Soul-changing reads with staying power

[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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[00:01:15] If you would be so generous with your time, there's a link to the survey in today's show notes right there in your podcasting app. It will just take a few minutes. Thank you in advance. It is a big help to us here at What Should I Read Next HQ.

Now for our conversation today. Once our guest started noticing trends in her favorite reads, she was inspired to seek out even more of her favorite types of stories. Today, I'm chatting with Courtney Dezahd about finding novels that will stick with her long after she turns the last page.

Courtney is a marketing professional and a mom who appreciates a wide range of reading experiences, from World War I history to outdoor survival stories, to the classics. But lately, she's really honed in on themes she always finds satisfying. Those are stories of unrequited love, survival, and the triumph of the human spirit.

Courtney's favorite read spans genres, but many hold these themes in common, and she'd love to find more books that will stick with her for years, if not decades, and deliver soul-changing reading experiences. Let's get to it.

Courtney, welcome to the show.

[00:02:16] COURTNEY DEZAHD: Thank you. I'm very excited and very nervous.

ANNE: We are two readers talking about something that we both really love. It's going to be great. Thanks for coming on today.

COURTNEY: Sure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

ANNE: Courtney, I'm going to start with the hardest question. Tell us a little bit about yourself. We'd love to give our readers a glimpse of who you are.

COURTNEY: Yeah, so I am a mom of two. I'm a working professional. You know, in addition to reading, I really like spending time with my kids, like traveling, cooking, running, hiking. We spend a lot of time outside on soccer tournaments. I would say before I had kids, I had more of a career of writing. So I spent a lot of time as a magazine writer and an editor. I focused a lot on sports, specifically Olympic sports. So I still love the Olympics. I still love Olympic sports. I know nobody really cares about that. We're actually going to Paris. It's funny-

ANNE: It's an Olympic year. Come on.

[00:03:16] COURTNEY: I know I love the Olympics so much, but we're going to actually Paris this summer for the Olympics, so that'll be fun. So I'm kind of trying to prepare for that a little bit in my reading life. I'm actually reading Les Miserables right now, which I don't know if it's a good idea, but I'm reading it with a friend, so we're kind of just texting back and forth our likes and dislikes about the novel right now. But it's taking me a while to read that one.

ANNE: I understand. Eighth grade Anne read the unabridged version at the beach when she was in like eighth grade.

COURTNEY: Oh, man.

ANNE: Oh, bless her heart.

COURTNEY: I could not do that as an eighth grader. No way.

ANNE: Oh, I would not recommend it. I'm sure it all went straight over my head. I'm laughing, not at Les Mis, but because I was wondering if you had read any number of contemporary books about the Olympics that were just a whole different flavor.

COURTNEY: I don't know. It's really hard for me to find books about sports that I like because a lot of times the author does not have a personal background in sports and so I feel like they just don't get it. So I don't know.

[00:04:25] It's very rare that I find a book that is about sports that I really like. The only one that comes to mind right now is the one Open by Andre Agassi, which obviously he had somebody help him write it, but it was from his perspective, right? That one I love.

ANNE: And honestly, that's one of the best, like one of the best available to readers.

COURTNEY: It is. It is. So yeah, it's hard. It's hard to find.

ANNE: Well, I have a head start on our listeners because I've browsed your 100 Books in a Year project spreadsheet, which is only 38 books strong so far. We don't have 100. But I've just read your little snippet, two-sentence summaries of each one. And I'm guessing, you and I haven't discussed this, but I can see how much you care about character.

COURTNEY: Yes.

ANNE: Like you want them to feel like real people. You want to know the details. You need a lot more than just plot, plot, plot.

COURTNEY: Yeah. I want to know how they're feeling. I want to know why they're making the decisions that they're making, essentially. So, yeah.

[00:05:22] ANNE: And I want to know if you've read Gold by Chris Cleave.

COURTNEY: No, I've never even heard of that.

ANNE: Oh my gosh. Okay. We will talk about that before we hang up today.

COURTNEY: Okay. Okay.

ANNE: All right. We'll just leave that as a little teaser. Don't let me forget.

COURTNEY: Okay. Okay.

ANNE: All right. Courtney, tell us about your reading life.

