Reading on a budget and thriving

[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: 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.

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[00:02:05] Today's guest reached out seeking help with a specific reading dilemma. We loved her request here at What Should I Read Next? HQ, and we are sure she is not the only one with this on her mind right now.

Amy joins me from her Vermont home on 11 acres, where she homeschools her teenager, works as a part-time sustainability consultant, and cares for an eclectic collection of pets.

Amy has always loved to read, and she's always struck a good balance between borrowing from her local library and buying the new releases she just cannot wait for. But recently, her family's budget has changed, and for the time being, she's not buying new books.

Amy wants to make peace with the situation and find excitement rather than resignation in her reading choices right now, but it's tricky. Amy would love my help today in reframing her reading selections so she doesn't feel like she's missing out when she can't read a new release right away.

I have ideas to help her make the most of her library, her own shelf, and her current reading reality, plus a proposed paradigm shift to turn this unplanned for reality into a truly lovely limitation. It's not pie in the sky, it's for real. Let's get to it.

[00:03:09] Amy, welcome to the show.

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

ANNE: We've been really looking forward to this conversation. "We" is myself and our team at What Should I Read Next? HQ who read your submission and went, Oh yes, we have to talk about that right at the beginning of the year. So thanks for coming on.

AMY: I cannot wait to talk books. It's one of my favorite things.

ANNE: That is what we are here for. And that's how you know you're a great fit for this podcast. Amy, let's start by giving the readers a glimpse of who you are. Tell us a little about yourself.

AMY: I live in rural Vermont. We have maybe just under 12 acres. I live there with my husband and our kid and our whole pile of animals. We have chickens. We have a cat. We have a toad. We have tree frogs. We have a snake. We have a bearded dragon, tarantula. Once upon a time, we had bees, and I loved keeping them. But they're very hard to actually keep alive, so we don't have any currently.

I was a sustainability professional for maybe 15 years, and then Covid happened and I took a big step back from that and have been focusing on homeschooling our kid while also doing some part-time consulting on the side.

[00:04:20] ANNE: Okay, that sounds like an amazing portrait you painted of your life in Vermont.

AMY: Another fun thing is that I have played D&D since I was a teenager, and I still have a D&D group that I run. I remember back in the day when we thought D&D wasn't as cool or mainstream, we used to say we had a "dinner club group", quote-unquote, but really it was our D&D group.

ANNE: I imagine a whole bunch of listeners just swooped to hear a fellow D&Der. Thank you for sharing that. Now, Amy, tell us a little bit about your reading life.

AMY: Like a lot of listeners, I think I was an avid reader growing up. I read early. I remember actually when my brother was learning to read, my older brother, I was the annoying little sibling who would sort of poke my head around and read the flashcards for him, and he hated that. But I read early and read avidly. My entire family was a bunch of readers.

[00:05:16] My reading took a bit of a nosedive when my kid was born, which I think a lot of people probably have that experience. And then also I worked through an MBA program and then another part of a graduate program in education. I was doing other reading, and so I wasn't reading as much for fun.

But I came across What Should I Read Next? and I can't remember whether it was 2017, 2018 somewhere in there and started doing a lot of the things that I think helped reignite my long time passion for reading and finding more time to read and tracking my reading and finding more books that I was really excited about.

So since then, I've been reading a lot more and also expanding the different kinds of books that I read. As a teenager and as a kid, I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and I've been broadening my horizons a lot more since then.

[00:06:14] ANNE: Oh, that sounds amazing. And I'm honored that What Should I Read Next? could be a part of that. You mentioned in your submission that you have big feelings, or maybe it's big practices surrounding your book tracking. Would you tell me a little about that?

AMY: Yeah. You know, I've tried various kinds of tracking and I am... I think I said I was type A. Like I've tried different pre-made trackers and it always came back to having just a notebook and a spreadsheet because I like recording in the way I like recording it and for the purposes that I like tracking in that.

I like tracking some things that I think sometimes aren't in reading trackers. I have an ongoing goal of reading at least half of my books by authors of color or other underrepresented groups, and so I track that.

I also like tracking in more detail where I got recommendations because I haven't quite figured out yet. I still need to look at the data, but more always. But I definitely have a strong feeling that some recommendation sources work better than others, and so I just like keeping track of that.

[00:07:25] ANNE: That's a great thing to be keyed into. Amy, when you sent in your submission, you said that you were facing a current dilemma in your reading life. And I'm really excited about digging into this today because I know it's going to be so relatable to so many readers. Amy, could you tell us about the recent change in your reading life and how it's kind of stymied you?

AMY: So my family's going through a bit of a financial change, and one of the main things that came out of that is just needing to trim a lot of discretionary spending, I would guess. And being a reader, a significant portion of my personal discretionary spending is on books. So I've been trying to be really intentional about buying books and not buying books and feeling like I really need to mostly get my books from the library or from my own collection, which I have a lot of books.

[00:08:20] It feels like I really am surrounded by books and I should have lots of books, but I've also been feeling kind of cranky about, I guess, not doing some of the things that I have in the past of essentially seeing a book that I really wanted to read. And if the library holds list was long, just going ahead and buying the book.

That's not a thing that I'm doing right now, so I am trying to make peace with that, I suppose, or get past the fear of missing out on shiny things or trying to get excited about the books that I already own. It's a combination of all of those things.

