Anne Bogel [000009] 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.

This week we are taking a summer reading detour and talking about some of the literary goodness from my recent trip to Europe with my family. My husband, Will, who serves as our What Should I Read Next? producer and the all-around operations guy around here at HQ is joining me to tell you all about it. Let's get to it. William, welcome to the show.

Will Bogel [000058] Thanks for having me.

Anne Bogel [000101] Well, I'm happy you're here.

Will Bogel [000102] This seems a little weird since it's partly my show, but, yeah.

Anne Bogel [000104] I hear you. I'm feeling a little jetlagged this morning because we just got back. We rolled in from Spain two nights ago. Let me think. At the time we're recording right now, yeah, should be getting sleepy for bedtime. And the sun is still high in the sky here in Louisville, Kentucky. How are you feeling?

Will Bogel [000121] I'm okay right now, but I did notice yesterday mid-afternoon, I was like, Oh, I'm done.

Anne Bogel [000128] That is no one's favorite part of travel. Readers, we just got back from a big trip and I have referenced it on the podcast, especially just a few weeks ago with Corin Cook's episode 385 A Summer of European Reading. I've been talking about it in Book Club and in Patreon. Some of you are giving me reading recommendations, which I really appreciated. And now we're here to tell you all about it.

William, we talked about how we should just let everybody know that... like, I share a lot of my travels when I'm traveling for work, when I'm traveling on my own, well, even when you and I are traveling together, but we don't typically broadcast when we're traveling together as a family. But we didn't want to miss the opportunity to tell you about our trip. I know that many of you have been to some of the places we talked about or have enjoyed vicariously visiting them through the pages of a book. Some of you have intentions to go and expressed a lot of interest in hearing about what we did and mostly how we approached it from a literary point of view. And we thought this would be a fun way to do that.

So we took this trip with the two of us and our four kids that are ages 13 to 20. One of them is going into college. One of them is going to be a junior in college. One is in high school. One is in middle school. We really intended to take this trip several years ago before they graduated from high school. And we all know what happened. There was a big pandemic and it ruined a whole bunch of travel plans or postponed in this case.

I really feel grateful that we were able to take this trip at all. I feel like we're on borrowed time with our college kids who have jobs and internships and their own lives that we don't control the details of anymore like we did when they were little. So I was so glad that we got to do this together.

Also, Will, do you want to talk a little bit about being away from work for the longest time ever? Because this is the longest we've ever been away from work since... I mean, since we got stuck in Europe following 9/11 in 2001.

Will Bogel [000320] Well, that wasn't our work. That was easy because I just kind of called in.

Anne Bogel [000325] Those are punch-the-clock jobs. Different. Different.

Will Bogel [000328] You know, we've moved past and then just the last little bit of like always taking a computer everywhere we go just in case something happens. But even still, like if we go camping for four or five days or we go to the beach, you know, it's easy to kind of squeeze in a weekend and just let everything go. But this definitely felt like a big trust exercise to... you know, how well can we plan ahead and think about what's coming and make sure that we've got everything lined up that the team has the answers and can continue on with stuff. And it worked out great.

Anne Bogel [000359] And the trust exercise for us, especially me and my controlling have a hard time letting go things nature because our team is amazing, and we are so grateful to our team members who kept all the plates spinning while we were away. They really made it possible and I'm just so thankful that we could do this.

It's funny when we started planning this trip, William, oh gosh, in late 2022, I want to say, I thought I would do so much fiction reading, especially to prepare. But I know you've heard me say many times that planning this trip was kind of like... It did a number on my reading life and not the way I was expecting.

Will Bogel [000439] Well, it definitely being right on the heels of summer reading season, there wasn't a lot of lead up to, like have lots of time. So by the time we got ready to go, it was time to read the travel books. And traveling with a big group, we also had lots of questions about like, what is this going to be like for just very practical things about getting around with six people? Like do all of these cities... One of the things we run into is, do they all have taxis large enough to hold us? So, you know-

Anne Bogel [000507] No. The answer is no.

Will Bogel [000509] The answer is most of them don't. So doing all of the little online, you know, who's got this travel tip or destination in mind but then also checking out travel books from the library. We got Paris Walks Like a Local or something like that.

Anne Bogel [000527] Uh-huh. London Literary Walks?

Will Bogel [000529] London Literary Walks, which I didn't actually even look at. And then, of course, buying our actual travel guides, the Rick Steves' books that we kind of really delve into. Okay, what's in this museum? What are the highlights in the city? All of those kinds of things. It did not leave a ton of time for preparatory kind of just get in the mood, you know, have the feel of the place sort of reading.

Anne Bogel [000552] Yes. And I mean, don't get me wrong, today we're talking about the books that we read in preparation for our trip, inspired by our trip on our trip. But in the planning stage, I did so much reading, but it was travel guides and Rick Steves' forums and Trip Advisor, and not necessarily the books, which totally make sense in hindsight, but which I really didn't see coming.

And I'm so glad I started reading back in the spring when I did so. And I'm so glad that I went on a French novel cake a couple of years ago because I had more information in my mental bank than I would have had if I'd just started reading in like May.

As book lovers, of course, we are very interested in the literary sites in all these places, but I really had to... Well, I think we collectively had to talk about, what do we want out of this trip as a family. Because we were going with our four kids. Will and I have been to Europe just a couple... what? Twice together? The last time we went was with our friends Mel and Dave from Strong Sense of Place in 2018 when we went to Scotland together. And you can read about that and our time in Scotland's National Book Town of Wigtown on Modern Mrs. Darcy.

