's all for you. But first, Bria, what are you reading?

[Brie Grant]

I am reading a book by an author who I am learning to love. Is called when the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, yeah. You love this author?

[Brie Grant]

I loved Nestlings. I thought it was amazing. It is really good. I just read the description of what the book is about that's on Goodreads, and it tells you nothing. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit, and I don't think these are spoilers, okay. Because it's called when the Wolf Comes Home. It's about.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I love the way you say wolf.

[Brie Grant]

Wolf.

[Mallory O'Meara]

When the wolf Comes Home.

[Brie Grant]

When the wolf Woof. I do say woof like a dog. When the wolf comes out. So this is about this girl who is kind of a failed actress living in Los Angeles, and she is working this crap job, and she's cleaning behind the toilet one night, and she gets pricked.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, it's a literal crap job.

[Brie Grant]

Oh, no, no. It's not a little crap. It's a job at a restaurant.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Okay.

[Brie Grant]

And then she gets pricked by a needle behind. Oh, behind the toilet. And then she's like, oh, my God. And she leaves. She's like, I got to go. But then when she goes home, she finds this little boy who's five, like, just in her yard. And he's like, something's after me. And then this kind of wolfman monster starts chasing them.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Why? This is so many things.

[Brie Grant]

I know. It's a lot, but that's what Nat Cassidy does really well as he weaves in things where you're like, oh, that's a lot. But then they all sort of come together. So what you don't realize is there is something bigger going on, obviously, here. And more and more weird things happen. The wolf is. Is just the beginning of weird things that they start seeing that start happening to them as they're being chased and the authorities get involved. All sorts of things happen. And it's just this sort of wild ride that goes into, like, surrealism and a lot of, like, fantasy stuff, but also horror, and it's really good so far. I have been in such a crap mood when it comes to reading. Like, yeah, everything I read, I'm like, it's not enough. I need something that is literally makes my pulse race to get me to go to bed, which is weird.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Well, you need a distraction.

[Brie Grant]

I do.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Everything's so bad right now.

[Brie Grant]

This is a great book for that because every few pages are like, what? And, like, things just keep getting weirder and weirder, which I appreciate. And it's scary. It's actually scary.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Wow. All right, maybe I'm going to read this.

[Brie Grant]

It's great. What are you reading?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I am reading a book that, when I saw the title of it, I was like, was this personally written for me? I'm doing the audiobook. It's the dad Rock that Made Me A Woman by Nico Stratus. Wow. I was like, oh, perfect book for Uncle Mallory. It is so great. She reads it. And I do want to say, if you like music writing, if you're a Hanifa Durakib fan, he started his own. It's like an imprint or like, he's doing. He's, like, curating books, and this is one of the books that he curated.

[Brie Grant]

Oh, cool.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So it is. It's a memoir in song. So every chapter is a different, like, dad Rock song. It is this chapter of this woman's life and, like, her growing up in the Yukon in Canada, and, like, coming to terms with being a trans woman and coming out as a trans woman and. But, you know, every chapter is like this. There's a chapter that I can't stop thinking about. It's about One Headlight by the Wallflowers and just about how when you're working retail and you're miserable, like, how important, when you like a song that comes on the store radio, how it can completely change your day because it's so. It's, like, definitely a working mass memoir as well. It's a lot about, like, a lot of the chapters are about working crappy jobs and crappy bosses and how music can really save you and save your life and just how these songs helped her become herself. And it's so she's a really great narrator by the way. I'm just loving it so far. But like you know I like this chapters about Bruce Springsteen REM like it really is. If you, if you like music, if you are a person who music really means a lot to you, you have to read this book.

[Brie Grant]

Are you listening to or reading?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, I'm listening to it.

[Brie Grant]

Cool.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Audiobook is fantastic and it's not super long. Excellent summer audiobook. It just came out in May I think. So that's I'm reading the dad Rock that Made Me a Woman by Nico.

[Brie Grant]

Stratus and I'm reading when the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Casty.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So we want to take a moment to share some listener feedback. Sarah wrote in to say hi Bri and mallory in your 400th episode. Congrats. Mallory said. The Glassers have shaped reading glasses so much and in such wonderful and profound ways. And I wanted to let you know that reading glasses has shaped my life in wonderful and profound ways too. First and most obviously, my reading. I started listening to the pod right when I probably needed it most. In 2020. I had had my best ever reading year at 20 books the year before my first child was born, and afterwards that number plummeted to 5 a year if I was lucky. I had just started to read again for fun when I discovered reading glasses and tapping into a bookish community was like lighting a fuse on my reading habit. I knocked away that book slump and have read more every year since, getting all the way up to 74 books last year. Holy. But beyond the volume of books, the podcast has helped me learn to actually prioritize my reading. I'm a slow reader and have realized that putting time towards books instead of TV and other things excites me. And so the structure of my day to day has shifted to make reading a daily practice that nourishes me. My reading quality has improved too. I don't think I ever intentionally dumped a book before listening to the pod, nor did I think much about what I looked for in a book. And thanks to you, I've learned to be far more intentional about my reading. Not not to mention all the great book recs I've gotten from listening. But I did say earlier that reading glasses has profoundly shaped my life. And I don't just mean my reading life. After the POD helped me re embrace my love for books and seek out more bookish communities and conversations, I reconnected with my local library and even volunteered there for a year. A year after that, I decided to approach my struggling local indie bookstore to see if I could help. They hired me on the spot to run events and promotions, and I worked there for a year and a half. I absolutely loved it and it really made me completely reevaluate what I want out of a career. I would sometimes talk with the owner about me one day taking over the store after he retired. The bookstore sadly closed last week, but I made wonderful friends there and I'm proud at what I was able to accomplish even though it didn't save the store. Now I'm making plans with a friend to open my own bookstore.

[Brie Grant]

Whoa.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I'm even taking class on book selling to fill in the gaps I have in my knowledge. I've realized that as much as I love reading, I feel like I come alive when I help a reader find the right book for them and connect readers with authors they come to love. Even if this venture is I'm currently working on doesn't pan out, I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before I open a store of my own, and I'm really excited to see where this path leads me. Thank you so much for giving me that initial spark that has sent me on this road. Oh my God.

