[00:00:00] SARAH KELLOGG: I think she’s my reading twin.

ANNE BOGEL: I think she might be too.

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.

[00:00:40] Readers, if September means you’re building your fall reading list, well, we are too. That’s why I’m so excited to tell you that our Fall Book Preview is available starting this Thursday. We always kick off our fall reading with our live unboxing event. And when I say always, I mean this is our seventh year running. But the Fall Book Preview is here to help gently guide your reading all season long.

In this seasonal preview, I share my top recommendations for books releasing from September through the end of the year. And in our unboxing event, and we record it for those who can’t come live, I dive deeper and discuss more about each title, plus where each fits in the literary landscape, and what style of reader each may appeal to most.

Like all of our seasonal previews and guides, this is a thoughtfully created resource, hand-culled, made by me and the humans on our team here at What Should I Read Next? It’s designed to help you cut through the marketing copy and algorithm noise so you can know which books are right for you to explore right now. Grab yours anytime this season by visiting ModernMrsDarcy.com/FBP. That’s for Fall Book Preview. ModernMrsDarcy.com/FBP.

[00:01:48] Readers, I’m so excited to dive into what feels like a particularly nerdy niche of the reading life in today’s episode. And I’ve got an expert reader here to join me.

Today, I’m talking books about creativity and grace, balancing old and new reads, and book cover design with Sarah Kellogg. As a cover designer at a big five publisher, Sarah is uniquely qualified to have this conversation. She is here to answer all my and all your burning questions, and also discuss aspects of her work I didn’t even know to ask about.

We also discuss the intersection of her creative work with her reading life, and what that has meant and means for her now as a person and as a reader. And because Sarah would also love my suggestions for her next non-work read, we’ll explore what’s happening in her personal reading life these days, and I will recommend both old and new titles that she may enjoy reading when she’s not working on her latest work project. Let’s get to it.

Sarah, welcome to the show.

SARAH: Thank you for having me.

[00:02:48] ANNE: Oh my gosh, the pleasure’s mine. I’m so excited to talk today. And thanks for volunteering. We were really excited to get your submission at What Should I Read Next HQ.

Sarah, would you start by telling us a little about yourself? We love to give our readers a glimpse of who they’re hearing from each week.

SARAH: Sure. I work in the publishing field as a book cover designer. It is my dream job. I feel so lucky to get to do this. While in my early 20s, I moved to New York City, and that was quite an adventure. I did not know what I was in for. I did not know how the subway system worked. I had just packed two big suitcases and moved out there, and just was diving right into it.

[00:03:39] A few years ago, I actually accepted a remote position, so now I’m back in Dallas, Texas, and I live with my husband and our two cats. When I’m not working on book covers or reading manuscripts or reading for pleasure, usually I’m just trying to get out of my head and more into my body. And for me, that looks like going on walks, being out in nature, going on runs, that sort of thing.

ANNE: Sarah, in your submission, you had this pithy little way of describing something I’ve used way too many words to say in the past about your mind and your hands. Do you know what I’m talking about?

SARAH: Yes, yes.

ANNE: Would you share that?

SARAH: Yes. I’ve heard before that if you are working all day with your mind, it’s good to rest with your hands. That’s so true for me. I spend most of my day just creative problem-solving and very much in my head all day. So at the end of the day, it’s great to be just more in my body and work more with my hands.

[00:04:46] And for me, that looks like opening up a cookbook and following the recipe exactly and not really having to think about it. But it also looks like just going on walks and being in nature and sometimes doing like Pilates or just, yeah, being more in my body.

ANNE: Am I still resting my mind if I’m listening to an audiobook on my walk?

SARAH: Good question.

ANNE: Don’t answer that.

SARAH: That’s a good question, though.

ANNE: Don’t answer that. But I love the way you put that. And readers, don’t worry. We’re going to talk more about book cover design. Readers, in our Patreon community, we have this series called Industry Insights where I explore some aspect of publishing, how it works behind the scenes that you may not even know exists, but it definitely affects you when we talk about how it works and how it impacts you.

[00:05:38] And we’ve gotten so many questions related to those episodes about book cover design. So when we saw your submission come through, we all went, “Oh, people want to know.” So thank you so much for bringing your skill set and experience to the podcast today.

But first, I’d love to hear more about you as a person and especially as a reader. Can you tell us about your reading life?

SARAH: I mean, I’ve always been a reader. I grew up in a home surrounded by books. My mom is a voracious reader, as is one of my older brothers. And yeah, they read to me before I could even read for myself. Some of my earliest memories are getting lost in the story of the Secret Garden or hearing my brother recount the tale of the Chronicles of Narnia or the Harry Potter books.

I think I fell in love with story at a really young age. And alongside that, I was also falling in love with art at the same time. And those two things are… they’re very interconnected for me.