We've recorded a podcast episode from there with Ruth, a local bookseller. There's a lot of fun in the archives, you can go back and listen. But this trip, of course, we couldn't stay out of the bookstores and of course, we had to read. But really we are focused on our kids... Well, three of our kids were going to Europe for the first time on this trip. We were really focused on what we wanted to do as a family and what they were interested in. I mean, believe it or not, you may have a different picture of our home life, but our kids really don't want to go to like 19 bookstores a day in Europe.

Will Bogel [000725] Or anywhere. They put up with, you know, one, if we're on a road trip and we're like, "Hey, we're going to stop here because we'll also buy you food at the cafe or whatever." But yeah, they're not always game for a full literary tour.

Anne Bogel [000742] They are game for a lot, though. There were a couple times on our trip where I said, "Oh, this bookstore that I'm really curious about is just another 8/10 of a mile away on foot through an interesting area of the city." And they'd be like, "Oh, mom, you care about this stuff, you have to." So I appreciate it.

William, why don't we share where we went on our grand adventure? Oh, gosh, I sound so cheesy. But why don't you tell everyone what our itinerary sounded like, just in brief?

Will Bogel [000810] So we flew into London and did a few days there, and then took the train to Paris for another... I think it was four days or something like that, and then took the train down to Barcelona. And we happened to be flying out of Madrid just because of the way the flights that we got worked. Barcelona, I think, was somehow on... I don't remember how we decided on that, but it was on a map like, Oh, that should be part of the trip. Because we were flying out of Madrid, we decided to not sort of squeeze that in last minute and worry about travel plans. We spent two days there before we flew out. So four cities and... I think everybody had different favorites, but it was a good, well-rounded sort of, as you said, adventure.

Anne Bogel [000852] Yes, I really enjoyed it. You all may have heard me say before that I am a nervous flyer, so I don't read a lot on planes. I watch a lot of TV and movies on planes. Oh, and nap, if I'm lucky. But the trains were so good for reading. I didn't anticipate that when I reviewed our itinerary, but I got some real quality readings in the French countryside and then traveling between Barcelona and Madrid. And I was grateful for that.

Now let's talk a little bit about the books we actually read. As I was preparing for the trip, I didn't read in chronological order. I planned in chronological order. I started in London and I finished with Barcelona and Madrid. But for the reading, I just grabbed whatever looked interesting from my own shelves when it came in at the library, when it arrived in the mail. But for this episode today, we are going to go in the order of our itinerary. And for that, we will start in London.

I had the pleasure of talking to Patti Callahan Henry in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club just a couple of days before we left. One of our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club Summer Selections was her new book, The Secret Book of Flora Lea. It's set in London and also in Oxfordshire. But it just really set the mood and the atmosphere for going on our trip. It's historical fiction not set in the present day, but it did make me think like, Oh, I can't wait to see all the bookish sites in London. So that was quite a sendoff.

And then the book I was reading when we left was Helene Hanff's Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. I've read 884, Charing Cross Road, her previous book that came out in 1970 several times. You may have heard about this before. It's a classic memoir, epistolary style that is the collected correspondence between Helene Hanff, a witty, wry New Yorker who is corresponding with the owner of Marks & Co, a bookstore located at, as you might guess, 84 Charing Cross Road in London.

And this is their correspondence. And it just is 106 pages long. It's so short, was so punchy. And you follow their continued relationship as it turns from bookshop patronage to abiding friendship over the course of 28 years of letters. It's charming. And I knew that she had a follow-up book published in 1973 called The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street but I hadn't read it and I didn't know what it was about. So can I tell you real quick?

Will Bogel [001112] Yeah.

Anne Bogel [001113] Because of the success of 84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff finally had the money to go to London that she had long been obsessed with and meets the, I'm sorry to say, widow of the bookstore owner she corresponded with because he died shortly before her trip and her daughter. She's always wanted to go to London, but she never had the money. And the success of this book made it possible.

It's called The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street because she encamps, she hopes to stay quite a while, weeks turn into months in London. And she sets up house at a hotel on Bloomsbury Street. She talks about how she just feels like a queen. Like people come to see her and call on her and want to take her places and think she's stylish and fashionable and witty. And she's like, "I'm just a New Yorker. I don't deserve all this." But she feels like she is treated like royalty. And she makes a joke at one point about how she feels like the Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, and that's why it's called that.

But she talks about what she does in the city that she is so glad to be in with these people that she has longed to meet for so long. And it's full of very specific details of the sites she sees and the shops she visits. And it was just a wonderful book to be reading on the way to London and to continue reading while there. I think I finished it actually in our apartment near Elephant and Castle.

William, what did you read pertaining to London?

Will Bogel [001235] Well, not exactly London, but earlier this year I read The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson. This has been on my TBR for a very long time. But I noticed a comment from Ginger in the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club that This American Life podcast about the book or about the story that the book entails had been re-released. So I saw this comment, I listened to the podcast, and immediately I was like, "I've been meaning to read this for years, this is my chance." So I picked up the book.

And it is this natural history meets a heist... It is a very odd story about a young man who gets so deep into tying fly fishing... flies, I guess is what they're called. But the only right, best way to do it is to have these rare feathers. And he ends up stealing a bunch from a museum.

