[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: 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.
Today we’re back with part two of our summertime favorite episodes, where members of our team pair up to talk about their recent favorites and recent favorite summer reading experiences.
[00:00:45] Before we dive in, I have to tell you about our merch. We have the best new and timeless back-to-school book merch in our shop, ready for fall. From great readerly pencils, to a sorority-style sweatshirt I think is going to be a new team favorite, tons of great stickers, and the much-heralded return of beautiful custom Leuchtturm journals to our shop, now is a great time to load up on your favorites and discover new ones to love, and to write with or on. Check out all these items and more at modernmrsdarcy.com/shop.
If you listened last week, then you know what’s coming. We are back with even more of our team’s best books of summer. If you didn’t catch last week’s episode yet, no worries, you can listen in any order. Each member of our team has unique taste, and that’s what makes us a great team.
Today you’ll hear from four team members with wide-ranging preferences: romance to sci-fi, classics to outdoor adventure, literary fiction to narrative nonfiction, and beyond. Today we’re sharing summer reading superlatives from four team members. I’m going to tell you who they are and what they do, and it kind of feels like a mouthful, but I know you want to know.
[00:01:52] We’ll hear from my husband, Will Bogel in conversation with Ginger Horton. Will is our executive producer for What Should I Read Next? and all-around ops guy for the whole team, and Ginger serves as our Modern Mrs Darcy book club community manager.
Then in the next conversation, you’ll hear from Leigh Kramer and Holly Wielkoszewski. Leigh is our longtime Modern Mrs Darcy editor and social media manager, and Holly is our What Should I Read Next? media production specialist.
These are such fun conversations. And like always, as you’re like thinking, how do I jot these down while I’m driving, no worries, we’ve got today’s long list of titles captured in our show notes. So just sit back, listen in, and enjoy. Find that list anytime at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. Happy listening.
Let’s get to it.
[00:02:37] WILL BOGEL: Ginger, welcome to Best Books of Summer.
GINGER HORTON: Hello. I’m so excited to be paired with you, and I think you’re going to find out why this is serendipitous.
WILL: I’m not surprised. I was excited to talk with you, too. I actually made these pairings to say who was going to talk to whom. And after I did, I was like, “Wait, I just talked to Ginger.” But I looked back, and that’s not true. Do you know when we talked?
GINGER: I was going to say it’s been a few years. It would have at least been… I think it was pre-Hawaii days. So it would have at least been three years ago. Maybe longer.
WILL: Wow. Okay. You’ve got a marker. Growing up we used to talk about, well, what house was that in?
GINGER: Right.
WILL: It was 2021, that’s right, the first time we did this.
GINGER: There you go. I knew it had been a while, but yeah, this is perfect.
WILL: It feels like we probably did it more recently, because you and I actually talk books on a fairly regular basis.
GINGER: We have more overlap than I think readers would. They’d be maybe surprised, but maybe after today, they won’t be so surprised.
[00:03:35] WILL: Yes, that’s funny, because I think you’ve got a lot of overlap with the way Anne reads.
GINGER: Yes, very true.
WILL: And also me.
GINGER: Yes, exactly. I always say the Venn diagram of what Anne and I read is almost a perfect circle. Now, what we like is a different story. I sometimes feel like if she gives five stars, I’m like, that was a three. And if I’m like, “Anne, this is the best thing I’ve ever read,” she’s like, “Ginger, that was just fine.”
So I love that, though, because now book club members will know I love a dissenter. I mean, I think the conversation gets really rich when you read something that’s the same, and you had a reason to read it, and then you definitely have different feelings about it. I love that.
WILL: Well, I would say you guys probably have more five-star reads in common than you give yourself credit for.
GINGER: For sure. For sure. For sure.
WILL: I am always delighted to hear which books you and I both gravitate towards, which is not the goal today. We’re just talking about our best books of summer. But I am interested to hear what you have been reading and what you have brought with you today that really stands out from this summer.
How is your summer reading going?
[00:04:37] GINGER: It’s going so well. I have had maybe the best summer reading ever. Now, I am on record to say that summer is usually kind of a slump for me. I will admit that my August, here we are six days in when we’re recording, it has dried up a smidge, but I was on a book a day streak there for a while. I have just been reading like mad the last couple months.