It's certainly contributing to making me have a hard time settling into a book sometimes, because maybe I think that it's not the book that I really want to be reading, that what I really want to be reading is that book that has a 100 person waitlist at the library. But I still have good books. So that's my dilemma right now.

[00:09:22] ANNE: Oh gosh, I think that is so relatable. And I can just picture so many of our listeners nodding along right now, whether they're there right now or have been there at a certain point in their lives. Something else you pointed out is that being in rural Vermont, the library isn't as big a part of your solution, potentially, as it might be for readers in other locales.

AMY: Right. I mean, I love the library. I actually have three small libraries that are within driving distance, you know, reasonable driving distance. Also, the library that I frequent most is part of a consortium of small town libraries and some slightly larger libraries. But for the most part I can't just know that I can walk into a library and get a book, that they also have to make choices about what books they're buying.

[00:10:18] I can often request books through the interlibrary loan system, but that is when it can take weeks to months to get particularly a new release. And it's also really unpredictable as to how long it will take. And it's funny, a friend of mine is the assistant director at the library, and recently I asked her, like, can you help me make sense of the whole system? And she said, "We can't even make sense of the whole system."

But that basically with new releases, the home library, like the library that actually owns that book, can put an embargo on it so that only their patrons can take it out for a while. So depending on how long those are, it can be weeks, it can be months, and I just have to be patient or not patient, as the case may be.

ANNE: Amy, how do you find the titles that you identify as being promising reads for you?

[00:11:17] AMY: There are an array of things I listen to, some book podcasts. In addition to What Should I Read Next?, I listen to a couple others. I also know that, for example, Tor.com tends to be a pretty good match for me, so I just follow them on social media and their newsletter and see what releases they have coming out. I also really like the Book Riot website. They often have lists that include backlist, which I find really helpful.

ANNE: Amy, what strategies have you found so far that are helping you?

AMY: I purposely made up a list of the books that I own that I haven't read. I've actually contemplated using a strategy that one of your previous guests had of just having a random picker deck pick for me out of those.

ANNE: Yes, that still blows my mind.

AMY: I know, I mean, like, I don't know if it would work for me, but I'm kind of interested in trying it. So that may be a thing. It's funny because even though I don't always get the books that I want the most from the library, I still tend to read the ones that the library sends to me, so it's a little bit of a lottery.

[00:12:29] I also have been DNF-ing a lot of books, which is interesting because it feels sometimes frustrating, but on the other hand, they're library books. And I tend to have a lower threshold for like, oh, it's interesting. I'll go ahead and get it. Because if I read the first ten pages and don't like it, then so what? And that's okay.

ANNE: It feels like the stakes are lower. Easier to experiment.

AMY: Yeah, exactly.

ANNE: Okay, well, I'm glad to hear that. Well, I would love to offer you some potential ideas for exploration and frames of mind you might find to be useful as we try to... I mean, Amy, I just don't want you to be cranky about your reading life.

AMY: Yeah, I don't want to be cranky about my reading life either. So I agree.

ANNE: And I really wish that I could see the books that you own that you haven't read. Like what is on your shelves. I think what this problem often boils down to there are all these books out there that we know might be good for us. And there is a moment in time where we read about a book someplace, or we see it in the store or in the library if we're lucky, or we see it on social media, or a friend tells us about it and we think, oh my gosh, yes, that sounds great for me.

[00:13:46] And many of us, without even realizing it, seek to really shorten that gap between, "Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. That's what I want to read right now" and when we actually read the book.

There are all kinds of different reasons where readers find the books that they wish they could be reading right now hard to get their hands on. And sometimes it feels like kind of hyperbolic. Like, well, I really want to read the book that I know this author I love wrote, but it doesn't come out for nine months.

Like, obviously you can't read that right now, or you're in a country where the rights are not available, or you're traveling, or there's the budgetary issues. There are lots of reasons why readers find themselves in this position.

I think that there's really a lot of opportunity here, because something that I talk to readers about all the time is the problem of to-be-read list overwhelm. There are so many more things that readers want to read than they have the time to actually read. Like, if we froze your TBR at this moment in time, it would probably last you for at least several years' worth of reading time. Is that right?

AMY: Oh, absolutely. Yes, no doubt about it.

[00:14:54] ANNE: So what you've managed to do is unintentionally give yourself a filter by which you can narrow down your TBR. Also, I'm going to do this really terrible thing and remind you that often the book that I am burning up to read right now but I can't get my hands on, that feeling passes and something else comes across my radar. But sometimes that feeling passes.

And when you are focused on reading backlist or books that are finally available at the library after that several-month embargo is up on the new releases for interlibrary loan, time does its work in the reading life of it's not always brilliant. Sometimes very good books just kind of slip off our radars.

But sometimes the books that we know about due to publishing publicity dollars and marketing hype, it's okay for them to have their moment and then pass by. And by the time the buzz is over and you haven't read it, there's more good books for you to read that were perhaps better suited to you in the first place.

So I hope it doesn't sound too Pollyanna-ish to say this is a limitation in the reading life, but there's certainly a way to view this as a filter that is helpful, to narrow down the thousands of books you could be reading at any given time into a more manageable quality.

