LARA: When I talk to people about books and say, you know, my wheelhouse, safe place, comfort book is contemporary literary fiction, that does not mean reading books like James Joyce every day. I do love a beautifully crafted sentence, right?

ANNE BOGEL: That’s good, because I’m not ready to talk about James Joyce.

LARA: Okay, good. Me either.

ANNE: 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.

[00:00:56] Readers, finding highly discussable books for book clubs often feels like a full-time job, especially if you’re a member of multiple long-standing book clubs like today’s guest, Lara. Lara lives in Phoenix, where she works as a corporate storyteller. She started a book club in 2013 that’s still going strong, and since then, she’s enjoyed expanding her bookish community through a variety of related hobby groups.

Lara describes herself as reading for comfort and curiosity and is drawn to fiction that explores the human condition in all its messy glory. She loves these sorts of books because they give her so much to talk about with her fellow readers. And Lara thinks talking about books is one of the best parts of the whole reading experience.

Lara had a big aha moment that shifted her thinking on seeking out what she wants to read next and what she wants to read in her book clubs.

When she listened to my conversation with my husband Will here on the podcast about our 2024 reads, she heard something that struck her. When I mentioned my appreciation for books that are literary AND, that is, they’re literary novels that also bring in strong genre elements like romance or adventure or mystery, Lara’s reaction was, Oh, me too.

[00:02:01] So today, we’re going to talk more about books that are literary AND, and find Lara some good ones for her TBR. Let’s get to it.

Lara, welcome to the show.

LARA: Oh, Anne, thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

ANNE: Oh, well, I can’t wait to dive in today. Our team was very excited about your submission, and I’ve got ideas, but I’m not sure where the conversation is going to take us. I’m excited to find out.

LARA: Oh, me too.

ANNE: Lara, thanks for coming on. Start by telling us a little about yourself. We want to give our readers a glimpse of who you are.

LARA: Well, I am a corporate storyteller. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, and I’ve lived here most of my life, although I do call a very small part of Oklahoma home too. I have a 21-year-old son with a literary name, Emerson, and an 11-year-old rescue dog.

I love to travel, check out new restaurants, watch movies, binge watch shows. You know, Phoenix gets really hot, so every summer I do try to escape for a little bit. I have a fantastic group of friends, and we love getting together for concerts, movies, shows, and game nights. So that’s kind of me in a nutshell.

[00:03:14] ANNE: Aw, that sounds lovely. I’ve never been to Arizona. Would very much love to go. Lara, I’ve never heard the words corporate and storyteller back-to-back like that. What does that mean?

LARA: Oh, okay. So it essentially means that what… the way I describe it to people is when you’re at a company, you have a marketing team that markets the company’s, you know, products, services, widgets, whatever it is that they’re doing. Corporate storytelling is in the internal and executive communication space. So it’s almost like marketing to your employees.

So I lead teams that put together communication campaigns and culture and engagement campaigns to connect the teams within an organization to the company’s mission, vision, and values, and make sure that they know where the company’s headed and how their work and their contributions can be a part of propelling the company forward.

ANNE: Interesting. That sounds fascinating. We could talk about that all day, but we’re not going to. We’re going to talk about books.

LARA: Fair, fair.

[00:04:18] ANNE: Tell me about your reading life.

LARA: Yes, yes. So I come from a family of readers. I think it would be really surprising if I wasn’t a reader. My name comes from a famous book, Doctor Zhivago, the main character, Lara. My dad, mom, and step-mom are all big readers. So I learned pretty early on in life that books and especially stories, probably more fiction books, have a way of connecting us.

As a Gen X-er, I started with Encyclopedia Brown. I loved that when a case got really hard, he brought in his best gal pal, Sally Kimball, to help him solve the case. I ended up being a Judy Blume superfan. That was really a time where connecting with other people other than yourself, knowing that your insecurities were not yours alone, was pivotal as a young adult.

[00:05:18] But I would say a seminal moment in my reading life came after college. I was involved in a women’s philanthropic personal development networking group. One year I was the programming chair. And I didn’t know what to do for the program that month, and I thought, You know what, I’m going to assign a book and see if people would do an impromptu book club with me.”

I had no idea how many people in the group would be interested, but we ended up having pretty great interest. When we finished, we went to dinner, we talked about the book, and I said, “Does anyone want to do this again?” And they all wanted to do it again. And so that evolved into what is known as the Book Babes Book Club, and it’s been going strong every month, even through the pandemic since 2013.

[00:06:13] That same year, I started an online book club called Book Bingo with women from across the country. We’ve had one in Canada and one overseas who just love talking about books. We really nerd out every December with the release of the new Bingo card.

