JILL JACLIN: And then I reserve the right to come back to you, Anne, and say, “No, these are the ones I like. Can you give me more informational ones that are story-like?”

ANNE BOGEL: That would be a fun conversation to have.

Hey readers, I’m Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that’s dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don’t get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we’ll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

Readers, our Summer Reading Guide is just a few weeks away from landing in inboxes everywhere. As always, we’re celebrating this reading season with a live unboxing party, and there are three ways to attend and get your own digital copy of the guide.

[00:00:59] Our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club and What Should I Read Next? Patreon community members are invited to join us as an included membership perk. We’re also offering our popular a la carte tickets again for 2025.

This year, we are also offering a special add-on, our Summer Reading Guide printed booklet. This is a beautiful, analog, real-life, magazine-style copy of the guide that you can annotate with pens and tape flags, take to the beach or park or library, and use to track and plan your reading all summer long. Add it to your order and check your mailbox once it ships after May 15th.

To get in on this year’s Summer Reading Guide action, go to modernmrsdarcy.com/srg, that’s for Summer Reading Guide, to order yours today. That’s modernmrsdarcy.com/srg. Please note, due to the current uncertainty about all the things, our small business is only able to ship to U.S. addresses right now. Thank you for understanding.

[00:01:59] Readers, today I’m excited to talk books with Jill Jacklin, an avid reader, retired social worker, and What Should I Read Next? completist who lives in New Jersey.

Jill is here in search of help for her reading conundrum. She has struggled to find a way to incorporate more nonfiction into her life. She enjoys reading widely and especially loves fiction, but in her own words, she also knows that there are nonfiction books out there that will educate her if only she would take the time to read them.

In fact, she’s got a whole bookshelf full of books that she’s acquired but hasn’t touched. Can I help? Well, today it’s my pleasure to try.

Let’s get to it.

Jill, welcome to the show.

JILL: Thank you so much, Anne. It’s such a pleasure to be here.

ANNE: Oh my gosh. And thank you for answering our call. So, listeners, you wouldn’t know this, but I had a recording canceled at the last minute this week as we’re talking. And as we have done before, but not for a while, we put out a call to our patrons to say, Hey, who can record in two days at X time? And Jill, you answered the breach and said, “I can help you out.” So thank you so much for that.

[00:03:10] JILL: My pleasure. This is a New Year’s resolution, Anne, so you helped me complete that right off the bat.

ANNE: Oh my gosh. Before the halfway point.

JILL: Exactly.

ANNE: Well, usually we record four to six weeks in advance because that way we are still ready to put an episode in your feeds on Tuesday if somebody gets the flu, if I lose my voice as I often do during pollen season. We’re running on a shorter lead time because it’s Summer Reading Guide prep season and also I was just out of town on spring break.

So we were running on a thinner margin than usual. In case you’re thinking, why did that matter? That’s why that mattered. And we often take our needs, when we need help, to our patrons. So if you’re part of that community, thank you so much for being there as our safety net. We really appreciate it. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext? So Jill, I’m grateful for all our patrons and for you and the path that brought you to the show today.

[00:04:10] JILL: Thank you. So excited to be here.

ANNE: All right, let’s jump in. Tell us a little bit about yourself. We’d like to give our listeners a glimpse of who you are.

JILL: I am in my mid-50s. I live in New Jersey. I am a retired social worker, married, two children and a dog. I spent the past number of years doing a lot of volunteering for a local social service agency. I am at the point I’m an empty nester. And so my husband and I have been able to do a lot of travel. He travels for work. So I’ve had the benefit of doing really fun things with him. And I’m an avid, avid reader, and a What Should I Read Next? completist?

ANNE: Well, thank you for that. Jill, tell me a little bit about your life.

[00:05:02] JILL: I started reading very young. In fact, I still have my original Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White sitting on my shelf, that gives me a lot of pleasure to look at. I would say I read off and on through college or graduate school, having young children.

But when we moved to the town that we’re in, I started a book club in 2007. And we are hardcore. We talk about the books. We meet every other month. I would say also started listening to “What Should I Read Next? in 2019. And since then, I’ve really been immersed in the reading life.