I have some theories about why that’s true this year. Some of it is what I’ve learned over the years, which is number one, prioritize nonfiction for myself in the summer. We’ll talk about that in a second. And then a lot of that, honestly, is me honing in on what formats have been working for me.
So I read mostly in print, but a good amount on audio and a good amount on Kindle. And I’ve been playing around with this like trial and error. I’m sure in the reading life, just like life life, you know, that you’re always going to adapt and change, but I feel like I have unlocked this formula.
And I’m really glad I spent some intention on that because when I’ve got the right formula matched with the right book, I feel like I’m reading more because I’m finding little pockets of time that I didn’t use previously. I’m going to actually talk about some of those pockets of time here in a minute when I tell you my best book, but that has been revolutionary. I hope it holds.
[00:05:43] WILL: That is really smart. I tend to read… well, I don’t do a whole lot of audiobooks, I guess. But Silas was listening to an audiobook by a comedian, and then he noticed that I had started it. And he was like, “Well, you just took my place,” right? Like it’s the same audio, and I didn’t know he wasn’t done. But we just sort of both put pause on it and said, “Well, you know what? School’s coming back soon. We’re going to be in the car a lot. We’ll just listen to it together in the car.”
So finding the right format for the right time is such a good way to maximize when you can get your reading in.
GINGER: Yeah, exactly. It’s a game-changer.
WILL: I, on the other hand, do typically read a lot in the summer.
GINGER: I didn’t know that.
WILL: A lot of that has to do with probably two weeks, right? A week we go camping and a week we go to the beach. I’m like, “Hey, what am I doing?” I’m just sitting around reading.
GINGER: I love it.
WILL: This has not been true this year. We didn’t go camping for the week that we have done in the past at the beginning of summer. So I didn’t do that. But just also just not reading that much this year. I’ve only read 20 books this whole year, which is not terrible.
GINGER: That’s a lot of books.
[00:06:51] WILL: I mean, right. Right. Like this is not terrible, you know? I have lots of friends that are like, “Hey, how many books do you read?” And they’re at four or whatever, you know, for the year. And I’m like…
GINGER: That is average… Yes, four books is like the average American, I think.
WILL: I mean, I think if you’re in 12 books a year, like that’s amazing, right?
GINGER: Totally.
WILL: If you can do one a month, I think that’s great. I do read more than that typically, but yeah, this year, not quite as much. And particularly because I would think this summer or whatever, I would sort of have read a little more at this point in the year. But you know, little slow start.
And then we didn’t go camping and then at the beach I only read like two and a half books, which is not bad for beach vacation. It was lovely, but that’s kind of where I’m at. Do you want to tell me what your book is?
[00:07:43] GINGER: Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, because I was talking about pockets of time and that actually played a part in my best book. Okay. So let me just not bury the lead. I will say, first of all… actually, I will a little bit.
This is major backlist. In fact, this was written in 1951. It was published in August of that year and it won the Pulitzer Prize the following year in 1952. And that is The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk. I read this for a couple of reasons, particularly to fulfill one of the slots in my reading goal to read 25 classics in 2025. I’ve been doing this since 2019, actually. So 19 in 2019, I read like 21 in 21, you know, so on. I’ve been doing it ever since then.
But mostly because this is my husband Matthew, one of his very favorite books. So he’s a Naval officer. He’s been telling me for years and years, This is the book. It’s the closest picture if I ever wanted a picture of what his life was like on a ship, when he was living and working on a ship for years.
[00:08:44] And so, you know, for that reason, love and loyalty, I’ve been meaning I’ll read that someday, but to be honest, it’s a long book. It’s well over 500 pages. And I thought it would be a little dry, if that makes sense.
WILL: That makes sense. Yes. But also I will tell you, I am aware of this book. You have already told me more than I had. Like I just knew nothing about it.
GINGER: Exactly. It’s famous for like, who knows anything about it? Not me. And that’s why I made a bad assumption. I know what it’s like for your loved one to read the beloved book of yours. And so that’s why I decided to read it. And let me tell you, here is… I’m speaking to myself here and I’m reminding myself that just because a book is long or old or famous, I am so often guilty of thinking that that means it’s boring. It is not boring. This was fantastic.
I keep trying to remind myself, there’s a reason if a book is still in print 75 years later, they’re making movies of it. It’s probably not boring.
