a lifestyle blog for book lovers

Cancelling Netflix rebooted my reading life

What Should I Read Next episode 349: Finding your way back into a reading habit

a room with library shelves full of books next to a wall of windows and a chair

Readers, my guest today is on the hunt for books that provoke her curiosity, make her think, and show her the beauty in the world. Our conversation today is sure to add some titles to your to-be-read lists, too.

San Francisco-based Rachel Seidman (she/her) developed a deep love for reading because it’s a space where she always felt included, particularly as she navigated the difficult process of losing her hearing at a young age. As an adult, Rachel enjoys finding books and stories that speak to her identity as a deaf woman with Colombian and Jewish heritage. She’s also a library-lover who makes the most of the rich book resources of her city.

Rachel and I talk about what she loves in a reading experience, the ways she’s made more time for reading in her life, and what she’d love to read next. I leave her with some recommendations for the hidden gems she’s seeking, as well as some titles that will help her branch out and broaden her reading horizons. 

Listen to What Should I Read Next? on Apple PodcastsSpotify, or your preferred podcast app—or scroll down to press play and listen right in your web browser.


What Should I Read Next #349: Cancelling Netflix rebooted my reading life, with Rachel Seidman

Find Rachel online at her website and on Instagram.

RACHEL: I had someone on the team who came up to me afterwards and it was like, "This book wrecked me. I had to talk to my therapist about it." [BOTH LAUGHS]

[CHEERFUL INTRO MUSIC]

ANNE: Hey, readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next? Episode 349.

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.

[MUSIC]

ANNE: Readers we're just a few weeks away from our next Patreon get together. We're hosting trivia night. We're so excited for our laid back book inspired What Should I Read Next throwback-filled virtual get together.

If you've been thinking about checking out Patreon, we'd love to have you join us now. Becoming a patron is a simple, concrete way to support our show. And it also unlocks a treasure trove of bonuses like behind-the-scenes conversations, printables and book lists, and live events all year long.

Mark your calendar for October 20th at 7 p.m. Eastern and sign up at patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext. That's patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.

[00:01:16]

Readers, today's guest wrote in her submission that she's looking for books that make her feel like the world is wonderful. And I just couldn't wait to give her some recommendations.

Rachel Seidman is joining me today from San Francisco, where she works as an ad manager at Google. She developed an early passion for reading because, as a deaf person, reading was a space where she never felt excluded.

Now that she's grown, reading still plays a major role in her life. She enjoys finding books that speak to her identity as a woman with Colombian and Jewish heritage. She's also an advocate for good books that thoughtfully tackle disability.

Today I'm excited to further explore Rachel's search for books that make her think while featuring the stories and narratives that connect with her own lived experience. She's especially interested in finding some hidden gems and branching out from her go-to genres.

And I'm excited to give her some recommendations that will continue to broaden her reading Horizons. Let's get to it.

Rachel, welcome to the show.

RACHEL: Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.

[00:02:16]

ANNE: Oh, well, I'm so glad to talk to you today. Although I have to say after reading your submission, I wished that we could be having this conversation in the rolling hills of San Francisco where I've never ventured. I guess I've been to the Bay Area. I had an event in Danville, California for I'd Rather Be Reading but I've never been to San Francisco proper. And I would love to talk books with you while we're walking those six miles on a day that you are not going into Google. I love to walk. I love to read. And I'd be interested in tasting your pie if you wanted to offer me a slice.

RACHEL: I'm always happy to offer people a slice of pie. [LAUGHS] Yes. But you have to come out to San Francisco. It's amazing. And there's so many great independent bookstores. It's phenomenal.

ANNE: What are some of your favorite bookstores in the Bay Area? I'd love to hear what she'd be on my must-visit list. And some of our readers are there and they could go tomorrow.

RACHEL: They could. There are so many. I think one of the wonderful things about San Francisco is just the sheer number of independent bookstores. I grew up in North Carolina and like went to the library in Barnes and Noble. Those were sort of my choices. So it's so fun to have such a proliferation.

I love Green Apple Books. I love the one on Clement Street. They have a couple of locations. It's phenomenal. They have both new books and used books, and it's sort of like a cavern of books. It's amazing.

And then Books Inc has quite a few different locations, and each one is so unique and individual. I love walking around to visit bookstores. Many of my walks are centered on finding a bookstore or a library or croissants. [ANNE LAUGHS]

ANNE: I like and respect those priorities. Tell us about the challenge that the San Francisco Public Library has. I thought that was so interesting.

RACHEL: Our library is so great. So they have what they're calling an explorer map, which is fully intended for children. And I do not care. I'm absolutely doing this myself.

But essentially they have this map that's sort of drawn in like a cartoon style, and for every branch of the library there's like a space for a sticker. And so every branch that you go to—there are 29 branches—you get a sticker at the library, and then you can put that on your map and say that you've been to every branch in San Francisco.

And it's been really wonderful for me because I have certain libraries that I go to, but there were so many that I didn't know existed or knew about. And so it's been a really fun way to explore the city and also see the different collections that each library has because they really cater to the neighborhood.

So there are some that have a really vast collection of Russian language books, and Chinese language books. Others don't have that at all, just depending on who lives in that particular area. So that's been really interesting to see as well.

[00:04:59]

ANNE: Have you stumbled upon any books that you might not have discovered had you not been in the physical branch?