[00:06:48] But I was that kid that was always going to the library. I’ve just always loved books. I’ve always loved story. And now as an adult, I feel like I just enjoy a good challenge. I like to dive into books that intimidate me. And sometimes that winds up being really great. Sometimes I will dive into a book that I feel really intimidated by, such as The Brothers Karamazov is this big Russian classic. And that was scary to me at the time, but it wound up being one of my favorite books.

Other times I dive into something and come out of it having no idea what I just read. An example of that would be any of Aristotle’s books, especially On the Soul, which I thought would be a really insightful book about the human soul, but wound up being a lot more about biology.

ANNE: Oh, interesting.

SARAH: Yeah.

[00:07:49] ANNE: Tell me more about learning who you are as a reader.

SARAH: I’m still learning who I am as a reader. I read so many different genres and I do that for work as well. And I think sometimes it’s hard for me to pinpoint what I want to read in the moment. But a through line that I know about my reading taste is I just enjoy more quiet, introspective books that are more character-driven. I love a good character study. There are certain themes that I really love to see.

One of those themes is the theme of grace. And I think Marilynne Robinson and Elizabeth Strout do that so well. I mean, they write their characters with so much grace, but they also include the concept of grace in their story. I also enjoy explorations of faith and human nature and family and friendship.

[00:08:48] ANNE: Sarah, thank you for setting the scene for us as we, I think, explore your work life. Are you ready for that?

SARAH: I am.

ANNE: I’m so intrigued by what you do. And we’ve had so many questions from our listeners over the years. As a cover designer, can we start with like, what do your days look like? Just like leap into the middle of it.

SARAH: It looks so different day to day. You know, it’s a very cyclical sort of job because we have seasons. Right now I’m working on the summer titles that are coming out next year.

ANNE: So like 9 to 12 months ahead?

SARAH: Yes.

ANNE: Okay.

SARAH: Yeah, that’s correct. At the beginning of the season is the book launch, where we get told all the titles that we’re going to work on. And so after that, we get really into the thick of things, and we’re just working on covers every day. That’s where we are right now in the season. It’s like we’re right in the thick of things. We’re trying to get everything ready for positioning and sales meetings. So it looks so different every day. I mean, some days I’m reading manuscripts.

[00:09:58] ANNE: Oh, that was one of my questions. Do you read the books first before you design the cover?

SARAH: It depends. It totally depends. Because sometimes we don’t have the full manuscript.

ANNE: Oh, makes sense.

SARAH: I try to read all the material that we do have for the book. Sometimes we just have a sampling. Other times we do have the full manuscript. I’ll say too, it depends on the genre of the book. I think it’s a lot more important to read the full manuscript when you’re working on fiction, just because it’s usually less of a literal sort of approach to the cover.

[00:10:31] That’s where I’m going through with a highlighter and finding different things that stand out in the manuscript that could maybe be imagery for the cover. Whereas with nonfiction, usually it’s a little bit more cut and dry. And we have an idea already just from the brief that we get at the start of a project of what we want to show on the cover.

ANNE: How often are you given an idea like, “We’re thinking we want a cover that looks something like this”? And how often is it more like, “I don’t know. Sarah and team, what you got?”

SARAH: We always have a brief at the start of the project. The creative brief includes things like books that it’s going to be on display with at the bookstore and things that the author would like to see, things that the publisher would like to see.

[00:11:24] Sometimes there’s a lot more included in the brief. Sometimes the author gets really excited about their cover, and they’ll send a whole PowerPoint presentation with all of these images and all of this inspiration that they’re really excited about. And other times the authors are super hands-off and really give us the creative reins.

I’d say both are challenging in their own way. Both are exciting to work on. But yeah, it really does depend from book to book what we’re working with at the very start. But there’s always a creative brief of some sort. So I’m never going in to a fully blank canvas and just having the title of the book and the manuscript. That’s never happened.

ANNE: Now, I understand that we got to keep a lid on the stuff in the works right now. But could you select, could you pluck a favorite cover that you designed from your history and walk us through the process?

[00:12:29] SARAH: Oh, yeah. Can I tell you about a couple?

ANNE: Oh, absolutely.

SARAH: Okay. Again, it’s so different from project to project. So I’ll start with one… It’s not out yet, but it should be coming out pretty soon. It’s called This is for You. It’s by Lea Redmond. It’s a book that’s all about gift-giving. And something that the author mentioned in the brief was that she wanted the actual book to look like a gift.

And so I spent my early days on this project literally wrapping books and tying them up with bows. And it was so much fun. But I probably wrapped, gosh, like 20 or 30 books and tried different variations of ribbons and different sorts of tags.