So the author, Kirk Wallace Johnson, does an amazing job of explaining the importance of these feathers and the very long history of how they were acquired and all this stuff. So while the actual museum is not in London, it gave me this great picture of how much of British history is really world history. I mean, the idea that the sun never sets on the British Empire.

When we went to Kew Gardens, the Botanical Garden, I kept seeing signs and they were talking about plants and how old they were and all this stuff, and I think, "Wait a minute, how did they get this stuff so long ago back to this garden?" And the answer is sort of in the pages of book, that the British Empire was sending out these naturalists and the voyages and collecting these specimens.

It was just a fascinating look at how much, I guess, world experience that the Brits had. So when you look at the history and the culture there, it's very, very influenced by the people who had come back from these trips. I just loved sort of being set up with that mindset of like this is very globally minded. And it's not a great history.

When we were in the British Museum, we came across a statue from Easter Island. These are the really big... they're mostly heads made out of stone. And this one had been taken on a voyage in the 1860s, I believe, and brought back to Britain. There are current discussions with the Rapanui people on Easter Island about returning because they're saying like, you basically stole this from us 200 years ago and we would really like it back.

You know, the entire history is not always kosher, but it was interesting to have kind of this background from The Feather Thief, about all of the advancements in science and all the efforts to map the world and sort of understand other cultures. It was great while we were there in the museum seeing similar things, if not those exact things.

Anne Bogel [001525] I have read a fair number of books. I mean, a ton. I read a ton of British literature. And we've written about that a lot on the blog. We've talked about it on the podcast. We actually have a literary tourism post that you can search on the blog. It might be 65 recommended reads for those who have visited England or want to travel there vicariously through the pages of a good book.

But there are two specifically that I want to revisit after being to London, perhaps because we went to see a couple of shows. We saw Six, we thought Guys and Dolls. They were both fantastic in their own ways. I want to reread Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, a book that begins and ends in the theater in London. I remember it being very specific with people and places especially. I just love the book. I just need the tiniest reason to revisit it. But this is a really compelling one.

I also want to pick up a book that I remember vetting for. I think one of our book previews that might have been in the Summer Reading Guide, but I didn't finish it. And that is Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley. I thought about it every time we stepped on the tube. And now that I've just written it recently, I think I may have to pick this up and finish it. If you have thoughts, you should tell us in show comments.

Now, our philosophy for London was we have one kid who's a total history buff and three who are more interested in experiencing London today. So we did a lot of living, a lot of walking, a lot of strolling through neighborhoods, a few big sites and museums. You mentioned going out to Kew Gardens, but we also dropped into a few bookstores.

Will Bogel [001701] More than a few in London.

Anne Bogel [001702] More than a few. It's true. We just kept stumbling upon them. And actually my favorite was one that I didn't even intend to visit but I guess... Let's go in order. So we started at Daunt Books. Before we left, I think I wrote on our itinerary that this was my number one priority bookstore in London if we could only do one. We decided to go to the Marylebone location.

The thing that I love about the store, aside from the fact that it is absolutely gorgeous... can I just say how much I am into Londoners putting giant displays of fresh flowers in their bookstore entrances?

Will Bogel [001736] Right. That was great.

Anne Bogel [001738] We didn't enter one where that wasn't the case, and I loved it. But this store specifically arranges their books by location. I mean, honestly, this is the store I wish I could have browsed in when we were preparing for our trip because you can look for, you know, books set in Kenya, books set in Spain, books set in the United States, books set in Japan. It was a traveler's dream. Because it was set up in that interesting way that is pretty unconventional for a physical bookstore.

William, do you have any strong memories about Daunt Books, aside from me making sad faces that you and I decided not to buy and take home a couple of books that were so gorgeous, that then I knew that I would then need to transport a thousand miles through Europe?

Will Bogel [001820] That was the hardest part is the first one. How good are these books? Do we want to carry them around? But I had the same thought. I love the location arrangement. And especially being that early in the trip, I was thinking like, Oh, let's look at the Spanish section. Let's look at the French section." But again, I wasn't going to carry them out. Or even at that point, I think I probably already knew I was going to have a ton of time to read while we were on the trip.

Anne Bogel [001843] Yeah. So that kind of hurt. But the memories last forever. This is what I tell myself. I'm interested in checking out the website. I haven't done that yet since we've gotten back to see if they may have some of that profitability and discoverability factor on the site. I hope so.

We also went to the Foyles on Charing Cross Road. This is their iconic flagship location. And I read somebody saying that if Foyles doesn't have it, no one does. This is one of the stores where I said, "Kids, I'm really interested in visiting Charing Cross Road. Will you hate me if I make you walk another mile and a half?" And they said, "We have to. We're in London," which I really appreciated. We took some great pictures here, took in the view. And I just really enjoyed browsing.

Something that was so distinct about these European bookstores, especially in London compared to the ones we have here at home that I frequent regularly it's just the size. Like we visited several bookstores that were stories and stories tall.

Will Bogel [001938] Oh, so big.

Anne Bogel [001938] We didn't even go into the biggest ones. Also in Foyles I really love their puzzle collection and I wanted to take like 20 of them home with me. I did not.

And then the store that ended up being my favorite was one that I didn't intend to visit at all. It actually caught our daughter's eye as we were walking down Piccadilly. It's called Hatchards. So she said, "Let's go in." And I thought, "Well, you know, if you really want to, I guess I'll follow your lead for once, and you can drag me into a bookstore."

Will Bogel [002007] She can twist your arm, yeah.

