A reading life that shifts with the seasons

[00:00:00] MELANIE STEIMLE: How likely is this going to be to make me want to keep my lights on and check under my bed? As much as I read mysteries and thrillers, I'm a pretty big wimp. So I like the crimes in the dark to be kind of removed from what could actually happen to me.

ANNE BOGEL: I will say that, of course, this is going to be personal to every reader, but the word "scary" is not one I ever thought to reach for.

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 this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:01:01] Readers, it is fall and we have a lot going on here at What Should I Read Next? HQ. We have had big things happening in Patreon, including last week's Fall Book Preview, which means it's ready and waiting for you to get any time 42 titles of books that I have read and adored for this season, books I can't wait to read, and books the industry is abuzz about this season.

One of those books is one that I recommend to Melanie in today's episode. Episode 396 here on What Should I Read Next? give you a preview of what our bonus episodes are like. We share two favorites. We put those out every week in Patreon. Our patrons have access to a bonus episode library of over 200 episodes.

To join for book recommendations, book conversations, and bookish community, we'd love to have you. Also, this is a tangible way to support the work we do here every week as an independent podcast. Visit patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext to sign up. We'd love to have you.

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Now for today's episode. Today's guest has had a satisfying summer of reading the twisty thrillers and entertaining books she really enjoys when the temperatures rise. And now she's ready to discover some transitional books to carry her into the fall reading season.

Melanie Steimle is a Utah-based reader who works at Brigham Young and has a side passion for cake decorating. She also loves keeping close track of her reading in her book journal and associated spreadsheets. Her end-of-December reading stats review is one of her favorite bookish activities. As you will hear, Melanie looks forward to this all year long.

[00:03:21] She feels confident about the types of books she's looking for this time of year. She knows she'd love more literary picks that she typically avoids in the summer months, but she's not quite ready for the heftier, deeper, darker tones that she really enjoys, but she enjoys them in the wintertime. So how can we bridge that gap?

Melanie is hoping for suggestions for her fall reading list for right now, especially titles that deliver an immersive, highly discussable reading experience. I have some ideas and I can't wait to share them with Melanie today. Let's get to it.

Melanie, welcome to the show.

MELANIE: Thanks. I'm so excited to be here.

ANNE: Ah, I can't wait to talk today. We loved your submission. We thought the timing was just right and I can't wait to get into it. So we'd love it if you could give the readers a glimpse of who you are when you're not reading.

MELANIE: Sure. So I live in Utah and I work at my alma mater, which is Brigham Young University. I manage a learning center. I've been doing that for just a couple of years. I'm a former career counselor, career advisor. I did that for about ten years at a couple of different universities.

[00:04:27] Outside of work, which is the most interesting part of my life, I would say, I love to travel, I love to bake. Obviously, I love to read. And when I asked friends what I should mention in this introduction, they said, "Well, obviously you have to talk about your cat, Willa." So my companion in all of this is Willa, who is, of course, named from Willa Cather.

ANNE: Oh, my gosh, that's precious. I thought you were going to tell me that your friends said you had to mention BTS.

MELANIE: Well, that too. I am an ardent BTS fan, as most BTS fans are. I actually converted my mom as well, and we have been to a couple of concerts together, which we are so lucky to have gotten tickets to not only the L.A. concert that they did in I think it was 2021, and then they came to Las Vegas and it was almost the same show. But my mom lives in Las Vegas. So she said, "We can't not go." So we tried for tickets again and we got them. So I have been lucky enough to go to multiple BTS concerts.

[00:05:34] ANNE: Oh, I'm so glad the universe is on you and your mom's side.

MELANIE: Yes. It's even better that it was a mother-daughter experience. And I know a lot of people tend to think, Oh, boy band, just teen girl fans. No. I am in my 40s, my mom is in her 70s and we were there with all of the other 30 plus women and men. They actually did a call-out, had all the men cheer at one point and it was really fun. They were really excited to hear all the male fans there as well as the females.

ANNE: Oh, I think anything that people get all kinds of passionate about is just fun to hear about. So thanks for educating me a little bit. And then you mentioned your submission that you also love to travel and some of those destinations you've been to and you're planning trips to really caught my eye because I'm good-naturedly jealous about everything you're getting to do here. Would you tell us a little about it?

