[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: I love this for you and also it means we can’t narrow it down seasonally.

ELLEN HEATH: Yeah, that’s right.

ANNE: This is hard for me.

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.

[00:00:42] Readers, with summer keeping us on the go and under the sun more than I would like, I’m always looking for ways to keep the sun off my face. And our new well-read hat is my absolute favorite this season. You all love it too. We sold out of our first run so fast, but it’s back in stock just in time for all of your summer fun.

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Check out all of our new stickers, our t-shirts that are so soft and so cute, and more. That is all at modernmrsdarcy.com/shop.

[00:01:37] Readers, today’s episode is a lot of fun and we cover a lot of ground. Are those two things related? I mean, definitely maybe.

Today I’m talking to Ellen Heath, a retired urban planner in the Atlanta area. Regular listeners may know that urban planning is a weird niche interest of mine, and I am thrilled that Ellen is bringing some of her own racks to today’s show, for me and for you if you’re into that kind of thing. But the focus today is on Ellen’s books and her reading life and there’s so much good stuff to talk about there.

For Ellen, character and setting are the most important things in the book she loves, though she’d also prefer them to be immersive, entertaining, and maybe even teach her something. I’ve got ideas.

Ellen reads mostly on her e-reader and she has a very interesting method for choosing her next read in that format that I get to hear more about. I gotta tell you, I’ve never heard a method remotely like this before. I think you’re going to be interested.

[00:02:32] Ellen is also on a quest to DNF more books in 2025 and wants to know if I have ideas on that front. Look, I don’t have the crystal ball I think she’d really like, but you know I’ve got those ideas.

All right, let’s get to it.

Ellen, welcome to the show.

ELLEN: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

ANNE: Oh, I’m so excited to talk today. We were just talking about how I know your name from our community, and I’ve known for a long time that you’re an urban planner, and I’m just really excited to dig into that fun little bonus topic, but also all the things about your reading life and what you’re looking for right now.

ELLEN: Great.

ANNE: So thanks for coming on. Ellen, would you start by telling us a little bit about yourself? We want to give our readers a glimpse of who you are.

ELLEN: I live in Atlanta with my husband and what are really his two cats, although they tolerate me, sort of. And as you said, I’m a retired urban planner. I worked for a long time as a consultant, which was really a great career, I have to say. I traveled quite a bit around the United States working for different communities, but now I’m enjoying having as much time as I want to read as well as do other activities.

[00:03:48] ANNE: Ellen, what about your reading life? Would you tell us a little bit about that?

ELLEN: Well, like most of your guests, I think I’m a lifelong reader. I think I put in my submission one of my first school memories is sitting during recess on the curb with my best friend, Betty, reading the Bobbsey Twins while all the other kids ran around and played.

So reading has always been a big part of my life. My mother was an English teacher and a big reader too, so she definitely encouraged me. You know, later Betty and I would walk to the library together after school and look at all… this is a small town, so it wasn’t a huge library. You know, there wasn’t a lot of YA back then like there is now. So we just kind of read whatever we wanted to and they let us take out whatever we wanted to. So that was fun.

[00:04:39] I continued being a reader, you know, through my life. I got a Kindle I think around 2010, and I traveled quite a bit for my job. And so that just really changed my life in terms of making reading easier. I never had to panic, you know, was I going to finish my book too soon, or did I forget my book? I think of my primary reading as on my Kindle.

And then at the beginning of COVID, I thought, “Well, maybe this is…” because, you know, no other activities were going on. “…this is a good time to start reading some of my real books too.” And that’s how I knew I got my Kindle in 2010, because when I went to look at all the books on my shelves, they kind of stopped at 2010. So I knew that was when I started going the electronic route.

Usually, I have an eBook going and a real book going and sometimes audio. I’m not real big on audio except for nonfiction. Generally, I like historical fiction, literary fiction. I do read a lot of mysteries as well. I think of those as kind of my lighter reading. And I like narrative nonfiction too.

[00:05:49] ANNE: Okay. That’s so funny that the absence of books on your shelves really indicates a change in your reading life, but maybe not a format change. Ellen, you mentioned in your submission that you have perhaps a less common way of choosing what to read next. You didn’t elaborate, but I’m so curious. Could you say more?

ELLEN: As I said, I think of my primary reading as on my Kindle. And partially because when I was working, I didn’t even have the discipline to keep a TBR. So if I saw a book, if I read about or heard about a book that I was interested in, I just buy it on my Kindle. So I have about 100 books on my Kindle usually.

What I do is I just go through it kind of systematically to make sure that I’m not just only reading the latest and greatest, you know? Like, for example, right now I’m reading a book that was on page four, you know, when you toggle through your books. The next one has to come from page five.

[00:06:54] And what makes it kind of ridiculously complicated is, you know, it used to be in list format. There were like eight or nine books on the list. That was a good number to choose from. Well, six now really is not quite enough.

Now I look at, well, let’s sort by title. Let’s sort by author. Let’s sort by most recent. And then there’s another one. Publication date. So I sorted all the different ways and I see what’s on page five. When I’m at 60% in my current book, I go ahead and go through the list and make a list of kind of the eligible titles. And then for the last 40% of my book, I think about what’s the next one I’m going to read.

I try to go back and forth between kind of serious and less serious. I don’t like to read too many, you know, kind of things. Same thing at the same time. So if I’m reading a mystery, my next one will be a historical fiction or a literary fiction, and vice versa. And then I balance whatever I’m reading on my Kindle. My hardcover I just, you know, pick something different from what I have on my Kindle.

