Unabridged: Summer Reading Guide Companion Pod with Sara Hildreth

Summary

Summary of "Unabridged: Summer Reading Guide Companion Pod with Sara Hildreth"

Released on August 8, 2025, "The Stacks" podcast hosted by Traci Thomas presents a special bonus episode titled "Unabridged: Summer Reading Guide Companion Pod with Sara Hildreth." In this engaging episode, Traci teams up with Sarah Hildreth, the creator of the popular Substack newsletter "Fiction Matters," to delve into their respective summer reading guides. The conversation offers listeners a comprehensive look into their curated book selections, the rationale behind their choices, and exciting pairings that bridge fiction and non-fiction genres.

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1. Introduction to the Episode

Traci Thomas begins the episode by introducing Sarah Hildreth and highlighting their collaboration on summer reading guides. She emphasizes the unique focus of each guide—Sarah’s being a paperback-centric collection and her own centered around non-fiction works.

"She is the best at these guides if I do say so myself."
— Traci Thomas [00:00]

2. Background on the Summer Reading Guides

Traci shares the genesis of their summer reading guides, noting that both she and Sarah released theirs simultaneously in May. They initially discussed their guides during a Substack live session, which sparked the idea for this in-depth companion episode.

"We just have to keep talking about ours."
— Sarah Hildreth [04:34]

3. Anticipating Barack’s Summer Reading List

The conversation shifts to predicting the content of Barack’s upcoming summer reading guide. While recognizing that their discussion is recorded in July, they speculate on potential inclusions based on past trends and Barack’s literary preferences.

"I think he's gonna have that book that Brian Goldstone. There is no place for us."
— Traci Thomas [06:02]

"I think Flashlight by Susan Choi."
— Sarah Hildreth [06:19]

4. Exploring Guide Superlatives

Traci and Sarah discuss the concept of "superlatives" within their guides, categorizing books based on unique attributes such as shortest and longest reads, best books for specific scenarios like airplane reading, and more. This segment underscores their thoughtful approach to catering to diverse reader preferences.

"I have shortest and longest."
— Sarah Hildreth [08:38]

5. Highlighting Specific Books

Traci’s Shortest Book:

"Against Techno Ableism" by Ashley Shu
A brief yet impactful exploration of a world reimagined to prioritize the needs and desires of disabled individuals. Traci praises the book for its revolutionary ideas and the author's snarky, resilient voice.

"It's a super short book, which I really loved."
— Traci Thomas [09:18]

Sarah’s Shortest Book:

"The Wickedest" by Caleb Femi
A poetry collection that vividly depicts a monthly house party in South London through a blend of poems and multimedia elements, creating an immersive reading experience.

"It makes you feel like you're at, right, this party for the hour that you're reading it, which is very fun."
— Sarah Hildreth [10:49]

6. Discussing the Longest Books

Sarah’s Longest Book:

"Penmaric" by Susan Howitz
An expansive family drama set in Cornwall, inspired by historical British royalty. Sarah describes it as a sprawling 700-page narrative filled with intricate relationships and dramatic twists.

"It's this huge book. A very cheesy, like, 1970s cover on it."
— Sarah Hildreth [11:00]

7. Book Pairings Between Guides

Traci and Sarah explore creative pairings between their fiction and non-fiction lists, aiming to provide readers with complementary reads that enhance their summer reading experience. These pairings are designed to cater to varying moods and interests, ensuring a balanced selection.

"But then I was like, I'm not going to check the page count."
— Traci Thomas [09:02]

8. Additional Recommendations and Reflections

The hosts share additional book suggestions that, while not included in their guides, they believe would have been valuable additions. This segment reflects their ongoing commitment to curating comprehensive and diverse reading lists.

9. Encouraging Community Engagement

Traci concludes the episode by inviting listeners to join their communities on Patreon or Substack to gain full access to the episode, additional bonus content, and to support the creation of future content.