We’ve had in-person meetups. There’s like over 30 of us. We’ve had in-person meetups across the country. 10 of us, in 2023, met up in Nashville for Ann Patchett’s release of Tom Lake. We went to her amazing bookstore, Parnassus, and we heard her speak and met with her afterward. I’m also in two other local book clubs and write a book review column with an author friend of mine that we call Snotty Literati.

So I guess you could say that the first book club experiment that I did back in 2013 was the catalyst to creating a really rich reading life, which of course includes listening to the What Should I Read Next? podcast where I get a lot of great ideas.

[00:07:15] ANNE: Aw, I’m so glad to hear it. Thanks for letting me be a part of that.

LARA: Of course.

ANNE: Lara, what role does reading play in your life right now?

LARA: The role right now is just… I’m going to say comfort and curiosity. Fiction is what I predominantly read. And I think it helps us understand humanity and understand the human condition. I think at the times that we’re living today, that kind of clarity is a balm with how the world is working. And so it’s a comfort, it’s entertainment, it’s learning about others.

ANNE: Okay. Are we going to hear that in the books you chose?

LARA: I think you are.

ANNE: Okay. I’m excited to hear more. Now, I really loved the concept you brought to us on your submission where you had this aha moment about what you wanted to find more of. Would you tell me more of that before I put more words in your mouth?

[00:08:17] LARA: Oh, for sure. So I would say 90% of the time I’m listening to your podcast in the car. And I was driving around doing some errands when I was listening to your 2024 episode recap that you did with your husband Will, and you were talking about this, what I’m going to say is a concept. So it wasn’t my idea that I brought to the show. It was me sharing your idea back to you of literature AND. Literature and suspense. Literature and romance. Literature and dystopia.

And I had this aha moment. I literally was driving in my car. I can see myself on my surrounded street pulling into my neighborhood and saying, Yes, those are the kinds of books I love. Those are the kinds of books I want more of in my life. This idea that there is some meat, there’s something to hold on to in what I’m reading that causes a deeper level of thought, appreciation, ability to talk about it.

[00:09:26] Don’t get me wrong, like there’s time and place for sure for a popcorn thriller or a breezy romcom, but I love talking about books, probably as much as you do. I just don’t do it on a platform that millions of people hear. I find that books that have the literature AND are squarely in my wheelhouse, even if the genres are different.

ANNE: So I really like the way that you’re pulling these ideas together, saying how literary fiction is really digging into the human condition. And that gives you lots of fodder for a good conversation.

LARA: Absolutely.

ANNE: And also you like plot.

LARA: Yeah.

ANNE: And some of those genre-specific explorations of… I’m just making stuff up now, but like mystery and science fiction and fantasy and romance and a good story, but also one that you know will be really, really rich and meaty.

LARA: Yes. I would say that that nails it.

[00:10:27] ANNE: I’m already tripping over my own words and concepts here because some of the books that I feel like do this really well, that I connect to personally, often get slotted as general fiction, contemporary fiction. And I want to be like, don’t be a snob, publishers.

So readers, when we’re talking about literary fiction today, we’re using the term loosely to… Lara, help me stipulate what we’re talking about. Oh my gosh, is my legal background coming through? We’re talking about books that are beautifully crafted, like not distractingly crafted, but just really the words fall in just the right order, you feel like on a sentence level is good.

LARA: Exactly. And it’s not to say when we say literary fiction and when I tell people or talk to people about books and say, you know, my wheelhouse, safe place, comfort book is contemporary literary fiction, that does not mean reading books like James Joyce every day. I do love a beautifully crafted sentence.

[00:11:27] ANNE: That’s good because I’m not ready to talk about James Joyce.

LARA: Okay, good. Me either. And I’m not looking for, you know, books that drone on with these beautiful sentences, but nothing happens. But I do love an elevated story tell that, through words, drives emotion. And that emotion doesn’t have to be something I love. I don’t have to have characters I love. I can deal with unreliable narrators.

I think one of the really amazing things is when an author can create a character that is unlikable, but is relatable or has a surprise moment where you see their humanity, even if you wouldn’t make the same choices they did.

ANNE: All right. Thank you. That’s helpful. As for myself, when we talk about literary fiction, I’m being really generous with my use of that phrase.

LARA: Sure.

[00:12:25] ANNE: I think our most important thing is to get you books that you really enjoy reading.

LARA: Yes.

ANNE: And we’ll see where this takes us. Okay, I think maybe we start with your books. How does that feel?

LARA: Oh, that sounds great.

