Culture
Season 8, Episode 10: Squeeze Your Tenders + When Reading Gets Dangerous
In Season 8, Episode 10 of the Currently Reading podcast, hosts Meredith and Katie dive into their latest reads, highlighting the delightful 'Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon' by Beth Bro...
Season 8, Episode 10: Squeeze Your Tenders + When Reading Gets Dangerous
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Interactive Transcript
Speaker A
Foreign.
Speaker B
Hey, readers, welcome to the currently reading podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently. And as you know, we won't shy away from strong opinions. So get ready.
Speaker A
We are light on the chit chat, heavy on the book talk, and our conversations will always be spoiler free. Today we'll discuss our current reads, a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.
Speaker B
I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz. I'm both a mom and a Mimi and a full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And this week my biggest bookish wish came true.
Speaker A
And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona. And indie booksellers really know their stuff. This is episode number 10 of season eight and we are so glad you're here.
Speaker B
Oh, Katie, they do know their stuff.
Speaker A
They do. It's fun. You know what, Meredith? We have some mischief to manage today. And also I'm gonna let people know at the top of the show that I gotta be in my bonnet because I got a weird injury last week. So this week we are gonna talk about when we, when reading gets dangerous, the things that could happen to you while reading, why we should, we should be careful while we're reading. Yeah, this is one of those times where Katie just gets a little bit silly and a little bit ridiculous. And I hope you're all here for it. But first, like I said, a little bit of mischief to manage. This month we are doing the one ad that we do for ourselves at the beginning of every month. It is the first Monday of October. And this month I really wanted to highlight our bookish friends groups because not only do we have a group on Facebook, we also have one on Discord for those who are against the Facebooks for whatever reason. And they are just these like thriving, bubbly, beautiful communities. We get these amazing posts. We get bookish news constantly. We get people asking for recommendations when they're going through a hard time. We just had a very good friend in one of our Facebook groups ask this morning for recommendations for a hard time she's going through. And the community there is just something else. We cultivated it very carefully, but then it has turned into kind of a self feeding garden. Right? Like it's a group of people that love each other well, that always have amazing recommendations. So even if we can't get there right away to answer such and such question, oh my gosh. The bookish friends know. They know how to treat each other. They know how to give Amazing recommendations. They follow the rules that we set out well at the beginning, and it's just one of the best places on the Internet, so. So I wanted to highlight that this month because community and loving the people that you're surrounding yourself with feels more important than ever. And I just. I love the Bookish friends group, no matter where we find them.
Speaker B
Yeah. I mean it. There's so much about our Bookish friends group on Facebook, which is the where. Where I am involved that is so interesting to me because it's really the only thing that I do on Facebook. Right. But anytime I have an idea for the show, that's where I'm going to go to. Kind of put it out there and be like, what do you guys think about this? Or every time? Like, that kind of is my favorite place because even though there's almost 3,000 people in that group, it feels really safe. And also from the behind the scenes, we know we almost never get flagged for moderating anything, which in today's day, that's just shocking to me.
Speaker A
Right. And even when we do, probably 50% of the time, somebody hit it on accident. Yeah. They were like, oh, I meant to like it. And I hit report on accident. Like there's just. It just doesn't happen. Yeah. They know what they're doing.
Speaker B
Right. There's tons of respect. There's tons of love. So many bookish friendships have started there, including for me, honestly, some of my closest friendships right now track back to that group. I could name five friendships that are pivotal in my life right now that I wouldn't have met. And I didn't meet them because I'm a podcaster. I met them because I'm in that group just as a person.
Speaker A
Exactly. Exactly. Same here. Which enriches my life in so many ways. Yeah. So that's what we're offering behind the scenes. We've got this beautiful community and it is only open to Patreon subscribers, Bookish friends who support the show at the $5 a month level. That's the price of less than a cup of coffee anymore because you can't get one of those for under $8. So who is even pretending?
Speaker B
Right?
Speaker A
And you get that beautiful community. You get tons of bonus content. You keep the show commercial free. You can join us@patreon.com currentlyreading podcast. Excellent is our mischief for the month now managed, which means we can get to our bookish moments of the week. Meredith, what do you got for us?
Speaker B
Katie, this is a banner week. Breaking news as of like an hour ago, as of like an hour ago. Today is September 26th as we record. I will let you know that. And actually, I didn't even see it. It was multiple bookish friends in the bookish friends group tagging me saying that Louise Penny today posted to her Facebook, Instagram, wherever it was online, she herself that she was sitting down to write the next Three Pines book and all was right in the world. I about came unglued. I am not kidding you. I'm not being hyperbolic. I have had low level stress about whether or not the Black Wolf, which comes out in October, is. Was going to be the last book in the series for more than a year.
Speaker A
I.
Speaker B
And I have, I have in every way I have the ability to reach out to Louise Penny. I have reached out to ask the question. I've gotten no response because why would I. But today we find out that she is in fact, and she's like, we're in Three Pines. We're in the bistro where all of our characters are there. And I just was like, this is. First of all, I literally, like, my eyes watered up, my eyes teared up. Which take. That takes a lot for me, right? And I just was filled with so much gratitude that we are going to continue to get more Three Pines books. I mean, certainly no one would fault her if she quit at 20 because there would be a lot of, you know, a lot of reason for that. But I'm just so happy that we're going to get another one. Just new bookish life was breathed into me.
Speaker A
Resuscitated by a new book announcement. Oh, the best. That's the best. I love that.
Speaker B
Love it.