"So go to one of those two places, join us, get to hear the rest of this episode, and support the work that I do by being a part of these wonderful communities."
— Traci Thomas [12:16]

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Key Takeaways

• Diverse Curation: Both Traci and Sarah emphasize the importance of catering to different reading preferences, whether it’s selecting quick reads for short summer days or extensive novels for immersive vacations.

• Creative Categorization: The use of superlatives and thematic pairings showcases their innovative approach to book selection, making their guides both functional and engaging.

• Collaborative Spirit: The episode highlights the synergy between the hosts, blending fiction and non-fiction perspectives to offer a well-rounded summer reading plan.

• Community Focus: By encouraging listeners to join their Patreon or Substack communities, Traci and Sarah foster a sense of belonging and continuous engagement with their audience.

Notable Quotes

• "It's super short. And it's really fun and interesting. So it's about a house party in South London called the Wickedest that happens once a month."
  — Sarah Hildreth [09:53]

• "Against Techno Ableism by Ashley Shu is a super short book, which I really loved."
  — Traci Thomas [09:18]

• "She is gonna have some thriller, and he's not gonna have a romance novel, so just everyone pipe down, I think."
  — Sarah Hildreth [07:04]

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This episode serves as a valuable resource for book enthusiasts looking to expand their summer reading horizons. Through thoughtful discussion and expert recommendations, Traci Thomas and Sarah Hildreth provide listeners with curated insights into selecting books that resonate with their individual tastes and summer lifestyles.

Transcript

[Tracy Thomas]

Hey y', all, it's me back with another book to tell you about. If you love contemporary retellings of classic novels like James by Percival Everett, then let me tell you about your next favorite book. It's called the Great man and it is a retelling of the Great Gatsby, but it is set among the black upper class of post war Los Angeles and is inspired by real life historic events. It follows Charlie Tramiel, a young veteran who is lured by his cousin Marguerite to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Louisiana's newly rechristened Sugar Hill, a place for black elites. As Charlie navigates a landscape rife with ambition, betrayal and societal turmoil, he soon finds himself beside the dazzling James Reaper man, facing a pivotal decision that could end in and tragedy. Whether you've read or not read the Great Gatsby, you're gonna like the Great Man. The Great man is out now. It is by Kira Davis Lurie and you can find it wherever books are sold. Hello. Hello everybody. It is me, Tracy Thomas, the host and creator of the book podcast the Stacks. I am here today with an extra special bonus bonus episode. That's right, double bonus. I am joined today by friend of the podcast you all know and love, Sarah Hildreth. She is the reader and brilliant mind behind Fiction Matters on Substack. She also runs a fantastic Patreon and this year she and I both released summer reading guides. Her summer reading guide is her paperback reading guide. It's all paperback books. She is the best at these guides if I do say so myself. Mine is a non fiction reading guide. It is only my second guide. I'm still figuring it out, but it is so much fun to make and today Sarah and I are going to talk about our reading guides together. We're going to give you superlatives from our lists like our most unique book, our best book to read on an airplane, the longest books on our guides. We're also going to give you some pairings from our two guides. It's a really, really fun time. If you are already a paid member of my or Sarah's Substack or Patreon, you already have access to the guides and you'll hear this entire episode. If this episode cuts off about 10 minutes in, that means you're not a paid subscriber. You need to join either my or Sarah's community on Patreon or Substack. I have left you links for all of that in the show Notes. Join get the reading guides, hear the episode plus get all of our other Extra special bonus content like book clubs and thoughts on reading and literature. I promise you, I'm a paid member of Sarah's platform. It is worth every single dollar, and I hope that mine is worth it because I put a lot of work into it. It also helps make the stacks every single month. So if you can go to Tracy thomas.substack.com or patreon.com the stacks, you can join my community. You can join Sarah's communities by going to Fiction Matters substack.com or going to her [e-mail] Fiction Matters. Okay, that was a lot of information. I know, because there's two of us. But now it is time to dive into our summer reading guide. Behind the scenes, Superlative conversation, amazingness. Three, two, one. Okay. Hi, everybody. It's me, Tracy, and I'm here with Sarah Hildreth and from Fiction Matters. You know, and we're. We're doing. We just, like, made up this idea and we're gonna do it. So I'll do a quick backstory, which is basically, as you all know, we released our summer reading guides in May on the same day. And that day we did an Instagram live or no, it was a substack live, don't sue me. And we talked about our guides, whatever. And at the end, Sarah was like, I have some ideas for some pairings that would be fun between our guides. And then we sort of like, okay, let's do it later. So here we are. Now, today, we're going to talk about some pairings we have for our guides, but also give some guide superlatives, share some other books that we think, like, maybe could have been on our guides had we read them soon enough. And also, we're going to reserve the right to do whatever we want.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

