Building a TBR for a bucket list trip

[00:00:00] DANA PRESCOTT: Oh man, this book I really struggled through it, and at the time I was a hardcore "finish every book you start". And then after that, I stopped. I was like, I don't have to push through books anymore.

ANNE BOGEL: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

Readers, on this show we take an individualized approach to the reading life, really respecting the fact that we come to reading for different reasons, and we enjoy lots of different kinds of books, and that's a great thing. But it can make gifting hard unless you are gifting a reading journal, which can be a perfect gift for readers of all stripes.

[00:01:06] We have two in our shop and out on bookshelves everywhere that may be perfect for the readers in your life. Those are the My Reading Life Book Journal for adults, which has space to record 100 books, space to record a lengthy TBR, and also hundreds of book recommendations for every reader.

We also have the My Reading Adventures Book Journal for kids targeted for those ages 8 to 12. But some adults like to use it because they like the lighthearted emoji reading scale.

Whether you're setting yourself up for 2024 or looking for a gift for a dear reading friend, or these also make lovely gifts for those loose connections like your kids' teacher, the one coworker you talk books with, your neighbor. You know what I mean?

So order your copy of one or both journals wherever you like to buy your books. Or you can order signed and even personalized copies from our shop. That's at modernmrsdarcy.com/shop. This is a great way to tangibly support my work and the show, so thank you for that. Again, you can order at modernmrsdarcy.com/shop or get your copies wherever you like to buy your books.

[00:02:11] Today I feel like we're doing multiple kinds of literary matchmaking. We are welcoming Vancouver reader, Dana Prescott, to the show. Dana told us via our guest submission form that she and her husband are taking ten weeks to travel to Australia and Southeast Asia next spring, and she's seeking books that represent those countries well and fall within her interests so she can learn about those countries in a unique way before going.

Of course, we got so excited about Dana's project here at What Should I Read Next? HQ because, one, that sounds amazing, and two, you may have heard me mention before that we have a team member who can connect to Dana's projects in a way that readers I can only dream of.

Our media production specialist, Holly Wielkoszewski, has spent the last six months traveling through the very same countries Dana is making her big plans for. And of course she's been reading about those countries before, during, and after her travels.

[00:03:05] Holly is joining me today as guest recommender extraordinaire. Holly, yes, I think that's the official title. I'm so excited to find out what books Dana is going to load her pre-travel to-be-read list with after we bombard her with recommendations today. Let's get to it.

Dana, Holly, welcome to the show.

HOLLY WIELKOSZEWSKI: Thanks, Anne.

DANA: Happy to be here.

ANNE: Oh, I'm so excited to talk today. We are going to jump right in. Dana, tell us a little bit about yourself. We want to give the reader a glimpse of who you are.

DANA: I was born in Ontario, in Canada, and I was raised on a tree farm, a really large one. And a large part of what we did was Christmas trees. So Christmas was a really big part of my growing up. We sold yucca trees in a huge field with 100 campfire pits, candle making, cedar mazes, a big family event every year. Really fun.

But I decided to start a little adventure and I moved to Vancouver 15 years ago. I drove across the country by myself to try something new, and I haven't left. I told my mother it would be one year and like I said, it's been 15. So it's been a long time.

[00:04:08] And the reason I came here was because the weather was good. I could run all year round. I had never been here before. I just did this on a whim. I basically learned that I traded snow for rain in the running. But I used to run marathons and I would travel to do those. So this was a great place to be able to train all year round.

I'm currently a project manager for Covenant House Vancouver. There's locations for Covenant House all over North America, Central America. It's a homeless shelter for youth 16 to 24. I manage all their technology, but I also manage construction projects in building. In Canada, we have a housing crisis and our youth need housing. So it feels really good to be a part of the solution to build housing for youth who are in desperate need of it.

My husband and I, we like to travel. We do an international trip every year. We love to see the world. And there's so much to see. We thought after Covid, we've got to do a bigger trip and catch up on all the travel that we couldn't do during Covid. So that is our plans for next year.

[00:05:08] ANNE: I'm so excited to hear more about that today. Holly, would you tell us a little about yourself and especially your recent travels?

HOLLY: Absolutely. So as you mentioned, I'm the media production specialist here. I've been working on the podcast now for about two years, a little over that, I think, which has been so much fun. And usually I'm, you know, kind of behind the scenes. So it's extra fun to be part of this episode today.

But let's see. Since February of this year, my husband and I have been on the road full-time, living the digital nomad life. And we've been in Asia since March and in Southeast Asia and Australia since May, I think. Either May or June. Dates get a little fuzzy when you travel this much. But it's been just such a treat. It's something we've really dreamed of for years to have this chance to live this lifestyle and work on the road and see all these places.

Dana, you and I definitely share that travel passion. So, you know, probably the only disadvantage is it's hard to bring your library with you and all of your books along when you're traveling like this. So I've had to find some creative solutions around that, but it's been great.

[00:06:16] ANNE: Well, I have really enjoyed hearing about those creative solutions, Holly, and getting to vicariously experience a little bit of what to me is the other side of the world through your stories and your photos. And I just really appreciated getting to tag along in that sense.

All right, Dana, I don't know how much you relate to that not being able to take your library with you thing, but tell us a little bit about what your reading life looks like.

DANA: Yeah, well, we plan to take Kobos with us, so we're hoping to be able to read digitally as we go, because, again, you can't take everything you want. And I would read a wide spectrum of books. So mysteries, memoirs, literary fiction, nonfiction.

One of my favorites is a good story spread over many years. I love stories of friendships. My favorite books are A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and I like The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. The character-building and the arc of the story over several decades really pulls me in.

[00:07:09] Currently reading The Eighth Life. I'm about halfway through. That one is such a big book. I would say in my mid-20s I started to travel more internationally and my reading shifted with that. So I love the show Long Way Round with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, and I got my motorcycle license because of that show. It’s so inspired me.