Speaker A
Okay, I have a double bookish moment this week. The first was that on Tuesday of this week, Meredith, you and I sat down with Stephanie Skies at Novel Neighbor to record the indie press list for October. It is always one of our favorite episodes of the year, but this year especially, and now we've done it four times. So I could say we did it all year long. Five times. We sat down with our booksellers from our anchor stores to include them in the episode. And that adds this special sparkly pizzazz to the episode in a different way. So I'm very excited always for the October indie press list. But to have Stephanie Skeez there, who has celebrity status in my mind, honestly with us, and to have her personality and her excitement over these books, be there with us live on Mike was just Chef's Kiss. And so when this episode releases, that will have already dropped in the Patreon feed. Which means if you join us today on Patreon, you will. You can get that October indie press list right away. My bonus bookish moment is I can't wait to tell you about this picture book that I'm just obsessed with right now. It's for parents, grandparents, teachers, anybody in the audience. It's called Don't Trust Fish by Neal Sharpson, illustrated by Dan Santat, who's one of my favorite people. This is one that my kids picked out at Dog Eared Books in Ames, Iowa. It's beautifully done, absolutely hilarious. It is a delight to read aloud, even multiple times. We all love it. Anali and Noah are like, I bet you wouldn't say no if we asked you to read Don't Trust Fish again, huh? I'm like, okay, fine, bring it over here. Like, it's so funny. And then by the end, you're like, like there's this little, like, twist right at the end. It's a picture book, it's not a twist. But it just makes me so happy. It delights me. So I just wanted to point it out. We do get questions like, do you guys have any that you would, you know, recommend for this age group? And this is great. Noah is 9, Amelie's 7. But I would read this to anybody from age 2 to 12 and they would all enjoy it. So.
Speaker B
Heck, I would enjoy it if you read it to me. Katie.
Speaker A
Honestly, I might. I might just read it to you, right?
Speaker B
I love it. That's a great. That's fantastic. And, and I just want a second. The October indie press list is spooky. Season gold. And also skis was wonderful. It was so fun to talk to her.
Speaker A
So fun.
Speaker B
I really like how we're bringing in our anchor stores to have these conversations. That's really, really increasing the episodes. It's just elevating it even more.
Speaker A
Yes, I agree. Absolutely. Okay, let's get into our current reads though. What have you got this week?
Speaker B
Okay. My. Oh, I'm so excited to bring this. I'm so excited to bring this. I am bringing a books. What it's bringing. I'm bringing a books called the Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon by Beth Brower. And I am bringing volumes one and two.
Speaker A
Okay.
Speaker B
Okay, here we go. Here's the setup. It's 1883 and our lead character is 20 year old Emma M. Lyon. And she has just come back to London to this delightfully odd neighborhood that she lives in called Saint Crispian's and she is There to reclaim her inheritance. What she has inherited is the gorgeous Lapis lazuli house, which is currently occupied by Emma's absolutely insufferable cousin Archibald. So Emma's plan is a quiet, studious life. But between her aunt Eugenia, who demands Emma's social compliance, a mysterious tenant who slides notes through cracks in the wall, and the quirky residence of St. Crispians, including a charming vicar, a very sexy vicar who quotes Shakespeare in his sermons, Emma's carefully laid plans go completely sideways. So these are charming journal entries and they help us see her navigating Victorian society with a very modern sensibility. It hits all of the right notes. I love it so much. Think Jane Austen meets Gilmore Girls with a dash of magical realism and you will be getting close to the delight that we're finding in in these books. So Roxanna pressed this book on me in that read this now, drop everything kind of way that she does every once in a while. And you've heard me say I drop everything and I pick it up. This one she said you have to do on audio. And let me tell you, she was absolutely right. I started with volume one. It's just four hours long at 1.0, so like a little over two hours the way I listen to it. And immediately dove straight into volume two without even pausing to make dinner. That's the kind of book that it is. That's why it's a books.
Speaker A
Okay, I get it.
Speaker B
Started with volume one, but then you have to go into volume two. Emma M. Lyon is the perfect female main character. She's genuinely funny, she's got real foibles that make her human. She's smart, she's industrious. I really like an industrious character. Right. She knows her own mind in a way that makes me feel like we would be friends in real life. And you know how sometimes you read a character and you're like, yes, this is exactly who I want to be spending my time with. That is Emma. Now she is dealing with these impossible relatives, financial disasters. Girl is baroque, but shouldn't be. And she's dealing with the social expectations of Victorian London. She's handling it all with this sharp wit that no never feels mean spirited. She just feels really observant. So the audio is great. The narrator is Genevieve Gaunt, who I think was in the Harry Potter movies, if memory serves. But she's doing something really special here. Her voices are next level good. Her voicing of the staggeringly awful Cousin Archibald somehow manages to be simultaneously hilarious and makes you want to Reach through your earbuds and slap him. It's a masterclass in character work. And then there's Emma's cousin Arabella, who I immediately texted Roxanna about because she's become my new favorite audio character since Millicent Squibb. The way that Genevieve Gaunt brings these characters to life elevates an already delightful book. It would be delightful no matter what form you did it in, but I just think the audio is making it extra special. Beth Brower is creating something that feels fresh but familiar at the same time. This journal format keeps things moving at a perfect clip, and the. The humor is appropriate to the period, but also modern enough to really make me laugh. And again, that neighborhood of Saint Crispian's becomes a character all in and of itself. It's a slightly magical London neighborhood where objects migrate between houses and everyone has a delicious secret. There's even a ghost, a Roman centurion ghost. This book is exactly as Roxanna promised. It's the perfect puttering book. Light and charming, with enough intrigue to keep you happily engaged while you're doing your chores. But it's got heart and substance. You're not just getting fluff here. Fair warning, once you start, you are going to want to binge the entire series. Volume one is really just your gateway drug into Emma's world, and you are going to want to stay there for a good, long while. I know that. I do. This is the Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon, volumes one and two by Beth Brower. And I am already listening to volume three. No apologies.