So, yeah. So, Sarah, Hi. Welcome.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Hi. Yeah, I'm so excited because since Barack has not released his summer reading guide yet, we just have to keep talking about ours.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah. And we're recording this in July, but when you're listening in August, Brock might have released his list. So while we're here, what do you think will be on Barack's list?

[Sarah Hildreth]

Ooh, that's such a good question. Is it always new books?

[Tracy Thomas]

Most, no. Sometimes he does backlist. He usually does, like, I feel like Doris Kearns Goodwin. Whatever was on, I think he does a mix. But recently, maybe it has been last year. All I remember are the new books. But last year, he did it different than he's ever done it before because.

[Sarah Hildreth]

He did his like summer reading guide and then his best books. Right.

[Tracy Thomas]

He did his summer reading guide and then he did his best books, but then he was like, oh, no, I just didn't want to include the same books in the winter. But normally he does his summer reading and then he does his best books that include the summer books too.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Okay. Okay.

[Tracy Thomas]

So it looks like last year, his favorite books of 2024. Last year that's like the second list were all 20 books. What do you. Okay, so what do we think will be on there? I. I think he's gonna have that book that Brian Goldstone. There is no place for us. The book about the working homeless or. Yeah, the working homeless. I think that would be. That feels Barakian. And it's also gotten a lot of play, so I feel like.

[Sarah Hildreth]

I think he'll have maybe either audition or the Mobius book. I feel like he always has, like, one that's very much like. I. I read literary fiction. I read.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah.

[Sarah Hildreth]

And I read by women. Yes, yes. So maybe one of those. I think Flashlight by Susan Choi.

[Tracy Thomas]

Oh, you think?

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yeah, I think so.

[Tracy Thomas]

Okay.

[Sarah Hildreth]

There's a lot of history in it that feels like it would be.

[Tracy Thomas]

I could interest him. I. I never know. But he's also gonna have, like, essay Cosby on there or something, you know, like, he's gonna have some, like, thriller, and he's not gonna have a romance novel, so just everyone pipe down, I think.

[Sarah Hildreth]

I mean, the Ministry of Time might be the closest he's gotten.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yeah. But it was also one of the worst books he's ever put on his list. He's also gonna probably have like, that new book about Mother Emanuel church called Mother Emanuel. I could see that being on there. You know, his, like, non fiction tastes are usually, like, sort of political, but not political enough to sort of implicate him in any way, you know?

[Sarah Hildreth]

Right, right.

[Tracy Thomas]

Like, he won't have like the new book about the. The election, but he'll have.

[Sarah Hildreth]

He won't have one day.

[Tracy Thomas]

I don't think so. Maybe he has original sin. That seems like something Chicago.

[Sarah Hildreth]

I would love that for Ewing. Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

I don't. He's always so hard, and then he's gonna have something where I'm like, like, really? Okay. But I mean, not even that. It's not good, but like, I was pretty shocked by God of the Woods. I was like, oh, okay.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yeah. Well, that was his thriller or his.

[Tracy Thomas]

That was his thriller. That's true.

[Sarah Hildreth]

That's true. Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

Okay, well, let's see how we do. Okay, but enough of him. You put together some superlatives for us to go through from our guides and then. Do you want to start there?

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yeah. So I tried to just think of like, I don't know, the number one. I tried to think of books that I wanted to highlight from my guide and then the superlatives that they would fit.

