Vanessa A. Bee [00:00:00] I think it's incredibly difficult to be funny on the page. I had these moments where I would be like walking down the street on my own with my headphones just like laughing out loud. I was just like, "How is this happening?"

Anne Bogel [00:00:14] I love that visual.

[00:00:21] 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.

[00:00:52] Before we get started, I wanted to share that summer reading season is hovering on the horizon and now is a great time to prepare by grabbing yourself a shiny new reading journal. We have two available: our My Reading Life Book Journal for adults and our My Reading Adventures Book Journal for kids. That one is designed for the 8 to 12-year-old set but is wholeheartedly embraced by many adults who want to use that emoji rating system for themselves.

These journals also make great gifts for moms, graduates, and kids who can't wait for summer vacation to get started. Get your copy wherever you like to buy your books. Thanks and happy reading.

[00:01:28] Now for today's show, there's something particularly enticing about a short book that delivers an incredible reading experience. And today I'm excited to talk with my guest, Vanessa A. Bee, about the short books she loves.

Vanessa is an author, mother, wife, and attorney who lives in Washington, D.C.. She also recently released a memoir called Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter's Reflections on Belonging, about her experience as an adoptee who was born in Cameroon and raised by a Black mother and a white father in France, England, and the United States.

Between work, family commitments, writing, and reading, Vanessa has a lot on her plate, and she relies on shorter, economically written books to help her make the most of the limited time and energy she has to devote to this beloved hobby. But she's not averse to the occasional long read, as you will hear.

I'm so excited to talk about Vanessa's favorites today and to hear more about why she finds this format so powerful. I'll also recommend titles that deliver on that sweeping, beautiful reading experience she loves most, all while being wrapped up in neat little book packages. Let's get to it!

Vanessa, welcome to the show.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:02:33] Thank you for having me.

Anne Bogel [00:02:35] Oh, it's my pleasure. We want to give our listeners a glimpse of who you are. Would you tell me a little about yourself?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:02:41] I live in Washington, D.C. with my husband and our toddler, and our two cats. In my day job, I'm a financial consumer protection attorney for the government. And that is sort of my dream job. And then on the side, I do some writing.

Anne Bogel [00:02:59] Vanessa, tell me what it means to be a financial consumer protection attorney. My background is in property law, and I can't really conceive of what that means for how you spend your days.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:03:10] Well, I actually work for one of the government agencies that was created after the financial crisis. So a lot of my day job involves investigating companies or individuals who may have violated some of the federal laws that are supposed to protect consumers in various financial transactions.

You know, as consumers, we interact with the finance industry all the time, whether you have student loans or a credit card or a car loan or a mortgage, all sorts of areas to come in contact with that industry.

Anne Bogel [00:03:47] What do you find compelling about this field?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:03:49] I came of age, I think, during the financial crisis, and I was raised by working-class parents who I think are exactly the kind of consumers that we try to protect. You know, just like normal people, not necessarily like super sophisticated individuals. I was very shocked as a young person seeing the financial industry take advantage of my parents and other people that were important to us. So I feel passionate about the subject matter.

And then on a day-to-day basis, investigating is really fun. It's a lot of data gathering and interviews of people and companies. You're trying to figure out what the story is. You're trying to figure out what happened, why did it happen. And maybe at the end of that, there's a lawsuit or some other form of resolution. But the kind of solitary aspect of hunting for information and trying to figure out what happened is just very satisfying.

Anne Bogel [00:04:50] Oh, you use the word "story", and I'm thinking now about how so many novels and nonfiction works that we love as readers are written by attorneys or used to be attorneys. How does your day job really prepare you for your hobby of writing outside of work?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:05:07] It's funny. I feel like it uses fairly different parts of my brain. One way in which I think being an attorney has impacted my writing, whether I'm doing nonfiction or fiction, is that I always write assuming that my audience is skeptical of me, of my point of what I'm trying to advance. So I'm very careful about when I'm writing nonfiction, like making sure my facts are straight, making sure I'm making my argument, or making my connections in a way that is clear and compelling.

I think that carries into the writing I do on the side. And then on the flip side, I think the writing I do outside of work influences me as an attorney in that I really value clear writing and storytelling and finding a way to present facts in a way that is interesting and makes you want to keep reading.