COURTNEY: I feel like I'm kind of in a new era of my reading life, specifically because my kids are a little bit older now. They're almost eight and ten, so, you know, I'm past the phase of parenthood where you have so much cortisol running through your body because you're just trying to make sure that they don't kill themselves.

At least for me personally, I could never focus on a book reading it on the actual page. I did most of my reading when my kids were little of just listening to audiobooks. And they generally were books that didn't require much attention, right? Because I just feel like my mind was destroyed.

[00:06:22] But now that my kids are a little bit older and they both, you know, enjoy reading as well, I have just much more opportunity to read physical books. So that's why this year I decided that I wanted to try to read 100 books in a year. I started it in November. I'm not making it specifically January 1 to January 1. But I just thought I've never done that before.

I've always considered myself a reader, but I never really tried to push myself in terms of reading volume. So yeah, that's sort of been a goal for this year is to read 100 books in a year. Read and listen. Because I work too, I think for me personally it would be hard to read 100 physical books in a year.

ANNE: Oh, audiobooks are great.

COURTNEY: Yeah, yeah. So I love audiobooks as well as physical reading. Actually, one thing that's interesting is that when I started listening to your podcast, this might sound a little bit weird, before I started listening to your podcast I used to always think there's such a thing as an objectively good book or like it's a classic or it's an international bestseller, so it must be good.

[00:07:31] It wasn't until I started listening to your podcast that I started realizing hey, people have different tastes and there's no such thing as a book that everybody enjoys. Which sounds kind of weird and almost naive, but I never really even thought about it.

So after I started listening to your podcast, I really started analyzing like, what kind of books do I like and I sort of really found two themes that really, really speak to me and one of them is the theme of unrequited love. and I started thinking you know what are some of my favorite books that I've ever read of all time? I thought of The Hunger Games, and Anne of Green Gables, and The Pillars of the Earth.

And they're all very, very different books, totally different genres, totally different writers but then I started to realize, like, hey, there's that theme in there, a very strong theme of unrequited love. And I just realized that I really, really like that theme.

[00:08:29] But it's also difficult to find, especially in a book that isn't just a romance. I'm not against romance or anything like that, but I generally like to have it as one theme of the novel. I like to have something else that the novel is about, it's not just romance. So it's difficult for me to even Google, how do I find books that are about this? So I love specifically that theme.

Then I would say that I'm very attracted to stories about survival, not just survival in the wild, which I do love those sorts of stories as well. But also I think I'm attracted to war stories because they are stories about human survival and, you know, how people are able to make it through specific situations that are very, very difficult. Those are some themes that in my reading life that I very much enjoy.

ANNE: Courtney, those can be harder themes to identify in your own reading. Do you remember how you put that together?

[00:09:31] COURTNEY: I think I just went through my Goodreads and just started just thinking about, what is it about these books that I love? Like, what holds them in common? And those two things really came up for me, unrequited love and then just the general theme of human survival.

ANNE: Because those can be harder to pick out. Like you put The Pillars of the Earth and Harry Potter side by side, and unrequited love might not be the first thing that most of our minds go to.

COURTNEY: Yeah. Well, I'm reading Harry Potter right now because my daughter is reading it and loving it. I've actually never read Harry Potter, so I'm definitely enjoying reading it through her eyes, right, because she is almost 10, and she's just enchanted by it.

ANNE: Well, I hope you have fun with those books together. Courtney, on the survival stories, I have to tell you I laughed out loud when you wrote that there was a time in your life when you read almost every survival story in the Outside Magazine archives. That sounds like my husband. It sounds like Will.

[00:10:30] Tell me more about that.

COURTNEY: I don't know. It's so weird why. I just love stories about people being outside doing crazy things that you literally... like you could not pay me. Like there's no amount of money you could pay me to try to hike up Mount Everest. I literally would never do that. But for some reason reading about it is so fascinating to me. I honestly don't know why.

But yeah, there was a time in my life where I literally was like, I don't want to read anything except stories about people in the wild, honestly doing stupid things, right, and somehow surviving them.

So I just went into the Outside Magazine archives and literally everything I could find about somebody like, you know, cave diving, doing this in the jungle, trying to find tribes that hate outsiders. Like things that are just so ridiculous. But I just could not get enough of it. So yeah, I really, really love that.

[00:11:25] ANNE: Oh, that's funny. The thing I thought you were going to say was, there was a time when I thought I wanted to climb Mount Everest.