Anne Bogel [002009] I know. So this just was not on my radar. We found out it was London's oldest bookshop and that they are booksellers to the royal household, and they've been around since 1797. It's five stories tall. It's gorgeous.

But I think the reason I really love this one is it just made such an amazing first impression. When I walked through the door standing in front of the beautiful flowers and was just kind of getting my bearings, a bookseller rushed down the stairs, totally breathless, clutching a book in triumph, and she found the customer who's waiting for her, and she said, "I found it. I looked everywhere. I found the book you wanted. It was totally shelved out of place. I persevered. I found it. I'm so happy to be able to deliver this to you. You have to buy it now. It was so hard to find. It's amazing. You want to read this."

It just won me over immediately. Like, what a great place to be. Like, she just... Ah, she won me. I wish I told her. Actually, do you know what I wish I'd done, William, is that man ended up not buying the book. And I wish I'd known what it was. Part of me wanted to turn around and say, I'll buy that book. You worked so hard for that, I'll buy that book. You're so excited to have it. What is it? But I just let them go about their days and now I'm kind of sorry about it. But I thoroughly enjoyed browsing. They had such a wonderful selection.

And it was so interesting... You know, I'm just realizing, I think the reason that I noticed so much in this store in Hatchards was because they had so many covers facing out. So covers from books that I knew but whose covers were unfamiliar to me. Like Demon Copperhead really caught my eye and made me go, Whoa! Like, I hadn't seen that. I wasn't expecting that cover treatment. That's so interesting. What were they thinking? What was the philosophy there? There was so much to take in, and it made my nerdy little heart happy.

Will Bogel [002152] I think you also frequently say that there are prettier covers on English books than when they come to the US. At least Demon Copperhead, I thought the US cover was great and maybe better than the one that we saw.

Anne Bogel [002207] I was really surprised by the British cover of Demon Copperhead, but it really struck me and I was just wondering like, Well, what does Barbara Kingsolver think of that? I'm so curious." And then you reminded me that we popped into a Waterstones in Richmond. Waterstones is everywhere in the UK, and this was the only one we went to.

Will Bogel [002227] Also on our daughter's request.

Anne Bogel [002229] Oh, was it really?

Will Bogel [002230] Yeah, it was. But that was immediately after we had gone into the open book in Richmond, tiny little bookstore that mostly caught my eye because it's the same name as the bookstore we went to with Mel and Dave in Wigtown in Scotland. But that was a tiny little store perfect for the sort of little alleys in the area there in Richmond.

Anne [002250] Mhm. I tried to take so many photos of the little bookstores we passed so I can remember and document them later. But friends, I have not done that yet. But I really enjoyed. I really enjoyed getting to experience this part of London. I've heard so much about their bookstores and I hadn't been to the city since I was 17. I know I went to bookstores back then. I remember a travel bookstore, but so, so vaguely. So this is an aspect of our trip that I was really looking forward to. And it did not disappoint.

You mentioned that we popped out to Kew Gardens and I forgot that that train ride was long enough that I started a book on the train after I finished The Duchess at Bloomsbury Street. And it's set in England, but not London. Mostly I just wanted to read the new book by Gillian McAllister that comes out August 1st. It's called Just Another Missing Person.

I loved Wrong Place Wrong Time so much, I was just eager to read her next work. And I thought, "This is close enough. I'm not going to go into the details but it was an intriguing mystery with a fun plot that had a twist I didn't expect but worked. Not too gimmicky. And something I enjoyed about it is they'd be popping into like fast food restaurants and retailers that I remember at one point I looked out the train window and went, "Wait a second, that's the restaurant chain that I've never heard of before, but was just mentioned in my book." And there's one right there. And that's such a small detail, but it also really makes you feel like you're living in the world of the story. And I really enjoyed that.

And then something that I appreciated and did not anticipate at all was that without even realizing it, I brought a couple of books on the trip with me that happened to bridge London and Paris. They move back and forth between the two cities and countries. And I did not expect that. But we were traveling from London to Paris, so I thought that was absolutely perfect.

Now let's move on to Paris. This gives us an opportunity to talk about our approach to bringing Reids along with us. I brought a well-stocked Kindle, but also at the last minute, I brought along two paperback books. I did not intend to travel with books. But I couldn't resist because, William, you pointed out to me that some of the books that were sent to me by a What Should I Read Next? alum, Claire Hanscom, who appeared on Episode 365 called Pitch perfect endings and laugh-out-loud rom coms. She is working for Gallic Press now. She sent me a couple of books that she thought I would enjoy.

And honestly, Claire, I'm so sorry. This is so embarrassing. Readers, there are so many books in my office right now. These are gotten a little bit buried. I did not realize that two of the books that Claire sent were by authors that I have read and enjoyed before... French authors that I've read and enjoyed before. And those were David Foenkinos and Antoine Laurain. Oh, gosh, I apologize for my Kentucky French pronunciation.

So I've enjoyed both those authors before. In fact, just when we were at the beach in May, I read Antoine Laurain's book Vintage 1954, which I heard about from Strong Sense of Place and features a magical bottle of wine that transports the drinkers back in time to a key night. It was a weird book, but I enjoyed it. It was fun to read. It was fun to talk about. So when I discovered Claire sent this new one, I had to take it.

I also enjoyed several years ago The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos, and she sent his new book Second Best. So I brought those books with the intention of hopefully reading them early on the trip and then leaving them for another book lover to enjoy after I was gone so that I could replace those books and my suitcase with books that I purchased so as not to increase the weight in my backpack that accompanied me on this trip.