You know, judges, my supervisors, these are all people who you have to give them a reason to keep turning the page. I mean, it's their job to keep turning the page, but if you want to get them on your side, it's helpful to have some of the tools that we use in creative nonfiction.

Anne Bogel [00:06:22] Oh, that's so interesting. Vanessa, can you think of a specific instance where you were really grateful for your legal background in your writing or vice versa?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:06:31] So I stepped away a bit from creative nonfiction but that's primarily what I've published. And I've published some really... I tend to be long-winded, so I've published some really long pieces.

And I'm thinking of one that was published in the magazine N Plus One and ended up being in my book. But it's... Gosh, how long is that piece? I don't know. It might be like 10,000 words. In it, I'm connecting my personal experience to the financial crisis and I'm talking about events that happened when I was 16. And I'm retelling these events in service of helping the reader understand why I would feel a particular way about buying property at age 27, and here are some of the history of things that have happened in between and before I got to the town where I'm purchasing the property. Right? So it's a lot of moving pieces.

And I think with long-form nonfiction, a challenge can be getting lost in your own mind. Like the more complex your argument, the more facts you're trying to fit in, the easier it is to lose your path. And I feel like as an attorney I am trained to really organize my mind around the facts, and then trying to fit the facts into the law.

I'm doing a version of that with nonfiction too. I have my facts, I have the moral or political argument that I'm trying to make. And I have to marshal the facts into the point I want to make. And I can't get distracted. I have to think about what will reinforce my argument and what is like superficial and superfluous. You don't have to go to law school to figure out how to do it, but it's been helpful.

Anne Bogel [00:08:15] So if I tend to lose the thread, you're saying I don't have to go back to law school in order to find it again in my storytelling.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:08:20] Do not do. Do not go to law school.

Anne Bogel [00:08:22] Okay. Okay. Vanessa, you mentioned your book, that is, Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter's Reflections on Belonging. I'd love to hear a little more about it. But first, I'll do the bragging for you.

So Publishers Weekly calls this "a rich and enthralling story of finding oneself outside of the bounds of borders and beliefs. It offers a radiant hope in the face of darkness," which I thought was so beautiful. I really enjoyed this. But would you tell me and our listeners what it's about in your own words?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:08:51] Home Bound is a memoir and it's centered on the definition of home. Part of the background to this is that I had an unusual childhood. I was adopted out of Cameroon. I moved to France as a baby. I was adopted by interracial parents, one of whom was my blood relative.

And then when my parents divorced, I stayed in France for a bit, and then I followed my mom to England and then to the United States. So I effectively had lived in four countries by the age of 14. You know, I have these ties to these different cultures that are a part of me and I remained in the United States and have come to feel very Americanized and still somehow a bit torn between homes.

And this book for me was an exploration of the meaning of home. And I wanted to take it further and, you know, expand beyond just physical borders, but to think about what it means to be at home in a name. For instance, I was given the name of a biological parent that I don't know. What does it mean to keep that name? What does it mean to keep a pen name instead? And how does that fit into my identity?

I talk about home in the body, in how we come to view ourselves, the things that influence how we view ourselves, the things that can make and break our homes and create discomfort in our homes. So I tried to explore all this theme. And in all of that, I'm sort of moving chronologically and underlying, is this distant relationship to my father. You know, the book kind of starts with my biological father and ends with him because he's such an absent and yet important part of my identity. So it's that search, too.

Anne Bogel [00:10:40] Thank you for telling us about that. That is your memoir. Did you mention you were moving away from that kind of writing now?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:10:46] Yeah. In terms of memoir, I feel like I've said what I wanted to say. One of the reasons why I wanted to write it is that I'm really drawn to fiction. It is what I primarily read and I aspire to write fiction, and I felt concerned that I have all these really strong opinions about home, including, you know, my political homes and, you know, my cultural homes, and have these really big themes that kind of have loomed over my life.

And I know that in writing, there are early fiction, a lot of writers will draw from their own personal stories, and it just seeps into the writing. And I was concerned that I would end up hiding behind my fiction and that my sort of core beliefs would be handed two characters as opposed to me owning it. So I thought, I'll write the memoir, I'll see what I think, and then I can just move on.

And then another aspect of it, too, is, you know, I've mentioned I have this job that is not always intense, but can be fairly intense and is very time-consuming, and that has a big investigatory component to it. So there's a world in which I could do basically what I do all day, which is seek information and figure out, like, things that are bad that are happening in the world, telling a story about it.