COURTNEY: No.

ANNE: I was just thinking how maybe when I was younger, that sounded fascinating. But something I learned by reading Into Thin Air is, well, no, thank you. I never want to do that, but I want to read about it.

COURTNEY: Yeah, exactly. Even in Into Thin Air, when he talked about just being in the foothills of the Himalayas, I was like, "Wow, I don't think I could even do that." I mean, that altitude poisoning sounds really, really bad to me.

ANNE: But thank you, John Krakauer, for writing about it.

COURTNEY: Yeah, exactly. Oh, I loved it. That's one of my favorite books. I love that book and the way he describes the foothills, too, it just seems like such a magical place, but I truly don't know if I could handle it.

ANNE: Well, we will find some good stuff for you today along those lines. We're really going to lean into the unrequited love. But survival stories, I think there's plenty to choose from there as well. And it sounds like you'd really appreciate some overlap.

COURTNEY: Yeah.

[00:12:26] ANNE: Talk to me about your interest in war stories, because I appreciated reading your submission, how you thought the element of survival was really important to your love of those books.

COURTNEY: Yeah, because to me any sort of story that you read about a war, there's just something about the human spirit that I enjoy reading about. How people are able to survive these horrific conditions and somehow they make it through and they just never give up, right? They never...

I mean, I've never been in a situation like that, but you can sort of assume that if you were in a terrible situation, it would be easy to just give up and be like, okay, I guess I'm not gonna survive this, right? But how people are able to endure. I think it's because it's partly dealing with the element of the human spirit, you know, which maybe is in a way why I like the Olympics so much, because it's about just doing something for the pure beauty of accomplishing something or surviving something.

Especially with the Olympics, I mean, these athletes tend not to make any money at all. And so it's like, why are they doing this? It's all just about something that's maybe more pure than the average story that you hear, I would say.

[00:13:40] ANNE: Yeah, I'm really struggling to articulate that in terms of unrequited love, because that's something I've been thinking a lot about as we've gotten ready to have this conversation. Just like the pure burning passion that has a focus, but not necessarily an outlet.

COURTNEY: Actually, that's a good way to put it. The unrequited love, it is in a similar way. It's like this passion for something that maybe it's not going to work out, like maybe it won't happen, but somehow you endure, somehow you continue along.

ANNE: And sometimes it determines your direction, even though... you know what, we might talk about that in some of our stories. You figure out what kinds of stories you're going to like, we're going to talk about your books. Courtney, are you ready to go there?

COURTNEY: Yes, I'm ready to go there.

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 choose some books for you to read next. Courtney, how did you choose these today?

[00:14:36] COURTNEY: So I wanted to sort of pick some books that I thought really represented a theme that I really liked. I just kind of wanted to pick a book to give you a better idea of what I like when I'm reading and then sort of go from there.

ANNE: That sounds amazing. I love the idea of focusing on themes. What's the first book you chose?

COURTNEY: I chose The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I know this is a really famous book. But in case anybody doesn't know what it's about, it's historical fiction, you know, the Middle Ages of England, and it really just revolves around several characters and the building of a cathedral.

The reason I chose this one is because it does have that really, really strong element of unrequited love. It's also an epic. It's like a long book, which I do love really long books. I'm not afraid of that. It's historical fiction, which I also love. It was also character-driven, but then it also had, you know, a propulsive plot as well.

[00:15:34] Then I thought it was just so brilliant how Ken Follett literally tied every storyline together at the end. It was such a long book, but it was almost like there was nothing in it that was wasted. There was nothing that didn't sort of get tied up at the end, which I thought, just from the perspective of a writer, that's really, really difficult to do. So I appreciated that.

But yeah, the main reason I chose that one is because it was just the theme of unrequited love. You know, Jack and Alie and just... he was just so obsessed with her, right? And he just persisted. He just never gave up, right? She just didn't get it. She did not get that he was perfect for her, so.

ANNE: I remember really enjoying this. But I've said this on the podcast fairly recently. I haven't read this since I was in high school. I remember loving it. I remember it being nearly a thousand pages. I do not remember the details. I don't remember the perfect ending. I don't remember the unrequited love. I definitely remember the cathedral. Lots and lots of cathedral building. Lots and lots of sleeping in the woods.