[Brie Grant]

My mouth is open.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This is so lovely.

[Brie Grant]

My mouth is. And also I scrolled up because I couldn't remember the name of the person who wrote in and I was like.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Of course it's a Sarah. Who else would it be?

[Brie Grant]

Of course it's Sarah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Congratulations. This is so beautiful.

[Brie Grant]

What a wonderful. This is why we do the show.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This is we. I truly get up in the morning for emails like this.

[Brie Grant]

So sweet.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This is wonderful.

[Brie Grant]

Wow. Amazing. Wow. How do we even go on? Okay.

[Mallory O'Meara]

With a wheelhouse.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah, with the wheelhouse. Jen wrote in with a wheelhouse and said books set in small towns, particularly southern small towns in the 1960s, books about MLMs and or cults. I mean they're pretty much the same thing. That's true. Body horror. Any book featuring a strong female lead, historical holiday and or queer romances. Or all three. Thanks so much ladies, for years of entertainment and for putting my TBR over the edge. Keep it up.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Love it. Wow. You can email us at reading glasses podcast gmail.com if you want a list of all the books we talk about on the show delivered to your inbox every month. You can sign up for our newsletter. There's a link in the show notes and quick bookmark just to remind folks that our book is back in stock. We talked about it last week, but just to remind you, if you want to get our book from bookshop.org or barnes and Noble, it is back in stock. The second print run is finally in. We're really excited. And if you want to spread the the love of reading glasses around, get this book for somebody in your life that you think needs help with their reading that doesn't know about wheelhouses and dumping your books and getting rid of all your shame and guilt. This is the perfect present and it's very cute. We, we're. It's a very well designed book. Rebecca Santo, the illustrator did such an amazing job. It's a lovely object.

[Brie Grant]

It's beautiful.

[Mallory O'Meara]

We love these books.

[Brie Grant]

Yes.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And we wish you would buy them another bookmark. A really exciting bookmark. We're so pumped to announce the Glasser voted book club pick. You all wonderful members unlocked this during this year's Maximum Fun Drive and it's finally time. So after a few tie breaking votes via email, the glassers have chosen the Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia. Huge thanks to everyone who voted via email. And in the discord. We're so pumped because this is a new release. We are going to build in some extra time to get it from the library and read it. So here's how it works. Pay attention. This is what's going to happen. The book has been chosen. It is the Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia. And we are going to be doing the members only book club virtual event in October. That means you are going to have two months to get it and read it, which is perfect because this is a spooky witchy book. Excellent pick for October. We're going to announce an exact date in September, but it will be in October. And if you are a member you will get an invitation to the virtual event where you get to discuss the book with me and and Bria and a ton of other Glassers. It's going to be a blast. We love doing these events. It's so much fun. So right now you can go to maximumfun.org join to sign up and become a member and join us in talking about this book by an author we love. Oh my God. Sylvia Moreno Garcia. Doing witchy stuff in Massachusetts. Multiple timelines. I am so pumped. I had already pre ordered this book so I was very excited to see this get the win. Uh, so again that's the Bewitching is going to be our October Glasser voted book club event and it's maximumfun.org join to sign up and become a member and Join us. So, before we recommend books for every mood, we're gonna take a quick break.

[Brie Grant]

Have you been looking for a new podcast all about nerdy pop culture? Well, I have just the thing for you. Secret Mysteries of Nerd Mysteries. Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries is a weekly pop culture history podcast hosted by me host Austin and me host Brenda. We've already tackled mysteries such as what happened to the puppets from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? Is Snoopy Mexican? And why do people hate Barney so much? From theme parks to cartoons to 80s, 90s, and 2000s nostalgia, we tackle it all. Check us out Every Tuesday on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get podcasts.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This week. Mood readers rejoice. If I had a saxophone, I would be playing it right now. I feel like the. The slide whistle is not enough. I feel like I need to be, I don't know, shooting a confetti cannon. But so what we're going to do here is we are recommending books for every mood. Well, almost a lot of moods. Many moods, Big moods. All the big, major moods. Yeah. So if you have a particular mood that you're always seeking books for and we don't cover it, email us. We might do around 2. Even though this one was really hard.

[Brie Grant]

It was so hard.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right, Bria, what is mood reading before we dive in?

[Brie Grant]

No, you. You tell me.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right. Okay.

[Brie Grant]

Because here's the thing. I start. I struggle. Okay, here's what I struggled with, because I'm obviously not a mood reader. I'm like, you're in this mood. You want to stay in this mood.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Brie Grant]

That was what I. I was like, this is a happy book. It's like, I'm happy. I would like a book that also is happy. Is happy. I'm not looking for a book that's taking me on a ride. It wants. I'm going to stay happy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It is for when you are feeling this. So that's the thing. Mood reading is. Is readers who are not necessarily looking for books by genre. You and I are. Big John, basically, are genre choosers. They're not looking for books by wheelhouse. They're like, I'm in this mood, and I want a book to match it.

[Brie Grant]

Right.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Which is what mood readers struggle because you never want. You never know when. By the time you're done with a book, you never know what you want to read next because you don't know what mood you're going to be.

[Brie Grant]

Sure. My mood change is, like, 30 times a day.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. So that's so, like, mood readers can struggle. And we've, we've talked on the show before about if you're a mood reader, it helps to make book lists like this. So you have a. If you're in a gloomy mood and you want a gloomy book, you're like, bam, I got a list of gloomy books right here. We, we've even seen some listeners who organize their, like, physical TBRs by mood, which I think is really cool and really helpful. But. So we're doing a big old list of. Of mood recommendations and. But Beria, you. You found a little hack for this.

[Brie Grant]

I did. There. There's a website called booksbymood.com and it's a lot of non selections, but it can get you started. If you are a mood reader and you're like, I am happy. It has books by mood.com. so you click on Stressed, Born, Grateful, Tired, Playful, Energetic. So if I click on energetic, it's like, what about Born to Run, A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never seen by Christopher McDonnell. But then if you don't like that one, you go to the next one, which is open An Autobiography by Somebody. Oh. By Andre Agassi. By Andre Agassi. So it's a lot of nonfiction on this website, which I have to admit was a problem for me because I kept thinking like, okay, happy you could read a book about the science of happiness. Like, that was hard, but I was like, no. Like, I tried to stay away from that because I felt like that was a little bit of a cheat. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Well, mood readers are generally looking for novels and short stories.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So, well, what is a book that to you feels joyful?