Speaker A
We're obsessed. I love that. It actually sounds like a great book for your upcoming travels. So. Yes. I feel like that was well chosen. Yes.
Speaker B
Puts you in that London kind of mood.
Speaker A
Also, I have. So I have Katie. Right. And Candace, and both of them are allowed to play like, a trump card with regard to my reading. Right. Like. Like, this is a recommendation or. No, right now I'm demanding, and they only do it, you know, maybe once a year, if that. But it. Like, I love having that person that knows you so well that they're like, listen, I know that right now it doesn't necessarily seem like this is the book for you, but I'm telling you, as your person, it's time. Go get it today. Okay. Yes, ma'. Am. And you do it. And then they're exactly right. Oh, it's so good. I know. It's good. So good.
Speaker B
It requires quite a bit of trust, though, so you have to.
Speaker A
Yes. It takes years to get to that point. Okay, my first book this week is from the Indie press list in March. I'm going to talk about Game of lies by Claire McIntosh. This is reality TV show based thriller and it was put on the indie press list in March by an unlikely story in Plainville, Massachusetts, one of our anchor stores. If you're not following them, and especially Bill, who does one minute with Bill or one hour with Bill, you're missing out. He's book boyfriend Bill. We love him, we trust him implicitly. If he says drop everything you're doing and read a book, honestly, I'd probably do it. He could play a trump card any day for me. Yep. Now I was already familiar with Claire McIntosh, the author, as I had read three by her, two thrillers and one poignant family story. But this is part of a series that I had not read yet. The series is known as the D.C. morgan series. It currently includes three books following the same detective for each of them. But when Bill joined us on the Indie press list, he assured us that we do not need to read them in order. So here I am bringing book two like an animal of the D.C. morgan series, not having read the first one because I trust book boyfriend Bill and he is right. Here's the setup. We start this book with a reality show. The premise is one of survival. The contestants are stranded in the Welsh mountains on a range that the host is unable to even pronounce because he doesn't speak Welsh. And the showrunners are trying to do something that's never been done before. Share this film in almost real time by turning around from filming and production to airing on TV in record time. The show is still happening currently, but people are voting live and they have no idea how it will turn out and who's going to survive. But while the contestants think they've signed up for a reality survival show like Surviving the Elements, the country finds out almost concurrently that they will have their deepest secrets released live on air if they're voted off the show, or if another player can correctly guess that secret. They are trapped. Their secrets are threatened to be exposed live to the entire nation. And on night one, a contestant disappears. DC Morgan, our main character, is called in to investigate and she has to untangle the reality show facade like all the nonsense around reality TV shows from the action on screen and the real people in front of her. When a murderer strikes the production as well, the stakes get even higher and she has to determine whose secret is bad enough that they would kill to keep it under wraps. I just started watching Traitors with my kids because I do everything two years later, after everybody else has already gotten obsessed with it. And that means I'm back in reality TV land. So this book was a great fit for my mood. I love getting a peek behind the scenes at reality show production. Whether it's a thriller, a romance, a family drama, or any other genre fiction, I will say that this one has quite a few characters to keep track of between the investigator, the contestants, the production crew, the family members, and more. There's like 30 people that you're kind of following through here. And that's also usually how I feel about reality TV shows. Like, can you give me a cheat sheet? Do I really need to know all these people's names? How many of them actually matter in both cases, reading and watching by the end, not many do, right? Because people are getting voted off or picked off or in this case killed off. Like eventually you got to whittle it down and Claire Macintosh gives us so much about each person that I was a little overwhelmed as I was reading it. However, that didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the story. I loved the guessing game. I liked picturing the scenes as they were shot, filmed and aired. And I pretty constantly love a UK setting, so all of those were big wins for me. I gave this one four stars. Overall, I would definitely read more about D.C. morgan, which is great because the next one in this series just came out in March of 2025, so I can continue as soon as I'm ready. This is Game of lies by Claire McIntosh.
Speaker B
Oh yes, I love Every once in a while we have a true thriller on the indie press list that always feels really good. I am bringing my second book as a part of my morning reads. I'm bringing another book of poetry, but this one is very different from other books of poetry that I've read before. And I loved it. This is called 44 poems on being with each Other by Padraig Ottooma. Okay, so I had never listened to the Poetry Unbound podcast, but if you have, then you already know Padre Gotuma has a gift for making poetry feel like a conversation with your most observant educated friend. Right? So in 44 poems on being with each Other he has turned his attention to the messy, messy but often beautiful business of human connection. This book feels felt to me like I had a personal guide to understanding how to navigate these poems right by my side. Because that's what he's doing here. He's taking 44 poems by authors as Diverse as Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton. And then he's doing what he does best. And I just learned that this is what he does so well. He sits with each poem unpacking not just what the poems say, but deeper than that, how they speak to our shared human experience of friendship and family and conflict. He's also digging into the mechanics of the poems themselves. And when he's doing that, he's unearthing things that I have never, ever known about poetry, that I would never have noticed about these poems overall. It's like a gentle, very self paced college class on poetry with a professor you adore. All right, you guys have heard me talk about lots of books of poetry recently. I am loving this new focus on poetry. And because I've talked about it on the show, I've had multiple listeners reach out with their own recommendations of their favorite collections, which I love and has been so helpful to me. Please keep doing that. This one was suggested to me by someone who I absolutely adore, Sherry Amorocho. And I'm so glad that she reached out. I love poetry, but it can feel intimidating as I'll get out, even to this English major. Which is exactly why this particular book hit me just right. Each poem gets this brilliant three part treatment that transformed the way I experienced it. First, there's this easygoing introduction that grounds you like someone setting up a story at a dinner party. Then there's the poem itself. And every single time that feels like unwrapping a gift. And finally you get these insights that somehow manage to be both deeply personal and make the experience of the poem completely universal. The real magic happens in those three to four pages after the poem. This is where Ottuma shows you things that you'd never catch on your own. Not because you're not smart enough, but because he's just good at noticing and he's studied poetry for a long time. What struck me most was how this collection builds this complete picture of human relationships in all of their messy glory. We're talking about love and loss. There's poems about the push and pull of family, the. There's poems about how we hold on to the past and those moments where we finally have the courage to declare who we really are. Each of the 44 pieces becomes a different window into the same question. How do we do this whole being human together thing? This isn't a book that you're going to race through in one sitting. It's more like having 44 really meaningful conversations that deserve to be savored. Sometimes I would read two or three in a row. Sometimes just one. Sometimes I read one multiple days in a row. The pacing, obviously, is entirely up to you, which is part of what makes it work so well for morning reading. What really got me, and this is crucial, is how accessible everything feels without being dumbed down. There's no condescension here. This is not Poetry for dummies. Instead, it's like being handed a really good flashlight in a beautiful but dimly lit room. Suddenly you can see all of the details that were always there. You just needed someone to help illuminate them. This is 44 poems on being with each Other, a poetry unbound collection by Padraug Ottooma. And I didn't know, Katie, that Padraug is Irish for Patrick.
