[00:00:00] MICHELLE ACIERNO LOFTUS: Yeah, so I was kind of volunteered to become the leader of this group when the old leader…

ANNE BOGEL: Voluntold is how we joke about that in our team meetings.

MICHELLE: Yes.

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, talking all things books and reading every week.

[00:00:38] Today, Shannan is joining me to talk about talking about books and reading as we get into what is today our 500th episode of What Should I Read Next? Y’all, what a ride!

Over the years, and that’s almost 10 years now, we’ve connected with so many readers, and today we’re welcoming back a past guest to talk about how her reading life has evolved since our first conversation. That happened nearly two and a half years ago in Episode 378.

Michelle Acierno Loftus joined me then to share her experience of rediscovering the joy of reading being her YA book club. We thought as we’re moving forward to Episode 501 and beyond, taking a moment to look back at just one way that What Should I Read Next has shaped an individual’s life would be so fun. And as we approach this anniversary, we’ve really enjoyed hearing from you and how the podcast has shaped your life.

[00:01:36] Now, many of you have asked over the years, and especially lately, can we hear from those old podcast guests again? Internally at our meetings, we call them What Should I Read Next? alums. And we’ve heard increasing requests to bring the alums back to say, well, hey, what was the podcast experience really like? What did you read next? And did you actually like it? Or was the end way off base? What did your family and friends think when the episode aired?

Now, Shannan, you know that we have a history, a long-ago history at this point of airing episodes where we featured like five to seven composite short interviews about what our alums actually did read next. And yeah, we discontinued those a long time ago because y’all didn’t download them with the frequency you downloaded our main episodes. But lately, we have heard a lot of these requests and we’re going to start doing it again over in Patreon.

[00:02:30] We’ve done this in the past, but not for years. So much so that it might’ve been Michelle who teased us and said, “Hey, you said in the Patreon promo that you’re going to talk with past guests occasionally, but it’s been at least a year. Is that going to happen?” Yes, it’s going to happen, and soon. We’re kicking off a loose series soon.

And Shannan, thanks for coming on because I thought this would be a good time to talk about what else we’re doing in Patreon these days, which really has been unchanged. We put a new rhythm in place almost two years ago now, and sticking pretty closely to it.

SHANNAN MALONE: Yes, we do these bonus episodes on Friday following a loose theme. Book recommendations galore, industry insights, which turns out to be one of my personal favorites. And I think we get the most engagement and comments on that.

ANNE: Oh my gosh, I’ve so enjoyed going through the comments on the episode I did recently on Libby. Y’all had so many questions, understandably so, because it’s not transparent about how Libby works. How do libraries get those digital resources to loan to you? Is it true that eBooks are way more expensive when libraries buy them than when you buy them? What does it mean for you as a reader? Why are your holds so long? What’s with the recent changes? It was fun to put together.

[00:03:43] SHANNAN: And Anne, I am mining those comments for future episodes, because we got a lot of more questions. So I feel like we have industry insights, Libby, and digital borrowing part two coming up.

ANNE: Yeah, I love industry insights. That’s where we really get into some aspect of the reading life that you don’t understand, but you want to. And whether you know it or not, it really impacts your reading life. Like how are bestseller lists put together? How do libraries move all those library holds around? Why do we blur books? And how do those get put together? That’s what we talk about there. Okay, I could talk about industry insights all day, but that’s not the point.

SHANNAN: Then we have the one great book style episodes, which kind of incorporated the old one great book podcast. We just put that into the sequence on the bonus episodes. And that is where Anne or a team member pulls a favorite book off the bookshelf and tells our listeners all about it in 10 minutes or less.

[00:04:40] ANNE: I think it will have aired by the time you’re listening. But right now I know that I need to finish putting together coherent, interesting thoughts on The Power Broker, because I’m doing the next One Great Book episode soon.

SHANNAN: Yes, yes. Our next is mini matchmaking episodes where we use the format of What Should I Read Next? and our listeners give us recommendations in the comments, and then Anne, you make little mini recommendations.

And I love this episode. We’re actually planning one for November called Mini Matchmaking Gifts For All. And there are so many comments and questions and I’m looking forward to perusing those next week.

ANNE: This is like the What Should I Read Next? express where readers tell me three books they love, one they don’t, maybe what they’re looking for right now, and I rapid fire answer like six, eight, ten reader queries in one short little episode. But everybody gets ideas. And often it feels like everybody has ideas for what those readers may enjoy reading next.

[00:05:40] SHANNAN: Yes. That’s actually quite fun when reading the other people’s recommendations or other listeners recommending to their friends and fellow listeners what they think should read. And I love that.

And then we have the occasional wild card. And those can be conversations with team members about different things, Dear Book Therapist, where Anne answers our toughest bookish conundrums. I have been on the therapist couch one time.

One of the things that we have done recently this year was a limited series that we call Starter Guide. And we were going over different genres and how to start reading in that genre if you don’t normally do that. And one that’s coming up, no, actually one that just aired when this comes out will be sci-fi fantasy.

Holly and I did that and it was so much fun. And I have to say, I learned a lot. So if you haven’t listened to that one, go back and take a peek at it.

[00:06:45] ANNE: And then our patrons get our premier, What Should I Read Next? in Modern Mrs. Darcy events. Coming up soon, we have Team Best Books of the Year, which is a rollicking good time if you’ve never had the pleasure of joining us. Also Fall Book Preview is still ready and waiting for you, Summer Reading Guide or Ask Us Anything sessions. Our patrons are welcome and invited to those events and you get the replays afterwards.