I’m an avid library user. I also have my collection of books at home. And so I may read a book from home, read a library book, and I go back and forth to try to bring down that TBR. Also, I attend author talks. I go to book festivals.

And I read widely. I am not the type to read constant historical fiction or romance. For me, I have to vary. There’s a few genres I don’t read at all. I’m not a horror reader. I know that you’re not either. And I tend not to be a dystopian reader. But other than that, I am open to reading anything, as long as it’s well-written. I guess that’s subjective what I consider as well-written.

[00:06:22] ANNE: Oh, does that make it hard to pick?

JILL: Sometimes. Sometimes it makes it hard to pick. It’s funny when I hear people talk about they’re in a reading slump. So sometimes, you know, you sort of get paralyzed. You’re looking at a whole thing. And I will just literally close my eyes and just pick something and know that it’ll work or it won’t work. I’m not afraid to, you know, put a book down. But yeah, I just sort of keep moving forward.

ANNE: That reminds me of a conversation I was having with Leigh on our team this past week. We weren’t actually talking about work. We were just talking about what we were reading. But we were discussing the idea that no reading is in vain. Like, you always learn something.

JILL: Exactly.

ANNE: Well, I’m really excited to hear more about that today. Now, Jill, I halfway know the answer to this question, which is I’m wondering what brings you to the show today. But I know that coming on What Should I Read Next? was on your mind before that Patreon call. What brings you to the show right now? What’s on your readerly mind is what I want to know.

[00:07:24] JILL: Obviously, we’re going in the direction of how I submitted it. And it’s funny that I avoided it, because that brings to why I’m here. So in my bookshelf, I have one or two shelves that are nonfiction. And I don’t mean memoirs. To me, I know memoirs are nonfiction-ish, but they go into my fiction shelves. But my nonfiction books, a book by Gretchen Rubin, a book by Sanjay Gupta, those books that sound interesting to me, just sit there. You know, a book about food. I want to be able to read them and I just don’t pick them. And they just sit there.

And so I love to be able to go through my fiction and be like, “I’m going to pick this. I’m going to pick this,” but I’m literally walking away from my nonfiction. And I know I might enjoy some of them, but I get a little bit paralyzed.

ANNE: Ooh. Okay, cue me thinking about ditching everything we have planned for this episode. Like, I was wondering if you could text me a photo of those shelves.

JILL: I could.

[00:08:25] ANNE: So, listeners, what just happened is Jill went and texted me a couple photos of her nonfiction shelves. But Jill, I think your reading life is your reading life. Let’s talk about the fiction books you brought today so that we can identify any barriers to what’s keeping you from picking these nonfiction books up or… you know, I’m really wondering how much of this is a structural issue with habits and how you think about what you want to read and when you want to read it and how much is not being psyched about the books that are waiting for you?

JILL: Yes. Yes, to all.

ANNE: I think both of those are surmountable. But, I mean, we got to understand before we can move forward. Rolling up my sleeves. Let’s do this. You brought three books you love, one you don’t, what you’ve been reading lately. How’d you choose these?

JILL: I looked at the past two years, right, because I could go back decades, and I wanted to bring books that represented what I like when I’m reading.

ANNE: Okay.

[00:09:28] JILL: Two of them. Two of them are in print, one is an audio.

ANNE: Perfect. What’s the first book you love?

JILL: So the first book, and this was I read in print, was The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard.

ANNE: Oh, okay. True confession. I’ve been meaning to read her for years. I haven’t. Ginger says I should. I think she’d be a great book club author, potentially, but I haven’t read her yet. Okay, so tell me everything.

JILL: Somebody had recommended it to me. I had never heard of her. I love reading about the choices that people make. And when I say that, it’s funny. It’s like people can make all kinds of choices, and you can’t judge them. But the choices that people make that I find so interesting are things not necessarily that I would do. It’s not that they’re aspirational. It’s that, wow, I can’t believe somebody has done that.

The lead character, Irene, had a traumatic experience when she was younger and she decides to leave everything and goes to a country that’s not named. I believe it’s Central America. And it’s her experience at this hotel called The Bird Hotel.