Speaker A
It is. I read in the Shelter by him after it was on a listener press episode probably four or five years ago, I want to say. And it was just phenomenally beautiful. A balm, of course. But the way you're describing this one makes me think of a Swim in the pond in the rain.
Speaker B
Yes.
Speaker A
By George Saunders.
Speaker B
Yes.
Speaker A
And that, like, where you're taking, like, a college seminar, but not because you're not being taught. You're just being led alongside. Shepherded, maybe.
Speaker B
Yes, it is. It very much puts one in mind of that. And I loved Swimming upon the Rain. This one is much more feeling.
Speaker A
Yeah. Much more.
Speaker B
The better word would probably be emotional, emotive. Not feeling, but it. It is. And also, he's a little less professorial than George Saunders, you know, but this. But you're. You're close when you describe it that way.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Oh, it sounds wonderful. Okay. My second book this week is following through on a promise that I made two weeks ago, because I promised that as soon as I finished the Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown, I would bring it to the show.
Speaker B
Yes.
Speaker A
Uh.
Speaker B
Oh, but you're bringing it in in second position.
Speaker A
It's in the second spot. I was like, oh, no, she's gonna know right away.
Speaker B
But wait, hang on. Just in case people don't know this. And this isn't always true.
Speaker A
It's not always true.
Speaker B
Yeah, we kind of have a pattern, but it's not always true that if we really didn't like something, we will kind of put it in the second position. But I always want to start with.
Speaker A
A bang, and you want to finish with a bang. That's really what it comes down to. Right.
Speaker B
But I put all of my morning reads in the second position, and I.
Speaker A
Usually put my Non fiction in second position, even if I loved it. So it's not always true. Yeah, and sometimes we love all three of our books, so really it's not always true. Right. But here I am talking about the secret of secrets in second position. So a little history. Like many of us, I devoured the Da Vinci Code when it released, or shortly thereafter, which was in 2003. I was a young college kid reading mostly for school. But there was something unputdownable about that book for me. It combined my college major and minors and then my eventual master's degree. As symbols are so closely linked to language itself, and then we add in the religious and philosophical undertones. It was like a book written for me. You could not have pried it out of my hands with a crowbar. I have been chasing that stay up past my bedtime read until my eyes glaze over, shirk all other responsibilities high ever since. And in fact, I've stayed up to date on this series, which surprised me when I went back to look. And I've read all of Down Dan Brown's Robert Langdon books in the years hence. I was like, what, Katie? Did you block them out of your head? What happened? I thought for sure I'd been skipping them, but here we are. So it was only natural for me to pre order this one and open it with bated breath. There was something about the setup here that made me feel it was even more likely to scratch the itch that the intervening books had not. So let's talk about the setup. Robert Langdon, in this book, finds himself in Prague. He's attending a lecture by his longtime friend, but newly turned lover, Katherine Solomon. They met when they were both in graduate school and have stayed in touch ever since. But their relationship just recently turned physical. Like two days ago, right? Catherine is one of the foremost researchers of noetics, the study of human consciousness. Not neurology, the physiology of the brain and how it works, but the actual perception and understanding pieces of being human. It has long baffled brain scientists that we can hold so much information in a wrinkly five pound organ, and even more so that we can access that information so quickly. It defies the generally accepted laws of science and engineering. So Catherine is giving a lecture to that effect, revealing her newest research and has just finished up her first book and submitted it to the publisher. By the morning following the lecture, all hell has broken loose. A prominent brain scientist has gone missing. Catherine's manuscript has been hacked and stolen from the Penguin Random House servers. And Langdon has been arrested by the Czech police for a grave misunderstanding. All while Catherine herself is missing and a golem is secretly terrorizing the city. But Robert Langdon will not go down without a fight. He has to save himself and probably Catherine and maybe the town, the world, everybody, everybody. Because he's Robert Langdon. This is all quite promising, right? It sounds like a Dan Brown book. Yes and no. I refuse to go back and read the Da Vinci Code after all these years because I have a feeling I would be more critical of it now. Although I did just buy a copy for my eldest kiddo because I think he'd love it. In the years since his most recent book, before this one, Origin, released, we started the podcast and I know I've become a different reader than I used to be. I'm not against a popcorn book, a milkshake book, not at all. But I hate it when it feels like I'm being condescended to. The science is here, it's smart, it's interesting, and it got me thinking, which is what I want from a Dan Brown book. And ultimately what saved this one for me, the reason that I kept reading. But everything surrounding the science, the characters and the action of the plot. It's like he thinks we're too dumb to understand it. This book is nearly 700 pages long, and so many plot points are repeated that I felt like I was taking crazy pills a la Mugatu in Zoolander. It felt like he was telling us that human consciousness is amazing and not to be trifled with. But you, dear reader, have obviously forgotten that eight pages ago I told you this thing. So let me tell you one more time, over and over again. I was rolling my eyes at the italicized inner dialogue, the ways he repeated himself, the fact that