Will Bogel [002625] And did that work?

Anne Bogel [002627] You know, it did work. I really enjoyed these two books. So I read a lot in preparation for this trip as well, both on purpose and kind of accidentally. But let me tell you about these two. Let's start with Second Best, because to my surprise, it moves back and forth between London where it's primarily set, and France, where two characters lived for a time.

The premise of this was... I mean, like, how do they come up with this stuff? So Second Best refers to the boy actor who lost the role to Daniel Radcliffe to be Harry Potter back when the first movie came out and how it haunts his life. I have been told how this book is very, very French. I'll just tell you that things go rough for this kid who is haunted by what he feels he lost. Feels like he should have been Harry Potter.

But the story was so, I mean, sometimes kind of depressing, but also whimsical and unexpected and just... I was reading at the perfect time. I really enjoyed reading it on this trip. That's translated by Megan Jones, and it comes out in the U.S. this September.

Then I also read An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain. This is the man who wrote Vintage 1954. It's translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie and Megan Jones. Again, very, very French. So the thing that really captured me about this book, aside from reading the author before, is it's about the transit of Venus, the astronomical event. And I love that Shirley Hazzard book by that title, The Transit of Venus.

So this story is set in the present day and way back in 1760. In 1760, there's an astronomer who is determined to observe the transit of Venus take place. So 250 years later, there's a real estate agent in France who has happened to have the telescope of this long-ago astronomer, and it affects his life in intriguing ways.

[002823] Something that I loved about this book, Will, was you had identified that we were going to perhaps visit the Parisian taxidermy shop, Deyrolle, which is incredibly famous. I did not realize how famous until it appeared in two books I read in a row, not expecting to encounter them in Paris, which is wild and so much fun. But the estate agent falls in love with the taxidermist in this book, and they were all features prominently in the plots. I really enjoyed it. And just perfect place and time to read this book.

But then the next book I picked up was Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. This came out nearly 20 years ago. It's written by an American journalist who moved to Paris with his wife and very small child in the mid-90s. And Will, I was telling you that I didn't feel like the tone of this aged well, but I still enjoyed reading the first like 30% of it, including the solid ten pages devoted to Deyrolle, the taxidermy shop, which I was not expecting, which was just so delightful.

I read An Astronomer in Love. I found out it was about a taxidermist before we actually visited Deyrolle and read about. And then after we'd been to it, I picked up Paris to the Moon and found Deyrolle in its pages and actually got to answer some of the questions I had. Like, Who buys this stuff and how do they make money and how have they stayed in business for so long? He talks about that.

So I set that book aside, but I'm so glad I read as much of it as I did. It really reminded me as a kind of David Lebovitz tone but journalism and business instead of food like Leibovitz talked about. I also really enjoyed rereading some Lebovitz in preparation for this trip.

Will Bogel [003001] You recommended that I check out some of his. I don't think I read anything by him, but yeah, I read The Sweet Life in Paris as you were sort of going back through David Lebovitz. I really liked that day in the life expat story-type memoir. I just thought that was a nice, you know, on the ground here's what it's like.

Speaking of things being a little dated, I was wondering if his some of his characterizations of the French people and like kind of... as he was fitting in, if those two hold true. There were a couple of things that I just didn't... As we were there, I was like, Oh, this is maybe not as standoffish or unfriendly as maybe he talked about or whatever. There was only one shopkeeper that I apparently offended and who was like, What is it that you want? And please get out of my store? And I was like, Oh, okay, I'll move along now.

But he sort of set it up that like it's all business and you need to march in knowing what you want. And what you want really is for them to like, do it for you. So they are the proprietor and they have this long history. And these are not part-time jobs. These are careers. So, like, they will tell you what is the right cheese for your situation or whatever the issue is, you know. But I did really enjoy his sort of literary food tour of Paris from when he sort of first moved over there.

Anne Bogel [003121] And it just so happens that we've been talking about some books in the What Should I Read Next? universe this summer that were really relevant to our trip. Like The Talented Mr. Ripley that I just did a one great book bonus episode on in Patron has a moment in Paris. And then later this summer we're talking to translator Tina Kover for the French novel The Postcard by Anne Berest, which is set in France past and present.

I was about to say I really want to reread this now that I've just been to Paris again. But I get to reread it because I always reread these Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club selections just before talking to the author or in this case translator. So it's fresh in my mind and I'm really excited to revisit this one.

Now, we didn't go to as many bookstores in Paris, but we did make it to Shakespeare and Company. William, what were your impressions of that English-language bookstore right on the banks of the Seine?

Will Bogel [003216] I mean, my first impression was so crowded. It is a tourist destination in and of itself. Obviously, we were going there, but I don't feel like that's necessarily normal. Not everyone pops into a bookstore every town they go to, but this was definitely a destination for a lot of people, enough that they had a queue and signs that said, "Please don't take pictures." You know, you're coming to shop, right?

I was sort of wondering, like, could they be a victim of their own success? Like, are people really in here buying books? Because like we had said, we're not going to buy books because we're traveling and we don't want to carry them. But what do we do, Anne?

Anne Bogel [003249] Oh, we bought books.

Will Bogel [003250] We bought books, yeah.

Anne Bogel [003252] I added to my Everyman's poetry collection by picking up a volume... I mean, an obvious pick would have been to get like Paris poetry or they had like a river poems collection that I thought could be good. But I noticed a poetry collection that I had never seen before whose cover was really striking. I'll have to put a picture on Instagram, friends. But that's what I ended up taking with me. And what did you get? I remember it was small.