[00:16:16] And by design, it prioritizes books that have proven to have at least a little bit of staying power. And that is not a bad thing. That's something that the readers often ask right from the get-go, like, how do I know if this book is going to have staying power? And the answer is, well, you just got to give it at least a few months, you know, let alone years or decades to see. Like that's the only way to know if a book truly will stand the test of time. And you have a little bite-sized piece of that built in. How's that striking you so far?

AMY: Yeah, I'm nodding my head along. That makes a lot of sense.

ANNE: We could talk about workarounds for getting new books for little or no money. Like readers can work the trials and the signup deals for services like Audible and audiobooks.com and Kindle Unlimited and Scribd that change to Everand.

A lot of library systems have Hoopla. If you haven't investigated whether or not your library system has Hoopla, I don't want to get your hopes up, but do that. Just see if they do. They could give you a certain number of releases that you can borrow for free every month and often those are new.

[00:17:23] You could use LibriVox, which shares books in the public domain that you can listen to for free, or archive.org you can listen and read and even watch for free.

On Modern Mrs. Darcy, we've done great ebook deals every day since like 2016, which we don't share free deals, but we do frequently share 99 cent ones or brand-new releases for $2.99 because this did not happen five years ago. But now new releases often go on sale for $2.99.

But instead of trying to hack the system and approaching our conversation in that way, I really want to focus on the benefits of having this filter in place in your reading life.

AMY: I think that's great because among other things, having a family financial change is also kind of stressful and I don't want to do a lot of work basically to find free books or inexpensive books. Like I do a little bit of dabbling. I watch the eBook deals and that kind of thing. But that's about the limit I think of the effort that I'm willing to put into it.

[00:18:22] I'm much more interested in just finding the books and making the peace with finding the books that I already own, or that I can get in the library or borrow from friends or that kind of thing.

ANNE: Amy, you know I'm deeply invested in your reading life when you hear me say what's coming next, and that is, you gotta watch out for the book podcasts. And here's why. Here's why. This is not true for every book podcast, but for many literary podcasts, the interview sources, the books discussed are the books that are new. Authors are making themselves available for interviews because they have a book coming out and that is part of the publicity. It is really easy to have those interviews for new books.

Here on What Should I Read Next?, we sometimes seize those interview opportunities to talk to authors with new books, but one of the reasons that we may have R. Eric Thomas or Amy Jo Burns on to discuss not just their work but books in the genre that they write in that they love is so that we can give our readers lots of backlist selections as well and not just new, new, new.

[00:19:31] So I definitely would not recommend that you hit play immediately on the weekly podcast that says here's the 42 new books that we want to feature that are coming out today. I don't know that that's going to do any favors for your reading life. And I don't know that you need to change your listening habits at all. Like that's up to you.

But just being aware that that's the conversation that you're potentially walking into I think could really help you think proactively about what does this mean for my reading life? To what end am I listening? How do I want to think about reading the titles that sound good from this podcast?

Maybe I just want to put them in a little time capsule for six months so that that embargo can lapse, you can see if you're still interested and then you can decide if you want to take action. So I feel that's at least worth saying out loud about the literary podcasts.

AMY: That makes a lot of sense. Also, I read BookPage.

ANNE: Oh, yeah.

AMY: I get that for free at the library and it is full of new books.

[00:20:27] ANNE: And how does that go for you?

AMY: Oh, that's interesting. Because I definitely come across some books that I might not otherwise find in BookPage, but they also tend to be new releases, which I can sometimes have difficulties finding. So it's a mixed bag. I mean, all the recommendation sources are a mixed bag.

ANNE: This is making me think of an interesting stat our Modern Mrs. Darcy team brought to my attention. This was actually several years ago. But someone on our team put something on social media and said, "Oh, hey, this post is a year old." It's like all these amazing books that are brand new for actually, at this point, last summer, but get on that because the library holds are going to be so much shorter today. And like people loved that. Loved that.

So you could take your BookPage and you can... I mean, this is purely a personality thing. If you really like to see what's coming out, if you like to hear authors discuss their work, if you find that that helps you gain perspective on your reading life, if you find that that helps you, I don't know, prioritize your interlibrary loan requests, then, by all means, do that.

[00:21:37] But you could also put those book page magazines in a drawer and pull them out six to 12 months after they have been published when those books are going to be more readily available or the libraries could have decided this isn't worth us adding to our collection either because we've decided that we, our readers wouldn't perhaps enjoy it or because our resources don't stretch that far.

AMY: That's a great thought. And also like all the various Summer Reading Guides and the various seasonal guides, that's a good idea of I could look at like last year's and see what was on it then.

ANNE: I personally do this all the time when I want to be reminded of books that are now backlist that I loved when I first read them. When I'm looking for potential guest recommendations for What Should I Read Next?, when it's time to choose Modern Mrs. Darcy book club selections, I'm often looking through like, well, what did we share in our Fall Book Preview in 2019?

[00:22:34] And it's interesting to be reminded of both books that I loved and might have forgotten about and books that I have genuinely forgotten about because they fell out of the general readerly consciousness.

There's no good or bad here. But if you can thoughtfully think about, what does this add to my reading life, how is it affecting me, how does it impact that cranky factor that we really wish to dial down the volume on, I think you can make some choices just structurally in your reading life that could perhaps make you feel more content and satisfied as a reader and can really set you up to feel like you have abundant choices now instead of limited ones.