he switched storylines and points of view five, seven times in a chapter, and the chapters were not even that long. What are we doing? Every point of plot that led to the next unbelievable decision had me close my eyes so that I would not sprain them. Now, I'm not a reading snob, not in the spite in the slightest. I love genre fiction in all its forms. Put it in my veins. But it feels like I've either outgrown Dan Brown or he has not grown. In the intervening years, he has stayed stagnant using the cliffhanger techniques and writing techniques that he Learned in the 90s. When he first started writing the previous two books in this series, I gave three stars and said they delivered on what they promised, although the writing was not good. Sadly for this one, I settled on two to two and a half. I found myself regularly wishing it would either end or get back to the interesting stuff rather than being inside Langdon's head. Gosh, especially when there's a lingerie scene. I was like, can we please not be in Robert Langdon's head for this? Oh, the immunity he has gained. Dan Brown has gained by selling millions of copies of his books over the years. Henled to his editor, letting him do whatever he wants instead of reining him in to something propulsive and concise and page turny. There was no reason at all for this book to be 700 pages. And I think if he had honed it in and polished it and stopped repeating his gosh darn self, I would have enjoyed it far more. And instead it was a giant whompsy doozy. This is the Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown. Ugh.
Speaker B
It's reminding me so much of what you said. Reminds me of how I felt when I read the new the Grisham that came out last. Last year.
Speaker A
Yes.
Speaker B
Where I was just like, who. Who let you do this?
Speaker A
Just. Just be retired. You made a lot of money. Just sit. Stop doing this.
Speaker B
Right.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
So I'm sorry that, that wasn't that great though.
Speaker A
Oh, it was so bad. But I also read the final 400 pages in one day. Right. I was like, well, I'm doing it, so I'm just gonna plow through. Yeah. And I. And I did. It was a fast read. It just made me want to poke myself with a fork and eyeballs sometimes.
Speaker B
It's not. Not a good trade off. But you made it through.
Speaker A
I did.
Speaker B
All right. I have an interesting one here that I liked very much. Perfect for spooky season. And it's short another one that's really good on audio. So I think this one is going to be kind of an under the radar pick that's going to be really good for a lot of people right now. This is a book called Wilding hall by Elizabeth Hand. Here's the setup. In the summer of 1972, a young British acid folk band called Wind Hollow Fair decides to go and just hole up at a remote English country manor to record their second album. Their original lead singer had recently died, so they really needed to kind of like get. Get themselves back together and find their new. Their new groove. So they head to Wilding hall and it's one of those ancient estates where rooms appear and disappear. There's strange music that drifts through the walls that date back to medieval times. And the air seems thick with something that you Just can't quite name the band. Who, who is Leslie, Will, Jono and Ashton and then their new frontman, Julian Blake, create what will become a legendary album that summer. But Julian, the new frontman, vanishes inside the mansion during the final days of their spending their time there and is never seen again. This book is told through documentary style interviews done decades later. Each surviving band member, plus their manager, a photographer and a psychic who visited that summer shared their version of what really happened. But nobody's story quite matches up. And the truth about Julian's disappearance is definitely stranger than any of them want to admit. Okay, this book came to me through Sadie Hartman's new book, Feral and Hysterical, which is fantastic and the best title. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest, it took me a little bit to figure out exactly what I wanted to say about Wilding Hall. Not because it was wasn't memorable, but because this is one of those books that really defies easy categorization. Because is it horror? Is it a rock memoir? Is it a ghost story? The answer is yes to all of those things. And yet it somehow all works. I tore through this book on audio in a single day. Rare for me. I'm much more of an eyes on the page reader.
Speaker A
But.
Speaker B
But there I was listening at every available moment. The book is short, just about 150 pages, but that is not why I finished it so fast. There was something genuinely hypnotic about the way that Elizabeth Hand structured this story through these documentary style interviews that pulled me forward. I love that structure. I, buddy, read this one with Betsy and thank goodness because when I hit the ending I, I needed to talk about it with someone immediately. It is that kind of book where as soon as you finish you need to talk about it and you're flipping back to page one or chapter one in your audiobook because you're like, wait, I now need to rethink everything that came before. Betsy and I each had completely different theories about what actually happened to Julian Blake. And hashing it out with her was one of my favorite parts of the story or the reading experience. We're still not exactly sure that we agree, but that's part of what makes this book so brilliant. As I said, the documentary format worked really well for me. Each member of the band remembers things a little bit differently. Sometimes their stories contradict each other, sometimes they align and you start to realize that maybe they're all telling the truth, but the truth that they experienced. Elizabeth Hand is not holding your hand, no pun intended, through any of this. She trusts you to piece it Together, which is kind of what you were just talking about. Katie. This is the opposite of you having like, dumb reader. Please follow me.
Speaker A
Please. Look, there's a breadcrumb. Did you see it? Yeah.
