Our seventh birthday celebration

Anne Bogel [00:00:11] 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?

[00:00:29] Whether you've tuned in for the past seven years or this is your very first episode, I'm so glad you're here. If you'd like to help us celebrate our birthday, one of the best ways to do that is to support our podcast. Check out our What Should I Read Next? merch like our comfortable and conversational t shirts or join us in our Patreon community. The financial support we receive from our Patreon members makes it possible for us to keep creating our show each week. And as a way to say thank you, we share bonus conversations from the cutting room floor, live events, and even more book recommendations from me and members of our What Should I Read Next? team. Learn more at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. Another simple way to support us is to share our show with a friend. Tag your favorite reader in a recent post over on our Instagram account. We are @whatshouldireadnext or share a link from your favorite podcast app. We love welcoming new listeners into our bookish community.

Anne Bogel [00:01:17] Readers, this episode marks seven years of helping book lovers discover their next read. Since I started, What Should I Read Next? back in 2016, I've talked with so many readers on the show. You've heard about 400 voices in this space over all those years. Sometimes those voices belong to names you know and recognize. Sometimes they belong to readers like you. I've enjoyed every single conversation along the way, and today we want to celebrate the very beginning of the show. To do that, I've invited back two readers who were instrumental in getting us off the ground. You may know Jamie Golden and Knox McCoy as the voices behind The Popcast, a weekly podcast devoted to educating you on things that entertain but do not matter. Knox and Jamie were instrumental in helping me launch What Should I Read Next? Knox produced the first 11 episodes of the show, and Jamie was our very first guest on January 12th, 2016. I'm so excited to welcome them both to the show today as we look back at our origins. Share stories you've never heard before and of course, talk all things books and reading. Let's get to it.

Anne Bogel [00:02:19] Knox and Jamie, welcome back to the show.

Jamie Golden [00:02:21] Happy seventh anniversary of the show. What a delight.

Knox McCoy [00:02:24] Congratulations.

Jamie Golden [00:02:26] I know what a big deal. That is a huge deal. The fact that well, for me, it is a huge deal to commit to something for seven years. That's chaotic. I love.

Anne Bogel [00:02:33] It. Well, I mean, look who's talking. The key is you don't know. It's going to be seven years. I'm not sure what I would have thought if you told me back in 2016. In 2022 future Anne is going to be talking with Knox and Jamie about your seventh anniversary. But you all have been at this even longer than we have. How many years has The Popcast been running now?

Jamie Golden [00:02:51] It's nine years.

Knox McCoy [00:02:52] And recently, an extended family member was trying their best was trying their darndest because most time, I just get the, 'are you still doing that blog?' And I'm like, 'sure, I guess I am'. But they were trying they were trying to make a connection and they said, Did you study podcasting in college? And I was like. It just. What? It wasn't a thing. No, I did not.

Jamie Golden [00:03:11] You mean, you mean at YouTube University? Yeah. My brother once said, 'you know what? I'm going to check out your your podcast. I'm going to watch it. What what channel is it on?' I was like, 'Well, no one's trying to support me.

Knox McCoy [00:03:21] Keith was ahead of the game, actually. He was like, There's going to be a big deal in 2022. So, I'm gonna get on that.

Anne Bogel [00:03:25] I'm pretty sure our family members still have no idea how we buy our groceries or pay our mortgage.

Knox McCoy [00:03:30] Same. Yeah, exactly the same.

Anne Bogel [00:03:31] But I think at this point they trust it's probably going to be okay. They just don't understand how.

Knox McCoy [00:03:35] I have alluded to it's money laundering and they seem comfortable enough with that. So we're just gonna let it run.

Jamie Golden [00:03:39] They've watched Ozark, so they're like, that seems right.

Knox McCoy [00:03:42] Like there's no cartels. But, you know, everybody's getting paid what they need to get paid, so don't worry about it.

Anne Bogel [00:03:46] We're so glad you all are here today. We thought you would be the perfect guest for this episode, because not only do you understand what it's like to put in nearly a decade's worth of work in podcasting. Later, we got to talk about what you all are planning for ten, because that sounds big. But both your histories are baked into our origin story here, and it took me a long time to realize that that Knox and Jamie of The Popcast, like you all do your thing together, but in your own ways, you are huge for our show. So thanks so much for coming on and celebrating.

Jamie Golden [00:04:12] You're welcome.

Knox McCoy [00:04:13] You're you're welcome from being the bedrock of your show. Thank you for acknowledging.

Anne Bogel [00:04:19] The cornerstone here live and in person. So I know that Jamie has recently done a big Internet deep dive to assess the question I'm about to ask. But did we already know each other before we met in person at Killer Tribes in 2012? Also, can we take a moment to say this blog conference like I can't believe all the people and projects and connections that came out of that, like little Nashville one day gathering that happened ten years ago.

Knox McCoy [00:04:43] Yeah. Shout out to Brian Lane who put that together. Like, honestly, all of my major Internet relationships, it went to the next level with that conference.

Anne Bogel [00:04:51] And I would have told you I planned ahead and like needed to be there. But when I was deep diving my email to find out what might have happened back then, apparently I bought a ticket the night before at 10 p.m.

Jamie Golden [00:05:01] Wow.

Anne Bogel [00:05:02] I don't remember that at all, but I'm so glad it was a near miss for me. But I'm so glad I was there.

Knox McCoy [00:05:06] Yeah, see, I didn't know you and I didn't know Jamie, but I was aware of both of you. So that was first time meeting both of you. And I knew enough about each of you that I was like, These are people doing things like, I want to make a connection and like, I like the things that they are doing. But yeah, prior to that there had been no like human connection.

Jamie Golden [00:05:24] And I do just want to correct that. I had been a guest host on Knox's blog before.

Knox McCoy [00:05:28] But we hadn't met like in person, right? And we still didn't meet even after we started doing the show for like two and a half years, like in actual person.

Jamie Golden [00:05:35] That's right. We just started a business and then we're like, We don't need to see each other. Why would we need to see each other.

Knox McCoy [00:05:39] Formality.

Jamie Golden [00:05:39] But like for me, I went back digitally and looked and Anne followed me on Twitter in December of 2011 and I was like, Oh my God, because I found your blog because I Jane Austen is my favorite author. She's my security question to many sites and I loved her. And so to find modern Mrs. Darcy, I was like, What is this madness? And I loved it. And you lived in the place where they do a Jane Austen festival. And I just I got very attached to you very quickly. And so then when I got to meet you, it was like I was like, meaningful celebrity in my own brain. It was very fun. I loved it.

Anne Bogel [00:06:14] But this was still back in the day where when you told somebody you were going to a conference to meet people you knew on Twitter, they were concerned for your personal safety. That's right. They thought you were going to go get murdered.

Jamie Golden [00:06:22] Yes. No, 100%. Erin came to that conference. It was our first employee that we had at our company. And I did a ticket giveaway on my blog. And she I made it. So she won because I wanted her to come. So my apologies to all the people that I did not choose because I chose her. And so she ends up co-writing a screenplay with Knox, and she and I launch a podcast for nine episodes and then it fails. And then that leads to me being with Knox on The Popcast.

Jamie Golden [00:06:51] Yeah, that and that's the conference where I met a handful gentlemen, and they were like, Let's go eat dinner at a mexican restaurant and let's decide to get into podcasts and remember being like, Oh, podcasts, no, thank you. I'll go for like the cheese dip, but I'm not going to do a podcast that sounds so stupid. And then here we are, so interesting.

Anne Bogel [00:07:10] Here we are all these years later, and I love how our podcasts have stayed entwined through the years. Does that sound healthy? I definitely mean a healthy, ongoing collaborative relationship.