And then you also have access to what we like jokingly, but not really call our Super Secret Spreadsheet Vault, which is-

SHANNAN: We call it super secret because it seems like people don’t know about it.

ANNE: You know, that’s funny. I think a lot of people don’t. But when you’re a patron, you have access to that. And it lists every favorite, every book that a guest said wasn’t for them and every recommendation I’ve made at the end of an episode, plus descriptions and links to each episode show notes. And we update it constantly.

So when you sign up for Patreon, we recommend you bookmark the link and you can access it anytime. You can download, but then it doesn’t get updated. But bookmark that thing, so you can see the fresh books talked about on the show every time.

[00:07:50] So those are some of the things we do in Patreon. And part of those wildcards coming up will be interviews with past guests about what their experience on the show was really like. So if you’re talking back to your phone, your car, whatever, when you’re listening some days going, “Oh, there’s no way they’re going to enjoy that book,” you can listen in to the Patreon episode and find out if they did or if they didn’t.

SHANNAN: And Anne, on Friday, our readers will be able to listen to another follow-up with a guest, Jill Jacklin from Episode 475. And that will be on your bonus feed this Friday.

ANNE: This Friday. And if you’re a patron, and if you join us in Patreon, you can expect these Friday bonus episodes.

So we get a question a lot about what’s the difference between Book Club and Patreon. And we have a free bonus episode you can listen to about that. But we like to say that Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club is a buffet. There’s ample offerings available to you all the time. We do not expect you to come to them all. That would be a huge time commitment.

[00:08:52] Patreon, on the other hand, offers bite-size insights into the reading life and a behind-the-scenes look into the podcast and book recommendations galore.

So these bonus episodes average 20 minutes in length. Some are shorter. Some are longer.

SHANNAN: Some are longer.

ANNE: That’s plenty of time to get a new good book recommendation for you, or a handful of them, or learn something that blows your mind about the publishing landscape, or you get to hang out with us on Summer Reading Guide Day. You can listen to the replay at 1.5 speed if you want.

So we have lots of good stuff coming your way. But with a 20-minute episode average, that’s a way that feels blessedly manageable to a lot of readers. No big time commitments in Patreon. It’s ready for you when you’re ready to listen.

SHANNAN: And I just want to say to all of the readers who support us on Patreon, thank you. Thank you so much. We couldn’t do this without you. I love that you believe in the show, listen to the show, and support the show in this way. Thank you so much.

[00:09:58] ANNE: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. I should have started there. The podcasting landscape has changed so much between January 12th, 2016, when we aired our first episode, and now. People still refer to the podcasting landscape as the Wild West. Like, you have no idea what’s going to happen next.

And having your financial support from Patreon is something that’s really helped us stay steady and keep making the podcast week after week, even as the larger podcasting landscape has been so volatile. And we are so grateful that we get to focus on the books and not how we’re going to pay our team come Friday.

And we should probably share a link. You can join us anytime. We would love that. And if you’re already supporting us, thank you so much. But you can find us on Patreon at patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext? Sign up anytime. We’d love to see you there.

[00:10:56] Now back to Michelle and today’s follow-up conversation with her as a What Should I Read Next? alum. Michelle and I first spoke in March 2023 and her episode aired on May 2nd of that year. Now we’re about two and a half years later and Michelle still works as a veterinary radiologist and she recently welcomed her second child.

Her reading life, you’ll be glad to hear, is still going strong. And yet, unsurprisingly to many of us readers who’ve experienced this ourselves, it’s also shifted since our last conversation. I’m excited to hear about her recent explorations into nonfiction and character-driven, introspective stories.

While you’ll hear her love for YA is still going strong, we’ll also dive into how my previous recommendations for Michelle landed. Plus you’ll hear what’s working for her these days and what she’s looking for right now in her reading life. And of course, along the way, you will hear many ideas for what you may enjoy reading next.

[00:11:57] Shannan, thanks so much for joining me to talk books and Patreon.

SHANNAN: Thank you for having me.

ANNE: Now on to Michelle, let’s get to it.

Michelle, welcome back to the show.

MICHELLE: Hi Anne, it’s great to be here.

ANNE: Oh, it’s great to have you back. I just finished re-listening to our episode for the first time in a while this morning. We recorded on March 29th, 2023, it aired on May 2nd, 2023. It’s been a long time. Thanks for coming back around.

MICHELLE: Yeah, glad to be here and talking with you again. It’s kind of surreal actually.

ANNE: Do you want to say more about that?

MICHELLE: Yeah, it’s just because I seem to just find you in the postpartum time of life. So last time we talked, I had a six-month-old baby boy. And then now when we’re talking, I have a five-month-old baby girl. So it just seems to be that my reading life just expands in the most hectic of times.

[00:12:52] ANNE: Congratulations. Now readers, whether or not you listened to Michelle’s episode the first time, I really encourage you to go listen. It was so much fun to revisit, Michelle. Thanks again for that conversation.

MICHELLE: Yeah, no problem.

ANNE: And for the one we’re about to have today. But totally evergreen, fun to listen to. But we’re going to give readers the flyover because it’s probably not ringing in their ears as it is in yours and mine. I really enjoyed hearing about your YA book club and how you found your way to What Should I Read Next? and where you were as a reader at that time.

Looking back to 2023, how do you think about your reading life from that era?

MICHELLE: Yeah, things have definitely changed. Immediately after our recording, I realized that I was very renewed in my love for YA. I already obviously loved it before and spent a lot of time reading it with my YA book club, but then I realized, oh my gosh, there’s all these YA books that I want to read. And there was a flood of comments in the show notes with all these great recommendations that people sent in. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, my TBR has exploded with young adult reads of all different genres.”