Speaker B
That is. I mean, there are breadcrumbs here, but she is trusting you to pick them up. The atmosphere here, this is why it's so perfect for this time of year. Because the atmosphere is so masterful. The house is a living, breathing presence in the story. Like I said, rooms exist one day or for one person, but then the next day or the next person, those rooms didn't exist. There's a minstrels gallery that everyone knows is there, but no one can figure out how to get into it. There's a sense of unease that is building up through all of these small and larger reveals. This is not just jump scare horror. This is not body horror. This is creeping dread that something is fundamentally wrong with this place, with this summer, with what's happening to these young musicians. This is a great book for anyone who does not want full on horror, but wants a little bit of ghost, a little bit of what's happening, but not so much that you can't turn the lights off. It's horror with training wheels, but in the best possible way. This slim, atmospheric novella reads like Daisy Jones and the six decided to spend a lost weekend with Shirley Jackson. And it was such a hit for me. This is Wilding Hall W Y L D I N G by Elizabeth Hand.
Speaker A
It sounds awesome.
Speaker B
It was really good and really, it was just like the perfect little spooky season confection.
Speaker A
I love that. Yeah.
Speaker B
And again, can I just underscore Feral and Hysterical? The new. The New Compendium by Sadie Hartman is Even better than 101 books to read before you're murdered. Like Betsy And I immediately started reading from that. From Feral and Hysterical.
Speaker A
Okay, okay. But it's still like a book of lists, right? It's still a compendium.
Speaker B
Yes, it's exactly.
Speaker A
Yes. Okay, good to know. Yeah, that title, gold star to her, the publisher, whoever chose it because phenomenal Chef's Kiss on that title. Okay. I also have a spooky season rec. For my third one, I am going to talk about Best Hex Ever by Nadia El Fasi, which is a play on sounds, of course, because it sounds like best sex ever. Right.
Speaker B
Is it a romance?
Speaker A
It is a romance. It's Orange, which is unique. This is light hearted and seasonal and spicy and fun. Dina is our main character. She is a kitchen witch who owns her own cafe. In London, where she creates pastries infused with magic. And her customers are seriously loyal to her. They love her stuff. She keeps her magic a secret though, so only a few of her friends know about it. So she'll, like, add a dash of nostalgia to her cinnamon rolls so that as you eat them, you feel like you're being transported back to your grandma's kitchen. And you're pretty sure it's just the flavor. But really, Dina put some magic in those cinnamon rolls, right? Even fewer of her friends know about the ex girlfriend she had that cursed her love life and made it so. Anyone she starts to catch feelings for ends up in danger with a string of bad luck that sometimes turns perilous. Which is why she cannot fall for anyone. Especially not the handsome new curator at the British Museum who just showed up at her cafe, Scott Mason. Scott is tall. Like really tall. Because they mention it every single time in this book. And that was the half star knockoff for me. I was like, okay, we get it. He's tall. Thanks, Nadia. He wears jackets with elbow patches. He's not fresh off a breakup, but he's still nursing his wounds. With his best friend's wedding right around the corner. He is determined to be the best best man that has ever best manned. Unfortunately, he is surprised to see Dina as the maid of honor after feeling those love at first sight feels at the cafe before he even knew her name. When Dina and Scott are repeatedly thrown together by the wedding events at this lavish English estate. Yes, please and thank you. It has a hedge maze. It has little cottages on the ground. Bring it on. Right? Their chemistry becomes undeniable, especially when they have to share one of those cute little two bedroom cottages. Because proximity breeds affection. But there's still the curse to contend with. So maybe, maybe we can get around that by making this a just for the weekend fling. Or maybe she can break the hex and make this fun last a little longer. Delightful. This is witchy, but not spoopy. It's fun and cozy with the baked goodies. It's got a wonderful setting. There's no scariness at all to this one, so it's perfect for the season, but it's not going to terrify you in any way. Or even spoopy. Terrify. Right.
Speaker B
Right. It's fall.
Speaker A
It's just fall vibes. It's just fun. Fall. Yes. I loved the characters. The spiciness is decent. Three and a half to four chili peppers. There's a. A wee bit of backdoor action, and there are plenty of spicy Scenes sprinkled throughout. So this is not a one and done skippable thing. And that's probably to be expected with a title like Best Hex ever. Right. So while I will not put this on my best Sex ever, top romances of all time list, I would absolutely say it's perfect for the season. And I loved it all the way through. It was a delight. I was so happy the entire time I was in this book and with Dina and Scott. This is Best Hex Ever by Nadia El Fasi.
Speaker B
That sounds charming, like something I will never read. But for the people who love that, perfect.
Speaker A
It is. It is charming. Even the COVID everything about it is very charming. I loved it. Okay. But, Meredith, we are done with our current reads, and now we are doing a Katy nonsense deep dive. Just when reading gets dangerous.
Speaker B
I love it when you have in the document when I go to prepare for the show and it just says Katie nonsense, because I know that it'll be great and I don't have to prep for it. I'm just along for the ride.
Speaker A
Along for the ride, exactly. Okay, so this deep dive, like I said, I sustained a small injury last week that turned a little bit ridiculous. I hit my thumbnail on a door frame. And instead of that just being the end of what should be a nothing story, I got a bruise under my thumbnail. And it swelled to the point that it was very bad. Things went very south very fast. It was yucky, but I was doing nothing. So sometimes things are dangerous, like touching a door frame that you wouldn't think would be. And we talk a lot about reading and how it is dangerous. Right. Which is why we ban books. Banned books are dangerous. They could change your mind. They could make you, I don't know, scary in some way. But there are actual physical things that could happen to you because of reading. And the first one is the one that everybody thinks of, which is that you can get paper cuts when you're reading. Yeah, nobody wants that. That's true. And they're painful and they're a readerly injury. We could upscale that a little bit. We can get into tendonitis and carpal tunnel if you're constantly holding up a book, nearsightedness or headaches, reading affects your eyes in a number of ways. We did learn this year that Katie has to wear reading glasses for the first time in her life. And now I feel like a real reader. Because real readers wear reading glasses. Right? If you keep your books up high, you could get a concussion or you could fall off a Ladder. Yep. It's getting more dangerous. Perilous.