AMY: I love that.

ANNE: Do we need to talk about social media? I feel like even if you were a heavy Instagram user, like this is at this point intuitive for readers everywhere. The books you're going to think about are the ones in front of your face.

AMY: Yeah. And then I mean, I've been consciously dialing back on Instagram for the past year anyway, just because in general, it tends to stress me out and I don't need that right now. So that's less of a source of book angst, I guess.

[00:23:45] ANNE: For all you listeners, for whom it's not a source of book angst, just think about that, please. Amy, I also noticed that you said you found that the works published by Tor.com align really well with your reading tastes. First of all, having seen your favorites, that doesn't surprise me. But can you say more about that?

AMY: They are a publisher or an imprint. I think they're a publisher who focuses on science fiction and fantasy. And I just noticed over time that, you know, books that I liked, I kept seeing Tor.com, Tor.com, Tor.com. So I went and just looked at their website because I figured, well, they must have their own ways of getting book information out to people and signed up for their newsletter.

And of course, a lot of what they do send out is the new books that are coming up. But they also do have some, for example, references to series. There was a newsletter recently that had the third in a series, and I read the little blurb on that. And I was like, "Oh, well, that sounds interesting. Maybe I'll see if I can get the first one because it's been out for a couple years." So that was great.

[00:24:51] ANNE: Readers, if you don't know Tor.com, they publish Martha Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal. They do, like you said, Amy, a lot of science fiction and fantasy and really interesting works. I like to keep my eye on Tor.com. And yes, they're an imprint of Tor Publishing Group.

Amy, I'd also like to encourage you to think about the inputs you have coming in in your reading life. By that, I mean literary podcasts, BookPage magazine, and also just keying into what Tor.com is putting out.

I would just encourage you to pay attention to where you're finding your book information. Maybe you want to dial down the sources that are putting new books on blast all the time. Maybe you want to also proactively seek out some sources that are sharing older books that you may enjoy reading.

And that could look as simple as pulling out your six-month-old book page magazines. You could find a few literary newsletters to subscribe to. There are podcasts and newsletters that do focus solely on old books, whether by that they mean two years or 20, or 200 years old.

[00:25:59] But if you felt like the options you were seeing on a regular basis were books that felt accessible to you right now, and of course, there's no guarantee that the older books are going to be available at the library. And we're going to talk about how we're factoring that in as we make recommendations to you today. But it does sound like it may improve the odds for you.

AMY: I definitely agree. I think that is a great strategy, and it actually kind of sounds like fun.

ANNE: It really does.

AMY: I don't want to add more work in finding books, but doing a little bit of searching for sources and podcasts and newsletters focused on backlist actually sounds pretty cool.

ANNE: You know what? It doesn't have to be work. So if you're sitting down right now, Amy, and the listeners, going, best new books 2023, just change your search terms. Best new books 2018, easy. Or best new books last 10 years. Or they don't have to be the best, they don't have to be anybody's favorites. Great historical fantasy 2010s, and get a search that way.

[00:27:02] The main thing I want to help you do, Amy, is get excited about the books that you may realistically read in the next few months. And I really hope that some of these methods and strategies can help you do that. With all that being said, Amy, can we figure out what you may enjoy reading next?

AMY: I would love to.

ANNE: 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'll find some good books for your TBR. Amy, how did you choose these books for today?

AMY: I chose books that I have read in the last year or two and really enjoyed, and also which held my attention really well, and that I didn't have trouble getting into, because being in a stressful time of life, I am having a little bit of attention problem. So these were books that grabbed me right away, and I didn't have to fight to sink into the world.

ANNE: Okay. So they were immediately welcoming to you.

AMY: Yes.

[00:28:06] ANNE: Does that look like action-driven, really plotty, intriguing characters? Actually, you know what? Don't answer that. We're going to find out as you talk about your favorites. What's the first book you love?

AMY: So the first book I love is Red Widow by Alma Katsu. It is a spy thriller, which I actually don't read a ton of, but I heard that this one had a lot of kind of behind-the-scenes, because Alma Katsu had a career in intelligence, a 20-year career before writing.

I really enjoyed some of the nuts and bolts of how the CIA works and how intelligence cases work. But it's also a fabulous kind of cat-and-mouse game and features two women, which you don't always see in spy thrillers. So sort of the combination of a really propulsive plot and fun cat-and-mouse, but also compelling characters and a really cool behind-the-scenes look at the intelligence world just kept my attention.

[00:29:15] It had a lot of the kinds of twists that you think of in spy thrillers, and I didn't predict them. I have a problem sometimes with figuring out things in mysteries and thrillers, and this was great because every time I thought I had something figured out, there was another layer to it.

ANNE: So the problem is that you're too good at anticipating what's going to happen next?

AMY: Yes, exactly.

ANNE: Okay, but Alma Katsu kept you on your toes.

AMY: She really did.

ANNE: I love it. What's the second book you love?

AMY: So the second book that I love is Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed. It is a graphic novel in translation from Egyptian, which might make it sound sort of inaccessible. But I like graphic novels, for one thing, and the world in this was fascinating. And that it's our world, essentially, but the small change is that wishes, like genie wishes are real, but they are refined and bottled and bought and sold and regulated, and different religions have different ideas about whether or not people should be using wishes. And she spins out this entire world that is like ours, but different. So the world was really fascinating.

