Books that amaze, amaze, amaze

[00:00:00] TIFFANY VICARS: Again, this one just got me in all the places between the healthcare side of things, as well as the romance and the dog. Yeah, it just had everything as well.

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.

Today, I'm talking with a reader who struggled through a major reading slump for years before finally discovering a book subscription box that she says saved her reading life.

[00:00:59] Tiffany Vicars is a pharmacist mom and Kentucky State Fair prize-winning paper crafter in Louisville, Kentucky. Tiffany considers reading her highest form of self-care, but in recent years, she's run into unexpected interruptions, a whirlwind few years that ran the emotional gamut from marriage and parenthood to grieving the death of a parent and even appearing as a contestant on Jeopardy!. All these things left her barely touching her beloved box.

Tiffany knew she needed to take action to reinvigorate her reading life. She tried a few approaches, but nothing stuck until she tried out a book subscription box and figured out a way to make its promised combination of curation and discovery work for her.

These days, Tiffany is thrilled with her overflowing, never-ending TBR, but she'd also like to make sure she's not just reaching for what she calls the new and glittery books. She doesn't want to miss out on the good stuff. That's exactly right for her.

[00:01:53] Tiffany loves to cross-reference her to-be-read pile with other sources of book recommendations, like our seasonal reading guides and the podcast recs. So today, she would love my help in deciding which of the titles on her TBR deserve to be bumped to the top of her current reading priority list.

Let's get to it.

Tiffany, welcome to the show.

TIFFANY: Thanks, Anne. I am so excited to be here.

ANNE: Well, I can't wait to dig in. Our whole team was excited to see your submission, and I'm really looking forward to today's conversation.

TIFFANY: I'm just so excited.

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

TIFFANY: Well, I grew up an avid reader. I grew up in south central Kentucky, a few miles from Mammoth Cave National Park. One of my first memories of reading was in first grade. I was placed in an advanced reading group, and we had very specific workbooks, and we were told not to work ahead in these books. So what did I do? I went home and immediately finished it all and-

ANNE: A girl after my own heart.

[00:02:56] TIFFANY: But my teacher was not super thrilled with me. I do remember crying because she told me that I had been instructed to not do that, but I just could not help myself.

I loved the World Book Encyclopedias. I would go down to my grandparents' house and read those, and I would read about the different presidents, and I would take notes about the presidents. I was kind of a nerd, even from a child's age.

So those are the things I specifically remember. I remember going to the Dalton Bookstore and purchasing my first book, which was a Sweet Valley Twins book.

ANNE: Oh, everything about that takes me back.

TIFFANY: I love those books so much. And then I transitioned to Sweet Valley High. I read a ton of Nancy Drew, the original Nancy Drew books. Then in the mid-80s, a series called The Nancy Drew Files came out. I was totally obsessed with those two.

[00:03:53] I would beg my parents to buy me books. My mom jokes and says that I broke her buying books as a child. And, she's not wrong. But she says it's one of the best things that she ever did for me.

ANNE: Oh, thanks, mom.

TIFFANY: Yeah. I totally get that now that I have a child who I want to be an avid reader as well. Then the Baby-Sitters club was another one that I was just totally obsessed with. I had, like, that entire series, I think up to like book 100 or something.

I remember reading John Grisham. I remember reading the Furman High School and how much I really loved that book. So the exchange is on my TBR now. But yeah, that's kind of my development into reading from elementary school to high school.

Once I went into my undergraduate work in preparing to get into a professional school, my reading definitely took a hit, and I was kind of just reading in the summers or when I had time because I just did not have the time during the school year with my coursework.

[00:04:56] But once I kind of got out of undergrad and got out of pharmacy school, I got back into reading. I would read Entertainment Weekly from cover to cover every week, especially looking for the book list that they published or the next big literary hit or anything like that that I thought I would want to read.

As Entertainment Weekly kind of streamlined their print services, my husband and I would joke that we were going to call them Entertainment Monthly, because they went from a weekly print magazine to a monthly print magazine, and then they finally discontinued the print. Now they're just available digitally.

But for me, it's just not the same. I need that print magazine in my hand so I can, you know, mark the books that I want to read and things like that. So I was really sad when they discontinued the print magazine. I was kind of left floundering, along with just things going on with my personal life, from getting married and having a baby and the pandemic and just all of that.

[00:06:00] I just really wasn't sure what to do because I didn't know what to read anymore, even though I knew what I liked to read. But it was just very difficult to figure that out. Then I found the subscription boxes that I enjoy so much, and that's kind of how I reinvigorated my reading life.