But they also wrote diaries about those trips. And I read those books in my early 20s and they got me hooked. I loved hearing about their adventures as they wrote them, as they did these trips. And then it kind of moved me into reading Bill Bryson and his writing about those trips. And his Australia one I've read multiple times. That's such a great one.

I've also read A Walk in the Woods several times. That's one of my favorites. It was probably one of the first audiobooks I ever listened to when I was driving across the country from Ontario to British Columbia on my own. I listened to that in audio. This was 2009 and felt really early for audiobooks for me to listen to that in my car. And it was really fun.

[00:08:08] I like to do ten new things each year and I like to incorporate books into my adventures. So last year I cooked through a whole cookbook for the first time. It was the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook. And the cookbook is broken into different seasons, so it's really easy to stay on track. So that was really fun to do books in a different way last year.

And then we also, as we're going to talk about with traveling today, my husband and I, last year we went to Spain, we went to New York at Christmas. Anne, we probably walked past each other because I think you were there at Christmas last year, too.

ANNE: I'm so sorry I didn't say hi.

DANA: Yeah, I saw a photo and I was like, "We were there."

ANNE: And we went to Spain last summer. I didn't know I should have been asking you for my Spain recs.

DANA: Yeah, it was really great. So one of the things before we went is I like to read maybe like a food book or personal memoir or something about the history of a place, just something that gets me into that space. So for Spain, I read Matt Goulding's Grape, Olive, Pig. He has written three books on different countries: Japan, Italy, and Spain, and he's lived in these places.

[00:09:11] And they're excellent food books to get ideas. I write down all these different dishes we should have when we go there with the names or I take photos so that when I go to a restaurant, I can see what this thing is that I want to try. And then I read the memoir Only in Spain by Nellie Bennett, who moved to Spain to learn flamenco dancing.

ANNE: What?

DANA: Yeah. We went to Seville and, you know, the heart of flamenco. We went and saw some flamenco and it just... you know, reading the book ahead of time, I really didn't know much about flamenco, but it really kind of opened my experience. And we went and saw a small club show, like a mix of tourists and locals. And it was really great. Didn't cost anything to get in. It was just something they did in this bar. It was really fun. So, you know, reading these books before have really changed my experiences about how I travel, which is awesome.

[00:10:00] ANNE: Now, Dana, I'm so excited you're preparing for this new big adventure by reading. Tell us about what you're planning for next spring.

DANA: So we've been thinking about this for years. I used to listen to a podcast called Zero To Travel, and it was about people who went... kind of like what Holly's doing, going and working and traveling. And I was like, "Oh, you know, me and my job, it's so hard to leave. My husband and his job is so hard to leave."

And then they interviewed this couple that were in their 50s and they had put their jobs on pause and they had gone traveling. I thought, "You know what? Darn it, I'm going to do that, too." So what I'm going is, for as long as you know, I'd love to go. We live in an expensive city. It's hard to save money here, but we've been thinking about this for years, and we're like, "We can do two months. Our jobs will hold for us. And thankfully, they are.

So we decided to get back to Australia. It's been five years since I've been there, 10 years since my husband's been there, and we have so many friends. So we want to go visit them. We've been promising to come visit, and then go, Where can we check on? We've never been to Southeast Asia. We're getting older, we're in our mid-40s.

[00:11:03] And this is a time to do these countries where, you know, it's a little bit more work. The language barrier is there, and figuring things out takes more mental capacity. And we're like, let's do this now when we've got this energy… oh man do I make us sound like we're getting really old or something here, but… [laughter] Yeah, I know. I'm just like, let's do this now.

And you know, you could go to Thailand for vacation. You could go to Vietnam for vacation. And like, we got to do this together. We got to take a bigger chunk of time and explore this area instead of, you know, spreading this out over the next decade. So that's what we're doing. We're going to go up from Australia north to Singapore and Bali, and then we're going to go through Malaysia to Thailand and Vietnam.

And then funny little quirk, we're actually flying to Mexico at the end for a family wedding. But I don't need any Mexican book recommendations. But, you know, it's very hard to find a flight from Hanoi to Puerto Vallarta. There's no easy way to get there. But-

[00:11:59] HOLLY: That's not a common routing. I'm shocked.

DANA: It's not a common route. But we're happy to go for this family wedding. But the bulk of the trip is going to be Australia and Southeast Asia. And we're really excited to get back to Australia and explore new in Southeast Asia. So we're so looking forward to it.

HOLLY: That's fantastic. You're going to have such a good time.

DANA: No doubt.

ANNE: Oh, I'm so excited for you. What are some of the very precise locations or some of the experiences that you are especially looking forward to?

DANA: So in Australia we're going to go to Tasmania. And I've heard such great things. It has exploded... I used to watch MasterChef Australia for years and I love that show. Tasmania is such a place of food in the Australia canon of places to eat. So we're excited to go there.

And there's also lots of distilleries and wineries popping up. We love going to wine regions in Australia when we travel there. But apparently the hiking is also great in Tasmania. So we want to do a little bit of hiking there, but also some wining and dining and driving around.

[00:13:04] And then in Perth we have old neighbors that live there and other old friends that are going to meet us and we're going to go south to Margaret River. I think that's just a beautiful part of that country that we've never explored. So never been to Western Australia, excited to do it and see that wine region, but also some really great beaches in Western Australia. So those are some areas specifically to Australia that we're excited to go to.

HOLLY: Dana, I have to chime in real quick and just tell you, I am in Margaret River right now in my Airbnb sitting on this call.

DANA: Wow.

HOLLY: What are the chances? It's so lovely here. You're going to have a great time. There's a very good bookstore right in town, but we'll talk some more about later, probably.