[00:30:33] But then also, anytime there's a story about wishes, of course, some of what it's thinking about and asking is, well, what do we really need to be happy? And do we know what we need to be happy? And what happens when we get what we think we want?

So this fascinating world and excellent artwork really dug into some deep and interesting questions without feeling heavy. And I said excellent artwork, and one of the things that I think makes a really good graphic novel is when the story couldn't be told in the same way without the art. Like the art and the storytelling are really integrated.

She does some very cool stuff with some negative space and text. She actually has a couple of graphs in there and they all tie intimately into the story and it was just fantastic. This might be my favorite book of the year so far.

ANNE: Oh, wow. That is high praise. I have not yet read that one, but anytime a reader says best of the year, that's what makes my ears perk up. I wonder if my library has it, Amy. I'm going to look when I go there later today. Amy, what is the third book on your favorites list?

[00:31:55] AMY: So the third book on my list is Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers. And this I think is technically a young adult, but I think it's one of those young adults that has a ton of interest to adults. The author is Cherokee. And it is a book of interlocking short stories that follows one extended Cherokee family from the 1800s up through sort of the near future.

The structure of this was so cool because each of the stories follows a different member of the family and also features some kind of monster or spooky thing. So think like vampires or werewolves or ghosts or other things that are less defined in popular culture.

[00:32:50] It says in the title, Man Made Monsters, and that some of what is really interesting is that the things that we might think of monsters aren't necessarily the monsters in the story. That sometimes it's really the humans, sort of the standard humans who are the monsters in the story. So some of the fun was that with each story I knew that there was going to be something spooky or monstrous, quote-unquote, but who it was and whether they were actually the villain basically was fascinating.

I read this on paper and I actually... I might recommend that above listening to it just because there was a family tree in the beginning, which was very helpful considering that it follows the family through what? Like 10 generations. And also in the back, there's a little glossary of Cherokee words that are used in the book. So that was very helpful. And there's also some cool art, one piece of art between every short story.

[00:33:52] I loved how it was a propulsive and fun story that dug into some deep questions about human beings and the ways that we treat people or creatures that we see as other than us or monstrous essentially.

ANNE: Well, that book wasn't on my radar and I'm so glad you talked about it today. Now, Amy, tell us about a book that was not a good fit for you.

AMY: One book that really wasn't a fit for me was Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews. And I completed this one. Oftentimes when I don't like a book, I don't finish it. But this one, it was propulsive and I wanted to know what happened, but I could not stand the narrator. And that she was a combination of really, I felt naive and also deeply unlikable.

It also had a bit of the problem where I could see a lot of the things happening that I thought the narrator was oblivious to. It's like there were all these red flags and she just went willy-nilly running through a field of red flags and paid no attention to them. If she had been more likable, then I probably would have sympathized with her.

[00:35:07] This one I listened to on audio and I ended up speeding it up way more than I usually do just because I wanted to know the ending, but I didn't want to spend more time with the characters.

ANNE: Okay. I'm just factoring this all in because I know that you want some propulsive plots right now. But plot is not the only thing clearly. I'm going to invite you to share a second book that wasn't right for you. I think it's going to help build out the picture of your reading life in our minds.

AMY: Yeah, sure. So another book that I read and another one that I finished was Drowning by T.J. Newman. It was super propulsive. It's a thriller that has to do with a plane that goes down in the water and traps some people in the wreckage. And the story is all about how they're rescued.

It was another one where I read the entire thing because I wanted to know what the ending was, but the writing was really, I think, not what I was looking for. And anything to do with the characters, I felt to be really kind of clunky and unbelievable. So even though the plot was interesting and compelling, it was another one that I was pretty tired of it by the time I got to the end.

[00:36:19] ANNE: What are some adjectives that would capture the kind of writing that you love to find in books?

AMY: I do like nuanced writing, I would say, which is interesting to say combined with the fact that I like propulsive plots. And I do like, of course, a lot of showing and not as much telling, particularly, I guess, when it comes to the characters. And then I think that sometimes in thrillers or mysteries or other very propulsive plot-driven books, the author can lean a little bit into just telling you a little bit about the characters to get things moving instead of showing them living out those aspects of their character. So that's important to me.

ANNE: We'll keep that in mind. Amy, what have you been reading lately?

[00:37:15] AMY: Oh, so I have a lot of books going on at any given time. Some of that is because there's homeschool books, and then my books, and then I usually have an audiobook. I do like reading poetry, and so I often have a little poetry collection going on at the same time.

So right now I'm listening to The Darkling Bride by Laura Andersen, and I'm really enjoying that and loving the audio because it's set in Ireland, and the Irish accents just make me really happy.

ANNE: I've listened to a lot of Irish audiobooks in the past year. I relate to that.

AMY: I recently read the two most recent Murderbot books, System Collapse and Network Effect by Martha Wells. And I love those. I love Murderbot in general. They were a great match for what I'm looking for right now. And then I'm sort of stymied in my poetry collection right now, but that's okay because I just read a poem every now and then. And that one right now is No Matter the Wreckage by Sarah Kay.

[00:38:17] ANNE: Amy, is there anything that we haven't yet discussed you'd like me to keep in mind as we identify titles you may enjoy exploring?