COURTNEY: There was, yeah. No, maybe you should pick it up again.

[00:16:39] ANNE: I've been told it holds up. When did you read this?

COURTNEY: Hmm, it was a while ago. Honestly, it was probably like 10 years ago. But I think I actually read it when I was pregnant with my daughter. That was before my mind got destroyed by having, you know, young children. So I was able to focus on that one.

ANNE: And it's stuck with you all this time.

COURTNEY: Yes, I've always just loved this book and I've recommended it to so many people.

ANNE: As you are doing right now.

COURTNEY: Yeah.

ANNE: Courtney, what's the second book you love?

COURTNEY: So the second book I love was Kindred by Octavia Butler. This was actually a book that I got from your podcast.

ANNE: Oh, I'm happy to hear it.

COURTNEY: The reason that I picked this one is because I felt like this book accomplished something that is very rare in that it hooked me at page one. I feel like that's really difficult as a writer... You know, I usually give a book, you know, 50, even 100 pages before I decide, you know, is this book going to be for me? Because it's just hard.

[00:17:38] But she hooked me at page one, which is just a very rare talent to be able to do that. So the book itself is about... it has a small science fiction element to it. So it's about a woman who travels back in time to Antebellum Maryland. So she's a Black woman and then it's essentially how she has to survive this to ensure that one of her ancestors is born so that she exists in the future.

But I found the descriptions of Antebellum Maryland to be just so vivid and so real. I felt like I was there. The characters were so real. And I almost kept thinking, I'm like, wow, did Octavia Butler travel back in time and just describe her experience? It almost seemed like a real story that really happened.

ANNE: That's high praise.

COURTNEY: And then I also think it does have that element there of survival, right? She's having to survive this terrible experience and get through it. So yeah, that was the reason why I chose that one. I just thought it was such a brilliant book.

[00:18:47] ANNE: It's such a good book. She's so good, Octavia Butler.

COURTNEY: She's such a good writer.

ANNE: I was shocked to find out recently that she was... because I think of her as being just an esteemed author of our times and so widely read. I had no idea that she wasn't a bestseller until she died.

COURTNEY: Oh really? Wow. I never knew that either.

ANNE: That's Kindred by Octavia Butler. Courtney, what's the third book you love?

COURTNEY: The third one I picked was Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. So this is a World War I story. It's another historical fiction story. I would say that this one really just like... it touched my soul in so many ways. It was a page-turner, which I love, but it was also just so character-driven as well.

It really brought me back. I mean, not that I know what World War I was like. But it really made me feel as if I did know what it was like to be a man in the trenches where you have this sort of emotional resonance between the characters and between this absolutely horrific experience that they're having to survive.

[00:19:55] It did have a multi-generational story aspect to it, which I don't usually like because I like to tend to stick with one character. But the way that Sebastian Faulks tied these two generations together at the end, it was just so emotionally resonant and touching. And I was just literally crying hysterically at the end.

So I think this book sort of represents what I like to read in terms of books that have a propulsive narrative arc, but at the same time, I think you've described it in your podcast before, where it's about people being people. It's about humans being humans. So that sort of tied all of it together.

And then, of course, you do have that aspect of persistence, human persistence, right, the human spirit showing what humanity can do.

ANNE: Courtney, now it's time to talk about a book that wasn't right for you. What did you choose?

[00:20:50] COURTNEY: Okay, so I chose Dog Stars by Peter Heller. I don't know if I went into this book maybe a little bit unfairly because I had read The River, which I loved until the ending. I mean, you would think The River would be a perfect book for me because it's about people, like two young kids, you know, in their early 20s outside. And they're taking a trip, basically... I can't remember if it was canoeing or it's, you know, whatever paddle sport they were doing. And they were basically having to outrun a forest fire.

Then it also had sort of a murder mystery aspect to it. But then the ending to me was just so depressing that I sort of thought to myself, like, is this author... is that just what he likes to do? Does he like to do depressing things? So I decided I would pick up The Dog Stars because, you know, I do think that Peter Heller is a really good writer.

So The Dog Stars is a post-apocalyptic story, and I just found it to be so depressing. I mean, it's not that I can't read hard things. I mean, I obviously can because I do enjoy a good war story, but it was just so bereft of hope. And I need hope. I need to have hope in the stories that I'm reading. So that's why I really, really just didn't like that one.

