Go ahead, judge that book by its cover

[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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[00:01:17] We also feature regular conversations amongst members of the What Should I Read Next? team sharing books they would love to recommend.

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[00:02:09] Today's guest enjoyed an exceptional reading experience in 2023. Julie Van Huizen's love of reading was reignited in late 2022 when she found a path into the bookish zeitgeist by reading a super popular series.

At about the same time, Julie found herself inspired, intimidated, challenged, and curious by the end-of-year reading wrap-ups her friend shared online. That curiosity led Julie to ask herself, what would my life be like as a reader? She wanted to find out, so she declared 2023 her year of intentional reading.

Today we're talking about how that went for Julie, from the monthly formula that worked for her to the literary diet she'd love to follow going forward.

Julie and I also talk about the power of getting plugged into what she calls the Book People Network, and why she's so excited about being a part of the literary and pop culture conversations.

Our mission today is to put together a big literary salad for Julie, made up of dense leafy greens, tart goat cheese, and candied pecans. You'll hear which kinds of books fill each category and the titles I chose for Julie in today's episode. Let's get to it.

[00:03:13] Julie, welcome to the show.

JULIE VAN HUIZEN: Hi, Anne. Thanks for having me.

ANNE: Oh, I'm so excited to jump in today. Our whole team was really excited about your submission, so thanks for taking the time to send that in. I'm excited to see where the conversation takes us today.

JULIE: Great. All right.

ANNE: Julie, tell us a little bit about yourself. We would like to give our readers a glimpse of who you are.

JULIE: I live in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with my husband and two kids. I am a graphic designer for work, so I tend to have lots of opinions on book covers. I actually believe you should judge them by their covers. Somebody worked really hard on those covers.

Let's see, what else. I'm a very avid thrift shopper. If I'm not at home or working, I am probably at the thrift store. Actually, even if I am at home, I'm probably thrifting via Facebook Marketplace.

I am a podcast enthusiast. I always have one AirPod in my ear. So I guess my ideal state of existence would be a big empty thrift store while listening to a podcast.

[00:04:19] ANNE: Amazing. Okay, see, this is the point where I want to ask you about your favorite book covers, but I won't. I love that picture you painted for us. Now, Julie, tell us about your reading life.

JULIE: Like many people, it has been a journey with valleys and peaks. I guess if I were to start back at the very beginning, I come from an unusually bookish family. My parents met in university and they were sort of introduced by their English professor.

I have three sisters, all of whom studied English, and all of whom still have actually very bookish jobs. One works at a library and one is a writer and an editor. One is an audiobook narrator. So like if there's a bookish job, someone in my family has it covered.

Oh, and my parents also owned a used bookstore for many years right before they retired. So there was never a shortage of books in my life.

[00:05:16] But you know, I was also a middle child, and therefore I was a little bit extra desperate for attention. So I would say probably growing up, I kind of decided that like, well, all my sisters are into reading and books, so I am going to be the sister that's into design and pop culture more than I'm into books. I mean, that meant that I still majored in English like my sisters, but I just majored in other things too.

I would say for probably most of my 20s and 30s, I was just more into pop culture and TV and movies than I was into literature. So I was reading, but I would be reading Game of Thrones theories on Reddit, or I would be in the comment section of like Mad Men TV recaps. It was kind of like, I can't be reading books when there's so much good TV to watch. I have to keep up with the discourse rather than read books.

[00:06:16] So yeah, for a long time, I just did not have an overly robust reading life. But because my family is so literary and because they were always reading, I never was totally outside of the book community. Recommendations would still trickle down, but it was maybe just three or four or five books a year. But that all changed about a year ago.

ANNE: Pam, pam, pam.

JULIE: Yes, dramatic pause.

ANNE: Tell us what happened.

JULIE: Okay. So two things happened. I've kind of pinpointed to two different things that kind of just totally restarted my love of reading. The first thing that happened was in the end of December 2022 and the beginning of January 2023, there was this phenomenon where it seemed like every single person that I knew Had posted their Goodreads goals to Instagram and they had all read 72 books.

[00:07:21] I was just like gobsmacked, shocked. I was kind of like, "Wait a second, how is everyone I know reading 72 books? And how are they all bragging about it on Instagram?" So that was just like a wild discovery. That kind of reading life just felt like something inconceivable. It felt like discovering that everyone I knew had been secretly training for a marathon to the moon. I just didn't even know, like, where are you guys finding the time for this?