AMY: I think we've pretty much covered what I'm looking for. I mean, I talk a lot about science fiction and fantasy, well, and thrillers and mysteries, but I do like other genres, so I'm open to a pretty wide range.

ANNE: I'm glad you specified that. Okay, now here's what I want to do. I would love to identify some authors who at least have a healthy half dozen or so works to their name that you can explore, because the thing that I really don't want to do today is recommend one specific title that the library doesn't have.

I don't want to give you a chore of trying to hunt down a book and find a good value, or is this where I want to spend my reading dollars? Our conversation today is all about potential and lots of options that you can explore.

So I'd like to focus on authors. You know what? I'll say more about that when we get there, but first let's recap your books. You love Red Widow by Alma Katsu, Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed, and Manmade Monsters by Andrea Rogers. Two books that were not for you, largely for character reasons... Is that fair?

AMY: That's fair.

[00:39:36] ANNE: Who is Maud Dixon by Alexandra Andrews and Drowning by T.J. Newman. And you are on the hunt for titles that are not brand new, not shiny, and everywhere that your library has a good chance of getting you without a nine-year waiting list. Is that right?

AMY: Yes, exactly.

ANNE: Let's take a look at these authors. Now, we're going to start with one who I'm really pivoting hard off Red Widow here and your love of mysteries and thrillers. And I'm wondering about the author Daniel Silva. He's the writer of the long-running Gabriel Allon spy thriller series. Are these works that you have acquainted yourself with?

AMY: No, I have not heard of him.

[00:40:27] ANNE: Well, let's see how these sound. I like these for you because they are definitely popular. He's still writing the series. The last book just came out in July. But they're not flashy, like they're not the hottest ticket on Bookstagram right now. And I mean that very much as a good thing. And also, this is really important, they do not have to be read in order.

AMY: Oh, that is helpful.

ANNE: Yes. So you're not stuck just waiting for book number four, so you can read the next 16. Not necessarily signing you up for 20 books, but I do want you to have room to explore.

So the first book was published way back in 2000. And the series has evolved. Like the newer books focus more on contemporary politics and current global politics. But the early ones focus very much on history.

The first book is called The Kill Artist if you did want to attempt to start on the beginning, The English Assassin is next, then The Confessor. And to give you a feel for some of the early plot lines, Silva explores Swiss bankers and their secrets. It's about the Swiss looting of art treasures and potential collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. Firmly written in history, thoroughly researched.

[00:41:37] And something that's really interesting is Daniel Silva has had to write in his acknowledgments and introductions to some of his books, like, Hey, I didn't know that was going to happen in my last book. There were some real-world events that strongly resembled things I'd written about. That was coincidence. I was very sorry to see it happen. This is purely fiction. This is what's real. This is what I changed. So they do feel very realistic.

But the way he addresses geopolitical issues in these spy thrillers is really interesting. Like at the beginning, we have Nazi wartime crimes and that, you know, the complicity of the Vatican there. He writes about the Palestinian conflict, Black September, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the end of the Cold War, factors in the emergence of the Russian oligarchs, 911, the war on terror, the Arab Spring. Even the IRA has some chapters devoted to it in these books.

So I like the idea of giving you a well-written, long-running series that you could dip in and dip out of any time that I think it's likely your library has some or most of the books of. How do those sound?

[00:42:38] AMY: Those sound really great in that I do like historical fiction, and I like it the most when it's really well-researched and, you know, I get that, "Ooh, did that really happen?" and go look it up on Google. So these sound great. And also I really appreciate the idea that I don't have to do them in order because I have gotten partway through the Inspector Gamache series and I'm constantly waiting for the next one to be available.

ANNE: Yes. I hear that. That is relatable. I think a fun standalone thriller for you could be Alias Emma by Ava Glass. This is a specific book. It's just over a year old. This is a real page-turner. It's set in London. It's now a series. The second book in the series just came out a few months ago, I think in September 2023.

But this story is about a British spy. Her name is Emma Makepeace. That's not her real name, but it's deeply symbolic. And she is given this almost impossible assignment to shepherd a handsome doctor that the Russians want to see dead to safety at MI6. But the caveat is they need to cross the city of London and the Thames without being detected by a single one of the city's hundreds of thousands CCTV cameras.

[00:43:57] If you've read any mystery set in London in the contemporary era, you know the CCTV is always a big factor. So that's basically impossible, but she has to get it done. And it's got really likable characters, a fast-moving plot. It could be a lot of fun.

But also Ava Glass is a pen name for an author whose name is Christi Daugherty, and she has several crime novels to her name that were published maybe like 2018, 2019, 2020. The first one there is The Echo Killing. And then let's move on to an author that I would not be surprised you had read because it feels so up your alley. Have you read the works of Silvia Moreno-Garcia?

AMY: Oh, yes. Yes. I really enjoyed Mexican Gothic, though... I don't think I've read any of the rest of hers now that I think about it. I think I've read a short story.

ANNE: Well, she has a lot more works, and I'd really like to encourage you to take a look at them. Something that I love about Silvia Moreno-Garcia is that she writes in a variety of genres, and all her works also feel like a big mashup of genres.

[00:44:58] So you get sci-fi and fantasy and horror and noir and gothic, and I think that horror, I think that could be a lot of fun for you. You could cover a lot of ground in one book, but also feel like you're reading lots of different kinds of books, but all from the same author.