RACHEL: Oh, that's a good question. Probably less likely. Because what happens is when I'm out for a really long walk, I try not to load up a ton of books at the library. I will check like the Lucky Day shelf to see if there's something that I've been wanting to read that I haven't been able to find. And if there is, I'll pull something off of that. But beyond that, I haven't found anything necessarily new. That said, my TBR list is very, very long and probably doesn't need any addition. [LAUGHS]

ANNE: I hear that. Something else that I was so intrigued about in your submission is that you said you read zero books in 2020.

RACHEL: Yeah, pretty much. It was like very few. I couldn't really stick to anything. I think it was just the pandemic tomb scrolling was a lot of what I read that year.

ANNE: That's right. We were all reading, right? But maybe not things bound between pages.

RACHEL: Exactly. And then I watched a lot of TV frankly. So then in 2021, I was like, "I don't quite feel like myself because I'm not reading the way that I used to." So I canceled a lot of my subscriptions, got rid of Netflix, got rid of Hulu, all those things. I only kept a couple which are very niche. Acorn TV and BritBox because I love a British TV show. But that really helped me sort of kickstart things again on the reading front.

ANNE: I'm so glad to hear it. Tell us what you can't live without on Acorn TV or BritBox.

RACHEL: Ooh, that's an excellent question. I mean, I really love Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. They are phenomenal. I have not read the books but like the TV show is amazing. And then same with Agatha Raisin. Great series. It's very fun and kicky. I love it.

ANNE: I've heard great things. And readers, we know that great stories exist in multiple formats, not just in books. Rachel, before we get into the books you love, I'd love to hear more about your experience as a reader growing up deaf. Would you tell us more about that?

RACHEL: Yes. So we determined that I had lost a significant portion of my hearing when I turned 15. Actually, my parents gave me a cell phone, could not hear the ringtones. And it turns out the phone was working unlike what I thought, which was that it was broken.

And so I had been a fairly voracious reader when I was young and little, but I think as I was losing my hearing and really nobody knew about it, reading was just a much easier place for me to make sure that I wasn't missing anything.

Like I knew everything that was going on, I always felt very included. Whereas at school, if you can't hear half of what's going on, you often feel sort of out of the loop and you don't really know what's going on. And especially because at that point I hadn't really realized that I was losing my hearing. So that was somewhat isolating.

But with a book, because I'm such a visual person, like, I know everything that's going on. And that was just a really wonderful place for me to get lost into different stories. It's just such a foundation. It's also really funny because if I'm like in a book and someone says something to me, I just do not hear them at all [ANNE CHUCKLES] because I'm like fully [LAUGHING] focused on that book.

[00:08:18]

ANNE: I love how you said in your submission that you're really proud of your hearing loss and that it's shaped you into a tenacious, resilient, and empathetic person. I just loved reading that.

RACHEL: It's one of the things that has fundamentally formed who I am and how I react in different situations. And the fact that like if you put something in front of me and I failed the first time, I'm going to keep trying and trying and trying until I figure it out. And I think that's not necessarily a skill that everyone has but I'm very grateful that I have it.

ANNE: I also imagine that it has profoundly shaped how you approach the books you read. Would you tell me more about that?

RACHEL: I just get so fully engrossed in what I'm reading. And then I just don't really love it when characters don't push themselves and try harder. Like if there's a protagonist who's just sort of complaining about their life but not doing anything about it, that is not a book [ANNE CHUCKLES] that I am going to enjoy. Like, I'm just gonna be like, "I can't with you. I'm just moving on here."

But I also think like the thing about hearing loss is it really pushes you to come up with different ideas and different solutions. And so that's one of the things that I really like about my reading life is that I really try to push myself to read different things.

And yes, I have genres that I go back to time and time again because they're comfortable, and if I'm in a bad mood, that's what I want to pick up. But I like that. It's pushed me to think about, "Okay, how are all the different ways that I can approach this? What are all the different bits of knowledge that I can learn?" And yeah, that's sort of how I've approached expanding my reading list. [CHUCKLES]

ANNE: Yeah. We've talked a lot as a reading community about reading diversely. And yet disability is often not something that people consider when they think about reading diversely, which is something you've noticed. Would you tell us more about that?

RACHEL: I mean, I think there are very few books that really center on disabled stories. And even when they do, they tend to center on the negative aspects of it or that character might be having a hard time. I'm thinking, you know, there's an excellent book, Disability Visibility, which I think is phenomenal, but a lot of those stories are really tough to read. Like those are not necessarily happy stories.

ANNE: Tell us more about Disability Visibility, because that collection seems to be having a profound impact in the publishing space and also across many individual readers reading lives.

[00:10:38]

RACHEL: Yeah, absolutely. So this is a collection of essays from different disabled writers and people just talking about their different experiences. And I think what's so special about it is that it really shows a true breadth of disability because you have people with mobility issues, you have people who are blind, you have people with hearing loss. And so you're really able to see that full spectrum.

I loved it so much at work. We actually started a [GENI?] book and film club. It was our first book choice. And I had someone on the team who came up to me afterwards and he was like, "This book wrecked me." Like I had to talk to my therapist about it. [LAUGHS]

It's a really, really impactful book. And I think it's wonderful. It's something that people should read. But a lot of those stories are not necessarily the most uplifting.

And I think that's something that is missing from the disability space. Yes, absolutely, it's hard to live with certain disabilities and others are much harder, but disabled people have happy, fun lives. And I haven't seen a lot of stories that really center around that. And that is something I would love to see in this space.

[00:11:47]

ANNE: Okay. He had to talk to his therapist about it. I guess that's high praise.

RACHEL: I guess so. [LAUGHS]

ANNE: And readers, we are talking about the collection edited by Alice Wong. Okay. So I will definitely keep that in mind as we explore which books you may enjoy reading next.