So I internalized those feelings, and I kind of wrote a tongue-in-cheek blog post about those feelings of shame. Now, I know we don't like that word on this podcast. So I will say I tried to turn that shame into curiosity, and then I tried to turn that curiosity into a little bit of a challenge for myself.

I wanted to figure out, like, what would my life be like if I even attempted to have a slightly more robust reading life? What if I decided to make that my goal this year?

[00:08:31] I was trying to be realistic. I wasn't going to read 72 books, but I thought, what if I read 27 books? That was the first thing, was being confronted with the fact that all my friends and acquaintances were already reading people.

So that felt like a daunting goal, but I kind of need a daunting goal in order to feel motivated. I'm somebody who sometimes just needs to take a big swing.

ANNE: Julie, if you'd found out that all your friends were running marathons to the moon, perhaps you wouldn't be interested in running a marathon to the moon. And yet, this feeling you had about seeing that they were reading, that inspired the big swing, as you put it.

JULIE: That's actually very true, because you're right. I have had moments where I discovered that everyone is running marathons, and I am 100% not motivated to run marathons. So it doesn't always work that way. But I think it was just... they all seemed so proud of themselves and it seemed like such a joyful celebration.

[00:09:32] It also felt like it was something that I was on the periphery of. Like I had family members reading more than me and I was keeping up. Like I could tell you what books were popular. I could tell you what book covers I liked. I just hadn't made the step to actually engage in it.

It just kind of gave me that push to be like, well, what if I actually were a part of this world? Because having been around bookish people for so long, having had such a bookish family, I knew that there were benefits to be gleaned from it. So yeah, I think that is what gave me the push to get in there.

ANNE: So this is a "come on in, the water's warm" situation.

JULIE: Exactly. Yes, for sure.

ANNE: Or "the books are really good and we're really enjoying them without you".

JULIE: Yes, exactly. And this kind of dovetails with the next thing that got me going. Around the same time, I had just recently started reading series that I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with, the A Court of Thorns and Roses series, the ACOTAR series.

[00:10:37] Just a few weeks before I started having all this Goodreads angst, I asked on Instagram if any of my friends had these books because I'd heard so much about them and if anyone had them to borrow because the library holds for them were insane.

And the response I got to that question, again, totally blew me away. I got so much more interaction, again, from a totally wide variety of people. I had second cousins, old work colleagues, acquaintances being like, "I have the books. Do you want to borrow them? Oh, I have them. They're amazing."

What made me just as excited was there are people who are like, "Oh, I hate those books. I think they're totally overrated." I was just delighted that so many people had opinions about them and that it just was this totally big monocultural pop cultural phenomenon.

[00:11:31] So I borrowed the books from a friend of mine and I have to say, I didn't even really like the first book that much, but I loved the experience of reading the book. So the book itself was a three-star-

ANNE: What? Say more.

JULIE: Well, it was like I just loved that people were so engaged in me reading it. So like, I would say, you know, I'm not really loving this book. But then I would love that I would get so much feedback from people being like, "Oh, well, just you wait, the second book is where things really start cooking." Or I could be like, "How do we even say this name and people would have opinions on that. So it was just so fun to be a part of something, even if I didn't actually love the book all that much.

ANNE: So you enjoyed tapping the zeitgeist?

JULIE: I enjoy tapping the zeitgeist. That's something that's always been true for me. I think that's why I've always had such an affinity for pop culture. I still remember being in grade seven, staying up late to watch Titanic sweep at the Oscars. That's a formative memory for me. I love a big monocultural zeitgeisty moment. So yeah, it was really fun to participate in that.

[00:12:43] That too it kind of gave me the confidence even that I could crush a 600-page book. It was kind of like, okay, if I want to read 27 books. I'm having a fun easy time crushing this series. Like maybe if I allow myself to dig back into genres like literary fiction but also allow myself to explore fantasy, romance, fan fiction. I read some speculative fiction last year. I even read a couple thrillers. So that kind of made me think actually this is something that I can do. So then I was off to the races.

ANNE: Amazing. I just want to pause and acknowledge what a genius move it was to ask to borrow those books. Did you have any idea what that would do for your life, not just your reading life?

[00:13:36] JULIE: Not a clue. It was just honestly the most innocuous thing. It was just like, "Hey, does anybody have these?" And all of a sudden it was just a drove of people in my DMs being like, "I have them and I need to share them with you."

ANNE: I hear a lot of readers say, well, I guess I could borrow from my friend, but that feels like a hassle or I don't want to inconvenience her. But truly, this is how you say, like, I'm interested in this and find out who else is in your life. That's amazing. I love that you did that.