ANNE: Lara, you know how this works. You brought three books you love, one book you don’t, and what you’ve been reading lately to talk about today, and we will find some literary AND titles I hope that you may enjoy reading next.

I feel like we should tell our Peng Shepherd origin story. Now, I know it’s not particularly unique or… we’re not going to trademark that literary and idea, but the idea does come from Peng Shepherd in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club. I do not remember what I was asking her. You know, it might be our book clubbers often like to know, hey, what genre does the author think this book is in?

Whatever the reason, she was saying, you know, I like books that kind of straddle genres that are literary and that they’re very well-written. Just really craft matters in these books but they’ve also got a strong genre bent and a strong plot.

[00:13:36] And she thought The Cartographers would fall into this category. She rattled off a few that she also really enjoyed reading and said that she thinks that we’re going to see more of these in the publishing landscape. So thank you, Peng Shepherd, for giving us a voice for that. And I’m glad to hear it’s connecting with you, Lara.

LARA: Excellent.

ANNE: So are these three books literary AND titles?

LARA: Well, they sure are.

ANNE: Okay, happy to hear it.

LARA: And I sure hope so.

ANNE: What’s the first book you love?

LARA: Okay, the first book I love is James by Percival Everett. This is a truly remarkable book. It’s literary, for sure. I honestly think it should be required reading in our schools, adults who’ve already gotten through school.

So, in it, Everett reimagines the story of Huckleberry Finn. And he does it in such a way that Jim the slave from the original is now James. He’s still a slave or enslaved, but he’s a man with intellect and compassion and a level of emotional and intellectual agency that Mark Twain couldn’t at the time, I think, afford him because of where we were in the country’s civil rights movement.

[00:15:00] It also has an amazing twist. I think the AND here is you’ve got literature and humor, you’ve got literature and heart, and you’ve got a zinger at the end.

ANNE: I’m so glad to hear that worked for you. It’s felt like well-deserved attention and readership that this book has gotten in the past year. I’ve been so glad to see it.

LARA: I would agree with you.

ANNE: Lara, what’s the second book you love?

LARA: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. I’m going to start by saying that I should not have liked this book. On paper, it’s so against so much of what I enjoy in reading.

The book is about a husband transforming into a great white shark in his first year of marriage and having to be released into the ocean, which just sounds so weird to me.

[00:16:03] ANNE: I’ve not read a book like that before.

LARA: No. It really goes against my literal sensibility. But it totally worked. It was this beautiful metaphor on the changes that can befall us in our lives. So think about a loved one getting a chronic illness, or being in an accident that permanently disables or changes them, or is suffering from addiction. This book is about what that means for those individuals and the people who love them. I simply adored it.

If you read it, I really encourage reading a physical copy. I don’t think it would work as well on audio. There’s something about the spacing as the main character is morphing into a great white shark. I don’t know if Emily intended this, but I felt super smart myself because I never catch these things. I felt more white space in the pages. I almost felt like the vastness of the ocean had a presence in the story.

[00:17:20] ANNE: That’s a very cool way to think about that.

LARA: And the cover is gorgeous. If you’re someone who impulse buys on a cover, look at this one. It’s gorgeous.

ANNE: Okay. So you say this book shouldn’t have worked for you. And it’s not the kind of thing you’d and yet you read it. How did that happen?

LARA: The book column that I write with my writing partner called Snotty Literati, we get together once a month, every six weeks to read and review a book. She can read stuff like this. She texted me one day and she’s like… well, and let me back up. I kept seeing this book in the bookstores. I kept hearing about it on podcasts. And I was like, “Oh yes, that’s the one with the really pretty cover.”

And then they would start talking about man turning into shark, and I was like, “Nope, not for me.” So I would walk away or go past that recommendation and whatever I was listening to.

[00:18:19] And she started reading it, it wasn’t a book we had selected, and she said, “I know this is out of your comfort zone, but I actually really think you would like the themes. Would you be willing to try it?” And I said, “Sure, let’s try it.”

So I think what that tells me about myself and my reading is that with a trusted source, I’m willing to go out on a limb and stretch myself, but I’m probably not going to go out on it if I just see it on a table at a bookshop and read the dust jacket. And maybe I should. Maybe I should do that more. But part of the reason I brought this topic to you is that you’re a trusted resource. So I’d love to get some help in this area.

ANNE: I don’t know if there are any “shoulds” here. Let’s see if this pops back up in our conversation.

LARA: Okay, fair.

ANNE: Lara, what’s the third book you love?

LARA: If I could press a book into everyone’s hands, it would be The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson.