In my day job, I tell a story about it and then we either sue or we do something else with the party that we think is at fault. I could do a journalism version of that, where I investigate, I really put in the time and I know how much time a story actually needs because I have to do it for my daily job, and then I write it up and pitch it to places. But I don't have time to do that.

So instead I sort of feel like, well, if I don't have time to do the journalism thing at 100%, at the level that I know I can do it at, then I almost would rather step away for a while and just not write nonfiction for now.

Anne Bogel [00:12:48] That's such an interesting approach, for the reasons you said, to want to commit to nonfiction first your personal beliefs and ideas and then moving on. Oh, I'm so excited to hear what does come next in your writing life, when it does come. We will be patient.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:13:04] Thank you.

Anne Bogel [00:13:05] Vanessa, given that interesting background, you mentioned four countries when you were still quite young. I'd be so interested in hearing how that upbringing influenced your reading life then and perhaps continues to do so now. Does that question feel relevant?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:13:18] Yeah. I learned how to read really early. I was a voracious reader when I only read in French. And it's silly to say, books have a special place in my heart. Because I imagine that if you're listening to this podcast, then that is true for you also.

But one way in which I mean that is that when I moved to England, I just didn't speak any English at all. And it came to me fairly fast, not because I was super smart, but because I was ten years old, and it's language immersion and kids just pick things up easier than adults.

One of the first ways that I figured out that English was actually sticking was through the books that I could pick up. I remember the first time I went to... I used to go to the library in my neighborhood a lot in London. And when I picked up this book, I didn't know anything about C.S. Lewis.

It was just like in the kids' section and there was a book with Lucy in the front and the lamp. You know, it was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Had no idea how kind of iconic or... You know, I didn't know it was a classic. It looked fairly small and I liked the cover.

To me, that was complex. And I remember realizing like, "Oh, I can actually get through this book. I understand most of the words. And it really gave me hope, like, "Oh, okay, it won't always feel like I'm a fish out of water." It really built up my confidence and opened up a whole new world, right, because I was then able to just read more complex things. And now I've moved to the United States.

I can't tell how much my reading is impacted by the place where I live. That is hard. Like, if I still lived in England, would I be reading the same things? Would I be interested in the same things? I'm not entirely sure.

Anne Bogel [00:15:14] That's such an interesting question.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:15:16] Yeah, it's very possible that I'm just very influenced by American millennials. I actually think my reading taste is unique, but maybe it's not. It actually is writing to my demographic, you know?

Anne Bogel [00:15:28] I think everyone's reading taste is unique. And we'd love to hear about yours. What does your reading life look like these days at this point in your life?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:15:37] My favorite genre, like you said, is literary fiction. If I can make the time, that is great. I read a lot more last year. This year I can already feel myself slipping behind, in part because I've started writing fiction. I feel like it uses the same pull of energy, and so by the time the day is over, I just don't have it in me to pick up a book. I also read a lot for work, so I think maybe that's partly true.

But I turned on to audiobooks. And at first, I couldn't do fiction through audiobooks, but now I have somehow gotten over that. So that's been really fun. So I like take the toddler on walks or I'll be cleaning or making dinner and just like listening to a good either fiction and nonfiction audiobook. And yeah, thank God for that option. Otherwise, I could read nothing these days.

Anne Bogel [00:16:34] Oh, well, that sounds wonderful. That actually makes me want to go, like, chop some onions. Like it's time to prep dinner. Vanessa, I'm excited to get into the details of what you do enjoy. And you know how this works. You're going to tell me three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately. And we will explore titles you may enjoy reading next. How did you choose the books we're going to talk about today?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:17:01] Well, those were some of my favorite books that I read in the last couple of years. I also was so impressed for two of those books, how much the authors were able to pack in such a small space. Those are really economically written books. I think it takes enormous work and talent to be concise.

Anne Bogel [00:17:25] Yes. And is it just me? But I feel like I'm seeing more shorter, more economically written novels, as you've described them, on the shelves today.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:17:34] Yeah. I think that's right. I think of recent huge hits, you know, including The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. That was a really slim book. And I do think that's unusual for American publishing, at least. Right? I feel like the minimum is 250 pages or in that range. You'll pick up a book and you'll see them like mess with the font and all sorts of things to get you to that number where you're like, Interesting.