MELANIE: Yes. So I actually spent some time in Barcelona this past spring summer, just like you did. A friend and I went to Barcelona and then we went north on the Costa Brava, which is the coast north from Barcelona to France. We took a bit of a road trip there. And then we flew over to Mallorca, which is an island that is part of Spain, and spent a few days there. So that was an amazing trip. It was my second time in Spain since probably my favorite place that I've been. I really love it.

[00:07:00] And then next year I am planning, hopefully, fingers crossed, to go to Japan, which I am super excited about. Have not been there before. I started my Duolingo streak this week. I'm going to try to learn as much Japanese as I can in the next year and hopefully be able to feel a little bit more comfortable there being able to speak maybe a few words. We'll see.

ANNE: Oh, that's fantastic. Does reading factor into your travel plans and preparation?

MELANIE: Yes, definitely. I used to and I still like to read books by, you know, the authors from that country or about that country before. But I've also realized that sometimes the books are more fun and more impactful after I've been there, because then I can picture it better. So yeah, I like to find books about the country or from authors from that country, both before and after going.

ANNE: I wholeheartedly agree. I mean, having this fresh in my mind myself. Of course, I love to read to find out a little bit what I'm going to experience and to get oriented. But I do see everything completely differently once I've actually had those experiences for myself. We had two team members go to Japan in the spring. Actually, Holly and Ginger got to meet there. So we've gotten to talk a lot about Japanese books and travel here in our team. I'm so excited for you and the trip that you're hopefully going to get to take.

MELANIE: Oh, thanks.

[00:08:23] ANNE: Melanie, tell me about your reading life.

MELANIE: Well, like many of your listeners and guests, I have always been a reader. I remember sitting at the breakfast table as a kid eating my cereal and just reading anything printed on that cereal box. The nutrition information, the ingredients, and anything else, because if you're sitting there, you got to be reading something.

ANNE: That's relatable.

MELANIE: Yes. But in college, I was a humanities major, and then I went on to do a master's in American Studies. So lots of reading, lots of novel reading in my formal education. And then really fell back in love with pleasure reading after I was done in school and I had a little bit more time and a little bit more, I guess, autonomy to choose what I was reading instead of what was assigned. So, yeah, for the past... oh, I guess it's been more than a few years now that I've been out of school, but I just have fallen back in love with reading and all of the reading life, the bookish life things. I started book journaling, thanks to you. I had your book journal last year that I used and have continued on.

ANNE: Oh, I'm so glad.

[00:09:34] MELANIE: Yeah, it was really fun. And listening to podcasts and booktubers. It's really fun. It's really great. It's not great for my TBR because I add books faster than I can read them, but I've learned to see my TBR as a place of suggested books rather than a list that I need to cross everything off of, because that would be too stressful to view it that way.

ANNE: Okay. It's a menu, not a to-do list.

MELANIE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. I like that. Now, it made me smile to hear about how you literally look forward all year long to the last days of December. Tell me a little bit about what that looks like.

MELANIE: You know, I spent my college years doing everything I could to avoid math courses, which I was successfully able to do. And now I have realized that I actually love data. And part of that realization came as I started to track my reading, I also, besides Goodreads and my book journal, I also have a spreadsheet.

[00:10:35] So, like you said, I look forward all year to when I can compile all my book stats and kind of compile page numbers and percent audiobooks and, you know, any number of stats that you can pull out of reading. And then I just kind of post those on my Instagram account. I'm sure I'm the only one who really cares about all of that, but it just brings me so much joy to just kind of have a visual of all those different details of my reading.

ANNE: Do you have any idea yet what this year's data is going to reveal about your reading life?

MELANIE: I don't let myself look because it's kind of like the prize that I hold out to do at the end of the year. Definitely more fiction than nonfiction, which is not unusual at all. The audiobook percentage keeps creeping up. Oh, and I think I've been more intentional about reading books and authors from around the world, more books in translation. So I think that will be something that I see more of when I compile my stats this year than I have in past years.

ANNE: So that is definitely information, it sounds like you're tracking?

MELANIE: Yes. Mm-hmm.

[00:11:43] ANNE: Okay. Melanie, I know that we are at the cusp of autumn right now. And you mentioned that your summer reading and your winter reading are very different, and you're looking to cross the divide. Am I putting that right? Tell me what you have in mind for right now.

MELANIE: Yeah. So I tend to read a lot of mysteries and thrillers in the summer. I know for a lot of people those are fall books. But for some reason... well, actually, I know what the reason is. The reason is those tend to be pretty entertaining. They usually don't end up on my best-of-the-year read. So I spend summer just... those are my beach reads, the murders, the mysteries, and the thrillers.