WILL: True. True.
[00:09:41] GINGER: And this one was not boring. This is the one I was talking about. I was finding tiny pockets of my day to read this. And like every single night when Matthew got home, actually, to be honest, sometimes I was texting him midday, “I just read, you know, .”
And I had to talk about it. The characters were super compelling. The first-person narration that the author chose to write in was just the right choice. The plot, it never lagged. The ending was satisfying. I was nervous there for a minute.
So the first half, and I don’t have to tell you because the title really gives away the spoiler here, there’s a mutiny on a naval ship that came mutiny. But the second half is where I really could not put this down. And that is because a mutiny is a big, big deal in the military chain of command.
But then they had to litigate this in court. So there was this courtroom scene, they explore the causes leading up to the mutiny, whether it was justified or not. You really find yourself sympathizing with the characters to some degree. But then because of that courtroom scene, you’re really wondering, okay, who was right and wrong? It was such a good story.
[00:10:42] But there are also embedded complicated questions that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since about human nature and war and class. This was just so good. I am really surprised that I was surprised at how good it was.
WILL: Okay, this is amazing. I have so many questions. I realized I could, like our listeners, wait for the blog posts, click over to a link, find the book on Wikipedia or wherever and learn more about this. But I’m amazed. That is a great find to go back a little ways and get something that you’ve been meaning to read for so long.
GINGER: Yeah. And for it to be the best book I’ve read this summer. I mean, really, I was not expecting that. I was expecting to read it because, you know, 20 years of marriage, loyalty, man. But I was not expecting me to talk about this at the best book of summer.
WILL: That’s amazing. Well, my, we’ll say the best book of summer, yeah, I brought a couple I want to talk about. But the best book of summer, also backlist for me, but not 75 years, I have been meaning to read, for a number of years, Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. This came out in ’22, I think.
GINGER: I think you’re right.
[00:11:52] WILL: So it’s not that old. But I listened to Daisy Jones & The Six a few years ago, absolutely love that on audio. So I say I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks, but this with a full cast recording, the idea that it was… the structure of that is an oral history. So it is like interviews where people are talking, right? It’s all dialogue. I just thought that was amazing.
GINGER: So good. Yeah.
WILL: I loved the TV show. It was not the same, right? At least it’s definitely not the same. But I thought the TV show was great. And I really just enjoyed the book and thought it was so creative in the structure there. But then also the story was this huge ensemble cast and all their different perspectives. And I really enjoyed that.
I’ve been meeting to read Malibu mostly because someone recommended it to me. My hairstylist does not read anything at all like me, right? I mean, not at all. She reads vampire stories. She listens entirely because she had a long commute. But listens to these long series where she’s like 20, 30 books in.
GINGER: Wow.
WILL: Yeah. And I’m just like, yeah, this just doesn’t have appeal to me. But every once in a while there’s this tiny bit of overlap. I’m like, “Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to read that. She liked this.” I’m like, “That’s funny.”
[00:13:05] But just as you were saying, why would you pick up a book kind of now? Right?
GINGER: Right.
WILL: And I’m not even sure like why now, you know, this summer, whatever. I do have a little bit of a surfing thing going on this summer, so I don’t know if that played into it.
GINGER: It’s the best summer read.
WILL: Just to be clear, I don’t mean me surfing. I just mean I’ve been reading some surfing books, so that came up. But this has that little bit of Malibu surf story to it. But I really just loved the view of the family. It’s a story, for those who don’t know, because not everybody like me has read it, but there’s this famous family. Mostly famous because the dad is this insane rock star that everyone knows. But he’s not really a part of their family, or part of their lives. So you’re focused on the kids and their lives.
[00:13:52] Also an interesting structure that it’s told the day of a party. I can’t even remember if there were chapters, but there were sections that said like 7:00 a.m. the day of the party. And then something happens at noon the day of the party. And you kind of get this timeline, but there’s a whole lot of flashback to fill in the details.
But you learn all about the family. And it’s not found family. I mean, they are related but it definitely felt like a forged family, right? That their circumstances were just definitely not idyllic but not normal growing up with this absent father who everyone knew. And then they kind of can’t come into their own and people start to realize like, Oh, well, you are related to this guy. And they’re like, well, yeah, kind of, but I haven’t seen him in however many years.