[00:08:05] I feel like it is a little overcomplicated, but it works for me. If there’s something I don’t like, I tell myself I don’t have to finish it. You know, all of these books are ones that at one time I thought I was interested in. Maybe it’s been on there for three years and I don’t remember where I heard about it or why I thought it. But I would say 95% of the time when I get into it, it’s like, Oh, yeah, well, this was a good choice. Like, you know, I really like it. So it works for me, keeps the balance.

ANNE: Interesting.

ELLEN: It’s kind of a forced discipline, you know? If you have 100 books, how do you even begin to pick? So it’s a way of narrowing it down.

ANNE: I love that. Okay, so let me see if I understand. Most of the time, then, it sounds like you’re not reading the thing you just purchased.

ELLEN: Correct. Very, very, very rarely. In fact, if I’m torn between two books, I’ll go with the one that I’ve had the longest and save the later one for later.

[00:09:08] ANNE: How long are we talking about? So if you’re debating between two books and you go with the one you’ve read the longest, are we talking like six months old or six years old?

ELLEN: Probably closer to six years.

ANNE: Ooh. Okay. This is fun. I like it. So what you’re doing is you’re acquiring books for your personal collection that go into your stores. So I’m noticing that as you’re deciding what to buy, it’s not, I would imagine, mood dependent.

ELLEN: Oh, no.

ANNE: You’re thinking, what kind of book does future me want to read?

ELLEN: That’s right. And you know what? I feel sometimes… obviously, there’s all kinds of readers and everyone is different, but I have to say, I really don’t understand the idea of, well, if a book is set in the summer, I have to read it in the summer. If anything, I’m the opposite.

If I’m traveling somewhere, I don’t want to read a book that’s set where I’m traveling. I’ll read that before I go and I’ll read it after I come home. But ever since I was a child, what I really like about reading is that it takes me out of my life, not that my life is bad, but it takes me to a different place, you know?

[00:10:20] When people say that they read seasonally, that’s something that I never in a million years would think of. In fact, if I’m sweltering on my porch in July reading a book about snow, that’s great because it helps me imagine something different.

ANNE: So, for you, not only does a book contain entire worlds, but a book is a contained world that exists apart from whatever’s happening for you and around you.

ELLEN: Yeah, that’s right. I just want it to be different.

ANNE: Okay. I love this for you. And also, it means we can’t narrow it down seasonally.

ELLEN: Yeah, that’s right.

ANNE: This is hard for me.

ELLEN: That’s right.

ANNE: All right. It is what it is, though. I’m excited to find out what your reading life is actually like. Ellen, you also mentioned just now that if you don’t like a book that you’ve started… because it sounds like you read the books that come up in your formulaic search process, but you mentioned in your submission that you were on a quest to DNF more books or mark them “did not complete”, but you do want to start them. I’d love to hear more about this.

[00:11:30] ELLEN: Well, I’m doing better. I rarely read a book that I really don’t like. I’m actually pretty good at choosing books for myself, I think. That’s one thing that a lot of experience and old age gets you, you know? But a lot of times I just finish, it’s like, Uh, that was four days of my life I’ll never get back. And so I wish that I had abandoned it earlier. But there’s something that always tells me, you know, it might get better, and it might be interesting.

And I was thinking about that. Actually, I was listening to a recent episode, and your guest talked about the book, The Luminaries, which I read. That is a tough go. Very dense and very long. There were times when I really thought about abandoning it, and I didn’t. I finished it, and I was so glad I did. The payoff was worth it.

[00:12:25] And so that’s just an example of it’s just difficult sometimes to really just give up on it, because something interested me in the first place about the premise or whatever. But since I made this resolution for this year, I think I’ve… I think there’s four or five books that I didn’t finish. So I’m feeling pretty good, because I only had one last year.

I mean, there was one that, even though it was written by a woman, it was old. It was the beginning of a long mystery, you know, multi-volume mystery series. And I really thought the language was kind of sexist. It’s like, I don’t want to read this. So I didn’t.

There were a couple others. One, I just didn’t like the writing, didn’t think it was very good. So, you know, I’m getting better at it. But I guess I’d be curious to hear what you or what other people, how they think about that.

ANNE: Okay, I’m very interested in this question. Because I believe what happened was when I asked you about wanting to DNF more books, you told me why you were glad you didn’t for The Luminaries.

ELLEN: Exactly, right.

[00:13:33] ANNE: So I can feel the tension here.

ELLEN: That’s why I have a hard time doing it.

ANNE: Yeah, yeah, that’s understandable. Okay, well, I don’t have any crystal balls on offer today. But I wish I did. But I hear you on The Luminaries. And no, I haven’t read it yet. I have loved what I’ve read from Eleanor Catton, but The Luminaries is almost 900 pages.

ELLEN: Really? Oh, it seems longer.

ANNE: Yeah. That’s quite an investment.

ELLEN: Well, you like structure, too. It’s a very interesting structure.

ANNE: I love an interesting structure. It’s very true. I’m a verbal processor, Ellen. I wonder if we can talk our way to a solution here. What appeals to you about the idea of Ellen the reader who does more freely abandon books she begins?