JULIE: It was also even kind of like, oh, wait, social media can be a fun thing because sometimes it can feel not so fun. So that was an instance where I was like, oh, this is what it should be for.

ANNE: That it actually made you feel connected.

JULIE: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:20] ANNE: Yeah. I mean, not just made you feel, but actually connected you to others.

JULIE: Yeah, it did. And I think too, like, if we're talking about the social media of it all, I dusted off my Goodreads, which was a very lonely place prior to this year. There were like tumbleweeds and cobwebs going through. And I love Goodreads.

I know that's also a little controversial because Goodreads has had its own challenges. But as someone who was kind of late to the party, I've had so much fun on there. And that's been another place where I've just loved hearing what people have to say. Like I said, I even love if someone doesn't like a book that I liked. That's almost just as interesting as finding that someone loved something you loved.

ANNE: You know I'm not going to argue with that.

JULIE: Of course, that's kind of the whole deal here, isn't it?

ANNE: Julie, we have to share with our listeners what you said about A Court of Thorn and Roses being your introvert "get out of jail free" card.

[00:15:21] JULIE: Oh, okay. Absolutely. Like I said, I am an introvert and I now use ACOTAR as my introvert get out of jail free card because if I am at, let's say, a school function and I have to make small talk with other moms, all I have to do is just like cough ACOTAR and like three to five millennial women will just appear ready to talk about Rhysand.

So yeah, it's really been fun. It's really been fun. I highly recommend it. If you are an introvert and need a little go-to, just have a passing knowledge of ACOTAR and you will have a home base to return to anytime you need to make small talk with another millennial. That's so handy.

ANNE: Thank you for that gift you just gave so many of us.

JULIE: You're very welcome.

ANNE: That ended up being a transformative experience for your reading life. So what happened next?

[00:16:16] JULIE: I decided to tap into Goodreads. I decided to give myself permission to explore more genres. It was even just a little, I said, I'm going to share on my Instagram what I read every month. Just because even for me I'm someone who does like to see all my little book covers all together. Like I feel a sense of accomplishment.

And I know people talk about how sometimes there's like a gamification thing that happens. It was like having the goal did give me a sense of something to work towards. And then seeing all of the titles put together and an Instagram recap at the end of the month it gave me a dopamine rush.

Then I also found that also continued the opportunity for people to make other connections with people about books that they loved. So that was a really nice little added surprise.

[00:17:09] And then I will say what was kind of nice about making the decision to be a reader was it did not actually involve changing very much about my life. I would say the most intentional thing I had to do was just take advantage of the little pockets in my day that were otherwise not filled with much.

It was kind of like, well, you know that in between kids getting off to school and having my first cup of coffee, what if instead of scrolling Instagram I read a couple pages in my book? Or you know like kids getting kids to bed is a laborious task but I found a really nice special thing was now when I get my son to bed I don't have to just wait in the room until he falls asleep. He grabs his book and I grab my book and we read for a half an hour. So it's like I haven't had to really reorient my life that much I've just had to see all of the opportunities that I already had just to fill with reading.

[00:18:14] And because I was reading so many fun and enjoyable books, it was not a chore. It was just something that actually ended up fitting in my life really easily.

ANNE: I did not expect that because qualitatively and quantitatively, do I need to insert my usual disclaimer about how like it's not about the numbers? But if you want to read more, there are ways you can do that. And you really did, Julie. Like I would have expected it to be harder.

JULIE: Yeah, me too.

ANNE: And you didn't just hit your goal. You like lapped it.

JULIE: I did. I hit my goal in May or June of 27 books. Then I was like, well, obviously, I'm not going to just stop reading because it had become a really important piece of my life. So it was like, I just bumped that goal to 50. And then that was my new goal, which was really, really fun. I think, too, another big piece of my joy of reading was rediscovering my local library.

ANNE: Oh, I love it.

[00:19:19] JULIE: Shout out to the Terryberry Library. I have to say that because it's one of the most fun library names to say. And yeah, that too has given like a nice little routine for me. The feeling of putting a book on hold and then having that book become available gives me the same rush as say like online shopping would or thrifting would. It's just like, ah, got it, which is really nice.

ANNE: Oh the dopamine hit of your holds coming in.

JULIE: Exactly. Especially if it's a hold on a new release and you happen to be among the first crop, that is... oh, what a rush. I'm still chasing that high all the time.

ANNE: So, Julie, your year of reading is behind you now. Your one year. Your inaugural year?

JULIE: Yes.

ANNE: How do things stand now?