[00:10:33] There’s magical realism, which I love. There’s a touch of. There’s emotional resonance. It’s great storytelling. I loved the characters. I totally had a rooting interest. And it kept you to the end. There was some suspense. I thought it was beautifully done. I haven’t read any more of Joyce Maynard, but I’m really looking forward to it. So yes, loved The Bird Hotel.

ANNE: Okay, thank you for that. Jill, what’s the second book you love?

JILL: I read it recently, but it is a bit of an older book. It’s The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. This was written in the late 90s. Everybody probably knows her recently from Demon Copperhead. But this was an incredible book.

Stories told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, who is an evangelical Baptist, who took his family to Belgian Congo in 1959. Literally, this book could be a course in a college setting. Every sentence. It’s not even that… I don’t necessarily need a book’s sentences to be beautifully written in that description and all that, but her sentence structure and how she tells a story is just incredible. It’s almost indescribable. Nobody tells a story like she does.

[00:11:52] The language. And there’s everything in there. There’s history. There’s a little bit of suspense. There’s hope. It’s all together. You definitely have a rooting interest. It’s an incredible book, an incredible story. I’ve heard you say this before, Anne. It’s how you read a book, if you will. And this is a book you really have to sit and read. You’re not breezing through this book. And it’s just an incredibly well-written story. And I loved it.

ANNE: Okay. What’s the third book you love?

JILL: So this one was an audio. This was Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. And oh my gosh, loved it on audio. I love audio often for the performance factor. If there is a book that I try reading and I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but everybody says it’s good, I’ll switch formats. And if it is done well on audio, oh my gosh, it changes the entire experience for me.

[00:12:51] So Vera is a 60-year-old tea shop owner who becomes an amateur sleuth when she finds a dead man in her tea shop. I loved it. I love the story. I love the way it was narrated. It just was so fun for me.

ANNE: I’m glad that worked for you. I read that in print, and now I’m very curious about the performance factor of the audiobook.

JILL: Definitely recommend.

ANNE: Jill, what book was not right for you? And I’d love to hear, did it not align with your taste? Was it bad timing? Was it about a topic that wasn’t for you?

JILL: I don’t finish a lot of books if I’m not enjoying them, but this was a book that lots of people talked about. I believe it might have been in the Summer Reading Guide. The premise, I thought, was great. So it was The Husbands by Holly Gramazio.

Again, I thought the premise was fun. There is definitely, I guess, a magical realism element. I just didn’t love the execution. It sounded a little silly to me. Maybe it was too surface for me. I was super curious. I pursued it because I was also curious to see how she was going to end it. And I just left me not loving the ending and just kind of meh.

[00:14:05] ANNE: Okay. You didn’t love the execution. Do you have a sense if that came down to like plotting choices, like the direction the story went, or if it had more to do with the tone and emotions in the story?

JILL: I actually think it was both. I think it was the tone and emotion. It probably was more plot-directed but I do think the tone was a little like, where is she going with this, in terms of just how she was talking about like… almost a little flip, maybe in terms of with the different husbands and with her emotions. I think I needed a little more depth.

ANNE: That was in the Summer Reading Guide. I love that book. And also, I’m noticing how the tone of The Husbands is very different from what you’d find in Joyce Maynard, Barbara Kingsolver. I think it’s more similar to Jesse Q. Sutanto.

JILL: Right. And it would have been interesting if I would have listened to it on audio if I would have felt differently. I thought about that too.

[00:15:08] ANNE: That’s an interesting question. High fives for realizing that that’s a potential factor there. So with the open question in the audio, what I’m wondering is if you were looking to the story to have a more ostensibly reflective experience.

JILL: Mm, I like that. Yes.

ANNE: I mean, it’s just an idea.

JILL: Yeah. No. I think so. I think you were right. I think I… Yes. I mean, you’re talking about a husband, right? You’re talking about somebody who’s coming down as your husband. Yes, I think so.

ANNE: Coming down. Coming down from the attic.

JILL: Sorry. Thank you.