Jamie Golden [00:07:21] Well, I was going to say we stole an idea from you, but your whole, you know, the whole concept of your show, What Should I Read Next? We did What Should I Watch Next? Our Episode 395. And it was honor of your 10th annual Reader's Guide because your readers, your summer reading guide is iconic on the Internet, and so it was fine to be able to. We actually used you and your own shows that you liked and didn't like. We've had a couple of those episodes, so we really enjoyed stealing from you, So thank you.

Knox McCoy [00:07:47] Yeah. You know, I think you really inspired obviously, like the the heart of the show has always been very curational and not just the show like what you do. And I think that seems so obvious now, like on podcasts to help recommending and curate content, but it wasn't that obvious back then. So I think that's always been like a foundational point of what we're trying to do is cut through the noise of Peacock and Paramount and Amazon and Netflix and be like, actually just watch these shows. These are the good ones.

Anne Bogel [00:08:12] Mm hmm. I remember when you all ran that What Should I Watch Next? episode. Jamie, I think I got a message from you that said, Hey, this is a heads up, not a permission. We're totally doing it. This is happening. I just want you to know, I think you asked me a question, but I don't remember what it was. I was charmed and delighted and could not wait to listen.

Jamie Golden [00:08:29] Yes, because we asked you about shows that you liked and a show that you didn't like. And we did that with our listeners as well so that we could help curate based on that. What should you watch next rather than what you should read next?

Anne Bogel [00:08:39] Which is absolutely singing my song because I read a lot more than I watch stuff. So I'm like Knox and Jamie, by all means, like, give me the special treatment and tell me personalized watching recommendations. That's what I need. I got the books covered, but I want the watch recommendations. All right. I love how we can divide and conquer our media usage here on the internet like listen to The Popcast, listen to us. We got you in all ways.

[00:09:01] I want to take a minute to look back at our origin stories because it's been so long. Now. Will was pointing out to me and he's our executive producer here, that my recollections are a little fuzzy on what actually may have happened. I'm really wondering if I have like rose colored glasses, this whole situation. But Knox, let's start with you, since you produced the first 11 episodes. So my recollection of how that went is I knew you we'd met and I found out from somebody in my podcast, Vox or Mastermind Group, before I even started it, that you had helped at least one other person get a show off the ground by doing things like the audio and helping with scripting. And just really I felt like she described you as a security blanket, I mean, a producer, but also a security blanket. Who'll make it happen. But also tell you if your idea is stupid, you can just save a ton of time. My recollection is we got on the phone and I said, okay, this is how the show is going to work. It will absolutely be 20 minutes every episode, maybe just 18. This is the concept. This is the conversation. What do you think? So I remember you saying, this is a great concept. This is amazing. This will make a fabulous podcast. But I want to know, what do you remember about that conversation? And if I totally deluded myself all these years.

Jamie Golden [00:10:12] You were very verbally abusive initially. And no, I'm kidding you. Actually, this is a pretty dead on. Like you don't have rose colored glasses. This is almost word for word. Prior to starting with you, I had, Ashley and I just bought a house. And when we bought the house, I made sure we closed. And then I resigned my job as a Christian screenwriter because of creative differences. So I was like, I have to be producing. I do copywriting. So that's taking on all these other jobs and had a handful podcast I was helping produce. You had reached out and you kind of gave me the idea that you had. I was like, This is genius, brilliant. Let me know how I can support. The funny thing is, I think especially in podcasting, so many ideas and formats, they have to evolve, you know, because you get the first draft, you know, and it's fine, but it needs a lot of tweaks. I don't other than the time, you know, it being a little bit longer. Episode episodically, your concept was pretty good to go from the beginning, and I don't know that it's evolved that much. So it felt like a thing where I can just kind of help do some things, but I'm not really needed here. So even in the early days, your approach of like reaching out and talking to a lot of different people, not just like, Hey, I'm white lady, I got a book, let's talk about it. And I'll just talk about my book. I always thought that was really creative and smart and I thought that's a kind of separated you. But yeah, I think it was. It's pretty much as you remember it.

Anne Bogel [00:11:32] Oh, I really appreciate that. Thank you for playing into my ploy to encourage you to say nice things about the show, But I'm so grateful for you not only helping us get off the ground, but you also gave us our iconic What Should I Read Next phrase like, I don't know if you even remember this, but you were like, okay, scripting this first episode, we got to close it out. What if every week we shared a different, like warm and fuzzy, bookish quote to end the show? So I sent you the line from Rainer Maria Rilke. That goes, are how good it is to be among people who are reading. And you said, Awesome. We'll close with that in the next week. I sent you a list and you were like, I don't know, I like that first quote. I think you might want to stick with that. And we've closed every single episode with that ever since. I mean, it goes on book darts and tote bags and like all our bookmarks and merch and all the things, it's who we are.

Jamie Golden [00:12:16] Well, again, it was a suggestion. You actually made the good thing. And it was even a surprise for me because when when I read, I was like, that sound, I don't know that person is, but that sounds cool. And then you said the name. I was like, I thought it was Rainer Maria Rilke, So this is great. I'm learning things and she's solving problems. So this is just a wonderful situation. You know, I remember early on, I think a lot of your early guests didn't understand how audio worked. You guys had do a lot of coaching. I think we had to do a lot of coaching of like, no, you can't just like carry around a laptop in a Walmart in recording episode. Like, yeah, definitely sit down. You have to have headphones and stuff like that. But I do remember I think Jamie was booked early on and, you know, obviously she and I had been doing The Popcast together for a few years and I remember who I don't I don't know who was pegged for the first episode, but I remember listening to it and just being like, it's not really, it's really very sizzling, you know, it's not really like, like not that like electric sizzle, like jumping off the jumping out of AirPods. Sounds like what if we.

Anne Bogel [00:13:18] What Air Pods? It's 2015.

Knox McCoy [00:13:19] Oh yeah. The wired, the wired headphones. And I was like, What if we use Jamie? And I think I think you said Jamie specifically said, I don't want to be first. And I was like...

Jamie Golden [00:13:29] I did.

Jamie Golden [00:13:29] ...did Jamie sign a contract? And you said she did not. And I was like, Well, Jamie doesn't get to make that call then, so Jamie's going to go first year, unfortunately.

Jamie Golden [00:13:35] I know. And I because I and the reason I didn't want to go first was not for any other reason than a marketing reason, because I was like, I knew from our own experience that no one listens to that first episode. Like, no, unless you're serial and you're setting a, you know, a Best Buy phone booth moment, no one's going to listen to the first episode. So I was like, Nobody's going to listen to me, and it's gonna be so boring, and then everyone's gonna skip ahead. And so I was like, make me number three, and then you came back and you're like, Hey, you're number one. It's just what it is like. And I and I have trusted Knox with production, obviously for almost a decade. And so I knew he had made the right decision for you. And, and and it was an honor. It was an honor to be it. And I looked back. It was 24 minutes we talked. Can you believe I talked to a person for 24 minutes?

Anne Bogel [00:14:18] That's 6 minutes longer than I remembered.

Knox McCoy [00:14:20] That's incredible.

Anne Bogel [00:14:21] Yeah. Although maybe a third as long as you would have expected that conversation to run.

Jamie Golden [00:14:25] It's impressive. It's impressive. But Jamie. Jamie is always a great guest. And especially with books, I feel like to show the versatility of what the show can be. To have a really fun guest. Not that the other early ones weren't fun, but they weren't. And Jamie is fun. So I just thought, you know, she would do a great job. You obviously did a great job interviewing her, so I was off and running from there.

Anne Bogel [00:14:45] Jamie Did we talk about the show before I invited you to come on?