Rachel, as you choose the books that you're reading next right now... And you have a lot of books to choose. You said after your zero year 2020, you read 132 in 2021. And then 2022 is also bringing plenty of new books into your life.

What are you scanning for? Like, what kind of books do you find yourself picking up these days?

RACHEL: I've really been on a fiction kick lately, which is interesting, because I tend to alternate between nonfiction and fiction. But lately I've just been plowing through a lot of fictional books.

And the stories that I've been really intrigued by have just had really strong female characters. The Change, I believe it's by Kirsten Miller, which I just read. Really incredible women who are out to like make a, for lack of a better word, [CHUCKLES] change their lives and the lives of others around them. And so I've been really sort of pulled towards that lately.

I always love a good, cozy murder mystery. There are several series that I am reading. And anytime one of those authors comes out with a new book, I will pick it up. So I've been really a sort of drawn to those.

And then if there is something that centers around the theme of like London or some sort of magic booksellers or something like that, I will usually pick it up. Those tend to be a little bit more hit or miss for me. But that is sort of what I've been leaning towards lately.

ANNE: Your submission made me laugh when you said that you love cozy mysteries and you read them all the time, so much so you want to read fewer of them. Is that still the case as we're talking today?

RACHEL: Yes, it is. I think right now I have like five cozy mysteries checked out from the library. And they're all like some variation of each other. So it'd be nice to move on a little bit from that. [CHUCKLES]

ANNE: Okay. Okay. That's okay. You can love it and still feel like you want to add to the other sections of your bookshelf.

RACHEL: Exactly.

ANNE: Rachel, I can't wait to hear the details. Are you ready to talk about your books?

RACHEL: Let's do it.

ANNE: Okay, you know how this works. You're going to tell me three books you love, one book you don't and what you've been reading lately. And we will, keeping in mind everything you've said so far and what you're looking for in your reading life right now, talk about three titles you may enjoy reading next.

So tell me about the first book that really worked for you.

[00:14:21]

RACHEL: Yes. Okay. So I read this last year and I absolutely loved it. It's called The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. And this is just a book about sort of the Jewish tradition of keeping Sabbath. I am Jewish and it's something that I hadn't really, you know, observed particularly closely. I would go to Friday night services and then sort of move on with my life.

And during the pandemic, I actually started to going to services a lot more. They were virtual. And so I saw this book and thought it would be interesting and picked up. It's fairly short but it's a really dense read. But I absolutely loved just his writing style. It was so poetic and beautiful.

I really loved what he had to say about sort of holding the Sabbath at this time. That like you just step away from everything else and you can really just focus on relaxing and thinking about things that have nothing to do with work. It was just beautiful. And I really, really loved it. I think that's one of those books I'll probably reread at some later point in life.

ANNE: What I found out about this book was so interesting. I've not read this yet. There are so many just really gushing reviews about this book on the internet from people of the Jewish tradition, but also people who enjoy reading spiritual memoir or spiritual writings outside that tradition.

So knowing that, I then saw the initial 1951 Kirkus Review which said, "This is for scholars and rabbis, nobody else is ever going to want to read it," which made me laugh. [RACHEL LAUGHS] Because now I'm thinking, "I don't want to read this."

But readers described it as the most poetic book they've ever read that isn't poetry, or how it helps you think about approaching time instead of space. And it talked about how he advocates for thinking of... "Advocates" sounds like the wrong kind of word. That sounds like more legal than the spirituality I'm thinking of in this book. But how he discusses the Sabbath as a palace in time. And I'm intrigued, especially since you said it was short and dense.

I wonder if you've read the writings of Alain de Botton, the French secular philosopher.

RACHEL: I have not.

ANNE: Just reading the way that readers in general were talking about the Sabbath, it reminded me of the way I feel when I read those books by him.

RACHEL: Yeah, it was beautiful.

ANNE: Maybe it's completely off base. I'll read The Sabbath and I'll report back. [RACHEL CHUCKLES]

RACHEL: Perfect. I also read it outside in a park. So it's just a very good memory in general.

ANNE: That feels wonderful to me, and a memorable reading experience.

RACHEL: Yes.

[00:16:55]

ANNE: That is The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. What is another book you love, Rachel?

RACHEL: This one it took me some time to work up, to being in the right mental space to read it. But Know My Name by Chanel Miller was absolutely incredible.

For those who don't know Chanel's story, she was raped at Stanford at a party. Her case made national news. And so people have probably heard about it.

Again, this was just another book was really incredible writing. And she went through such a difficult period of so public. And I think she just truly took the reader through that journey in a way that was incredibly moving and also somehow uplifting. And I was just so inspired by her and her story.

Absolutely loved the book. It was one of those where I just sat down and I read it in one sitting because I knew if I stopped I probably would have a hard time picking it up again. It was absolutely incredible. I recommend it to everyone. I think it's important to read those types of stories and learn from them. It was so, so good.

ANNE: It's such a well done memoir. I completely understand. Many have been in those shoes, including myself. It took me a long time to work up to it.

And I'm trying to think what it was that finally tipped me over the edge to actually read it. I think it was just the multitude of readers who said, "It's worth it. It's worth it. You'll be so glad you read it."

Do you remember what it was that finally spurred you to pick this up?

RACHEL: Oh, that's such a good question. It was February 2021, so who knows what was happening in the pandemic at that particular point? But I think it I just been staring at the cover for long enough that I was like, Okay-

ANNE: Had you purchased it or was it from the library?