The final product, which you should be able to look up right now, it is currently available for pre-order. But the final product, I found some brown wrapping paper and kind of crinkled it up to give it some texture and found some string in my craft supply box, which is ever growing as I get more and more new projects. But yeah, it’s more of a simple approach. And when you see it in the store, it’s supposed to actually look like a gift.

[00:13:46] And then another book that I worked on pretty recently, I don’t think this one’s out yet either, but it is The Mires by Tina Makereti. It’s a book that is following three neighboring families in New Zealand. And the setting is super important to the book.

The first thing I did was just tons of research on what sorts of animals and plants can be found in New Zealand swamps. So sometimes my days are spent just researching all day and learning about the different imagery that can go on the book. Other days, I’m actually on the floor of my office wrapping books or, you know, working with supplies or working with paint.

Even more recently, I went to the craft store and I got some clay and I was shaping worms out of the clay to make like type for the book out of the worms.

ANNE: What?

[00:14:52] SARAH: So it’s such a fun job because every day looks so different. I mean, there are days where I’m just on my computer all day long, you know, on Photoshop, on InDesign, on the different programs and just chugging away on the design part of the process.

But really, it so depends. The day-to-day could look like reading a manuscript. There are days that are full of meetings. I, unfortunately, am not immune to meetings. And so it’s different every day. Keeps me on my toes.

Another author I’ve designed for is Abby Jimenez. And, oh man, romance books are so much fun to work on. The process for that is usually first, just sending in a bunch of sketches to the publisher or the creative director.

ANNE: Your sketches?

SARAH: Yes. So I’m sketching out different ways that the cover could look. And then I send that off and they’ll choose a sketch. And then I come back and I will make a painting, a digital painting of that.

[00:15:57] So the process with those, it’s maybe a little bit more simple because I’ve just done so many of them, but it’s no less fun. I mean, every book, there’s a different dog involved. And so I get to put a painting of a dog on every cover. The brief always includes all those details. So yeah, that’s a fun process.

ANNE: Sarah, when I look at those covers, one nonfiction, two novels, different genre, like I would not look at them in a store and go, “Oh, that’s all Sarah’s work.” They’re so different. I would have guessed that cover designers have a style. And it’s making me wonder, well, one, can you say more about that? And two, what else don’t I know?

SARAH: I think that some cover designers do have a style. I think I do have an illustration style. All of my illustrated covers have sort of the same look and feel maybe, but everything else is a little different, and that’s on purpose because I’m always trying to kind of push myself to see where it will take me. And it’s fun. I never know where I’m going to land with a cover. So yeah, it really is just dipping into the unknown and seeing what comes out of it.

[00:17:16] But, oh, that’s a good question on certain things that people might not think about with cover design. I think one thing is that it’s a field that requires a lot of empathy because we’re working with an author who has spent, you know, often years of their life writing their book. And they’re very attached to it. And they have a lot to say about the book cover. We have to please the author and we have to please the publisher and the editor.

And there are just a lot of hoops that we kind of jump through to get a cover approved. And of course, it’s not just the author that is looking at it. Their agent is looking at it. Their mom, their best friend, their dog. Like everyone is kind of giving their thoughts on the cover before it gets approved.

[00:18:13] I think you have to have a lot of empathy because you can’t get too caught up in your work. It is a collaborative process. And there’s always going to be feedback. And the goal isn’t just to make something that I find beautiful. The goal is to make something that is going to package the author’s words well so that they can get their voice out into the world and their story out into the world. And that is going to sell the book for the publisher and something that’s going to entice the audience to want to pick it up. So yeah, it’s a field that requires, I think, a lot of empathy.

Also, there’s a ton of rejection involved in cover design. Because the very first round, I’m doing anywhere from 5 to 10 covers that we’re showing, and only one of those is going to go through, maybe. Sometimes none of those covers move forward to the next round.

Sometimes I have to start all over completely from scratch. So it’s a lot of play but it’s also, there’s a lot of rejection involved in the process. And so you can’t be too tied up to your work.

[00:19:29] ANNE: I’m imagining sitting in a meeting and laboring over some of these options for days. And just, I don’t know, having the agent go, “Oh, not that one. Not that one. Not that one either. Maybe that one.”

Sarah, how do you… oh gosh. Okay, you just said this was very much a collaborative process. But how do you know when a cover is right?

SARAH: I think that a cover is usually more so supposed to depict a feeling than it is the whole entire story. We just want to invite the reader into one part of the book. We don’t want to give them the entire story on the cover. So we’re trying to create the right feeling. It’s a very intuitive process, I would say. That’s a hard question to answer because it’s so intuitive.

[00:20:22] I think it just sort of clicks into place as you go. Like as you’re pulling elements and pulling color palettes, things just click into place. And once I think a cover is ready, that’s when I show it to my creative director. But they might not think that that’s ready to show to the author or the publisher. So that’s a hard question to answer.