[00:19:25] Anyone I mentioned this book to, they’ve never heard of it, they’ve never heard of her. So I just wanted to get the love that it deserves.

This is a book that really, like all of the choices I’m bringing to you today, speaks to the goodness of people, the goodness of humanity. If you’re willing to step back and look at it, look for it.

So Norman is a shy and awkward 12-year-old boy and he’s lost his best friend to an illness. And this is not a spoiler. It’s in the summary, it’s in the dust jacket, it’s in the first few pages of the book. And his friend, of course, was really dynamic and outgoing. And together, they always had this idea that they wanted to write a comedy show and make it to this Edinburgh Festival and perform it at this festival.

[00:20:22] And so as a tribute to his best friend Jax, and despite it being completely out of his comfort zone, Norman decides he’s going to go ahead and write this show as a 12-year-old and have his mom get him to Edinburgh to perform it.

This is a perfect example of this idea that it takes a village to grow up and it’s very coming of age and push the boundaries of what you think you’re capable of doing and seeking help along the way.

It’s a delightful story. The people I know that have read it have said, thank you so much for recommending that. That was just such a sweet, heartwarming, and wonderful story. And if you like audiobooks, great narrator with a Scottish-Irish lilt that makes reading it even more enjoyable.

[00:21:21] ANNE: I do love a good accent to my American ears on an audiobook. Okay, you are going to have to enthusiastically press that one into my hands because that’s a new title for me.

LARA: Oh, fantastic. I really think you would enjoy it and I’d love to hear what you think.

ANNE: Now, tell us about a book that wasn’t right for you. And I’d love to hear why. Like, was it not in sync with your taste? Was the timing terrible? Did you not realize it was a book about X when you never read about X? What’d you bring?

LARA: This is always hard to choose, but a book that did not work for me was Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Let me start by saying she’s a great writer. Her first book, which I think was Fleishman’s in Trouble, got a lot of literary acclaim. I think it turned into a Hulu series or a streaming series. And this book is very well written.

ANNE: I mean, she writes about trauma, so I can think of all kinds of reasons.

[00:22:17] LARA: Oh, yeah, she does. And I’m okay with that. I can read about trauma. This is not a book for a highly sensitive person. But the premise is really good. So I had hope going in.

And the premise is there’s a patriarch of a wealthy family and he’s in his driveway getting ready to go to work one morning and he gets kidnapped. I believe the three siblings are teenagers at the time. And he gets returned within like a week. That event impacted the entire family in a lot of different ways. Plus they have all this money and they’re kind of like wealthy people behaving badly is the undercurrent of the book.

But what I struggled with was she starts the book with one of the siblings, I think it’s the oldest brother, and it’s a very graphic and open-door storyline that came at me with no real warning.

[00:23:26] As I said before, I can deal with unlikable characters and darker content, but this felt really gratuitous. It was off-putting and just in-your-face. And I’m sure that was a choice. That was a choice she made. I would not have finished it if it weren’t for a book club I was in.

ANNE: Lara, it sounds like this book really plunged you into the deep end in a way that just felt really uncomfortable.

LARA: That’s a great way of saying it. It brought up an ick factor really fast.

ANNE: That’s good to know about yourself as a reader. And I’ll keep that in mind as we think about what you may enjoy reading next. Lara, what have you been reading lately?

LARA: I’ve been reading quite a bit lately. One of the books I recently finished is a book called We Burn Daylight by Bret Anthony Johnston, who is now someone I want to explore more of after having read this. This is a literary coming-of-age book that retells the story of the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas back in 1993, which, according to Goodreads, makes this a book of historical fiction. How is 1993 historical fiction, anyone? Please tell me. That kind of blew me away as much as the book itself.

[00:24:48] I’m also not a big rereader, but I did just reread Alison Espach’s The Wedding People for a book club. This is a book, Anne, that I think is a perfect example of literature AND. It looks like a breezy summer beach read, especially from the cover but there’s really some substance here that isn’t heavy-handed. And the author has a way, I felt, of covering more serious topics, balancing them with the humor in a really meaningful way that doesn’t just mean she put a line in to cover this topic and then checked a box and moved on and didn’t address it again. I really enjoyed it.

Then I also recently finished and loved Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson. This is another book I think that balances the light and heavy. I really enjoy stories told from different points of view, different timelines, and when it’s done well, and Wilkerson did it really well in this book. I just couldn’t put it down.

ANNE: We just talked with her in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club because this is our February selection.

LARA: Oh, that’s awesome.