RACHEL: It was from the library. San Francisco actually did like a big push. They do like... I think they call it like One City One Read where they try to get everyone to like read one particular book. So there were tons of copies. So it was probably also just like the incessant advertising. [BOTH LAUGHS]

ANNE: Advertising works. That's what we're learning today.

RACHEL: It does. Speaking as someone who's in the advertising industry, it works. It really does.

ANNE: That is Know My Name by Chanel Miller. And tell us about the third book that you love.

[00:19:10]

RACHEL: The third book is a real departure from the other two but very much in my sort of wheelhouse as a cozy mystery. It is called Shady Hollow by Juneau Black. And it is just the cutest, coziest mystery. All of the characters are animals. So you have like a fox who's a newspaper reporter, you have a moose who runs a local cafe, etc. [ANNE LAUGHS] And there's some other.

ANNE: I want to go to the moose's cafe.

RACHEL: Exactly. A toad has been murdered and like, who did it? It's adorable. It is a series. I loved the first book. The other two I very easily sussed out "Who did it?" And so that was less exciting to me. But they're all very, very cute, and just a nice escape for when you don't want to think about things and you just want to lose yourself into a story.

ANNE: How did you pick this one up? Or do I even need to ask? It's just in the stacks of cozies.

RACHEL: No, no. I actually saw this at Books Inc, one of my favorite bookstores in San Francisco. I was just meandering. It was well displayed on the shelf. And I was like, "Wait, there's murder with the animal characters?" And then I was sold. So there we go. [CHUCKLES]

ANNE: I have to say I don't have any anthropomorphic cozy stories on my mental shortlist for you today but I will definitely think of you the next time I see cats knitting on the cover of a book in the bookstore.

RACHEL: Exactly.

ANNE: Rachel, now tell me about a book that was not a good fit.

RACHEL: Okay. So this is maybe somewhat controversial. People loved it, it was not for me. Fuzz by Mary Roach. I was really excited about it because I love nonfiction, I love books that like focus on animals and the science of the world. I couldn't get into it. I thought it was a little dull.

The best parts of it are like when the animals were doing funny animal things. And then beyond that, I was just kind of like... I had such high hopes and it just was not there. It was one of those that I just finished it to finish but not for me at all.

ANNE: Okay. So you just loved a book about animals. Shady Hollow.

RACHEL: Yeah.

ANNE: But the other books, The Sabbath and Know My Name, are very much about both the collective and individual human experience. And I'm wondering if it had a lot of interesting information that wasn't really personally connected to you or the way we think about living. I'm just making this up based on four titles in some, but-

RACHEL: No, I like that. I've never thought of it that way. But I could totally see how it just be like, "Yeah, Okay, moving on." Like she does try to connect it to like what humans are doing to the animal world. But I was kind of like, "Yeah, this is..."

ANNE: Facts. This is the theory we're teasing out. So facts for the sake of being interesting, not so much.

RACHEL: I can see that.

ANNE: I feel like I should complete the second half of that statement, but I don't think I can say it elegantly. But I'm gonna let that turn in the back of my mind. That was Fuzz by Mary Roach.

Rachel, what have you been reading lately?

RACHEL: So many great things. [CHUCKLES] I've been on a really good kick of like really excellent books, which has been very fun for me. So what I have read most lately that I really enjoyed, there was Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, which I know has been getting a lot of buzz—entirely deserving of it.

I loved it. I wished that the main character was a real person. I would watch her cooking shows. It would be great. I would just be such a fan.

Someone recommended Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan. And that was wonderful. It's just a warm hug that people need right now, or at least I needed in that moment. I've been reading a lot of fiction, a lot of things written by female authors as well. [LAUGHS] So that's just kind of the kick that I've been on. But it's been really, really fun. A great summer of reading.

ANNE: That sounds amazing. Do you know... Now I don't want to like question a good thing, but also do you know what's going on with this role you're on? Like, I'm really wondering how we can choose your fiction kick today. Is this luck? Is this great selection?

RACHEL: I think it's luck. I also think it's just I'm very good at stopping a book that I don't think is interesting.

ANNE: Ooh.

RACHEL: So I will read about 60 pages, and if I'm not interested by 60, I quit and I move on, mainly because there's just so many amazing books, I don't feel like spending time on something that doesn't really get me excited. But a lot of it is definitely luck.

[00:23:33]

ANNE: Well, let's hope we can keep this lucky streak going. And high fives for putting those books aside when they're not working for you right now because there are so many good books available. Also, there's so many good new books out this fall. And it does sound like you read a fair number of new releases.

RACHEL: I do. I think it's just because like I follow a lot of people on Instagram in the book world and a lot of those are just highlighting some of the newer releases. But I always love a classic, especially because I get most of my books from the library. [CHUCKLES] So it's nice not to have to wait. I always love classics.

ANNE: That is good to know. Rachel, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

RACHEL: So I think there are a couple of different areas. One is that I would like to read more books in Spanish. What I have found to be the problem and maybe it's just how I'm trying to find books or where I'm looking is that often the books that I see tend to just be translations of the big popular books that are written in English, which is not what I want, or they're just a really well known Spanish authors like Gabriel García Márquez.

Like I kind of associate with like the books you had to read in class and that's not really what I'm looking for. What I'd love to find is like books in Spanish that are similar to the books I read in English instead of their style. So I would love to read more books in Spanish. I'm a much slower reader in Spanish, so I would like pick up my speed there. So there's that.