ANNE: Oh, I imagine part of it is just like, you know, the author knows, the publisher knows. But like why, I would imagine that part is harder to articulate.

SARAH: Yeah. And oh my goodness, I mean, I have to walk away from my computer a lot. Because when I’m staring at something for a long time, I forget what I’m looking at. Sometimes I’ll be working on a cover for eight hours straight, and it’s not until I walk away from my computer and come back that I can really view it from an outside perspective.

[00:21:21] ANNE: That makes a lot of sense. Doing what you do, or even going back to long before this was your profession, what kind of covers are you drawn to as a reader? What do you notice that I might not?

SARAH: I think art in general is so subjective. So what I find really enticing might not be what other people find enticing. But I love when a cover is doing something that you don’t usually see, which is a hard thing to do because there are a lot of covers out in the world and it’s hard to come up with new ways of doing things that have been already done.

But I think for me, I really enjoy just beautiful illustration and unique type. Like type and lettering that isn’t often used on book covers. And it’s fun, too. One trend that I’ve been seeing a lot lately is people who are taking the type and they’re not just doing straight type. Instead, they’re kind of wrapping it around the cover in a way.

[00:22:30] So they’re using the canvas and letting the type on the cover also be part of the art. I think just unique solutions to covers is what draws me in. Because I also look at so many of them.

ANNE: Are there any designers whose work you particularly admire? Although, interesting, sometimes when I love a cover, and I’ll be working on a blog post of covers on the theme or examples of a style for Modern Mrs. Darcy, say, it can be quite difficult sometimes to track down the designer of a certain book. It seems like cover designers often fly under the radar.

SARAH: We do.

ANNE: But I’d love to hear whose work you particularly admire.

SARAH: I really love the work of Na Kim. She is like a rock star book cover designer. She does new and exciting things all the time. One of the books that I’m going to be talking about later on in my favorites was designed by her. But I’ll save that for now.

[00:23:31] But some other book cover designers I just really enjoy are Sarah Wood has done some really cool work. Tree Abraham is a really unique and incredible designer. Kelly Winton, she will take fine art and use it in just really unique and exciting ways. But I’ll also say, if you ever want to find out who the designer of a book cover is, if it’s a hardcover, you can open up to the inside back flap, and it’ll say at the bottom. Or if it’s a paperback, usually it’s on the very back cover.

ANNE: Thank you for the hot tip. Sarah, favorites are hard, but do you have a favorite book you’ve worked on, whether it’s the final result, the creative process along the way, or something else entirely?

[00:24:28] SARAH: One of my favorites that I’ve worked on is Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame. And more than anything, it’s just because I love the story so much. It’s like such a sweet and cozy and warm and inviting story. I work on a lot of really incredible books, but this one just really spoke to my heart and was a joy to work on.

ANNE: Does that necessarily correlate that if you love the story, you love the process? I would imagine it’s not that simple.

SARAH: No, it’s not. And I’ve heard from other cover designers, and I agree with this. A lot of times it’s harder to work on the books that you really, really love because you get so attached to it, and you want to perfectly show on the cover what’s inside the book. And you feel like you’re never able to really hit that sweet spot with it. So yeah, I think it can be more difficult to work on the books that I really, really love.

[00:25:33] ANNE: Have you found books you really, really love because of this work? Or more broadly, how has this work impacted your reading life?

SARAH: I have found books that I really love. Definitely Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame. Salty by Kate Myers is such a great book.

ANNE: I love that cover. I haven’t read the book yet, but I love the cover.

SARAH: Thank you. It’s a really funny book and was such a delight to work on. But yeah, I do think that my work life impacts my reading life a lot just in that I’m reading manuscripts all the time. And I think that satisfies my craving for reading newer books. And I still love reading new books but my tendency and my own just downtime is to pick up books that are more backlist or classics.

[00:26:36] ANNE: That’s so interesting. We may talk about this more, but everything I’ve heard about your reading style and preferences so far remind me so much of our team member Ginger.

SARAH: Oh, yes. I think she’s my reading twin.

ANNE: I think she might be too. And I’d love to hear about your books. Are you ready? Are you ready to talk about what you love?

SARAH: Yes.

ANNE: Sarah, you know how this works. You’re going to tell me three books you love, one you don’t, and we will focus on a few recommendations you can walk away with. I’m so curious to hear how you chose these today. Because I know you put a lot of thought into it, different directions you could go.

SARAH: Well, one of them is just my all-time favorite book. But I wanted to choose books that were favorites, but also really encapsulated just my life as a creative and what that journey has looked like for me and books that have kind of been alongside me the whole way.

[00:27:36] ANNE: I love that approach. What’s the first book you love?

SARAH: My first book is Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis is actually my all-time favorite author. He’s a big reason why I even work at HarperCollins right now. The HarperOne group is the publisher for all of C.S. Lewis’s adult nonfiction and fiction titles. And so it’s so cool getting to touch some of what is going out into the world from his backlist.