[Brie Grant]

Joyful. So we're starting.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes, we're starting.

[Brie Grant]

Okay. So funny. I have to tell you, there's a book that I put on here that you put down for Stressed Anxious. And that was going to be my joyful book because it made me joyful.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That is another problem with this is that it's so subjective.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah. Because it was a book where I got a lot of joy out of reading it. And I was really happy and I felt like the main character was really happy. But we'll get to it when you talk about it. So I switched it to Catfishing on Catnip by Naomi Kritzer because it involves a computer wanting to see cat pictures, which to me is funny and joyful. It has some dark stuff in it. But I have trouble finding a book because I didn't want to go cozy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Brie Grant]

And I did. This is okay, this was the hardest thing we've ever done because I. Yeah, this was very. Literally was like, okay. I didn't want to. I didn't want to go cozy, which would be a happy place for me.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Brie Grant]

Right. But Catfishing on Cabinet has a. A dark premise, like there is something bad happening to one of the main characters, and the other characters have to bail that character out. But it is a happy overall book. And I will tell you. Spoiler, like, it ends well. So I. That's. That's the one I'm going with. What are you going with?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I am going with I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy myself by Glynis McNichol. I think this was one of my favorite books last year. I can't remember. But it is a memoir, and it's literally just a memoir of female pleasure by. By this writer. And so this writer. Her story of how every. Every summer she goes to Paris for, like, a month, and it's just about her going to Paris for the first time after the pandemic. And she is single. She's in her mid-40s, I think, and just. She's writing about how rare it is. We talked last episode about how rare it is for moms to go on adventures, and this book is about how rare it is for women to just go off and do stuff like that and how especially mothers. She's not a mother, but you know, just women in their 40s. Like, she's. She would tell people, oh, I'm just going on this trip just to eat pastries and walk around Paris and just enjoy and bang French guys and have a good time. And people are like, what?

[Brie Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Like, women are not encouraged to, like, be. Have leisure and have pleasure. And it's. It's such a book about. She's finding so much joy in. In. In her body, in. In. In food and in pleasures. And it truly is. It's. It's a very happy book. I mean, there are some. Some heavier subjects. You know, she's talking about the pandemic and, like, you know, misogyny and how women are not allowed to do these things. But most of the book is just her enjoying herself and feeling joy and feeling happiness. And it's a great summer book as well. Also. It takes place in Paris in summer. So this is just such a joyful book to me.

[Brie Grant]

That makes a lot of sense. I think the problem with the joyful, happy one is that if you have.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Some kind of conflict, right.

[Brie Grant]

In a novel, and most novels have conflict. And so that was what I Really? I re. That one I struggled with, honestly, the most. I must have done a good job pretty well. I. There's a lot that happens in that book that's not that happy. It is about like, yeah, anyway, y' all don't get too mad at me if I. If we're. We're struggling with this a little bit, but. No, but listen, send us in your joyful, happy books. If you are a mood reader and you're like, this was a book I read.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But also, I think listeners can understand that this is subjective and these are what this is. These are what these emotions mean to us. Sure.

[Brie Grant]

Great.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Love that. All right, so what's our next emotion?

[Brie Grant]

The next one is angry slash upset. What do you have for that one?

[Mallory O'Meara]

So I have a literary fiction book which was on my best of the year when it came out a few years ago. It's called which side are you on by Ryan Lee Wong. I think a lot of us are feeling a lot of anger and upset and being upset right now because everything is so bad and awful. I literally had the other day, I was just laying around. I had stuff to do and I was just like, I don't feel like doing anything. I was like, oh, I'm just depressed because everything is so bad in the world. Like, we are constantly expected to absorb ludicrous and infuriating information. And it's hard. And this book deals with that. It's about this 21 year old. He's this college student. He's Asian American. His family's Asian American. And in the book, there's this event that happens where an Asian American NYPD officer kills a black man. Murders a black man. And this main character, he wants to drop out of college and just devote himself to the Black Lives Matter movement. So he's going to college in New York. He moves back home to. Or he travels back home to la because he's trying to figure out his life if he's going to drop out of. Of college. And his mom used to be the leader of a Korean black activist coalition. And so they are. The whole book is them. His mom is like, taking him around the city and, you know, they're. They're having like a mother son trip. But she's also the. The dialogue between the two of them of like the different generations of activists. And because his mom's. He's like constantly angry at his mom because he's like, why aren't you more mad about this? Why aren't you doing stuff? And she's like, smoke cigarette I've seen kid that you've never seen, but, like, so it's really. It's amazing. And it really shows how. What to do with your anger because she's. She is talking to him about how you can't just be mad. Like, you can actually. You can actually do things, but you have to aim it in a certain way. And it's. It's amazing activist generational dialogue. It's also really funny. Like, it's really in. If you love la, there's a lot of it. Like, there's a fun scene that happens in a Korean spa and, like, in and around la, and she brings him to other activists that she knows to have him talk to them. So it feels. Feels really good to read because it's dealing with the stuff that's happening now, but it feels like productive. Like, it feels like helping you make that anger productive. And I love. Again, I loved it. It was one of my favorite books of the year. It's also not very long, so it's like, if you need a place to process what's going on, why you're so angry, this is the book. What are you. You also picked a really good one.

[Brie Grant]

Mine is less about processing it and more about acting out. I'm going with the Eyes Are the Best Part by Monica Kim, which is about the making of a female serial.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Killer, which a lot of people are feeling.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah, it's about this young woman who. Her dad had an affair, her mother's distraught she's going to college. And like, everything. No, everything is just very irritating as things can be, you know, like, there's a guy in her class who, like, doesn't understand boundaries. The. Her mom gets a boyfriend who, like, talks about how hot, like, the Asian waitress is. And, like, it's just. Just kind of a piece of shit. And she starts thinking about, you know, how. How good eyes look. And she. You get to sort of live out. You get to live vicariously.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Whoever wanted to eat eyes, if you ever.