ELLEN: I think just a better use of my time, you know? The sunk cost fallacy, I think, “Well, gosh, I’ve spent three hours reading this book. Do I really want to waste all that by not finishing it?” That’s part of it.

[00:14:40] I think I said this in my submission, 12 years of Catholic school, you know, it was you finish what you start. So that’s sort of nagging me too. I want to feel like I’m doing the author justice. The author probably doesn’t care. I’ve bought his or her book and that’s what they care about. But so I don’t know. There’s a lot that goes into it.

ANNE: Public school graduate here, but, you know, firstborn overachieving daughter. I hear you finish what you start.

ELLEN: Yes.

ANNE: Ellen, for those books that you did set aside without completing them, how did you know that was your move?

ELLEN: You know, you had mentioned that the book is kind of an alternate world for me. And it really is like, I just don’t want to be in this world. One of them was The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. The beginning… it describes this house that was run down. I think there’s vermin maybe. It was just so dark and unpleasant. And I just thought, “I really don’t want to be here.” So I just didn’t finish it. And I had no regrets on that one, I have to say. So that’s an example.

[00:16:02] And, you know, if the writing isn’t good, I definitely don’t want to hang in there for that one.

ANNE: I am sorry to say that no one can answer this question but you, for when a book is right for you to DNF. I do know that we read very differently. And on my end, I’m often reading for a specific purpose.

ELLEN: Sure.

ANNE: I’m reading for entertainment. I’m reading for escape. I’m reading to find titles for the summer reading guide. And when I pick up a book and like know, either because I’ve told myself in words or I just know why I’m reading it, it makes it easier for me to vet because I’ve made the question smaller. I’m not asking, is there any universe in which I will be sorry I put this down before I get to the end? Instead, I’m asking, is this book what I’m looking for right now for this specific purpose?

That’s an easier question, because it doesn’t allow for as many possibilities of what say, worthwhile, for example, could look like. And you’re reading for different reasons. But you do have reasons for your reading.

ELLEN: Yes.

[00:17:06] ANNE: And so I’m noticing that when you don’t want to be in the world, that’s a sign for you to put down the book. And I don’t hear you saying like, it’s not interesting, or you don’t want to be challenged, or it’s difficult. Like, it’s not a world you want to step into.

Kind of akin to that, if you notice that you’re not reading because your current read is the book you’re reading, and you don’t want to be reading that book, I think that would be a real sign to step back and ask yourself why.

ELLEN: That’s a good point. Yeah. And that does happen, and I still stick with it, usually.

ANNE: I would really reflect on, I mean, you have your whole Kindle history of what you’ve read. Like, how has that worked out for you? Like, can you see that you’re glad you stuck… “Glad” is a funny word. Vocabulary that I like to use is: was it worth my reading time? I can hate a book and still find it to be worth my reading time.

ELLEN: Agreed.

[00:18:00] ANNE: But if I feel like I flushed the hours, I don’t want to feel that way. And I heard you say that the writing just wasn’t good in some of the books you set aside, which really points at one of the reasons you’re reading is because you want to experience good writing. And you may say it more elegantly or put a different spin on it than I just did, but there’s something there about you want the writing to be good.

ELLEN: Oh, absolutely.

ANNE: Yeah. And so, when you encounter those things, like you realize, this isn’t a world I want to be in, or I haven’t read in four days, what’s going on, you’re not liking the writing, you can either DNF or just regroup. Like, step back and do some online research, talk to people you know who have read it, ask around and assess what’s going on here? Where am I? What do I know about this book? Do I want to keep going or is it time to maybe bid it goodbye for now?

ELLEN: Sounds good.

[00:18:58] ANNE: Is any of that different?

ELLEN: Yeah, a little bit. It’s giving me some things to think about.

ANNE: I wish I could just grab the right tool off the end cap of paper source and be like, “Oh, this is what you need. This will tell you.”

ELLEN: Life doesn’t work that way.

ANNE: For better or worse, the reading life doesn’t work like that either. Ellen, I believe you’ve brought a few urban planning books with you today. Is that right?

ELLEN: That’s right.

ANNE: Okay. Let’s talk about the books you love and that you’ve read lately. We’ll let those marinate for you. You can tell me about books I may love, and then I’ll put some books on your potential plate. How does that sound?

ELLEN: Sounds great.

ANNE: We’re just like passing books back and forth across the table is what we’re going to do next.

Ellen, you know how this works. We’re going to start by talking about your books, three you love, one you don’t, and what you’ve been reading lately with a mind toward finding three books you may enjoy reading next. How did you choose these for today?

[00:19:55] ELLEN: I really just thought about what are books that, in the last year or so, have really stuck with me. To me, that’s an indication of the ones that rise to the top are the ones that I don’t forget about.

ANNE: Heartily agree. A book with staying power gets extra marks in my book. Also, when it goes back to that worthwhile reading experience. I’m not saying you chose books you didn’t like, but I really respect a book that I disliked, but still think about years later.

ELLEN: Yes, I agree.

ANNE: I don’t think that’s what you brought today, though.

ELLEN: No, no.

ANNE: What is the first book you love?

ELLEN: The first one is Clear by Carys Davies. It is historical fiction. To me, it’s the best kind of historical fiction because it taught me about something I knew absolutely nothing about, had never even heard of. And that was the Highland Clearances, which happened in Scotland, and I think maybe the broader UK too, but definitely in Scotland, the late 18th and early 19th century.