And then just a really interesting look at fame too. Because he’s very famous. Certain ones of the kids start to get some acclaim for different stuff and not everybody’s real comfortable with how that plays out in their lives. It’s quite a party. So the day of the party, it’s quite a party. It’s quite a story.
[00:14:55] When Anne’s talked about this, I know she said she really enjoyed the sort of nostalgic 80s kind of throwback stuff. I don’t know. That didn’t hit me as much as just sort of the Malibu surf culture and kind of what is the small town, California picture for these kids, especially who grew up there before Malibu was sort of entirely Malibu.
GINGER: No, I liked this one too. And that’s funny that you said that because this is one that has aged better in my mind. When I was reading it, I really enjoyed it. But this was before I realized that audio does not particularly work for me in fiction. I’m a more nonfiction audio girl. And so I listened to this on audio and I wish I had read it in print. But it has stayed in my mind. So yeah.
I love your description of forged family. That’s a great description. It reminds me of when we read for book club Run for the Hills, which they are also family, but yeah, it’s kind of a found family story. I’m gonna have to be looking for that mini sub-genre there.
WILL: Nice.
[00:15:53] GINGER: Well, this one was my runner-up, but I really debated because I blazed through this one as well. And I was so glad I was paired with you for this reason, Will, because my runner-up was Everest, Inc. by Will Cockrell. Have you heard of this?
WILL: I have not.
GINGER: Okay. So I read a lot of books on Everest and mountaineering. If you’re new to the genre, I would say this is probably not the best book I’ve ever read on Everest by any stretch. If you’re interested and you’ve already been following mountaineering since probably the 90s where you heard of the 1996 Everest disaster, it was really brought into fame by Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, you’ll probably recognize some of the players and perhaps some of the new controversial names that have been in the news, like Nims Purja.
So I think this is where our reading life really intersects, Will, because my nonfiction list often reads like an outdoor magazine best-of list. But my life life does not. I love the great indoors. I am not a camper, biker, mountaineer, surfer, none of that.
[00:16:53] I don’t really like much more adventure than like walking around my neighborhood, to be honest, but I don’t know why I cannot get enough about reading about like nature, adventures, especially mountaineering. Somehow there is an allure there for me. And I don’t think I’m alone. I mean, it’s a really common genre. There’s a load of books about mountaineering and Everest specifically.
So this one I enjoyed so much because it was a different take on it. It changed my perspective on the mountain particularly and really where the future of this extreme mountaineering is headed through the eyes not just of the climbing, but the business and even the social media.
Nirms, who I mentioned earlier, is really more influencer than mountaineer. Like don’t get me wrong, he’s done amazing things. He’s very impressive climber. But what he’s done with his own image and for the image of the Nepalese climbers is even more impressive. So that’s what I found interesting to read about having followed mountaineering now for so long to see where the business and where the future of climbing is going.
[00:17:51] So the game has changed. Nirms is a part of that. Some of the old power players that you might recognize from Into Thin Air and other major publications are changing in the business part.
Now, shout out to my local bookstore because I also had not heard about this until I was just browsing. So this is your sign to go browse your local bookstore shelves because that’s where I snatched this up and I just inhaled it.
WILL: I love everything about this, especially the shout out for like where do you find books that you kind of haven’t really heard of before or haven’t heard other people talking about it, the browsability and just stumbling across things. But I like the idea of a different take there on the business and what it means. And yeah, there’s definitely a lot that’s different than it was 30 years ago, that’s for sure, with Into Thin Air.
[00:18:40] This is a very nice segue, though. Thank you very much for that, Ginger. My other book, and I’m not gonna call it runner up because I really love this too. So best books of summer, plural, I brought two, is one that you might recognize. This is a book called Custodians of Wonder by Eliot Stein. You know this book, right?
GINGER: I do but I have not read it yet. Can you believe it?
WILL: Wait, what?
GINGER: Because one of us told the other about it and I don’t even remember who.
WILL: You told me in my notes right here. We’re doing this recording. It says, so kick this over to Ginger. Like, where did this even come from? Because you shared it with me.
GINGER: Yep, I bought it and I was so excited about it. And it is one of those… you know, to my shame, we all have these stories, right? When you’re a reader, you buy a book, you put it on your shelf, something new and shiny comes along. And years later, I still haven’t read it. Tell me about it, though. Convince me.