But yeah, Till We Have Faces is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. It’s told through a more philosophical sort of lens, I would say. And instead of following the perspective of the beautiful Psyche, it’s instead told from her ugly and disfigured sister’s perspective.

[00:28:34] And that sister’s name is Orual, which is kind of a mouthful, but the narrative is split into two parts. So in the first part, Orual is writing her defense against the gods of the kingdom of Glome. And she’s sort of recounting her life and everything that has happened to her sister, who she deeply loves, but loves to an extent where it becomes possessive and corrupted.

Then the second half of the book is kind of her being confronted with her own nature and coming face to face with the accusation that she made in the first half. And it’s just a really profound novel. I mean, it’s so richly layered and explores some of my favorite themes.

One of the biggest themes in this book is just the nature of love, and all aspects of love, pure love, and also corrupted love. Yeah, it’s the kind of book that I could read and reread a hundred times and just never grow tired of it. The first time I read it, I closed it and then immediately just restarted it. It was so impactful to me.

[00:29:48] ANNE: That does seem to be a book that rewards readers for coming back to it again and again and again.

SARAH: I think it gets richer with each reread because it’s just, yeah, it’s so layered and so full of symbolism. It’s also one of those books where, you know, when you read it at different parts of your life, you kind of come away with different things.

ANNE: Sarah, your favorite book ever is really saying a lot. So thank you for sharing that. It’s very helpful. What’s the second book you love?

SARAH: Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle. And Madeleine L’Engle is definitely most known for A Wrinkle in Time, which is a wonderful book. She wrote such great fiction. But I urge people to not sleep on her nonfiction titles. Her Crosswicks Journals are also so good, but Walking on Water is, yeah, absolutely a favorite of mine.

[00:30:55] I’d say it’s part memoir and part meditation on the creative process. She discusses what it is to be a creative and what it is to live out the creative life faithfully. And yeah, I can think of no book that better explores the mysteries of the creative process, which it is a very mysterious process as someone who is spending all my hours doing creative work.

But yeah, this is one that even comes up from time to time in creative meetings with my coworkers, just because I think a lot of us can relate to the material. But I wanted to share just one short quote from the book. And that quote is, “Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos, we see despite all the chaos.”

[00:31:54] I just love that idea of walking into the chaos and finding the cosmos and bringing that out and that being part of this creative journey. I’d also say this isn’t a book that’s just for people who are artists or writers. I think this is a book for everyone because we’re all creative in some way.

I mean, even mathematicians are using creativity with numbers and they’re having to walk into the chaos to find the cosmos with the numbers. But I just find this to be such a beautifully written and profound exploration of the creative life. It’s the kind of book that I wish I could gift to everyone.

ANNE: Ooh, high praise. I love that it comes up in your life and your work. Sarah, what did you choose for your final favorite?

[00:32:53] SARAH: My final favorite is Gilead. I kind of hinted at this earlier, but this is also one of my favorite covers that is designed by Na Kim. And I should be specific because there are two different covers available. There’s the original cover, which shows a door and it’s very simplistic and beautiful and true to the story. But I adore the reissued cover that features this really beautiful and whimsical watercolor painting. And yeah, it’s a cover that I’m proud to have on my shelf.

I’m such a nerd when it comes to book display, but the way that the spines line up is really also captivating because they’re all a different color and it just looks so nice on the shelf.

ANNE: The way that the spines line up. I love that.

[00:33:56] SARAH: Yeah. There are some series that I’ll specifically buy because I love the way that the spines look all together. But yeah, this is a slower-paced sort of book. It’s very thought-provoking. It follows a pastor named John Ames and he’s in his 70s and learns that he’s dying.

And we learn as the story goes on that after losing his first wife, he married a much younger woman and they have a seven-year-old son together. The book is written in sort of a journal format as a letter that he hopes to pass on to his son. But in this letter/journal, he’s sharing about his own struggles with faith and the history of his family and his best friend’s son, who sort of stands as this prodigal son sort of figure in the Gilead series.

But it’s just such a beautifully written book and touches on all of my favorite themes in books, such as philosophy and theology and family, and of course, grace. I love the concept of grace in this story. It’s a sad book, and it explores grief and what that looks like.

[00:35:21] ANNE: I love how those themes keep coming up for you.

SARAH: Yeah.

ANNE: Sarah, now tell me about a book that didn’t work for you.

SARAH: One book that did not work for me is Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I feel like I have to give the caveat that I really love some of her other work that I’ve read. I love The Dutch House. I think that’s a marvelous story. And Bel Canto as well.

ANNE: Interesting cover design story there too that she told on book tour.