[00:21:04] It was when there was a very long traditional system of tenant farming, and the landowners decided that wasn’t working well for them financially. So they just kicked everybody off the land and said, you know, go find a factory job or go find somewhere else to live because you’re not going to be here anymore. That’s kind of the background.

Our characters are John Ferguson, who is a minister in the Scottish church. There’s also some kind of, I don’t remember exactly now, some kind of schism that’s going on in the church, and he is temporarily out of a job. And so he gets hired to go to a very remote island in Scotland. There’s a single one-person tenant who lives there, and he is going there to evict that person.

He goes on a boat, somebody takes him there. And very early, before he even meets the guy who’s living there, whose name is Ivan, he has an accident. He falls off a cliff or he has some kind of an accident when he’s walking around and he’s incapacitated.

[00:22:14] Well, Ivan comes across him on the beach and takes him in. The sense of place in this book is just incredible. Character and setting are the most important things to me with plot kind of down the list. I mean, I like a good plot, but it’s not as important to me as those other two things.

And so now John is staying in Ivan’s cottage or cabin, his little house that he has, and Ivan is nursing him back to health, not knowing, of course, why he’s there. The real complicating factor is they don’t speak the same language, so they can’t communicate verbally at all.

John stays there and is different for Ivan because he’s used to being by himself all the time and not communicating with anyone. John starts to learn his language a little bit. And she plays a lot with language. You know, language is something that interests me, so I enjoyed that too. And there’s even a little glossary in the back. He speaks a dialect of, and I had never heard of this, Norn, N-O-R-N language.

[00:23:25] Then meanwhile, we have John is married, and Mary, his wife, is back in Scotland, back on the mainland of Scotland, and it’s like, “Why isn’t he coming back? He was only supposed to be gone for a few days.” And so she starts to get worried and decides to go and find him. So that’s one of the tensions in the book.

It’s very short. I don’t even think it’s 200 pages. The sense of place, the way the relationship between the two men develops and the prose was just wonderful. Really good writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

ANNE: I’m so glad you found that book, and it was such a good fit for you. What you said about character and setting being the most important, I’m definitely filing that away. That book came into the house, and I don’t know if it was the cover or the description, but my husband, Will, looks at almost everything that comes in the house. I know some of your ears are perking up because you say Will Bogel is your book twin. But he read that before me because he thought it sounded great, and then was like, “Anne, this is great. You have to read it next.”

ELLEN: Oh, good.

[00:24:25] ANNE: So Will and Annie Jones. I wonder how often their tastes sync up. Now I’m extra curious about that.

ELLEN: Right. Oh, you know, tell him I read the Billion Butterflies book. Ooh, it was good.

ANNE: Okay. I will tell him.

ELLEN: And I’m not a science person at all, and I didn’t think it was too much science.

ANNE: Now, I’m trying to think where he said that. Readers, what we’re talking about is Will read a book… Oh, you know, it was Will and I did our Summer Reading Guide episode.

ELLEN: Yes, that’s what it was.

ANNE: Okay. He often will ask me like, “Hey, you have approximately 500 books to read. Can I help you pre-vet some of these?” Especially the nonfiction and especially like the S.A. Cosby, David Joy, Eli Cranor, like that kind of wheelhouse. And so he read a Billion Butterflies and I didn’t end up reading it, but I will pass that on. I mean, he’s listening now, but I will pass that along to him.

ELLEN: Yeah.

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

[00:25:22] ELLEN: The second book is called The Safe Keep and it’s by Yael van der Wouden.

ANNE: Oh, I’m so intrigued. I’ve heard such wide-ranging views on this, but I haven’t read it yet.

ELLEN: I think it was shortlisted for the Booker.

ANNE: Yeah.

ELLEN: Well, it is set in the Netherlands. It’s also, I guess, historical fiction. It was in the early 60s. Our main character is Isabel and she is around 30 years old. She is a very isolated, repressed, and suspicious person. She’s really not a likable character at all.

She doesn’t work or anything. She lives in her family home. Her parents are not with her. They’re deceased. And she has two brothers. She doesn’t really seem to have any other relationships outside of an uncle and these two brothers.

[00:26:16] One of the brothers has a series of girlfriends that he’s always introducing and then they’re not around for very long. At the beginning of the book, we meet the newest girlfriend, they’re all having dinner together and she really takes a dislike to this girlfriend whose name is Eva.

Well, not too long after that, the brother shows up at the door with Eva and says, “I have to go to Paris on business for a month or somewhere on business. Can Eva stay with you? Because she can’t really stay in our place because there’s a male roommate and blah, blah, blah.”

Well, the last thing Isabel wants is for her to stay there because she doesn’t want anybody there and she really doesn’t want her there. But she doesn’t feel like she can say no because this house technically really belongs to the brother.

So she takes her in. She’s a very suspicious person. She always thinks her housekeeper is stealing things from her. She counts her spoons regularly, you know, stuff like that. She’s just a very negative person and tries to make everybody around her unhappy, it seems like.

[00:27:23] So Eva moves in for several weeks and their relationship changes. I’ll just put it that way. This book is billed as a little bit of a mystery. I have to say, it was really just all about the relationship of these two women. And there’s another woman who’s the housekeeper that is in it a little bit and the brothers. And it goes along, and then like two-thirds of the way through, there’s a big surprise, it was one that I certainly did not see coming, and it kind of changes your perspective on everything of why Eva is there and who she really is.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was very well written, a good sense of place, good character development, even though the main character was… I don’t mind an unlikable character, if you know it makes sense. I just thought it was very well done and thoroughly enjoyed it.

