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Reading Glasses
Ep 471 - Most Anticipated Books for July/August 2026!
00:35:52
Brea and Mallory talk about their most anticipated books for July and August 2026!
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- [00:07]
A
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 devourer, Mallory o'.
- [00:13]
B
Meara. And I'm Bria Grant, filmmaker and e reader. This episode hit the slide whistles, friends. It's time to load up those Libby accounts. We're naming our most anticipated books for July and August. Get ready. Wow.
- [00:30]
A
Very exciting. But first, Bria, what are you reading?
- [00:32]
B
I'm reading from what I can tell is the buzziest book of the summer.
- [00:37]
A
I know.
- [00:38]
B
I texted you about it. I'm reading Yesteryear by Carol Claire Burke.
- [00:44]
A
This is the book of the summer.
- [00:45]
B
I think I was at Skylight, and I saw it was the number one selling book of the summer there. And I said, wow, look at me. I have my finger on the pulse here. I am. Yesteryear, if people don't know anything about it, is about a tradwife influencer. That's. People call these traditional influencers, where they're like, I love making bread. Making bread. And here's my.
- [01:09]
A
And obeying my husband.
- [01:11]
B
Yeah. And like, I am. I believe in traditional values, and I have. Here are my beautiful five children. And so it's kind of a trend. It is a trend on the Internet. And suddenly there's this trad wife, and she's got it all together. She has this traditional farmhouse. She wakes up in the morning to her two nannies and her producer who help her make video for her social media empire, where she has to deal with people who don't like her and people who love her, and it's all about her social media. And then she wakes up one morning and it's really cold in her house, and she's like, what's going on? And it turns out she is back in 1855, and she has to live like an actual traditional wife. Mallory was saying people were comparing it to yellowface. Cause it is sort of an unlikable narrator. It's all told in first person, I would say. I mean, I get that comparison. It is interesting because the more you read the book, the more you have sympathy for this woman, which I do appreciate. You don't. You aren't, like, the whole way through, like, fuck her. So if you're a person, you're like, oh, I don't. I. You know, if you. If you like an unlikable protagonist or a protagonist in the gray area. I think this is, like, a really fun read. Yeah. And I'm really enjoying it. It is, like a really quick, easy, great summer book. Can highly recommend it so far. Uh, what are you reading Mallory?
- [02:28]
A
I am reading a memoir. All right, this a lot of names here cause I'm doing the audiobook so it is called Trash A Garb Story by Simon Par Poart, is translated by Pablo Strauss and it is narrated by Jean Broussard. So whole team brings you this book and it's a memoir of this man who lives in Montreal and he's a garbage man and it's just like about how he became a garbage man and how people look down on garbage men and like because of that they have this very like unique view of society and because of that it attracts a very like eccentric type of person who becomes a garbage man and like his insights on climate change and like what we need to do to like how over consumption and trash affect the planet and how he knows better than anybody because he's a garbage man and he's the one who deals with it every day and it's just so. It's really funny. It's very short too. It's very succinct and it's just such a. It's not a perspective you get very often and it makes you really look at garbage, look at garbage men, look at the world very differently and I'm really, really enjoying it. Really great audiobook. It's lots of swears in it which you know, I love so. Oh God, here we go, all of them again. It's Trash A Garbageman Story by Simon Pare Poopart, narrated by Jean Broussard, translated
- [03:45]
B
by Pablo Strauss and mine is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Bur.
- [03:54]
A
So I want to take a moment to share some listener feedback. Kenny wrote in to say Abrian Mallory had a thought on the library hold system hiccup that has been plaguing long time users and thought my method might be useful. I've been sorting books into tags by type Sci fi, fantasy, non fiction etc which leaves me with virtual bags full of TBRs. When I need a new book I'll go to the type I'm feeling sort to available now and pick the one that best suits my mood at the time. Those looking for the vortex could easily adapt this by throwing everything into a general TBR tag sorting to available now and picking the book slash book that top of the list that actually would work. This is a great method.