I would also love to find like additional stories about people living with disability. But like I mentioned earlier in our conversation, that just opened more positive. Of course, I'm always happy to read something that is going to take me on an emotional journey. But when every book you pick up about disability is in that vein, it gets a little annoying. I want to read about disabled people doing amazing, cool things. So there is that.

And then I am open to like new interesting genres. One thing I did... And I think I actually got this idea from your podcast, maybe from a former guest. I cannot recall. But when I turned 30, I reached out to coworkers and friends and family and said, "Hey, do you have any books that you've really loved lately? Whether or not you think I would like it, send me that recommendation."

And then I read 30 of those suggestions before I turned 30. And it was such a fun way to expand outside the genre as I normally would. Like I read some science fiction and that's not something I gravitate towards at all normally and actually really loved it. So it's just a really fun way to expand my reading life and connect with my friends and family in a very different way.

[00:26:16]

ANNE: Rachel, that sounds amazing. So more Spanish novels, more books featuring disabled characters living their happy, fun lives and doing interesting things. And also branching out into new and interesting genres that are either new to you or ones that you don't hit up as often as, say, those cozy mysteries.

RACHEL: Exactly.

ANNE: Okay. There are so many different directions we could go. All right, we're just gonna do it. Okay, the books you love: The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel, Know My Name by Chanel Miller, and Shady Hollow by Juneau Black.

Not for you is Fuzz by Mary Roach. We talked a little bit about why that might not have worked wonderfully for you. But I think by focusing on the things that we know you love, so those three things are looking for. Plus, you talked about how you love to see strong female characters that are changing the world, that's really working for you right now. There are lots of options to choose from.

I'm especially noticing that some of the books you loved you said they felt like a warm hug. Did I already say there were so many directions we could go in? But I'm going to start with one that's really rising to the top.

Rachel, there is a brand new book by the author Elizabeth McCracken. Have you read her before?

RACHEL: I don't think so.

ANNE: Bowlaway is the first one that really seemed to get both great critical reviews and garner like a large readership among readers, not just critics. Her last short story collection was called The Souvenir Museum. And her new one is called The Hero of This Book.

And you said you'd be interested in books that branch into new and interesting genres. What's interesting about this book is it's a novel written as a memoir. There's some speculation at how much memoir is this novel, and how much novel is this memoir.

It's a short book. You talked about books that are small but pack a punch. This is just over 200 pages. But whether this is a novel or a memoir, Elizabeth McCracken, or the character that we feel like is Elizabeth McCracken, because this is a first-person story, is talking about her mother. Her mother is the hero of this book.

Much of the action takes place in London. She's talking about her mother as a central character, not just an ordinary woman. Elizabeth McCracken says that she doesn't write much about ordinary people because she's met so few of them. Like you write what you know. And she doesn't know those ordinary people.

But it is the summer of 2019 in this story, her mother has died less than a year before. And what she does in this story, which is largely stream of con... Well, not a stream of consciousness. That makes you think like of a [inaudible 00:28:59] that just kind of like sprawls all over the place. It's not like that. This is tight.

But she shares these different episodes from her mother's life. And she was tiny in stature but she lived large, and her personality was huge. The narrator says she was more fun than anyone else she ever knew.

And so she goes back and she tells the stories from her childhood and her adult life and the travels they did together in London and the trip they took when her mother was ailing, but could still travel. And that's one of the reasons she went back to London in 2019. And the pandemic is a little bit in these pages.

But one of the reasons that the zoom to the top of my list for you is it's not till quite a bit into the story that the narrator starts talking about her mother's birth injury.

She introduces this theme through the lens of a childhood friend saying something really rude to the narrator about her mother, but we find out that she had a birth injury. I don't believe it's ever specified exactly what happened or what label you would give her disability. But it means that she walks with a pronounced gaze that does make it hard for her to get around, that leads people to say all the time to her, "What happened to you? What happened to you? What happened to you? What's wrong with you?"

And she talks about how her mother handled that and how growing up in her mother's household it took a long time for her to realize how her mother was perceived by the outside world.

She started talking about practically how it impacted her mother's life and how it impacted in of like very practical, detailed manner their travels together in London, and how the daughter was like, "Are you sure you want to do this, mom? And she's like, "Back off. I've been doing this my whole life and I want to go up... it might have been the London Eye. I want to do it. Are you coming with me or not?"

And just the way she introduced this is a crucial component of her mother's life in this story of a female character living large who was loved and assumed by everyone who knew her left a gaping hole in her daughter's life when she died.

I mean, this is in many ways a book about grief. And it is sad at times, but it's mostly one that makes you think, "Oh, I wish I knew that possibly real, possibly fictional woman as well. The way you describe her, she sounds incredible. If you're interested.

And readers, if you are interested, there's also a lot of little short tangents about the writing life and how this narrator puts her book together and how... Well, yeah, she did say she'd never write a book about her mother, but people change their minds and writers change their minds. That meta component is fun. How does that sound?

RACHEL: That sounds amazing. I love like a genre bending book. "Is it a memoir? Is it a novel? Nobody knows." I love a memoir. I love a novel. So I'm very, very excited to read that.

ANNE: I'm happy to hear it. That was The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken. Next, we have a book I did not anticipate talking about today. It's new. It came out in September just this fall. It's by Deanna Raybourn. It's called Killers of a Certain Age. Is this one on your radar?

RACHEL: I don't think so. But I love the title just to begin with [CHUCKLES]

[00:32:16]

ANNE: Wonderful. This is definitely a cousin to The Change. It's not as dark in tone. But I mean, listen to this. So it's women of a certain age. These women take down the bad guys, but they get paid to do it because they're professional assassins—people who do dastardly things that are harmful to people. And in this book, they are definitely over the top. Actually, some are a little too believable. But some of them are just over the top. And the ways in which the lady assassins dispense of them are definitely over the top.