SARAH: Oh, that’s fun. I’ll have to go back and learn about that. Those are HarperCollins books, so yeah, it’s kind of fun to know who worked on them.

But yeah, Tom Lake didn’t quite work for me. I chose this as my book that didn’t work for me because it’s one that I so expected to work for me. It had all the makings of the book that I would love, but it just fell short for me.

[00:36:20] And I think a big part of that is just I never felt like I connected with the characters. It always felt like there was sort of a hazy curtain between me and the characters and I never was able to really be immersed in the story with them, and I never felt like I was really there in that cherry orchard. I think it’s a beautifully, beautifully written book, but yeah, it was a little disappointing for me.

ANNE: Did you read the print or the audio?

SARAH: I did a bit of both actually, which is something that I do quite often. I’ll switch between print and audio depending just where I am because I don’t want to have to put down my books. So yeah, I did both.

ANNE: The reason I’m asking is because I read this for the first time in print and had this very specific idea of what I imagined the characters would be like. And then I listened to the audio on a reread and I really enjoyed the audio and it’s Meryl Streep… And I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this about Meryl Streep, but I just didn’t. I mean, of course, I’m allowed to say it. And we always say on the podcast, it’s never just you.

[00:37:24] But I felt like that character and cluster of characters was sharper than the ones I’d envisioned in my mind. And I really liked the ones I’d envisioned in my mind. And I’m asking because I don’t think you would have liked those sharper characters as much, or maybe at all, either. I don’t know if it’s here or there, but it’s just something I’m wondering.

SARAH: Yeah, no, that’s a good question.

ANNE: There’s a lot about first impressions there as well. I don’t know in what format you met the characters. We’re talking about cover design. First impressions do feel pertinent to so many conversations about books and reading, and our expectations about what we thought a book would be and then what it turns out being because that can go in any number of directions.

SARAH: Yeah. Oh, that’s so true. I had a lot of expectations for this book and it just felt I never fully understood who the characters were. And I think too, I may have been a little disappointed in the ending of the book, but I don’t want to touch on that as much because spoilers.

[00:38:29] ANNE: Okay. What have you been reading lately, Sarah?

SARAH: I recently finished The Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante. I love those books. They are so, so good. I read them as quickly as I could, but not quick enough just because I was checking them out from the library and had to wait for my holds to come in between the books.

I also recently finished Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout. I love Elizabeth Strout’s writing. She’s a comfort author for me. I mean, she writes her characters with so much grace. They’re so endearing. And you just can tell that she loves her characters in the way that she writes them.

ANNE: Yes. And I’m really tracking with the quiet introspective. I almost said literary fiction, but you said books. That you love a good character story. I’m really thinking of those now.

SARAH: Yeah.

[00:39:31] ANNE: Sarah, what are you looking for in your life right now?

SARAH: Ooh, I’m looking for, I think, character-driven books that touch on all of those themes that I so enjoy, like grace and philosophy and theology and human nature. I’m looking for, I think, any genre. I do read from pretty much every genre other than maybe not so much the horror genre, unless I’m specifically working on that kind of book for work. But I think all genres can touch on these themes. So just, yeah, whatever you have for me, I guess.

ANNE: Oh gosh. All right. Sarah, these are really fun to work with. You loved Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle, and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Not for you was Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, which surprised you. And lately you’ve enjoyed the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan Quartet.

[00:40:36] I’m really getting a picture of the character-driven introspective kinds of books you like. And we kept talking about the themes of grace and creativity, and philosophy. And you also really enjoy reading books that are older. I think often much older. Is that right?

SARAH: Yeah. Yeah. I would say that’s true.

ANNE: And how you like the mix, that’s important to you. And you are obligated to read a fair amount of contemporary fiction for work. So it’s up to you to fill in those old books.

I really loved what you said about grace, philosophy, creativity. I so wish I had the classic with themes of creativity and redemption. And readers, you’re probably yelling at your phones right now, please tell us in comments at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com, the one that’s coming up for you, because we would love to hear. And Sarah, I think I can speak for you and say that you would welcome those as well.

SARAH: Definitely. Yeah.

[00:41:36] ANNE: And I don’t want to tell you about a bunch of books you already know, but there’s a lot to work with there. I know you said you wanted to try for some recs. Can we do that now?

SARAH: Yes, definitely. Yeah. I’m excited to hear.

ANNE: I’m thinking of a Ginger book. So you and Ginger share so much in common in your reading life. I think I’m going to an old book that I first found through her would be a good place to leap off from. What do you think?

SARAH: I think that sounds great.

ANNE: I’m thinking of The Supper of the Lamb. It’s a culinary reflection by Robert Farrar Capon. Is this a book you know?

SARAH: No, it’s not.

ANNE: Okay. This is from 1969. Sometimes it’s called a cookbook because there are recipes in it, but I think it will appeal to you as a meditation on life right now, like very quotidian things and also capital L life across all time.