Jamie Golden [00:14:48] You had emailed me in December and just said, Hey, I'm starting a podcast, and I just replied in all caps. It's about time. If I had known Lizzo, it would have been, It's about damn time, you know, and I would have done the dance. But that's exactly right. Like you had set the format and that it was such a good format and and it has stayed true to who you are in over seven years. And it's a format that works so well when other people are trying to replicate it, they just can't because it really is so perfect to you and to the way that you invite guests to kind of share and have a space to talk about. I think everybody's looking for a space to talk about it, but they have and you incorporate it into the thing. And I love that for that. I remember that being so fine because at the time I, I hated Go Set a Watchman so much.

Jamie Golden [00:15:33] And I wanted to hate on Ready Player One so it was perfect. But, you know, I think because I, I was there for maybe like a month, month and a half ish. And I remember Jamie, they were really trying to, like, accelerate the monetization of what we were doing. But also I was like, I'm not needed here, you know, because I think my gift as a producer and editor is content editing. And I remember listening to like the first ten or 11 and just like I'm just cutting like ums and stuff. She doesn't need it. Someone else can do this. She's fine. If I leave, it's not going to collapse. It's actually going to get better. So I'm more than happy to be able to walk away from this.

Anne Bogel [00:16:08] Okay. So, Jamie, in 2015, you hated Go Set a Watchman, which had just come out like four or five months before. That was a book of the moment, for sure.

Jamie Golden [00:16:17] It was. It was. And, you know, obviously, I'm a resident of Alabama. Harper Lee is an iconic we have very few iconic Alabamians. And so I love her desperately. But that and it's true today. I do not like books that are money grabs and that was a money grab book. And I stand by that when you see people on the Internet who get book deals and you're like, Oh, that's that's interesting. I've never read a caption from you that made that makes sense. So that's amazing that you got a book deal, huh? That's that's weird. I to this day, do not like money grab books unless listen. And I want people to have a be a beach house like girl, wash your bed. Get yourself a beach house. But for me, it can be very frustrating. And that book to me was a publisher wanting to do a money grab off a woman who was dying. So I. And it was not good. I'll stand by that. It was not good.

Anne Bogel [00:17:06] It was phenomenally effective. If those are your goals, but well, I'm glad that you could have the cathartic experience of, like, bashing it on what Should I Read Next?

Jamie Golden [00:17:14] Yes thank you. Thank you.

Anne Bogel [00:17:15] The books you loved, you loved Persuasion. You're already on the record, jane Austen Fan for Life. Me Before You and 11/22/63. Did those books still represent your reading life?

Jamie Golden [00:17:26] 100%. I love a solid romance that's well done and well executed. I love a book in a weird setting. 11/22/63 that has. I love a book with tension and page turner elements that really the plot is moving you fast. And I love a classic. I do. I really do love a classic. And so those books are true to who I am today as much as they were seven years ago.

Anne Bogel [00:17:51] Knox, since you were behind the scenes for the first 11, of course, we had to bring you back about a year later. So you were first on What Should I Read Next in episode 71 called and I think this is a quote out of your mouth, A Super Elegant Apocalypse. It aired in 2017, and you love Station Eleven, Before The Fall, and a Secret History. And we know you hated, really hated Ready Player One and needed to talk about that with your big feelings. So I want to know, do those books still represent who you are as a reader?

Jamie Golden [00:18:17] Yeah, you know, I think so. I think even I guess earlier this year, Sea of Tranquility was a green light of mine, Emily St. John Mandel. And I just. I don't always love time jumps our time, multiple timelines. It's one of those things where you either do a terrible, you do it great. And I think she does it great. So I really like that aspect. And man, you put somebody on a boat or a plane and put them over water. I'm in. I'm all in. Gretta, I'm forgetting the name of the another book, some the great, The Unsinkable Gretta James I think.

Anne Bogel [00:18:48] Oh yeah, the Jennifer E. Smith one, her first adult.

Jamie Golden [00:18:51] I love that. I love anything like that. So Before The Fall, you know, it's not as bubbly as Gretta James, but...

Anne Bogel [00:18:57] Oh no, not quite.

Jamie Golden [00:18:59] Anything like that. Like, it reminds me of The Anomaly which I also read this year, And really, really liked. Or stuff set in high school or college with students. Although I did read If We Were Villains, I think I didn't. I didn't enjoy that as much. But yeah, I think for the most part that represents.

Anne Bogel [00:19:13] Well there was no water.

Jamie Golden [00:19:14] There wasn't water, there was some intrigue. But yeah...

Anne Bogel [00:19:16] I mean, it was set in Chicago right by Lake Michigan. So that was a real missed opportunity. Like to really, like, perfect it for you.

Jamie Golden [00:19:22] I agree. I agree.

Anne Bogel [00:19:23] If you had to choose books today - three loves, one hate. Sometimes we don't use the word hate. We just talk about a book that doesn't work for you. But Knox I mean, I want to hear about a book that you hate today. What would you choose?

Jamie Golden [00:19:37] I'm worried because I feel like this is kind of a beloved book. And I did. I read, I read it and even like halfway through I was like, I'm loving this. I'm freaking love this book. And then I got to the end and I decided I hated it, actually. And it is. We Were Liars. I hate this book.

Anne Bogel [00:19:51] I've never read that book.

Jamie Golden [00:19:53] Okay? It's like people have strong opinions on it. But if you are someone who is oblivious to the subtext of a story and there's a plot twists happening that you can tell, it's happening at page ten that gets paid off in a very underwhelming way. That's the book for you. We Were Liars, so I just didn't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it at all. And I'm not someone who's like, Oh, I can tell what's going to happen. I never understand what's happening. I'm always like, Oh my gosh, plot twist. I didn't see that coming. But when I can see it coming from page ten on, I think you failed as a writer.

Anne Bogel [00:20:25] That's so me. Like, I'm not often, like, trying to look for the twist. Yes, I just want to enjoy the story. But you can't help thinking about a little is your reading. I'm not good at that. And if I can guess that, it's not a good thing.

Jamie Golden [00:20:36] That's right.

Anne Bogel [00:20:38] Knox What about the books you love?

Jamie Golden [00:20:40] The books I love, I'm going to go just from this year, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow. It's not just like one of your books is one of my favorite of all time. Just the different the creativity in that book of the sort between two people and not turning it into a romantic story, but also using all the different storytelling methods to convey the relationship so good. We Are The Life by Matthew Quick and Now's Not The Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson. I love all of these books so much.

Anne Bogel [00:21:05] Recent Greenlights on The Popcast.

Jamie Golden [00:21:06] Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Anne Bogel [00:21:07] Jamie, what about you? So you came back in 2018 for episode 114, Missed Bookstore Connections, which is a direct Tom Hanks reference that's so perfectly appropriate for you. Readers you just have to go listen. So you have gone to update your books a little more recently, But I mean, today, three books you love, one book you don't.

Jamie Golden [00:21:25] Well, and they still fall in that same category of what I loved in that episode one, which is I love Lessons In chemistry, mine are to this year as well. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, I mean the dog. I can't, I just can't. And the fact that it's been adapted and is going to star one of my favorite Brie Larson, one of my favorite actresses. I'm so excited. And then River Woman, River Demon by Jennifer Gibbon. Just the tenseness, the like. You don't know what's going to happen, but I love it when you're telling a bigger story separate from just the mystery or the thriller element of it. So I loved that book. And then I love a I am a nonfiction documentary. Just I just ride hard for this. And so any book that is going to tell me a story that I maybe haven't fully understood. And so this year and it was a beloved book by many is South to America by Imani Perry.

Jamie Golden [00:22:17] That's a good one.