And the way this book unfolds is really fun. So first, it happens in the more or less present day. These women are retiring and they realize very early in the book after their final job that it seems like their employer is trying to take them out.

And they don't know why, but they just know it's very clear that they are targets of the museum. Because something that's really fun in this book is you can't just like put up your shingle and have it say like, "Assassins are us. You know, hire us to take out your bad guys."

It's called the museum. And every department in the museum has, you know, they're the curators and the restorers. And that language is a little silly and a lot cleverer. Imagining the sense of humor of someone who has read a thousand cozy mysteries, I think that could be really fun.

RACHEL: Yes, I mean, I'm already laughing. So I'm very excited about this. I'm so glad you put it on my radar because I don't think I would have realized that it was out. I'm very bad at following specific authors. I just kind of flow.

ANNE: Well, if you saw the cover on an endcap in a bookstore, you would want to grab it because it is striking. Just take a peek, you've got a blood-red hand with a pearl bracelet holding a really sharp black knife. It's striking. It would catch your attention.

But in this present day, they are on the run trying to solve the mystery of ''why are old bosses after us?" I almost said it's spoiler alert. This is not a spoiler. It's about the money. You know it's about the money. Money and power and... you know.

And then in alternating chapters of the backstory we see some of the jobs they completed over their 40 years together as assassins who teamed up. And you find out how they all came to work for the museum and how they grew in their crafts. It's just really fun. I think you'll enjoy it. And you didn't mention thrillers specifically. So I hope this is a bit of a departure for you.

RACHEL: I love it.

ANNE: How do you feel about YA?

[00:34:35]

RACHEL: Big fan. My first internship was actually at HarperCollins Children's publishing. So that was very fun. There used to be a time where I could like walk into a bookstore and know all the titles that were going on in the children and YA section.

ANNE: Okay. But I can't resist. Like what's one big takeaway you still think about as a reader that you learned working at HarperCollins Children?

RACHEL: I mean, so much about a book success really just depends on like those pre-orders and that buzz. I was in the PR department and I remember we were prepping for a book and then they're like, "Oh, it didn't get nearly as many orders as we thought, so like we're gonna cancel this whole like PR thing that we had planned." And I remember feeling so bad for that author. So pre-orders really, really do matter. That was just super, super fascinating.

And I also just remember thinking that none of the people I worked with got paid the money that they deserved. [LAUGHS]

ANNE: So let's check out the books that we love. Okay, so this one just came out in the spring. It's by Natalia Sylvester, who I think we talked about running on the podcast or previous YA book. But this one is called Breathe and Count Back from Ten.

Natalia Sylvester was born in Peru. She grew up in the US since she was a pretty young child. But this book is about a Peruvian American teen. She's 17. She has really strict parents. They don't approve of many things she's interested in.

They outright forbid her to do many things, including lots of the things her friends are into. And they really don't approve of her dream to be a mermaid. That sounds like a fantasy novel. It's not a fantasy novel.

She wants to be an aquatic performer at this local place called Mermaid Cope. Because she has hip dysplasia, when she is in the water swimming, she feels healthy, she feels free, she feels at peace, nothing hurts. She feels like herself and her parents are like, "Too bad, can't be a merman. That's not what proper young ladies do."

She's 17, she has this dream. She's struggling with all the things you struggle with at 17: friendships and boys. Her parents saw an interaction with a boy that they completely misinterpreted and has them extremely hyper vigilant in ways that she is not finding helpful.

So, Veronica—she goes by Vero—she has a lot going on in her life. And she pins all her hopes on this mermaid audition so that she can get the role and be free in the water. But she's got to overcome a whole lot of obstacles to make that work.

Ooh, and I should say Sylvester has hip dysplasia herself. And she talks about that in the pages of the book. Don't miss those notes in the book that are not the actual story but add so much to your understanding.

And I imagine enjoyment of it. But she does say that, like, "Look, There's got multiple issues and we're going to talk about them all." She says that right at the beginning of the story.

There are also some other threads in the book, like her romantic interest. Alex, who's Mexican American, he deals with depression. So that's something that's also probed in the book.

And also something that I appreciated was the way that the friction that exists in this family between a disabled sibling and non-disabled siblings was handled. I thought thoughtfully on the page. I thought that book might take a few of your boxes. How does that sound?

[00:37:52]

RACHEL: It sounds amazing. I'm very excited about it. I love YA. I always feel like it's underrated amongst adults. I think YA often explores just themes that maybe adult books don't necessarily want to get into, but they're so important. And I just really like YA. Sometimes I think people turn their nose up at it, but it's great.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. And you know, actually, Rachel, maybe I should have hoped that this was branching out for you. But I'm not sad that it's not. I'm not sad that it sounds great to you. [RACHEL LAUGHS]

There are so many books we could go into, but I hope those three sound interesting to you, Rachel.

RACHEL: Yes, I'm very excited to read them, add them to my list, and then hopefully continue recommending them to other people.

ANNE: Now, Rachel, of the books we talked about today, they were The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken, Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn, and Breathe and Count Back From Ten by Natalia Sylvester. Of those books, which are just barely all out and available for reading, what do you think you'll read next?

RACHEL: I think they're gonna go with The Hero of This Book. It sounds really, really interesting.

ANNE: I love it for you. I hope you find it to be a good fit. I can't wait to hear what you think.