DANA: Excellent. Excellent. I love visiting a good bookstore in a different country, in a different place. So I want those recommendations.

And then we're going to go north. My husband loves beaches. I do not love beaches so much, but we compromise. I like mountains, he likes beaches so badly. We're going to go to a resort in the Mountains instead of on the beach to do something different. But it has a nice pool.

[00:14:08] And then Singapore. We have friends from Singapore and we know it's a great foodie place and we eat anything. We'll try anything once... we will just eat anything. So Singapore for food is going to be great.

And then Vietnam and Thailand, we haven't explored a whole lot of what we're going to do in these places. I really don't know a ton about them other than the Vietnam War history. So I'm hoping we can see some natural spaces. Obviously we have to go see some beaches, but there's also going to be some great food. So, Holly, if you got recommendations of things to see in these countries, I'd be happy for those too. I feel like we could have this long email chain going on after this.

HOLLY: Absolutely. Well, definitely have to continue the conversation for specific tips.

DANA: Yeah.

ANNE: And listeners, our show notes are open if you have ideas for Dana and any or all of these places.

DANA: Definitely.

HOLLY: Yes.

ANNE: Dana, with all that in mind, can we talk about your books?

DANA: Yes, we can, for sure.

[00:15:07] ANNE: Well, you know how this works. You're going to tell us three books you love and one book you don't. And we will talk about what you may enjoy reading country-specific for your upcoming travels. Dana, what's the first book you love?

DANA: The first book I loved is Ohio by Stephen Markley. This is a really tough book. I do really like reading about tough topics because, you know, I work with a population of youth that are not stably housed. So reading about experiences and traumas they go through really gives me empathy for my work. And Ohio kind of hits the nail on the head.

It deals with this group of young people in their high school time and then ten years later and they're converging on this town in Ohio called New Canaan, and they're coming back. One of the high school students was a star football player, went off to Iraq, and died in the war. And his story kind of weaves into this as well.

[00:16:04] But they've all experienced trauma in some way, whether it's racism, drug poisoning. There's just a lot of things going on and there's a lot of sadness in the book, but there's some hope. And at the end of the book, it culminates in this kind of violent event that corrects things.

So not only was the story really fascinating, but Stephen Markley, who's kind of like a lesser known author, but he's an amazing writer. If it wasn't a library book, I would have highlighted most of the book, but I couldn't do that. But it was just really so well-written. And then the story was just something I was so interested in dealing with some of these harder topics. But there was some redemption in it. It was really good.

It kind of reminded me of Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, which is a nonfiction story about a family living and dealing with hard times. Or I recently read Five Little Indians by Michelle Good and Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez. And those are also dealing with really hard topics of residential schools or racism in diverse communities and poverty.

[00:17:05] I like hearing about those stories which represent true people's lives or true experiences people have lived because it really does... again, it gives me a lot of empathy for the youth that I'm working with. So I really love this book Ohio.

ANNE: Thank you.

HOLLY: That sounds great.

DANA: And it's the least fun one of the three.

ANNE: Dana, what's the second book you love?

DANA: This one is definitely more fun. It's Dirt by Bill Buford. He is a writer who writes about his experience.

ANNE: I found this a lot of fun myself.

DANA: Yeah, this was a great book. It reminded me of, you know... There's so many culinary books where they go and experience. And he digs himself right into moving his family to Lyon, France to experience food there. He works in the [unintelligible 00:17:53], a Michelin restaurant, and he studies at a culinary school. He plans to go for just a very short period of time, but they end up there for years.

[00:17:59] And I like this because, you know, he's funny, he's witty. He tells it as it is. He's experiencing these different food things, but also the community of people and all the quirky people he meets there and the experience of his family uprooting and moving to this place. It really reminded me of Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr, which I also really loved. I feel like it had a really good sense of place and it made me want to travel.

ANNE: How did you end up picking that one up?

DANA: I read Heat, his other book set in New York before this one, and I just really loved his writing and his experience and the way he talked about cooking in this kitchen in New York, because I love books about New York as well. So I was like, I got to read this one. It's traveling. It's a different place. I'm probably going to like it even more than I did.

ANNE: I wouldn't have thought to compare him to Anthony Doerr, but I totally get what you're saying. They both tell these present tense in-the-moment stories that just feel so sensual and visceral and you feel like you're tripping on the sidewalk in Rome, like navigating your double stroller even if you don't have children division one.

[00:19:09] But oh, gosh, I remember some memorable scenes in Dirt that were both fascinating and also a little... They were real, Dana. They're very real some of those farmyard stories.

DANA: Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah, it was great.

ANNE: Thank you for that. Tell us about your final favorite.

DANA: This one is In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain by Tom Vitale. I love Anthony Bourdain. I love Parts Unknown. I've seen every episode. I just love how he looks at travel from such a different perspective than travel shows before.

You know, you really learn different things about a place, about the people who live there, the politics, just real people experiences, not just the fancy hotels and the fancy restaurants. There's a little bit of the fancy restaurants, but it really is a different way of seeing a city and country.

[00:20:03] And Tom Vitale was a director and producer for the show for almost... I think almost every episode. So he really tells the behind-the-scenes, what happened in these places. Like Barack Obama was in Vietnam with them and how the security and everything that had to go along just to get that one hour shot and the challenges.

So that part of the book was really fascinating. But then the other piece that was fascinating was the relationship between Tony and Tom. And it was a really up-and-down, volatile relationship. Kind of love-hate. It really felt like Tom was trying to win Tony's praise and approval. So it was really shocking learning about Tony from that angle where he could be a bit abusive to the showrunners and the people in the production. But then he could also be wonderful to them and they kind of craved that being on Tony's good side.