[00:26:02] ANNE: And she was so wonderful. But I hear you. This is another trauma book. And also from about page three, I felt like sinking into the story and that I was in good hands and we are going to go hard places. And also it was going to be… I could trust her on the journey.

LARA: Yes, it felt earned. And it felt like she was balancing handling the reader with care, but also bringing to light some very hard truths.

ANNE: Right. I’ve not read Long Island Compromise, but I’m thinking like, if this is a trauma book and we know Good Dirt worked for you, why is that? Those are the things jumping out at me.

LARA: That makes sense.

ANNE: Okay. Lara, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

LARA: I think it really comes down to I love a rich reading experience. I want to have books that pull me in, that are engaging and interesting. I can do slower-paced books, I can do faster-paced action-type books, but it’s really has to have that base of what we’ve kind of been talking about that literature where there’s a little more meat that I can build a conversation around, bring to a book club when it’s my turn to share options.

[00:27:28] And I think I’ve already told you with Shark Heart that I’m not the best at suspending my disbelief and that can make all the magical realism, fantasy, dystopian books that are really hot right now really hard for me.

I will tell you that in addition to Shark Heart, I did enjoy from a few years ago, Naomi Alderman’s The Power, if that helps. So I would be open to trying more books like that, books that have that literary mystery, literary suspense, dystopia. I will say I’m not a super fan of vampires, zombies, or dragons, though.

ANNE: We can work with this. So Lara, you loved James by Percival Everett, Shark Heart by Emily Habeck, and The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson.

Not for you, Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. And recently you’ve been reading We Burn Daylight, The Wedding People, and also really enjoyed Good Dirt.

[00:28:31] We’ve talked a lot about what you’re looking for. We’re going to tell everybody that you asked me beforehand, what happens if you’ve read all the books I try to recommend you? Which makes me nervous, I gotta admit. But we’re just gonna jump in with two feet. Are you ready?

LARA: I’m so ready.

ANNE: I have been surprised and delighted to see this one everywhere. It was one of my favorite books I read for our spring book preview for Modern Mrs. Darcy on Patreon. We featured it there. It’s Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall. Have you?

LARA: No.

ANNE: Okay. Do you know anything about it?

LARA: I’m seeing it. I’m seeing the cover of it on Bookstagram, but no. Please tell me.

ANNE: My coping strategy in overwhelmed times has been not to be on social media. I just know that it’s sold a bajillion copies because I did actually read my publisher’s weekly this week. So what I like about this for you is, I mean, all kinds of things, but let’s start with it is a real genre-bender that’s really beautifully crafted.

[00:29:30] If you don’t know what kind of book you want, you’ve got it all here. I mean, that’s not really true, but I mean, listen to the list. It’s historical. It’s a family drama. It’s a literary thriller. You’ve got crime fiction. There’s an actual trial happening in interstitial chapters, and there’s a love story.

This is set in a little bit in London. The trial takes place in 1969 London. And then in the past, we are in 1955 and 1968 alternating, and we are in the British countryside. Specifically, it’s the Dorset countryside. And I was googling photos to see if it was really as beautiful as I was picturing in my mind. It totally is.

So a woman named Beth is at the center of this story. This might actually be in the first person. She’s happily married. She lives with her farmer husband, Frank, for more than 10 years now, they had a child together, he died, but she has never forgotten her first love, Gabriel. They met not long before she met Frank, but they met when they were just about to go to university.

[00:30:36] Beth grew up in a family that was not of means and she dreamed about getting out and going to university and reading and reading and reading because that was her love. But Gabriel went before her. She never ended up following for reasons and they parted ways not long after he attended university. And we find out why, just not in linear order.

But now Gabriel is a bestselling novelist who is known around the world. And he’s recently returned to the countryside where Beth lives, freshly divorced and with his son in tow, his darling little boy who is very important in the story.

So the plot is set in motion when the boy’s pet dog runs away and it brings these three adults, Beth and her husband, Frank, and her first love, Gabriel, together for the first time ever, and it unleashes a series of devastating consequences.

I thought this book was so beautifully written. It asks really hard questions. It looks at the human condition. Who do we love and why? What is marriage? What is commitment? What does it mean to turn your back on your dream? What does one do in the face of agonizing loss? How does one cope when that happens? I feel like that’s just the beginning. Motherhood, grief, family secrets, beautiful setting.

[00:31:54] Heads up here for copious triggers, some of which I’ve referred to that are not just like a paragraph here or there, but woven into the actual story of the plot. And for those who like books set in publishing, this is peppered with literary references because of Gabriel’s career and Beth’s love of literature. How does that sound?