[00:14:01] And so I kind of like dove right in and I was reading very heavily young adult for probably the next like nine months to a year. Since then, I’ve tipped a little bit back the other way, because after a while, you need to kind of switch things up a bit.

I’ve also noticed that in the new motherhood time, or I guess the second time around, I feel like I’m craving a little bit different things. And so I’m looking for reading from the mom’s perspective or child-parent relationships from the parent’s perspective, rather than the kid perspective that you would get in YA.

I also tend to read a lot of nonfiction in the postpartum period I’ve learned from my two times around now. So I’ve been switching up a little bit what I’ve been reading.

And I’ve been, of course, still reading a fair amount of YA because I have to read at least 12 books a year for my book club, which is a good chunk of books, and I sprinkle in other ones throughout the year, but I definitely now I’m looking more for like quiet character-driven, high emotional stakes, low physical stakes, I guess I would say.

[00:15:07] So not as much the fantasy adventure that I’m typically reading in the YA space, but looking for more maybe magical realism or, you know, thought-provoking novels or things that are about parenting and marriage and relationships in the nonfiction space.

So yeah, my reading kind of has been ebbing and flowing in the different things that I’ve been reading over the past two years. So that’s where it finds me now.

ANNE: Okay, we’ll talk more about that. We should answer a question for readers who are jumping in with us for the first time or who for some reason don’t remember what happened two and a half years ago on this podcast. That would include me.

But readers may be wondering why YA? If I were listening right now, I think I’d be thinking, “Oh, well, Michelle must really like that genre.” But as you described back in 2023, the obvious answer is not actually the correct one.

Michelle, you’re here to fact-check me. So if I were introducing you to a friend describing your reading life, I’d say, funny thing, Michelle wanted to meet people. She got a meetup in Seattle, and she found this book club that happened to be YA and it really took her life and her reading life in a direction she did not see coming. Okay, how am I doing?

[00:16:20] MICHELLE: Yeah, that’s pretty good. I think it-

ANNE: Make it better. Please, please, please.

MICHELLE: I do think that finding this book club in particular, I wasn’t like intentionally seeking out to do a young adult book club versus like a general, you know, any type of fiction or nonfiction book club. It was just the one that was available for sure. But I’ve always been drawn to the YA space.

As you’re growing up, you’re going to obviously be reading middle grade and then YA and, you know, Harry Potter as like a very quintessential series, you know, that started as middle grade and then progressed to YA. You know, and because I love the fantasy space so much, there is just so much ripe fantasy in the young adult space. I love the chosen one or the hero’s journey and they tend to be young protagonists. They tend to be orphans. You know, it’s just very prototypical things like that.

And so I’ve just always had a love for young adult. And I realized when I started actually frequenting the bookstore more and realizing where I was picking out books from, which sections, I would often find myself spending most of my time in the young adult section.

[00:17:28] So I had to go seek it out in the very back of the bookstore because it’s never the thing that’s up front. And those were the things that were consistently giving me good results and good reading experiences.

And I think a bit of it is also just like nostalgia, just growing up being a reader and just loving that feeling. And so, as I mentioned, you know, a couple of years ago when we talked, I kind of had a big drought when I was going through school and professional training and residency. And so, you know, there’s a good decade or so of years where you’re not able to read much except for like technical things and textbooks or whatever. And so it was an easy way to jump back into reading was to go back to that YA space that I had known and loved and then branch out from there.

ANNE: Thank you for giving our readers and me a much fuller picture. Let’s tell our listeners real quick what books you brought to the show in 2023. So I’m looking at our What Should I Read Next? HQ. Your favorites were Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz, The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler, and Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger. You said Alive by Scott Sigler was not for you.

[00:18:35] And then the books I recommended were Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert, and Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia. We also talked about The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi as a book that you may enjoy reading next.

As we were just telling our listeners in the intro, back in the day, we had the occasional main feed episode like y’all are listening now where I’d follow up with past guests and find out what you really did read next. And sometimes readers say, why don’t you do those anymore? And it’s because nobody downloaded them, which was rough. But I hope you all enjoy this follow-up today.

But Brenna would talk to past guests occasionally on Patreon. And one of the questions she always asked that I didn’t get to hear the answer to until it aired on Fridays as a Patreon bonus was how did your friends and family, and I want to say book club members, if they listened, respond to your What Should I Read Next? episode back then?

[00:19:31] MICHELLE: Oh, it was such fun to be able to share the episode. So, of all my family and friends, I have one person that religiously listens to this podcast as well. And it was actually the friend who introduced me to this podcast originally.

So when I originally got the email inviting me on, I had an out-of-body experience, was just like shaking. And I immediately texted her because she knew what this would mean. And so she was very excited for me and was the first one to be cheering me on to be on the podcast.

When I shared it with my family and friends, I just kind of explained like, “Hey, you know how I really love to read? Well, I really, really love to read and I also love to listen about reading. And this is how I find a lot of the books that I like to listen to and read, and I was lucky enough to be invited to be a guest. So why don’t you take a listen?”

And more people listen than I thought actually would, because if they don’t normally listen to podcasts, you’re not sure how many will pick it up.

[00:20:30] Of course, you expect your parents and siblings and stuff to listen to it. But even like my cousins and stuff listened. And one of my cousins joked that he was, you know, related to a celebrity now, and that I was famous.

But one of the most interesting things was when I was talking with my dad, after he listened to it, he was like, “Michelle, I knew that you always liked to read. I saw you reading a lot as you were growing up, but I never realized just how important reading was to you and how integral it was to your life.”