WILL: Let me tell you, this was a great recommendation. This is exactly why we say you and I would have so much fun talking. You told me about it. We actually, before this recording, we’re laughing about our tabs on our computer, like all the browser tabs.
[00:19:42] You sent me a link or whatever, I opened it and I had an Amazon tab open for literally months. Folks, this is not how you should keep a TBR, okay? There are many ways to do that. Our team has all kinds of different ways. Simply keeping browser tabs open, bad idea.
But I was finally like, “I should close these tabs.” And instead of writing it down someplace, I just checked the library and checked it out immediately.
GINGER: Perfect.
WILL: It was wonderful. So he’s a BBC writer. And I don’t exactly know what his beat is. The stories in the book sort of read travel. It’s got a lot of the kind of nature story that I like, but this is all like cultural wonders, not physical, natural wonders.
[00:20:31] It has a really nice sense of place. So the reason I sort of thought about Everest is he’s talking about very specific things happening that don’t happen anywhere else and culturally how that impacts those people and that place and what’s happening there.
There’s a lovely story about the world’s rarest pasta and why it’s so complicated and how the family has been pro… you know, they’ve promised to not share the recipe with anyone outside of the family. And he’s going and reporting on it and all this stuff. And of course, everybody’s getting older and they’re trying to pass it along to the younger generations who are like, eh, I don’t know if I want to do this.
So the woman finally decides, like, I can’t keep it secret because it’s going to die. I got to tell people. And then people are mad because they can’t make the pasta work. And she’s like, “I think you’ve misunderstood what happens here. The reason that not many people make this pasta is because it takes years of practice. I gave you the whole recipe.” And people are mad at her. Like, “You’ve left out steps. You didn’t tell us what to do.” And she’s like, “No, it just takes a lot of practice.”
[00:21:34] There’s the story about the pasta. There’s the last Incan bridge builder. And so the Inca empire, one of the reasons it expanded so vastly is it had a road system like the Roman roads, and so they were able to cover lots of territory. And they built bridges across these big canyons by weaving grass, which deteriorates, and you have to replace the bridge every summer.
And so every year they get together. There’s one guy left who’s like the bridge builder guy. The town, all the local towns weave strands together, and then those get like woven into larger ropes and they build this big bridge. Which there’s a steel bridge in the story. There’s a steel bridge right up the canyon, but everybody still uses the grass bridge.
And so it’s just these fascinating stories about different cultures and what’s happening there. But he’s talking about the custodians of wonder. These are the things that are like… we’re at risk of losing.
[00:22:32] There’s one story called Telling the Bees, which is about beekeepers, mostly in England and this tradition they have where they go and speak to the bees. And you bring them a piece of cake for the wedding and you tell them… you introduce the new in-law, you know, before the wedding and you tell them that someone’s died.
And you’re communicating all these important life events that are happening in your household or whatever and how very important it is if the beekeeper dies that someone tell the bees.
GINGER: Oh, wow.
WILL: That one made me cry. I mean, it was such an amazing story. The actual natural bees will respond to these kinds of news things is just like something people can’t exactly… Beekeepers will tell you it happens, but nobody can exactly explain like how do the bees understand or know whatever. It was a fascinating story.
There are I think 10 of these different stories and you could genuinely just read the intro and then any one that strikes your fancy. But it was fascinating.
[00:23:31] GINGER: I love stuff like that. Magic in the world nonfiction. That sounds right up my alley. I understand why I bought it now and now, you know, I’m going to pick it up immediately and not let that-
WILL: Oh, you totally should because you could just read one or two. You don’t have to like commit to it.
GINGER: That’s right. Put it at the side of the bed.
WILL: Yeah.
GINGER: Yes. Yeah, that sounds perfect.
WILL: Yeah. Well, thank you for a great recommendation.
GINGER: Yes. Glad to pass along. And now thanks for the recommendation back and putting it back up on the top of my priority TBR.
WILL: Excellent. That’s great. Thanks for talking books with me.
GINGER: Thanks for talking.
[00:24:03] LEIGH KRAMER: Hi Holly. It’s fun to be back with you again this summer.
HOLLY WIELKOSZEWSKI: I know. I was excited we were paired up again, Leigh. I love talking books with you, as always.
LEIGH: Same here. How would you say that this summer compares to last summer?