And I really enjoy that. But my favorite reads are literary fiction, especially literary historical fiction. And I've got a bunch on deck that I want to read for winter or for fall and winter, but I kind of feel like I need something to bridge that gap. As much as I want to read those literary books, there's also a part of me that's not quite in the mood to be that serious or that heavy yet. So I would just love to find something that is as propulsive and kind of plotty as those fun summer reads, but maybe also offers a little bit of that literariness or the kind of more substantial topics of the winter books.

[00:13:14] ANNE: Oh, that's so interesting. So when you say you have these literary historical novels that you're looking forward to, do you know some of the titles? Like to give me a feel for what that means to you.

MELANIE: Yeah, So Cormac McCarthy definitely. Love his "sparse" writing, but it feels a bit different from what I'm reading right now. I need a little bit of a bridge. There's actually a few biographies, some nonfiction that I would like to read. I have a biography of Wallace Stegner, who's one of my favorite authors on my shelf. Want to read that.

Over the past maybe decade or so, I've been reading biographies of U.S. presidents. And so Lyndon Johnson is next up on the list. And then I know that there are a number of just kind of heavy, serious topics. There's one set during the Balkan War in the 90s, I believe. But yeah, just kind of some along those lines where the topics are a little bit more things about gender and race and issues in the world that deserve our attention and our thought, but are not quite as fun as those summer reads.

ANNE: You had me at Cormac McCarthy. That makes perfect sense. Also, with your cat, Willa, in mind, I assume that you named her Willa for a good reason. And I need to make sure you know about the big new biography coming out called Chasing Bright Medusas. This is by Benjamin Taylor. It comes out this fall, and we need to make sure it's on your radar.

MELANIE: Oh, yes. No, I hadn't heard of it.

[00:14:50] ANNE: Well, that gives me a really good feel of what you're looking for to carry you from summer into fall. And I'm excited to see what we can come up with for you today. To find out what those titles are, I think we need to get into your books. Are you ready to do that?

MELANIE: Yes, definitely.

ANNE: Melanie, 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 talk about what you may enjoy reading next to carry you from your summery mystery and thriller beach reads to those darker, heavier historical literary titles and big nonfiction biographies for the winter time. How did you choose these titles that we're going to hear about today?

MELANIE: These are three books that I feel kind of encapsulate what I'm looking for. So not necessarily my all-time favorites, but books that I found just I'm able to put down but memorable enough to stay on my radar and stay in my memory.

ANNE: I like that. I'm excited to hear more. What is the first book you love?

[00:15:53] MELANIE: So the first one is probably my favorite read so far this year, and that is Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. It is a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra from Greek mythology. She was a princess of Sparta, a sister to Helen who sparked the Trojan War, and eventually the wife of Agamemnon.

Something I found really interesting about this Greek myth retelling, and I had a summer of Greek myth reading, it was really, really fun. This was probably the best one. But in this book, the existence of the gods isn't taken as a given. So you don't have Athena showing up to talk to anybody or Apollo interfering and making things happen.

Some of the characters believe in the gods and some don't. Clytemnestra feels that people use the gods as rationale to behave poorly. The author just fleshed out the character of Clytemnestra so well. She didn't always make the best decisions and she wasn't always likable. But as I went on to read other books that touched on Greek myth, and often the stories were overlapping, some of them would characterize Clytemnestra in a different way, and I would find myself going, "No, that's not how it is. Clytemnestra is this way." Just because in this book by Casati, she made this character of Clytemnestra just feel so real and so alive.

[00:17:23] ANNE: That sounds like such an interesting approach. I'd love to hear more about your summer of Greek myth reading and if this is something that you're interested in as a reader. And just speaking to everybody, hi listeners, what a great time to be a reader.

MELANIE: Yes. I know last year I listened to Stephen Fry's Mythos, which is kind of just the story of kind of the emergence or the existence of the Olympian gods, it's kind of like a Greek myth primer, and loved that. I believe he's an actor and a comedian so he's just amazing on audio. And I think I've always liked Greek myth, but that kind of, I don't know, maybe reignited that spark. I read Circe, too. That's another favorite. It's on my bookshelf. I love it.

So I guess all of that, plus the many Greek myths that have been released recently kind of just culminated in me kind of starting a little binge-read on Greek myths this year. I also read Ithaca by-

ANNE: Is that Claire North?