- [04:28]
B
Yeah, I think that's great. And available now is something you should pay attention to when you have. You know, if you're. Because we're all waiting for mood but there are. Yeah, but available now. That's going to be something that's helpful in anyone. I like that. Kenny. Fantastic. Sam wrote in and said hi Bria Mallory, longtime listener and new Max Fun supporter. Thank you so much Sam. Thank you Mallory. The work you do for the most anticipated books that shows do not go unnoticed and we are forever grateful for that. I just wanted to write in to tell you this incredible tool I discovered that my library offers. I live in a semi rural town in southern Alberta, Canada where my access to recently released and more liberal re LGBTQIA and authors of color are harder to come by. In the past, if my library didn't carry the title I was looking for, I'd request that they purchase the title or see if it was on Libby but I prefer a physical copy read well I was in search of a book by Japanese Canadian author and I was about to submit a purchase request when I noticed below the purchase button was was another button that said Library Resource Sharing. Now I expected this to be a regional program for the small communities in my area, but when I clicked the link it took me to a government funded website that searches the collections of libraries across Alberta. Using the Alberta Public Library's resource sharing system, I was then able to find and request items from a library in Edmonton over six hours away and have it delivered to my library for checkout. This is incredible.
- [05:49]
A
Wow.
- [05:50]
B
This is an absolute game changer for me. I wanted to share some of my fellow glassers in rural communities in Alberta, Florida can have access to the books they deserve. Thank you for everything you do for readers and libraries all over the world. Your reach and influence is greater than you know. Lots of love from a queer small town girly. This is amazing. Canada is amazing. Canada Hats.
- [06:10]
A
I was gonna say I only know where all these places are because I'm a hockey fan and I'm like wow, this is cool as hell.
- [06:15]
B
That I mean it's very cool and wow, if you live in Alberta, definitely check this out. That's so great. And yeah Mallory, I'm glad you put this one in this episode because this is our anticipated books episode and I like that Sam is shouting it out. Very much appreciated by Mallory.
- [06:31]
A
Quick sidebar. I was telling Bria when I wrote this episode, Library Journal now puts the I used to use their pre publication article as like the basis for this episode and they put it behind a paywall and I texted Bria and I was like I think I'm just gonna go lie down on the 405. I was like I guess I just die. What do I figure it out? I figured it out. I got it. But it took this episode, I will tell you, took two full days of my life, two full work days of my life to do so. Anyone who appreciates it, and especially the people who sign up to become members to support it, you have my undying love, because this truly took two days of my life to do.
- [07:10]
B
We appreciate.
- [07:11]
A
It's all for you. Then Megan wrote in to say, hi, I love your show, and wanted to share my hot book tip. All right, I got my slide whistle ready. Let's see.
- [07:17]
B
Nice. Pull it out.
- [07:19]
A
If, like me, you use multiple libraries, there's a quick and easy way to work out which library has which book using a browser tool called Library Extension. Oh, Bria, you and I tested this out, but, like, eight years ago, I still have it on my computer, though.
- [07:32]
B
I still.
- [07:33]
A
Library Extension will search all your library catalogs and apps like overdrive and tell you where you can get a physical copy, an audio copy, or an ebook. It tells you how long holds are at each place so you can find the shortest weight. It links to book websites like Goodreads and Storygraph and book retailer websites like Barnes and Noble, Waterstone, and Amazon, so that when you visit the books page, it will bring up all the library listings for the libraries you are a member of, and then there's a link. I.
- [07:56]
B
Okay, so what I didn't know is that he is hot because I only have one library card, which I know is a shock to everyone, and so I only know that it does it for. I didn't realize it did it for multiple libraries.
- [08:08]
A
Oh, you got to hook it up. Get a hook up. Multiple libraries. Yeah, this is. Again, we tested this out a long time ago, but it is. It's worth shouting out again. It is so great. So we'll, like. When you're shopping for a book, Library Extension will be like, hey, I see you're looking at this book on Amazon. What if you got it from the library for free? There's a copy available right now. Pretty sick. Bria, you want to read Megan's wheelhouse
- [08:32]
B
Asian horror epic spanning the past, present, and future. Literary nature. Novels where nothing happens. Great stuff.