Jamie Golden [00:22:18] Like I loved, yeah so much. And then the book I hated and I mean it I mean it and I to every person that gave it five stars on Goodreads. I need you to come and meet me for a cappuccino and we can talk about what you saw that I did not see because it got 4.3 stars, over 100,000 ratings. And that is the Handmaiden by Frida McFadden. Frida, this book is so one node, every character is node. Oh, she's fat. And that's it. That's what that's what I know about the mother. Okay, great. And the dad is. Where's the trenchcoat? God, what an awful book. I was so mad. And then I was mad at myself because I needed to finish it because I was like, Well, I do need to know what happens. Does she get stuck in that room? What happens? I don't know. Does she make out with the gardener? I don't know. And it was horrible. It was a horrible book.

Jamie Golden [00:23:08] Did she make out with the gardener? Not a spoiler?

Jamie Golden [00:23:10] No, no.

Jamie Golden [00:23:11] She didn't make out with gardener? Ridiculous. Jamie, have you ever made out with a gardener?

Jamie Golden [00:23:16] Oh, 100%. You know what I am for gardeners. There's just something about...

Jamie Golden [00:23:23] Revise. Revise. Have you met a gardener you haven't made out with?

Jamie Golden [00:23:24] Oh, yeah. My current gardener. Although I'm going to be honest with you. When I told him I was an Alabama fan, he seemed to like it. I think. I think I could do it if I needed to.

Jamie Golden [00:23:32] Keep us posted.

Anne Bogel [00:23:33] Now, is that the classic I'm wanting in my reading life, or is that the romance Jamie? Which genre you seem to slot into? Is this is this a tale for all time, or is this like devour it in an afternoon and then forget about it.

Jamie Golden [00:23:45] This is a thriller. This is a mystery thriller. This is an open door romance.

Jamie Golden [00:23:47] That's right. And I was gonna say, I heard this is an open door book. That's what I heard.

Jamie Golden [00:23:50] 100%. Oh, my gosh. So many open doors things.

Knox McCoy [00:23:54] The genre on Amazon. If you're looking for starts with an 'E', that's all I'll say.

Jamie Golden [00:23:57] Tessa Dare's gonna write this book. That's how. Courtney Milan is going to write this book. That's how great it's going to be.

Anne Bogel [00:24:02] I look forward to featuring this on a future episode of What Should I Read Next? So you know what we do around here? We ask readers three books they love and one book they don't. So it's our birthday. Because it's our birthday. I want to keep with our format. And here are three things you love and one thing you don't about podcasting.

Jamie Golden [00:24:19] I would say, first, I love the lack of institutional control, yet, you know, it's still kind of the old the Wild West a little bit. There's no one who's like, You have to do it like this. It has to sound like this. NPR had NPR voice for a little bit, but I feel like we like we've never abided by that and we're okay. I'm so I like the freedom that that entails. I also like the creative opportunity. It can be as creative as you want it to be. And I love that aspect. I think even like this year we were able to do a behind the scenes of a live show tour episode that was so creatively fulfilling for me, but just being able to be like, Hey, I have an idea. I want to use audio. I want to kind of like tell a story around it, Can we do that? And everyone be like, Yeah, not only can we do that, we'll help support this, but that was great. And even like, you know, we did a episode about Hallmark movies and the ability to write fake scripts and do like a voice talent performing the fake scripts use them in the episode. It's a testament to how creative our staff is, but just I love the that the form of podcasting is so fluid and flexible that we could do that in our listeners. Like that was fun. Like not be like, I can't believe you didn't take a commercial break here or do something weird. And then the last one, I would probably say this tends to get a bad rap because I feel like people only say the word parasocial in a negative way, but I think I do actually like that because it's a way to find connection with people without like messaging them. Be like, Hey, do you want to be friends? You know, they can just listen to you and be like, We kind of have the same sensibility and in a healthy way. I really actually enjoy the parasocial aspect of it.

Anne Bogel [00:25:53] Yeah, I'm just nodding along to all of those and I want everyone to know how good those two episodes you call that were the one about the Hallmark movies and the one about like the documentary style one about your live shows. I think I listen to that twice as a podcaster is so impressive and so well done.

Jamie Golden [00:26:09] It was so great. Just the staff gave us so much good audio to use. And again, just to how talented that our staff is to be able to make that compelling content so shouts to them.

Anne Bogel [00:26:18] Although one of the upshots of that episode is now I think about you all. It really weird times like when my daughter got to fly in her subway sandwich.

Jamie Golden [00:26:25] Oh man, that's not good. Did you make a rap song about it as well?

Anne Bogel [00:26:28] I didn't, but I did think about Evan and his ladybug act. Where was it? Was it Outback?

Jamie Golden [00:26:33] Outback Steakhouse?

Jamie Golden [00:26:34] Yeah. Where? When you travel across the globe, you found that Outback. It was actually excellent. Don't hate on Outback.

Anne Bogel [00:26:42] Jamie, what about you? What do you love about podcasting?

Jamie Golden [00:26:45] Well, you know, I was a podcast listener first before I was a podcaster. And so I love that you can literally find any niche topic anywhere on the globe. Something funny, like I love Maintenance Faze, something to inform. I love Fat Mascara about beauty and skincare, and then, of course, to inspire our friend Emily Freeman, who makes The Next Right Thing. These are shows that are so well done that, again, come from like not stem from an independent place where people just were like, hey, I have this slight expertise in this area. Let me talk about this thing. And then those two rise to the top. I love that. I also love like Knox about with the Parasocial. I love that you get to find a group of folks who enjoy the same freakin weird stuff you enjoy. Like dude, are they obsessed with are Tom and Zendaya engaged? Yes. Let's talk about it. Do they like your obsession with Chris Pine and how unhealthy it is? Yes, I love that. Do they love What We Do In The Shadows, even though Knox doesn't love it as much as I love it? Yes, I can find my people who love that. And so I love that. I love the kindred spirit component of it. And then I really love the quick take chaos of it all. Now, do you end up in a lot of beef with celebrities sometimes? Yes. But I really enjoy that it's genuinely a fun way to make a living. It's genuinely fun and it's hard work and we work hard. But like our staff is a delight. We have a good time and it's one of our core values as a company is to like, genuinely have a good time. And we do. And I love that part of it. So.

Anne Bogel [00:28:14] I resonate with all that so much except for the maybe getting in kerfuffles with celebrities. That hasn't really happened in our particular line of podcasting, but maybe one day you never know.

Jamie Golden [00:28:26] You know, I'm not producing for you anymore, but can I give you a note? Maybe like in 2023. Think about, like, start some feuds with some with some, like high profile authors, you know, just like, put it out there and be like, get some coverage.

Anne Bogel [00:28:35] Just a Twitter war for the like, all press is good press.

Jamie Golden [00:28:38] Yeah. Just be like Stephen King sucks, you know? And maybe he should come on my show and talk about it. You know? Interesting.

Jamie Golden [00:28:45] You can be like Colleen Hoover sells too many books. Why are you all reading Colleen Hoover? What's going on?

Jamie Golden [00:28:48] Is she making too many books to sell a lot of? That's a good question that we should talk about. Yeah.

Jamie Golden [00:28:54] Yeah going to the mattresses Anne.

Jamie Golden [00:28:55] You can take either of those Anne. Free charge.