LARA: Oh my gosh, I feel like you’re speaking my book love language. It sounds fantastic.

ANNE: Okay. I’m happy to hear it. And I’m glad we’re off to a good start, even if you have read already every other title that comes out of my mouth.

LARA: Touche.

ANNE: Okay. What do you know about Jean Hanff Korelitz?

LARA: I’ve read the plot. That’s all I’ve read by her. And I enjoyed it.

ANNE: Excellent. Okay. So here’s what I like about Jean Hanff Korelitz for you. First, can we do a sidebar?

LARA: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:45] ANNE: I just learned this week, readers, that Jean Hanff Korelitz is a distant cousin of Helene Hanff, who wrote 84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and all those, which delighted me. I had no idea and just stumbled upon that little nugget this week. So if you like that kind of book trivia, hope you enjoy that one.

So Korelitz has said in interviews that she wanted to be a literary novelist, but dang it, she realized that she liked plot. So I think if she was interviewing for the position of author to write books that Lara will enjoy, I mean, I don’t know that she could have done better. So I’m glad you’ve read the plot. How did that work for you?

LARA: Oh, I really liked it. I think, again, as you just said, it reads well. That’s that literary side, I guess. But there’s some twist. There’s an underlying you know something’s gonna go down but… And I won’t go so hard as saying it was dark, but you have this sense that something is gonna go down.

[00:33:57] It takes you on a good, I would say more semi-realistic twist and not like a book where it’s just the twist gets so outrageous that you have to go, come on, there’s no way.

ANNE: I mean, I don’t know. I think I might reach for words like dark and over the top. I mean, this book is not aiming at realism.

LARA: No, but I would agree with you there. But I think we’ve all read the thriller that just gets so outlandish that… I feel like this was just landish, not outlandish.

ANNE: Well, she’s got this mischievous tone and all these nods to Ripley that I think signal to the reader like, here’s what’s happening here, here’s what I’m going for. Like, you good? You good? I gotcha. Let’s do this.

LARA: I would agree.

ANNE: The sequel is better than the plot. I would really encourage you to pick this up. And for readers who haven’t read either, I don’t want to get into the details of the plot of the sequel because we would give some things away.

[00:35:02] But the devious Anna, she’s in managing mode. She is going to twist the circumstances she finds herself in to her advantage and push, push, push, push. And the things that find… I mean, like, you keep wondering, like, has she met her match? Like, what’s going to happen next? Something significant happens at a Denver book signing. She gets, like, a nasty message. So, that’s kind of fun. Like, next time you go to a book signing, you can be like, Hmm, is anybody getting any anonymous threats here at the signing?

But also, this is such a send-up of the publishing industry, which is hysterical. Like every chapter has a clever literary reference, which is super fun if you like Easter eggs. But also, she’s just totally sending up the industry. You’ve got these fawning fans and obsequious publicists and authors who are so self-important, you just, ooh-

LARA: Oh, I love it.

[00:36:00] ANNE: But it’s fun the way she does it. The people in this book are kind of terrible. The things they do are criminal. But it makes for highly entertaining reading. But also, she’s so versatile. So, we’re just going to, like, work backwards from her recent books and go to The Latecomer, which came out maybe, like, 2022, ’21. In the pandemic era.

But this book has a very different feel. It’s realistic fiction. It’s the decades-long story of an extremely wealthy Brooklyn family and their triplets. And they talk about how the triplets encompass the smart one, the weird one, and the girl. And those triplets were conceived with the help of IVF.

So, for a lot of reasons, Korelitz is examining why this family feels like they never quite came together as a family. Like the siblings go to school together and, like, not everybody knows these kids are related because they have nothing to do with each other.

LARA: Oh, interesting.

[00:37:00] ANNE: And there’s some stuff that happened way back when that explains things a little bit. But it’s an interesting… I mean, talk about the human condition. You got a lot to think about and talk about here.

But then the triplets reach college age and the mom is like, Nobody loves me. You guys are gone. Let’s thaw that last remaining embryo and have another baby. And like maybe do it again right this time.” So, when that child comes – and that is The Latecomer of the title – she sets in motion this course of events that blows up the whole family in really dramatic, fascinating ways. Also, she weaves some historical events into the plot in very interesting ways.

I’m seeing more and more requests from What Should I Read Next? potential guests that say that they love books set in the world of fine art or theater or art history. There’s a thread of modern art that runs through the book. The father in the story is a collector. I did so much Googling of paintings and artists and neighborhoods. So, if that’s fun for you, that may be a little bonus. So, Jean Hanff Korelitz. What do you think?