HOLLY: I’ve had a much better reading summer this summer. I think that is partially because my life feels slightly less chaotic, although the world feels more chaotic. But I also feel like I’ve done a great job and or been very lucky in finding some really engaging reads that have just pulled me in and given me a really good reading summer. How about you?
LEIGH: I love that. Yeah, this summer is definitely going better reading-wise than last summer. We were both in a tough spot last summer. I remember we were both kind of like pushing the recording date back, trying to buy a little more time, a little more reading time.
HOLLY: “Let me just read one more book. Maybe this will be the one.”
LEIGH: Yeah. And this time around when we knew we were going to record, I was like, “Oh, I actually have a few options. I actually can make decisions about which ones to share,” whereas last year I was desperately trying to figure out what I could talk about.
[00:25:15] HOLLY: Same. Same. It’s a much better year, so I’m happy for both of us that it worked out that way.
LEIGH: Definitely. What is your first book that you want to share about?
HOLLY: My first pick, I teased this book on my conversation with Anne on the podcast, but I did not mention it by title. And this is We Lived on the Horizon by Erika Swyler. This is actually the third book I’ve read by Erika Swyler. This one was published in January of this year.
In this book, which is speculative fiction is how I would categorize it, we are taken to the city of Bulwark. Bulwark was founded in the aftermath of a sort of unspecified, possibly climate-related catastrophe collapse. And it’s the city that humanity fled to in order to rebuild.
The way that this city and this culture took shape was basically predicated on the sacrifice of a small subset of humanity to create this safe city. And that has given rise to this very class-structured culture now that is just brewing for a revolution.
[00:26:22] So in this world of Bulwark, we follow Saint Enita Malovis and Nix, who is her embodied AI. Over the course of this novel, Nix has taken shape under Enita’s surgical and scientific talents from being a house AI, which was throughout her house and serving her, to becoming an embodied humanoid being.
Watching their evolution is fascinating. It very much has vibes of Frankenstein. We’re dealing with questions of privilege and class structure. Enita is a mature protagonist. She’s an older woman in a later stage of her life, which is something that I don’t think you see as often in these types of novels. We’ve got a love story.
I just could not put it down. I thought it was fascinating and thought-provoking. And if you like speculative fiction, you like sort of post-apocalyptic but not really focused on the apocalypse side of stories, and you are curious about AI and how we live with it, I think you would really like this book.
LEIGH: Sounds fascinating.
[00:27:26] HOLLY: Again, that was We Lived on the Horizon by Erika Swyler. Over to you, Leigh. What was your first pick?
LEIGH: I’m going to go with Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven. It’s a gorgeous fantasy about two people who are reincarnated every 18 years and doomed to a cycle of killing each other in every lifetime.
HOLLY: Amazing.
LEIGH: This Is How You Lose the Time War, which I didn’t like, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which I enjoyed until I got the ending. So for me, it blew both comps out of the water. What I really enjoyed is how Evelyn and Arden are 17, but in each different lifetime, they could appear with a different name, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability. So they never know where they will be, like different countries, different times. Everything is different. But regardless of how they present, they always know each other’s souls and are drawn to each other. So there’s just a lot of variety there.
[00:28:31] Arden knows why they’re stuck in the cycle, but Evelyn does not. So we as the reader are trying to figure out what actually happened. How long has this been going on? The present day is set in Wales, and there’s just a lot happening in this present timeline, but we also get flashes of their previous lives. I could not put it down.
The writing is gorgeous. I highlighted so many lines. I haven’t stopped thinking about the story, and I can’t wait to see what the author writes next.
HOLLY: Awesome. I have heard of that one, so I’m bumping it up my list now. Thank you.
LEIGH: Can’t wait to hear what you think about it.
HOLLY: Awesome. All right, so my next pick is The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei. This is a June 2024 science fiction heist novel. It is a standalone. The way that I would summarize this is what if you had Indiana Jones, but it was in space?
LEIGH: Amazing.
[00:29:28] HOLLY: Heists in space might be becoming one of my favorite subgenres, I am realizing. And in this book, we follow Maya, Uncle, and their crew and associates as they try to track down this very important archaeological relic that has a number of people searching for it, all for different reasons.