Will Bogel [003314] It was small. That was key. I got The Last Tree on Easter Island, which jumped out at me for a number of reasons, but one being trees. So it's sort of like nature writing or whatever. And then again, I was thinking about Easter Island after having been in the museum, the British Museum in London, and also this book is only 80 pages. So I was like, I can pack 80 pages around for another couple of days, right?

Anne Bogel [003337] You did it and you carried mine as well. So thank you.

Will Bogel [003339] I did. And we got them stamped. So we went to check out and she said, Would you like them stamped? And we're like, "Of course we want them stamped. Got to prove that we're here."

Anne Bogel [003349] And then we also had to check out the book in East, those bookstores along the Banks of the Seine. And you shared the most interesting factoid with all of us at dinner. Can you repeat that for our listeners?

Will Bogel [003400] So, yeah, this is a sweet gig, if you don't mind standing and working outdoors all the time. The classic French green stalls along the Seine, they're sort of like built into the wall there over the river. But you'll see them in all kinds of movies. The rent on those things is like €150 a year. So there's a very high demand or was a very high demand to get on the list to become a book in the East.

They sell typically used books, older stuff. There are now a lot of people that are selling trinkets and touristy stuff. They're selling magnets and watercolors and whatever. And then we're seeing tons and tons of like posters and magazine covers and all this stuff for Audrey Hepburn, which took me a long time to realize and finally figured out that that's from Sabrina, a classic American in France in Paris story. So there's a connection there for the Americans to pick up their French souvenirs.

Anne Bogel [003457] And then I actually read this a little later on the trip when we were leaving Barcelona, but inspired by France. I picked up The Vacation by T.M. Logan. I think Mel described it as a potato chip kind of book that was fun and fast-moving. But it is about a group of four old friends who go with their spouses on vacation to a luxurious villa in the south of France.

Our train carried us through that region of France. And I can imagine it being so gorgeous and also so hot and the sea being so beautiful and inviting. This is the story of a vacation going terribly, horribly wrong. I read the whole thing practically on the train and it was a lot of fun.

Will Bogel [003546] That's funny. That actually sounds a lot like a book I read beginning of this year, The Chateau by Jaclyn Goldis. And I don't think you've read this, have you?

Anne Bogel [003556] No, I didn't. We talked about whether or not I would enjoy it, and I ultimately decided not to opt for it. But you've mentioned it a few times. Maybe I should revisit it.

Will Bogel [003605] I think you should revisit it. So this is also a story of four friends that go to Provence and they're invited by the lady of the house, The Chateau. The four girls had been studying in France together as college students. They're summoned back. Three of them are in the U.S., one of them is still in France. They're summoned back to the house and the related house has something to share with them. And there is this big mystery of like everybody's got, as time has passed, their secrets and all that stuff.

I really, really, really enjoyed the first 80%. I did not realize... because I was reading it as an arc prior to Summer Reading Guide. So I knew nothing about it. I didn't realize that it was a thriller. So she's writing this story about these four women and the sort of personal sketches of like what's gone on in their lives since they were all last together. But I didn't realize that something was about to happen.

So it had an exciting conclusion that I just wasn't really ready for because I didn't realize we were building to that or whatever. But I loved the descriptions of the gardens there at the house. They go off to the market and... you know, we did a fair amount of that sort of food shopping and just sort of wandering through the markets and picking things up. There's a big art theme throughout. So there was a lot of that that sort of had me looking forward to the French painters.

Anne Bogel [003726] So if I'm going to read it now, really might be my moment.

Will Bogel [003729] Oh, this is your moment. Yeah.

Anne Bogel [003731] And then I think you were saying that the last book you read, the last French book had a connection to Spain in it?

Will Bogel [003737] Yeah. This one actually has very little connection to either. It just came out in 2017. This is Lie With Me by Philippe Besson and translated by Molly Ringwald, the actress. Even though it just came out a few years ago. It's set in the early 80s. And it's this story of kind of like one school year, and they're in southern France and there's like right there on the border, there is a connection. So somebody has family in Spain and there's kind of this like, well, you're going after the big city and I'm going back to Spain to work on the farms, my family.

So there wasn't a ton of geography or sense of place exactly. So there wasn't a lot of really strong sense of place. I loved the story of this relationship and the kind of half the book is in the early 80s. And the rest is sort of remembrances of that, is this lifelong desire like trying to get back that first love and try and to recapture that thing. What happened to that person that I knew? You know, our paths departed and did we always know they were going to depart? Should I bother rekindling that or even just reaching out to say hello kind of deal? There is this long sort of look back at this initial formative relationship. I really enjoyed it. I don't know if that sheds a whole lot of light on your travels, you know?

Anne Bogel [003854] Yeah.

Will Bogel [003855] I did recognize it when we're on the train and sort of like going through that southern part of France. Like, I could picture that from reading it.

Anne Bogel [003902] That's amazing. I love it when a book prepares me to see an actual place in that way. Next, we moved on to Barcelona and then Madrid. When we went to the beach earlier this summer, we listened to the audiobook Walking with Sam by Andrew McCarthy in the car. And it was 6 hours short about a father and son walking the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. I felt like that really set the mood in tone for this trip. Even though we didn't go any of those small towns that he went to, it still got me dreaming about going to Spain. So I'm really glad that we happened to listen to that book when we did.