And he was like, “That was really cool to be able to learn that while listening to you talk about reading and what it’s meant to you in your life.” So that was a pretty cool moment to kind of connect with my dad over that because he’s not a big reader at all. It’s something that I’ve shared more with my mom, but it was cool to be able to share that piece of myself with my dad.

[00:21:20] And then as far as friends, I have a lot of readerly friends. And even though they may not listen to book podcasts, we share a lot of recommendations with each other. And so they thought it was pretty cool to hear what I thought about my reading life. Even a couple of them got some shout-outs in the past episodes. So that was a lot of fun.

ANNE: That’s so nice. You know, I jumped right over a question I know a lot of listeners are most interested in, which is, what did you think of those books I recommended to you? Did you pick up any of them?

MICHELLE: As promised, I did pick up Legendborn first because I already had it checked out from the library at the time that we talked. That one definitely was a big hit for me. Even though it was, you know, a substantially long book, it felt like it just flew by.

I read it while I was breastfeeding my son at the time, and so that kept me company. And I would just kind of sit there a little bit longer so that I could get another chapter or two in while he slept and not disturb him.

[00:22:18] I really enjoyed the campus setting. I always love a good academic setting. Secret society, like within the campus, the magic. I loved how there were actually two different magic systems that eventually tied into the racial history of the South, you know, in the Civil War and everything.

Of course, the Arthurian legend was fun because my son is named Arthur, and… I don’t know. Now I just feel a little bit more attached to that just with his namesake. So that one was a big hit for me as I expected it to be. It was already on my radar before you mentioned it during the show, so we were on the same page there for sure.

The next one that I picked up was the Gilded Wolves. That one I actually convinced my book club to read with me. So they voted to read that as well. And that had been on some other person’s TBRs as well.

[00:23:13] That one was generally well received. Some people have read on into the series and I hope to as well. I really liked the multiple point of views in that one. I think that may have been a big reason that you initially recommended it to me because I talked about with the Steel Crow saga and generally that I love if all the points of views are strong, that that really draws me into a book.

So I really appreciated the distinct characterization throughout that book. And of course, a heist novel, like it’s pretty hard for me not to like a heist novel. I really enjoyed that one as well and hope to pick up the second one at some point. But I do kind of fail to finish out series lately. So I’m trying to get better at that.

The next one that I picked up was Bellweather Rhapsody. This was kind of an interesting fugue of a book. I’m not sure that I really liked anyone in the book, except for Rabbit. I really did like that character. I felt like he was the most relatable to me. But some of the other characters were just crazy. You know, and not very good people, but yet you just wanted to keep reading it.

[00:24:21] I felt like I was peeking, you know, behind my hands, like trying to shield myself from the train wreck that was happening in all these characters’ lives. But I couldn’t look away at the same time.

The central mystery was interesting, but really wasn’t the reason that I kept reading. It really was that these characters were so wacky and unique and distinctly written that I just had to see what would happen to them next.

I still think about that one a lot. I loved that it was set during a high school band trip or whatever. I appreciated that it was set in the high school band world because that just brought me a lot of nostalgia from when I was in band. So that was like a nice extra tie-in that just made it a little bit more special for me personally.

Then finally, I picked up Picture Us in the Light. Now, when you described this to me, you said, “Hard things happen.” And I was six months postpartum and I was wondering to myself, “How hard of things happen? Can I take this emotionally right now? Maybe this isn’t the best time for me to pick this one up.”

[00:25:25] So I waited probably at least a year or more to work up the courage to read it. I tried to force myself to read it by trying to get it into my book club as a pick, but no one ever wanted to vote for it. So it never got picked for my book club. It’s sometimes hard to get things that may tend towards sad to be picked by the group. But we try. Every once in a while we get them in there.

So eventually I was like, “You know what? I need to just plunge into this on my own. And if I don’t like it, I don’t like it, but I gotta give it a shot.” But this was by far the one that was the biggest hit for me. Totally took me by surprise. You know, I asked for books that would surprise and stretch me and this was exactly what I needed.

I can’t really give away exactly some of the reasons that it really spoke to me because that would be spoilers for the actual plot of the novel. But I just really just came away just wondering like, what would I do in this family situation?

[00:26:26] I just had a whole new perspective as a mom going into this book. If I would have read this book, you know, two years before that when I hadn’t yet been a mom, I don’t think it would have hit the same way that it hit when I was reading it, you know, with like a one-year-old kid at the time.

And so, yeah, I would have never picked this one up on my own. Like I would have read the premise and been like, “I’m not sure.” And if, and especially someone telling me hard things happen, I was like, “I don’t know if I can take hard things,” but it was okay. I got through it and I actually loved it.

Once I started listening to it, I just absolutely raced through it. I thought that Danny, the main character, was such a great voice to hear the story through. You know, he had a cute little love story with his friend who is trying to make his partner and stuff like that as he was navigating, trying to figure out his family secrets.

[00:27:21] And yeah, just as the story unraveled, I just couldn’t stop listening. That’s the one that I still, to this day, think about the most. The other ones that were really in my wheelhouse, you know, like the fantasy ones. It’s like, yeah, I generally remember them, but I can’t tell you a bunch of the details of the plot or anything anymore. But this one, I have such vivid memories of reading this book, the visualization that I have of their house and some of the interactions that the characters are having at the points in the book, I can still vividly picture that. This just made such an impression on me. So thank you.

ANNE: I’m so glad. Michelle and listeners, at the end of every episode, you’ll hear us say, go to whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com, go to the show notes, leave your recommendations for our guest. And Michelle, listeners did that for you. Did you pick up any of the books listeners recommended to you in the comments?