[Brie Grant]

Listen, if you ever wanted to live vicariously through a. A main. The main character who is a serial killer, this is a great one. This is what I would do when I was angry, upset. I want to. I don't want to work through it. I want to be angry.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, you want to.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You want to eat people's eyeballs. And there are definitely a lot of people's eyeballs that I would like to eat.

[Brie Grant]

Wow.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I don't want to get arrested. All right, so our next category is Silly Funny.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You're, like, in A, you know, silly, funny mood, which I guess not many of us are, but if you are, what's your one for this?

[Brie Grant]

I'm going start a villain. Is it because. Am I not a mood reader? Because I change my mood so often? Because multiple times a day I'm silly.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Maybe Bria's like, it's silly time, but.

[Brie Grant]

I have to have 35 o' clock.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Time to be silly.

[Brie Grant]

I'm going start a Villain by John Scalzi. His books are a little bit silly, a little bit funny, but very good. Always a good read. This one is about this guy who is a divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a. In a house his sibling siblings want to sell. And then suddenly his long lost uncle dies and it leaves his super villain business which has an island volcano. An island with a volcano layer on it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Honestly sounds great to him.

[Brie Grant]

And he has to become a super villain. And it's funny. It's silly.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, John Scalzi is so funny.

[Brie Grant]

It's really funny. It's. It is silly, but it is a very, really good book in a way that like John Scalzi is just great at like being. He's just. He takes funny premises but then treats them like they're real.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, we love John, which is great.

[Brie Grant]

What do you have?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I have a book that was. I was obsessed with a few years ago. I'm still obsessed with it. I want more, more people to read it. It only has 266 ratings on Goodreads. Wow. It's a crime. This book is incredible. It's called the Newtown Librarian by Kathy Anderson. This so funny is about this woman. I think she's in her 50s, I can't remember. She is a librarian, she's queer. And she's very unhappy with her job, very unhappy with her life. And one day she's drunk and just decides to apply for a job in another part of the country. And she wakes up the next day and was like, oh, that was wild. And she gets the job. So she decides to uproot her life. She moves to the small town in New Jersey and she moves into this, this apartment and her landlady is really, is. Is really funny and like slightly intrusive. The library that she' working for is kind of like in shambles and she needs to put it together. There's like a mysterious reader who's leaving weird messages all over the library. There's the really hot, butch deli owner that is like very horny for her. And she's trying to resist, like to resist that and she is really, really funny. She's like very sarcastic and wise cracking and it's just like her in the small town, the stakes are pretty low and just trying to get her life together and trying to get this library together. And I. All of the reviews of this book is like, like if you work in a library, if you work in books, you have to read this because the author is. Also works in, in libraries. And like, there's a lot of like, oh, if you know, you know, like this is very real library humor. It's like laugh out loud funny and just so much fun and very, very queer. I, I love this book.

[Brie Grant]

That's great. I should read them. That, That's. Yeah, I should read that.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right, our next category is romantic. What is your romantic book?

[Brie Grant]

I'm going with Book Lovers by Emily Henry. You could go with any Emily Henry just dropped, drop, drop a line into an Emory Emily Henry pool of books and pull one out. But this one, I liked this one because this is about a publisher who, you know how in every, like there's a lot of books about these big, these, these women who go to these small towns and, and then they meet this small town guy and wow, isn't he amazing? And they want to change their life. Well, she ends up going to this small town and she is like, wow, where's my small town guy? And there's not one. But she does keep running into another person from the city who is sort of this brooding bookish editor from back in the city. And it would be cute, but it's like not very cute. And then suddenly she's like, oh, maybe I do like this guy. Anyway, it's all takes place in a small town. She's on this trip and she's an editor. That's what she is. She's an editor. And it's very cute. It's very romantic. I really loved this book. This was the one that sparked my love for Emily Henry in like a real way. But I could recommend any Emily Henry book. As for, if you're feeling romance, what do you, what do you recommend for romance?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm gonna recommend the romance book that like, also same as you, like, revitalized my love of romance novels. I was really into romance when I was a teenager and I fell off of it for a while. And then I read this book and it just like exploded. And now I host a smut podcast. It's Angelica Frankenstein makes Her Match by Sally Thorne. God, I want Sally Thorne to make more books. The rest of her books are not spooky like this. This is like the romantic ideal of a romance novel. For me. It is a historical rom com. It's about. The main character is Frankenstein's younger sister. And in the Frankenstein family, like, everybody, every generation, like every. Every new Frankenstein ends up finding their true love and equal. And everyone's in. Everyone's in love in this family and paired up, except for her and she. Because she's, you know, she's a girl in this time period. And so in the 1800s, I believe, you know, she's really smart and she's a little weird, so people, you know, guys don't like her, and she's kind of run out of suitors. So she decides maybe, what if I help my brother make a man and I make my perfect man myself? But of course, once he actually wakes up and she's like, she's all in love with him, then she goes, oh, no. Ethically, this is. He's. He's an actual person. I. I can't just program him to love me, right? So there ends up on, like, kind of a madcap adventure with, like, her trying to. She feels bad for him and kind of helps. It wants to help him figure out who his real identity is. And of course, things are going wrong and she's falling in love with him. But also because the. The. The thing that I love about the book, besides that it's, like, kind of spooky and historical and has other stuff that I like. It's also about love because she, you know, she thinks she's, like, well, perfect. I'll just make a man and he'll fall in love with me, and. Great. And this whole process really makes her look into what. What love is. And it's very sweet, and you really are rooting for them. And I love it so much. It's very. For me, very. I love that the romantic book for me is, like, her and a dead man, but that's romance to me. All right, what's our next category?

[Brie Grant]

The next one is despairing gloomy. What do you have? If you're in a despairing slash gloomy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Mood, which I think many of us are, I picked Our Wives under the Sea by Julia.

[Brie Grant]

This was a super sad book.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, this book's all about grief. It is very weird. And that's mostly what the. I mean, a lot of the copy of this book is about it being strange. And it is. It's. I keep describing it as if Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer was only about the marriage parts that's kind of what this is. It's about this woman, and she's been waiting for her scientist wife to come back from this expedition under the sea. It's been a really, really long time. And the wife that comes back is weird. And she's very quickly realizing that maybe that's not actually her wife, but it's all about the. It's a. I actually really want to reread it because it's a whole book about grief and about what grief does to you. And the ending is. It is sad. This is a gloomy book. But if you're just like, I'm feeling gloomy, I. I just want to stay.

