Fast-paced, plot-driven novels to get you reading again

Anne Bogel [00:00:08] Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next? Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on the show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:00:45] Readers, if you're looking for a great book to help launch your new year, I've written a few that are perfect for right now. Don't Overthink It is a great choice for the goal-heavy New Year season. This book is foundational reading to help you make easier decisions, put an end to overwhelm, and stop getting in the way of your own happiness. For reading specific support, my Reading Journals, My Reading Life for Grown Ups, and My Reading Adventures for the 8 to 12-year-old set are thoughtfully designed to bring insight, motivation and enjoyment to readers. Grab yours at modernmrsdarcy.com/store or wherever you buy your books.

[00:01:18] Today, I'm pleased to welcome Jada Graff to the show. Jada is a Texas based pilot and garbage business owner. As in, she works in the garbage business, who came to us seeking help with a reading life that's gotten way off course. In 2018, Jada stopped teaching English and gave away all her books, and since then she's been deliberately rebuilding her book collection. The problem is that lately she's found that what sparks joy in the bookstore sounds completely uninteresting once she gets home, and the effect on her reading life could not be more obvious. Jada used to read 60 books a year, but in the past two and a half years, she has only read five. And she is not okay with the situation here. Today, we'll be talking about how Jada can rebuild her book stamina, and find the titles already on herself that will beg her to read them. I am so excited to jump in and help Jada start her next reading year with a clean slate while pointing her towards the plot driven novels and comfort reads that are already right at our fingertips. Let's get to it. Jada, welcome to the show.

Jada Graff [00:02:16] Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Anne Bogel [00:02:19] Oh, I can't wait to dive in. We could not resist tackling your specific dilemma when it appeared on our submissions form. So thank you for taking a chance and sending it in.

Jada Graff [00:02:28] Yes, Thank you so much. I was so excited to get the magical email from [Inaudible] but this is the submission that fit.

Anne Bogel [00:02:36] Well, I'm so glad. Now, Jada, that is a drastic step-- giving away all your books. Would you tell us more about what happened in 2018 that prompted that decision?

Jada Graff [00:02:44] Sure. So I was a high school and middle school English teacher for quite a few years pre-pandemic, I will say, and I had 1000 book classroom library that was one of my favorite pieces of my classroom. And when it came time for me to leave teaching and actually join the garbage business, I just had such a wealth of material that I wanted to be able to share with some of my other teachers that I had made friends with throughout the years, other people that were just really passionate about getting good books into kids hands in the educational realm. And so I didn't feel like it was right for me to take all of that time and money that I had invested and just take it with me when it would sit on my shelf and not get read. So I actually divided it up among a lot of the different teachers that I had interacted with and gave them everything. And because I taught middle and high school, I had a huge range of middle grade and high school, young adult and I had adult novels and I had novels in Spanish. I just had a huge gamut of things. And I knew that there was no way that I was going to read all of those if they just sat on my own personal shelf. So I went ahead and distributed them among some of my different teacher friends, and that left me with nothing. Which was okay, but I didn't have anything anymore.

Anne Bogel [00:04:15] Now, do you think that's connected to your reading life taking a nosedive?

Jada Graff [00:04:18] I really think the pandemic was probably the driving factor for the fall off of my reading life, but of course, not having those books just right at hand to be able to grab for sure played a part as well. With the pandemic, work for me just got so much busier, I know a lot of people ended up being sent home and being able to work from home, and that was 1,000% not the case for me. I think I worked harder than ever during 2020 and so that took a lot of my normal reading time away. And I think that truly was the biggest factor. But not being able to just walk over and say, "Oh, you know what, I'm going to grab this and read this today we'll see if it works," definitely also played a part in the lack of reading life.

Anne Bogel [00:05:05] Now, I imagine some people now are hearing your story going, oh, yeah, I'm not giving my books away, never, I've thought about it. Can you speak to that real quick?

Jada Graff [00:05:13] It was very hard. And I am very fortunate to have a very supportive family. And I have a husband that is very much on the minimalist side, and I lean more towards the maximalist side. So when it came time to get rid of all my books, of course, he was very excited. He was like, okay, great, we don't have to store all these. We don't have to move all these. We don't have to do any of that. But it was very emotional for me. So I think once I gave them away and I was like, oh, no, I might have made a mistake. I'm glad for what I did. I feel good about what I did, but I'm really sad that I don't have these books anymore. When it was time for me to try to start to rebuild the bookshelf, he's always been very supportive of-- hey, if you want to go to the bookstore on a date night, then let's go. And, oh, you have five in your hand? Perfect, let's buy them all. So it was kind of a catch 22 where it was great to get rid of them and it was nice to shed that weight, especially because there was a lot of books that I knew I was never going to read and either ones that I had never picked up, had no interest in picking up or had read and just wasn't going to pick up again. So it was very freeing and also very kind of daunting to think about the fact that my babies were all gone.

Anne Bogel [00:06:25] Off to live their own lives.

Jada Graff [00:06:30] Yes, absolutely. And I will say it has created a little bit of a hoarder tendency for rebuilding my bookshelf. And every time I see a copy of Art of Racing in the Rain, I buy it. It doesn't matter how many copies I have, I buy another one. I need 17 copies of this book. But then I end up giving them away to friends and things like that because I'm like, "I love this book. I love this book. You need to take it." And we can obviously talk more about that later in the episode.

Anne Bogel [00:06:58] We will. We will.

Jada Graff [00:06:59] It's just funny.

Anne Bogel [00:07:01] Jada, tell me what your reading life is like these days.