RACHEL: Thank you. I will definitely follow up and let you know. I'm very excited.

ANNE: Okay, Rachel, thanks so much for talking books with me today.

[00:39:12]

RACHEL: Thank you. It was a great way to start my day.

[CHEERFUL OUTRO MUSIC]

ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Rachel. I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Rachel online at her website, rachelseidman.com. We've got that link in the show notes along with the full list of titles we talked about today. That's at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/349.

Make sure you're on our email list to get weekly updates on the show, as well as a few literary news items that have come out lately. Sign up at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

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Follow me also. My personal account is @annebogel. Get fun peeks at what I'm up to like last week's bookmarks Festival of Books. I say those and highlights for you @annebogel on Instagram.

Make sure you're following in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Tune in next week when I'll be talking with an octogenarian reader and her similarly bookish daughter about titles they love both.

Thanks to the people who make this show happen! What Should I Read Next? is produced by Brenna Frederick, with production assistance by Holly Wielkoszewski, and sound design by Kellen Pechacek.

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!

Books mentioned in this episode:

Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong
The Change by Kirsten Miller
The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
• Alain de Botton (try The Course of Love)
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
Shady Hollow by Juneau Black
Fuzz by Mary Roach
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan
The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken
The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn
Breathe and Count Back from Ten by Natalia Sylvester

Also mentioned:

Green Apple Books
Books Inc.
San Francisco Public Library Explorer Map
One City One Book San Francisco





31 comments

Leave A Comment
  1. Adrienne says:

    I loved this episode and got so much joy from hearing about Rachel’s story and her reading life. I think Rachel might like ‘Harry’s Trees’ by Jon Cohen and ‘The Invisible Husband of Frick Island,’ both of which fit the description of books that “…show beauty in the world.”

    My daughter, who is also named Rachel, is also looking to improve her Spanish through reading, so I’m interested in any recommendations for books to read in Spanish that I can pass on to her. She and I were at a used bookstore a couple of weeks ago and she bought a Spanish cookbook, which I thought was a fun way to practice the language. Happy Reading!

  2. Andrea Ward says:

    I love cozies and also know I need to read less of them. So I have a couple recommendations of cozies that step into some more difficult topics, the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen series by Mia P Manansala and the Carribean Kitchen series by Raquel V Reyes.
    I would love to read more about disability characters that are just living life. One YA book I have read and enjoyed was Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal. I just loved the friendships in it. I also read OCDaniel by Wesley King. It is a juvenile mystery. The main character is dealing with OCD, but the mystery is the main plot point. There are a couple other YA books I have on my TBR about disabilities, but I haven’t read them. So I will simply say they have disabled main characters. They are Finding Balance by Kati Gardner and The Silence Between Us by Alison Gervais.

  3. Theresa E says:

    I love the Shady Hollow series! My local bookseller recommended it and it was such a wonderful cozy mystery series. I cannot wait for the next one.

  4. Beth says:

    There’s a really great Australian collection like Disability Visibility, called Growing up Disabled in Australia. Fiction I’ve liked with characters with disabilities, by authors with a disability: True Biz by Sara Novic, One for All by Lillie Lainoff, Helen Hoang’s Kiss Quotient series, and Talia Hibbert’s Brown Sisters series. If sci-fi/horror is interesting, check out Mira Grant’s Into the Drowning Deep.

  5. Jana Griner says:

    A book I loved about Asperger’s was Mockingbird. It really helped me to see how people with Austism think and see the world.

  6. Angi C. says:

    I agree “Killers of a Certain Age” sounds like a good match. It was so fun! I also thought of “A Book of Bees and How to Keep Them” by Sue Hubbell for a cozy, nature is wonderful vibe.

    • Angi C. says:

      I also just heard about a new book called “The Future is Disabled” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Recommended by Danika from Book Riot.

  7. Alice says:

    I would like to recommend The Murmur of Bees, by Sofia Segovia, to Rachel and anyone else interested in reading something fantastic in Spanish. This story centers around a boy with a disability growing up on a ranch in Mexico circa 1918; some difficult things happen (civil war, and it is 1918) but overall to me this book just felt 100% affirming. And I had to read it in translation! There are some magical realist elements in here as well: the boy has a special, unexplained relationship with honeybees living in the vicinity of the ranch, and the natural elements (the bees themselves, and the world they buzz around in) make the experience of reading feel so luminous, and even a little hangover-inducing.

    On the bee theme, I would also like to second the plug for A Book of Bees and How to Raise Them by Sue Hubbell—an incredible, quiet, and healing memoir about life in in the Missouri Ozarks with bees. This is a standout book from the 1980s that doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves! Let’s give it some love, shall we? 🙂

  8. Lisa says:

    Great episode! Rachel, your interest in strong female characters and books that feel like warm hugs made me think of From Twinkle with Love by Sandyha Menon. It’s YA, but so delightful even for adults, and it’s one of my go-to reads when I need a pick-me-up. Another you might enjoy is A Room Called Earth by Madeleine Ryan. The author has autism and so does the narrator. Her stream-of-consciousness internal monologue throughout the book is kaleidoscopic – you have no idea what to expect with each turn, and her take on the world around her is mesmerizing.

  9. Aimz says:

    I. LOVED. This episode! Rachel, you are an absolute delight and I love your sense of humour. I was also very moved by your comments on disability and particularly deafness and hearing loss. Although not an especially upbeat book, I think you might enjoy (and would ceetainly find interesting) the short novel, Ismael and His Sisters by Louise Stern. The novel is about three deaf siblings in a community of comprised of deaf and hearing neighbours in their Maya village. Ismael gets into a fight at the local fiesta and flees the village, leaving Rosie and Cristina to fend for themselves and the story unfolds from there. The writer herself grew up in a deaf community and is both third and fourth-generation deaf. It’s a beautiful book and one I’ve recommended to a number of readers.