ANNE: Many husbands come down from the attic one by one in this weird sort of… it’s not exactly a time loop, is it? It’s been a year since I read it.

JILL: It’s been a year since I read it.

ANNE: But there’s definitely some serious unreality happening in this book.

JILL: Yes. I was super excited because I thought the premise was great. But yeah, I think you’re right, the reflective bit of it… yeah. I thought the writing was fine in terms of just the sentence structure and all that. Perhaps listening to it might have had a different feel for me.

[00:16:17] ANNE: Maybe. That’s an interesting question. Jill, what have you been reading lately?

JILL: I just finished Not Our Kind by Kitty Zeldes, which I enjoyed. I finished the new Patti Callahan Henry, The Story She Left Behind, which I also enjoyed. Recently read State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny, which was loved. That was a five-star for me.

Listened to When in Rome by Sarah Adams, which was also amazing. And How to Read a Book by Monica Wood that I know Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club read and I also read for my book club, which also loved.

ANNE: There’s some good variety there. I’m noticing that none of that is nonfiction.

JILL: And you would be correct.

ANNE: Okay. That’s really helpful to hear your books. Now, would you share more about your dilemma with those laid out on the table in our beautiful library?

JILL: Right, right. I have a shelf.

ANNE: Some mood lighting?

[00:17:19] JILL: Yes. So I do have a shelf of books, everything from lifestyle to politics to some medical, some self-help. Something drew me to them and I thought they were interesting, but I don’t reach for them. I think it’s the whole notion of, are they going to read like a history book? Is it just going to be facts? Am I going to be annoyed? And I know we all take chances on fiction books. It feels more, I don’t know, more of a leap to do these nonfiction.

But with that being said, I have a shelf full of books. So either take one out, read it, read a part of it, like it, don’t like it, but make a decision. And I’m just not doing it. And so, yeah, I would like to incorporate it. Also, I know we talk about books that educate us. And while in fiction, clearly we get educated, I do think I have the time to read more books that will be educational, and I’m just not. And I would like to. Or I believe I would like to.

[00:18:28] ANNE: Okay. How did these books come into your life?

JILL: That’s a great question. So it’s either a recommendation from, let’s say, the New York Times Book Review or it’s something on social media, or… so the Gretchen Rubin book, her newest, I thought just seemed very interesting. I think it’s more along there. There’s nothing specific where I’ve heard about them.

ANNE: Did I hear you say that these are books that you’re interested in reading for information?

JILL: Yes.

ANNE: Gosh, this sounds… oh, I don’t like the question that’s about to come out of my mouth. But what is your purpose in reading the books that we just discussed, the fiction books? It could be a trick question. You could have a different purpose for every single one.

JILL: That’s fine. Well, I will tell you. So the Poisonwood Bible literally sat on my shelf probably for 15 years. And the only reason I picked it up at the time is somebody suggested it for our book club. I said, “Okay, I guess I’m now reading the Poisonwood Bible,” because it felt daunting to me.

[00:19:36] The Bird Hotel was recommended to me… Actually, it was my mom, who is an avid reader. And she said, “You need to read this book. I’m buying it for you.” I said, “Okay, I guess I’m reading the book.” So that was that one.

The Vera Wong is… it’s interesting on the audio. I get a lot of my recommendations, whether it’s from your podcast or from your different reading guides, because I just never know what’s going to sound good on audio. It feels more risky for the audio. And so this was…

ANNE: Sorry, I’m kind of giggling because I relate to that.

JILL: Right. Well, I know it wasn’t you. I get you didn’t read it. You know what? I guess you read it in print. Somebody read an audio, or I’ve just said, “You know, I’m going to try an audio.” I don’t know. But I’m much more hesitant to take risks on audio. Even though I have two subscriptions, I have Libro FM and I have Audible.

[00:20:30] ANNE: I hear that. I love this question. I think I specifically love this question because I relate to this struggle so much.

Jill, I’m thinking there are two ways we could approach this. One is we could decide which books on your shelf best fit your reading taste, or which other books that are out there best fit your reading taste. That would be about finding the right books.