[00:28:14] MICHELLE: Yes, I’ve actually picked up quite a few and some we’ve actually read in my book club as well. I went through the show notes again to actually remind myself because I do have it saved in my email so I can just pop over it to whenever I need to get a new recommendation. So when I went through, there are six of them that I have picked up and read since that time. And I still have quite a few that I could work through.

ANNE: That’s a lot to have already read.

MICHELLE: Yeah. And some of them are series. Some of them are series too that I’ve also read into. So it adds up to more books than that.

ANNE: All right. So you picked up some, tell us more.

MICHELLE: Yes. The first one that I picked up was called Jester by Brielle D. Porter. This one I really enjoyed because it’s about a girl who is like a magician and she does real magic and she is trying to become a jester for the queen. She has to go through like a magical competition and it kind of has like a Vegas-y type feeling. That one was fun and frothy, easy to get through, was definitely a really nice quick win for me.

[00:29:25] And I’ve since recommended it to some of the people in my book club because one time, one of the other women was like, “Hey, should we read Jester?” And I was like, “Funny thing, I’ve already read that.” So we can’t do it for this book club, but you should read it yourself.

Another one that our book club had read is called the Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. That was really well-received. That one definitely had some hard things that happened in it too, but that led to a lot of good discussion. I think that’s a pretty well-known book and has gotten pretty good reviews. So that was definitely a win for us.

MICHELLE: Another one that my book club picked up that was very divisive was called Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson. And then it has a series of books as well. So I was in the camp that I didn’t love it so much. I just felt like a little bit cheated maybe by the end in that we only got more questions and absolutely no answers.

[00:30:23] In a mystery novel, I do understand if it’s going to be a probably going to be like one overarching mystery that I’m going to have to wait to solve. But by the end of the first book, I’m hoping that a mini part of the mystery or something will be resolved. But it was just, oh, no, we’re just gonna start a whole new mystery and neither of them are going to be solved. So the mystery in the past and the mystery in the present are still completely wide open.

I was not alone in that feeling. About half the book club felt cheated as well. And they thought that’s just not fair to the reader. We worked all this time to read this book, and we invested this time and you didn’t give us anything versus the other half of the book club had already finished the whole series by the time that the book club happened. So they just knocked out all three books, or however many there are, like in that month, because they loved it so much.

[00:31:16] That was a really fun book club, because people were just so entrenched in their beliefs, and they’re like, “I don’t understand how you could feel the opposite way for me.” That one I’m definitely glad that I picked it up and that we read it in book club together.

Another one that someone had recommended was Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, if I ended up liking Bellweather Rhapsody. And that’s one that I have read as well. And I did like that.

It’s totally different than Bellweather Rhapsody, but I still feel like she has a quirky way of writing. And that one was, you know, more around running around the city and following puzzles and clues and things like that. So I did enjoy that one as well.

And then finally, a very well-known series, the A Court of Thorns and Roses series was also mentioned in the show notes for mine and had been on my mind to read for a while. So I have read three books into that series, and I’ve really enjoyed it.

I’m glad that people told me that I needed to keep reading because if I would have just picked up the first book on my own and not known that this was a really big hit for many people, I would have been like, Eh, I don’t know how I feel about this.

[00:32:20] But I got to book two, and man, was that a really good book. I really enjoyed it. I’m hoping to pick up the rest of the series soon. But I did need to take a break because I read all three pretty much back-to-back and then I needed to back out of that world for a while.

ANNE: All right. So, the listeners, if you want a bunch of crowdsource book recommendations, maybe being a What Should I Read Next? guest is the way to go. What do you think, Michelle?

MICHELLE: Definitely.

ANNE: Now, it’s been, as we’ve said, two and a half years since you were on the podcast. You’ve had a lot of changes in your personal life. I’m interested in hearing what has changed or evolved in your reading life since we last spoke.

MICHELLE: As I alluded to a little bit earlier, I’ve been looking for more adult novels, emotional, exploring themes of motherhood, parenting, parent child relationships, romantic relationships, things that really just make me think I’ve been drawn to a lot of magical realism, because it is always a fun way for me to explore some emotional through line that the character has to go through as they’re navigating this wacky thing.

[00:33:35] Like a few that I’ve recently read are The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds, The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, and The Good Part. And all of those, you know, it’s fun to like see the character be in these crazy situations and like, what would you do? But at the end of the day, they’re really exploring things like how do I get through grief? What is the importance of living a full life? What would I do in this situation? And so it just speaks to larger things that we experience, you know, as people and largely as women and mothers.

So those are the things that I’ve been really drawn to and seeking. And those are the things that are consistently being five stars for me versus, you know, my historically going for things that are a lot more like fantastical adventures. Those just aren’t hitting as hard for me right now.

And I think it’s just my season of life. And I’ll eventually tip back and want some more of that as well. But right now, I want things that maybe will make me cry a little or force me to think and make me reflect on what the character went through long after I close the book.

[00:34:45] ANNE: That’s so interesting. I love hearing how an experience like this on the show, but also your real-life experiences and just the natural evolution of living your life are coming through in your reading life. Oh, as I think about, okay, Michelle, are we going to send you on your way with some book recommendations, I’m thinking of all the wonderful books I’ve read about parenting and mother-child relationships and how so many of them are so painful. And I wonder, I just wonder what would actually be a good fit or not. But we can circle back around to that space.

MICHELLE: Sure. Michelle, it’s so interesting to hear how your tastes are evolving. How else is reading popping up in your life these days? How are you thinking about books? How are they connecting you with others? That was the whole topic of our last conversation. Where are they taking you?