I think that book could be slimmer, but for some reason, I don't know, there seems to be this industry preference. I don't think that's necessarily as common in other countries. Like I think Europe very commonly publishes very, very slim books, much slimmer than 250 pages. So I think it is a cool trend to see.

I think it's encouraging and I think it's a challenge for authors who maybe would have written slimmer books all along but felt constrained by the industry to kind of bloat their books, you know. And instead, maybe now we're getting the best version of their book because they understand that if it's slim, but it's really good, it will find a home in this environment.

Anne Bogel [00:18:54] That's a promising thought. And if there's one thing that makes readers unhappy, it's a book that they would describe as feeling padded, you know? Like words were added just to make it long. Nobody loves that.

Your comments remind me of a Claire Keegan interview I read, I think, in The Guardian. And I do wonder if the astounding success of books like her very slim Small Things, like these maybe don't make it easier for authors with shorter works to get them published and not be asked to build them out to their pretty typical 300 pages.

But she talks about how, like when a story comes to a writer, like often it needs to be as long as it needs to be and it doesn't need to be any shorter, but it doesn't need to be any longer either. And just the idea that a book needs to be as long as it needs to be, that's the kind of work I want to read.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:19:43] Yeah, I feel that way, too.

Anne Bogel [00:19:45] I can't wait to hear more about your books then. Vanessa, tell me about the first book you love.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:19:52] So the first book I love is called The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen. And speaking of slim books, that is a fairly slim book. I listened to it on audio. It was read by the author, and it was really well produced. So there would be sort of musical clues and you would know that something pretty hilarious was on the way.

I think it's incredibly difficult to be funny on the page. I had these moments where I would be like walking down the street on my own with my headphones just laughing out loud. I was just like, "How is this happening?"

Anne Bogel [00:20:30] I love that visual.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:20:31] And the basic premise of the book is not real, but it's inspired by real events. It's inspired by Benjamin Netanyahu's father's visit to, I think, Cornell, back in the 1960s. So the story is told from the perspective of a professor who already was teaching at some fictional college that I think it's supposed to be Cornell.

And the book leads to the Netanyahus, so to Benjamin Netanyahu's father, the three children, his wife, and just kind of like the colliding of the families. I just thought it was really smart and hilarious and surprising.

Anne Bogel [00:21:13] Vanessa, I haven't read this one yet, and that sounds so interesting. I'm also intrigued that Joshua Cohen read his own audiobook. That's really unusual for a novelist to do. But it sounds like you love the performance if you're laughing out loud walking down the street.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:21:27] I did. And I think because he wrote it, he had a good sense of intonation. He knew when he wanted to be funny. He was so in his own character's head. Obviously, he's a great reader, so that was helpful. There wasn't anything kind of distracting about that. But I think he was able to do things with the cadence that would be more challenging for an actor who didn't come up with the scenes.

Anne Bogel [00:21:53] I've heard this described as a genre-bending comedy that has literary elements, but it's also really, really funny and deals with serious issues, identity, politics. Would you say this is representative of what you typically read or was this off the beaten path for you?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:22:08] It was off the beaten path. I picked it up because my husband had read it and loved it. Now, my husband is Jewish. He's Orthodox Jewish. And they kept saying to me, "This is a very Jewish book, so we don't know if you're going to like it." And I was like, "Okay, well, I don't know. It's enough to me that you love the book." You know, I'm very curious.

And it's true that it had these cultural references that were kind of deeply ingrained. I don't know that I necessarily got every joke, but I definitely feel like I got most of them. And was it unusual for me? I mean, it did win the Pulitzer Prize in 2021. So I think it does have some mass appeal. But I don't necessarily look at a book thinking about these big picture themes. To me, it's like, does it seem like a good story or not? And then I'll often give it a chance.

Anne Bogel [00:23:01] And it was recommended by people you trust.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:23:03] Yeah, exactly.

Anne Bogel [00:23:05] Okay, wonderful. I'm adding it to my list. Vanessa, what's the second book you love?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:23:09] The second book is Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar. And talk about genre-bending. I think that definitely fits into that category. It's supposed to be fiction, but the main character-

Anne Bogel [00:23:24] Supposed to be fiction.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:23:26] The main character is named Ayad, and the main character is a playwright who wants a really fancy award. Obviously, Ayad Akhtar is a celebrated playwright who has won... Maybe it's a Pulitzer. But I think he has resisted, from what I can see in interviews, the description of autofiction. But there are elements, you know, that sort of make you wonder, Okay, this might have happened to the writer. But he says it's fiction, so I'm happy to take it as fiction, take his word for it.