- [08:40]
A
So you can email us atreading classes podcastmail.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 before we go through our most anticipated books of July and August, we're going to take a quick break. All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show. Let's learn everything. So let's do a quick progress check. Have we learnt about quantum physics? Yes. Episode 59. We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we? Yes, we have. Same episode, actually. Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters? Episode 64. So how close are we to learning everything? Bad news. We still haven't learned everything yet.
- [09:22]
B
Oh, we're ruined.
- [09:25]
A
No, no, no, it's good news as well. There is still a lot to learn. I'm Dr. Ella Hubba. I'm regular Tom Lum. I'm Caroline Roper. And on let's learn everything we Lear and a bit of everything else too. And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode. Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun. This week we're talking about our most anticipated books for July and August. Open up. Libby, call the bookstore because we have picked out the books we are most excited about and most importantly, that the Glassers will be excited excited about across all genres for the summer. So first off, again, we just want to thank our incredible and generous Max Fund members for making it possible for us to do this. You brought these episodes back during the Fun drive. I do want to say a little psa. We have, however, already lost a pretty significant amount of members since the drive and we know this happens. People sign up to get the perks of the drive and then they cancel their memberships. But luckily you can still become one of those lovely bookish angels and and support this episode as again, this took two full work days of my life. As someone who is on deadline to edit her novel, it was one day per month. So if you want to help us do this and help make it possible for this to be viable for us, go to maximfund.org join to sign up and support the show. That's also how you get access to the Discord. If you email us your membership proof. We love our members so much. The people who do hang on and do support us month to month. It really means the world to us. And this is the whole reason we brought this show back is because of you. And remember, we are only talking about a few of our picks in the episode There is a gigantic and I'm talking gigantic. This episode outline is 25 pages long. Curated list with the genres with the wheelhouse items in the show. Notes please. I work so hard. Please look at the show notes if you can't get it, some of the. Some of the podcast apps cut it off. So go to the. Go to the website. Yeah. There's a separate web page for each episode. Check out the webpage for this episode. So many beautiful wonders await for you. Also, a couple of things that I found interesting. I texted Bri about this. We got it, and we have an episode about it coming out. Healing fiction is a whole new sub
- [11:44]
B
genre, which we got to do. Just talking about that. Mallory, it's a good idea.
- [11:47]
A
Yeah, I got it in the calendar. Healing fiction, which you'll find out about in a minute. And I was. I also texted Bria about this. There are so many books in this list that are about two things. Unhappy women. And then a man from her past comes back. I could not believe it. It was such a. After, like the seventh or eighth book, I texted Brian. I was like, so many books about this. So something's in the air, folks. I don't know what's going on, but. All right, so we only have one shared pick for July. You want to tell people about it?
- [12:17]
B
Yeah, we're so excited about it. There's a new Sylvia Moreno Garcia book
- [12:21]
A
coming out in line at the library.
- [12:24]
B
It's called the Intrigue. I think I pre ordered it. I can't remember, but it is about a con artist who has long, lonely women via letters to steal their money. But money is hard to come by in 1940s Mexico, so it's like historical, thriller, horror. It seems like.
- [12:41]
A
That's my favorite. Silvia Moreno Garcia is the historical horror,
- [12:46]
B
and he knows this isn't gonna last forever, and he's desperate to get his hands on a real fortune. And he finds this new correspondent who owns this boarding house in Veracruz. And when he meets her, he finds something he didn't expect. She has a niece who wants to escape this household, and she discovers that he doing this as sort of a scheme, and she wants in on the scheme. And then.
- [13:08]
A
I love a con artist getting conned.
- [13:10]
B
Things unfold from there, and it sounds so good. And we're always thrilled to get a new Silvia Moreno Garcia. That is. Sounds like such a thrill. Yeah.
- [13:20]
A
A smart Sylvia Moreno Garcia writing a smarmy man who thinks he's got one over on an old woman.
- [13:26]
B
Yeah.
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A
Surprise, motherfucker.