Jada Graff [00:07:04] Wow, that's a hard thing to describe. So my reading life lately is a lot of, "Oh, my gosh, this book sounds so great. I'm so excited to read it. I can't wait." And I either get the book through my Kindle or I go and purchase it at the bookstore or I borrow it from the library, and then that is the end of it. Very rarely do I actually start the books that I have been acquiring lately. And even less common is when I finish one of the books that I've acquired lately. And it's been so hard for me to find a book that grabs me. And I think it's a me problem, not a book problem. So I definitely think that there's something to that. But I could also just be picking up the wrong books or a combination of both at this point.

Anne Bogel [00:07:57] Jada, what I would like to do is get straight to talking about the books you love and the books you don't so we can get more insight into what's going on here. Are you ready to do that?

Jada Graff [00:08:06] I am ready.

Anne Bogel [00:08:07] Okay. Well, you know how this works. You're going to share three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately. And we'll figure out what you may enjoy actually picking up, reading, enjoying, even finishing next. These feel like big goals for where you are in your reading life, but we are going to give it our best shot.

Anne Bogel [00:08:27] Jada, what did you bring to the table today? Tell me about the first book you loved.

Jada Graff [00:08:31] So the first book that I brought with me today is The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Styne. And I just adore this book. Like I said, any time I see it in a bookstore, at a library sale, I snatch it up and I cannot stop handing it out to anybody in my life that needs a book to read. And I have a hard time explaining exactly why I love this book because I am not truly an animal person. I have never been the person that fawns over dogs and goes, "Aaw, puppy!" That's just never been my life. But I thought this book did such a great job of exploring a wide range of human emotions. And I love the fact that it was told from the dog's perspective because it kind of gave that fly on the wall look into all the different just common parts of daily life; illness and childhood and growing up and working through grief and the dog really having a lot of those same experiences as well. My husband and I had actually talked before about how we think that animals are a lot smarter than most of the time humans give them credit for. And so it was really validating to see that there were other people in the world that felt that way and clearly enough to write a book about it. And it was just so heartwarming and just such a great story. And there's so many scenes that stick with me. And I will say I went to the movie theater when they did the movie adaptation. And I'm not a crier, it's not what I do, but I bawled like a baby during that movie adaptation. And then I went and reread the book and I bawled during the entire thing. And I just love this book so much.

Anne Bogel [00:10:22] That sounds extremely cathartic.

Jada Graff [00:10:24] It was definitely a departure from my normal mode of operation, but leaving the theater all snorty and being like, okay, I should have brought more tissues. And then going back and rereading, which is typically not something I do. I'm not a big rereader, so rereading and having that experience again was really, really, really good. It was really validating and I truly enjoyed that part. Being able to go back and see the scenes again and my favorite characters again, I enjoyed it.

Anne Bogel [00:10:56] Yeah, I know this feels like an outlier for you in your reading life, but it's not at all unusual for our best and most memorable reading experiences to be those outliers that are very different than everything else that we love. And we're going to hold space for that Jada.

Jada Graff [00:11:11] Perfect.

Anne Bogel [00:11:11] Tell me about another book that you've really enjoyed.

Jada Graff [00:11:14] So another book that I really enjoyed, and this is kind of a cheater because it's the whole series, but it's The Bromance Book Club by Alyssa K. Adams. I really enjoyed this because, once again, it surprised me. I typically am not a romance reader. When I was teaching, I had a little bit of the idea of I'm too good for romance novels. I was a little snotty, I will say. But I am a recovering romance snob. I picked this book up and I want to say it was on a recommendation possibly from the podcast. But I picked it up and I just thought it was so great. I had no idea that romance novels, and especially the modern romance novels, actually had depth to them. And there were a lot of times when I would read through and I would be like, wow, other people do have the same type of relationships with their family or they do have the same type of little marriage scenes where you get the little vignette. It's like, oh, my gosh, we've totally had that same conversation sitting at the dinner table. And so it felt so poignant to me in a way that surprised me coming from a "romance fluff novel". And I think like we had said with the other one, the outlier being some of the best, was it was just so surprising. And it cracked me up how the men are actually reading the old school Regency romance novels to try and figure out how to be a better husband. And that just cracked me up to no end.

Anne Bogel [00:12:57] Jada, what is the third book you brought today that you loved?

Jada Graff [00:13:01] So my third book is called Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers and it is by Sarah Ackerman. And this book was so personal to me. And part of that reason is when we used to live in Hawaii, we absolutely adored the island. I adored all of the history, I loved going to all the historical sites. I'm pretty sure when we lived there over the course of a year, my husband went to Pearl Harbor 12 times. And so this book takes place shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when Hawaii has become an occupied space by the United States military that's looking for Japanese sympathizers. It's not necessarily an easy story, but it was so sweet and it had such a wonderful band of characters that felt like they were your friends. And so the story itself is about a young mom and her husband has gone missing. And there's so many rumors that surround the reasons why her husband has gone missing. And, of course, the worst of them being that he is a Japanese sympathizer or that he is helping the Japanese in their attempts to take over the Hawaiian Islands or set up Hawaii as a stopping point for them to be able to continue their war. And they end up meeting one of the Marines that is stationed there, that is made for crowd control essentially. And, of course, there's a love story aspect to it. But one of the things that I loved was there's also this story of the Marines mascot, which is a lion, and they had a real life lion on the island. This part is true. And so that got written into this story. And I loved this because I actually have had a chance to talk to Sarah about this book when she came and visited one of our book club meetings. And a lot of this story was stuff that her grandparents had told her because they lived in Hawaii during World War Two. And so a lot of, although it's a fictionalized account, it is based in reality for this family. And it was just so good, so sweet, such a great story, wonderful writing, but it moves. Like it was snappy, it is quick, It has a lot of really great wit to it, and it also has recipes for the pies that it references. And when read it at Thanksgiving that year, I actually ended up making one of the pies from the book. And it was so good and everybody loved it. It was just so much fun to have that outside connection. So I love when the books can spill over into the real world, too, and I can force my family to be a part of my reading adventures.