The way in which it's genre-bending is that, I mean, some of these chapters, they could be stand-alone. Some of them feel like they could be essays that you would read in The New York Times, like, you know, Sunday Magazine. And there's even a section of the book that is straight up a play where you just-

Anne Bogel [00:24:22] Really?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:24:23] ...switches forms. There's a trial and it's in play form. So I really appreciated that. I thought it was so creative. There were parts again that were really, really laugh out loud, funny. It has a lot of identity in there. This is not a spoiler, but he wrestles a lot with the idea of he's... His father is a Trump fan. His father is this Pakistani immigrant, a doctor who also, in the book, treated Trump or says he's treated Trump and has great respect for him.

And the main character has very different political views. Right? And so there is thinking around identity and immigration and what it means to, like, make yourself new. Generally, I thought it was just brilliant. Couldn't put it down.

Anne Bogel [00:25:16] That's high praise. Vanessa, what's the final book you chose as a favorite?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:25:21] The final book is Intimacies by Katie Kitamura. And in fact, I loved it so much that the moment I finished it, I was like, "What did she previously write?" And then immediately picked up her book, The Separation, because I just couldn't get enough.

My understanding, just anecdotally speaking to my friends, I think she's kind of a polarizing writer. People I've spoken to you either love her writing or are really turned off by the kind of cool, detached voice with which she writes. But it was slow and simmering. Intimacies was. And I could kind of tell you what the plot is but not really, because I don't think the point of that book was the plot. I guess it was a kind of feelings book. There is a lot of ambient underlying tension, but no big clashes, no big climax, and it was still deeply pleasurable. And again, I found her voice hypnotic.

Anne Bogel [00:26:24] Yes, it's like it's all atmosphere. I don't think the narrator is even named.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:26:29] Yeah, I don't think she is. That's right.

Anne Bogel [00:26:31] So maybe polarizing is an approach, but it really works for you.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:26:35] It really works for me. Yeah.

Anne Bogel [00:26:37] Okay. And that one's so short. That might be the shortest of the ones we talked about.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:26:41] That might be the shortest. And I'll say something about the coolness of her voice is I think my sense of why I might really like it… She's a woman, and I think it's unexpected for women to be this sort of emotionally detached from things. You know, I think there's something unusual about that. I don't know if Kitamura is doing it on purpose and whether she's pushing back against something, but I... I don't know. It just feels really unusual and I'm just very attracted to it.

Anne Bogel [00:27:17] Well, this is a safe place to [inaudible 00:27:19]. I'm going to be thinking about that one. Now, Vanessa, tell us about a book that wasn't a good fit for you.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:27:26] Last year, I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. It's short and it still took me so long to finish it. It was like eating my vegetables and I was so mad reading it. And I was like, "I have to finish it because it's so short." I will not allow the book to win. I will finish the book. It just didn't work for me.

I don't know if the timing was wrong. I don't know if... If I had read it while I was younger, maybe I would have appreciated it better. But I think generally the tone... it's interesting because that narrator is also cool and detached. But I found the narrator cruel.

You know, I've enjoyed books where I didn't necessarily think I would be friends with the narrator. So that's not a prerequisite or anything like that. But for some reason, her particular brand of coolness didn't really work for me. I found the book repetitive.

A lot of the book is lists of medication that the narrator takes to be asleep or in an altered state the entire time. And I just found that really bleak. I couldn't quite tell what it was in service of. I could never really figure it out other than the arbitrary wanting to get through a year sleeping. Did you love that book? What am I missing?

Anne Bogel [00:29:01] I don't know. But I'm working on a theory here. So I'm thinking about how in Intimacies it felt cool and detached and unexpected in a way that you found interesting. And yet when you added that notch of cruelty... Because I don't think that's present in Kitamura's work. That's not something that I picked up. When you add that and when you add the bleakness of some of the chapters but also of the plot itself, it wasn't a neighborhood you wanted to hang out in.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:29:31] Yeah. I think there was something that felt nihilistic in My Year of Rest and Relaxation and purposely so. I felt like the author was embracing a kind of nihilism through her character that I... I mean, people should be able to write about whatever they want, obviously. And the book resonates with a lot of people. So I respect that. I just... nihilism, I just couldn't really get behind it.