And then planning our trip, of course, I wanted to read about these locations. It really made me realize how much... I wouldn't have told you. I've read a lot of Spain books, but there are so many different in the past few years that I've really enjoyed. Like Our Last Days in Barcelona by Chanel Cleeton. The Time in Between by María Dueñas is one I've recommended all the time on this podcast and Modern Mrs. Darcy. Set during the Spanish Civil War in Madrid and also I think Morocco and Portugal. The YA novel, The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys is one that our 16-year-old kept referencing because it was one that she had read about Madrid.

I didn't realize until we were on a tour in Madrid and I was thinking about the makeup of our walking tour groups, I went, "Oh my goodness, the Saeed Jones' memoir that we both love called How We Fight for Our Lives, includes a chapter at the very end about Saeed connecting with a fellow traveler. They're both traveling alone. They didn't know it, but they were both grieving the loss of their mothers, and they meet at a hostel in Barcelona and end up spending a lot of time together. I just love that travel story.

And just real quickly went and downloaded my copy and read it while we were in Madrid actually, so I could experience it again while we were still in Spain. And of course we have to mention The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I'm going to go way out on a limb and say that is the Barcelona book that most of our listeners are most likely to have already read.

So in Barcelona, we dropped into a couple little bookstores just as we were winding our way through the streets, like picking up... We were always picking up coffee and treats and snacks and all that. We needed sustenance to make it to our 9 p.m. dinner times. But the bookstore that we identified is like a must-visit in Madrid was, I think, the very first thing we did in that city after dropping our bags. And that was a visit to Desperate Literature, which was not what I expected at all.

I don't know what I expected, but it was so tiny and adorable. The person who was working there also made such a great impression. I mean, I didn't really realize the symmetry with London, but we had already talked to her. Do you want to tell everybody how you just tried to speak in three different languages to the...?

Will Bogel [004156] I did not try. I loved it. I thought it was a great little story. And it was a funny mix of some of the others. This is the English language bookstore, but it was totally different from Shakespeare and Company. Very, very small. But then it also had right at the door, you noticed that there was a Madrid section, and then I think they had Spain and France as well sort of in front of the larger English language sections.

So it reminded me a little bit of Daunt having their buy local shelves. But the couple that you were just referring to was a local, the checked out right before us they were obviously speaking Spanish. And so she turned to us because we were buying books once again and spoke to us in Spanish. And I said, "I'm sorry, I only speak English." And she looked at the two books we had in our hands, and she says, "Well, that's in French." And I said, Okay, sorry, you're right. I speak a little bit of French. So she just switched to French. And I was like, I only speak a little bit of French."

Anne Bogel [004255] And she was doing great in all three languages.

Will Bogel [004300] In all three, yeah.

Anne Bogel [004302] Goal. But yes, I just was really struck by the fact how she realized she had told the couple who was leaving the wrong title. You said like, "They went that way," and she just took off running so she could tell them about the book that she had intended to tell them about because she thought they would really want to know. And I just-

Will Bogel [004321] That was adorable.

Anne Bogel [004322] What a bookseller! What a bookseller!

Will Bogel [004324] We had already stepped outside-

Anne Bogel [004326] I loved it so much.

Will Bogel [004326] ...and I could see her sort of panicked looking up and down the street. And I pointed to where they were. So we felt a little responsible to stay at the store because she just ran off. But yeah, I thought that was such a great, you know, making sure... they weren't even buying it, right? They had already left. But she wanted to make sure that the title that she told them was the right thing.

Anne Bogel [004346] But I love that store. It was so inviting for browsing and discovery. It was the kind of place that made you want to see, like every single title they'd chosen to highlight. And our kids really loved it, too, which I didn't necessarily expect.

At that store, I picked up a book that was not on my radar before I left on the trip. It's by Ben Lerner. He wrote The Topeka School in 2019, which was well done, well praised, not really to my particular taste. But it wasn't set in Madrid. But Leaving the Atocha Station, they had a big stack of them upfront. I'm sure they sell so many copies because it is about a young American poet who's living in Madrid for a year on a poetry fellowship. And he was living in a little apartment on a plaza that was just a... like one plaza over from our hotel. William, I'm looking at the map going, Did, we walk through this? Did we actually walk through this? Did we?

And there's so many specific places mentioned in this book. He takes trips to Granada in Barcelona. He goes to restaurants where I'm Googling all these places. They're all real places. He walks through this plaza, he goes to this neighborhood, he goes to the Brodo a bunch. He meets a business associate. He goes to the bank, and every location is completely real. Such a strong sense of place.

And it's set in 2004 during the terrorist attacks that do take place in Madrid at that time, which is more of a backdrop than the main plot. But part of me thinks, I would never read this if I wasn't in Spain because this was about a 20-something young poet who was mostly drunk, mostly high, feeling like he was kind of faking his way through this fellowship, not really living as a poet, not really living the Spanish life. He dreamed of living on this fellowship. He's not happy with himself. He's not happy with others.

But the ending of this book, when he's thinking things through and getting it together and... you're in his head as you're reading the story. And there's some passages where he's figuring out like, Do I say this in Spanish? Do I say this in English? Are they talking to me in Spanish? Are they talking to me in English? The way this book approaches and talks about translation was so, so interesting. And I did really love the last 20 pages.

It's a short book. It was perfect for this time and place. I'm really glad I read it here and now. "Here" being in Madrid and "now" being this morning when I finished the last 30 pages before we talk today.

Will Bogel [004614] Bringing your Madrid reading home with you, huh?