[00:22:07] I don't know, maybe people can read this book and find hope in it and maybe I was just not giving it a fair shake, but me personally found it had no hope.

ANNE: Okay. I was wondering what direction you would take that in. That's not what I expected. So Bleak is not a good fit for you now at this point in your reading life.

COURTNEY: No, it needs to have hope. I just think of it like, if I don't have hope in the human race that things will get better, I'm like, why am I even raising children, you know?

ANNE: That's a really important thing to know when you're deciding what to read next, so I'm glad you shared that. Courtney, what have you been reading lately?

COURTNEY: So recently some books that I've really enjoyed. One is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Again, this is a really, really hard book, but there was a lot of hope in it. It's about basically two women in Afghanistan during Soviet occupation and then on into Taliban rule.

[00:23:02] But I just felt, first of all, that the story was just so vivid and real and the characters just came alive on the page. And then it had a propulsive narrative arc as well. So I loved that one.

Then I listened to The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre. I really enjoyed the narration because I love John Lee. He's a narrator who I really like. This one was actually a true story. I do enjoy nonfiction as well. It's sort of a story that's truth is stranger than fiction.

This was actually about one of the most important Soviet-era spies. He was a Russian guy, but he defected to the West. He really helped to take down the Soviet Union as well as prevent nuclear war, which I never even knew that we were that close to nuclear war at that time. Then it's about basically how he escapes the Soviet Union with the help of the British government. So it was really fast-paced, but also very, very fascinating as well.

[00:24:06] Then also I heard on your podcast you recommended the book, Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister. And the way you described it was that it had a really propulsive story, but then ultimately it was just about people being people. And I thought, "Well, that sounds like my kind of book." And it was.

It's a time travel story, like you had mentioned on your podcast, but ultimately it was about human beings. Like why do they do what they do? What's the thought process behind their decision? So I really, really enjoyed that one.

ANNE: That's a really interesting selection. Thank you for sharing this with us. We've talked about how you love stories about unrequited love. You'd like to find more. We talked about some other elements you really enjoy, like character-driven fiction, survival stories.

I would love to hear you say more about what you noted in your submission, about how you're looking for literature that you, yourself, actually want to read. You don't want it to feel like homework, which is something that many adult readers really seek out. Like, they want to feel like they're back in English class. But I'm getting the sense that's not what you want.

[00:25:09] COURTNEY: No, no. I mean, I definitely think there are certain books that you know that it is a great story, but honestly it's too much like homework, right? I want literature. I want something that's really well-written and very character-driven, but I don't want it to be homework at all.

I feel like the books that I picked, even The Count of Monte Cristo, which is definitely a classic, but I didn't feel like when I read it that it was homework at all. I really wanted to read it. It was something that I looked forward to reading. Whereas I mentioned that I was reading Les Miserables now and I'm like, Mm, that feels more like homework.

ANNE: Well, I was just thinking how the Count of Monte Cristo is one that many readers would describe as a good yarn, or at least they would like a hundred years ago. You would never say that about Les Miserables.

COURTNEY: No. No. The Count of Monte Cristo is kind of like an old-fashioned soap opera, whereas Les Miserables, I'm still not quite sure what it is. I mean, I guess I'll have to get through it to figure it out.

[00:26:12] ANNE: Mm-hmm.

COURTNEY: So, yeah, I'm looking for books that... I don't know, I guess the way to describe it is it sort of changes your soul in a way. I mean, something that really sticks with you. I mean, I guess, you know, I read...

ANNE: No big deal. I just want a soul-changing read.

COURTNEY: Yeah. No.

ANNE: That's all.

COURTNEY: I read the Pillars of the Earth, yeah, 10 years ago and it still sticks with me. Recently, I read Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas, who wrote it, and I enjoyed it for sure. It was definitely a fun distraction. But It's not something that I would say would stick with me in any way or even I would even recommend it to anyone.

Similarly, I read The Secrets of Hartwood Hall, which you know, it was fun. I enjoyed it. But it was more just it's not gonna stick with me. Or even I read Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young. Again, it's a similar story where I'm like, hey that was fun to read but it didn't really teach me anything or it didn't start to stick with me. Like 20 years from now, I'm not going to be like, "Oh, you know, I still remember that book," you know?