JULIE: The phase that I'm in now is it's kind of like I'm in the maintenance phase because I think the hope for any big goal that you make is not that you're always living in that like big goal strive but that it just becomes like a natural part of your life.

[00:20:26] I remember going back to how I love to thrift. In my 20s I made the decision, this is back when I had a thrifting blog, where I said, I am not going to shop at the mall for a whole year. I'm going to do a year without the mall and I'm going to buy all my clothes with some minor exceptions from the thrift store.

So I did that goal, it was the same thing and ended up easier than I thought. Then when I was done with that, it was kind of like, Oh, now I don't have to hold myself to this really stringent expectation. But because it's become such a natural thing for me, I just shop secondhand now. It's just something that becomes effortless.

So I'm kind of hoping that this year, even if I am not really striving towards that goal, obviously I do still have a Goodreads goal, but even if I'm not working as much to it, this is just my life now. I just happen to be somebody who likes to read and read a lot of books.

ANNE: And how's that feel?

[00:21:28] JULIE: It feels really good. It feels really good. I think too I want to speak to the people who aren't at that phase yet and say our lives have seasons. I don't know if this would have worked for me when I had small kids I don't know if it's just clicking for me right now. It may not always be that way. It fits for me right now.

I will also say the one thing I did have to let go of a little bit is I have watched so much less TV this year. But again, that's been a good fit for this life stage because gone are the days when your kids are in bed by 7:30 and you can just crush two hours of really gritty Netflix dramas because now our kids are staying up later and later and, you know, they're coming down saying, Well, what are you watching? So it's definitely books just fit into my life more easily than TV shows and movies do at this point.

[00:22:26] They're also just easier to read on the go. I guess you could watch a TV show while you're waiting for your kids at school pickup, but I feel like reading is a little easier to do.

ANNE: A little bit. Oh, yes. Well, thank you for telling me about that. I'm really excited that we can find you some good books today to keep that momentum going.

JULIE: Yeah.

ANNE: Okay. Are you ready to talk about your books?

JULIE: I am.

ANNE: Julie, 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 I'll recommend three books you may enjoy reading next. Now, how did you choose these for today?

JULIE: So I wanted to choose a variety of books. So I kind of went for one that's an early core memory, one that's something I'd like to add a little more back into my reading life and one that's indicative of the books I really enjoyed from this past year of reading.

ANNE: Interesting.

ANNE: Okay, I can't wait to hear what's what. What's your first book?

[00:23:27] JULIE: The first book I chose is Boy's Life by Robert McCammon. I chose this book because it is just one of my earliest memories of being totally swept up in a story and blown away by a novel. I read it for the first time when I was, I think, probably 16 or 17 years old. It was a recommendation from my sister.

It tells the story of Cory, a 12-year-old boy living in the town of Zephyr, Alabama in the 1960s. The story opens with Cory and his dad making a very grisly discovery. They find a body chained to the steering wheel of a sinking car in a lake near their house, and everything just unspools from there.

It is just this beautiful coming-of-age story. It is wild and mystical and emotional. I also think it's severely underrated. I recommend it all the time because I just think it's that kind of big, juicy, sincere novel that almost everybody could get something from.

[00:24:38] ANNE: Oh, wow. Have you revisited this since you were 16?

JULIE: I did reread it once I think in my early 20s. And then actually once I submitted my application, I thought, should I reread it? But then I was a little afraid to reread it because I was like, Oh no, what if it doesn't hold up? But I will say I did come across... because I was trying to refresh some of the plot points and everything because I knew I was going to talk about it today. And I came across this quote. Can I be very indulgent and read it?

ANNE: Let's hear it.

JULIE: Okay. "See, this is my opinion. We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible, told to act our age, told to grow up for God's sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they'd allowed to wither in themselves."

[00:25:54] ANNE: That's really lovely.

JULIE: Reading that as a 37-year-old woman as opposed to a 17-year-old, that was like, Oh my goodness, if that is not a call to reclaim some magic in your life, then I don't know what is.

ANNE: It hits different 20 years later.

JULIE: Exactly. It hits different. So after reading that, I thought, Oh, maybe I should give this one another go and read it with the eyes of a 37-year-old.

ANNE: That sounds lovely. Julie, what's the second book you love?

JULIE: The second book I chose is Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud. I chose this book because even in the years where I was reading only two or three or four books, I would almost always have a memoir in there. This one is one of those that I read even when I wasn't reading much. And it's a really emblematic of what I really love in a memoir in that it is both a window and a mirror.