[Brie Grant]

Not.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I mean, no one wants to stay gloomy, but if you just want something that meets you where you're at. This book is so good. It was. It's so popular with the Glassers, and it's very strange and just is like another, like, meditation on grief and sadness and like, what grief does to your life and what grief does to your brain, what grief does to your relationships and your memories of relationships. What are you picking for this?

[Brie Grant]

I'm gonna go wild. Dark Shore, new book by the new Charlotte McConaughey.

[Mallory O'Meara]

She is really good at doing gloomy that isn't totally depressing.

[Brie Grant]

This takes place on a remote island, middle of nowhere. It's dark, it's gloomy. It's real cold. There's a family there. It's. It's a father with three kids. None of them are getting along. In fact, the daughter is living in a different little. They only. They have this one house and the daughter is living in this. In another little area by herself because no one is getting along because bad things have happened to, like, every one of them. And then this woman shows up one day on the shore, and she's there for a reason that's also really dark. The question is, for the mood reader, do you care if it ends gloomy? I don't know. Okay, well, maybe that.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Maybe that's perfect for your mood, though, because that'll transition you to a different mood.

[Brie Grant]

What if you want to stay gloomy, though? That's the thing about the mood reader. Do you want to stay gloomed?

[Mallory O'Meara]

But. I mean. But most of the book is gloom.

[Brie Grant]

Most of the book is very gloomy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I think of it. Most of the book is gloomy. If you've got a 75 gloom ratio or. Or above, you're good.

[Brie Grant]

Okay, then. Yes, listen. The world itself is so gloomy that you'll. You'll appreciate that if it is a dark day outside and it's raining. This would be like, the perfect book. Like, if you're a. If you're an atmosphere reader. Is that a thing? Atmosphere instead of atmosphere reader. Atmosphere, where you're matching whatever is going on outside.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, I. That's like a subset of the mood reader.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah, that is kind of. It's. I like doing that. That lately it's been weird because I've been reading all these dark books, but it's, like, beautiful and sunny outside. So anyway, dark. Very dark.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right, what's our last category before the break?

[Brie Grant]

Last one is Weird, Weird mood. And you want something that makes you feel off the wall.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. You're just in a strange mood or like, you can't really figure out what you want to read. You don't know what mood you're in. We got some more weird books for you. My. Mine is you Too can have a body like mine by Alexander Kleeman. I am obsessed with this book. This is. I'm not a big sci fi person, and this is kind of. It's sci fi, but it's mostly just fucking weird. I. I cannot say enough good things about it. I love it. I love it. I love it. You gotta. I think you should read this book because you would be obsessed with it. It's about this woman. She lives with this roommate. She has this boyfriend. And it's this. She feels weird. The world around her is weird. Her boyfriend really wants to go on this reality dating show called that's My Partner. Where you are. You're trying to pick your partner out of a group of people. And to the. It becomes a more like an escalating. Like, one of the. One of the challenges is they take a bunch of other people and put them through special effects makeup to look exactly like your partner. And you have to pick out your partner out of a lineup.

[Brie Grant]

Oh, wow, I do love this.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And one of them is they put your partner nude in a room full of other nude people in the dark. And you have to find your partner only by touch.

[Brie Grant]

Oh, my God.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And it's like. Like, there's all this. She. And the main character is, like, really obsessed with this cartoon character who is the mascot for this entirely chemical dessert. And the main character, like, gets this obsession with not wanting to eat anything too organic. Like, she thinks it's better to just eat the most artificial things because it's the cleanest and the purest. And, like, it's just her. And her roommate is really weird. And the roommate's like, really obsessed with the weird. The neighbors across the street who are doing weird things. It's just like, the main character's weird, her boyfriend's weird. The world is weird, everybody around her is weird. And it's just like. It's one of those books where if you are in a weird mood, this is going to meet you where you're at. It's, like, hard to explain because there's so much strange stuff happening, but I loved it so fucking much. What is your weird book?

[Brie Grant]

This was a. Listen. This is a mood I must be in a lot because I read a.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Lot of these books. We do have a lot of weird books.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah. I had trouble narrowing it down, but I'm doing what I don't talk about very much, which is Diary of a Void by Imi Yagi.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I don't know if you've ever talked about this on the show.

[Brie Grant]

Translated by David Boyd. It also says by Lucy North. So I don't know which one was a translator of the one I read, but it's about this woman who gets this job, and she lives in Tokyo, and she is expected to do all these menial tasks. Like, they're like, oh, can you clean up the coffee cups and the cigarette butts and stuff? And she's like, I'm at the same level as you.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, I remember you telling me about this, but maybe you did talk about this.

[Brie Grant]

And then at some point, she's like, actually, I can't clean up the dirty cups because the smell in the coffee in the. In that room in. Nauseates me because I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant. Okay. And she has to. So then she kind of gets great. She. She isn't. Doesn't have to work overtime. She doesn't have to serve coffee to anyone. She takes these long baths. She starts going to these great, like, expectant mother, like, aerobics classes. But the only thing is, she has to start pretending that she's pregnant. And so it's like her starting to live that life, but then things start happening in her body that are a little weird. And she's like. It starts to seem like maybe she is pregnant anyway, so it gets very strange and weird and good. It's a really fun, strange, feminist book that goes really bizarre.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. All right. I love it. All right. Before we recommend more specific mood books, we're going to take a quick break. Hey, it's John Moe from Depressed Mode. Every week on our show, we have honest, humane conversations with artists, entertainers, and experts about what it's like to Live with an interesting mind. I just interviewed Gavin Rossdale from the band Bush. You might be wondering, what would a successful, handsome, popular musician know about mental health? Turns out lots.

[Brie Grant]

All the time.

[Mallory O'Meara]

We're like, we're forced into happy situations.

[Brie Grant]

Sad situations, challenging situations.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Happy, sad, challenging. And it just never ends. And why should it?