[00:42:38] This is great for those who like, just like to read a good piece of food writing, but also those who are faith seeker, who like funny unexpected stuff. His first recipe is about leg of lamb and just leaps right in with, let me begin without ceremony and just starts talking about this leg of lamb he has going in his kitchen and talks about how to prepare it.

But also what he’s thinking of and how working with his hands in this way, you and I talked about working with your hands and working with your mind, what it calls him to think about and how really, I don’t know that he uses this word, but how it grounds him and his life right now, but also his big life and the broader life shared by all humanity.

So he talks about the very practical, tangible, necessary stuff, but also the sacred and how to kind of combine those things in the role of eating, which we do multiple times every single day. And he talks about how to bring the spirit of feasting into life in a bigger sense. He’s like funny and wry and sounds like somebody who would be fun to talk to.

[00:43:49] This isn’t a long book, but I think it might be a nice little dose of a different era, a different… I think he’s got the philosophy going, not explicitly, you wouldn’t call this a philosophy text, but I think his philosophy is one you would enjoy getting acquainted with and spending some time with. How does that sound?

SARAH: Oh, that sounds wonderful.

ANNE: Okay. I’m glad to hear it. That is The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection by Robert Farrar Capon. Then I’m wondering about a book that is not super old, but… I think we’re talking about like 25 years at this point. It’s The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, who’s probably best known to me as the author of The Memory Police. Is this a work you’re acquainted with or have you read anything by Ogawa?

SARAH: I haven’t, but I’ve seen the cover of it.

[00:44:49] ANNE: Which is so gorgeous. What do you think about the cover? The older ones have these various… I mean, depending on the edition, there’s cherry blossoms and they’re beautiful and evocative. But there’s also some new editions from Picador that just came out this summer that have a very different emotional direction. I’d be curious in your take, especially if you read it on the emotional tone being conveyed in the different options.

SARAH: I don’t think I’ve seen the newer covers, but I’ve seen the older one and I think it’s beautiful and it sounds like a great pick for me.

ANNE: The new one is a little more clever. This book is slim. It’s less than 200 pages and it’s also… I mean, it asks a lot of big philosophical questions, not explicitly, but because of the premise of the story.

[00:45:45] There’s a professor, he’s a, I believe, a number theory professor. I was a liberal arts major. I didn’t spend a lot of time with math past the age of 18, except in a practical way. But the professor employs a housekeeper and every morning he meets his housekeeper as if it is the first time, because years ago now he was in a bad car accident and as a result, he has a short-term memory that only lasts 80 minutes.

So every morning, the professor wakes up, he sees these notes to himself that he has pinned all over him, the most important of which says, “You won’t remember anything longer than 80 minutes.” But every day he meets his housekeeper anew and every day he discovers with joy that she has a 10-year-old son and every day he discovers they share a love of baseball. Baseball is throughout the story. I want to revise our Modern Mrs. Darcy baseball book list and add this to it because I hadn’t read it at the time that we published that list.

[00:46:48] But he calls the boy Root because he has a flat head and haircut and that reminds him of the sign for square root. And every day he makes this discovery. But every day in the course of the new conversation that he feels like he’s having for the first time, but no one else does, he hits it off with the boy. He wants to connect with him about baseball. They love the same picture.

But also every day in the course of conversation, numbers come up and he remembers everything very, very well prior to the accident. That memory was not damaged at all. And when numbers come up, it reminds him of things to tell his housekeeper and they have these new conversations every day. And he remains the same person rediscovering a life every day, but no one else has the same experience he does.

There’s an overarching plot point where they’re trying to get him to a baseball game. And when you talk about… I don’t know that you use the word hope, but when you talk about hope and grace, like, oh, you just want the professor to make it to this game. How does it sound to you?

[00:47:49] SARAH: That sounds right up my alley. Sounds so good.

ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. Okay. For another book that feels in the cluster of Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Strout, Madeleine L’Engle, I think of these authors as being wistful, reflective. They talk about hard things, but also it feels like so gently delivered.

There are a couple books that came out quite recently that feel like they’re operating in that same space. But then there’s also some authors who I don’t believe are quite as well known, but who also work in those same emotional circles. Your call, which direction you want to go?

SARAH: Oh, gosh, we can’t go both.

ANNE: Okay. I guess we could. And you know what? Maybe you’ve read some of them. But one of the contemporary books that came to mind was How to Read a Book by Monica Wood. Have you read this one?

[00:48:50] SARAH: No, I haven’t. I don’t think I’ve heard of it.