[00:26:52] It's a window because Elamin immigrated from Sudan when he was 12 years old and so a lot of the essays are providing insight into how jarring and upheaval that was for him and his family and how painful and difficult it can be as an immigrant to have to continually reassess his place in the world and reevaluate even his own perception of his race. And yeah, just like how hard it is to find a home when your context is totally different.

Then it's also a mirror because a chapter later he is writing with the same tenderness and a lot of humor about being an awkward teenager. You know he's got an essay that's all about what a lifeline the character of Seth Cohen from the OC was for him at the time. And it's like, what teenager has not had that experience of overly identifying with a TV character?

[00:27:55] There's another essay too that I really loved where he talks about how an online wrestling fan fiction community was the first place where he received validation and support for his craft as a writer. And that to me too is a really universal millennial experience.

So many of us had an experience like that, like finding community online for the first time. Sometimes finding community online felt easier even than finding community in real life. So yeah, I really loved it. It was kind of that sweet spot for me when it comes to a memoir.

ANNE: That's so good to hear. How did you feel about the essay about the 401?

JULIE: I loved it because the 401 is 20 minutes from me. I thought, I can't believe how much poetry he is bringing to something that I've driven on a hundred times in my life. And that's what I think is so special about the book. He adds poignancy to so many things that you otherwise might not.

[00:28:52] ANNE: Julie, what's the third book you chose as a favorite?

JULIE: Like I said, it's the only one that I actually read in this last year is Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas. I chose this one because I feel like it's a good representation of a lot of the fun things I loved about my year of reading because it contains a lot of the genres that I gave myself permission this year to explore.

It is a wonderful and swoony romance. It is very spooky and supernatural. It has this kind of folklore energy. At the same time, it's this really compelling piece of well-researched historical fiction. So it had me all at the same time clutching my heart. Then I was turning on the lights because I felt scared, and then I was hopping on Wikipedia to look up details of the Mexican-American War, because that's something I really didn't know much about.

[00:29:54] So for me, I'm like, if you're a writer that can have me shouting like, Kiss already, and then in the next breath I am reflecting on the horrors of colonialism, that is quite a feat. I tip my hat.

ANNE: I love the way you describe that. Julie, now tell us about a book that wasn't right for you.

JULIE: I will say I think this one suffered a little bit from high-expectation syndrome. So the book I chose is Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo. I read this one on the heels of some other family sagas that I really loved. I read this one right after Hello Beautiful. Another one I read that year was Black Cake. So I thought, ooh, I am in my family saga era.

[00:30:48] The situation of the story, it seems like it would be very similar. It's a family of women. They all have sort of magical powers. But the structure of this one I just could not sink into. I think it's made me realize what I can and can't do when it comes to a multigenerational family saga.

I can do multigenerations, but I have a hard time if it's multiple POVs and multiple timelines and a kind of extra metanarrative voice. There was just a little too much going on. I felt like I could not sink into the story.

I was listening to a discussion about this book and I guess initially it was conceived as a short story collection and that was like I was like, Oh, that's why. That's why I didn't like it. I don't really like short story collections. They're not really my thing. I like to be on a train that's got a more straightforward, propulsive plot.

But I love the cover. I have to give a shout-out to the cover. I still have the book on display in my home because it's so beautiful.

[00:31:57] ANNE: Julie, what have you been reading lately?

JULIE: Okay, one I read recently was Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane. I could have said really any Mhairi McFarlane book because since discovering her last December, I'm on book number five of her backlist. I think she is far and away my favorite in the romance genre. Up until last year, I had hardly read any romance. But I sampled a few different authors and she was one that really clicked for me because I feel like she almost transcends the genre.

She is doing so much more than romance in her books. She is not afraid to explore bigger themes. She's also not afraid to really put her characters through it. So by the time the love interest enters the picture, it's really earned. I think she's not sacrificing the romance either.

[00:32:55] When I'm pitching her to my friends I say she's like Emily Henry but with a big spoonful of Fleabag. It just feels like you're watching a really good cozy British rom-com. Have you seen the show Starstruck?

ANNE: I haven't.

JULIE: Okay, it's really delightful. That's one of the few shows I was able to make time for. But it's the same thing. It's a British-produced show, and it's just this really delightful, warm, cozy rom-com that also deals with big, heartfelt themes. And that's what Mhairi McFarlane is doing in her books.

I can never quite tell where she's going with the story. Like, she loves a rug pull moment, which I also appreciate. I mean, I've read enough romance now this year to get the formula, but she finds a way to make the formula still kind of surprise you.

ANNE: I love that description.