So from Tom's experience, it was a really up-and-down roller coaster and very personal. So you had this mix of that relationship was fascinating, but also hearing both the backgrounds of all the stories and the adventures that they had going and filming in these really different places. It was just a really, really fun book to read, and you know, kind of a page-turner. So I really enjoyed that one.

[00:21:22] ANNE: Dana, do you find that you enjoy those behind-the-scenes kind of stories?

DANA: I do. Yeah. I read It's What I Do by Lynsey Addario. She's a war photographer. So I've seen her photos. But then hearing her behind the scenes of how she actually got those photos and where she's been kidnaped and just really fascinating things about her life getting that end product, you know, getting Parts Unknown, how did that get made and what happened in the process, I do find that really fascinating.

HOLLY: I love that Lynsey Addario's book. I was really excited when I saw you mentioned it in your submission. So good.

DANA: Yeah, it was so, so good. Yeah.

ANNE: I did too. But I think I made a mistake. I listened to that one on audio. So I did a lot of googling. But friends, even if you're a devoted audiobook lover, I think you need to go. I'm assuming Dana and Holly, you did not make that same mistake.

[00:22:14] HOLLY: Did not.

DANA: No. And she's got a lot of photos that she took in the book. So you kind of see... you know, you can visualize her experience in these places where you get to see her photography.

ANNE: It was wonderful to hear her describe in her voice what she went through to take those photos, like just to hear the emotion behind it. But it's still not the tradeoff I would recommend.

DANA: No. Well, it was great to hear a female voice in that space. There's not a lot of female war correspondents, photographers out there. So her experience is quite different from others. So I really like that different perspective.

ANNE: Dana, now tell us about a book that was not a good fit for you.

DANA: Oh, man, this book I really struggled through it. And at the time I was a hardcore "finish every book you start". And then after that, I stopped. I was like, "I don't have to push through books anymore.” I don't have to do it. And I think this book was the one that kind of set me off.

[00:23:09] It's The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rijneveld. This book is about a 10-year-old girl named Jas. She's living on a dairy farm in the Netherlands. And at the start of the book, her older brother dies. The book explores how her family basically breaks down and her mental health just sinks.

Her parents stop caring for the remaining kids. The kids are kind of left on their own. The brother becomes physically abusive of the siblings and this girl just becomes a shell of herself. So this book is so sad and depressing. There's really no hope in this book. And every page I was just like, oh, it was so heavy, so heavy.

Normally I can push through some things, but there was just like no hope in this book. And I found it so, so tough to read. I can't believe I actually got to the end of it. But I think it had won some awards and it was kind of in a different setting than I hadn't read before, so I pushed through. But I will never, ever pick this book up again.

[00:24:11] ANNE: I think sometimes it takes the one book or the one experience that does make us see like, Oh, maybe there's a reason. Yeah, I was going to guess that it was the Booker win that led you to this book.

DANA: Yeah. I think it was because it had won an award and I thought, Okay, this is different. You know, the Netherlands, it's a book in translation, you know? So I was excited to kind of get into something different. And man, it was a tough one. It was so tough.

ANNE: Okay. That's good to keep in mind as we look to load up your travel TBR. Dana, is there anything you would like Holly and I to know as we think about good books for you for this trip? Because you do have lots of options of titles that take place in these countries, are written by authors who live in these countries, that contain visits to these countries. Is there anything you'd like to add about the kinds of titles that you especially enjoy or would especially appreciate reading as you prepare for your trip?

[00:25:05] DANA: This is tricky because I like a book about a... you know, it could be a fictional book about people that live in the place. Like Vietnam, I've read several Vietnam War stories from an American perspective, but I haven't read a book about a Vietnamese person's perspective. Not just of the war, but just of anything in Vietnam.

So I'm curious about that. But I do like travel books where someone who is more similar to me goes and experiences a place, because then it kind of gives me an idea of what I might be looking for when I'm there. So it kind of goes both ways.

I'm very open to learning, but I guess a strong sense of place is an important piece, not where they dip into this place for, you know, a chapter or two in the book, but most of it set somewhere else. Yeah, I'm very open. I'm very open because really my reading is all over the place. I love memoirs. So it could be a memoir of a person who is from that country and lives in that country and their time there.

[00:26:03] I read a book about Mexico City from an author and a journalist who lived in Mexico City, and it just gave me so many interesting things with facts and the history of Mexico City. And it wasn't necessarily completely his life from start to finish and his total experiences. But, you know, he talked about his experiences of the things that are common to that city. So it was really interesting to read his take on that as a journalist.

ANNE: All right. Let's talk about the books you want to read before your trip. We thought it would be helpful to take these country by country. Dana, what are your country priorities?

DANA: Well, we're going to be spending a good chunk of time in Australia. I have read other books there, but I love Australia, so I think it's really fun to read about. Thailand and Vietnam because I don't know a lot about those places other than their food culture. And Singapore is interesting. I haven't read anything about Singapore. I know there's a lot of books about Singapore, so I would be curious to get to know that city a little bit more through books.

[00:27:06] ANNE: That sounds great. I'm really excited. Dana, I've not been to this part of the world. I would love to go. And I thought, I have books to offer. I've read a lot of travel places about there. But then I saw the list of books that Holly had to recommend. I'm going to leave today's recommendations to Holly.

But I do have to put in a word for an Anthony Bourdain travel guide published posthumously if it's not on your radar. It just came out in 2021. It's with his coauthor, Laurie Woolever. They work together forever, longtime collaborators. And it is a true travel guide that goes country by country throughout the world sharing... I mean, you know, you're a big fan of Tony. You know this in season 2.

DANA: I know which book you're going to suggest.

ANNE: Wonderful. Listeners, if you're intrigued. It's called World Travel: An Irreverent Guide. And Laurie tells the story of how this came to be and said that the two met about this project just once. And she tells his vision for and that meeting they had together in the book's opening, which is so heartfelt and kind.