Whereas Kitamura's characters, they have a moral compass, even if their moral compass isn't necessarily yours.

Anne Bogel [00:30:09] And an author can accomplish exactly what they set out to do and do a brilliant job and win awards, and it can be all wrong for individual readers. And that book has been chosen as a favorite. And listeners, that was Episode 243. Charlandra Jenkins chose it in an episode called Predicting the next great American classic. Maybe your ten years from now self will love that book, Vanessa, on a revisit. But yeah, right now it didn't do it for you. And I think that's okay. What have you been reading lately?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:30:38] Earlier this year I read Lauren Groff for the first time. I read Matrix. I went in truly not knowing anything. I just knew that I had friends who had loved Matrix. I didn't even know what the title stood for. I didn't know what it described. I didn't know what year would be. So I opened this book and we are in the Middle Ages, and we were in an abbey for all women and it turns out to be a book that is very queer and very beautifully written.

I mean, the way Lauren Groff writes about setting, I just think she's such a talented lyricist. And it didn't feel overwrought to me at all. She must have done a ton of research because you truly feel immersed in the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, you know, a world that I just do not think about, and yet I felt completely at ease, completely taken.

And then I've been listening to Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses.

Anne Bogel [00:31:46] That's so interesting. How is that on audio? I love that in print. I thought it was fascinating.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:31:51] He reads it, too. I feel like I'm in one of his lectures. So far I've enjoyed the first half of the book a lot more. That has nothing to do with the quality of the book. It's more that the first part of the book talks about craft itself and prevailing norms and sort of pushes back against some of those norms.

And then the second part of the book is really about the American style of workshop and ways to push back against that. But I've never done an MFA and I don't intend to do one, and I don't really participate in workshops. So it feels a little more like remote from my world. I mean, he sounds like he's a great teacher and his students are lucky to have him, so.

Anne Bogel [00:32:32] Vanessa, I'm curious to hear what you think. But I'm just thinking of our listeners and how this book has been so often promoted. If you click on the links in our show notes where we always link up all the books so that you can drive safely and get your book talk. But it talks about how this is a resource for fiction writers, teachers, and students, and it's a must-read for writers and editors and anyone who wants to teach.

And I think really it can be for anyone who's interested in knowing how writing is taught and who wonders what an MFA workshop is like and who wants to be a writer themselves and wants to think about how to make their craft better and also think about the publishing landscape today. I just don't want anybody to say like, "Mm, I thought that sounded interesting." But it says it's for those who want to teach. And I don't think the audience needs to be that narrow. I don't know. What do you think?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:33:21] Yeah, agreed. So I'm reading it on recommendation. A dear friend of mine who actually does not write, she does not write fiction. She is a lawyer, but she doesn't write fiction or nonfiction. She has no intent of teaching either. She read it and she loved it, and she's been saying how much she loved it. So it was like, "Well, if Elizabeth loves it, I will give it a chance." So she loved it, and she is neither an editor nor a teacher nor writer.

The first half, in par... I think it's helpful for anyone who's interested in reading deeply, anyone who's wondering like, Oh, why does it feel like maybe some of the more recent books are written in a particular style? or I'm seeing patterns in voice? I think that book is helpful to understand, you know, how the places that build these writers also influence the writers themselves, the culture.

I found it helpful to kind of like... You know, I'm constantly discovering that I've absorbed norms that I just think are like, "Well, this is the way you do things. This is the way you write." Of course, when you write dialog, you should always say, "He said" or "She said." Why would you use another word? Everyone knows that if you use another word it's probably bad writing. Matthew Salesses talks about that and where that stems from.

And I was like, "Oh yeah, of course." I never questioned it, but it's a cultural decision and it's taken on this voice and now we all do it, and it's kind of self-reinforcing. And I just kind of find it kind of illuminating. It keeps me on my toes and hopefully will make me a better reader.

Anne Bogel [00:35:03] Those are good reasons. Vanessa, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:35:09] A couple of things. I think I would like to be more consistent in making time to read. Like organizing my day so that I'm not opening my book at 10:30 p.m. when I only have like 5 minutes realistically of reading in me before I fall asleep. So I'd like to be better at carving out time.