JULIE: So the next book that I absolutely loved and probably one of my early contenders for favorite book of the year is In Memoriam by Alice Winn. This is another recommendation from another sister. I love this book.

[00:34:01] It's the story of two upper-class schoolboys in the early years of World War I. Soon, so many of their friends and peers are called to fight on the front. And eventually, they both end up at the front as well.

It is just the most harrowing and heartbreaking depiction of trench warfare. This book like tore my heart out. It is very visceral and very gruesome and it's also such a gorgeous love story. It is a big swing and a bleeding heart and I feel like that's just exactly what I'm looking for in a story.

ANNE: That sounds beautiful. Thank you. Julie, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

JULIE: Well, as we talked about, I am kind of just looking to maintain the flow that I got going in this last year. I wrote in my application that my favorite reading months are the ones that feel like a really good salad. I will explain what that means.

[00:35:04] I find a really good salad you have your dense and leafy greens as a base to start, and that is the literary fiction. And then you top it with a generous amount of something surprising, like very tart goat cheese. To me, that's fantasy or maybe sci-fi or speculative fiction. And then you add in a whole bunch of candied pecans or something really yummy, like romance or comfort reads. So I would love it if you would make me a salad, Anne.

ANNE: I love salads. I think we can do this.

JULIE: I'm just imagining if that were the isolated audio for the beginning of the episode. Like, did you tell Anne to make you a salad?

I think the other thing that I would like to add back into my reading life is memoir. I mentioned that in my off years I was still reading memoir. But when I got going last year, because I was adding in so many other genres, I totally shouldered memoir out of the way. I did not read one memoir for the whole year, which is really sad. And I didn't notice it until I was looking at the list at the end.

[00:36:13] I did realize just this past month that I might actually enjoy memoirs via audiobook. I don't read any audiobooks. I've tried them, and they're not for me. But I read two via audiobook last year, and I really liked it. So I think that could be a good solution. So if you have recommendations for memoirs that make excellent audiobooks, I would definitely be open to those.

ANNE: Duly noted.

JULIE: You know I love being a part of something big. So if you want to tell me what the next big thing is so I can be the first person to get it on hold at the library, I'm open for that too. Use your crystal ball.

ANNE: Julie, let's make you a salad.

JULIE: Yum.

ANNE: That means that we need the dense leafy greens of literary fiction, your tart goat cheese that's fantasy or something surprising, and a whole bunch of candied pecans. Although, we're going to talk about a couple books.

[00:37:12] I just want to say that literary fiction can also be inventive and weird and surprising. So, maybe we can get more ingredients in the salad with just a handful of books? I would love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you want to know what's going to be the big next thing. And look, we are not predicting the... Never mind. Yeah, we are. It's James by Percival Everett.

JULIE: Oh!

ANNE: It's coming out March 19th. I don't know if you've read him before, but... He is so, so smart and intellectually challenging in his writing. Also, this is a retelling of Huck Finn from Jim's point of view, and it's a rollicking adventure tale as well. So you want to get on the propulsive plot, like, take me there, what's going to happen next train? This is that.

But it's also an ingenious retelling. It's emotionally resonant. It's intellectually challenging because his work always is. And because you're constantly picking up what he's putting down as far as what he's saying about our culture and race and the situation that we always been told one way by Mark Twain about the relationship between Huck and Jim and everybody else. Although you'll notice this book is called James because that's what he prefers to be called.

[00:38:21] So this is similar to the original in that Jim is afraid he's going to be sold down the river and thus separated from his wife and daughter so he runs away while he figures out like what can I do here?

Huck wants to get away from his abusive father and he fakes his own death and decides he's going to hop on the raft with Jim and they're going to take a trip. But when you hear the story from James' point of view, it's different. The risks are different, the fears are different. He just keeps going with that the whole way down the story you know and the beats that you may remember from Mark Twain. But he also takes it in a few directions that you are not expecting.

This is going to be big. So many of us had to read Mark Twain in school. Did I just say had to? We're going to go with it. You know, it was assigned and you had to read it. You can read it without having read Mark Twain. That would add a richness to your understanding. I don't think it's essential.

But lots of people are going to be reading this come March 19th when it releases and will continue to read it for years, decades, longer. That's going to happen. How does that sound?

[00:39:29] JULIE: That sounds amazing. I love a retelling. That sounds perfect.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Now, see, we've still got some dense leafiness here with this next one, but also this is real weird in a way that I think is going to feel really zingy in your salad. And that is Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. It's a debut from last year. Do you know it?