Something else we could do is find a space for these books to happily, or at least peacefully, exist in your reading life. I mean, we could create a different way for you to think about when and why you’re reading these. I’m wondering what you’re thinking.

JILL: I like the latter, because, look, I always love to get recommendations from you. And if there were nonfiction books based on what I read that you said, you know what, I really think you need to be reading that, or you might find that interesting. I would love that.

[00:21:29] However, I have a shelf of books that I need to make decisions on in a way that feels, like you’re saying, nice, comfortable, and fits into my reading life. So I definitely would love to talk about the structure, and the habit, and all of that. I always hear you talk about your morning routine, and other people say, well, I do this in the evening. I don’t do that. I just have my book, and that’s what I do.

ANNE: Well, that’s what I’m thinking of right now.

JILL: I know. Yes.

ANNE: Because, I mean, I read the new Fredrik Backman. There’s a running joke in the book where the one character, I think it’s actually the narrative voice, is always saying, “Not to brag, but. Not to brag, but.” Okay, Jill, not to brag, but, like, I kind of figured this out for me. It’s working, what I’m doing.

And my need was different than yours. But I think even hearing, maybe not even, especially hearing people’s approaches to problems that aren’t like ours helps us think more expansively, and freer, and creatively about our own. So here’s hoping we can do that here.

[00:22:35] Also, listeners, Jill did, in fact, text me a photo of these shelves. So I am looking at these books. Jill, first, I want to go back and look at your novels. Can we do that?

JILL: Yes, of course.

ANNE: Okay, so you loved The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. On audio. That’s important to you to note, because you listen/read differently in that format.

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio sounded like an interesting premise, but the execution was not the kind of book that you were actually looking for. And you’ve been reading a slew of various books lately, especially contemporary literary fiction, historical, and mystery. You know, I guess you had a romance too. So a slew of various books.

You like to read a variety. And what you are looking for is, I mean, stories you can really sink into and can believe. It seems like you like to at least be interested in the characters, even if you’re not actively rooting for anyone, like deeply interesting. Like, I got to know what’s going to happen to these people. I’m wondering if you like to get inside their heads?

JILL: Yes.

[00:23:49] ANNE: You want their decisions to make sense to you?

JILL: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: What else would you add to this?

JILL: To go the other way is if I don’t like any of the characters, I cannot finish the book. I have to have somebody that I’m rooting for. Even if they make some choices I wouldn’t, there has to be something redeemable about them.

I do like the whole psychology behind why people make certain decisions. I find that fascinating. And the choices that people make and how… you know, the whole sliding doors and how that choice could go this way or that way.

ANNE: Ooh. Okay. I’ve got some summer books for you, but we’re not talking summer reading yet. But they’re coming. Okay, but the sliding doors idea is interesting.

Is the nonfiction dilemma specifically related to this informational nonfiction? Because I’m noticing that there are some excellent memoirs, essays, nonfiction by, say, Joyce Maynard and Barbara Kingsolver that I think you would really enjoy.

[00:24:51] But also I don’t think they’re the kind of books you would read for insight, maybe. But not for knowledge, in the sense that reading… I mean, an information-based book that I’ve recommended twice this week because it’s April and I have a college senior is Ron Lieber’s The Price You Pay for College. I sit down with a book like that expecting a very different reading experience than I want from a Barbara Kingsolver novel.

JILL: Yes, I do think, from an informational standpoint, I do want to incorporate those books into my life. And it may be once I read some of those books on my shelf, I may come back to you and say, guess what? I really don’t want to read informational books and those books are not for me. But I feel like I want to give it a shot. I guess I’m just torn with how the format might be and I don’t know… I guess sort of the paralyzing fear, which is pretty strong, but I’m like, no, I guess I don’t. But I want to.

[00:25:55] ANNE: Do something like a lovely memoir slot nicely into your current reading rhythms?

JILL: It definitely does. Yes. And I do incorporate memoirs into my reading, not as often, because again, for me, I have to like the voice. Sometimes I do listen to memoirs, I think you do as well on audio, which I enjoy.

ANNE: Okay. When do you read right now, Jill?