[Brie Grant]

You know, we're just the sum of.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All these, these journeys. Check out Depression mode with John Moe every [e-mail] or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's recommend more mood books. Our next category is stressed and anxious. Oh, wow. You picked the perfect one for this.

[Brie Grant]

I'm doing wake up and open your eyes lies, which I talked about a couple weeks ago by Clay McLeod Chapman. I just think this book is incredible and I keep trying to get people to read it because it is about living in current times and it's about a guy who goes to his parents house because he hasn't heard from him for in a long time and he gets there and they just start attacking him. And what you come to realize is that through certain media outlets, through certain Instagrammers, through certain tick tockers, they all are starting to say the same phrase, which is wake up and open your eyes. And people are so obsessed with media and so only listen to media, which was what we're doing. We all get kind of like siloed into like our media echo chambers. Right. And these media outlets are making people turn into like rabid killers who are just gonna attack people. And that's what it's about. It's about these people trying to survive that who didn't get drawn in. And it is very stressful. The book is so stressful to read because you're just like everywhere they go, you know that there's going to be problems. And. Yeah, I just think it's an excellent, excellent book. What do you think? People who want to stay stressed and anxious.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I love that you picked this one for happiness.

[Brie Grant]

I thought this book, it means. It is. It's so much joy reading this book.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes, but the book, I mean, the book is. This is a book about being stressed out.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah. But I felt like she made a lot of good decisions along the way to leading to where she wasn't stressed out. Yes, I know, it's so weird.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It ends well, but it is to me, it's a very stressful book.

[Brie Grant]

I was not stressful. I actually was not worried about her.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh.

[Brie Grant]

I was like, this woman has it under control.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, okay. Well, to me this was very. Because it's it's all right. It's Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rupert.

[Brie Grant]

This last week, by the way from Moms Going on Adventures. But it was an adventure in her own home, so I couldn't recommend it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Okay, so Margo's Got Money Troubles is a book we both really love. This was our best best of the year last year. It's about this young woman. She had an affair with her English professor. Her life is kind of in. Like, she. She doesn't really know what to do with herself. She's not really sure where she's going. And then she. The affair ends and she finds out that she's pregnant. So she has a baby. She has no job, she's getting about to get evicted. She needs money, and she decides to create an only fans. And her father was a really famous wrestling manager. Is he a famous wrestler or famous wrestling manager?

[Brie Grant]

He was a famous wrestler.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Right, Famous wrestler. And the father who ends up moving in with them at some point. But her father helped. Like, like, she uses all the, like, wisdom that she got from her dad as a wrestler at. In. In pours it into her only fans and it ends up becoming really successful. But of course, that also causes its own problems because becoming a sex worker, especially in this society, comes with a lot of. A lot of issues and like, both, like legal, financial, and it's very, very funny. But the whole. I mean, the whole book is rife with. She's constantly stressed about money, and when she's not stressed about money, she's constantly stressed about family stuff and her baby. And it's like, it' a lot about new mom stress. The. The beginning of the book really shows, well, how impossible it is to get child care in this country. She finally finds out, like, how expensive it is to have someone watch her baby. And that's part of why she has to lose her job because she just literally, she does the math and she's like, oh, I can't afford to have someone watch my kid. And this is a lot about. A lot about financial stress. But it does. I mean, spoiler alert. It does end well, which is great. But a lot of the book to me is about stress and anxiety. It's funny, but it's such a good.

[Brie Grant]

I just thought it was very. I thought she was funny and smart and I was like, yeah, she's got this under control. It's stressful. But like, she got it. So for some reason it made me very happy to read.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Maybe it's. Maybe it's a good kind of Guided stress, where you're seeing her be stressed and you could be stressed with her. I read this book while I was stressed out about money, which. So I felt like I was like, ah, she's with me.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. My friend Margot, for me, I read.

[Brie Grant]

It and I was like, yeah. Yes. I feel like I like Margot. I can also control things that seem out of control.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Okay.

[Brie Grant]

I don't know.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That is basically what the job of being a film director is.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah, that's true. The next category is Lonely and Heartbroken.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, all right. What'd you pick for this?

[Brie Grant]

Okay, well, okay. So a couple years ago, I went to my friend's house whose husband had passed away, which was like, obviously very tragic. And I went to her house and someone had given her the year Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. And I said, said, don't read that right now. That'll make you too sad. It's too sad. You're already going through something really sad. But I guess if you're a mood reader, you are want to be sad and heartbroken. This book would definitely do it. But I. This will show you that I'm not a mood reader because I'm. I read this book when I was not going through anything and I was like, this is the saddest book I've ever read. I can't. I had trouble getting through it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It's sad.

[Brie Grant]

It's such a sad book.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So I will say, as someone who was. Who spent all of last year and is still, I mean, probably for the rest of my life, but like was in deep grief last year, you know, I love reading a grief grieving. So you want. It makes you feel not alone.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah. So it's hard for me to recommend it anyway. I'm actually not gonna recommend that. Weirdly, I'm. But I'm gonna say heartbroken. Mallory probably has better heartbroken ones. I'm gonna go lonely instead. And do seek you A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radke. Which is a. I literally just thought about it while we were sitting here and wrote it down. It's a graphic novel. It came out in 2021, and it's about loneliness in America and about why this is happening for everywhere from small towns to huge metropolises to. It's kind of starting in 2020, but also going way back to the way we like isolate ourselves forever. But. And going through her life. So it's also about her feeling lonely and that in graphic novel form. So it's sort of a memoir slash non fiction about loneliness.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And yeah, I remember you talking a lot about.

[Brie Grant]

It was one of my favorite books of the year. I loved it. This book really, really touched me.

[Mallory O'Meara]

What do you have for this, folks? I feel like a wrestling announcer. You. Everybody out there ready to cry? If that's what this book will do to you. Like, yeah, if you're just feeling. If you need, like, a tear laxative, which is what I call books like this sometimes. Yeah. Like, if you're feeling really sad, but you're having a hard time crying, and you just need something to get those tears out. This book is gonna ruin your. It's the Giant's house by Elizabeth McCracken. I love Elizabeth McCracken. She's probably one of my favorite authors. I think I have every book she's ever written. But this book is a short novel. It's a histor book, takes place in 1950 in Cape Cod. I also love Elizabeth McCracken because she's from Massachusetts, and she writes like she's from Massachusetts. And it's just, like, there's something about the way that she writes that makes me feel like I'm at home. So the year. Okay, the year's 1950. It's a small town in Cape Cod. The two main characters are this librarian. She's in her mid-20s, and she is just. She. She's single. She feels like life has passed her by. Like, especially because in the 1950s, if you're single at 26, you're basically dead. Like, she just feels.