And I think it's interesting that Moreno-Garcia has said that's been kind of hard for her career because that genre switching does make it hard for you to say, Oh, well, she's this kind of author. But I'm really glad that she's been able to publish the books that she wants to write.

So I'll be honest, I really like her most recent release, Silver Nitrate, for you. It came out in July, especially because it has some elements that we've discussed in your favorites, like Shubeik Lubeik and Man Made Monsters.

Oh, let me tell you a little bit about that one. It's set in 1990s Mexico City. It's what she describes as homage to classic horror films. It's interesting, plot-driven. It's a little bit bloody, readers, if that's not your thing. Oh, is she a film editor, a sound editor?

[00:46:04] There's a woman nearing 40 and her best childhood friend, he's kind of a washed-up telenovela star, and they get snookered into working with a once-famous director to complete an unfinished horror film from the 1930s that was written by a Nazi occultist. And they don't know that when they finish this script, they're basically going to unleash a spell and all kinds of horror. So then they have to put the genie back in the box, so to say. It's fun. I think it would be fun for you.

But for you I also really like The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, which is based on a classic novel that you could read as well, although she does her own thing with it. And maybe, you know, I might like Certain Dark Things for you even more. It's neo-noir horror but with vampires. I don't read vampire books, Amy, but I imagine that you do.

AMY: Oh, I do. Yes.

ANNE: Well, I hope you'll take a look at her.

[00:46:58] AMY: I actually have a fantasy novella that she wrote and that Tor published in my Kindle.

ANNE: Oh, amazing. Meant to be.

AMY: Yeah.

ANNE: And then I wonder about Connie Willis. Have you read Connie Willis?

AMY: I have not. She's definitely been on my radar, but I haven't buckled down to actually read something. And the book that I've heard the most of is the Doomsday Book. And it's a bit of a chunker, which I think has been the problem.

ANNE: It is. It's a doorstop. It's a 500-pager. For readers who aren't familiar with Connie Willis, she is a mega award-winning science fiction author who is probably best known for The Doomsday Book. It's part of her Oxford Time Travel series.

The Doomsday Book... So this is a little bit sci-fi, a little bit historical fiction, historical reconstruction about a history student at Oxford in the future, in 2048, who for reasons is sent back in time to the 14th century. But she's sent back to the wrong part of history and realizes that instead of landing in, I think it was 1320 where she thought she was going for research reasons, instead she lands in 1348, which is right when the Black Plague is gaining steam.

[00:48:23] And at first she doesn't realize that she's in the wrong time, because it's not like she can look at the newspaper and see what year it is. But she slowly figures it out. And is just deeply involved in the community there as tragedy clearly is advancing rapidly towards this community.

This is a hard book. So it's been called her best, but some people adamantly disagree with that and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But it is a hard book. And it has like a little bit of a circular plot, not in the time sense, but that some of the same scenes repeat themselves a lot. And I'm not sure that that is where you want to start right now when you're looking for something more propulsive.

But something else about the series that I think may be good for you is that these books are self-contained. You do not need to read them in order. And they are set in the same universe. There are minor characters that carry through from one book to the other, but you do not need to read these in order.

[00:49:16] Right now I wonder if starting with To Say Nothing of the Dog might be good for you. It's the second book in the series, but the tone is very different. This is more lighthearted humor. I have never read Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, although that has been a guest favorite on What Should I Read Next?. But I have heard that To Say Nothing of the Dog is even better if you read that book first because it's one of Connie Willis's favorites.

This book is an homage to that Jerome K. Jerome book. And there's some inside jokes that you'll get if you've read that book first. It's not by any means essential, I hear, but it could be fun. That's a classic that I bet you can pick up at the library and might actually be in the public domain.

So this is similar. It's set in the future, in the 2050s, I think. And there has been a mistake in the past. A historian rescued a cat when he shouldn't have, and it just created this whole situation with the timeline that needs to be remedied.

[00:50:11] So this poor guy who is not jet-lagged, but time-lagged from traveling too much and really just needs to go to the spa and chill out for a month, instead he gets sent back to 1889 to rectify the situation with the cat. So now maybe the title is making a little more sense.

So this one is more slapstick. I mean, there are stakes here because unless the situation is fixed, the Nazis are going to win World War II, and nobody wants that. But there's like a lighthearted sense to this book. It's a little more plot-driven that I think may be better suited to you right now. What do you think?

AMY: You got me at a historian rescued a cat and that screwed up the entire timeline. That's hilarious. That's wonderful.

ANNE: All right. I'm glad to hear it. That's three, but we have to talk about Stephen Graham Jones, I think. I don't know. Tell me about your relationship with horror.

AMY: Oh, I like horror. The extreme end of the bloody horror is not for me, but I have a pretty high tolerance. And I've read Mongrels by him, but I don't think I've read anything else.

[00:51:17] ANNE: Well, that's where I would recommend you start.

AMY: I liked it a lot. I thought it was really good.

ANNE: Readers, I think you should know these are too scary for me. And this is why Stephen Graham Jones has said, "Look, here's my goal. If someone hesitates before turning the living room light off, if they're counting the steps down that dark hall, if they're afraid to like get into bed because the monster's under it, then I've done what I am here to do."