- [13:28]
B
Yeah.
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A
Oh, I'm so excited. I. Yeah, that's.
- [13:31]
B
That's.
- [13:31]
A
Oh, I'm very pumped. It has a really cool cover as well. So that's our one shared pick for July. We love our SMG on the show, Bria. What's your first solo pick? Ooh. I also, I will say, am intrigued by this book.
- [13:44]
B
Yeah, my first solo pick is Helpless by Jessica Knoll. Jessica Knoll wrote Bright Young Women, which I loved when I read last year. And this is another thriller mystery with, like, I think it's horror adjacent. It is about a woman who. She goes back to her. Her college. She's like a Hollywood producer, and she has this beloved professor who passes away. She goes back to her college for the funeral, and she runs into her ex boyfriend, the man from her past. As we said, there's so many men from the past here, but this guy does not go out well. They start to talk and then he kidnaps her. So I don't know what goes on beyond that. It sounds kind of scary. Basically, the question is, is he gonna punish her? Cause she wrote this episode based on their breakup, like a television. But then also it gets apparently weirder the longer she's there. It just sounds really great. Jessica Knoll is a really good writer. So I'm very excited to check this one out. What is your first solo pick? Oh, great.
- [14:48]
A
Yeah, I'm very excited. My first one is Carry Me to My Grave by Christopher golden, friend of the show. We're big Christopher golden fans on reading glasses. And I ri. I'm so fucking pumped about this book. Okay, so it takes place in New England, which, you know, makes me very happy. It's about this man. Growing up, there was always, like, weird rumors about his mother. The local kids said that his mother was a witch, and him and his siblings, like, tried to ignore it. Only now his mom is on her deathbed, and she has asked him to take her when she dies, to take her body to her birthplace up in Maine. And then as soon as she dies, weird stuff starts happening, and weird things start happening. Trying to prevent them from returning her body to Maine. And that's all I know, is that, like, weird. Weird things are, like, weird, evil things are happening. To try to, like, come and get her body and take it away from them.
- [15:38]
B
That's cool.
- [15:39]
A
Something. All I know, there might be some vampire stuff involved. I don't know. I am so pumped. I will say, Chris. I met Christopher Golden a really long time ago because he's from my hometown of Haverill. We literally met on panels at a con. And I walked up and I was like, you're from Haverhill? And he was like, no shit. And we have been friends ever since. And so whenever he writes a book that takes place in New England, I get really excited about it. So, you know, it's gonna be real England shit here. And Chris golden is just one of those horror authors that is so consistent. Every single book delivers. And this one, I'm really pumped. What's your next one? Ooh, this is a really buzzy glasser book, Bruce.
- [16:19]
B
I picked it because it's a buzzy glasser book. The glassers are excited about this one. It's Mossed in Space by Rebecca Thorne, which is a cozy sci fi, I guess we're calling in healing fiction now. Is that what we're calling these?
- [16:33]
A
No, the healing specifically is like these translated books from Japan and Korea that are like.
- [16:40]
B
Okay, I did pick one of those too.
- [16:42]
A
Okay, yeah, we'll talk about it.
- [16:43]
B
Okay.
- [16:44]
A
They're very popular now.
- [16:45]
B
Okay. This is just cozy thing. Cozy sci fi. It is about. It's being compared to Martha Wells books. Basically, it's about a person who buys an alien starship that's been abandoned for a century. And in spite of what everyone said, don't buy this ship. They buy this ship anyway. And there's a surprise passenger inside, which is an organic computer. It's like covered in moss, but the moss is an organic computer with an attitude and abandonment issues. And so it's like a sentient computer who's like talking to them and an alien and it seems queer. There's romance. It's cozy. I don't know what else happens in this book, but everyone's talking about it, so I feel like it had to be on my list. And it sounds super cute. So, yeah, excited about that one. And the glasses are usually not wrong, so. Yeah, glasses are wrong. Excited to pick that up. What's your next one?