[00:35:39] MICHELLE: Building on the young adult book club that I attend, there are a couple of women in there that have been instrumental in helping me find more author events in my city, which has been so fun. So we tend to go together and authors that we’ve seen are RF Kuang, Rebecca Ross, and Leigh Bardugo.

And listeners of my initial episode will remember that I brought the Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo as one of my favorites. That was like the big impetus for kicking off my reading love again after I finished my residency and got back into the world and started reading. So that was just, oh my gosh, a dream come true to get to hear her talk.

So it’s been really interesting, because particularly with that book, she was coming out with, The Familiar, at the time when I got to see her, I think it was last year. And if I would have just picked up that book on its own, I’m not sure that I would have finished it, honestly. I generally enjoyed it. But I think just as a reading experience itself, I did not love it as much as I love the Shadow and Bone trilogy.

[00:36:45] But because I had gone to this author event and heard about her researching of the historical time period, the connection with her own family history, and what was going on in Spain at the time and the stories that she had read and how she had interwoven all this historical research into the book, I could pick out those little Easter eggs as I was going along. And I enjoyed the book probably like two stars more than I would have if I just read it on my own. And so I realized, wow, this is really enriching to my reading life, I need to intentionally seek out these author events if I can.

And because I do live, you know, right outside of Seattle, a lot of authors will come to this area. And so I have a lot of opportunities. So I’m really blessed by that. And so now I have a couple more author events that I just attended, as I mentioned, with RF Kuang and Rebecca Ross. So I have those nice new hardcovers on my shelf just from… this was just in the past couple weeks I went to both of those.

[00:37:43] And so I’m very excited to pick those up and see that those authors come through. Because it’s so interesting, as they talk, you realize that their voice exactly matches how they write on the page, which maybe is obvious to some people. But I think it’s just interesting to see how closely it does represent the author as a whole.

Specifically, when I was listening to RF Kuang, she has a very analytical style that really came through in Babel. And then I read Yellowface before going to the talk. And that’s just a totally different style. And I was like, “Wow, how many multitudes are contained within this author.”

And then she described in her talk about how she’ll never write a book like Yellowface again, because it was so of the time post-pandemic. You know, basically, we all lived on Twitter and these little like not many characters. And so she was like, “I intentionally changed my writing style and the way that I thought to be closer to social media, these little pithy things. So that’s why it reads the way that it does.” And she’s like, “But I don’t want to live in that space. It was just mentally not good for me.”

[00:38:52] And so I’m anticipating that when I read Katabasis, which is the one that she’s on tour for now, that it will be more reminiscent of the writing style of Babel, which I’m hopeful for. I mean, I did really enjoy Yellowface, but once she said that, a light bulb went off in my brain and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, it did feel like I was just in the social media milieu. It was just crazy.” And so those little things I would never know, I would never get to appreciate about books if I didn’t attend these author talks. And so I’m going to continue to seek that out. And luckily, I have, you know, some friends in the book club that really love to do that, too, so I think we’ll continue on with that.

ANNE: Thanks for telling us about that. I love where I live and also, we do not get as many great author events in Louisville, Kentucky, as you do in the Seattle area. So…

MICHELLE: Yes, I’m very lucky.

ANNE: I’m glad you get to go have those experiences. That’s amazing. And circling back to where we started, you mentioned that you recently became the leader of our YA book group. But you didn’t really tell me yet what that might mean for your reading experience or the group’s experience. Can you say more about that?

[00:39:59] MICHELLE: Yeah. So I was kind of volunteered to become the leader of this group when the old leader-

ANNE: Voluntold is how we joke about that in our team meetings.

MICHELLE: Yeah. So basically, the old leader, she was moving her family to go back to Florida, so she couldn’t lead it anymore. And so basically, we were going to have these elections to see who wanted to run it, and really, no one stepped up. But someone turned to me, and they were like, “Michelle, would you do it if we wanted you to?” And I was like, “Sure, yeah, I’ll do it.”

And so that’s what happened. There was no election or anything. I just basically was volunteered for the position, but I’m totally fine with it. I don’t mind being in charge. It’s a pretty low-key group so it’s easy to run.

I definitely was dabbling in trying to add some things to the book club that maybe weren’t so successful. A lot of people we… as I mentioned, we’re not that great reading sequels necessarily of books that we liked that started a series. And a lot of these books I’ve found through the book club. So we’ll all read it, we’ll be like, “Yay, we’re really excited to read the next one.” And then we all forget about reading the next one when it comes out the next year, or whatnot.

[00:41:07] So we did dabble with trying to have occasional extra meetings where we would read on into the series. But I just couldn’t get a lot of traction for people to pick up those books and come that extra time because I think it was just asking too much of their time to come more than once a month. But the people that did come to those, we would have some really good conversations. So that’s something that I tried as the new leader, but didn’t quite stick.

So I kind of let that go for now. Because it was also asking a lot of my time that I would have to read basically two books for this book club almost every month. And it was taking away from me being able to read these other books that I’ve described that I’ve been gravitating more towards recently. So we’ll see if I try and do anything else with the book club. But I may just keep it the tried-and-true way because it’s worked for years.

ANNE: For years. Michelle, are there any books that you have read recently that you’d like to recommend to listeners? Because I know listeners would love to hear.

[00:42:06] MICHELLE: Sure. So if we’re going to stay in the YA realm, I can recommend one duology that was really well-received by the book club. And it’s called The Scarlet Alchemist. Then the follow-up is The Blood Orchid. And it’s by Kylie Lee Baker. It’s about this girl named Zilan, who is able to practice alchemy, but she does illegal alchemy and that she has learned how to raise the dead. And that’s definitely not allowed.