[Brie Grant]

Feels.

[Mallory O'Meara]

She just feels so sad and so lonely about her life. And then in this small town, there's this little boy who ends up becoming the tallest boy in the world. He starts out. Yes, he become. He starts out. When the book starts, it starts out as. With him as 11. And this actually was based off of this. It's a fictionalization of the life of a real person. He starts out the. When the book starts. He's 26, she's. He's 11, she's 26. And he goes to the library all the time. And they. They strike up a friendship between the two of them because they're both.

[Brie Grant]

Both.

[Mallory O'Meara]

They're both kind of outsiders in this town. They're both feeling very lonely and very strange. And the book takes place over. Over a bunch of years, and by the time he becomes an adult, they start falling in love with each other. He ends up becoming, I think, eight feet tall.

[Brie Grant]

Oh, wow.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And they have this really. Again, this. This is. I mean, I guess it is a spoiler. This book is going to make you Cry.

[Brie Grant]

Wow.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But they have this really unusual romance, but it's all about love and two misfits falling in love with each other and choosing love, even when you know it's not going to be for a long time. So if you just need a book that echoes your loneliness and it's gonna get some tears out, this book is. Don't come crying to me when this book.

[Brie Grant]

Because you wanted to cry.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Well, if, if, if book talk is any indication, some people are looking for a book that's gonna rip their heart out. So read the Giant's House.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right, we're about talking. Next category.

[Brie Grant]

Contemplative slash dreamy. But my question here was, is that like contemplative? Contemplative Dreamy good or dreamy weird? So we're going like fun relaxed dreamy, like TJ Cloon. Are we going for, like stressful dreamy, like mono wad?

[Mallory O'Meara]

It could be either. It's like if you're just kind of like you're having a hard time focusing on things, you're really just like mulling things over. You're just kind of feeling. You're feeling dreamy. Big staring out the window energy.

[Brie Grant]

Okay. Okay. Mallory watched me change my suggestion in real time. I'm going Mouthful of Birds by Samantha Schweblin, which is a short story book. That very surreal. That is really surreal, but it's sort of contemplative. Is very like. I find her books to be a little dreamy. She wrote that book Fever Dream, which I think is very like, sort of strange dreamy. It feels like very, like every story you're like, wow, this is like almost realistic, but it's just a little, just a little weird little tick to the left or the right where you're like, this is strange in a way that, that feels like making me feel a little bit off. Like, like a guy who has a daughter who just some reason wants to eat a bird every day, and that just makes. But he wants to be helpful to her and that makes him feel a little bit off. Anyways, short stories too. So, you know, if you can't focus or concentrate, you can skip to the next one. What do you have?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I love that we, we both picked weird fiction for this.

[Brie Grant]

I know, I know. I almost, almost did my year of rest and relaxation.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, yeah.

[Brie Grant]

Because that also sort of. Or a monoam wad book. But I thought that's also like very, you know, very dreamy. Very like, yeah, contemplative.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But I think you picked the right one.

[Brie Grant]

Okay, tell me about yours.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm doing a short story collection that I'm actually.

[Brie Grant]

Oh, we're both doing short story collections.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Mouthful of Birds is a story collection. We're both doing weird short story collections. Mine is by one of my favorite authors. What is not yours is not yours by Helen Oye.

[Brie Grant]

Yes.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oyemi. Who? Helen Oyemi writes weird literary fiction, and she's the. One of the queens of my world. So this story, short story collection is really fun because it's themed. So every story is about a key in some way, whether it's a physical key, like the key to a house, or like a metaphorical key, like the key to a heart, the key to a secret. Every short story in this collection is about a key. And they're sometimes they're a little fantastical. They're always, you know, kind of. Of dreamy and strange. There's a little magical realism elements, but they're all. Helen Oyeyemi is, as far as I'm concerned, the queen of, like, fiction. That's weird, but very. In a very literary way. Like, it is very weird in a deeply introspective, dreamy, very. Like, it's more focused on emotions and how, like, weird stuff as a metaphor for things. And this collection is just so great. And I think it's good to do a short story collection because then you. If you're feeling dreamy, you can read one short story and think about it while you're looking out the window. God, I love this. I love her so much. And I think I'm gonna be rereading this collection soon because I love it.

[Brie Grant]

It's our next category, slash content. You're feeling cozy. You want something to match your cozy mood?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. You want snuggle in?

[Brie Grant]

What do you got?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I am picking a YA book that I was on my Best of the year when it came out. It's Phoebe's Diary by Phoe. Phoebe Wall, who's an author that I really love, and this is. This author, Phoebe Wall, found her teenage diaries and illustrated them and, like, kind of, like, polished them up and rewrote them. So it's like kind of a memoir, but it's. It's. She, like, fictionalizes her own life to protect people's identities and to make it more of a cohesive narrative. And it's just a story of this teenage girl living with her parents in the Pacific Northwest, and she's into theater and she has crushes and she's trying to find herself. And it is. It's very Low stakes, but it's still very. Gripping is not the right word. It's not gripping. But you care about her and you want to know how she's going to find herself and you care about all her little teenage problems and like what she's going to do. You're very invested in her. And so it's a great book to just. And it's got like really cute illustrations. So it's like, it's the perfect book when you're just kind of feeling cozy and content and you want to, want to sit on the couch and you want to hang out with Phoebe and like, see, and it's really fun because she's, you know, discovering new music and like, like she, her and her friends start going to the coffee shop by themselves and they feel so adult drinking coffee and buying it for them. Like, it's just, it's really cute and nice and low stakes and I love this book. What's yours?

[Brie Grant]

I'm going, I'm going to the bookshelf.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I. You. I mean, you wish you could.