[00:28:06] But even though this is a travel guide, even if you're not planning on going anywhere, it's just a transporting reading experience. It has his stories, his travel tips, their colorful essays peppered throughout from his friends and colleagues. And he goes to destinations that feel close to home to this American, like Toronto. And also he goes to Tanzania and Myanmar and places that are much further afield to me.

And he tells you how to get there, where to stay and always, always what to eat. It feels just jam-packed with potential for adventure and exploration, whether that's purely armchair travel or whether you're actually planning a trip like you are, Dana.

DANA: I feel like I should pick this one up again. I did pick it up... maybe it was a year and a half ago because we were traveling somewhere, you know, to get a little bit of information. I don't own it, though. So I should get it out again and check out what he has to say about this part of the world we're going to. I'd forgotten about it.

[00:29:03] ANNE: It's funny how when you have actual travel plans on the calendar you read those books set in a place with new eyes.

DANA: Yes, absolutely.

ANNE: All right, Holly, where do you want to start?

HOLLY: Why don't we start in Singapore?

DANA: Yes, let's do it.

HOLLY: Quick thing. I tried to select four books that are available through U.S. publishers, either digitally on audio or in print. There are a couple of titles I want to mention a little bit later that are not yet released in the U.S. but are available in Australia. So there might be a few that you pencil in once you get to that leg of your journey. But I did try to kind of keep that in mind because I know that that's been one of the challenges sometimes of books that are released in different schedules or not available in different formats. So I think all at once we're going to talk about today should be available to you.

But let's start with Singapore. I want to tell you first about a mystery series by Ovidia Yu. This is the Auntie Lee mystery series. Have you heard of this?

DANA: No, I haven't.

[00:30:02] HOLLY: Okay. So this is in the cozy mystery environment. Ovidia Yu actually has two different mystery series that are both set in Singapore. Auntie Lee mystery series I believe is up to three books, and then there's also The Crown Colony series.

The first one in the Auntie Lee series is called Auntie Lee Delights. It was published in 2013. And it is just so much fun. The descriptions of food alone in this make it an excellent armchair travel read, and I know that's something that you really like.

So basically, this follows Auntie Lee. She is a recent widow, and basically, rather than retiring to a leisurely life of shopping and playing meringue, she ends up becoming embroiled in this murder as an amateur sleuth. And she's kind of has this reputation of being a busybody and at the same time is in charge of one of the most popular food joints in the city.

So it brings a lot of things together. I know you said you like mysteries. The food element is great. The sense of place of Singapore is a lot of fun. It is a really fun read that I think you could breeze through pretty quickly and if you like it, there's two more in that series.

[00:31:13] The other series that she wrote is The Crown Colony Series that features a teenage sleuth, and it's set in the 1930s. So there's more there if you like what she's doing with these Singaporean murder mysteries.

DANA: Yeah, I like the food references.

HOLLY: Excellent.

DANA: Yeah. It's like a mystery. So this could be interesting.

HOLLY: Perfect. So I know the other thing that you talked about was really enjoying family stories and stories that are over extended periods of time or maybe followed across generations. So I actually have two titles that fit that bill for you today.

The first one is Inheritance by Balli Kaur Jaswal. This is a novel that came out in 2013. And you might recognize the name of that author. Anne has recommended her books on the show before, including pretty recently she has recommended The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters back in Episode 383.

But this is a novel that's set in Singapore across several decades, and it follows a Sikh family. One of the things that's great about Singapore is it's this cultural melting pot with a huge Chinese population, Indian population, Malay population, other expat populations from all over the world. That's what gives it this culinary magic that you're going to get to experience.

[00:32:27] So this novel follows a Sikh family across a few decades as the city of Singapore transforms around them. This is really as much a novel about mental illness, family relationships, sexual identity as it is about Singapore. But I just felt that the city was really infused into the pages and it really evoked a sense of what Singapore must have been like before it became this shiny, sparkling megacity that it is today and approached that reality on the page. So that's another one I can definitely endorse.

DANA: Yeah, sounds really good.

HOLLY: And then I have one more that I'm just going to mention in passing because I have not read it yet. I haven't been able to get my hands on it. This came out just in March 2023. It's called The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng, and it's described by the publisher as a love story and a powerful coming of age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, World War II, Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity. So that might be another one to check out. That's all I have for you for Singapore. I could keep going, but I won't.

[00:33:29] DANA: There's a lot out there.

ANNE: I didn't know about that Balli Kaur Jaswal book set in Singapore. And also, I love discovering. Not only are there new authors with connections to the country that I'm discovering for the first time, but we do have to mention the Crazy Rich Asians Series by Kevin Kwan is set in Singapore. Yeah.

And, readers, If you've seen the movie, you have seen some of the iconic sights like the Marina Bay Sands famous resort that the three towers that's really prominent in the Singapore skyline. Oh, now I want to watch that movie again. And I'm not even going on your trip, Dana.

DANA: That's true. I should watch that again before we go. It was a really funny movie. I mean, it was also the rich life that we probably won't experience that over there, but we could see some of the same sights.

HOLLY: I think you can stay at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel if you want to pay about $700 and $800 a night. But that's not my travel budget.

DANA: No.

ANNE: But you can go to that amazing food market.

[00:34:24] DANA: Yes, the food market, for sure. I don't know if you can just go up to the top of that hotel and see the infinity pool. It has a pool at the top, right?

HOLLY: They have day passes for the pool and stuff, too, that you can purchase. I didn't go up, but you probably could go poke your head around and take a look.

DANA: Yeah, just for the view, at least.

HOLLY: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: Those are amazing. Thank you, Holly. Let's move on to Vietnam.

HOLLY: Absolutely. Dana, Vietnam is the only country that you're going to that I haven't yet been to. So I am just as excited as you are to do more reading about this country. We're hoping to get there maybe sometime next year. We'll see. But I have a couple books here for you.