[00:27:18] ANNE: And I imagine that it's easier to find entertaining reads for you than it is for ones that will offer great insight into human nature that you'll still be thinking about in 20 years.

COURTNEY: Yeah, for sure. I mean, those books are few and far between. I know I'm giving you a very difficult task, Anne.

ANNE: What is this show for if not to bring your tall orders? I like it. I like it, Courtney. We can work with this. Let's review. You loved The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, Kindred by Octavia Butler, and Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks.

Not for you because you need more of an element of hope than was present in this story was The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. And recently, you've been reading an interesting and diverse assortment of reads, including The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, and Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister. I'm so glad that you enjoyed all those, too.

[00:28:18] And we've talked about what we're looking for. Okay. I love this theme. I also love that we're talking to you, Courtney, just one week after we talked to romance writer Farrah Rochon about what's so great about love stories. So readers, make sure you didn't miss that episode with Farrah that we just aired last week. But we're really going to lean into the unrequited love theme this week.

Something I'm also keeping in mind, Courtney, is that you really enjoy stories where there are multiple things going on or that have multiple elements that appeal to you. So you love stories about unrequited love, but you also love an element of hope. You love really long books. You love character-driven stories. You love historical fiction. So I'm going to keep all those things in mind.

Courtney, first of all, I have to make sure you've read Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.

COURTNEY: No. I've never heard of that.

ANNE: Well, I am happy to make the introduction. Wendell Berry is a Kentucky author, but he is renowned around the country and world for his just like the really beautiful, gentle, carefully crafted, quietly riveting worlds that he builds with his fiction.

[00:29:25] He's written this whole cluster of books that all are rooted in Port William, Kentucky. This is a fictional place. But if you know Kentucky, it's roughly equivalent to Carrollton, a small town halfway between Louisville and Cincinnati. But Port William is just a really well-developed community where you meet various characters in his different books.

And you can really start anywhere. You don't need to read these books in publication order. Some characters appear again and again and again. Some are more minor. This is a really hospitable place to enter the world that Wendell Berry has created in his fiction.

Also, if you just want to read Wendell Berry, he also has poetry and short essays that are a good place to come in. But you love stories of unrequited love, so this is yours. So, Jayber Crow is our title character. Jayber is a shortened version of Jaybird, which is not his real name, but it's the nickname he took upon himself I think when he moved to Port William. But it's possible that he got that in his earlier days.

[00:30:25] You meet him as, I think, a student at the University of Kentucky, and he makes his way up in the 1930s to this small town of Port William, where he becomes the town barber. And he resides there and serves his community in this way for 30 years. You just really get to know him deeply as an individual and see the place he has in the community, which is both very well-respected and appreciated. And also, as a reader, you long for him to have things that are not currently available, that are not currently on offer to him.

Everybody in the community has hard things they're wrestling with. The 1930s in Kentucky was not an easy time to try to make your way in the world or put food on the table for your family. Jayber is the barber, so you see many townspeople gathering in his barbershop. It's a social setting. You get many scenes there.

I mean, I think you'll enjoy Wendell Berry for a variety of reasons because of what you like, especially that you really get to see people being people and you get to know those people very, very well.

[00:31:30] But Jayber also has this deep unrequited love for Maggie, a woman in the community. And the way that love drives his actions and really transforms him as a person is so moving. You will be thinking of it, I think, for decades if it lands with you, anywhere near the way I think it will. How does that sound?

COURTNEY: That sounds fantastic. Wow, that sounds great.

ANNE: Okay. That is Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. Now, I have to tell you, and I have to tell our listeners, that when you started speaking about stories of unrequited love, I thought, oh, you have got to read some Shirley Hazzard. The Great Fire would do, but I would really recommend The Transit of Venus. But I don't think it's the right pick for you right now. I want you to file this away, Courtney. It might be someday.

This is a book for English majors. This book is hard work. I'd recommend getting the new edition with the introduction by Lauren Groff. I would read it. I would read it first.

[00:32:33] For the first 75 pages of this, I had a really hard time getting oriented and keeping the characters straight. I didn't understand what she was trying to do or what was at play. But by the end, I was like, wow, that is one of the best things I've ever read.