ANNE: Okay. She’s a main author and she’s written fiction and nonfiction in her home state. This is a poignant novel that is about three lonely people. Two of them are in their 60s — I know some of our listeners love a protagonist who has some years behind them, not just like a plucky little 30-year-old — and one young woman who’s just like 21, give or take, at the time the book comes out. But they’re all connected by this terrible tragedy. And so right there you have the makings of the grace and redemption story that I know you enjoy.

But they’re also connected through books. So the younger woman was just 19 when she was drunk and high and caused the death of a beloved local teacher and sentenced to 28 months in a women’s prison nearby. The character Harriet, who many of the characters in the story know as Bookie, she runs the book group at the women’s prison where the inmates spend one hour a month where they just really relish like ripping the classics to shreds. Although there is one exception that they all love.

[00:50:01] And I got to say with this book, the way her characters don’t hold back talking about the books that you had to read in English class is really enjoyable for many readers and also may add a lot to your… may give you a lot of potential classics to work into your own reading rotation.

And then there’s an older man named Frank. He’s the victim’s widower and he fills his time by volunteering his handyman services at the local bookstore. He’s a machinist and highly skilled and Monica Wood has talked about to write him as a character. She went to her local machine shop and worked with all the guys and put on her hard hat and rolled up her sleeves and saw what it’s all about. She talked about how she really loves to show what people do at work in this book. And that’s not the only way that professions show up and really fascinating, just like highly textured, you feel like you’re in it, ways.

[00:50:54] So these people should have never met if things had gone better, but their lives have all been marked by tragedy, thrown horribly off course. And yet the way they find their way to each other and create a little, I don’t want to use the word family because I think it sounds cheesy, but it’s right together is I think you may find it really moving.

And for those who love a story about the power of books, this is that as well. And when I heard what this was about, oh my gosh, and saw it’s completely charming cover, I don’t know who designed it, I thought, “Oh gosh, it would be so easy for this story to go modeling.” And I really think it’s a testament to Monica Wood’s craft. She goes hard places, but it feels earned. How does that sound?

SARAH: That sounds great. I love books that reference other books. It’s always so fun to follow the trail of what books it leads me to.

[00:51:51] ANNE: Yes. I mean, I don’t need more ideas on what to read next. I could keep myself occupied until like 2,500 with the ones on my list, but I still do love a book that leads me to more books.

For old, oh gosh, there’s so many authors we could talk about, but I think the one that was rising to the top of my mental list was Kent Haruf. Have you read anything by him?

SARAH: I have. Yes. I’ve read Our Souls at Night and oh, I thought it was beautiful.

ANNE: Okay. He’s got a small world, but a whole world of novels set in the little fictional town of Holt, Colorado. He published his first in 1984. Some of the titles… The Tide That Binds is his first, Where You Once Belonged, Plain Song, Evenside, Benediction.

My husband, Will, for those who read like Will Bogel, he either is a Kent Haruf completist or is very, very close. He really loves his work and read it before I did.

[00:52:51] But these are stories of people unrelated by blood who face hard things, often lonely, are brought together, and something quietly shifts in their lives and they feel so… I mean, Kent Haruf is Kent Haruf, but they don’t feel unlike Elizabeth Strout or Marilynne Robinson.

And for those who are like, “Oh, but I finished all those. What do I read next?” an author like Kent Haruf could be a really good answer. Our Souls at Night is a great place to start. And I think you may enjoy going back and exploring the rest. I tend to be looser about these kinds of things, but I don’t think they need to be read in order.

SARAH: I didn’t even know there was an order to his books, but that sounds great. I really loved the writing in Our Souls at Night. So eager to dip into some of his other work.

[00:53:50] ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. Okay. Sarah, thank you for so generously talking about your work and your reading life with us today. And I’m curious where we’re finding you at the end of this. The books we discussed were The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Ferrer Capon, then we talked about The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, and we ended with How to Read a Book by Monica Wood and the constellation of related novels by Kent Haruf. Of those titles, what do you think you may pick up next?

SARAH: Definitely all of them. But I think I’m going to start with The Ginger pick, The Supper of the Lamb.

ANNE: The Ginger Pick.

SARAH: Yes.

ANNE: I’d love that for you, and I’m excited to hear what you think. Sarah, thank you so much for talking your work and your life today, and especially for sharing your books with us and talking about your reading life.

SARAH: Of course. Thank you for having me. I’m happy to offer my perspective as a book cover designer.

[00:54:56] ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sarah, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. As you heard, we especially welcome titles on creativity. Find Sarah on Goodreads and Instagram. We’ll have those links and the full list of titles we talked about at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

I really recommend checking out her Instagram. I don’t say that a lot these days, but that is a quick and easy place to see her cover designs, plus some of her designs that ended up on the cutting room floor but she shares there.

Follow our show on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext, where we love sharing snippets from each episode and other updates from our team here at What Should I Read Next?

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[00:56:07] Thanks to the people who make this show happen. 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. With help from the Audio wizzes 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.