JULIE: Anne, I added it to my Goodreads want-to-read list yesterday.

ANNE: Okay. Meant to be.

JULIE: Meant to be. Yes.

ANNE: So you know a little bit about this. I think it came out in August. It was in last year's Summer Reading Guide. Readers, if it sounds familiar, that may be why. But this is an emotionally challenging tale of a newlywed couple who are driven apart because just weeks after they get married, the husband discovers something odd when he's brushing his teeth in the morning. The bridge of his nose isn't hard anymore. It's become soft cartilage.

[00:40:29] This happens in the world of the book. He goes to the doctor and he gets one of those diagnoses that people get sometimes. He has a genetic mutation that means he's going to turn into a great white shark. He's going to stay Lewis in his soul, but he's going to become a shark. And unlike many mutations that take decades to fully transpire, this is going to happen before their first year of marriage is over. I mean, that's weird, right?

JULIE: Yeah.

ANNE: And yet it's so emotionally profound as she explores marriage and motherhood and art. There's a lot of theater in the story. Discussion of unfulfilled dreams, of controlling the things we can. The way she wrestles with this question of how we can live and create a life and find meaning while living through great tragedy, things that we didn't want or choose but we nevertheless have to face. What does that mean?

[00:41:30] Also, you may have heard before you added to your Goodreads that the story is about a marriage, but it's also... it's about more than that. About motherhood... the story goes in a whole different direction for the second half that I did not expect about growing up in really difficult situations. I mean, you put it on your TBR for a reason. What were you thinking when you added it?

JULIE: Just last week I hosted my first... I called it Goodreads in real life. Again, going back from what we were talking about, about social media being good, I randomly put a call up on my Instagram the first week of January saying, does anyone want to get together once a month and just talk about books we’re reading? So not a book club, but a book discussion club. And that was the same thing where all of a sudden it was like, wow, everybody wants to do that.

So 25 people said they wanted to do it. We met for the first time last week. The vague theme was unconventional love stories. And two or three people brought up this book. They said, it's not a love story in the way you may expect, but it is a beautiful story. So I was like, okay, it's time. So now having you say I have to read it too, it's... It's moving to the top of the list.

[00:42:50] ANNE: Meant to be. Now I still feel like we're hitting the dense, leafy greens. But you mentioned memoir and especially noticing how much you enjoyed Son of Elsewhere, which is a memoir in pieces, which is a memoir in pieces by Elamin Abdelmahmoud.

I really like the idea of giving you another memoir that's told not just as a narrative, chapter by chapter, beginning, middle, end, but one that is told in pieces, in different formats. I'm not sure how much that contributed to your enjoyment. But we're going to try it again with this memoir from Kwame Alexander. It's called Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Letters, Recipes, and Remembrances. And this also came out last May.

Now, many know him as the author of novels and verse for kids like Booked and The Crossover. He's a poet and he's also an extraordinary narrator of his own work. I would listen to Kwame Alexander read me anything. I don't know how you feel about that.

But this is another non-traditional memoir. It's told in stories, poems, letters, even recipes. And he is working out what he knows about love, what he's learning about love. Oh gosh, you know what he talks about in this book is, I hope you don't relate to this too much. But he writes of the mixed blessing of growing up as a child in a home full of books.

[00:44:16] But those books added a complexity that wasn't entirely welcome in his relationship with his father, especially. He talks about that complex relationship with his father who always told him, like, son, you got to do something besides poetry. You can't make a living out of poetry. People don't want to buy poetry.

He talks about falling in love and getting married, and then that marriage ending. I had no idea that Nikki Giovanni was an important mentor of his. He talks about that. He talks about parenthood. He also talks about things like, here's my granny's recipe for 7-Up Pound Cake.

I think if you're looking to venture back into memoir, I get the impression that once you get on the train, you want the ride to take a little bit. This is not a long book. The audio is less than four hours. But you only read two memoirs last year, and you really love the genre. This would be, I think, a really easy and compelling way to revisit that genre. What do you think?

[00:45:11] JULIE: I think it sounds beautiful. I also think I might have to recommend it to my own parents because my mom loves memoir and my dad loves poetry. So maybe we can do like a family book club.

ANNE: Maybe you can. All right, for the little bit of weird, have you read any Stephen King?

JULIE: Not much. I read the Different Seasons, the collection that had the body and the Shawshank Redemption in it, the short story collection. I read his book on writing when I was in college. I'm open to Stephen King. I'm just scared. I'm a little baby. I can do a little bit of spooky, but I'm open.