  10. Carol Blunier says:

    I recommend A Curse So Dark and Lonely for a YA fantasy novel. It’s a fairy tale retelling of Beauty and the Beast in which the main character is a very strong girl who happens to have cerebral palsy.

  11. Lisa says:

    I want to add a brief anecdote related to author Elizabeth McCracken. Many readers may know she experienced a stillbirth while living in France in 2006 when she lost her baby boy, the result of which was her very powerful memoir, “An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.” We lost our fist daughter, Sophie, as the result of a stillbirth at almost the same time. Elizabeth and I began a correspondence which lasted for several few months. She was the most gracious, honest, genuine, lovely person I could have possibly wished to connect with at a time we were both deeply grieving. It was like we had known each other for years. I don’t share this to be a downer at all, but rather as a testament to the kind of woman she is. Absolutely lovely in every way. We both came out the other side of that initial period of acute grief as changed people who will forever carry the loss, but Elizabeth is one of the women who helped me see goodness everywhere again.

  12. Rebecca Glinka says:

    As a companion read for Killers of a Certain Age, can I recommend The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman? It is a cozy series, so I’m not doing so great at getting you out of that comfort space, but it is very good. (I’ve not read Killers of a Certain Age yet, but it’s on my radar after this episode.)
    After reading the recommendations already mentioned above, I will second Into the Drowning Deep if you have the tolerance for the sci-fi/horror aspect. It was really good. I can also second the Kiss Quotient series. Really really good! A Curse So Dark and Lonely (also from above) had a very good first book, but I wasn’t as in to the second (I started it and didn’t finish it yet).

    • Carol Blunier says:

      Rebecca, I liked books 1 and 3 better than the 2nd in that series, so stock with it if you really liked A Curse So Dark…

  13. Aimee says:

    May I make a few British show recommendations?? We love the Father Brown series – clever and loved by us all which is rare. Shetland is a great mystery show with gorgeous scenery. The Cleaner is one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in I’m not sure when. Language isn’t appropriate for our youngest but the high schooler, husband, and I all enjoyed it and can’t wait for season two.

    One Netflix plug. I was about to cancel our subscription when a commenter on NYT mentioned how much they had enjoyed Extraordinary Attorney Woo so I googled it and immediately thought it would be a great show for my high school daughter and I to watch. Now the two kids and I are watching it together – what a gem!

    • Aimee says:

      Ack! How did I miss Mum?! No one watched it with me – not something my kids or husband would watch but a fun series to binge watch for me.

  14. Great episode!

    I wonder if Christina Baker Cline’s “A Piece of the World” would fit the bill for Rachel? Historical fiction of a strong female character living with a mobility disability, and so many slice of life details!

  15. MaryEllen says:

    I thought of The London House by Katherine Reay early in the show. Also was reminded of The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin. This was a great episode!

  16. Susan says:

    I’m going to track down Breathe and Count Back from Ten. My grandmother and I were both born with hip dysplasia. Mine was caught as soon as I was born and easily fixed while my grandmother limped all her life. Doctors recommended surgery but her father wouldn’t allow it.

  17. Brigid says:

    Loved this wonderful episode! Agatha Raisin and Shady Hollow are favorites of mine as well. Would love to hear from Rachel about which books are her favorite Cozy mystery series!

  18. Laura says:

    I loved the Sabbath when I first read it 20 years ago. I’ve since read most of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s books and have found them to be full of wonder and thought-provoking ideas.

  19. Rosie Patterson says:

    I would like to second the previous recommendation of The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segara. I read it in English and absolutely loved it so much that I read it again! The book was written in Spanish, has a wonderful character who was born with a disability, and was released in 2019 so it’s easily available. I hope you will add it to your TBR!

  20. Louise says:

    Hi, I’m a bit late to the party but I have a couple suggestions for Rachel.
    The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Custodian of Paradise, both by Wayne Johnston.
    The first is a fictionalized story of the life of Joey Smallwood told partly through the eyes of schoolmate Sheilagh Fielding (known simply as Fielding). Custodian is about Fielding herself.
    Fielding is one of my favourite female characters ever. She is known for her limp which, instead of making her weak, makes her stronger. She’s a tough, gruff, fabulous newswoman and I love her.

  21. Susan says:

    Hi, I’ve just enjoyed this episode now, and I would recommend The Country Club Murders series by Julie Mulhern. Fun cozy mystery series set in the 70s in Kansas City, with a protagonist who is becoming a “women’s libber” and quietly shaking up the status quo!

  22. Caitlin says:

    Very late, but a suggestion might be How Lucky by Will Leitch.
    ‘Daniel, a young man with a degenerative disease that has left him unable to move or communicate except by head taps, lives “alone” with few visitors besides his childhood best friend, Travis, his home help, Marjani, and anonymous orderlies who “exist only to keep me alive at night.” He works for an online travel site where he happily absorbs the abuse that comes his way because thanks to the “disguise” of the internet, “no one knows they’re supposed to be nice to me.” When he hears that a girl he saw get into an old Camaro outside his home has been reported missing, he is compelled to try to share what he knows about her disappearance. Funny, poignant, with high stakes suspense, and a rivetingly authentic portrait of what it’s like to live trapped inside your own body.’

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