In a bit of a twist on the Indiana Jones comparison, you know, in that film, we have the Nazis on the other side, and they’re clearly evil. In this story, there’s definitely redeeming reasons why each group might be wanting to try to find this relic. So you’re not immediately in this very, very clear good and evil duology, which I enjoyed. I thought it was much more nuanced.
This book was also hilarious. One of the characters from a non-human race just has the funniest lines, and I found myself laughing over and over and over again. For instance, one of the lines that this character said was, “Today is not the day you die. Today is the day for happiness. Later, there will be more time for stress.” As someone who knows stress and anxiety, I was just like, “Okay, I like that line.”
[00:30:32] So this follows Maya and her crew through a whole number of unexpected twists and turns. I literally laughed, I literally cried, and I loved the way it ended. This was a romp, and I think it’s a lot of fun.
LEIGH: Oh my gosh, I’m definitely gonna have to read that. Sounds so good.
HOLLY: How about you? What’s your next pick?
LEIGH: It’s not a heist. It’s Never Been Shipped by Alicia Thompson. This is a contemporary romance. It’s ex-friend to lovers between former bandmates who go on a cruise and reunite. This one is open door. Don’t want to forget to mention that.
So Micah and John were best friends when they met in seventh grade, and then they joined a band, and then they haven’t talked to each other in 13 years since Micah blew up the band because she attempted a solo career that did not go well. But she also wanted to get away from her emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend who was also in the band, and no one really knows why things went down the way that they did.
[00:31:29] When the ElectricOh! are invited to come on a cruise for a beloved TV show and play their hit song from the infamous prom episode, she’s reluctant at first but can’t resist the chance to again. I was riveted. Could not put this book down.
I think that Alicia Thompson really excels in creating embodied characters. I felt like Micah and John and the crew were real people, and I really wish that I could listen to their music. It’s a really fun read and love it so much.
HOLLY: I think some books really just need to come with a soundtrack.
LEIGH: Yes, definitely.
HOLLY: All right. I’ve got one more pick if we can squeeze in one more, I think, for each of us.
LEIGH: Let’s do it.
HOLLY: This one’s a completely different direction. This is Thirty Below by Cassidy Randall. This is a nonfiction adventure narrative nonfiction work from Randall. And I did mention this briefly in the Mid-Year Freakout bonus over on Patreon, so if it sounds familiar to our patron listeners, that is why.
[00:32:29] This is a history of the six Denali Damsels, which were the first women to climb Denali in the U.S. here, the highest mountain in the U.S.. And it looks not only at their physical journey of overcoming illness and communication and the dynamics of a complex team trying to do something really challenging, but also places us against the era of sexism and restriction where women were expected to not climb mountains. And if they were part of an expedition team, they were there to prepare the food or serve some sort of other support capacity at base camp. So, I love this.
Cassidy Randall is a journalist whose work I’ve been following for some time, but I believe this is her first book, and it was just such a great story that has never been told before. So, if you enjoy adventure narratives, nonfiction stories of feminist overcoming of circumstances in nature and society, I think you would really like this. It’s THIRTY Below by Cassidy Randall. That came out in March of this year.
[00:33:31] LEIGH: It sounds great. I’m very impressed with people who can take on beats like that.
HOLLY: Yes, same here.
LEIGH: All right, my last pick is a complete departure. This is a cookbook. It’s called So Easy, So Good by Kylie Sakaida. She’s a dietician that I stumbled across on Instagram and was instantly inspired by her recipes. And then when I saw she had a cookbook, I had to get it from the library immediately.
So, the recipes are great, but I also really enjoy her substitutions and tips for most of the recipes and just her approach to food in general. She has a lot of really great ideas for bowls and sheet pan recipes. So, I’m always looking for those easy lunch options, and I can’t wait to try those.
HOLLY: Nice. That sounds delicious.
LEIGH: Yes.
HOLLY: Well, thanks so much for talking books with me today, Leigh. This was great.
LEIGH: Yes, loved it.
HOLLY: Happy reading, everyone.
[00:34:30] ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you discovered some new-to-you titles today that caught your attention and interest and maybe landed on your to-be-read list. Again, find that full list of titles we talked about, and tell us a comment to share your summer reading wins on our show notes page. That is at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
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Thanks to the people who make the show happen. You heard from a lot of them today. What Should I Read Next is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and MMD HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.
Readers, that’s 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.