JILL: I generally do try to read during the day. I can allot myself some time. It’s usually later in the day, in the later afternoon. And then I do try to read before bed. It depends on sort of what’s happening in my household. I don’t often read first thing in the morning. I’ve got a dog. I’ve got to get things moving. Those are usually my time.

ANNE: There’s no need to apologize about that. You don’t need to explain. Everybody’s life is different. I was trying to get some insight into what yours looks like.

[00:26:57] First off, Joyce Maynard has a great memoir called The Best of Us.

JILL: Mmm.

ANNE: Great. Also very sad. Have you read anything else by her?

JILL: I have not. No.

ANNE: Okay. You don’t need memoir ideas. But as I was unsure where we were going with this nonfiction thing, I was thinking of this book. This is her very personal story of understanding love through loss. She met her late husband when they were both in their late 50s. Neither one of them ever intended to get married again. They met. She made some joke. I’m trying to remember. I think she made some joke about like, Oh, you’re totally too short for me. We could never be together in any sense. And then they get married.

But not long after their first wedding anniversary, he is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so their marriage, that they felt so lucky to find each other at this later place in their lives, ended up being very short. But I think it has so many of those same elements that you enjoy in your fiction from a writer that you have enjoyed.

[00:28:04] There’s no magical realism here, as in The Bird Hotel. But this is also very much about the choices people make. Something I think that’s so interesting about reading nonfiction from our favorite novelists is we can often see the seeds of their personal experience in a more developed way that informed their fiction and just didn’t realize that they were writing about something very close to their own experience.

Oh gosh, I love the Maggie O’Farrell memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am, for this very reason. I don’t know if you’ve read her. She does seem like an author you may enjoy.

JILL: It’s funny. I did read Hamnet. I did not love it. I think it was a little too slow for me. It was a little too quiet for me.

ANNE: Okay. I Am, I Am, I Am is the story of I think 13 very personal brushes with death. It’s one of, I think, the scariest things. Not in a horror sense, but like, oh my goodness, this happened? This could happen? It felt like it had very high stakes. But I thought, oh, there’s that character I loved from that one novel. And there’s that character I loved from that other novel.

[00:29:08] And I can see how she finessed this story and made it fiction in that other novel. It was fascinating in that sense. The Husbands was not a great fit for you. I wonder if Gillian McAllister’s Wrong Place Wrong Time might be. Have you read this book?

JILL: I have not. It’s been on my list. I know you rave about it a lot. Yes.

ANNE: I do. Mostly in Patreon, though, and not on the maiden feed. If listeners are thinking, what? Really? This is a… it’s not sliding doors. It’s a time loop where a British woman looks out her window one October 30th, the night before Halloween, and sees her son commit a terrible crime, and devastating, life-changing, no going back from this moment.

When she wakes up the next morning, ready to face the first day of the rest of their lives, they’re going to go down to the station and talk about… I mean, I don’t even have words for that. It’s not the next day. It’s the day before the crime occurred.

[00:30:09] And she begins to realize, with the very convenient help of a physicist friend of a friend, that she’s in some sort of time loop. And what she has to do is understand some key issues in her most intimate relationships as she keeps moving back in time, days and then months and then years, to go back to the very roots of those relationships so she can, like, in a sense, undo whatever it was that put her family on the path to her son committing that crime.

So that sounds a little zany, but the tone is very… I mean, the emotions feel very real. It’s very thoughtful. It feels earnest. I wonder if that execution feels like more of what you’re looking for from your story. Oh my gosh, talk about a novel about the choices people make.

[00:31:08] JILL: Yes, I’m definitely sensitive to tone and when something feels legitimate, all of those things. Yes.

ANNE: Jill, let’s talk about your nonfiction. Now, I do not presume that what has worked for me will work for you, but may I tell you about the problem I saw in my fumbling attempts to solve it? And what didn’t work for me may very well work for other people, but like, our reading lives are our own, our lives are our own, and this is all highly personal and that is okay, but there’s no, like, out-of-the-box solution.

JILL: Absolutely.