The first one is a little bit older. It's from 1999. It's called Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam. It's Andrew Pham. Have you heard of this?

DANA: No, I haven't.

[00:35:15] HOLLY: Okay. Wonderful. So this is a memoir. It follows a Vietnamese American, Andrew, and it goes through two timelines. It follows his family's harrowing escape from Vietnam around the time of the war and then several decades later, it follows him as he returns on this lengthy bike ride, much of which is across the length of the country of Vietnam.

And as he's writing, he's kind of reckoning with questions of his identity, his culture, who he is as this, you know, person of two cultures, what does it mean that he had the opportunity and the education in the U.S. but now he's back in Vietnam and he's just grappling with all of these questions of his own identity.

And along the way, you know, he's moving at the pace of a bicycle across the landscape of a changing Vietnam at a time, you know, when things are changing very quickly in this country.

So this captured a perspective that I really enjoyed. It really rings true to me. I think it would check a lot of your boxes as far as, you know, the memoir, the travel, the kind of merging of both an insider but also an outsider perspective on the country.

[00:36:23] And if this is something that you enjoy, he also has a follow up that is looking at his father's experience through the tumultuous 20th century, from the French occupation to World War II and then the Vietnam War. And that one is called The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars. So I think those are two for you that would work really well on that memoir side for Vietnam. How do those sound?

DANA: Yeah, that sounds great. That first one was Catfish and Mandala?

HOLLY: Yes, Catfish and Mandala by Andrew Pham. We'll put all these links in the show notes, too.

DANA: Great. It kind of feels like it hits a lot of the points that I'm looking for. So that really intrigues me.

HOLLY: Absolutely. And I've got one more just side... Again, very hard to keep myself to just a couple here. I also have not read this one yet, but it's high on my list. It's called The Mountain Sing. It's by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai.

[00:37:15] It's described as the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner's In the Shadow of the Banyan. The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Tran family, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. It is celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyen Phan Que Mai's first novel in English. So that's one that's high on my list before we get to Vietnam. And I think you might like it, too.

DANA: Yeah. Like I said, I've read a lot of books from the American perspective, American soldiers. I think it would be really interesting to flip it and see the other perspective, which I miss out on that. So that sounds great.

HOLLY: Fantastic.

ANNE: Those sound amazing. And of course, Dana, it sounds like you've already found your way to lots of wonderful Vietnamese food writing. I just want everybody to know that the options are numerous and they are ready and waiting for you.

DANA: Yes, for sure.

HOLLY: Yes. And I'm going to have to get those Vietnamese food books from you before I make it to Vietnam because I have not read too many of those.

[00:38:17] DANA: Okay. I'll send them. Yes.

ANNE: Holly, take us to Thailand.

HOLLY: All right, let's go to Thailand. So Thailand is so much fun. You're going to have a great time there. I have a couple of kind of unique picks for you here for Thailand. The first one is called Bangkok Wakes to Rain, and it's by Pitchaya Sudbanthad. This has been compared to David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas as one possible for you to like.

I found it to be a really strange but very inviting collection of stories. It follows various characters across generations, but they all have a common thread as a connection to the single building in Bangkok. It was a house at one point and then it became condominiums. So they all have some connection to this building, and they're all living different lives, facing different challenges.

When I first learned of this book, an online review described it as, and this is a quote, "A love letter to a vivid, loud, magical, sprawling protagonist, Bangkok." And when I read that, I was like, "Oh, I have to read this book."

DANA: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:23] HOLLY: So it's not a linear story. It can feel a little bit disorienting at first, but I just felt totally immersed in the world of Bangkok. And just as with so many recent works that I think we're seeing more and more, it does grapple with climate change and weather and how that is now, you know, playing a role in Bangkok in a way that it hasn't in the past. So this is a kind of a sleeper hit for me, but I think it might be a really good hit for you.

DANA: Yeah. You know, I get this idea of Bangkok as being this like... you know, not the place where every tourist is dying to get to. There's Chiang Mai and there's Phuket. Those are the places that get talked about a lot. My perception of Bangkok is not rosy and like this place you have to get to. So I'm curious to... You know, Bangkok as a character almost in the book, that sounds like a really good way to maybe change my perspective on it. So I like that.

HOLLY: Awesome. I hope you enjoy it. Okay. So the next one that I want to talk about is called The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth. This is by Veeraporn Nitiprapha, and it's translated by Kong Rithdee.

[00:40:29] So fun fact, I actually heard about this book originally from the Strong Sense of Place podcast with Mel and Dave, who have been on the show a couple of times before. And I read it after they had recommended it. So now I am excited to pass it along to you.

This is a bestseller in Thailand. The author, she won the Southeast Asian Writers Award. She's actually the only female writer that's won that award twice. The first time she won it for this book. This is a work of art. It's both a book to read, but also I cannot fathom the talent that came into translating this book.

So this story, it follows Chalika and her sister as they grow up in a riverside town that's near Bangkok. Early on, their mother discovers Chareeya's father is having an affair with a traditional Thai dancer. This just sets the stage for all sorts of family drama and disappointments. Chareeya and her sister develop a troubled relationship with an orphaned boy. It's been compared to a Thai soap opera, both in terms of plot and the writing style.

[00:41:30] This writing is just lush. I'd even say sensual and parts brings in mythology and flowers and fabrics and tastes. There's a lot going on in this book. It's definitely different, but highly recommend it. And I think it brings such a unique perspective on Thailand from a Thai author. So how does that sound to you?

DANA: Yeah, that sounds great. I love hearing voices from the places we travel in that. I mean, just the title alone of that book sounds intriguing.

HOLLY: Yes.

DANA: Yes.

HOLLY: I love it.

DANA: Yeah.