Anne Bogel [00:28:57] All right. Well, stay tuned in 2023. We'll see how that unfolds. But for my loves, yes, I get to talk about books for my job in endlessly new like always fresh conversations. We're always talking about books and reading, and it's always something different. And I love that. And I could just stop there. But also I don't have to stop there. I am fascinated by what people do and the choices they make, like in any aspect of their life. And I feel like I didn't realize this at first. I thought this was like a healthy intellectual curiosity. But another way to perhaps look at that is I just love to snoop in other people's business, in this case, their book business. And because of my job, people actually come to me and ask me to do that. They say, Anne here is all my dirty laundry and also some of the stuff that I would like feel really good about. And I proud of him. I successes and wins. But also sometimes they're like, Oh my gosh, this is a mess. What does it look like to you? Help me sort it out. I love playing book therapist like I want to be Lucy Van Pelt in the booth with the sign over my head all day long. And then what both of you all said not to sound totally cheesy, but I do really love the intimacy and connection of the medium. And sometimes this comes up in really funny ways, like when I'll get a text or DM from a reader who's listening to What Should I Read Next? And they'll ping me. And it is clear that they feel like we are in the middle of a conversation because they've had my voice in their ears and we're just we're talking, we're talking about something that matters. And like so on Media Ray I get this comment about something that I maybe said a year and a half ago. If they're going through a back list, which I love, never stop listeners listen on the back list, but I love how that's really a testament to how people feel like they know you, they feel like they're in conversation with you and like I'm recording at home. I was gonna say in my slippers, I'm wearing sneakers today, so high fives to me, seven years professional now, but often I'm podcasting at home in my slippers. People are listening while they walk or drive or wash their makeup off at the end of the night. And even though we're alone in our houses doing our thing, we still feel so connected. And I love how that's possible with podcasting.

Jamie Golden [00:30:59] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jamie Golden [00:31:01] I love that you can be a podcaster and listen to podcasts without wearing pants. It is magical. Like right now. Who knows if Anne pants on? I don't know. I can't see. And I like that. I like a no pants job. What a gift.

Anne Bogel [00:31:14] It is a gift.

Anne Bogel [00:31:17] Okay. I'm about to ask you something you hate about podcasting. And I got to confess, I could come up with a longer list than I thought I could.

Jamie Golden [00:31:26] Uh oh. Uh oh. Someone has feeling. Love this. Let's go.

Anne Bogel [00:31:29] All right, Knox, what do you think?

Jamie Golden [00:31:30] When I saw this, I had two initial things. Number one, the discovery of them. I feel like the discovery is so limited right now. It's really just word of mouth. There's not a good apparatus. It's like, if you like this, you should probably like this. And I think related to that, the coverage of podcasts, it feels so limited. For something that has been pretty established and I think most the coverage seems to be pretty focused on celebrity shows or like lofty ideas, important ideas, you know, And I think those are good. But there's also a whole genre and the whole like subsection of podcasts that are doing interesting and creative work. And I think even, you know, there's I'm thinking the first person who, like really made a name for themselves covering podcasts, and I feel like they despise the medium. If like it was like, I can't believe I'm doing this instead of something else. And they they brought that energy to it. So I wish there was more of a robust offering of perspectives. And even like, you know, I think specific to both of our shows, someone talked about the business of podcasting in a way that's not like Jason Bateman and his buddies got like a bunch of millions to do the show. It was like, how do people who aren't, you know, super hot and famous, how do they make that work? I would be interested in listening to stuff like that.

Anne Bogel [00:32:36] And I'm just going to call out an episode that you did a couple years ago now called The Business of The Popcast that like that did astoundingly well on Apple charts, didn't it? And I think that's why because people want to know. People don't understand that, like my mom and my mother in law, how do they buy their groceries? Are my grandkids okay? They seem to be clothed and fed, but like, can I be sure that this is going to continue? I'm going to point them to your episode. I don't know why I didn't do that before Knox.

Knox McCoy [00:33:00] You're right. I think there's a lot of interest in intrigue and how it works. So I don't know if we'll do another one of those again, but I think it is a it's a fascinating to make as it is to listen to. I would say.

Anne Bogel [00:33:09] Jamie, what about you?

Knox McCoy [00:33:10] Well, you know, this might be specific to us. We have a primarily female audience, which we love that again, it pays our mortgage. So we're very grateful for that. But what happens a lot to us in public so people will sweetly come up to you. And I literally was on a trip in Italy, and a person came up in the Rome airport and was like, Hey, I'm a BFOTS. I listen to The Popcast and it was so precious and lovely and, you know, and I had been on a plane for 9 hours and looked great, looks great. But I will say there are often men who will seek us out to specifically tell us that their wife loves the show and they think that is being the most generous compliment of their lives. Like, Hey, my wife she like loves you.

Knox McCoy [00:33:56] But I don't listen. My wife listens.

Knox McCoy [00:33:58] I don't listen because I'm too busy listening to Joe Rogan. But she is really into you guys and your voice is in our house all the time. It's like just just say, Hey, our house loves The Popcast. Like, that's all you have.

Knox McCoy [00:34:11] You can do that.

Jamie Golden [00:34:11] You don't have to you don't have to go out of your way to be like, I would never listen because I've got TV or movies, what a waste of time. I wish we didn't even have a television. Listen. Like calm down, calm down.

Knox McCoy [00:34:23] Also, Jamie true or false, you may or may not have almost run over a listener in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot. Care to comment on that?

Jamie Golden [00:34:29] That is a true story. And she leaned out the window and did not curse me out. And just like I'm a BFOT, I would have been honored to be hit by you and your car. It was very nice. I would say the other thing, you know, to speak to us is we're not a huge fan of celebrities who start podcast because it always feels like you can't get an acting gig.

Knox McCoy [00:34:49] Feels like their safety school, you know?

Jamie Golden [00:34:51] Yeah. And so then it to me what it does is it, it reduces what and I think there are some celebrities who do make some great podcasts, but for the most part it is a since we can't get a gig and I'm dating a property potato brother, then should I just recap the show I used to be on ten years ago and those were really successful. So I also maybe I'm frustrated with podcasts listeners.

Knox McCoy [00:35:14] And I'll do this until I get like a Sharknado movie and then I'll just bounce in as I'm not super committed to it, but it's like I understand the reality of it, of brand awareness. Like would you rather try and understand to this to where people are that are not famous or it's, you know, A.C. Slater from Saved By the Bell is doing a podcast. Well, I understand that is and I'll listen to that. So I understand the appeal of it, but it's like, I don't know, it's annoying. It's just annoying. It's just basically annoying is that it's not okay to say is that fair? Because I think it is.

Anne Bogel [00:35:39] I think that's fair. Okay, So Spicy takes over later. But still, I always get asked how I feel about celebrity book clubs. And just generally speaking, I think the consolidation of power, interest money in the media industry, it's not good. It's not good for readers, it's not good for listeners, it's not good for the landscape.

Jamie Golden [00:35:56] Who do you hate more, Jenna Hager or Reese Witherspoon?

Anne Bogel [00:35:59] Oh.

Knox McCoy [00:36:00] Great question, Jamie. That's a great question.

Anne Bogel [00:36:01] I couldn't tell you what either of them have picked for the past three months. I mean, not to brag, but...

Jamie Golden [00:36:06] Is that the shadiest shade Anne has ever given?

Knox McCoy [00:36:09] I thought she was going to avoid answering, but that answer is probably the most savage one that she could give.

Jamie Golden [00:36:13] Brutal.

Anne Bogel [00:36:13] But I do know that when I see like, Oh. Jenna picked this book. My tastes do tend to align with her as more than some of the other celebrity books.

Knox McCoy [00:36:23] Is that because you think they're bad like trash just as people? Or do you think they are more prone to being influenced by connections, friendships, relationships, to recommend certain things?

Anne Bogel [00:36:33] Well, I know that the literary agents I talk to say it's super political. Like Jenna Bush Hager is not sitting in a room with a stack of novels saying what she likes best.

Knox McCoy [00:36:41] How dare you? And how dare you? She is a reader and a leader, I believe.