Anne Bogel [00:16:06] You know, I have to say that food is a pretty good way to open your arms to including those around you in your reading life.

Jada Graff [00:16:13] Absolutely. It's definitely the easiest way to be like, hey, I made the pie from this book. You have to try it. Now that you love the pie, you have to love the book. Read it.

Anne Bogel [00:16:23] Did it work?

Jada Graff [00:16:25] It did for some of them. Most of my, not 'most of my'. That was a gross exaggeration. There are many people in my family that are not readers, so I don't know that I'm going to get them to read it. But it's okay because I still brought them to dip their toe in the pool of the reading life. So I'm okay with it.

Anne Bogel [00:16:42] Pie is the answer. I hear you. Now, Jada, earlier when we were talking, you said, "Anne, do I just have to pick one book that wasn't right for me?" And what we haven't talked about yet is you do want to read from your shelves. You want to identify, okay, these books were calling to me in the bookstore, at one point they sounded really good. I'd like to find the ones that are already on my shelf that I want to read. Which means you sent me a spreadsheet of the books on your shelf, and I laughed out loud when I was reading this the other day. My kids were like, "Mom, what are you doing? What's so funny?" And it was because I noticed that you put zero stars, exclamation points by one book that you had on your shelves-- I don't know if you still do.

Jada Graff [00:17:23] Yes.

Anne Bogel [00:17:23] But with all that as context, Jada, tell me about a book that wasn't right for you.

Jada Graff [00:17:28] So the book that was not right for me is Watership Down by Richard Adams. And sometimes I have a hard time articulating what it was about this book specifically that did not work for me. But when I try to reflect on why I did not finish it and why it got the zero exclamation points stars, I noticed that there's a trend. And so I will say one of the first things that was hard for me was the insanely large cast of characters. If I have to pull out a notebook and pen and create my own diary of who these people are with all of their crazy names, I'm already halfway out of the book. It's just not going to work for me from there. As a general rule, there are exceptions. But another thing that was really hard for me with this book was just didn't seem to have a point. I know this is a beloved children's books for so many people. I mean, it has 4.1 stars on Goodreads. I'm clearly in the minority here, but I just didn't get it. I didn't care about these rabbits. I mean, I'm sorry that your house is being torn down. Progress sucks, but why are we hearing about this? It also had a big map in the front, which is kind of intimidating to me. If I'm going to need a map to be able to understand your story... I just want to be able to read and move through the book and be happy and create my own world. I don't want to have to keep flipping back and forth and going, "Where is this relation to this? Oh, wait... There? Okay." If the map is just like fodder, extra, that's great. But if it's something that's necessary, which I felt like the map was necessary in this book to truly understand the movement of these animals, I'm already out. It's just not working for me. So with the large band of characters, the map, the made up language, could not get into. I, I'm okay with dialectical writing and things like Their Eyes Were Watching God. I absolutely loved that they had the speech written out in the way that it would sound if you were saying it out loud. But for Watership Down, the made up rabbit language, it just didn't seem necessary to me and I just couldn't get into it. It just was not my thing.

Anne Bogel [00:20:01] Jada, that's really helpful. So at this point in your reading life, you are not in a place where completely immersing yourself in a different world (with all the work that that entails) sounds attractive to you.

Jada Graff [00:20:14] That is absolutely correct. Yes.

Anne Bogel [00:20:17] Okay. Jada, what have you been reading lately?

Jada Graff [00:20:21] So lately I've been reading nothing-- which is the problem. But really what I've been trying to do is when I went to go visit my brother in North Carolina a few months ago, we decided to form the brother sister book club because I never realized what a reader my brother was, and he always knew that I was, but we just never really talked books before. So this trip was the first time that we really sat and talked books. And one of the books that he has chosen for our brother sister book club (so this will be his second book choice) is Dune by Frank Herbert.

Anne Bogel [00:20:58] Oh, Jada.

Jada Graff [00:20:59] For all the reasons that I really struggled with Watership Down, I'm struggling with Dune. Which means although I say I'm reading it, I'm not. I have tried the written form, I have the audiobook, and the jury is still out. We will see. I'm making an effort because I love my brother and it's his turn, but we'll get back there. And then the other book that I actually just finished last night and I was so proud of myself I actually finished it.

Anne Bogel [00:21:30] Jada, you finished a boook!

Jada Graff [00:21:30] I finished a book. I was so proud. It was The Love of my Life and it was when I actually did hear from the podcast a few weeks ago. I say a few weeks ago. It could have been months ago.

Anne Bogel [00:21:45] Because that's when you listened.

Jada Graff [00:21:46] Yes, exactly.

Anne Bogel [00:21:47] That's how podcasting works. It's fine.

Jada Graff [00:21:49] And it was really good. I was really happy with it. I borrowed it from my library on Kindle. And so when my hold came available I was, like, all right, sure, why not? I'm not doing anything else. Let's try it. It actually really worked for me. It was a good book. I will say I'm not going to give it a five star rating, but I for sure was happy with that reading experience, even if it wasn't one of my all time favorite books. I really liked how quickly it moved. I really liked how much I cared about the characters, and I really liked that I didn't guess what was going on and I would be sitting on the couch reading and I would go [gasps]. Yeah.