MELANIE: Yes. Ithaca by Claire North. That was another favorite. Maybe not quite as much as Clytemnestra, but I would say Circe, Clytemnestra, and Ithaca are my kind of trio of the best literary Greek myth books that I've read.

[00:18:42] I also read Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes. That was also very good, really funny. And some by Jennifer Saint. I read the Troy or listened to the Troy book by Stephen Fry. So yeah, I read a bunch. And there are still a few... Claire North has a new one that was just released. There's the Heroes book by Stephen Fry. So I've got some more to kind of keep this theme running in my reading.

ANNE: That sounds like a great summer.

MELANIE: Yes, it definitely was.

ANNE: Okay. That is Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. Melanie, what is the second book you love?

MELANIE: The second one was The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. This was the first Lisa See book that I read, probably from the podcast, Anne, or one of your blog post articles. But I've since read a number of her books. She's become an auto read off for me. But this one, The Island of Sea Women, is still my favorite of hers that I've read.

[00:19:42] It's about the... I'm not sure I'm pronouncing this right, but the haenyeo of Jeju Island, which is an island off the coast of South Korea, which has... It sounds like it has kind of its distinct traditional culture. And the haenyeo are female divers who died for abalone and sea urchin and just different sea life, I guess. And they are the breadwinners in this community.

So the story is fictional. It's about two girls and it kind of follows them growing up. And it incorporates the time of World War II in the Japanese occupation. So there are some really hard things in this book, some actually really horrific scenes. But I just found the story so fascinating, partly because Lisa See tells a good story and writes very well, but also because this is a place in a culture that I knew nothing about. And it was just fascinating to me to be able to learn about this. I love books that open up new parts of the world or new parts of history to me. I just find that so interesting and so fascinating.

ANNE: Melanie, when you think of the kind of historical literary fiction that you would read in the winter, how does this book fit into that? Like, what season would you say The Island of Sea Women is for you?

[00:21:06] MELANIE: Mm, it's a good question. I think because of that water aspect, it may just slightly lean towards summer. But like I said, there are some very heavy topics. And it's not set just in a summer. It spans in years. So I don't know that this book is one that sits firmly in a particular season. I can't remember what time of year I read it. That, for some, reason has not attached itself to the memory of this book.

ANNE: Could this conceivably be a sort of book that might work as a bridge for that fall season?

MELANIE: Yes, definitely. Because of that kind of propulsive plot, and it just sucks you right in, but makes you just think about things. It just kind of, Oh, wow, I've never known that. I was never taught that in school.

ANNE: Okay, That's helpful. That is The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. Melanie, what is the third book you love?

MELANIE: The third one is What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz.

[00:22:10] ANNE: Oh, I'm glad to hear this one come up. Tell us more.

MELANIE: I mean, this is another hard one. This is not at all a warm and fuzzy book. But I remember I was actually doing a little DIY project in my house during the pandemic and just, you know, listening to this hours on it and just wanting to do more and more work because I was listening to this story because I wanted to figure out what happened.

There's dual timelines here, so you can have the present day where there's a family in the beginning of the book. A woman gets a call and the caller says, "I think I found your brother." So we go back in time to the 1970s where this American family is living in Thailand because of the father's work. I don't believe this is a spoiler because is what the book is about. But during that time, the little boy of the family goes missing, and decades pass and he has just never been found. So when the book starts out, somebody is calling to tell his now adult sister, "I think I found your brother."

[00:23:16] So you have kind of this present-day figuring out like, "Is this for real? Is it really the brother? And if so, where has he been, what had happened to him?" And then back in the 70s, you are kind of figuring out like this family's life in Thailand and you get that kind of local color of this culture that's unfamiliar to them and kind of how they're living their lives and what events or characters might have been part of this story of this little boy who goes missing. So, again, it's hard, so if you look up some trigger warnings, but just a really, really interesting, gripping story.

ANNE: It came out in January 2021, and I think a lot of people missed it. So I'm glad that you brought it back to our attention today. That is What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz. Now, Melanie, I'd love to hear about a book that was not a good fit for you.

MELANIE: Okay, well, this is one that a lot of people love, so I kind of liked picking against the grain a little bit here. And that is The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. This started out... I mean, I was in it for about 75% of the book. I really enjoyed it. But I guess I had two issues with it that made it a I do not like this book type of book for me.