Speaker B
My Wheel of Time books live on a very top tippy, top shelf.
Speaker A
Big heavy books and.
Speaker B
But I have them where they are so that I can look at them from where I sit to do most of my work. But I am constantly worried that one of them is going to knock me in the. Knock me unconscious.
Speaker A
And you could. I mean, it's dangerous when you've got something that's 5, 7, 8 pounds falling from a height. You just never know, especially multiple something up there. Great. Thankfully you don't live in California anymore.
Speaker B
Because earthquakes, I couldn't have them up on that shelf.
Speaker A
Yeah, it would be dangerous. Okay. This is actually one of my favorite ones. You could develop Popeye arms from holding a heavy book in one hand and using the other to turn pages. You could just have this giant forearm. Who wants to hang out with that person? Yeah. Nobody. Nobody. You could break a toe if you drop a bookend on your foot. I have beautiful bookends. I love them. Some are made of stone like agates and geodes, but man, those suckers are heavy and bookends are supposed to be heavy and toes are unforgiving. So you could break a toe. Be careful. You can break your ears from listening to audiobooks too fast. As we all know, this is an affliction that I do suffer from. Right. And it makes it impossible for me to listen to audiobooks at a normal speed like a normal person.
Speaker B
It has broken your brain.
Speaker A
It has broken my brain and my ears. If you read in bed, you could drop a book on your face. Yep. Break your nose. That would be terrible. A little bit more ethereal. We've got heightened levels of empathy. So you may be unable to control excessively emotional reactions to books. Whether that's tearing up or hysterical laughter or anything in between. Reading too many books at a time may break your ability to focus. And becoming so enraged at non matching books in a series that you develop a lifelong tick. That could really break a reader. That could really break a reader. When I look at my acotar books, they still just make me so angry because I have four that are all the same height and then I have a quart of silver flames and it doesn't match.
Speaker B
It's always silver flame.
Speaker A
Yep. Makes me so mad. When I asked my 12 year old, this is. This is my last little silliness here. This is a mini deep dive. When I asked my 12 year old, what would you say is a reading injury you could sustain from being a bookworm he said, paper cuts. And I said, that's boring, Give me something else. And he said if you close a book too fast, you could squeeze your tenders and that. Wait, what are your worst injuries?
Speaker B
What are your worst.
Speaker A
Well, I didn't want to say you're nuts, but that's what he's talking about. But it could apply to anybody that has tender places on the bottom section of their body. So he was very concerned that is an injury you could sustain while reading.
Speaker B
I mean, sure, if you do a lot of naked reading you could.
Speaker A
Right? Or like loose shorts, you've got some loosey goosey situation. I just thought it was so 12 year old boy that I was like, well, I'm definitely putting that in there. I love it. I love it.
Speaker B
Well, Katie, as we've been talking, I realized that I actually can think pretty easily of three specific reading related injuries that I have.
Speaker A
Okay, I like it.
Speaker B
So the first one I thought about is Johnny and I went on vacation to Half Moon Bay a few years ago. And the way that this hotel room and the bed was set up, there was a shelf that is like up behind the bed. Like there was.
Speaker A
That's not a good idea.
Speaker B
I. The long and short, it was fine. The long and short of it is I had put my kindle up there.
Speaker A
Oh.
Speaker B
And I actually really hurt my trapezius muscle in my back reaching up for it, thinking that it was. That it was closer than it was. So that was number one. Number two. You know those metal page flags?
Speaker A
Uh huh.
Speaker B
Have you ever stepped on one?
Speaker A
I don't know if I have. They lay so flat.
Speaker B
Well, this one had been like wrenched.
Speaker A
Gotten weight?
Speaker B
Yeah. I don't know exactly. It had gotten on the floor and somehow on the floor it had gotten bent and I stepped on it and it was really, really painful. Okay.
Speaker A
Did it cut you?
Speaker B
Yes, cut my heel.
Speaker A
Oh my goodness.
Speaker B
The third one, which was by far the worst and had me the most worried. I read a lot in bed, you know this. And I love to read on my side, especially now that I have my Kindle. My Kindle remote.
Speaker A
Yes.
Speaker B
And my stand that can flip it so that it's like the same angle as my head. I can do that for a really long time. Well, a couple of weeks ago I realized that my left eye was really painful. Like every time I move, like the muscle of my eye, not my eye, like pink eye, like the muscle of my eye was really painful anytime I moved it. And sometimes that's how I feel like when I'm getting The flu. Like, my eyes. My eye muscles will get that. Like, but it was only my left eye, like, fatigued.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
And I was like, I just can't figure. I was talking to my mom, and she was like, have you read on your side recently? And I was like, oh, my God, Saturday. It was just like, Monday, Saturday. I read a long time. She was like, you use. When you were little, you would lay on your side and read. Read books. But one, your. The side you're on would be close. That one. I was like, you didn't even realize you were reading with one eye. And so I read for, like, 90 minutes. And I think a goodly amount of that was with. With just my left eye. And as soon as she said that, I knew that was the reason. And, like, a couple days later, it completely went away. So. Reading injury. Read with both your eyes, people.
Speaker A
Oh, my goodness. Both eyes open. You might say both eyes open. The. The most recent actual reading injury that I had was I was so into the book that I was reading that I did not realize how uncomfortable I was. And when I got up my back, it didn't, like, seize, but it, like, cramped down one side of my spine because I had been, you know, tweaked, laying on the couch in the little scoop of my couch, and I was like, oh, my gosh. I didn't even realize that I was laying in this stupid way that I hurt myself while reading. Yeah. An idiot.