ANNE: I'm a scaredy cat by nature. That's fair. I think this is more fantasy than anything else. The book I have in mind is Fairy Tale. I listened to this on audio. The narrator has a great reputation. It's not fantasy that you're looking for on audio, but I'm just saying.

JULIE: Okay, I'm open.

ANNE: Just saying. You could go there. It would take 30 hours of your life, but you could go there. This is a very long book. I want you to know that going in.

[00:46:16] First, it has a little bit weird and then it has a whole lot of weird. This is the story of a teenage kid, I think he's 17 years old, in Illinois who because of a beloved dog named Radar ends up befriending a lonely old man whose name is Mr. Bowditch.

The first half of the book is just normal everyday fare. You hear the sad tale of Charlie's early life, how his mother was killed in an accident when he was young, how his father descended into alcoholism and then found a path to recovery again, and is currently still working his steps at the point you meet Charlie when he's in high school.

He's seen some really hard things, but he's a good kid. You want good things for Charlie. And it seems perfectly in character that because of this dog, he ends up helping this old man, Mr. Bowditch. But Mr. Bowditch thinks they're just a little strange.

[00:47:11] He lives in their small community, he's pretty isolated, doesn't go out much, but he seems to have an endless supply of money to pay for the things he needs to pay for. And when he goes in the hospital and asks Charlie to tend to his property and his dog, he can pay Charlie a salary that astounds him. Like, how is he able to do this?

Things get even weirder when Mr. Bowditch asks Charlie to sell some of his gold to raise some more cash so that he can pay the hospital bill. So that's the setup at the beginning of the book. Just it's entirely in our world. There's just a few quirky things.

Then there's a hinge in the middle where Charlie realizes that Mr. Bowditch is the guardian to a fantastical world with echoes of The Wizard of Oz, H.P. Lovecraft is name-checked in the book, Rumpelstiltskin is a continuing motif.

And the way King takes you from the realistic to the purely fantastical and how he bridges those worlds could be really interesting for you. It's a big investment to find out if it's interesting to you.

[00:48:22] There are a handful of horror elements in the descriptions of some of the characters that you meet later in the book, but I would not call this a horror. I think you can read this as a scaredy cat. Does that sound interesting at all?

JULIE: That sounds very interesting. I have a long road trip coming up over March break. We'll have many hours in the car. So a big, juicy book, that might just be the perfect time for that. My husband also reads a lot more Stephen King than I do. So maybe we can read it at the same time. You can see I'm just trying to start book clubs with everyone I know.

ANNE: Well, you found how books can connect you to people, and I like how that impulse is alive and well.

JULIE: Yes.

ANNE: All right. We have to give you something fun to read in the love story category. I was thinking that because of the themes you enjoy, like Kate Clayborn or Abby Jimenez. But if you haven't read Elissa Sussman's Funny You Should Ask, I really want to zoom that to the top of your list. Is this a book you've encountered?

[00:49:19] JULIE: I haven't read it yet. And you know what? It's a little bittersweet because I checked it out of the library and I didn't get to it. And I just felt guilty that I hadn't read it yet, so I returned it. But I knew that I will return to it because it was on my radar.

ANNE: The library is still there. You can go back to it. Funny You Should Ask will be there for you when you need it. But the reason I want this book for you is because it combines your devoted love of entertainment and pop culture with a really propulsive, smartly written, entertaining love story. I think this one's for you, Julie.

JULIE: That sounds like my sweet spot.

ANNE: Amazing. Okay, how do these feel?

JULIE: They feel good. I feel like I got a very delicious salad.

ANNE: Is it balanced? How are our elements here?

JULIE: It's balanced. It's absolutely balanced. Yes.

[00:50:15] ANNE: Okay, of the books we talked about today, they were James by Percival Everett out March 19th, Shark Heart by Emily Habeck, Why Fathers Cry at Night, the Memoir by Kwame Alexander, Fairy Tale by Stephen King, and Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman. Now let's pretend that time is no object, all books are available at your fingertips. Julie, what do you think you'll read next?

JULIE: Okay, I'm doing Shark Heart first. I'm doing Shark Heart first, then I'm putting James on hold at the library so I can be first in line for that one.

ANNE: I love it. I look forward to hearing what you think.

JULIE: Awesome.

ANNE: Julie, thanks so much for talking books with me today.

JULIE: Thank you for having me. This was so much fun.

[00:50:57] ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Julie, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Julie on Instagram and Goodreads @julievancan, or at her website, julievancan.com. We'll have those links, along with the full list of titles we talked about today, on our show notes page. Those are at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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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.