And I'm not really at a point in my reading life where that sounds like a good time to me, but that's not true for many readers. Many readers really eat that up. So I'm really glad that you read and enjoyed Mongrels. It's a book that he says he's really proud of about, you know, childhood trauma and werewolves who live among us.

I think The Only Good Indians would be a good place to go next if you're interested in exploring more. But I don't think there's a wrong choice here, except for the two-book series that begins with My Heart is a Chainsaw. I would probably read that one first. But otherwise you can dip in anywhere.

[00:52:14] AMY: Yeah. I tried The Only Good Indians a couple years ago. And I guess one of my horror... triggers is too strong a word, but my horror things is animals having horrible things happen to them. I tend to avoid horror that has that.

ANNE: Oh, yeah.

AMY: So that one I noped out of just because I was like, mm, nope. But I liked Mongrels so much that I'm definitely interested in trying his other stuff. And the wonderful thing about a library is that I can take out some of his books. And if the first chapter has a horror thing that I am not okay with, then I can just try the next one.

ANNE: That sounds great. I'm excited for your options. Now, Amy, can we take a look at your spreadsheet?

AMY: Yes, absolutely.

ANNE: Okay. So you clued me into the fact that I can look at your TBR and see books owned, but not read. So if you hadn't told me that you were also interested in genres beyond science fiction and fantasy and mysteries and thrillers, I might be really surprised by some of the books on here. Like Brave the Wild River and My Name is Lucy Barton and Matrix. But now I'm not as surprised.

But I'm going to pull out just a few books that I think, oh my gosh, I can totally see why this is on your list. Yes, read that. Can we do that?

AMY: That sounds fabulous.

[00:53:32] ANNE: Okay. Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames is a big fantasy book with a big plot that's a little bit silly and a whole lot of fun. I found out about that from What Should I Read Next?. I'm so glad it was put in my path. But I'm not you. I think this has a lot in common with your favorites. It's more lighthearted while dealing with some themes about stuff that matters. I love that for you.

AMY: It's on my TBR because of What Should I Read Next? and a guest shared it, I think.

ANNE: I'm happy to hear it. I wonder about The Mothers by Brit Bennett for you. I mean, The Vanishing Half was huge. Of course, the library is going to have her debut novel as well. It has a really interesting format. There's a Greek chorus kind of first person plural element in the story that is the mothers, what we saw, what we think, what we want, that you could find really interesting. You could pick it up, read 20 pages, see if it works for you or not. Ooh, I'm glad to see T. Kingfisher on here. Absolutely great pick for you.

[00:54:31] AMY: Yeah. I really enjoy a lot of T. Kingfisher's work. And also the first-person plural narrator I often find really interesting. I liked Unlikely Animals, which had that, and We Ride Upon Sticks.

ANNE: Yeah. Then definitely The Mothers is the logical next one to pick up. I can't see How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith without noting how many readers with wildly disparate tastes have found that to be a brilliant nonfiction book.

And then let's do one more. Okay, maybe two more. Sleeping Giants, Sylvain Neuvel, obviously, yes, that sounds good for you. I'm really wondering about Peace Like a River. So this is a more lyrical, literary novel, but it's got a slight magical, mystical element that you could find really interesting.

[00:55:29] It's set in the deep, dark winter across the Northern United States. I think it's across the Badlands. There's a child narrator. Think about how you feel about that. But that is a book that a lot of people say, wow, like that one just really took me by surprise. I didn't know that's what I was longing to read. How did that end up on your list? Do you remember?

AMY: I think I heard about it on What Should I Read Next? And I'm not a super seasonal reader, but I do like, in particular, in the winter to read wintry books. And we have often a long winter.

ANNE: Oh. And because I can't stop myself, I'd be really interested in hearing what your reading experience with Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy is like. You say you can always see what's coming. Like I want to know if you see what's coming in that thriller. I'd be very interested in hearing.

AMY: Yeah.

ANNE: Oh, and John Scalzi, obviously. This is really fun. Thank you for sending this.

[00:56:27] AMY: It was fun and useful to put together because it definitely... you know, it was comforting. That was a big part of why I put together the list of books that I own but haven't read to remind myself that I have lots of good books.

ANNE: And when I say, like, I'm going to pluck a few titles from here for you, those are by no means the only one. I'm just saying, yes, that sounds like a slam dunk, go for it.

Amy, we covered a lot of ground today, and I'm not sure how to ask you our final question, but we talked about the works of Daniel Silva, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Connie Willis in-depth, and then identified a few books from your owned but not read shelf. Of all those titles we've mentioned, what are you thinking you're going to pick up next, or seek out from the library as a priority?

AMY: Well, I'm actually probably headed to the library after recording, and I'm going to see if they have any Daniel Silva because I'm betting that the chances are good that I can just walk in and get one of his books, which would be awesome.

ANNE: Please keep me posted. I would love to hear. And I'm excited you're excited about that series.

Amy, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking books with me today.

AMY: It was so much fun, Anne.

[00:57:42] ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Amy, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. If you've got tips and tricks for reading on a budget, share those too. We love to hear them.

We've got you covered with the book list for today's episode. Visit whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com for the full list of titles we talked about today. Come and join us in regular book talk on Instagram. Our show's page is @whatshouldireadnext.

We love to foster conversations about each week's episode, your latest read, or sometimes what I've been reading lately. You'll find me on Instagram @annebogel.

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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.