HOLLY: Captures the attention.

DANA: Yeah, for sure.

HOLLY: Those are my topics for you for Thailand. I'll put a link in the show notes as well. But if you do get to Chiang Mai, I had the chance to do a Thai cooking class there. That was wonderful. I think you might really enjoy that. There's a bunch of them, but this one I thought was quite good-

DANA: Wonderful.

HOLLY: ...little detour.

ANNE: That sounds amazing.

[00:42:27] HOLLY: Are we ready to move to Australia?

ANNE: I think we're all excited to move to Australia.

DANA: Yeah.

HOLLY: I have a lot of recommendations for Australia, so just feel free to cut me off if I keep talking too much here. So first of all, two bookstores that I'm going to shout out for you. First of all, when you're in Perth, you want to go to Stefan's bookstore. I was in there about a week ago and the owner is there and works at the store and is just this delightful man and loaded me up.

I asked for local reading recommendations and he just lifted me up with a stack. It's a general store, so it's not everything, but they have a really great mystery collection as well as some fantasy and other speculative fiction.

DANA: Great.

HOLLY: So for the mystery selection, I would definitely go there. And then as I mentioned, I'm in Margaret River right now, and Margaret River Books is a block from our Airbnb and is just the cutest bookstore full of local tables. So definitely add that to the list.

DANA: Wonderful.

ANNE: Holly, is that a happy coincidence or totally how you decided where to stay?

[00:43:27] HOLLY: Oh, totally a factor in our decision.

ANNE: I love it.

HOLLY: Gotta weigh like a couple of different factors when you're choosing your Airbnb location, and bookstore proximity is usually one of them.

So we're going to start with the author, Claire Coleman. So when I was in Stefan's Bookstore and asking around, the owner said, "You can't get more local than Claire Coleman." Claire Coleman is a Noongar woman. She's originally from Perth. Her family have belonged to the south coast of Western Australia since long before history started being recorded. She is just a really emerging Indigenous Australian voice and she's written several books now.

I've only finished one of her books, which is a speculative fiction title that I'm going to talk about briefly, but she also has a nonfiction book called Lies, Damned Lies, which talks about colonialism, past, present, and future. That might be a really interesting option for you.

But how do you feel about speculative fiction? I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. Is that something you're interested in?

[00:44:28] DANA: Sure. I haven't read much in that category or haven't read it. I'm just opening to find out what could be my new favorite thing. Okay.

HOLLY: Excellent. So I love Coleman's work just because she is such a unique voice and she's so representative of at least this area of, you know, history and the indigenous voice. So in Terra Nullius, she does not pull any punches when talking about colonial British treatment of indigenous Australian communities. Definitely this book does have content warnings. So something to keep in mind.

It follows four main characters as they experience the arrival of the British in the colonial system. But then about halfway through, this twist happens that turns the entire conversation on colonization on its head. And I don't want to say much more about it because I don't want to spoil the story.

[00:45:17] But it follows Jacky, who is an indigenous native who has escaped from captivity. It follows this woman who is a nun in charge of a mission school for basically a school to turn Indigenous Australian children into slaves. And she is just the worst character. She's just a black-hearted person.

But it also follows a British trooper who's defected and has joined up with this Aboriginal community and has like building relationships with them and then also a young woman who is in one of the remaining free communities in the outback.

So the setting is huge. You feel like you are there in the heat, in the desert. And there's a crazy twist and it's a fascinating conversation, I think, for our time as well of how we're interrogating questions like colonialism and history and racism and all of that. So if you like Coleman, she's a great writer. She's got more to do. But Terra Nullius is the title of that book by Claire Coleman.

[00:46:13] DANA: Yeah, that sounds interesting. It sounds heavy for sure, but, you know, kind of a truth to what colonialism is... what's happened. So is it very similar to what's in Canada, you know, these schools and the residential schools and all that coming out. So there's definitely a connection there between Canada and Australia.

HOLLY: Absolutely. Yeah. And I wouldn't put that one in anyone's hands. But I know you said earlier that you're okay with dealing with hard topics and heavy topics. So I think it could be a good one for you.

DANA: Yeah.

HOLLY: I'm going to shift gears a lot now and give you another mystery. I know you said you'd read some Jane Harper. I just finished a new mystery. It's called The River Mouth by Karen Herbert. She is a Western Australian writer. She lives in Perth. She's written now two mysteries. Her second one just came out recently. I haven't picked that one up yet.

But if you've run out of Jane Harper, I think Karen Herbert might be a great next pick for you for your Australian mysteries. She really weaves in a strong sense of place throughout this story. It basically follows in two timelines the death of a teenage boy in a western coastal community and the discovery of what happened, who was behind it, but also how it got to that point, some of the other things in the background.

[00:47:27] It's been a really successful novel here in Australia. It's been optioned for TV and film and I think it might be a good pick for you. So that's The River Mouth by Karen Herbert.

DANA: That's great. I love Jane Harper. I've read all of her books, so...

HOLLY: Yeah, me too.

DANA: Yeah. This sounds like an easy one to pick up.

HOLLY: Excellent. I hope that one's a good one for you. I'm going to just go through a lightning round of a couple of other quick mentions, and then I have Tasmania too. Don't worry we're not forgetting about Tasmania.

So I'll just give a quick shout out to an older novel, The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. This came out quite a while ago. It's also been turned into a movie. The story follows Tom and Isabel, who live alone as light housekeepers on Janus Rock.

And while Janus Rock is fictional, what I really like about the story for you is that apparently that setting was inspired by Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, which, as you may know, is at the far southwestern corner of Western Australia. So maybe on your travel itinerary, maybe not. But it's a great book.

[00:48:26] DANA: Yes, I've read that one. It was very good.