ANNE: So my problem… the first question there is like, Anne, was this really a problem? But I’m telling you, I had these books I wanted to read that were never getting read. And these were books predominantly that I wanted to read for information. I already mentioned Ron Lieber’s The Price You Pay for College.

[00:32:09] Now, it may be interesting, it may be well-written, but when I sit down in my reading time or especially like when I get in bed at night and I have my, like 15 on a bad night, 60 on a good one, minutes to like enjoy a story, I want to be reading a story like fiction or memoir or something that has a compelling personal story element. I’m thinking, like, I can remember reading How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith, which is a series of very personal stories.

Even as he’s weaving in real difficult history to the pages, it still felt personal and story-driven. How many times can we say “story”? I didn’t want to be reading for information.

So after lots of experimentation… Well, let me tell you what that looked like. So I thought maybe some days I would read for information, but I just dreaded those days. I thought maybe if I read a chapter of the nonfiction first and then I read my story, well, then it felt like reading my broccoli. Reading my broccoli? Yeah, I guess that works. Mixing metaphors.

JILL: I love it.

[00:33:16] ANNE: And I just like wanted to race through it. But what I ultimately ended up… oh, I would try to fit reading in like a 20-minute pocket or with lunch during the day of that informational nonfiction. And then I didn’t want to read.

And again, these books are not bad, but if I’m in the middle of a novel, if it’s any good at all, I want to know what happens next in the novel. And I think one of the reasons I read so much is like I’m a sucker for a good narrative drive. Like I want to know what happens next. That’s not a good thing. It might actually be a bad thing, but it is a true thing.

But what I ended up doing was creating a time for morning reading. This would not have worked for me at other stages of my life. Like in stages where I’m book writing, that is often the very first thing I do in the morning with my coffee. And I’m not writing a book right now. So this works.

[00:34:11] But I make my coffee, I sit down, and then I have a few personal daily readers that I’m reading for me in a more global, even spiritual sense. And I have some more personal morning things I go through.

But then when I’m finished with those in the remaining time I have allotted, and sometimes this depends, like it ends at 7 a.m. So if I happen to wake up early, I’ll have a little more time. And if I don’t, I may have no time or even just five minutes. But I will spend that time reading whatever nonfiction book I’m reading right now.

So this means I work my way through those pretty slowly. I read between 0 and maybe 30 pages a day on a long reading day. But I am reading these books in a way I didn’t before. Now before I might read all in a hurry, like, oh my gosh, I just found out that I need to get educated really quickly about ADHD. And depending on the urgency, I feel I will wedge those books into reading time.

[00:35:12] But if there’s no rush, if I don’t have like a looming college deadline that got me to read Ron Lieber really fast, then I need a place I can count on to catch those pages. Gosh, is that a terrible metaphor?

JILL: No, it actually totally makes sense. And it’s exactly how I’m feeling.

ANNE: Are you in a hurry to read any of these books?

JILL: No. But I was chuckling to myself, right, when it’s something we need to do, right, for our family or for whatever it is, we find the time. But if it’s not a rush, it takes a backseat. But no, none of these are urgent.

ANNE: Okay. And I heard you say you’re not sure if you even want to read all these books start to finish. Is that right?

JILL: Correct.

ANNE: Jill, as we’re talking about potential things, people, or like that I have done, are you thinking of possible approaches you could experiment with?

[00:36:15] JILL: I am. So I have this theory of my reading life. If I’m ever in a slump, I’ll just grab a book and just start reading. And it’ll either break me out of it. I won’t like that book, I will like that book and then move on. And so there’s a part of me that’s just saying, okay, just grab the book and start reading and you’ll figure it out pretty quickly.

Beyond that, I have not specifically set the time aside and say, okay, spend 20 minutes. But I could. I have the time and I have the ability to do that. So beyond that, I have not. And I haven’t really discussed it out loud. I mean, this is the first time I’m discussing it. And so it’s helpful to discuss it and see how that feels.

It’s also helpful to have somebody else say, yeah, that’s a great idea, or this is what I’m doing. And that will then be like, okay, well, this has worked for other people. I can try that. Again, I may not like information books and I may say, you know what? It’s not for you and keep doing what you had been doing.