- [17:39]
A
My next one is a thriller that sounds so creepy. It's called the man by Laura Sims. Takes place in the 1960s. It's about this woman, she's a housewife, and to kind of fill her days, she takes up animature photography and she starts taking like portraits of herself until she starts noticing that in every single portrait of herself, there's a silhouette of a man in the background.
- [17:58]
B
Oh, my God. Right? It's just scary.
- [18:03]
A
And that's all I know. That's all I want to know. I'm in line on Libby for it. I'm so pumped. It just like. It's such. It's such a scary premise. I don't know if I've read a historical thriller in a while. What's funny, because I had a. His. I had one in my la. The last anticipated roundup it was in the the Ruby Falls by Jen Phillips. I think so. I think historical thrillers are starting to be in my wheelhouse. What's your next one? Oh, I thought you were gonna pick this one.
- [18:31]
B
Yeah. There's a new John Whiswell. The dragon has some complaints, but John Wiswell is coming out in July. John Whiswell wrote someone you can build a nest in which I really loved the year it came out. This one is about a four headed dragon who in an unfortunate battle lost one head. So it's now a three headed dragon and he decides that. And all the heads have different personalities, so they're always bickering with each other. And one wants to rain death on humanity. One is like a feral cat, one under the delusion that he is a human. And he decides that in order to get some free food and a warm bed, he's gonna sneak into a dragon academy. And there's a writer who's just desperate enough to overlook all these eccentricities and choose him as her dragon. So it sounds like it's a cozy fantasy meets funny John Wiswell sort of humor. I like John Wiswell's writing. I think it's all very, very cute, very clever, very warm. So excited for new John Whiswell. What's your next one?
- [19:35]
A
Next one is a very Malory book. It is Runner by Ashton Lattimore. So this is historical fiction. Prohibition Era, Martha's Vineyard, 1923. It's this woman, she comes from a seafaring family and becomes a rum runner because her father dies in this mysterious way and she becomes like infiltrates this rum running outfit to investigate her father's death. And if you are unaware, I wrote a book called girly drinks years ago that is the history of women and alcohol. It's a big, it's still a big interest of mine. I am, I just love, love that time period. I love women and booze and someone writing historical fiction about this that's like a really cool mystery and also takes place in New England. It's just like this is so, so me that I'm really, really pumped. All right, Bria, you're choosing a lot of historical books.
- [20:25]
B
I like this, I like this direction you're headed.
- [20:28]
A
You know, I love my historical. So all right, so your next one is a healing Fiction.
- [20:32]
B
Fiction. And I've been loving these kind of books. I.
- [20:35]
A
They're so popular.
- [20:37]
B
Yeah, there was not like a name for them up until this point. So I love that we have a name for them now. This one is called the Memory Bookshop by Song Yoo Jung, translated by Shanna Tan, who I think I've read some of her.
- [20:50]
A
She does a lot of translated books for. In this genre specifically.
- [20:54]
B
So this one's out of Korea and it's been compared to the Midnight Library, which obviously people really like. And it's about a bookstore. And if you're grieving, you're gonna find the Memory Bookshop. The shelves are endless, the books are familiar and memories are bound in the pages. So it's about a young woman whose mother died and she stumbles into this mysterious bookshop and then she's offered no explanation, only a mysterious hourglass and a rare travel back to three chapters of her life. So you get to revisit memories from your life, but to do so you have to give up time in your. I like these healing books where it's sort of about like healing.
- [21:29]
A
Fiction is like someone has some sort of like, emotional affliction. They are sad in some way, they're grieving, they're like. They don't know what the purpose of their life is. And they stumble upon some sort of business, whether it's a bakery, a bookstore, a cafe, something like that, that in this location has some sort of magical realism element that helps them deal with whatever and heals them in some way. Yeah, it's like a lot of Japanese and Korean books, right?
- [21:58]
B
Yeah, that's. The ones I've read have been Japanese and Korean and they're really great. I mean, I think that the big one people talk about is until before the coffee gets cold, that seems like the one that kind of came to America and people in America suddenly started waking up and realizing about these kind of books. But I'm loving them. What's your last one for July?
- [22:17]
A
Well, I had to put this on here because it's an art book, you know, I've been.