[Brie Grant]

Welcome to the Hanyeon Dong Bookshop, which is a very cozy bookshop book. It starts with a little less cozy because the, the woman, there's a woman who's like burnt out in life. She lives in Korea idea. She's burnt out and then she's like, I'm gonna move to like this small town, this quiet street, and I'm gonna open a bookshop. And at first it's like, not easy. All she can do is cry and it's long hours and she's like, ah, was this a good idea? And then she starts hosting author events and then she starts meeting people from the neighborhood. And then it just kind of becomes about like this chapter is just about like, oh, I'm gonna hire someone new. And that's what the chapter is about. It's very cozy. Very like she gets really content with where she is, is very happy. She wants to slow down her life because obviously she was living in Seoul and it was, it was fast paced and stuff and she decided, I don't want to be there anymore. I don't want to be living this, this wild life. I want to live this warm, cozy life.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I think a lot of people are feeling that right now.

[Brie Grant]

So this is the spot for you.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Go on. All right, our last category. And again folks, if we, if there's a type of mood that you really want us to do a book recommendation for, email us and we will do a second one. It will take us 35 more years to do.

[Brie Grant]

But this.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This actually has been really fun.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah, it was fun.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It was just a lot of. I was so. I. It felt like I was. It was like cramming for an exam.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah. Stress category is like, well, this is.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Made you stress. Yeah.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah. The stress category is like, well, this is all books right now.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. But our last category is when you're feeling bored or restless. What is your pick for this? Oh, this.

[Brie Grant]

Okay, this is a little bit meta. No.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But I think this is a great.

[Brie Grant]

I'm going the Husbands by Holly Grazio. Because the whole thing is there's this woman, and she is dating, but it's, like, not working out. And she comes home one day, and this guy is there, and he's like, oh, I'm your boyfriend. She's like, wait, why don't I have a boyfriend? And she realizes that every time that he goes into the attic at some point, and then a different boyfriend comes down.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Different husband.

[Brie Grant]

Oh. Oh, you're right. I said boyfriend, but I meant husband. It's a different husband, and I loved this. And then she. A different husband comes down each time. Like, every time they go up into the attic, a different husband comes down. So my meta. My sort of, like, idea here is that if you were feeling restless. Restless. This main character is feeling restless, and she's like. Every time she meets a guy, she's, like, not a good husband. Maybe the next husband. And so she keeps going through these husbands because she's feeling very restless and very, like, this is not the right guy. Or, this guy's feet are ugly. Just sent him right back up.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Well, each husband also shows, like, a different Her. Yeah, she's like, oh, I. I got really into hiking, and this is my hiking husband, you know?

[Brie Grant]

Y. Yeah. Or like, oh, my God, look at the way I decorated the house with this husband. Like, yeah, this is not something.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I do love that. It's a big part of the book. Sometimes when the husband comes down, she looks around, the whole house has changed. And sometimes she be like, oh, the house looks ugly. Terrible taste. Go back, Go back.

[Brie Grant]

Go back up. Go back up. So it is about being restless. And then, I mean, by the end, you are sort of trying to figure out if she's gonna stay restless or not. But, yeah, definitely is that mood. What do you got for this?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm breaking out from the vault.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah. Yeah. We haven't pulled this one out.

[Mallory O'Meara]

We have not. I think we actually retired it. But because it's been so long since we talked about it, I thought this was perfect. It's We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Berry. One of my favorite books we've read on the show, ever book we both really love. So it is about. It takes place in the. In 1989 in Massachusetts. It's very Massachusetts, which I love. But it's about this female field hockey team in Danvers High, and they're trying to. They're trying to win. They start out as not great, and they discover that. They discover this book that they think might be tied to the witch trials, and they realize that if they write in it and make a pact in it and they start winning and the whole book, you can't tell if they're just winning because they're psyching themselves up about it. It. Or if this book actually has magical properties. But it's good for being bored and restless because it's all teenagers who are, like, trying really hard to achieve, and they're like, they're in this small town, so they're feeling a lot of this, like, teen restlessness. They're all, like, finding themselves and trying to. Trying to be. Trying to be a good field talkie team and figuring out what they wanted to do with their lives. And it's just like, I love a teen book for being bored and restless because that, like, energy of, like, well, I'm stuck here and I can't quite do what I want to do because I'm a teenager, but I have all these things that I want to do, and I'm trying to figure things out. It's. And, God, this book just. It's so goddamn good. I think this. What came out in 2020.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah, I feel like that's when I read it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, God. But it's. It's just so excellent. Just at top tier Restless Book. All right, so those are all our categories. And again, if you have other ones that you want us to do, send them to reading glasses podcast gmail.com. otherwise, let us know. Write in and tell us your favorite books. For all of these categories, we'll do some Glasser Read X. As always, want to thank the wonderful mods who run our Facebook group and our Discord server. Thank you, Discord mods. They're always helping me out because I don't know that much about Discord. And remember, if you want to help feed our cats, I'm looking at some of Bria's pets right now. They're real hungry.

[Brie Grant]

Starving.

[Mallory O'Meara]

They're starving. And it's. I. I took HWB to. I was gonna say I took him to the pet store. It sounds like I'm buying stuff for him, but he I had to buy cat food while we were on our way to something else and I was like, man, I spend so much money a month on cat food. Food.

[Brie Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I'll. And so the money that we get from our Void merch store goes directly to helping me feed my cats. So thank you all for people who are buying stickers and totes and tank tops and sweatshirts and stuff. You are really helping our lives and making yourself look bookish, which win win. And if you like the show and want to do something nice for us, please rate and review us on the podcast listening app of your choice. It's so great for us folks and truly makes a difference in the show. We're trying to get to 2, 000 reviews on Apple Podcasts. We're trying to get to a thousand on Spotify. We are going to do something special when we hit 2000 on Apple Podcasts. So go on there. Open up the mobile app on your phone. It's only going to take you 30 seconds. Give us a five star rating. Write a nice little review if you want. It really means a lot to us. We do look at them and then you can email us at reading glasses podcast gmail.com find us on Instagram at Reading Glasses Podcast. Thanks for listening and thanks for reading. Maximum Fun. A worker owned network of artist owned shows supported directly by you.