Anne Bogel [00:22:30] We're talking about the Rosie Walsh family drama with this strong mystery element.

Jada Graff [00:22:36] Yes. Which I loved that strong mystery element. I was so glad that I didn't just outright guess it. And the the gasping situation happened quite a few times, and my husband would look at me and go, what?

Jada Graff [00:22:49] I was just, like, you're not going to believe it. This book is so crazy. And then I would try to explain it and he'd just stare at me and he's, like, "I guess you just have to read it." I just go back to reading it. It was so nice. And there was actually a couple of times where he commented, he's like, you must really like this book. You're sitting here reading instead of whatever else we were doing that evening or whatever. And he was like, wow, you must really enjoy this. So that is what I'm reading lately. Although right now I've got a pin in it because I finished it, so I'm not sure what to start next, which this episode recording actually comes at a perfect time for that reason. Because now I can just jump right into the recommendations whenever we get off this call.

Anne Bogel [00:23:30] I'm glad to hear it. Jada, if you know, I'd love to hear what the other five books are that really worked for you.

Jada Graff [00:23:37] Okay. So the ones that I have finished in the last few years, let's see. One of them was The Woods by Harlan Coben. And that one was pressed into my hands very forcefully by my friend Stacy. We were at the yarn store one night, and we were knitting, and we were talking about books. And she goes, "Oh, do you like mystery novels?" And I was like, "Well, yeah." And she's like, okay, well, it's not a real mystery, but it has some mysterious elements and it's kind of a thriller. Have you ever read Harlan Coben? And I said, "No, I have never heard of him." And she said, "You must read this book. This is my all time favorite book. I need you to read this." And so I said, "Okay, sure. I will be happy to." And so she handed me a copy and she goes, "This is your copy to keep. You don't need to give it back to me." And it's this big hardcover. She loves this book if she's giving away hardcovers. And it was such a fun read for me. Funny enough, I can't even trul remember the plot. I just know that I really enjoyed it. It also had that kind of thriller, mysterious aspect to it which I guess is kind of a theme for me, something that I enjoy, a question of, well, what happens next? Well, I have to keep reading because I have to know what happened to this person. Where did they go? What are they doing? And so that was another one that I did finish that I really enjoyed. Let's see, what are the other ones that I did finish in the last couple years? It's not really fair to use, but two of the books that I finished and that were the five were the FAA publications for the Pilot Handbook and the Aeronautical Knowledge Guide. So those are kind of two...

Anne Bogel [00:25:31] Oh, Jada, those are two of the five books you finished?

Jada Graff [00:25:32] Those are two of the five books I finished.

Anne Bogel [00:25:35] No, you read books. We're not talking about the accuracy. I'm just saying, wow, that is dire.

Jada Graff [00:25:42] Yes.

Anne Bogel [00:25:43] More than I thought.

Jada Graff [00:25:44] The nonfiction books that we're kind of required reading for the pilot license, those are two of my five.

Anne Bogel [00:25:52] Okay. So that's representative. So a good mystery thriller and then you just finished the Rosie Walsh which has a lot in common with that Harlan Coben book, actually. The packaging is different, but the underlying drive is very similar.

Jada Graff [00:26:05] Yes, very much so.

Anne Bogel [00:26:06] And your pilot training manuals you had to read to keep flying.

Jada Graff [00:26:13] Yes. To be able to keep getting up there and leave the ground. One of the other ones that I read was Red Sky Over Hawaii, which was Sarah Ackerman's third book. So the author, of course, that I loved for Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers, Red Sky Over Hawaii was one that I did. And that was actually the book that she met with our book club about. Which I say our book club, I'm no longer in the book club. I joke and say I got kicked out. Really, they told me I was super intense for them. And then they kept choosing books that I had already read and hated, so it was a mutual separation from the book club.

Anne Bogel [00:26:55] I think we need to hear a little more about being too intense for this book club. Give us a really colorful example.

Jada Graff [00:27:03] Absolutely. So I want to preface this by saying the girls that were in this book club with me are phenomenal people. I love them all. We are all still friends. But I was told that I was a little too much when we had our christmas meeting. And funny enough, it was January of 2020, so before everything just went to crap, we were still meeting in person and we were doing our book swap. And we had done our book swap and we were talking about our our January pick, which I think it was Mossad. Yes, it was Mossad by Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal. I thought this book was great and I was talking about the structure and the language and the formatting. And this is a nonfiction book. So it could have been very dry subject material, but it was just so fascinating. And so I thought it was wonderful. And I started talking about the Senate structure and the way that the stories were set up and the fact that each chapter could basically be its own standalone. So this is not one of those nonfiction books that builds on each other necessarily. You don't have to read it linearly. You can read it almost like a vignette style memoir. And when I started talking about the structure and the language, one of the girls looks at me and goes, "Oh, yeah, we don't really do that here. We just talk about if we liked the book or not. You're really intense." And I was like, oh, I'm sorry. I liked it. And she's like, no, it's great. I just had never even thought about the structure of a book before. And I was like, oh, okay, sure. So it wasn't a problem.

Anne Bogel [00:28:59] Thank you, Jada. That's super helpful and really gives me some insight into how you approach the books you're reading. So you were very clear on not wanting to work to figure out what kind of world you were in and what was happening. Like you were talking about Watership Down, that's just like an absolute no for you. And that's fine. But you do still really like the nerdy things like structure and language and in style and tone. You notice those things as a reader and they matter to you.