[00:28:24] ANNE: Okay. That is a more thorough description of what happens in this book that I’ve read before. I’m really glad it worked for you.

ELLEN: I will say a little bit of a content warning. There’s some steamy scenes.

ANNE: Thanks for the hot tip. Ellen, what’s the third book you love?

ELLEN: The third book is Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo. I had read her Girl, Woman, Other, which actually I think won a Booker Prize several years ago. And I loved that book. It’s really linked short stories about Black women in the UK. Very good. And so I looked for other things that she had written, and this was what I found.

Mr. Lover Man could not be more different from Girl, Woman, Other. If anything, I liked it more. Our hero is Barrington Jedidiah Walker. He goes by Barry. And he and his wife, Carmel, emigrated to London when they were in their 20s from Antigua. So, they’re part of the Caribbean community in London.

[00:29:31] He is now 70-something years old. He and his wife have both been very unhappy in their marriage the entire time. And this is because he is having a very long-time affair with his best friend, Morris, who also emigrated from Antigua with his wife.

His wife is unhappy. She doesn’t know why. Barry does know why, but he’s struggling with it. But something happens, and he says, “Okay, this is it. I am getting out of this marriage. I’m going to be honest about what’s really going on.”

But then his wife is called away, her father’s dying, so she has to go back to Antigua, and now he’s struggling with the decision of what to do. He hangs out with Morris all the time. Everybody knows Morris as his best friend.

[00:30:29] The character of Barry is so appealing. He’s just really funny. He’s like this real dapper guy, man about town, you know, going to all the cafes. He had a job that he kind of liked, I think, but now he’s retired, and he’s just kind of living the life, except that it’s just ingrained in him that he can’t be open about his true self.

It’s a sad story, because here are these unhappy people, because they can’t be who they really want to be, but it’s very lighthearted and funny. There’s a scene with his wife and her church lady friends. They all come for a Sunday dinner after church, and they are all sitting around the kitchen, and they’re just ragging on him. It’s just hilarious. And, you know, it’s poignant.

[00:31:25] We do get the point of view of the wife. Most of the book is in the first person, from Barry’s point of view, but there are chapters scattered, and they’re all in flashback, where you kind of go back to the beginning of the marriage, and you see how she always knew something was quite right, but she never suspected what.

So that is the book. It was really the character of Barry and the humor of the narrative that really attracted me, and I just really enjoyed it.

ANNE: Thank you for sharing that one. Like so many readers, I’ve only read Girl, Woman, Other, which, yes, won the Booker in 2019, and some of her essays. But I haven’t read this older work. But I really like that description.

Ellen, would you tell us about a book now that did not work for you? And I’d love to hear why it wasn’t a great fit. Like, was the timing wrong? Was it not to your taste? Was it about a topic you wanted to avoid?

[00:32:25] ELLEN: Well, this is, you know, and I know a lot of people say this about their books they don’t love, this one… I know I’m in the minority for this one because I just hear a lot of high praise for this book. But it’s Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano.

The reason that it really didn’t work for me was I just didn’t like the main character. It’s about four sisters, and as I said earlier, I think I don’t mind a dislikeable character, and it normally doesn’t ruin a book for me, but it does if I think I’m supposed to like her. You know what I mean?

The book seemed like it was positive toward the decisions that she was making, which I just thought she treated her husband and one of her sisters just terribly, and in a very selfish way. And so I just didn’t like it.

[00:33:19] And then when I was thinking about talking about it today, it occurred to me, I also think I’m just sort of getting tired of family dramas. There are so many of them, and they all kind of run together in my head, and it’s just not my favorite genre these days. I may go, and I’m sure I’ll continue reading them, because a lot of them are good, but this one just was not for me.

ANNE: Duly noted. Okay. I wonder if that’s a question of trust, the way you’re describing this. If you feel like an author is intending to have you draw a certain judgment from the words on the page, and you’re getting something different, I wonder if that just makes you uneasy in the story in general.

ELLEN: Could be, could be. That makes sense.

ANNE: Okay. Noted on unlikable characters being just fine by you, perhaps even interesting. Not perhaps. Of course they’re interesting, but you… you know what I mean.

ELLEN: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: Ellen, what have you been reading lately?

[00:34:22] ELLEN: I recently read We Solve Murders by Richard Osman, which was a pleasant surprise, because I felt like I had read or heard that maybe it was not as good as the Thursday Murder Club. This is a new series that he’s writing.

There are three main characters. One is a very rich author, another is her bodyguard, a young woman, and then the bodyguard’s father-in-law, who is an ex-cop. It has the same tone, I would say, as Thursday Murder Club, but it’s more of a caper kind of a thing, where… and they are traveling all over the world, you know, avoiding assassins and big bags of money, and it’s just kind of a fun thing.

And the thing I love about him, the Thursday Murder Club, as well as this one, is that he has such an affection for his characters, and it’s just so funny. There’s times I just laugh out loud. So, I really enjoyed that.

[00:35:19] And then the other one is Women of Troy by Pat Barker. That is the second book in a trilogy, which is the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but told from the point of view of the Women of Troy, who have been captured by the Greeks and made to do all kinds of terrible things.