[00:24:41] A lot of the book is set in Alaska. It is about a family where their father has come back from the Vietnam War and he has experienced things and has what we today identify as PTSD. So he's kind of been unable to hold down a job. He has some anger issues. He gets offered a position up in Alaska. So the family moves up to Alaska so that the father can take this job. So a lot of the book is based on that scene in Alaska.

The author just constantly tells us Alaskans are special, Alaskans are a rare breed. And I don't have anything against Alaska. I read plenty of books set in Alaska that I've absolutely loved. But the fact that the author kept repeating that just kind of made me roll my eyes a little bit.

And then the big issue that made this book not work for me is the last maybe quarter of the book. It just gets one dramatic thing after another. And I can see how for some people that might be a positive, like, Oh wow, this book is just really moving along. But for me it just became almost farcical in that, you know, I really had to suspend my belief. I was really rolling my eyes a lot. So that book didn't quite work for me.

[00:25:57] ANNE: Okay. That is good to know. That's The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. Melanie, what have you been reading lately?

MELANIE: I am currently reading This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger. I have not read before. Enjoying that one. I'm listening to The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn and I recently finished the BTS biography that came out in July.

ANNE: And how was it?

MELANIE: It was good. I would say if you want an introduction to BTS and you're willing to put in a few hundred pages of reading, it's a great introduction. If you are a fan, as I am, that just devours all of the content that they put out there, there's not a whole lot new that you will learn.

The format of the book is really interesting because it includes a ton of QR codes. So as you're going through and reading about the events that are happening, you can scan the QR code and listen to the music video that they're talking about or listen to the... they call them lives, when a member or multiple members of the band will just get on and talk. So you can kind of follow along visually and musically with the words on the page, which is really fun.

[00:27:13] ANNE: That is very cool. I've never read a book like that before. Have you?

MELANIE: No, I haven't either. It was really unique.

ANNE: Okay, that seems so smart for when you're reading about music.

MELANIE: Yeah.

ANNE: I'm thinking about how often I love reading the audiobook of, like, a musical memoir. Brandi Carlile was one I read recently. Not that recently. I got to catch up on some music memoirs, but where there was lots of music in every chapter. No music videos. But that's really interesting that you could do that with the book.

And as for what you're looking for in your reading life right now, I think we have a pretty good idea of what a bridge book into the late fall/winter season could possibly look like for you. What else should I be thinking about as we choose what you may enjoy reading next?

MELANIE: I think I may have mentioned or hinted at literary historical fiction is probably my favorite genre. I am willing to read just about any genre, but that would be my favorite. I love those books in translation or even just books set around the world.

[00:28:18] ANNE: All right, let's see what we have here. So, Melanie, the books you loved were Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati, The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See, and What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz. Not for you, The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. It sounded like the style and plotting did not align with your taste.

And you've got a nice assortment of varied books you've been reading lately. So as we look at these bridge books to fall, we're looking to ease the gap between the beach reads, the mysteries and thrillers that you really enjoy reading in the summertime that are very propulsive, very ploty, very page-turnery. And we need to get you to the darker, heavier literary works. You cited Cormac McCarthy is an example of an author you like to read in the wintertime. So we need to take some steps in that direction without just making a humongous leap.

[00:29:21] Also, big, hefty, maybe you didn't use those words, but that's definitely what I'm picturing when you're talking about the Lyndon Johnson biographies that are on your near horizon. Those are also kinds of winter reads for you.

So I'm really thinking about books that have really great writing that are really thoughtful and also have a propulsive plot, that do have that page-turnery quality that feel like you're reading for entertainment, but then you walk away and you're still thinking about it afterwards, whether that's after you set down the book for the day or after you turn the last page. Does that sound like what you're looking for?

MELANIE: Yes. That sounds perfect. That summarizes it perfectly.

ANNE: And then if we can take you away to other places, other cultures, that would also be really welcome.

MELANIE: Yes. That's always of interest to me.

ANNE: We're not going that far away and we're not going to a culture that's probably terribly unfamiliar to you. Perhaps you've read this book. I feel like I've talked about this so much in our Patreon community, but I'm wondering about Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, to start with. Have you read this, Melanie?

MELANIE: I have not. I've had it on my library holds and actually I started it at one point and it just felt like a fall listen. So I've been delaying the comeback in a week, come back in three weeks. So, yes, it's on my radar.