Jada Graff [00:29:26] Absolutely. And I say that's probably the recovering English teacher in me and for teaching it for so long, I can't help but notice it. And I want a book that is well written. For me, plot will always be paramount. But I need it to be still good writing. I want there to be a clear structure. Even if it isn't always a perfectly linear structure, I need there to be some sort of structure to the book. I don't do well with stream of consciousness, Faulkner style. I want there to be a very set like this is how this book is written. This is how I introduce characters to you. This is where you fit in this world of this story. And those are the type of things that really help anchor me to a reading experience to make sure that I'm not having to, like you said, do massive world building or having to orient myself in this place from someone else's imagination that I don't feel like I have any sort of standing in.

Anne Bogel [00:30:28] That's really interesting. I'm also noticing that you referred to yourself as a recovering English teacher because this is not the water you swim in anymore on a daily basis. You have a different job and it's very actively managing a small business, a whole different scene, whole different setting, whole different lifestyle. And so you expressed, I think, an awareness that you knew that that was definitely impacting your reading life, but you weren't quite sure what to do with that.

Jada Graff [00:30:54] Yes, definitely. I will say that when I was teaching, I felt like I was having some of my best reading experiences that I ever did. And I do think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I was just constantly surrounded by all of these really good and really rich texts that were accessible to me. And then since leaving and giving away all of my books and everything and completely pivoting my life's direction to running the garbage business, it's really taken a lot of what I used to know about myself as a reader and kind of turned it on its head and it's made it really hard to find the rest of those reading experiences again.

Anne Bogel [00:31:38] Mmhmm. Jada, we are going to turn our attention now to putting books on your nightstand and seeing if we can find the ones that are going to end up in your actual hands. You said the final step is actually reading them, which is not happening a lot lately. And you have been deliberately, purposefully rebuilding your bookshelves. And so I have your spreadsheet of the books that you have in your home right now. And I'd love to hear a little bit about how you have chosen these books. How have you assembled this collection that you're working from right now?

Jada Graff [00:32:08] The way that I have assembled the collection that I currently have is kind of haphazard. I would be grossly overstating there being a system (if I were to actually qualify how I've been doing this) other than I see a book and I go, "Oh, my gosh, that looks so pretty," or I will hear about it through your podcast, or I will see a book on Instagram. Or if I have a friend that was like, oh, I read this, I'll be like, oh, you read it maybe I'll read it to you. And maybe that's where a lot of my problem is coming in, is I'm not necessarily doing much vetting before I bring these books into my life and allow them to start pressuring me to read them. But other books are ones that have been on my to be read list for a long time. And when I see them in a store, I'll be like, oh, I have been meaning to read that. Let me grab it now, even if I don't remember why I was meaning to read it or why I was gravitating towards it in the first place. I just kind of grab it and take it with me and it now becomes mine.

Anne Bogel [00:33:09] Yeah. Okay. I want to be very clear for you, Jada, and also especially for you, our listeners. Now we have some episodes where we help readers read from their own shelves and including an episode this fall where our guest is very clear that the goal is to read all the books. And, Jada, what I hear from you is that is not your goal. Is that correct?

Jada Graff [00:33:29] That's correct. If I have the book already, I'm perfectly happy to read it. And, of course, I want to read the things that are on my shelf. But I have no problems with bringing more books into my world. I will read anything, everything, whether it already lives in my shelf or not.

Anne Bogel [00:33:46] Okay. I'm glad to hear that because I think a real key to your writerly happiness and to you not bogging down in the mire of unread books is to not have that kind of expectation for yourself as you are looking at what you might consider reading next. So these are possibilities that you have on your shelf, but they are definitely not have to.

Jada Graff [00:34:04] Okay, perfect. That sounds like a wonderful place to start.

Anne Bogel [00:34:08] Okay, good. Something else that I'm wondering about as you're describing your system is how long is the time gap often between when you are finding the book and bringing it home and actually possibly reading it. If you're unsure where to start late, tell me what happened with the Rosie Walsh book.

Jada Graff [00:34:27] Sure. So that one I remember I was driving to my friend's house to go do a girl's craft day on a Sunday, and I was listening to the podcast and I heard you talking about that book along with the Attica Locke, Bluebird, Bluebird. And I'm hearing you talk about them, I was like, oh my gosh, this sounds so great. And so as soon as I got to my friend Julie's house, I pulled out my phone and I put a hold at the library because I do a lot of Kindle reading. I love reading physical books, but I love my Kindle. And especially right now since I'm in this timeframe of not reading consistently and not finishing books and not knowing if a book is going to work for me, I've been trying to reduce my financial investment in the books if I'm not sure if it's going, or not reasonably sure that it's going to be a homerun. So I logged onto my overdrive and I put the books on hold because none of them were available. And so as soon as the book came available on my library holds last week, I downloaded it and read it almost immediately. But from the time that I put it on my library holds, it was probably about a month and a half.

Anne Bogel [00:35:41] So that's kind of long.

Jada Graff [00:35:42] Yeah, so it was a pretty big gap.

Anne Bogel [00:35:44] Okay. And yet I can also hear you saying that when the hold came in, you still remembered exactly why you wanted to read it.

Jada Graff [00:35:51] Yes, that was one that absolutely stuck with me. And I was like, that's right, this book was one of those that just really captivated me and almost to the point where I was like, I should pull my car over and do it now as opposed to waiting till I got to Julie's, but I just kept driving for a minute.

Anne Bogel [00:36:08] Sometimes that is absolutely the right thing to do. And listeners, let me just remind you now, we put all our books in show notes that we talk about in every episode so you can get your good book recommendations and be safe on the road. We value both things.