[00:37:21] But it is one of these things that is niggling in the back of my brain that’s saying, you need to just try and see if these are for you or not.

ANNE: Yeah. As I’m looking at these books on your shelf, I’m noticing that some of them actually have a strong story emphasis. Like I’m looking at Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry, Adam Grant’s Think Again. This is an informational book, but he drives the point home with many, many stories. And it’s also very much about the choices people make.

Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, kind of the same. Like, why do we make the decisions we do with lots of real-life concrete examples that go on for pages, not just paragraphs?

I think it’d be interesting to notice to what extent these feel akin to your, we’ll call it regular reading and to what extent they do feel like something entirely different.

[00:38:21] I’m also wondering, and this is going to sound wild on a book podcast. I wonder if thinking about these books as deliverers of information in that sense, as opposed to thinking about them as akin to reading The Poisonwood Bible, would help your brain know what to expect, know what to anticipate, be satisfied with what is coming next in a way that I don’t believe I’m hearing is currently working out that way.

JILL: I like that. It’s a little bit of a shift. That makes sense.

ANNE: When do you read the existing informational sources in your life?

JILL: It is throughout the day in terms of the newspaper, the news. I could just be sitting at my desk reading a little bit. I will say magazines I will do. If we’re watching television in the evening, I’ll have a magazine with me, but I’m not paying so much attention to the magazine. But I would say the news is read throughout the day, here and there.

[00:39:22] ANNE: Maybe that could be something to think about.

JILL: I like that. I like that shift.

ANNE: You know, my brain wants to come up with all these nonfiction books that are delivering information in a really storied package. I think you have some on the spectrum here, but we’re not here to pile up that shelf with more books. We are discussing today how we might help you find a comfortable approach to that shelf.

JILL: Right. And also part of it is that we discussed, do I even like those kinds of books? I like what you said about the two or three that you mentioned that are on my shelf, that there are stories woven in there and it’s a good tone. I do think tone is important to me as I read a book. And if it’s preachy, I probably am not going to like it. And so I’m curious to see. And then I reserve the right to come back to you, Anne, and say, no, these are the ones I like. Can you give me more informational ones that are story-like?

[00:40:22] ANNE: That would be a fun conversation to have. All right, Jill, how are you feeling?

JILL: More settled. Yeah, I’m excited. I’m excited with my new challenge.

ANNE: All right. What’s your plan?

JILL: My plan is to take one of them out, probably one of the three you just mentioned that are on my shelf, and start it a little bit throughout the day and see how that feels.

ANNE: Okay. What do you think you might read next?

JILL: Oh, in fairness, I’m probably going to read a fiction book. Come on, Anne.

ANNE: Which one?

JILL: I will grab one of the books off my shelf. I’m going to grab the Adam Grant book or the Michelle Obama book and see how it feels as I’m selecting a new fiction book. So it won’t be the primary book. It’ll be a secondary book, if you will, as I read whatever my next fiction book, which could be the Wrong Place Wrong Time.

ANNE: All right. Well, I’m excited to hear what you think about both of them. Jill, thank you so much for trusting me and our listeners with your readerly dilemma.

[00:41:23] JILL: Thank you so much, Anne. This was such a delight.

ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jill, and I’d love to hear what you think she may enjoy reading next. If you have tips, strategies, experience with incorporating different genres or different kinds of reading into your life, we would love to hear that as well. Find the full list of titles and share your comments at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Find us over on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext, and please tag us if you share an episode with your community. That’s a quick and easy way to help spread the word about our show and invite your friends to join our listening community.

The easiest way to keep up with all of the What Should I Read Next? news is by joining our email list. Sign up for updates at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

And please make sure you’re following an Apple podcast, Spotify, Overcast, wherever you like to get your podcasts. Subscribing and automatically downloading each new episode tells these networks that you’re interested in our show, and that helps increase our visibility to new listeners. Thanks so much for taking a moment to check your settings on your favorite podcast platform.

[00:42:33] Thanks to the people who made this episode happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Productions. Readers, that is it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” Happy reading, everyone.