This is set in historical Tang Dynasty, alternate reality China, in which alchemy is real. Zilan is hoping to basically pull herself up by her bootstraps, get out of the poor slums and become a royal alchemist for the royal family. To do that, she has to do all this studying and she has to go and pass these three tests and prove herself so that she could become a royal alchemist.

So she travels with her cousins to the place of the Empress. And she’s going through these trials, but things are not as they seem with the royal family.

[00:43:09] This one is great. It has one of the most evil, evil characters ever. But that’s what made it so delicious to read. Like the Empress was just so evil that you were like, she can’t possibly get any worse. Oh, she can. She can. Just keep turning the pages. And so I really love that antagonism between Zilan and the Empress.

The sequel definitely took me by surprise. I kind of thought I knew where it was gonna go based on the setup and other duologies that I’ve read, but it definitely took twists and turns that I didn’t expect. I thought that was a really solid series. And I’ve definitely have recommended to my book club that if they haven’t read the sequel, they need to get to it because they would really like it. And the first one was very well received by all of us.

ANNE: What are you hoping for from your reading life in the season or seasons to come?

[00:44:01] MICHELLE: I’m hoping to just keep riding the different waves as I feel them. So I’ve really enjoyed just leaning into the season of my life and letting it take me to discover new things. I really appreciate being pushed out of my comfort zone, especially when, you know, in my book club, people will recommend books that to me I think, “I’m not sure that I really want to read this,” but then I pick it up and I absolutely love it.

I continue to find that to be so enjoyable to read things that don’t, on the surface, sound like they might be for me. And so I’m just looking to just keep rolling with it.

ANNE: I love it. Michelle, thank you so much for the trip down memory lane and also letting us know where we’re finding you in the season. It’s been great to catch up.

MICHELLE: Yeah, it’s been lovely to be back and chat with you again. I always love talking books.

ANNE: Do you want any recommendations before we send you on your way?

MICHELLE: Sure. I will always take a recommendation.

[00:45:02] ANNE: I’m scared, though. Quiet, introspective books about motherhood, parenthood. So many are so sad. How are you thinking about that? How are you navigating that question? Is this just in my brain or do you have an awareness also that so many books about motherhood and parenthood are about a tension-filled relationships and the lack of good relationships?

I did actually just finish a book with motherhood vibes that was solid, but it’s not coming… I mean, it was wonderful, but it’s not coming out till March. So that’s not going to be super helpful to you today.

MICHELLE: Yeah, no, I definitely understand. And I don’t know that I’ve been specifically looking for ones where there’s like this huge falling out or really terrible things happen. I think I’ve been leaning more into like the magical realism side where things are happening and you’re exploring those aspects of life, but it’s with a more lighthearted touch because it does have that, like the Husbands, for instance, which is exploring what does it mean to like be married and what are different ways that it can look to be in a marriage? And do you even want to be married?

[00:46:10] But that was done in a lighthearted way and sometimes was having me laughing out loud while I was reading that book. But it still definitely makes you reflect, like it made me reflect on my own marriage and relationships and things like that.

And then in the book that I mentioned, The Good Part, you know, this woman wants to skip to the good part of her life because she’s just like, “Ah, things suck right now. Can I skip to the good part?” And then of course, you know, with that setup that she’s going to skip to the good part, and then she’s going to realize, “Oh, the good part was actually living my life the whole time, you know, up until then. But you know, that one, I didn’t expect to resonate so much with me. But for spoilery reasons, there’s some storylines in there around motherhood and stuff that really spoke to me, and so I can’t share exactly what they are.

But that one really explored motherhood much more than I expected it to, and especially young motherhood. And so that one really spoke to me. So sometimes it just like creeps in there, and I didn’t even know that I was going to find it in a book.

[00:47:08] But yeah, I think I’ve been drawn to ones that maybe are doing it with a lighter hand than like the ones where it’s like, this book will be about the mother-daughter relationship and the tensions that arise in the reconciliation, if you kind of follow along with what I’m saying.

ANNE: Do you remember how you just kind of walked us through some books you’d been reading lately that podcast listeners had recommended to you?

MICHELLE: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: Okay, let’s just take a little stroll. I’m going to take a similar stroll, and I’m going to leave it to you to decide if any of these sound good. But this is what’s coming to mind from our conversation.

A book that I’m surprised to still think about all the time from several years ago is Julia Whelan’s romance novel, Thank You for Listening. And it’s because of this one scene that matters in the plot, but it’s not… I mean, the plot is about falling in love and recording audiobooks, and… I don’t need to say more about that.

[00:48:04] But she has this one scene where all is lost. And when that happens, this adult woman wants more than anything to see her mother, and she does. And I thought, oh, this is so a healthy mother-daughter relationship. Everything is in shambles, and what you want is your mom, and you fly to Italy to see her and spend some healing, restorative time together. I still think about that all the time.

You mentioned your son was named Arthur. This is already proving to be the book that I cannot stop talking about, but Alex E. Harrow has a new book that wrecked me called The Everlasting. It’s out October 28th. I already talked about it in the podcast episode with Candice.

It’s about a scholar and a female knight that fall in love and travel through time to live this epic, enduring love story and raise children that they love with their whole entire hearts and souls, but also to save their nation from certain destruction.

[00:49:07] It is loosely based on the Arthurian legend because the female knight long, long ago – actually, I believe at the beginning of every time travel storyline – she pulls the sword out of the rock. And I just feel like you need to know about this book. And romantic and parental love, and also that filial loyalty to a nation – not to the terrible, wretched queen, or monarch. I don’t know that she’s called a queen, but to the people of the nation is also important. But mostly it’s a love story. It’s so sad, but also this wonderful portrayal of familial and romantic love.