Jada Graff [00:36:22] Yes, please do not be trying to rent books from your library or buy them from Amazon while driving. That is so dangerous.

Anne Bogel [00:36:30] I mean, we believe reading is really important, but stay safe out there folks. Okay. So, Jada, here's what I want to do for you. So, one, I want to really acknowledge and honor where you are in your reading life. Reading is not your daily work anymore and that may feel like a sad fact sometimes.

Jada Graff [00:36:50] It definitely is. And I will say that there's a lot of correlation between teaching and running a business where you have to manage people, but there's also a lot of disconnect. And where I used to be able to steal those 5 minutes in between classes to pick up a book that I knew I was really into or whereas I used to be able to have quiet reading time with my students, I've lost a lot of those daily structures with just the change in life and the change of season. And now I don't have those spaces to just fill the 5 minutes because I don't have 5 minutes anymore. The only reading time that I really have is in the evenings when I get home from work after dinner and the house has kind of settled. And so really being able to, I guess, maximize those times with books that are more drawing than the veg on the couch and become a zombie is going to be huge for me.

Anne Bogel [00:37:47] I'm glad you know that about yourself. And you have said in your own words that you believe you need to rebuild your book stamina right now and find the place that reading has in your life. And both those things are totally possible. Also, I think you're really on the right track with identifying the things that you want right now. You've said that you love good character development, plot driven stories that move at a brisk pace. And in your submission, you said that you really prefer comforting in books that you call easy over challenging at this point in your life. And also you mentioned this with the Art of Racing in the Rain, but you gave a couple other examples in your reading life of really loving books that have caught you by surprise with their poignancy. That's one of the reasons you enjoyed the Bromance Book Club Book so much. So sometimes readers have this old and like almost outdated idea of what they like in their reading life, but I think yours is actually pretty spot on. Your self-diagnosis seems to be in the right place. And as I repeat those words back to you, do they ring true about your own reading life?

Jada Graff [00:38:50] Yes, as you say those things back to me, they definitely are ringing true. I used to be willing to put in a lot more mental work into the books that I read. I used to be a lot more willing to stick with a book for longer if I wasn't quite sure if it was going to work for me. And I used to be much more willing to do the world building and all those things in my brain that I just don't have the capacity for anymore. So the comforting reads, the reads that tie up with a nice pretty bow, the ones that don't require a lot of mental work but are still stories worth reading is really going to be what I need at this point in my life.

Anne Bogel [00:39:33] Okay. Well, I've got your spreadsheet, which is not overwhelmingly long because you're putting this together. And I can see things on here that look really promising for you.

Jada Graff [00:39:42] Oh, good. I'm so glad. My greatest fear is that I have a bookshelf of all these books that are all wrong for me, and that if I were to pick up any one of them, I'd be like, Why? Why are you taking up this space on my shelf if you're not going to be it?

Anne Bogel [00:39:59] I think past Jada-- like so many readers and their past selves-- is sometimes impulsive and sometimes puts more weight on what others say was great for them without thinking about if it's going to be great for us. But past Jada also made some really good picks. Do you want to hear what stands out to me?

Jada Graff [00:40:14] Oh, I would love to. Yes.

Anne Bogel [00:40:17] The first book that stands out to me, and maybe the one that I would actually recommend starting next is your Maya Angelou collection, Even the Stars Look Lonesome. Now, I could see this on your list. And as you were talking about being too intense for that book club with the Mossad collection, and you were talking about structure and language and how it was vignette style and that really worked for you. Well, you could have been describing Even the Stars Look Lonesome. Do you remember the circumstances under which you picked up this collection?

Jada Graff [00:40:48] I want to say that this is an old library binding where it had been removed from their collection and was set in the donate pile. Because my library, that's a couple of towns over, they have a really great section where when they call from their collection, you go and you donate $0.25 and you take a book. And I want to say this was one of those. And if we're being honest, I probably saw, oh, Maya Angelou, I've always meant to read her. And grabbed it and really did not put much thought into it past that.

Anne Bogel [00:41:25] Oh, have you read her before?

Jada Graff [00:41:27] No, I haven't. I just always have heard of her. And we used to use some of the short texts when I was teaching just to look at very small snippets, but I've never actually read anything by her.

Anne Bogel [00:41:41] Jada, let's begin. Oh, this is a great place to start. So this is a sister volume to her earlier collection Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now. These two works, they are not part of the autobiographical series that begins with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, so they are different in character. But still this is going to be a wonderful taste of Maya Angelou. But just know that when you pick up those other books, that other nonfiction, that those are more a full length book length developed stories where these are those small vignettes. But the way she paints a scene... And she's painting all these scenes about just a variety of topics, this is a real enjoyable grab bag. There's A House Versus Home, there's aging, there's sexuality, there's anger, there's being a woman, being a Black woman, faith and spirituality, there's Oprah Winfrey. I mean, there is a lot here, but what I love about these for you is their immediacy. Like, the first one in the collection is House Versus Home. And what she talks about-- this is not a spoiler-- she tells you right up front pretty sure I would have stayed married if it wasn't for those houses. But it's not in the way you think. It's not like a money pit situation or anything like that, but she walks you through what happened. And in every paragraph this image will blaze in your mind of what she's describing. And I go back and look at the language, like, what is it about the way she's writing that is so perfect that you can just see it exactly? But there is. And it's like she's telling you these really juicy, meaningful stories where you want to hear because it's a good story. It's juicy, but it's also deeply meaningful for some aspect of your life. Even if she's talking about something that might seem a little silly on the surface. And definitely when she's talking about something that you both know is at the bedrock of everything that really matters to being a person in this world. It's also really short in the individual stories within are obviously shorter. I think this is your first Maya Angelou. Maybe this is book seven in your reading life in the past two and a half years. How does that sound?