- [22:20]
B
Which we know you love, an art heist.
- [22:24]
A
It's just so weir because I am not an art person, really. I just. There's something about paintings that is like. Maybe it's because there's this, like. There's always some sort of narrative. There's always some sort of like, hidden secret thing. So this is another thriller. Wow. I put a lot of thrillers on here. It's called the Parisian Heist by Joe Biaza. It's a dual timeline, art world, heist, thriller. And one timeline is modern times. This woman, she's like. She. She's an American living in Paris, but she's really struggling. She gets this job with this family where she meets the widow of one of the most notorious art dealers in the business. And she gets kind of drawn into their world of like white collar crime. And I don't know, something. Something happens there. And then in the late 1800s, we have the widow of Van Gogh. She inherits hundreds of paintings from her brother in law, Vincent that the art world deems worthless. Determined to prove their genius and to secure a future for herself, she becomes consumed by vin legacy. So it's something about these paintings in the 1800s and then something, I'm assuming something gets stolen or forged in the main in the modern timeline, and they're intertwined with each other. I don't know. I am. I don't know what it is. It's. So maybe it's because I grew up reading the Da Vinci Code.
- [23:41]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [23:42]
A
Something about the art world is so fascinating to me, but I'm really excited for this one. All right, so those are our picks for July. Let us know what you're excited about. Send your thoughts to reading comments glassespodcastmail.com and before we name our picks for August, we're going to take a quick break. If you want to know what's going on in the world of movies, you should be listening to Maximum Film so we can tell you all about it. Okay, but what if you already know what's going on in the world of movies? What if you're kind of obsessed with movies?
- [24:12]
B
Like, maybe you have a problem.
- [24:13]
A
Well, then you should definitely be listening to Maximum Film because. Because we too have that problem. And it's important you know you're not alone. We're talking indies. You'll want to seek out blockbusters and blockbusting wannabes, classics we can't get enough of.
- [24:27]
B
I'm comedian and writer Kevin Avery.
- [24:29]
A
I'm film critic Alonzo Duraldi. I'm festival programmer and producer Drea Clark. Together we're maximum film smart about movies in Hollywood. So you don't have to be. But if you already are, that's also great. And hey, we see you new episodes every week on MaximumFun.org work. Okay, we are back. Let's dive into our picks for August. Bria, we didn't have any shared picks for this month.
- [25:01]
B
Nope, nope. No share picks.
- [25:03]
A
But I will say there's a few of yours that I am very interested in. All right, so what is your first one? I knew by the elevator pitch that you were gonna pick this one.
- [25:13]
B
Yeah, my first one is the Wild Beneath by Kelly Anderson. Is the elevator pitch. Is Wild Dark Shore meets the Time Traveler's Wife. Two books I really like.
- [25:23]
A
So I was like, this is some Bria Katniss.
- [25:25]
B
It's about a woman who grew up on a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest, just swimming around with her parents, living a great life. But then a tsunami shatters her world. I am scared of tsunamis, so I don't know how I'm gonna see if I can read this book. I actually have a weird fear of tsunamis. And then she's stranded on land and she. She has to realize, like, oh, I'm kind of a weirdo. Cause I grew up on this ship. And also she rescues in the wreckage this man who does not speak. And he can hum, but only a hum that she can hear. So sort of like a supernatural sort of hum. And they have this connection. So I think it's like magical realism meets romance meets, I guess, Wild Dark Shore, which is such a dark book. So I'm not really sure. But yeah, the elevator pitch is the thing that really got me on this one. What is your first pick for August?
- [26:17]
A
Bria. It's another historical thriller. I don't know what I'm on right now, but there's something about it. So this one's a little spookier. So this was the Woman in White by Sarah Pekkanen. It is a dual timeline thriller. One timeline is in the 1960s where these four women get brought to this university to get trained for an ESP program, an extra sensory perception program. And then the modern timeline, or Maybe it's the 90s, it just says decades later. So I don't know if it's our time period or like it's the 80s or 90s. But this woman takes a job caretaking for this widow, and she gets into her home, and her home has no television, no microwave, no cell phone, no nothing. No. And she's trying to figure out why this woman is living this really strange existence. And you find out something obviously weird happened back in the 1960s while they were getting trained for ESP. And there's some sort of mystery because apparently some of the women were in that program, went missing. And. Yeah, just sounds. I don't know.