The ending is spectacular and devastating. There is so much pining in all her works. This is a story that is... we're just going to keep saying unrequited love. That is at the heart of this novel, which of course is why it was top of mind for me. But I don't think it's the right book for you. Listeners, it's the right book for some of you. I know it is. So jot that down and add it to your list.

But actually for you, Courtney, have you read any Jamie Ford? Not any Jamie Ford, The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet specifically?

COURTNEY: No. m-mm.

ANNE: This is a really beautiful and touching historical novel that's maybe 10-ish, 15 years old. The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a real place. The story is set in Seattle and that is the Panama Hotel. It has a very wistful tone.

[00:33:37] It's about an old man who is looking back to his childhood in the 1940s in Seattle, and he's remembering with fondness and affection and no small amount of regret his friendship and really the love of his life that he shared with his young friend, his young Japanese friend, Keiko. But they lose touch when Keiko and her family were evacuated during the Japanese internment.

At the time I read this, I had learned so little about that atrocity in my U.S. history classes that I kept googling his historical references to see if they really happened. This book is incredibly well-researched and historically accurate, and it's going to be a really interesting portal into history for a lot of readers.

But this book has beautiful character development. You stick with these characters for many, many years. The sense of place and descriptions I think are really going to make you happy as a reader. You've mentioned that you enjoy some of those things. How does that sound to you?

[00:34:34] COURTNEY: That sounds fantastic as well. I do love reading about a part of history that, you know, I don't really know much about. And like you said, I don't think that we really learn much about that. As Americans, you don't really learn much about the Japanese internment camps during World War II.

ANNE: No, we don't. And if we wanted to continue on that line, Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson would be a good one. Is that one you're familiar with?

COURTNEY: Yeah, I am familiar with it, but I've never read it.

ANNE: Okay, well here's why I think it might... oh, it is so sad. It's a fitting ending. I think you might find that the ending feels right and good. But this is another lyrical. It's just beautifully written, which I think is one of the reasons it can be so gut-wrenching in passages.

This novel is set in a really interesting place. It's in an isolated, snow-covered Washington state island in the 1950s. The inciting incident here is a Japanese man is standing trial for murdering a white fisherman. And because of the trial, the town is really forced to take a long hard look in the mirror and reckon with its past.

[00:35:40] The trial just brings many of the citizens long submerged sense of guilt and shame for things that happen in that community just sharply to the surface and that does go back to the Japanese internment. And they're just devastating passages where Guterson is writing of how the Japanese islanders were rounded up and taken to the dock with the white non-Japanese fellow islanders watching on and then what happens next to their homes and their property is... oh it's so hard.

But also layered on top of the history of the town and the story of the trial is the story of two people in love or almost in love. One person and two... we'll call them star-crossed lovers. But the way this relationship plays out is poignant and heartbreaking and I think puts it on your list of potential, this is a book that will speak to you.

This is a hard book. I'm a lot more confident about Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet than I am Snow Falling on Cedars, but I do want you to be aware of it.

[00:36:40] Something else I want to think about is an unbalance in a loving relationship that's not necessarily romantic. Is that something that interests you?

COURTNEY: Yeah.

ANNE: I'm just thinking that Elizabeth Strout writes about the complexities of love so well. She does write about unrequited romantic love. Like in Amy & Isabelle, Amy's in love with her boss. And there are some of the Olive Kitteridge stories where she speaks, that is Olive speaks of the passion she has for, I think, it's a fellow teacher, that is not requited.

But also in the My Name is Lucy Barton series, a recurring motif we see is Lucy creating a fictional, imaginary, loving mother in her mind that she speaks to and seeks advice from in pictures because she doesn't feel like the love she has for her mother is reciprocated in a way that's at all satisfying. And I wonder if you would find those things to be interesting.

COURTNEY: Yeah, I definitely would. I mean, I definitely do find that fascinating, you know, just human relationships and why people feel certain ways. So yeah, that sounds very fascinating to me.

[00:37:50] ANNE: About people being people?

COURTNEY: Mm-hmm. People being people, yeah.

ANNE: Yeah, exactly. I think she's really perceptive. Have you read any of her work?

COURTNEY: No. Mm-mm.

ANNE: Okay. There are some other authors who also, I think, do such a good job with the unrequited love theme. Somerset Maugham, who may feel more like English class homework to you. Jeffrey Eugenides has that in some of his novels. Even Oyinkan Braithwaite in My Sister, the Serial Killer. That's a different direction to take that.