The Road to Tender Hearts is a book that has so many “pick-me, pick-me” elements sent in your direction, but also it starts with a familial tragedy. And I want you to know that.

MICHELLE: Yeah, you talked about this in the Summer Reading Guide. And I have to be honest, when I heard you describe it, I was like, “I don’t know if that’s the book for me.” You know, I was kind of scared away from it.

[00:50:16] ANNE: Oh, well, okay. Let me tell you why it’s coming to mind. I might give this a year, like you did with Pictures in the Light, because it does start with terrible, horrible things happening. But what happens is this young, cobbled-together family – two kids and an uncle, who has no business being a parent, and his estranged daughter, who’s 23 – they hit the road with these recently orphaned kids.

I mean, it’s a screwball road trip that is just so zany and laugh-out-loud funny, but the road trip is happening because something terrible and tragic has happened. And Annie Hartnett takes the worst and the most hilarious and just smashes them together. But this book also has some magical elements that I think make it feel pleasantly not quite of this world. I mean, it’s realistic, but it also kept reminding me, like, this is a story, this is a story.

[00:51:14] Nothing terrible happened in the beginning, because this is fictional. It’s fine. But there’s a tabby cat with magical powers that’s just, I mean, made me grin through the whole book. There’s also a hat that talks to the person who’s wearing it at the time, just a little bit screwball, magical, super fun.

Also from the summer reading guide, I kept thinking of A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna. Have you read this?

MICHELLE: I immediately added that to my TBR when I listened to the unboxing, but I haven’t gotten to it yet.

ANNE: The actual mother reference in this book might actually be… I mean, she is terrible. I’m trying to think if there’s more mothers. But this is really about found family vibes.

It’s grounded fantasy, I think has a lot of elements that will feel really nostalgic to you based on what you loved growing up, engaging romance, and just… I mean, this is magical. But some of the magical elements are just delightful. There’s this enchantment set on the inn where on, I might be getting the details wrong, but on Sundays, it rains apple blossom tea in one bedroom, and it’s cotton teacups just for an hour. And then when it’s done, it’s like nothing ever happened, and everything is dry and clean, and nothing is going to get soggy or moldy or nasty. That’s just delightful.

[00:52:29] And you said something earlier that made me think specifically of this book. Oh, it was the Scarlet Alchemist. The protagonist of the heart of – I just forgot the name – A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping. Is that it?

MICHELLE: That sounds right.

ANNE: She lost all her magic by using up every last drop on this spell to resurrect her great aunt after she died. And she says that was absolutely the right choice. But now they have to pay cash money to fix the boiler instead of using a little spell to save it. And something I think about all the time is like, gosh, this would be cheaper with magic. You have to wait for the HVAC repairman to come, but this would be better with magic. So I think about that all the time.

But I wonder about One Italian Summer by Rebecca Searle.

MICHELLE: I have read that one.

ANNE: Yeah? Okay. So you know what I’m talking about?

MICHELLE: I’ve read most, if not all, of Rebecca Searle. She was like a big win for me. That one, I didn’t love as much as Expiration Dates or In Five Years.

[00:53:32] ANNE: That’s wrecking my immediate premise, which was, oh, because it’s not as funny. But the Five Years one was not funny.

MICHELLE: Yeah, no. So I did read One Italian Summer, and I loved the premise and everything. I wanted a little bit more, I don’t know, catharsis or something by the end. It left me a little bit flatter than the other two that I’ve read of hers. But in general, it was well-received. So that’s on the right track.

ANNE: She’s got a new book coming out in the spring. I don’t remember anything about it, except there’s a new book coming out in the spring. And I wonder if you might enjoy Charmaine Wilkerson. I think Black Cake is a good place to start, but it’s a family saga, sibling story, historical fiction. No magical realism, but there is a real mythology to a black cake recipe that’s been in the family for forever and what that means.

I wonder if that would be a fun family exploration. I mean, I say fun. It’s not really a funny book. There’s a little subtle humor. But it’s mostly about reflecting on a family’s relationships in the present tense and legacy in the past and future.

[00:54:41] MICHELLE: Yeah, that sounds enticing. I’ve heard of that book, but I didn’t really remember exactly what except for the recipe part. So, yeah, it’s good to know that you think that would be up my alley.

ANNE: She tells a nice family saga. Michelle, having sat in both seats on this show, you know, like driving in your car, feeding your baby, folding laundry, whatever you do while you’re listening, and also talking books with me, do you have any words of wisdom for our listeners? They don’t have to be wise. They could be silly. I want to quote Jane Austen at you right now.

MICHELLE: I think the wisdom that I’ve gathered from this podcast specifically is to listen closely to how the other readers that are just like us describe what they love about a book and what makes them light up. And that’ll help give you vocabulary to speak to your own truth about what you love about books. And just the more that I hear people talk about what they love and don’t love in a book, the more that I think about what do I love or not love in a book, and the more things I pay attention to within the books.

[00:55:44] Like sometimes guests will come on and talk about a specific thing that they love or don’t love in a book and I’m like, “I’ve literally never thought about that one little aspect of reading ever in my life. But now I’m going to think about that.” And so, if you just kind of take all those little things, they add up over time, and it leads to a really rich reading life.

ANNE: Well, I can’t beat that. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. And thanks for coming back to talk books again with me. It’s been a pleasure.

MICHELLE: Thank you, Anne.

ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Michelle, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next at this stage of her reading life. You can connect with her on StoryGraph. We have that link, plus the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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Readers, that’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” Happy reading, everyone.