- [27:21]
B
Sounds great.
- [27:22]
A
Don't know what it is about. You know what? You know what it is? It's summertime. I love a summer in the summertime.
- [27:27]
B
There's something.
- [27:29]
A
Well, yeah, but there's just something about reading a thriller in the sun by a body of water that just sucks you right in. Oh, there's something. This is. This really Is thriller season. All right, what is your next one? Ooh, this is. This is maybe the best title of this batch.
- [27:43]
B
I know this is a pick. This is a title based pick. I'll be honest, because I don't know the author at all. But the idea sounds very cool. But it was the title that got me on this one. It's the divine gardener's handbook or what to do if your girlfriend accidentally turns off the sun by Eli Snow. It just sounds adorable. It essentially seems like it's about a gardening pageant, like a flower pageant. And this one person cheats her way to victory and then in doing so ends up in a world of sentient plants, ancient secrets, and a God who turns out to be just some exhausted man with a very good garden. So it's a like a gardening fantasy book. It's queer, it has romance, and it has an amazing title. So I am down. It seems like exactly the kind of. It's a. It shouldn't be a summer read. It's about gardening, which, you know, I like gardening. So I'm very curious about this one.
- [28:34]
A
Yeah, this looks great.
- [28:35]
B
I'm picking so many cozy books. This is, you know, picking all historical thrillers. I know, I know. We're on very different trains right now. But that's good. We're getting that. We're running the gamut here. What's your next one for August?
- [28:47]
A
This is a buzzy one. It's Sunrise by Taa Obrett. So this is the woman who wrote the Tiger's Wife. Very, very buzzy from a while ago. And so this is a historical fantasy. And this is triple timelines. It's about this woman in 2024. She survives a plane crash in the wilderness. And when she gets out of the plane, she like, she can't find her boyfriend who was the pilot. But she does find a town of the old west that is strangely well maintained, but seem seems abandoned. And there's something weird about this town that she finds. And then apparently there's two more timelines, one in 2003 and one in 1902, of like how this town got formed and the weird things like this just sounds. Crash landing in the wilderness and you can't find anything but a weird old timey cowboy town. Just sounds. So I gotta know what happened. That sounds fantastic.
- [29:41]
B
That sounds wild.
- [29:42]
A
What's your next one?
- [29:43]
B
My next one. Another cozy. I'm going with Murder bites.
- [29:47]
A
We're so tired. Bria and I have had a really exhausting year. Bria's betrayal. Bria just Got back from Korea. I have been on book deadline for what feels like my entire life. At this point. We, we just want fun books. We're doing our best.
- [30:01]
B
This one's a cozy mystery. It's called Murder Bites by Mimi Montgomery. It is about. Okay, I'm just gonna read what it's read. The log line, a city trans plant in a dog obsessed small town becomes the prime suspect when the local dog walker is murdered in this delightfully quirky cozy mystery. First of all, I love the idea of a dog obsessed small town like this. So specific.
- [30:22]
A
You got to move.
- [30:22]
B
This just sounds like. I know I would love it, but this sounds like a very cute quirky mystery and I'm kind of here for the quirky mysteries this summer. That's been exactly what I want to. What I want to be reading. What's your next one?