But Wuthering Heights, there's some Ian McEwan novels... I think there's some really interesting places you could take that, depending what sounds appealing to you. But we have to end by talking about Gold by Chris Cleave.

COURTNEY: Yeah.

ANNE: Listeners, if this book sounds familiar, it's because I talked about it with Patty Brown back on Episode 407. We talked about how knitting unraveled her reading life. And if you missed the show notes on that, the comments on modernmrsdarcy.com or whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com for Episode 407 are amazing. Because we heard from all our knitters recommending the books they love for Patty, which was so, so fun.

[00:38:54] I don't remember why we started talking about Gold by Chris Cleave, but Patty had a relative who competed in velodrome racing in Germany decades ago and she sent a photo of her family member in his kit with his bike. Oh my gosh, it was amazing. So go back and listen to that episode if you haven't.

But Gold by Chris Cleave is a book about the Olympics. Chris Cleave has plot and character. The plot has a lot of twists and turns, but also you get to know these competitors so, so well. I read this after my husband, Will, recommended it as his favorite book possibly ever at the time. And that was back in maybe like 2017 or 2018.

So he's had quite a bit of time to change his mind. We'll talk about that later. He had to talk me into it, but then I loved it and I read it in two days.

But this is a story around two velodrome cyclists who are best friends and arch-rivals. And they've been training under the same coach for a long time and now because of their age and for reasons they know that this is their last remaining shot at the London Olympics and they are determined to get in and they're going to be two spots. But then they find out there's only going to be one spot.

[00:40:03] So these best friends under the same coach are going head to head knowing that somebody's heart is going to be broken. And that's just about the Olympics because you find out that they're also all respectively navigating these personal crises. And there is a child who has a life-threatening sickness.

So note that content warning, please. I know you don't like to read about terrible things happening to children. You and I can talk off the record Courtney if you'd like about if you actually want to read this and I can answer specific perhaps spoilery questions if you'd like. But the way he sets out the complicated history between these two athletes and keeps raising the stakes in the present story is amazing.

The story is told from multiple points of view. And something that we haven't discussed here is humor in stories. But this book is intense and there are hard things happening to some of the characters. There's a brutal bike wreck just for example at one point. I was looking at YouTube movies of velodrome racing going, "This is not a good idea. Oh my gosh, this looks terrifying."

[00:41:06] But the coach, the old, salty, crusty coach with his knees that don't bend anymore, and he's seen everything, and he knows these women better than they know themselves, we get his point of view in some of those chapters, and it really made the book for me. He's wonderful. You will love him. It's really needed comic relief. I loved it so much. There are some big surprises in this story. It's not Paris, it's London. But how does that sound?

COURTNEY: That sounds fantastic. It almost sounds like a true story. It's not a true story?

ANNE: It's not a true story.

COURTNEY: Oh, wow.

ANNE: I do not know Chris Cleave's inspiration, but this is a novel.

COURTNEY: Yeah, I actually did go to the London Olympics. I was a spectator there, so that sounds phenomenal. The only part that you mentioned was the sick child part I don't particularly like to read about that part, but all the other stuff sounds absolutely perfect.

ANNE: We'll talk about it if you want.

COURTNEY: Okay.

[00:42:02] ANNE: Courtney, we talked about a lot of titles, but of the books we really focused on, Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, Hotel on the Corner Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, and Gold by Chris Cleave. Of those books, what do you think you'll read next?

COURTNEY: It's so hard to choose. I probably will read Jayber Crow first, and then, depending on what you tell me at the end, I'm very much looking forward to reading Gold, for sure. And then, yeah, I definitely want to read all of them but those are probably the two that stand out the most to me.

ANNE: I'm excited to hear it. They sound like really good fits for you, and I can't wait to hear what you think.

COURTNEY: Yeah, thank you so much. This was definitely so fun.

ANNE: It's my pleasure. Courtney, thanks for talking books with me.

COURTNEY: Thank you.

[00:42:48] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Courtney, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Leave your recommendations for Courtney and find the fullest of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. We'll also put a link to our survey right there.

Make sure you're following along in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever you get your podcasts, so our new episodes show up automatically in your feed each week. And be sure to sign up for weekly email updates for the show at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

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.