Jada Graff [00:43:48] I love the sound of this. I appreciate that it has these smaller lengths and the vignette style stories because that seems really accessible and really not intimidating. So I could read a story and set it down for a minute. And then when I do have that little bit of time before bed, before I just completely zonk out, I can still be working towards my goal of reading again and finishing a book. And it sounds so great. And like we had talked about before, I love when the little things that seem silly or seem so minute really have an impact in your everyday life. And that just sounds so wonderful.

Anne Bogel [00:44:30] Okay. Next, I'll be honest, this jumped out at me because I knew you loved The Art of Racing in the Rain and that is a dog book. And, Jada, you have proclaimed yourself not to be much of an animal lover, but I still think you could really enjoy Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley. And one of the reasons I love it for you is because I was thinking about what books you may enjoy before I asked you for that spreadsheet and already had Lily on my list before I saw that you had it on your shelf.

Jada Graff [00:44:58] Oh, really?

Anne Bogel [00:44:59] Yes, really. So do you remember how you got this book?

Jada Graff [00:45:03] So I remember that I bought this one at a Barnes and Noble, and it's a Barnes Noble that I don't normally go to. I just happened to be in the area and had to kill a couple moments. And so I went in and I was walking through and I saw this beautiful blue cover. And I think I have the hardback that actually has the book jacket with it and it's this really pretty teal blue, which is one of my colors anyway. So I just I grabbed it and I was looking at it and I started reading the jacket copy and I was like, oh, this sounds kind of good. And I was laughing because, once again, the Art of Racing in The Rain association, I was like, but do I really want another dog? Because if it's like more Garth Stein versus Marley and Me, I could get with it. But I didn't want another Marley and Me or another book that was a dog book for dog sake. And I didn't know a whole lot about this story. I will confess, I have read the first two pages of this book, and I don't know why I didn't continue. I must have just gotten busy with something else. But there's a part where it's talking about which Chris is the hottest Chris in Hollywood, whether it's Chris Pine or Chris Hemsworth, I can't remember exactly which of the Chris's they are.

Anne Bogel [00:46:18] Oh, Jada, you got to go back because it's neither. It's the Ryans.

Jada Graff [00:46:21] No. No, is it really?

Anne Bogel [00:46:24] It is. You're going to have to look and see if I'm telling you true or not.

Jada Graff [00:46:26] Oh, my goodness. Well, then I can't wait. That'll be a quick grab no matter what. But, yes, this one that's all I really remember about it. And so I'm so excited to hear more to reignite why it made it to my shelf because clearly there's some serendipity weaving in here.

Anne Bogel [00:46:43] I hope so. So Lily and the Octopus is Rowley's debut. And of course, The Uncle hit it big. That book was everywhere. So this one many readers don't know about this book, and this is the lightly fictionalized tale of Rowley's last six months with his beloved dachshund named it Lily. And the Octopus, I'm sorry to say, is that brain tumor that ended her life at age 12. And something that's really interesting about this book is the way that Ted is the dachsunds owner in this book and the way, in fact, that everyone in Lily's life describes the octopus like they can see it, like it almost has this quality of magical realism about it. So they take this really scary thing and make it I mean, at first kooky. It gets, the Octopus little scarier as the time goes on. But you love books that surprise with their poignancy. And this one is at once both kooky and adorable and funny and sweet and also really poignant. And I think it could be really great for you. This is definitely so sweet and tender and incredibly powerful for anyone who has ever loved a dog, but also the way that he talks about love and grief and joy and bonding with your dogs and deep conversations over the things you love. The way that Lily talks in the book is really funny. I have to say that I reread this recently and it did kind of (this is just a full disclosure moment) sagged for me around the two thirds mark, and I'm a little afraid it can lose you there. But I want you to know the ending is incredible. Just tell yourself the ending is incredible and maybe you'll love it straight through. And many readers do. But you got to find out how it ends because it's great-- and remember, when you get there that this is autobiographical fiction. It's also a short book on the whole, and that is no coincidence for you. But how does it sound?

Jada Graff [00:48:45] No, that sounds really, really good. Like I said, I don't know why I lost it the first time when I first put it down. And so I'm excited to have this push to pick it back up again, especially because we have to check out the Chris's versus Ryans. But I want to say that I remember one of the things being hard for me was understanding the octopus is the brain tumor. So now that I have a little more context with which to frame that, I think that will make this reading experience and this attempt to work through this book so much better for me. I love to have a a powerful ending. So if nothing else, I will be so excited to finish the book to see what garnered that type of high praise, because I love a book that does end very well. And even if things are not okay, I like when things are wrapped up and ended and they almost have a nice pretty bow on their end. So it just it sounds really great. I'm so excited for that one too.

Anne Bogel [00:49:47] I'm so glad. I think it could be a great fit for you. And finally, I'm a little afraid to do this because I don't want to give you too many books, but you've discovered that you love romance, you are a recovering romance snob. And you have demonstrated by talking about the romance book club, but also with your spreadsheet that I can see that you like series. So I'm going to give you one in the romance genre.

Jada Graff [00:50:11] Okay.

Anne Bogel [00:50:12] So this is by Kate Clayborn. She actually writes romance and women's fiction, but she writes stories that are plotty, that are fast moving, have lots of character development and that surprise with their poignancy. And the place I really want you to start, not just because it has a Texas connection, but it does and I like that for you, is Beginner's Luck.

Jada Graff [00:50:33] Okay.