Anne Bogel [00:36:46] She's a reader and a leader. I mean, look, I need somebody to help me sort through like my teetering stack of 200 books over there in the corner that I might cover. So I totally get it. But, yeah, I don't know what that is. I mean, I love how it is the Wild West and when a bunch of celebrities start podcast because they can't get into a C film that does less like the Wild West and more like the old ways of doing things that we maybe didn't love.

Knox McCoy [00:37:08] Mm hmm.

Anne Bogel [00:37:09] All right. So we on our show talk about three things we love and one thing we don't and I didn't really realize until maybe yesterday how similar that is to your all's podcast style. I mean, you have a way to talk about things you love and hate, and one of you also to tell us about it.

Jamie Golden [00:37:22] So we have a topic, a main topic for the episode, and then we do let's do some lights and we do red lights and green lights. And our red lights can be specific to pop culture. It can just be Knox being in a weapons or fistfight with a neighbor.

Knox McCoy [00:37:36] Who knows?

Jamie Golden [00:37:37] Who knows? Yeah. So who knows where it's going to go? And then our green light is always something pop culture that we've loved a book, a movie, a TV show, a podcast, an album, something that we've really loved because we are trying to create a curation. So, like, you can go to knoxandjamie.com and you can see our greenlights sorted by genre, sorted by who recommended it because we we do know how hard it is when there are hundreds and hundreds just like books. There are hundreds and hundreds of TV shows being made every year. How do you know what's good? How do you not waste your time? We're hoping to help in that way.

Anne Bogel [00:38:08] I love it. Can we do some lights?

Jamie Golden [00:38:11] Let's do some lights.

Anne Bogel [00:38:12] Okay. So I would love to hear some green lights from Knox, do you want to get us started? And I brought mine as well.

Knox McCoy [00:38:18] Absolutely. So I'll go broad and then I go specific. The first one I'm going to say really thoughtful, produced audiobook experiences. I remember this, this moment a couple of years ago, but Reading Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell, it wasn't just, you know, most audiobooks are just like, I'm reading the text boom. And then, This was an Audible Production and that's it. But I think when you listen to Daisy Jones and the Six or Bomber Mafia or something like that, you see the opportunity and potential of what if you just thought a little bit more about this, What if you played with the sound shaping a little bit? What if you used different voices and cast that a little bit? I think that's the next frontier that we're really going to see blown out. But you can tell a difference when someone really cares about that aspect versus when they're just like reading the words and like trying to get that done with. So I love a really thoughtfully produced audiobook experience. And then speaking of that, a recent green light and a book I loved is Liberation Day by George Saunders. I just love George Saunders in general. True stories in general. So this is a great fit for me. But you know, he reads part of it. Jenny Slate is in there. Tina Fey, Michael McKean, Jack McBrayer, Stephen Roots, and they're just really great voice contributions to this really clever short story set up. So those two are my biggest greenlights that I've got.

Anne Bogel [00:39:32] Those sound amazing. Also Liberation Day has been hanging out in my library app for forever and I haven't started it yet, so thank you.

Knox McCoy [00:39:38] I think it's a much better listen than a read just because there's just aspects, the little nuances of the story that I think are best experienced audibly versus with the words.

Anne Bogel [00:39:48] I'm here for it.

Jamie Golden [00:39:49] I'm going to go broad as well and book related. The enemies to lovers trope, put it in my literary veins. Listen to me and look the word lovers. As Liz Lemon has said, it does buy me out unless it's between the words 'meat' and 'pizza'. But look, like I mentioned, Me Before You, Pride and Prejudice, The Hating Game, Beach Read, The Unhoneymooners. Like I love it so much. The movies if you're looking, if you're somebody like me who loves any enemies to lovers, Palm Springs, Set It Up, how to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, Leap Year. An underrated movie that I genuinely love. Warm Bodies. You want a vampire? Enemies to lovers? Let's go. When I get a happily ever after from that, like I am looking forward to the next season of Bridgerton because they have become enemies.

Knox McCoy [00:40:37] I was gonna ask. I feel like Bridgerton. The whole premise is we gonna hate each other and then we gonna love each other.

Jamie Golden [00:40:41] Oh my gosh. And we're going to rip our clothes off in a gazebo. Yes I love it.

Knox McCoy [00:40:46] To show we burn for you. And we just got stung by bee. We'll breathe each other's mouth's really...

Jamie Golden [00:40:49] God. I'm going to reach for your hand as you get into a carriage, and then I'm gonna [Inaudible].

Knox McCoy [00:40:53] Incredible.

Jamie Golden [00:40:53] God, that's my. That's my drug of choice, for sure.

Anne Bogel [00:40:57] Well, I would say I haven't watched that yet, but now I don't need to right? That's everything.

Knox McCoy [00:41:00] You don't need to. You don't need to. Yeah, it's good.

Jamie Golden [00:41:02] No, you don't. You know, Or you can just, you know, find the scenes on TikTok. Save them. You know what I mean?

Anne Bogel [00:41:07] Jamie, you said earlier you hated a money grab, So I'm going to share a book that came into my house that at first I thought was a money grab, and I might have kind of sighed and rolled my eyes to my husband and been like, Oh, now she's really popular in the US. Like she had a book nominated for the Booker. It's now they're going to go publish some story that's ten years old just to make some money. But then I read it and I was like, Oops, never mind. So I'm going to choose as my Green Light reissued editions of older works like Claire Keegan's Foster, which was just published in late 2022 in the U.S. for the first time. I'm sorry, I thought it was a money grab, but it turns out it is a gift to readers everywhere looking for good stuff and who want more of a certain kind of story that's modern. Like the characters are pretty contemporary, but it has an old fashioned sensibility and her stories are really shorts. Oh my gosh. Can that be a corollary Green Light? Short works that just deliver so much emotional bang for the buck? Nella Larsen's Passing, another one that got like the new McMillan Tiny Blue adorable Edition treatment. And is it a new book? No. Are they promoting it like it is? Yes. But is that still a service to readers who, like, really appreciate these older works when they haven't been put in front of them? Because like, people aren't always going to go digging for the stuff they want to read, right? Like because all the new books are on bookstagram. But as these new books are coming out and it's causing readers to read great stuff that's been around a while, they're discovering for the first time, I'm going to say I'll be generous with a not a money grab but a service to readers.

Knox McCoy [00:42:34] I think that's a great point of like, there's so much coming out all the time if you just want to like reintroduce them to me because maybe I was busy in 2021 and like, I didn't see in like November what came out. If you want to like hit me up, back up with that. I'm okay with that. I'm okay.

Anne Bogel [00:42:50] Like, I got to tell you, one of the tensions of like being a podcaster in this space and probably you on the pop culture space is part of me thinks, well, if you wanted to find a certain thing, you would go find it. But most of me in my brain lives in the real world and knows that's not how it works. Like I need someone to say Anne here, let me put this in front of you and explain it to you carefully and tell you why you will love it. Like, that's really what I need to hear. And part of what I feel like we do on our show.

Knox McCoy [00:43:14] Yeah, I think now more than ever, people just need direction and not expertise, like artistically, but just like you and listen, you're never going to be a peacock, you're just not, so don't like, don't sign up for it.

Anne Bogel [00:43:24] So my next one is tangentially book related. I mean, you can buy in a bookstore, but it's completely podcast related. And that is I have a Rhodia Reverse Notebook, without which I don't think this podcast would be possible. It enables me to think and have thoughts to share when talking to people and What Should I Read Next? It's eight and a quarter inch square spiral bound. I like dot grid option, but you can get a graph paper version as well. The paper is fine and a little bit slick. It's got a sheen to it, which basically means you can write really fast and take notes about the book you don't want to forget to recommend 20 minutes from now or that topic you want to circle back to. And I love it so much.