Anne Bogel [004617] Yes. And like extending the trip by seriously Googling all the places.

Will Bogel [004621] That is always fun.

Anne Bogel [004622] Which I love doing when I read. I love a book that makes me google.

Will Bogel [004625] Yeah. And is more fun when you can look at and say like, Hey, we might have just been there, you know?

Anne Bogel [004630] Mm hmm.

Will Bogel [004630] I recognize that street name. I recognized that park. We did not do a lot of Googling while we were gone. I think between doing our transit and keeping track of our maps and all that stuff, we weren't using a lot of international data, so I didn't do a ton of digging. But we came across such great information.

We took several tours in each city. We took at least one tour. And before we left, Holly on our team had recommended that I pick up The Ornament of the World by María Rosa Menocal. I only had just gotten in from the library and just gotten started on it before we left, but it was such a great framing for Spain and something that came up again and again in the tours that we took. The flap copy says it's a portrait of the vibrant civilization of medieval Spain. This book is the story of an extraordinary place in time.

What makes medieval Spain extraordinary is this sort of coming together of a Muslim history, a very large Jewish population and time period, and then the sort of Christian influences. And there was this period specifically in the Middle Ages where, you know, we call them the dark Ages in Europe or whatever, but the Iberian Peninsula had this fairly thriving time of mostly peace, mostly tolerance, that the art and literature and even science was active and growing. And it's not this sort of dark age that we think of.

Again, I didn't get real far into it. I was sort of still in the eighth century when this Muslim prince was fleeing Syria and coming to eventually grow this community and Muslim basically nation in that area. But having that framework, I saw it all over Barcelona and Madrid. It's really fascinating.

Anne Bogel [004822] That sounds fascinating. And also, Holly is full of the niche travel reading kind of rec. I'm always excited when she has a book that speaks to my situation or reading whims at the moment. For next time, William... I mean, I don't want too quickly go on to the next. But I am thinking that we did not get enough quality sitting in the Parisian cafe and linger over coffee with your book for hours. That is something that I definitely want to do next time. The specific books, though, that is totally TBD. What about you? What are you thinking for a next time?

Will Bogel [004859] I think our particular travel group was not willing to sit still for all that long.

Anne Bogel [004905] I don't know. Was there Wi-Fi?

Will Bogel [004909] This trip went great but I agree with you. I think a little more sitting and reading or journaling would have been great. I also think you mentioned at the beginning of the episode like, Oh, well, you know, I didn't have time to read right before Summer Reading Guide as we were planning whatever. But we actually started talking about this a year ago. I guess I would think it's not too early to start, right?

Like if you want to take a trip, like if you're thinking about it and planning, go on and start doing the reading. There's no reason not to. It would inform, you know, probably where we wanted to go and what things we wanted to see. There were things that I read sort of right there at the end that I'm like, "Oh, we could have seen it," right? I started reading A Moveable Feast, The Ernest Hemingway memoir, I guess, from his time in Paris. And I know we went to a restaurant that was a block and a half from Gertrude Stein's apartment. Whether Gertrude Stein's apartment is worth seeing is... like it's just a building. I don't know. So maybe that doesn't matter. But, you know, yeah, get started early and then you can kind of start putting things on your list.

Anne Bogel [005008] Mm hmm. Readers, we would love your ideas about books for these specific cities and countries, plus your thoughts about travel reading in general. I have to tell you, after this trip, we saw a lot of cathedrals, and I kept thinking of Ken Follett's, The Pillars of the Earth, which I have not read since I was 17, but I kept thinking about it on this trip.

Will Bogel [005029] Seventeen?

Anne Bogel [005030] Seventeen. Seventeen.

Will Bogel [005031] Wow.

Anne Bogel [005031] More than half my life ago. So I'm wondering two things. Should I read it now? Actually, I'm really only wondering one big thing. Does it hold up? Who among you has read this recently? Tell me about it, please. And it was already in my mind when you said it was in the little library in our hotel-

Will Bogel [005048] Yeah, in the lobby.

Anne Bogel [005049] ...in Madrid, in Spanish.

Will Bogel [005050] It comes out because it's an enormous book. But yeah, it is Spanish. And I don't know what the title was, but I can recognize a giant Ken Follett book when I see it.

Anne Bogel [005100] With a cathedral on the cover. So I'm excited to continue reading about these places because now I know that I'll read them with a slightly different lens because I have been there so recently. I'm excited to also start reading books for our fall book preview coming up mid-September.

Well, William, thank you for joining me on the show for this episode. And readers, I hope you enjoyed listening in to some of our favorite literary moments inspired by our trip and some of the books that we read and enjoyed because of it. I would love to hear the titles that you think we should read next. And as always, we share all the titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. Visit the show notes and get all the info.

And if this conversation inspired your literary wanderlust, be sure to check out our archive of literary tours and posts on Modern Mrs. Darcy. They are there ready and waiting for you.

Sign up for our email list to get weekly updates. That's at whatsshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter. And I know I mentioned that we took some photos along this trip. We'll be sharing those on Instagram. Follow me @annebogel. The show is @whatsshouldireadnext. We will share in both places. Thank you so much to the people who make this show happen and who make everything happen all the time around here-

Will Bogel [005221] Thank you. Thank you.

Anne Bogel [005221] ...even when we are in Europe for two weeks. What Should I Read Next? is created by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Our community manager is Sara Aeder. 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.

Will Bogel [005246] Happy reading!