Pat Barker, I had read her, I think it’s called the Regeneration Trilogy, about soldiers coming home from World War I with PTSD and a psychiatrist who’s trying to help them, which are based on real people.

This is a very interesting story. I’m not really real conversant with the Iliad and the Odyssey. I mean, I knew the bare bones of the outlines of the story, but I just found this to be very interesting, very well-written.

ANNE: Ellen, thanks for sharing those. Those give me a good idea of what catches your eye. And I’m noticing this interest in… I mean, I don’t mean this disparaging at all, but We Solve Murders is almost kind of silly in a really fun way.

ELLEN: Yeah.

[00:36:27] ANNE: You really like that amusing quality in Mr Loverman, different sense of humor, but also it feels light and kind of bubbly, fizzy.

ELLEN: Agreed. You need that every now and then, you know?

ANNE: You do, or at least I find that I do.

ELLEN: Yes, I do too.

ANNE: Ellen, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

ELLEN: You know, I’m just always looking for immersive books, hope, you know, that either are entertaining, but probably more have an interesting setting and I can learn something. That’s why I often gravitate toward historical fiction, I think. Except for World War II. I’m over that.

ANNE: Duly noted. All right. We’re going to set that on to simmer for 10 minutes. Can we talk about urban planning?

ELLEN: Oh, sure.

ANNE: Gosh, I don’t even know what I don’t know or what to ask. Would you give a quick overview of what you did in your time as a professional planner?

[00:37:24] ELLEN: When I first got out of graduate school, I got a master’s in planning at Georgia Tech. I worked for the National Park Service at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, which was newly designated at that time, so they had a lot of planning documents that had to be done. And that was fascinating. You know, learned a lot.

Worked there for three or four years, and then that job ended and I went and got a job… was hired by a consulting firm. And I never in a million years thought I would stay at the same job for 30 years, but I did. And I think it was because consulting was… you know, it was never the same. I always had different clients. If there was something I didn’t like, project I didn’t like, or people I didn’t like, it wasn’t going to last forever. You always had something new.

I really enjoyed learning about different communities and working with people to kind of visualize what they want their communities to be. So I did a lot of work with local governments just doing what we call comprehensive plans, which is for the whole city or county or whatever the jurisdiction is. Sometimes it’s just a neighborhood plan or a corridor plan.

[00:38:36] I actually did a project probably in the 90s in Louisville for the park system.

ANNE: Thank you.

ELLEN: Yeah. Got to know the wonderful system of Olmstead Parks that’s in Louisville. So I enjoyed the open space and park planning as well. And then the last several years of my career probably were more geared toward public engagement, where just working with communities, as I said earlier, to kind of visualize their future, how they wanted things to look, what they wanted it to be, and then working with them for solutions of how to get there. So it was very fulfilling. I really enjoyed the travel aspect of it, like I said.

Everybody thinks they’re really unique, and every community is unique, but every community also has things in common with others. So you can learn from other places.

[00:39:32] ANNE: Good to keep in mind. Now, I know that some of my favorite urban planning reads have bubbled up to the surface on the podcast, and we’ve written about them on the blog over the years. We actually did a Patreon bonus episode a few years ago.

But Ellen, what are a few books that you think maybe belong on my reading list? Or some of your favorites? Whatever direction you want to take that.

ELLEN: The most recent one I read is, and you may laugh, is The Power Broker by Robert Caro.

ANNE: Oh my gosh, you may laugh. I’m reading that right now.

ELLEN: Oh, really?

ANNE: I’ve been meaning to read it for decades.

ELLEN: Same. It’s been on my shelf literally for decades.

ANNE: It’s over a thousand pages. The audiobook, you have to buy it in chunks, because it’s something like over 60 hours. I’m only at like 15%, even though I’ve been reading for weeks.

ELLEN: Like I said, I’ve had it for decades. And then there was a lot of attention last year, because it was the 50th anniversary, I think, of the book. Robert Caro, of course, is famous for writing the series of books about Lyndon Johnson, President Johnson.

[00:40:38] But this was his first book, and it is about the director of pub… long time, like 50 years, director of public works in New York City. And it is fascinating.

I have a friend who’s not an urban planner who read the book a couple of years ago, and then just kept shaming me about why you haven’t read it. So that kind of spurred me to do it. And I just said, “I’m just going to do a chapter a day.” There are 50 chapters. So it took me about two months to read.

It’s just fascinating. It’s really about, I would say more than anything, how he was able to amass the power that he had, which was absolutely incredible, that no one could touch him.

He and FDR didn’t like each other. You know, FDR was the governor of New York before he became president. So when he became president, he was trying to withhold funds from New York because of Moses and it just wasn’t working politically. This, to me, was the funniest thing in the book.

[00:41:38] FDR said to one of his staff people, “Can’t the president of the United States have one personal vendetta?” And the guy says, “No, not him. You can’t go against him.” Anyway, he destroyed a lot of neighborhoods. Never asked anybody what they wanted. He just decided to… you know, he knew best. It’s a very interesting tale of how development happened in the 20th century anyway.

Let’s see what else I have. Oh, one that I really like that I think you and a lot of people might enjoy is called On the Grid. It’s by Scott Huler.

ANNE: I don’t know this one.

ELLEN: The subtitle is called A Plot of Land, an Average Neighborhood, and the Systems That Make Our World Work. He is a reporter who lives, I believe, in Raleigh. You know, lives in a neighborhood in Raleigh.