[Tracy Thomas]

Well, you definitely picked superlatives where I was like, this doesn't happen in nonfiction. Like most drama. I'm like, they all have drama. But I did, I did come up with an answer. Okay, I should have added some that were more nonfiction.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Well, maybe as we go, you'll. You'll think of some and then I'll do my best to answer. But then also I tried to think of things that people like, ask me or that, that people tend to kind of home in on while they're deciding what to read. So some of them are like, very straightforward and others are a little bit more like mood based.

[Tracy Thomas]

Okay. So. Okay.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Often in the summer, people, at least in terms of fiction, I feel like people either want a really short book they can finish in like one afternoon.

[Tracy Thomas]

Right.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Or the long book that they're gonna take on vacation with them and read all week.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yes.

[Sarah Hildreth]

So I have shortest and longest. So what's the shortest book on your list?

[Tracy Thomas]

So I didn't actually check the page count.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Mine is more feeling of shortness.

[Tracy Thomas]

Yes. I went because there was a few books I was like, that's also really short. Or like that's also long. But then I was like, I'm not going to check the page count. And also with non fiction, what you run into is the end notes.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yes.

[Tracy Thomas]

Like, like I just read a book that had over a hundred pages of end matter.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

So it's like a 600 page book, but it was really like a 400 page book. So anyways, my shortest is Against Techno Ableism by Ashley Shu, which is a super short book, which I really loved. And it's all about like, what if we imagined a world around disability that actually took disabled people's needs and wants into consideration? Revolutionary. And she's also really like snarky. She's. She's like a tough cookie, which I really like. So that's my shortest. What's yours?

[Sarah Hildreth]

Mine is the Wickedest by Caleb Femi. And this is, I mean, it's basically, it's a poetry collection. So it's super short. I think I read it in an hour. Like page count wise, it might be a little bit longer than some of the others. But, you know, in terms of Actual words. Yeah, Definitely the shortest. But it is. It's really fun and interesting. So it's about a house party in South London called the Wickedest that happens once a month. And he just tells the story of the party through poems. And also, like, pictures. There are pictures of, like, people. People dancing. And then there's like, the permit request to have the party is, like, in there and somebody's notes app is in there, some text message exchanges. So it's almost like this collage.

[Tracy Thomas]

It's like multi media.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yeah, it's. It was really, really cool. It makes you feel like you're at, right, this party for the hour that you're reading it, which is very fun.

[Tracy Thomas]

What's your longest?

[Sarah Hildreth]

My longest is this book called Penmaric by Susan Howitz. And we actually. I read this on my Kindle. It's available on Kindle Unlimited. But then I found a copy when we were together.

[Tracy Thomas]

Oh, yes. It's the one that's, like, out of print or something.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yeah, yeah. And it's this hu. Like, huge book. A very cheesy, like, 1970s cover on it. And it's this family drama about a house named Penmaric in Cornwall that everybody is vying for and this man who marries the wrong woman and then meets another woman, and then these multiple families. And this woman, Susan Howage, she writes these, like, family dramas that are inspired by historic British royalty. So she'll, like, take the story of, like, you know, Richard the Second or whatever and then translate it into slightly more modern.

[Tracy Thomas]

Oh, my God.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Dramatic. I know. She has a whole series and I think she was very popular in, like, the 70s. And it's 700 pages.

[Tracy Thomas]

Oh, my gosh.

[Sarah Hildreth]

Yeah.

[Tracy Thomas]

Foreign. That is the end of this bonus teaser. If you were liking what you were hearing, you can listen to the entire episode by going to either patreon.com the stacks and joining the Stacks Pack, getting access to the Discord, being able to participate in our virtual book club and. Or you can go to Tracy Thomas substack.com and subscribe to Unstacked, where you're going to get my writing about books, pop culture. You're going to get other exclusive author interviews and of course, these bonus episodes. So go to one of those two places, join us, get to hear the rest of this episode, and support the work that I do by being a part of these wonderful communities. Thank you so much, and I'll see you in the stacks.