Anne Bogel [00:50:33] So this is the opening to her series called A Chance of a Lifetime. And it is about three friends. And we find out very early in Beginner's Luck that these friends buy, they pool their funds and on a whim, they buy a lottery ticket and they win. And for them, it's a life changing amount of money. It's not millions and millions of dollars, but it is enough for each of them to make a significant change in their life. And when they win, you find out these three friends all told each other what they wanted. Let me read you the little quote from Beginner's Luck. This is the moment where their friends are saying what they're going to win, but what they're thinking in their hearts. "Kate said a house, but what she thought was home. Zoe said an adventure, but what she thought was forgiveness. Greer said an education, but what she thought was freedom." And Beginner's Luck is Kate's story. Kate is the one who wants the house. And in this book she is a scientist. She's the most stayed of the friends. And because of her peripatetic childhood, where she moved all over the place and had a lot of uncertainty about where she'd be safe, where would she be, who would take care of her - the answer was mostly her brother-- not her dad, who you will not like in this book. But because of that trauma, she wants to use her winnings to create a home for herself and really find some place where she can put down deep roots in a community. But then this handsome man in a suit, Ben, shows up in his role as recruiter to entice her to leave it all behind and move to Texas, which is not what she wants. But as they keep talking about this potential job, their connection grows. And there's just some really fun features in this book. Like Ben's family, well his father actually owns this architectural salvage business, and lots of scenes are set at the place where they're looking for like little chandelier pieces and knobs that match. And it's a really cool setting. And Kate is living her own life. She's the scientist. But also there's so much time that she spends with her friends and you just get to know the three of them. And I think you're really going to want to like them. And I almost said I think you're really going to like entering this world. I think you're actually a little nervous about entering worlds because it feels like there's a lot of work there, but you're just going to sink right in and be like, yes, this is actually the book club I want to participate in. I'm not too intense for this crew.

Jada Graff [00:52:48] No, that sounds so good. And I don't mind being in a different world as long as it is kind of a more of a reality-based world just because then I don't have to try to orient myself on a different planet or a different realm or anything like that. But this sounds so, so great.

Anne Bogel [00:53:03] No, this one's easy. You're going to be like, where's the address? I'm going to walk in and pull up a chair.

Jada Graff [00:53:09] I've been known to do that. Let's just go drive through the areas and be like, oh, I read about this place. That is also one of the things that I do love, is being able find the places where books have taken place. And so I'm so excited that this one kind of takes place in our backyard.

Anne Bogel [00:53:26] I think these books will be happy in your shelf. And it's not your fault that Texas isn't the place she wants to be, but I hope you enjoy the little visits the story makes to nearby all the same.

Jada Graff [00:53:36] This sounds so, so great. And I do like the idea of starting a series because I used to be very, very reluctant to series, even though I read a ton of them because it always just felt like so much pressure to read all of them and to like all of them and to really want to stay in that space for a long time. But now that I've been having such a hard time finding books that really work for me and finding the time to read, being able to kind of sit with friends over a long period of time with a series sounds so, so freeing. So I don't feel the weight of the series like I used to. I almost see it as a one less decision I have to make, and I just know automatically this is where I'm going and that just sounds so enjoyable for me. So I'm very excited for that recommendation.

Anne Bogel [00:54:30] Yeah, that could be perfect right now. Okay, Jada, I know I shared some thoughts already, but you hadn't heard out the books yet. But of the ones we talked about today, they were Even The Stars Look Lonesome by Maya Angelou, Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley. And the one that's not on your shelf right now, but I think would be happy there, The Chance of a Lifetime series by Kate Clayborn, beginning with Beginner's Luck. Of those books, what are you going to start next?

Jada Graff [00:54:56] So I think I will probably grab the Maya Angelou first because it is on my shelf and it will probably come back to work with me today just in case I can steal a minute or two at lunch or something like that. And then I will absolutely be ordering Beginner's Luck as soon as we get off this call as well because that one is going to come up very quickly. So those will probably be the ones I start with. And then I will get Lily and the Octopus in at some point. Of the three, that's probably number three, but they all just sound so good and it's so hard to choose.

Anne Bogel [00:55:31] Well, you've had a lot of difficulties in your reading life, having to narrow it down from three books that all sound amazing. I mean, that's the kind of difficult decision you actually want to be facing.

Jada Graff [00:55:42] Absolutely. Yes. No, that kind of difficult decision I will make all day.

Anne Bogel [00:55:48] You've got this. Jada, thanks so much for coming on the show to talk about your reading life with me. I think there's hope for your future and I'm excited to hear what happens next.

Jada Graff [00:55:56] Thank you so much. I am so excited to have been able to come on this show and for the recommendations. And I am so ready to get my reading life back on track. So this is going to be the perfect start for that.

Anne Bogel [00:56:09] I'm thrilled to hear it. You got this.

Jada Graff [00:56:11] Thank you.

Anne Bogel [00:56:18] Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Jada and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Jada on Instagram @BlackVelvetStitches and find the full list of titles we talked about at whatshouldIreadnextpodcast.com. Sign up for updates from What should I Read Next HQ and enjoy a weekly roundup of important bookish news. Subscribe at whatshouldIreadnextpodcast.com/newsletter. Follow our show on Instagram. We are here @whatshouldireadnext. And we love to connect with listeners and fellow book lovers. I'm on Instagram too @annebogel. That's Anne with an 'e', 'b' as in books, 'ogel'. So come on over and join me for pictures from behind the scenes of my reading life.

[00:56:55] Make sure you're following in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. 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. Sara Aeder is our community manager.

[00:57:13] 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.