[00:42:37] He just took his house and explored all of the different systems that come into or go out of his house and enable life in the 21st century. You know, like the trash collection and the electricity and water and wastewater. Just how everything works. I knew a lot of the stuff already, but I learned a lot. And it was like, you know, where does your electricity come from? And how does it get there? Where is it generated? What’s the transmission all about?

It was just very interesting. And I’d always wondered about this, how do they sort the recycling? It’s fascinating. He’s a reporter, he’s a writer, so it was very well written. Easy to get through. So that’s kind of general interest.

Then the other one I would say is called City by City: Dispatches from the American Metropolis. It’s edited by Keith Gessen.

[00:43:40] It is a series of 30-plus essays about all different cities around the United States, and how the physical form of the city affects the daily lives of people who live there. It’s very writerly. I think a lot of the contributors are poets or other kind of writers. A lot of urban planning writing, particularly sort of the new urbanism, you know, it’s a lot of white males. This book, City by City, is very diverse in terms of the contributors. So I think that’s a good contribution to the oeuvre, if you will, of books that are adjacent to planning anyway.

ANNE: Well, that sounds fascinating. Thank you for the recommendations. All right, back to the, let’s see, is it all fiction we’ve discussed? It is.

ELLEN: Yeah, it is.

[00:44:40] ANNE: Okay. So let’s revisit the books you loved. They were Clear by Carys Davies, The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, and Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo. Not for you was Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. You don’t mind an unlikable character normally, but in this one, you thought you were supposed to like her and you just didn’t.

Also, you said something scandalous about being done with family dramas. You know I’m kidding. I love family dramas, but I hear you. You feel like you’re reading a lot of books that are too similar for your liking.

ELLEN: Yeah.

ANNE: And that’s important to notice. And then lately, you’ve been reading The Women of Troy by Pat Barker and We Solve Murders by Richard Osman, and both really worked for you. Okay.

I have some recommendations for you, and I’m really keeping in mind that character and setting are the most important thing and you love immersive stories that are also entertaining and have an interesting setting in which you might learn something. You think this may be why historical fiction really works for you, but these books don’t have to be historical. I want to assure you I heard you on the World War II.

[00:45:48] ELLEN: I’m not alone in that, I know.

ANNE: No. No, you’re not. Let’s start with nonfiction. This may be on your radar because it was in the Summer Reading Guide, and I know you’re in our community. But have you checked out The Place of Tides by James Rebanks?

ELLEN: No.

ANNE: He also is known to many readers as author of A Shepherd’s Life, another interesting, atmospheric book with a fascinating setting. But I want to talk about The Place of Tides because of its island nature and first setting. Gosh, superlatives are hard, and yet I find myself wanting to talk in superlatives. You can’t do better. It doesn’t get more interesting. It doesn’t have to get more interesting.

But this is about a magical summer that he spent on Norway’s Vega Archipelago, which is way, way, way, way, way up north off the mainland, very difficult to access. It sounds like a whole different world. I happen to know that you enjoyed Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. You’ve enjoyed a lot of books set on islands like Clear.

[00:46:51] This setting feels almost otherworldly. These islands are sparsely populated. Hardly anybody lives there. And he makes some kind of crack in the book where he says, “Here I am on this whole strung-out chain of islands where there are just a handful of stubborn old people keeping this almost ancient tradition alive.”

So, Rebanks is a journalist. The way he tells the story, many years ago, he visited the Vega Archipelago to do a profile. And he told himself, “If I am ever burnt out and cynical and just need an entirely different season of life, I should come back here.” And not that long ago, he found himself at such a place, and he made a plea to an old duck woman who lives on these islands, “Can I come and learn your ways?” And she said yes.

[00:47:47] And so he goes to learn about the history of the region and its fading way of life for eons has been dedicated to harvesting the down of the Eider duck. And World War II does feature into this story. When the Germans occupy the islands, there were just some interesting tidbits that were so fascinating. I was like, “Hey, family, where are you? Listen to this. This is wild.”

But I love this for you for its portrayal of a fascinating way of life that I trust will be completely different from anything you’ve experienced in your own life. The way he paints word pictures of the setting is, I think, perfect for you.

This book is charming in many ways, but it’s charming in this sobering, arresting, sit up, take notice, very alert kind of way. Not like, oh, we’re this cute little… it’s not cute. It’s not cute, but it’s very… I think it’s for you. How does that sound?

[00:48:49] ELLEN: It sounds great. Very interesting.

ANNE: That’s The Place of Tides. I want to do a mystery. Can we do a mystery?

ELLEN: Sure.

ANNE: Okay. This was from our Fall Book Preview. I don’t suppose you’ve read The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins?

ELLEN: No. I read something else by her.

ANNE: She wrote The Girl on the Train.

ELLEN: Yeah, I read that.

ANNE: Yeah. Very well known. This is a different kind of work. I think this is a much more mature work. This has been out less than a year. It’s a broody, thrilling kind of book that’s set in the world of fine art. The characters are artists and gallery owners in the making of art and the meaning of that art. And the origin of that art features very prominently.

Most of this book takes place on an isolated Scottish island. I’ve never read about a setting like this. This island isn’t entirely an island. It is accessible to the mainland, but only for 12 hours a day because the tide comes in and it wipes out the road. The tide goes out and you can access the island again.