[00:38:16] LARA: Oh my gosh, this sounds so great. I do have a question for you. It’s been a few years since I read the plot. Do you recommend… like, I’m not a big rereader, but if it helps set tone, stage, all that, would you recommend I reread the plot before diving into the sequel?

ANNE: That’s your call. I mean, I can tell you what I would do, but I don’t know what you’re going to want to do. If you want to soak up every word of the experience and make sure you’re in exactly the right, everything’s fresh frame of mind, like, sure, go for it. But you don’t need to.

LARA: Okay.

ANNE: I definitely don’t think it’s necessary. Like, she knows full well that plenty of readers read the plot when it came out several years ago are going to scoop up the sequel when it’s new. And she is seeking to orient readers in the story who are reading it like that.

LARA: Got it. Okay.

[00:39:07] ANNE: So she doesn’t expect you to do a reread. If you expect that of yourself, like, you’re welcome to do so. But I hope that at least helps you decide what you want to do.

LARA: Yeah, that makes sense.

ANNE: Okay, literary and. So Broken Country had a lot of different historical, family, thriller, crime, love story. Jean Hanff Korelitz, I mean, you can… those are two very different books, but you’ve got that mystery, thriller, family history.

I’m wondering about something that is both like a real ride for the reader and also very, very serious interrogation of what’s happening in the world today. Have you read Jason Mott?

LARA: Hell of a book. Yes. It was fantastic.

ANNE: Okay. Right track?

LARA: Right track.

ANNE: Glad to hear it. Readers, that’s a good one. What about The Sentence by Louise Erdrich?

LARA: I have also read that.

ANNE: Awesome. What about Hum by Helen Phillips?

[00:40:06] LARA: Not only have I not read it, I’ve never heard of it.

ANNE: Okay. We’re going here because of your interest in dystopian and speculative. I mean, this is going to be deeply unsettling for a lot of readers. It’s set in a not-too-distant future that really feels uncomfortably close to home.

I picture this as being set in New York City, though I’m not sure that’s specifically said. But this is a major American metropolis that is now inhospitable to humans because severe climate change has… there aren’t any trees anymore.

Adults and children are practically chained, sometimes literally, as we see in this story, to their devices. And the Hums, which are these robots that are smarter than you and me, hold nearly all the jobs. So, in this story, the mother in a family of four, her name is May, her job becomes obsolete because of AI. So she decides the only way to make ends meet for her family is to become a guinea pig for an adversarial tech company.

[00:41:09] She undergoes a cosmetic procedure that means the surveillance cameras that are everywhere and inescapable cannot recognize her any longer. So this is a short-term solution. She gets paid a lot of money to do this, but it’s not going to last forever, and her hopes of employment now are dim. And she decides impulsively to take the money and splurge on this trip to the nearby botanical garden, which sounds lovely. We’re picturing what we know to be a botanical garden. In this city, it’s the only place where you can be in a green space and see actual trees.

She makes her family, her husband, and her two young kids put down their devices for a few days, but when they do, things go really, really wrong. So I like this for you because definitely this is about the human condition.

LARA: This sounds really good. And I think it sounds like the level of suspending of disbelief that I can do. If it helps for some reason when you were talking about it, it made me think, I don’t know if it’s a strong connection, maybe like distant cousins of Leave the World Behind.

[00:42:21] ANNE: Yeah, we can go with distant cousins.

LARA: Okay. I surprisingly enjoyed that as well. So I’m excited about this.

ANNE: You know, if you keep getting surprised by these books that ask you to suspend your disbelief, maybe-

LARA: I know where you’re going.

ANNE: Thank you. I’m struggling for the words there. I mean, yeah, you seem to… All right, theory. You seem to enjoy these books that get you outside of your life and your world so you can see them from a different angle.

LARA: Yes. Here’s probably the linchpin of it. Even if it’s bizarre and a little bit wild, there has to be a level of remote plausibility.

So for me, as horrible as the environment and Hum sounds, like you could kind of stretch your brain and see that happening. What I can’t see happening are things like dragons walking down Park Avenue or a giant roach the size of a UFO landing and taking over the earth. I don’t know if that helps.

[00:43:32] ANNE: It does. It does. All right. We have a lot more books we could discuss, but I want to end with, does everybody do this to you? How about a Doctor Zhivago book?

LARA: No one does this to me. So bring it.

ANNE: I guess you don’t usually hang out on book podcasts.

LARA: I listen to some, but no, I’m not a regular guest.