[00:30:44] ANNE: It does feel like a fall listen for you. Okay. I'm glad it's on your radar. Let me tell you why I think it's a good fit for you this fall. This is on its surface like in entertainment popcorn book. It's a time travel mystery. It's a police procedural from a British author. It's set in the UK. It came out maybe a year and a half ago. And we haven't talked about the speed with which you read these page-turnery books. I'm not promising you'll read it in two days like I did, but I definitely need to mention that that is what my reading experience was like. Maybe in fall you'd want to linger over it a little bit.

Although this book is set in the fall, it's very important to the plot. The protagonist keeps coming back to the fact that the Halloween pumpkins were put out on a day at the end of October, and that becomes significant. And let me tell you why.

So in the book's opening pages, we have a happily married divorce attorney named Jen Brotherhood. She is up too late. She's staring out her front window in her British neighborhood. She's watching to see if her son will appear down the street. And then she sees him and she sees this suspicious-looking older man following him.

And before she can figure out, "What is happening? This does not look right," she watches her son stab this man and she and her husband rush out and the police come and they go to the station and it is all beyond horrible. It is a night that changes your life forever that you will never forget, that you wish had just been a bad nightmare.

[00:32:10] But then she wakes up the next day thinking, "Oh, I cannot believe this is my new life." But she finds out it's not actually the next day, it's the day before. Actually, it's the day before that, not the night before where she went to bed but the day before that, when nothing has happened yet. Like she hasn't watched her son stab a man. He hasn't woken up on that day yet, and neither has she.

And as you keep reading, you'll see that every day she wakes up further back in time. And then with the help of some people involving her husband, but mostly a physicist who has some theories about time travel that she needs to find out all she can about in a crash course real quick to get out of this, it's not quite a time loop. But she is stuck going backwards and she would very much like to return to her life. She comes to the conclusion that the only way out in back to her time is to figure out how to prevent the accident from happening.

And to do that, she has to get to the roots of her most important relationships. And this is what I think really elevates this book for you from a popcorn mystery thriller to a book that will leave you thinking and a book that will stay with you.

[00:33:17] She's got to examine some core assumptions she has about the people she loves most and the relationship she has with them and to understand them in ways she never has before. It all comes together in a way that I'm sure some readers will think is a little too pat, like a little too tight with a bow. But I found it really satisfying. I wonder if you will do. I do think you'll enjoy the journey and that it could be a good read for right now. How does that sound to you?

MELANIE: Oh, that sounds great. I've actually been looking for, like you said, kind of those elevated mystery and thrillers, ones that kind of go beyond just entertainment. So it sounds perfect.

ANNE: On that note, we have a book that might be a terrible fit but might be a winner. It's really... oh gosh, it's really dark, and also it's a really propulsive. I tell you what, I'm going to tell you about it and then we'll see what you think. But this is not a book that I would probably say to any reader, unless they were a devotee of true crime, "Oh, my gosh, you should totally read this."

[00:34:17] This is a book because of the nature of the contents that I just want readers to know what they're getting into before they pick it up. Not just because I was personally scarred, but I didn't know what I was getting into. A friend recommended this and said like, "Oh, the voice is so whimsical." And I thought, "Oh, I love whimsical. I'm glad you loved it. I'll check it out." And oh, my goodness, I wish I had known more.

But the book I have in mind is by Irish author Liz Nugent, and it's called Strange Sally Diamond. It came out in Ireland in the beginning of this year. It just came out in the U.S. over the summertime. To give you some kind of feel for the universe this book is in, I think it reads like a darker, perhaps much darker Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

The reason this popped into my head just now is you said that you love a book that elevates, perhaps transcends the genre. In some ways it's a mystery, in some ways, it's a thriller. But it's also a character study about the worst parts of human nature and some of the terrible things people can do and what causes people to do evil things. Are they born evil? Are they driven to it? I mean, this is serious stuff.

[00:35:28] And also, once the story is laid out before you, like once you grasp the plot, like narratively it takes off about 40% of the way in, and you just, as a reader, want to find out what is going to happen next. So very serious subject matter wrapped in a compulsively readable book, even though you're reading to find out what horrible thing perhaps will happen next or will the characters find a way out of this situation?

But at the very beginning of the book, we have Sally Diamond. She's a 40-ish-year-old woman, give or take five years on that. And her father dies. She's long known she's been adopted. This is her adoptive father. And he had told her many times, like, "When I die, just put me out in the bins. Just take me out with the trash. That's all you need to do."