[00:49:53] The people plan their meetings on the mainland, their grocery runs, their everything around when the tide will go in and out. Because if you miss it and the road is flooded, you are not getting home until the next day. The way that factors into the rhythms of the story is fascinating.

I just picture it, I think I already used these words, but just so dark and broody and foggy and almost mystical in my mind. I really want Paula Hawkins to tell me, yeah, you’re doing it right, but I think I’m doing it right.

This is about a reclusive artist named Vanessa who lives on the island alone with one friend, local friend, who cares for her. We find out that, to everyone’s shock, Vanessa has bequeathed her art collection to a foundation. She was very well known. They talk about her exhibition at the Tate, for example, like in the story that plays a role in the plot.

[00:50:45] We know that Grace has always been overprotective of her friend. She’s not happy when the curators want to come to the island and invade their home to take background notes and sketchbooks after it turns out that a human bone was found in one of the artist’s pieces. Some are afraid that her ex-husband, who went missing under weird circumstances a long time ago, and now it turns out a human bone is being used in her art, like people’s minds are going sinister places real fast.

There is so much tension and misdirection in this story. I don’t know that the characters are actively unlikable, but they’re definitely not warm and fuzzy. You’re not meant to love them, but you are meant to find them interesting.

But it’s just got this threatening vibe, very cool setting with the tides and an island that’s not an island. DeMaria and Shirley Jackson and definitely Patricia Highsmith, some of those are name-checked in the story. That is the mood.

[00:51:50] You don’t know who to trust. You don’t know what is up with this art. You don’t really know where Paula Hawkins is going with it, but I think you might trust her to find out. How does that sound?

ELLEN: Sounds great.

ANNE: Okay. I’m glad to hear it. There’s a couple of different places we could go. First, I have to tell you, if you haven’t read Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor, we’ve already talked about it on the podcast, but it’s a wonderful companion to Clear. If you liked one, I would really expect the other to be your cup of tea.

Have you read Deacon King Kong, Ellen?

ELLEN: Oh, that was my favorite book of that year.

ANNE: Okay. Well, I was thinking, I know you’re going to Brooklyn. You’ve got the fun Brooklyn setting. And I liked the sense of humor in it.

ELLEN: Same. Same here. He’s another person that… James McBride. He has such affection for his characters, and it just comes through.

ANNE: He really does. I’m glad that worked for you. What about Sarah Waters?

ELLEN: Is that Fingersmith?

ANNE: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:50] ELLEN: I own it, but I haven’t read it.

ANNE: Ooh, okay. We’re going to make that your final book. Now, I have to tell you, Elise Brancheau was just on the podcast — readers, this was Episode 479 — in May. She talked about balancing backlist with new and shiny releases that are always fighting for her attention. She talked about how much she loved Fingersmith.

These conversations on the podcast influenced my reading life so much. Afterwards, I thought, “I want to reread Fingersmith.” So I picked it up and I started reading and I was like, “I don’t remember this. I don’t remember that.” I had not read this book because this book was so shocking. I mean, I don’t want your expectations to get to unreasonably high places.

But I was so stunned at some of the twists and turns in here. I had not read this book before. Now I have to figure out which Sarah Waters book I have read. It might have been The Paying Guests. But I do know next I’m going to read Tipping the Velvet. So readers, if you have thoughts on that, tell me in the comments at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

[00:53:49] But as you were especially describing The Safekeep, but also describing any book where character and setting are most important, although it’s not fair to say plot isn’t important here, plot is definitely important here. Oh, this is such a fun story. It takes a lot of pages to spool out, it’s like 580 something, but it has a good sense of place, good character development.

It’s primarily about two women who, and I’m definitely thinking about your description of The Safekeep, both live entirely in their own worlds. I mean, one is very sheltered. Her parents have died. She’s been kept by her uncle, very secluded, raised as a gentle woman. Her entire world is serving as his secretary. She never leaves his manor house. And the other was raised among thieves in London. This is Victorian. It feels very Dickensian, and it is a queer heist historical story.

[00:54:56] I think the period details, the way you get to know the two characters, and also you talked about how in The Safekeep every once in a while, well, actually I think you said once, there’s a big surprise that changes your perspective on everything. Like, what is even going on? Why is this happening? Who is this person really? I think you enjoyed that in The Safekeep. And that makes Fingersmith rise immediately to mind.

You’ve said that you don’t mind an unlikable character. I don’t know if “unlikable” is right exactly, but these are complex characters faced with complicated realities that they are trying to navigate. I’m not sure how much I’ve really painted a picture of this story for you, but how does it sound?

ELLEN: It does sound good.

ANNE: I can see why it’s on yourself.

ELLEN: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: Ellen, once again, thank you for the book recs, and readers, we’ll put those titles in show notes, but real quick, those were The Power Broker, On the Grid, and City by City. And Ellen, for your books, we talked about The Place of Tides by James Rebanks, The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins, and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Of those titles, what do you think you might read next?

[00:56:09] ELLEN: I think Fingersmith.

ANNE: Well, it’s already on your Kindle.

ELLEN: Right. Place of Tides is close behind it.

ANNE: It is out in June, so it’ll be ready for you when you’re ready for it.

ELLEN: Good.

ANNE: All right. Ellen, thank you so much for a lovely conversation.

ELLEN: Thank you. I enjoyed it.

[00:56:30] ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Ellen today, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Ellen on Goodreads and find the full list of titles we talked about today. We have those links at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. 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.