HOLLY: Perfect. So you know that one. And then the last author I just want to bring your attention to is a man called Tim Winton. He is from Perth. He's written. Numbers of books, probably 18 to 20 novels. And his book, Cloudstreet, is generally considered, depending on who you ask, to be one of the greatest works of Australian literature.

The sprawling epic follows two families as they move through various challenges and leave the country for the bright lights of Perth. I'll admit I have not read this yet myself, but I have seen his name and his books in every single bookstore I've been to here. So Tim Winton might be something to put on your list.

DANA: Yeah, I haven't heard of him. That sounds great.

HOLLY: Wonderful. So my first pick for Tasmania is Question 7 by Richard Flanagan. You might know his name from The Narrow Road to the Deep North. This is his new memoir. It does not release until next summer in the US, but it's out now in Australia and I literally just bought it today at the Margaret River bookshop.

[00:49:34] I found out about this also because of the Hobart bookshop that I follow on Instagram. They describe this as the Booker Prize-winning author returns with a deeply personal book that blends history, biography, and autofiction in a hypnotizing tribute to Tasmania and to his parents. So that is one that I cannot wait to dive into. That's Question 7 by Richard Flanagan.

ANNE: That sounds really good. And I love how you have the jump on us in Australia.

HOLLY: I know.

DANA: Yeah, you do.

HOLLY: It's kind of exciting. The next one is called Welcome to Nowhere River by Meg Bignell. This one is not available as an ebook right now, so it is on my list to find it in an Australian bookstore. So just so you know that. I believe you can get it in paperback in the US, but it's not currently available digitally.

[00:50:29] This one I'm mostly just fascinated by the author, Meg Bignell. She lives on a dairy farm in Tasmania. This novel is set in a fictional Tasmanian town. It is described by the publisher as a heartwarming and humor-filled journey into an Australian small town, where hidden secrets unravel and community spirit triumphs in the most unexpected ways. She just sounds like a sweet little read of a book that kind of takes you into the countryside of Tasmania and I'm excited to read it. So that's one that I think you might enjoy.

DANA: Yeah. Great.

HOLLY: And I have one more. You know, trying to keep myself to the limit. But this is On a Bright Hillside in Paradise by Annette Higgs. This is also a new one. This was the winner of the 2022 Penguin Literary Prize. This tells the story of a family of convict descendents in Tasmania on a farm in a place called Paradise.

[00:51:32] This is from the publisher's description. It says they lead hardscrabble lives, drama begins when strangers arrive. On a Bright Hillside in Paradise tackles big questions of faith and family, but remains grounded in the dreams and strivings of its beautifully drawn characters. This one's been on my radar, but it was also recommended to me this afternoon at the Margaret River Bookshop when I was chatting with a seller there.

ANNE: What?

HOLLY: So, yes, I think that's a great one to end on and I'll be reading it soon.

ANNE: Okay. Those all sound amazing.

DANA: You've really got the inside scoop being there with this bookstore. That's amazing.

HOLLY: It helps. It helps a lot.

ANNE: I didn't know how much I wanted to hear what books are on the actual tables and displays in your bookstores in Australia and elsewhere.

HOLLY: I'll take some extra pictures and send them back.

ANNE: Oh, that sounds amazing. Dana, this could be a hard question, but what are a few of the titles that stood out to you that you think, yes, I need to read that immediately?

[00:52:26] DANA: Oh, well, this is such a big list, but there's so many good ones on here. Inheritance. I'm going to go back to Singapore. I think that one strikes me as something I'd be interested in picking up.

The Catfish and Mandala, I love that idea of someone who's from the Western culture and who's Vietnamese and their experience in biking across Vietnam. Like, you know, you really see a place differently from the ground like that. So that sounds really fascinating. I love that. Those Thailand books both seem a little weird, but I'm into that and I'm curious. I'm curious.

ANNE: I think we need to add that the author of Bangkok Wakes splits his time between Brooklyn, one of your other perhaps favorite places, and Bangkok.

DANA: Yeah. Okay. I think Bangkok Wakes to Rain, that sounds interesting. I love the idea of, like, a central location with lots of different stories kind of going on your trip with that building. That fascinates me.

[00:53:23] And then I'm going to so many Australian books. But Karen Herbert being a bit like Jane Harper, I think I'm going to have to try that, that River Mouth book first. But I'll definitely get to one of those Tasmania books as well.

HOLLY: Excellent.

DANA: I've got a lot of reading. There's a lot of reading to do here. I might have to get some of my Australian friends to send me a package of books if they're not here.

HOLLY: Oh, a book care package.

DANA: Yeah, book care package.

HOLLY: It sounds wonderful.

DANA: Thank you for the suggestions.

HOLLY: Absolutely. I can't wait to hear what you think.

ANNE: Dana, I hope you'll keep us updated on your continuing and evolving travel plans and also on your experience come next spring.

DANA: Definitely will. It's going to be very exciting.

ANNE: It was a pleasure talking with you both today.

HOLLY: This was so much fun.

DANA: Thank you, Holly, for staying up so late. And thank you, Anne. I was so happy to see I was picked because you guys have such amazing recommendations. I was really excited to hear some authors I've never heard of in these places. So this is really good guidance for the trip. I'm excited.

[00:54:29] ANNE: Well, thank you for sending in a submission. We always feel grateful when readers trust us enough to send something in. And friends, if you're listening thinking, I want to do that, it's at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/guest.

Thank you so much, everyone. I think it's important to note that as always, every single title we talked about today will be listed in our show notes. Those are at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Holly, thank you so much. And Dana, happy travels and happy reading.

DANA: Thank you.

[00:54:58] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed our discussion with Dana and Holly. We would love to hear what you think Dana should read next. Connect with Dana on her blog, which we've linked up in today's show notes, along with that full list of titles we talked about today. All that and more is at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, this week's guest recommender extraordinaire, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.