And for reasons we don't quite understand, we wonder if she might be on the autism spectrum. But Sally is very literal and she does exactly what she feels like she is told, which is very illegal—you're not supposed to do. Sally is made to understand this. Tells the police, "Oh, goodness, it was just all a big misunderstanding. It's fine." The people who care for her and love her dad are like, "Honey, there's some things you have to understand." But this becomes a media raucous.

[00:36:45] And when it makes headlines, a secret that Sally's adoptive parents have long managed to keep buried comes out. And that is that her birth father, who she lived with for the first seven years of her life committed unspeakable crimes, including against Sally, including against her mother who her birth father kidnaped and kept in captivity—think like Emma Donoghue's Room—for many years. And Sally has been deeply traumatized. She remembers nothing from that time period. And her father, her adoptive father is a psychiatrist who has raised her the best he can.

So once her father dies, suddenly, Sally starts getting these presents in the mail. Suddenly, she has to make a life for herself. Suddenly she has to reckon with this history that has been kept from her for what her adoptive father saw as her own good. But it's a lot for her to process. And this all sounds horrible, but Sally herself is so funny. And you see her embarking into relationships and trying to make more of a place for herself in the community and really coming into her own as a person.

[00:37:55] And she's so frank and unfiltered and sometimes slow to perceive the social nuances of the situation. And it makes for many moments of humor. And yet this book is also an exploration of generational trauma and the question of nature versus nurture. And shockingly terrible things happen in these pages and keep happening in these pages.

This is going to be an amazing read for the right reader. But there are some readers who should be thinking right now, "Absolutely not. I do not want to read anything like that." Also, if any readers can fill me in, I'm really curious. I read in, I think, in LA Times Review that's the ending for US readers was modified. That the version I got was made to be more hopeful than that of the original Irish, and I am so curious about that.

But I've read how Liz Nugent is an author who can really do incredibly inventive things that transcend the genre she is ostensibly writing in. And I think this combination of like propulsive true crime and exploration of generational trauma in nature versus nurture could make this a fall read for you if you don't want to go running in the other direction. What do you think?

[00:39:09] MELANIE: How likely is this going to be to make me want to keep my lights on and check under my bed? As much as I read mysteries and thrillers, I'm a pretty big wimp. So I like the crimes in the dark to be kind of removed from what could actually happen to me.

ANNE: I will say that, of course, this is going to be personal to every reader, but the word "scary" is not one I ever thought to reach for when describing it just now.

MELANIE: Okay. Yeah, I could give that a try.

ANNE: Maybe. Maybe.

MELANIE: For some reason, I do tend to be... I love the Irish authors, like a Tana French I have liked. Totally different but I love Claire Keegan and her writing and the setting. So just the Irish element of this—and I don't know how much that actually plays into the book itself—is probably a big stuff for me.

[00:40:07] ANNE: Okay, I'm just gonna let you sit with that. This is definitely not the kind of book where I want to be like, "Melanie, you should read this or tell me now." You can just sit with that. And then let's talk about something else you may enjoy reading. This is not far afield. This is just in New York City, in Philadelphia. But a book I have in mind that I think could be great for your fall reading is The Portrait of a Mirror by A. Natasha Joukovsky. Not just because it's built upon and has numerous references to Greek mythology, but I have to say that doesn't hurt. Is this a book you're familiar with?

MELANIE: No, I don't think it's one I've heard of.

ANNE: Okay, listeners, if it sounds familiar, it may be because I think Claire Hanscom is the listener I have recommended this to in a January episode of What Should I Read Next?.

But this story follows two young, well-off, privileged couples in New York City, in Philadelphia over the course of a summer. And yes, it does unfold over the course of a summer, but it ends in the late summer. And I still feel like these serious themes are going to make this a fall read for you.

[00:41:09] And what Joukovsky does is re-imagines the myth of Narcissus as a modern novel of manners. Nobody in this book is particularly likable. They're not particularly sympathetic, but they are very interesting to watch. And they also have these interesting jobs in the worlds of art and finance.

So the point of view shifts. We watch the action unfold through the eyes and ears of each of the four main characters. But also this book includes text threads and email exchanges and news articles, Wikipedia pages. There's even a New York Times wedding announcement.

I think the ending is perfect. There's numerous references to Greek mythology. And this is such a smart, nerdy book, like a college course could unpack this over a semester. She's talking about love and desire, narcissism and self-delusion, the idea of recursion and image management, how it is, how we are perceived by others, and how we perceive ourselves to be perceived by others impact the way we wish to move through the world.