Speaker B
When I was a kid. I know for a fact that I walked into things when I. Because I would walk and read at the same time. I would, like, I have fallen down.
Speaker A
The stairs reading my Kindle. Yeah. And I was like, well, at least my Kindle was fine. Yeah.
Speaker B
Like, working to save your Kindle. And the fall down.
Speaker A
I'm like, look, it's safe.
Speaker B
I. I actually didn't have a lot that I thought was gonna come for me out of this, but they're reading is dangerous.
Speaker A
Oh, gosh, y'. All. It's so dangerous. Be careful out there.
Speaker B
Well, now, of course, you know that we want to hear about your reading injury, so we will post. Betsy will will post for us on Instagram. Let us know in the comments what your reading injury or injuries have been. I can't. I want to hear oh, my gosh.
Speaker A
And I'm going to share some of my favorites, for sure. I'm excited about this. Okay, let's move on over to the fountain and make some wishes. All right.
Speaker B
My wish is that more books would be in volumes. Now, why is it that A volume is different than a book in a series. I don't know. I don't. So obviously I'm talking about the unselected journals of MM lion, which I talked about at the top of my current reads. 2 or 3 hours of audio per volume in this one has like eight volumes. I think it's because it feels like you can you. It doesn't feel like a gigantic commitment. So it's almost like I can. Well, I can just do one and then it'll be fine. I can kind of like. And move on to something else. It can be a palette cleanser. It can be like a little in between spot. But if you're really into it, you can go into that next volume and you can add to your experience. But then you don't have to. Yeah, but then there's. It just goes on. It's not like a series book where they have to catch you up. It just is like it could be read all of a piece in a gigantic eight volume piece. I just really like this, this volume concept and I wish more authors would play around with it. It's really working for me.
Speaker A
Yeah, that's a great wish.
Speaker B
Yeah, it's fun. And like, does it have to be journals? I don't know. I mean it goes back to. Obviously the next thing that one would think of is the, the way that Charles Dickens wrote the cereals. You know, serialized. Right. Where you could, you had like stopping points. But then you also, if you had them available, you could read a bunch together like we're able to do. And I like this serialization concept is really feeling fresh. Feeling fresh. After, you know, four, 300 years, it's fresh again. And so I just like to see more people play around with it.
Speaker A
Everything old is new again. That's what happens. That's why the 90s are back. Amazing.
Speaker B
And people are talking about getting cable again. People are talking about getting landlines again.
Speaker A
Because. Because we're spending 150amonth on streaming services. Like why wouldn't we get cable and only spend 70? It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker B
Everything just goes in, in a circle.
Speaker A
History is a cycle. Okay, I am going to press a book this week, so I wish to press an immense world by Ed Yong into your hands. So as Katie and I finished up the Secret of Secrets, we were talking about the science in it. I told her I wanted to read more about consciousness as a science and get my head wrapped around it, but without Dan Brown being like, but did you remember that Langdon also saw this when he was over there. There are a few authors I feel could help me do that. Mary Roach, specifically. If she wrote a book about consciousness, it would be the best thing ever written. But who I'd really love to explain it to me is Ed Yong. Ed Yong is a fabulous writer who makes science that's hard to grasp, easy to understand. He did so throughout the early days of the pandemic with his writing in the Atlantic, and he does so here in an immense world with the way he dives into the ways that animals sense the world around us. The fact that he was able to take sensations and perceptions that human beings will never experience or understand and make it possible to get a grasp on them is astonishing. I've picked up my copy of this book so many times over the years since I first read it, just to flip through it again or look at the photo inserts or talk about certain pieces of it with other people. They just released a young reader's edition of it, so it will be a read aloud for for my children in our homeschool classroom. This is real science studies happening right now, further illuminating our understanding of the world. And it's also relatively easy to read and understand. I love a book that gives me a broader grasp of the world and its creatures and this one delivers in every way, so I hope more people pick it up. It's an Immense World by Ed Yong.
Speaker B
Awesome.
Speaker A
Awesome.
Speaker B
Love that context.
Speaker A
Ah, so good.
Speaker B
All right, Katie, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me I'm Meredith at meredithmonday Schwartz on Instagram and you can.
Speaker A
Find me Katie at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putabong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of Megan's reads.
Speaker B
Full show notes with the title of every book we mentioned in the episode and timestamps so you can zoom right to where we talked about them can be found in our show notes which always include every book we've talked about. Katie, do you know that there are shows that don't do that? I can't believe it. I'm so glad we do. I feel like it is incumbent upon us to do it and Megan is so good to do it.
Speaker A
They always have included so all seasons have always included every book, timestamp, every time stamp.
Speaker B
It's really, really amazing. You can also find them on our website where you can also do searches to find out like have they ever.
Speaker A
Talked about this book? Yep.
Speaker B
Our website@currentlyreadingpodcast.com is where you can do that.
Speaker A
You can also follow the show at Currently Reading Podcast on Instagram and tell us about your reading injuries or email us@currentlyreading podcast gmail.com.
Speaker B
And if you want more of this kind of content or if you want more bookish community like we talked about at the top of the show, you can join us as a bookish friend. It's $5 a month. It gives you all the content community and keeps this podcast commercial free. You can also help us out by rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts and shout us out on social media. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience.
Speaker A
Yes, bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
Speaker B
Yes, we're almost to 3,000 patrons.
Speaker A
Amazing.
Speaker B
All right, until next week, may your.
Speaker A
Coffee be hot and your book be unput downable.
Speaker B
Happy reading Katie.
Speaker A
Happy reading. Meredith.