Also one of the books I loved in, I want to say 2020, was The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt. I listened to that audio. I tried to listen to another biography on audio since that I didn't really like. But it did make me feel like, Oh, if a really great biography can feel almost like listening to a podcast deep dive into like a fascinating person, then I'd love to find another one of those to just kind of get me excited about another biography and hopefully with a great historical component.

Anne Bogel [00:36:07] That sounds fun. I wish I could wave my wand and get you more reading time, but something that we can do is focus on some of those shorter economically written novels so that when you do only have five, or can we maybe expand it to 15 and our minds, minutes to read before bedtime, you're still making a noticeable difference in the book. Like you're moving from 10% to 20% or even 25%, even just by reading those 10 or 15 pages, because that's how it works with a 200-page book.

Also, I love the idea of finding you another good biography. You mentioned the historical figure, Eleanor Roosevelt, who is on my mind because readers, we have brought back One Great Book in our Patreon community, and the first One Great Book episode[a] I did in a long time there was on an Eleanor Roosevelt book that she wrote called You Learn by Living. So I've been kind of itching for another biography along those lines.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:37:04] Amazing.

Anne Bogel [00:37:05] So thank you, Vanessa. When it comes to biographies, so much has to do with your specific interests. And not knowing what that might look like historically necessarily, I'm going to go to a writer and poet. And truly, this book is top of mind for me because it just came out and I just happened to come across it and go, "Ooh, that looks interesting." So I'm going to put it in front of you and maybe it'll sound good for you as well.

But this is the brand new biography by David Waldstreicher. He's a professor, I think, at City University of New York. It's called The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence. And I know that the United States isn't your home country but I hope you'll still find this interesting.

The narrative—I almost said the story. It is a story, but it's a true story—begins when Phillis Wheatley, as she is called when she is enslaved by the Wheatley family, but she arrives in Boston by slave ship in 1761. She was born in West Africa before then. And she lived with the Wheatley family as their slave until they granted her freedom in 1773.

But she began writing poetry as a young woman while she was enslaved. She was actually granted her freedom not too long after her first poetry collection was published. And this biography, for better or worse, I hope you find it to be for better, is more heavily weighted toward her poetry than her personal life. So there's lots of her poetry in the text and analysis and what does this mean and what was the context and what was she saying and how was she been misinterpreted through the years and why are these people wrong?

But I think one of the reasons that this book focuses more on the poetry is because there are gaps in the historical record when it does come to the life of Phillis Wheatley. And Waldstreicher explores that as well. You know, what is missing? Why don't we have this story? The answer for one large-ish six-year gap is she got married, and here's who she got married to, and here's why that matters.

But he kind of creates theories for what he imagines could have happened in her life then. But this is a really interesting take on a poet who was just so important to early American history and also early American poetry. Does that sound interesting to you?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:39:21] It does. I also find poetry intimidating. So this might be like a nice entry point because we're talking about the person who wrote it, the context of her life. And then it sounds like there is some analysis also of what she was writing, which would be really helpful for me. So yeah, it does sound fascinating in terms of both the person and then what her art was and how that gets all tied together.

Anne Bogel [00:39:48] I hope so.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:39:49] Well, thank you.

Anne Bogel [00:39:51] Oh, it's my pleasure. Let's talk about short economical novels. I am wondering... I mean, I feel like surely you've read this, but if you haven't, I feel like we need to talk about it. And that is Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. Is this one you're familiar with?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:40:04] No.

Anne Bogel [00:40:06] Oh.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:40:06] I don't even think I've heard of it.

Anne Bogel [00:40:08] I'm thrilled to hear it. Kamila Shamsie is so talented. She had a book come out this past fall about female friendship called Best of Friends, about two women who maintain a friendship over decades, who endured something that complicated their relationship when they were young in Pakistan, I believe, and then who as adults crossed paths in London. And it's very good.

But it's not Greek tragedy, which is the roots of Home Fire. So this is a modern-day Antigone. It was longlisted for the Booker. It is a short, compact, economically written story that, oh, just really packs a punch. And you do not need to be at all familiar with the Greek tragedy to read and enjoy this story.

You could read this and not know that at all, and you can still really enjoy the book. But the way that the story is updated for the modern age is so interesting. It begins with a woman about to miss her flight in the Boston airport, actually. But this is about love and political allegiance and terrorism and identity. And it's just brilliant.