[00:42:13] So this is a deep philosophical book that also is really juicy and gossipy. And there's a couple capers involving a wealthy woman's dog who has an emergency, and the two characters have to figure it out and, you know, scandalous things happening at like art debuts at the Met. I think that combination of very, very serious and dishy could be fun for you this fall. How does that sound?

MELANIE: That sounds great. I'm actually going to spend the day in New York in a couple of months, so I don't know if I should read it ASAP since it's kind of set in the end of summer or wait until I'm on that train up to New York. But either way, it sounds good.

ANNE: That's your call. I'd be curious to hear what you choose. And finally, we are going to take you off field with the new C Pam Zhang novel that is out September 26th. It's called Land of Milk and Honey. Is this on your radar yet?

MELANIE: I feel like I've heard the title, but I'm not recalling the plot summary. So maybe halfway on my radar.

[00:43:18] ANNE: Okay, well, I'll tell you about it. Zhang's debut was Longlisted for the Booker. It's called How Much of These Hills Is Gold. It came out in 2020, so I know that a lot of readers encountered her for the first time in that work and with that news about the Booker because that's a big deal.

So in this book, we're going to go to Europe, especially Italy, but also we're going to a dystopian future. The way Zhang foresees the climate crisis coming to a climax is a smog that begins in Iowa and slowly spreads over the globe, choking out the sunlight so that regular food can't grow. Which is why it makes it especially fitting and poignant that her protagonist is a young chef.

She's 29. She has been trained to make the most delicious dishes of the most premium ingredients. But now she's living in a world where most of the population is subsisting on this engineered flower that delivers all the nutrients you need but is gritty and doesn't taste like a whole lot. So not a great time to be a chef. But she applies for a job at what her employer who is a mysterious and secretive and definitely involved in some bad stuff. But he has this elite research community in an Italian mountain that he runs alongside his beautiful, intelligent daughter who is a student at the University of Milan, but is also a really talented genetic engineer.

[00:44:55] So when the chef gets hired after lying on her application saying she's a classically trained French chef, she is not. But she is a good cook. But she finds that somehow these people have engineered strawberries and chickens and beef and foie gras and these things that don't exist anymore in her world, but somehow they have created in their mountain top perch.

Oh, there's a lot of interesting things happening here. This is a really smart novel. Zhang is so skilled at what she does. This is serious. Like it's a dystopian novel about climate disaster and about an unnamed protagonist who is wrestling with the ethics and the practicalities of like, how do I live right now? How far will I go? She's in some really compromising situations because of her job. She falls in love with her boss's daughter. There's a lot of self-recrimination and a lot of struggle for survival. Like these are serious, serious issues. There's a lot of discussion about race, about class. And also, this is a like, tell me what happens next. Tell me what happens next. Like really suspenseful, just gorgeously written read. How does that sound to you?

[00:46:10] MELANIE: That sounds super interesting. Yeah, definitely interested in looking into that.

ANNE: It's also short. It's only, I think, 240 pages. So it is a book that you can really feel like you're flying through. And I mean that in a fun way. Like, I can't wait to get to the end and find out how it all goes down.

MELANIE: That's surprising because of everything you just described, that sounds like such a lot going on in that plot. And then to hear that it's a short book is surprising. But great.

ANNE: Both things are true about it. Okay, Melanie, so let's review what we have here. We talked about Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent, The Portrait of a Mirror by A. Natasha Joukovsky, and Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang. You do need to wait a week for that one. But just a week. Of those books, what do you feel inclined to pick up next?

MELANIE: Oh, the tough decision. Probably Wrong Place Wrong Time, because that one was something that was already on my radar and something I already wanted to read. So I should let it come up in my queue so that I can download it and listen to it.

[00:47:22] ANNE: Oh, I think that's perfect for right now. I'm excited for you to read it. I can't wait to hear what you think. And I'm curious to see where your fall reading takes you and how it carries you into winter.

MELANIE: Thank you. I'm excited for all of these books.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Melanie, I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for talking books with me today.

MELANIE: Oh, thank you. It's been so fun.

[00:47:44] ANNE: Readers, I hope you enjoyed today's conversation and I would love to hear what you think Melanie should read next. You can tell us in the show notes at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. That's also where we always have the full list of titles we discuss in every episode.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.