Knox McCoy [00:44:00] I have a functional question. So when you're reading, you're like that. You have that next to you and you're like, this is a great page or line?

Anne Bogel [00:44:06] Oh no, this is a podcasting and meeting notebook Knox. This is not a reading notebook. That's ridiculous.

Knox McCoy [00:44:12] Can you walk me through the reading notebook like situation? Like, what do you do? Are you just like, no, I'm reading. I'm not like, note taking or are you like, here's like how I if you want to go back to something, what what's your process to do that?

Anne Bogel [00:44:23] Okay, this sounds like a dedicated episode of What Should I Read Next?

Knox McCoy [00:44:26] I'm sorry.

Anne Bogel [00:44:29] We're total nerds. We can talk about this stuff for hours and hours and hours. I read a lot more on my Kindle than I used to. Especially I read a lot more e galleys of books that haven't come out. I used to read most of those in print, so I've become like, surprisingly to me, a big fan of that highlight section, because you can search, you can scan, you can export. I love it. But other than that, I do write freely in books, though only books that actually belong to me. No writing in library books around here. I love book darts. And if something is really important, if I think I want to write a blog post about this than my high tech system, as I email myself a picture of the page that says Anne...

Knox McCoy [00:45:02] Nice.

Anne Bogel [00:45:03] ...you Want to write a blog. I know. Nice super high tech. You want to write a blog post about this and this is your exact idea. And here's the spot on the page that I'm gearing you towards. Because otherwise the things that seem so genius, like in the moment, I totally forget by the next day.

Knox McCoy [00:45:15] No, I think that's a really smart way to go about it, because when we bought our most recent house, it was older and the family had kind of taken it over as an estate situation. And there was a huge book collection and we bought it like as a part of the house. And in the margins there's all these like little notes and it's my favorite thing to go back and all these super old books and like, read them.

Anne Bogel [00:45:34] It's a good thing I didn't know that house was for Sale or I might have bought your house just for that library.

Knox McCoy [00:45:38] How dare you. How dare you.

Anne Bogel [00:45:39] Move to Tennessee just for it.

Knox McCoy [00:45:41] I'll bottom page dog ear a page where I'm like, That's a great paragraph or That's a great idea. So if I'm ever like looking for something to read and I see like a like a book with bottom page dog years, I'll just go look at that page and reread like whatever inspired me because I can't think of another because I just don't want to read a book with a pen and like a paper that feels like homework.

Jamie Golden [00:46:00] Well, and I want to commend you and for not being like the thing I use is called My Reading Life. Colon by Anne Bogel, which I really love because I haven't I haven't always kept track of my books. I just read it and then put it in a notes app and say this is a green light for the future. And I'll put the date. Like, if it is an ARC, I'll say, okay, this is going to be in March, you know, But I don't always keep track as well. And I love those people who have like one of your staffers, Lee, who she just keeps everything just so beautifully kind of tracked. And I love that.

Knox McCoy [00:46:33] You know what Jamie because you're like, if it's meant to be with me, it'll say my heart. Okay, I want to go back to it. It'll be here forever with me.

Jamie Golden [00:46:39] That's right. And forget the ADHD that I even read that book. That's right. That's right.

Anne Bogel [00:46:44] My heart is tickled like that and not to be trusted. See, the thing is, in my reading life, sometimes I'll read a quote in a book and I'll be like, Yes, I want to remember that forever, and I'll go write it down immediately. But usually it's not clear if that's going to be like one of the top six quotes in the whole book that I want to stay forever until I get to the end. So that's my process. At the end I go through, I'm like, Which of these quotes do we really want to keep?

Knox McCoy [00:47:07] Oh, no, I'm done. Last word. Gone out of here. Get to The Bookshelf. I'm moving on, baby.

Jamie Golden [00:47:11] Bye bye. Another one of my reading Greenlights is I am very much into journalist who write long form nonfiction, and that has been my. And this year one of my favorite books was that Rachel Aviv wrote Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds On The Stories That Make Us. And she's a writer at The New Yorker, and she just did this beautiful book about how do people handle crisis and stress, particularly when it comes to their mental health, because she herself was put in an institution at age six, and it is such a fantastic book, but it's also Patrick Radden Keefe. It's five Days of Memorial, Bad Blood, she said. The Yellow House, The Escape Artist, A recent green light on The Popcast, Anything by Jon Krakauer You know, I just really love the way that journalist I mean, some of them are better authors. They're writing better fiction in nonfiction than some fiction writers are.

Knox McCoy [00:48:01] Even like Michael Lewis. It's just like when he's doing something like, I mean, whatever, like, let's do it.

Jamie Golden [00:48:05] Oh, Michael Lewis for life. Yes.

Anne Bogel [00:48:07] I got to ask, do you enjoy doing the red lights as much as the green lights? More than the green lights.

Knox McCoy [00:48:12] More. Yeah, green lights. Just like here's some of I'm an information broker with red lights. I'm a passion broker. You know what I mean? Like, that's what I'm doing here. So, yeah, I take a lot of happiness in that.

Anne Bogel [00:48:22] Bring it Knox. What did you bring?

Knox McCoy [00:48:24] I'll do a baby one in a grown adult person one I don't like it when characters are dialoguing and they keep saying each other's name like if you like. Anne I don't like when characters are dialoging Anne and when they keep saying their name Anne. I just felt like, that's so weird and stupid. And people don't talk like that in real life. And it takes me out of it and it makes me annoyed. And I also, grown adult person, red light is I don't understand why the publishing industry makes you buy the physical book and also makes you buy the audiobook separately. Why are we not bundling that? That is an experience that should be experienced together, but they are cash grabbing it and separating it and it makes me so mad. I don't understand it.

Jamie Golden [00:48:54] Capitalism.

Knox McCoy [00:48:55] Yeah.

Anne Bogel [00:48:55] Oh my gosh. Capitalism is actually listed as one of my red lights.

Knox McCoy [00:48:59] Wow. Just like for this show, or like in life.

Anne Bogel [00:49:02] Well, probably in life, but for this show.

Knox McCoy [00:49:04] I love it. Okay.

Anne Bogel [00:49:06] I'm still processing the fact you used dialoguing as a verb. I like that.

Knox McCoy [00:49:09] Okay. Okay.

Anne Bogel [00:49:10] Yeah. You know, characters just dialoguing.

Knox McCoy [00:49:12] It almost sounds like you were trying to attack me Anne. To be honest with you.

Jamie Golden [00:49:16] You did.

Knox McCoy [00:49:16] Thank you Jamie for confirming and back me up. I did use it as a verb, and I just don't like it Anne when people say that, they're thinking about something Anne. And then Jamie, I don't know if you agree with that, Jamie, but when Anne was thinking it's just like it's too much names. Yeah, we know each other, babe. Why are we doing this? Ridiculous.

Jamie Golden [00:49:32] You slept together in the previous chapter.

Knox McCoy [00:49:34] There's an open door scene where it was a gardener and you and you know each other. I know you do biblically and like authentically.

Jamie Golden [00:49:40] That's right. For me. Okay, so my Red Light, book related is a book set in the woods. Here's the thing. Let me tell you, nobody's been to the woods. I know that you are listening right now. You're like, Oh, no, I have totally been to the woods? No, You went to an art festival in a preserve that is not the woods. You wore Adidas slides on a marked path in a state park. You did not go to the woods.

Knox McCoy [00:50:02] What if it's magical in the woods? Do you like that?

Jamie Golden [00:50:03] No, no, Listen to me. You look on Good Reads right now. And you search for Woods in the title. It's 26,000 books because authors think the woods, they're like. And I get it. Like, I do get that the woods lends itself to like maybe like horror, bears, a woodsman who's going to put an ax in your back. And I mean that both ways. You know what I mean, but also I get enchanted with like, we're all like, Oh, no, let's go. Let's build a ten book series on these elves. I get it. But I just think. Would you be interested in these elves if they were at a Trader Joe's and they were getting the last of the cookies?