I think you said in your submission, Vanessa, that you really love a story that tells a great story on the larger scale, but also is just brilliant on the sentence level.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:41:23] Yes.

Anne Bogel [00:41:24] And I think Shamsie can really do that.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:41:26] I mean, everything you've said sounds extremely up my alley.

Anne Bogel [00:41:29] Oh, I'm so glad.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:41:31] Yeah, that will go next on my list. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. It's hard to find out about new books, you know? In some ways, they're just so many. I'm overwhelmed by the choice. So it's wonderful to get recommendations from a trusted mind.

Anne Bogel [00:41:48] Oh, I'm so glad. Let's try to do one more. This one is very new. Just out in April. Now, I know that one of the books that you really enjoyed that we didn't really dig into today is A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet. This book is not that, but it feels like a decidedly more optimistic cousin to that book. It's called The Last Animal. It's by Ramona Ausubel. This is a new book for her.

She is the author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty that came out a few years back. I don't know if that sounds familiar to you. But this book is interesting, it's complex, it's thoughtful, it's poignant, and also sometimes it is just laugh-out-loud funny. I was reading this in the family room with my family and I was like, "You guys, listen to what is happening now with the wooly mammoth." Because it is about in part a wooly mammoth.

So the setup here is a single mother, and she's newly single because her husband died in a terrible car crash just a year before in Italy. She's a scientist and she has two teen daughters. And the daughters come along with her on a scientific expedition to Siberia. And everybody's rolling their eyes at the female scientist who brings their children along, what a drag.

But her daughters find a wooly mammoth buried in the ice when they're out on a hike one morning, and they maybe don't follow all the protocols. And what ends up happening is, and I'm not going into the science at all, but the scientist ends up engineering the birth of a wooly mammoth in Italy in the present day. And it's funny and tender and warm and wise. And it's about grief and love and sisterhood and climate change and this audacious scientific endeavor.

It was so strange and so funny and so unlike anything I read. And also it made me want to read this out loud to anyone nearby. You know, like, Listen to this, listen to this. And I think you're the kind of reader who would enjoy a book that makes you want to turn to the person next to you and go, "Hey, listen to what this writer said."

Vanessa A. Bee [00:43:59] That sounds great. And of course, something I liked about A Children's Bible is that, even though we were talking about climate change, there was still so much humor in it. Somehow they were able to like, you know, eke a little joy out of it. And what is the title again?

Anne Bogel [00:44:18] It's called The Last Animal. And I love the phrase you just used, to eke a little joy, because that's what I feel like these characters are doing here. They are in a rough spot, but by golly, they've still got some hope. They're not giving up yet. And they hope this little baby wooly mammoth doesn't either.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:44:38] That sounds thrilling. I'm excited to go find it. Thank you.

Anne Bogel [00:44:42] Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. Vanessa, I enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for sharing your books with us and talking more about your background and your writing life.

We left you with three books you may enjoy reading next. They were The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley, The Biography by David Waldstreicher, Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie and The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel. Now, two of those books are quite short. That biography is not as long as the one you just finished about Eleanor. But it's closer to a doorstop than not. But of those books, Vanessa, what do you think you may enjoy reading next?

Vanessa A. Bee [00:45:17] I think all three sound great, and I think I'm most likely to start with The Last Animal, just because it sounds very unusual. And then maybe the second novel. And then maybe I'll do the audiobook. I'll cheat and listen to it in between novels, because that's usually how I kind of do it. But yeah, The Last Animal. I'm stoked. I'm going to that first.

Anne Bogel [00:45:44] Well, I'm excited for what your reading life holds in the future, and I can't wait to hear what you think. Vanessa, thank you so much for talking books with me today.

Vanessa A. Bee [00:45:51] Thank you for having me on. This was so lovely.

Anne Bogel [00:45:59] Readers. I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Vanessa, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Vanessa at her website, Vanessaabee.com. We'll have that link as well as the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

We love connecting with our listeners on Instagram. As Summer Reading Guide season approaches, we'll be sharing more peeks behind the scenes and little previews of what to expect. Follow the show @whatshouldireadnext and join me @Annebogel.

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Thank you to the people who make the show happen each week. What Should I Read Next? is created 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 said, "Ah! how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.

[a]I went ahead and capitalized One Great Book in both spots but I'm highlighting this for Studio D for future reference.