- [30:35]
A
So we did the first one of these books on our other show Reading Smut. So this is I Punched an Alien and now we're in Couples Therapy by Kimberly Lemming. And we absolutely. I love Kimberly Lemming. I have read all of her books. I'm so excited for this one to come out. So this is the sequel to I Got Abducted by Aliens and now I'm trapped in a rom com. And so this is as with all romance series, this is another couple that gets set up at the end of that book. But this is a real enemies to lovers situation. It's this, this, it's this human woman and this alien man that they hate each other but they have now been pushed together by the scientific experiment. I'm not going to spoil what happens in the first book, but it's just Kimberly Lemming is so great because she manages to balance a lot of spice with a lot of humor. Like there these books. She has such a funny voice and I really liked this, you know, I love anemones to lovers situation and I really liked that this couple was the one that got set up in the. In the last book and I can't wait to see what happens. I hope they get in a fistfight. I hope they bang a lot. I'm excited. I love this is. I don't do a lot of romantic sci fi, but I'm pumped for this. What's your next one?
- [31:45]
B
It's my last one for August.
- [31:46]
A
Ooh, is it?
- [31:49]
B
Yeah, I'm doing a nonfiction book. Aaron Menke I love. He had a podcast maybe still does. Has a podcast called Lore, which I thought was really good fellow podcaster. So I'm going to shout out his Book. He has a book coming out.
- [32:03]
A
Past guest of the show.
- [32:05]
B
Yeah. Exhumed Unearthing the History of the American Vampire. It is an exploration of the folklore and early practices that led to the New England vampire panic of the 1890s. Just seems like a really interesting specific vampire story about the American vampire lore, which is something I feel like we don't get into as much and feel like vampire lore is very much European or not less American, I would say in general. So. So I'm curious about this book and I just think Erin Menke is really great at telling a great nonfiction story in a way that makes you feel like you're reading like an amazing fiction book. So I'm really excited about this one. It seems like a good one also to start to get into the fall. The fall mood.
- [32:46]
A
I'm excited. Growing up in New England, we actually there was a lot of like New England vampire lore. I wonder if that's part of like, what. What the Chris golden book is about. But the Mercy Brown was a very famous thing that happened in Rhode Island. Yeah. So I. New Englanders love vampires and I'm excited to see it goes into the rest of the country. I might read this one as well. It sounds really good.
- [33:07]
B
Nice. And what's your last one, Brie?
- [33:09]
A
You know, I can't have a anticipated books episode without at least one haunted house book.
- [33:13]
B
Gotta put that haunted house book in there.
- [33:15]
A
I will say I had a self date recently where I went to Vroman's. They have a bar there. And I texted Bria from there and I got a little drunk and I bought a big stack of haunted house books. Cause I was like, what do I want haunted house books? So this one is the House that Eats the Dead by Max, Doty and Bria. You're never going to believe this, but a family moves into their dream home and it's not their dream home.
- [33:43]
B
That's not what they wanted. Do they have moving boxes? Are they carrying those moving boxes in? And they're like, maybe we shouldn't move in?
- [33:51]
A
I love it. I make fun of it, but I love it. I eat this shit up. So, yeah, it's this family. It takes place in San Francisco. They move into this dream house and as they unpack their boxes, they sense that something is wrong. I'm laughing, but I love it so much. Apparently this house that they move into has some sort of hunger that they have to feed, which sounds really, really exciting. And yeah, the house is hungry and it's devouring anything that was once alive. And the new owners of the house will remember that. And only the owners of this house will remember that that the quote food ever existed. So this sounds fun. You know, I'm always looking for like fun new haunted house mechanics that I've never read before. And this just sounds like something cool and fun. I'm excited. All right, so folks, you gotta tell us which books you're excited about that are that's releasing this summer. Maybe a cozy mystery or a historical thriller for me perhaps that we missed on this list. But again, these are just the ones that we're most excited about. There is like 20 pages of books that are coming out and I don't just list the books, I list all the wheelhouses, the the genres. There's a lot of really cool stuff in there. Check it out and you could sen the books that you're excited about to reading glasses podcast gmail.com as always want to thank the wonderful mods who run our Discord server and our Facebook group. Remember, you want some tank tops to read books in by the pool or the beach or the lake, go to our Void merch store. There's totes the shirts. There's all kinds of fun stuff. Link in the show notes for that. And if you like the show, do something nice for us folks. Please rate and review us on the podcast listening app of your choice. It is so great for the show and great for our hearts. 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.
- [35:35]
B
Thanks for reading.
- [35:44]
A
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