ANNE: All right. There’s a new book by Elyse Durham. I think it’s a debut. It’s called Maya & Natasha, and it’s got strong ties to Doctor Zhivago. This is historical fiction, literary. I really want to build you in a bunch of different literary AND I don’t know that I got anything besides literary fiction, historical fiction, and ballet, but-

LARA: Hey, I’ll take it. That’s art.

ANNE: Okay. The twins at the center of the story, they’re sisters, they’re talented ballerinas, and they were born into the world of Soviet classical ballet during the Cold War. Their mother was a brilliant ballerina herself, and she dies very early in the book. Actually, maybe before the action begins.

[00:44:42] They were practically raised at the ballet school. It’s the only world they have ever known. So in 1958 when the main action begins, the twins are… I mean, we would call them high school seniors here, and their entire futures rest on them earning a spot in the professional company upon graduation. But then the Kremlin issues the new edict.

Artists traveling to represent Russia are defecting left and right, and because of the perceived risk of defection, now the twin girls wouldn’t be able to travel together, which means only one of them can be in the company, because the only thing the company does is travel. That means one sister will have a spot in the company, and that will be her future, and the other will… she has no idea. Like, they’ve never dreamt of a future that didn’t include ballet.

So I thought that was a really fascinating setup. I love a family drama. Do I love contentious siblings? It seems like I do.

[00:45:40] This story did not go where I expected, but I very much enjoyed the journey. And Doctor Zhivago as a cultural linchpin in the girls’ homeland, and the actual filming of the movie that came out about that time are both very important to the plot.

It felt very well-researched. I’m not familiar with Durham’s work or process, but I know that I enjoy googling all the historical details that were woven into the plot. So I don’t know how much that aligns with what you’re looking for right now, but maybe you’ll be happy to find it, to know it exists.

LARA: Oh, it sounds fantastic. And like you, I love contentious siblings. I love family drama. I always say I don’t love drama in my life, and I live in a way to not have it, but I really like reading about it.

ANNE: I am glad to hear it. And let me tell you about some more books that we’ve just talked about on the podcast a ton, or we would highlight them more. I just recommended Kiley Reid Come and Get It to a reader. I think that could be an excellent pick for you.

[00:46:46] LARA: Oh, I just bought that.

ANNE: Okay. So I’m glad I said that out loud. You know, Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones. I love her so much.

LARA: Is so good.

ANNE: Well, Tayari Jones’ story about how that book came to be published at long last involves Judy Blume as a starring character.

LARA: Interesting. Okay, I’m going to have to look into that.

ANNE: The Ministry of Time, I just recommended to a reader. I think that could be an excellent pick.

LARA: I thought about that and I was a little nervous, but let me rethink about that.

ANNE: There are lots of reasons to pick up a book or not.

LARA: Oh, for sure.

ANNE: It definitely checks that literary AND.

LARA: Yes. It almost felt like it had maybe literary and, and, and, and.

ANNE: Yeah. It probably does. I mean, I’m thinking, well, like, so does Broken Country. Lara.

LARA: Anne.

ANNE: What do you think? Okay, we talked about Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall, Jean Hanff Korelitz, you’ve read the plot, we’ve got the sequel, we’ve got The Latecomer, we talked about Hum by Helen Phillips, which this is me not making a Jetsons comment. I mean, it feels very realistic and also it felt like the Jetsons in some senses.

LARA: Okay.

[00:48:09] ANNE: Maya & Natasha by Elyse Durham for the namesake quality. Did we actually say on the audio that your name comes from Doctor Zhivago? That feels like an important detail to wedge in here at the end.

LARA: Oh, I don’t think we did, but that is where my dad got my name. My grandfather asked if he could choose my middle name, which is Lenore from The Raven. So I can’t imagine growing up not being surrounded by books and having a literary life.

ANNE: Destined to be a reader.

LARA: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: I’m not going to rattle off all the “you may also enjoy” that we’ve talked about lately on the podcast, but there were quite a few of those as well. Of those titles, what do you think you’ll pick up next?

LARA: Oh, Anne, you’re giving me a hard choice. And shame on me for thinking that you could have possibly chosen only books I’ve read before.

ANNE: No shame. There’s no shame here.

LARA: I’m torn between Broken Country and Hum.

[00:49:08] ANNE: Okay. Well, those are very different vibes. I’m curious to hear where you land and what you think.

LARA: Well, and please know I will read all of them.

ANNE: All right. Well, I’m glad to hear it. You’ve got a lot of reporting back to do.

LARA: Will do.

ANNE: Lara, thanks so much for a great conversation.

LARA: Oh, thanks for having me, Anne. I really appreciate it.

ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Lara, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Lara on Instagram @onelitchick. And find the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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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.