Knox McCoy [00:50:39] The elves in the condominium. It would still be a story.

Jamie Golden [00:50:42] That's right. And I get that. Like, we're like, No, but sometimes it's a forest. Now that's a classy it's still Winnie the Pooh. He has no pants on in the forest. Okay. And then Red Riding Hood. I think that's the perfect example of how dumb the woods are. First of all, they don't even give her a name. She's named after what she's wearing. I'm going to be named Spanx Leggings. It goes to the woods. No, that's ridiculous. So it's for me, it's a red light across the board. I would rather like Knox. I'd rather be in a plane on an island. I'd rather be even than, like, in a weird.

Knox McCoy [00:51:14] You wanna be in the desert?

Jamie Golden [00:51:16] I like a desert. Yeah, yeah. I like an apocalypse. But listen, don't. No one's in the woods.

Anne Bogel [00:51:22] So, Jamie, I thought this was just about you not wanting to be outside. And at first, I thought we were going in different directions. But that is where we ended up, right?

Jamie Golden [00:51:29] How dare you. Just because I'm indoorsy. Just because I'm indoorsy versus outdoorsy.

Anne Bogel [00:51:34] I respect that. It's fine. I mean, the last book I read set in the woods, people got murdered. I mean, I guess that can be a good story, but it doesn't make me want to go in the woods.

Jamie Golden [00:51:41] These Authors are all acting like they've been to the woods. They haven't been to the woods either. They drove through a national forest on an interstate like they've not been there, just like I have. And that's what I think is happening. It's kind of like the Gospels in the Bible. None of them write their own. They just wrote what Mark read. And they were like, I'm gonna add a flourish like that. Things nice. Mark did the one book and then everybody else built off of Mark's book. That is what's happened. One person wrote a woods book and they're like, Well, that seems like what the woods are like, so I'm not even going to go there. I'm going to stay in my no pants guest room where I write books and I'm going to pretend that I went.

Knox McCoy [00:52:15] Shout out to Jamie for dropping a low key Plato's allegory of the cave right now, but not like needing to say it's allegory of the cave, you know, so like, just credit you.

Jamie Golden [00:52:23] I knew that you knew it and you would eventually say, cause I was like, What books have ever been written about the woods? All of them, But none of them I can't remember.

Anne Bogel [00:52:30] So bringing Plato to the masses, this is the thing that entertains but doesn't matter.

Knox McCoy [00:52:34] Yeah.

Jamie Golden [00:52:35] Yeah.

Anne Bogel [00:52:35] Cool. Makes sense. All right, So I said that capitalism was on my list, but I'm not going to go in that direction. If I did, we could talk about strikes and labor practices and authors needing a platform to publish a really good book. But we're not going to do that.

Jamie Golden [00:52:46] Harper Collins.

Anne Bogel [00:52:49] Maybe it'll be resolved by January. Who knows? We're hopeful. I want to go with dystopian novels that are way too believable for my like if I'm going to read about the world being on fire, just the burning down around us with doom and despair and gloom and death and shortages of all the yeah, then I want it to feel unrealistic. So like the new Celeste Ng Our Missing Hearts, a little too believable. The new Silas House novel Lark Ascending, where basically the fires in the West Coast just slowly take over the whole country until everything is on fire is like, Oh, yeah hard no, this is. I mean, I read the book. I love the book. I didn't stop reading the book. And it's a great book. But if these dystopian novels, if they could just dial up the fantasy meter a little bit, I would be a lot more comfortable.

Knox McCoy [00:53:38] I agree. It's like, what if feral pigs organized? I can read that story. I'm not threatened, no problem.

Anne Bogel [00:53:43] That doesn't keep me awake at night.

Knox McCoy [00:53:45] But pandemic stuff, it's a little too soon. Let's don't do that right now.

Jamie Golden [00:53:49] It's like The Displacements. I love that book, but it was like Florida's gone from a hurricane. And it's like, I think that got to happen. Like, we all have to live in Oklahoma.

Knox McCoy [00:53:58] This weekend. We don't know. You know, like, let's just don't do that right now. Yeah.

Anne Bogel [00:54:01] No there are some books where when I'm reading it, Ooh, I can totally see that happenning is a compliment. But like, that is not a thought I want to think when I'm reading something grim. No, thank you.

Knox McCoy [00:54:12] Yeah.

Anne Bogel [00:54:12] Okay. I want to toss in a little bonus. So one of my favorite books of the year Will pointed out that the hardcover cost $32.50. I am not okay with that. Mm. No, thank you.

Jamie Golden [00:54:24] Does it come with, like, a a drink and a bookmark? Like inside the hardback?

Anne Bogel [00:54:29] No, but it comes with paper, which is really expensive these days. And why everything is so expensive and so. Supply, demand, global supply chain paper shortages. I get it. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. That's too much.

Knox McCoy [00:54:40] No it's too much. It's ridiculous.

Anne Bogel [00:54:42] Knox and Jamie, thank you so much for coming to join us for our seventh birthday celebration. There truly is no one we'd rather celebrate with, and I'm really excited about what the future holds for all of our podcasts. So you are coming up on ten. Like, do you have are you already making plans for what that's going to look like?

Jamie Golden [00:54:57] Oh, that's sweet that you think that I will allow us to plan that far ahead.

Anne Bogel [00:55:04] Oh. There's definitely a whiteboard somewhere. I know it.

Knox McCoy [00:55:06] Oh, yeah. There's an Excel doc with a lot of ideas. So this is ten and 500 episodes. So we have two big things to figure out this year.

Jamie Golden [00:55:13] We do. And we just we just hired our 10th staffer and so we're very excited for what 2023 may hold. And this is a great way to start off the year for sure.

Anne Bogel [00:55:24] I can't think of a better way to do that. So thank you again for joining us and my hope for all of us as we embark on another year of podcasting, is that our conversations can continue to be I don't know. How do you describe your conversations, you probably want spicy conversations. What's the additive you go for?

Knox McCoy [00:55:39] One of the fun developments of the show is it started really as like observational about pop culture. I think there's more of a familiarity that the listeners are used to now, whereas like there's running realizations that they have that us as hosts, not just us, you know, and as we get to incorporate our stuff, like they know things about them. So they're bringing that understanding awareness to the listening process. So it allows us to be more of who we actually are instead of professional podcast hosts. You know.

Anne Bogel [00:56:04] I love it. Well, as we move into the future, may our conversations be insightful and fascinating and delightful. Our edits too because that part is rough and. And our parasocial and real life communities be as life giving and just so daggone fabulous as they have in the past.

Jamie Golden [00:56:23] They've been so good. I would love for that.

Anne Bogel [00:56:25] Here's to another year and thank you all so much.

Jamie Golden [00:56:28] Cheers. Happy birthday!

Knox McCoy [00:56:29] Thank you. Happy birthday.

Anne Bogel [00:56:35] Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Knox and Jamie. Connect with them over at knoxandjamie.com. See all the details of the books and everything else we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. If you enjoyed my conversation with Knox and Jamie today, join us on Patreon for a special bonus episode that's airing this Friday. Make sure you get to listen. Pop over to Patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext to get started as a supporter of our show and enjoy more than 150 bonus episodes, curated book lists and more. Subscribe today to get our weekly newsletter in your inbox. It's the best way to keep up with everything happening here at What Should I Read Next? That's at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter. Make sure you're following along in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to the people who make the show happen. What should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski and Studio D podcast Production. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke, Ah how good it is to be among people who are reading. Happy reading everyone.