ANNE: Well, I'm looking forward to hearing more about that. Tell us more about recent history outside your reading life. So you mentioned that you are a pharmacist. What else occupies your time?

TIFFANY: I am also a very avid paper crafter, and I love doing crafts that I get to enter and showcase in the Kentucky State Fair. I've won several ribbons. I got a couple of blue ribbons this past year, which I was super excited to get.

I love to do junk journaling and scrapbooking. I'm going to try my hand at decoupage this year. So it's a balance between what I'm reading and what I want to craft. Because I'm also watching a lot of YouTube videos to really look into new methods of paper crafting and new ideas and things like that.

[00:07:08] I'm on the computer all day because as a pharmacist I'm working remotely. There was a time when I was traveling about 1,500 miles a month when we had to be on site in our nursing facilities.

I am a consultant pharmacist for nursing homes. And more specifically I'm credentialed as a board-certified geriatric pharmacist.

ANNE: Tiffany, you've described yourself as a trivia nerd and I'd love to hear more about that.

TIFFANY: I remember growing up watching Jeopardy! with my parents at the dinner table just thinking, "You know, I could be on that show one day. I could totally do that. I think I'm smart enough to do that." And I tried and tried and tried and nothing ever came of it.

It was basically a pipe dream. I wanted to get there. I played Quick Recall in high school. I thought I could totally do it that I just kept taking the test. You don't even know how you did on the test.

[00:08:06] And then one day I sat down and opened my email and my email is this invitation to come do an in-person interview for Jeopardy! Which was, oh my gosh, so exciting. So I tried out and they're basically like, "Your name will go into our pool and you may or may not get called. If you don't get called to appear on the show, then you can restart the process in 18 months."

So it was really kind of sad to think about having to go through that process all over again. But I was going to keep trying until they finally were so tired of seeing me. They're like, Just can be on the show.

So this was in 2019. In the back of my mind, I'm kind of like, oh, maybe I'll eventually get that call. A year goes by, I don't hear anything. So I'm just like, you know, my eligibility is probably going to be out pretty soon, so I'll just wait and restart the process again.

Then one day in February, it was around Valentine's Day and I was getting ready to go up for bed and realized my phone was still in my car, went out to get it, and I had a missed call from Culver City, California. And I knew at that moment that that was the call and I had missed it. And I go to my place-

[00:09:21] ANNE: So sorry.

TIFFANY: And I'm like frantic. It was one of the senior casting producers from the show who had left me the voicemail, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I've totally missed this call. What do I do now?" Like, I assume because they're calling, they're going to ask me to be on the show, but it was like another week before I was able to talk to casting with them, telling me that they wanted to invite me to be a contestant on the show. They wanted me to be out in Los Angeles. It was like in three weeks' time.

ANNE: Oh, wow.

TIFFANY: So I dropped everything and started studying. I taped on Monday. They taped the day after on Tuesday, and then Jeopardy! shut down production for the next four months because of Covid.

[00:10:06] It wasn't too long after that that Alex Trebek actually passed away. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was so surreal. I look back now and I'm like, did that really happen? Did I really do that? So yeah, it was this one thing that I had worked really from childhood to attain this goal and it was literally over in 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, my game wasn't super close. The guy who won my game was really so far ahead of myself and the other contestant that our wagers really didn't matter in the end, but it was just extraordinary. I can't really believe I actually made it on to compete on Jeopardy!. It was wow.

ANNE: That's amazing. Tiffany, today, of course, we're going to talk about what you love and what you don't and what we think you may enjoy reading next. But you came to us with a big win and also an ensuing dilemma. I'd love to hear more about how a book subscription box saved your reading life.

[00:11:11] TIFFANY: Well, I was kind of floundering in what I should be reading, even though I knew what I liked. I just wasn't really sure how to call that information anymore since I wasn't reading Entertainment Weekly.

I had, you know, a newborn 1-year-old. I didn't really have the time or the mental capacity to start digging through to find these books that I should be reading.

On social media, I came across an advertisement for a subscription box, and I kind of did some investigation, you know, is this a good fit for me, what am I looking for? So I just kind of hung back.

I looked at the types of books that they were selecting each month for their picks, and I finally decided that if I didn't like it, I could always cancel my subscription or not renew it. So I decided just to jump in and see what the offerings were, try them. And I was hooked within no time. I'm still hooked to this day three years later.

[00:12:14] ANNE: And shout out to Entertainment Weekly. So we've talked about Entertainment Weekly and its role in the reading life on the show before, or at least the role that it had in many of your reading life way back when.

ANNE: Now, Browsers Bookshop owner, Andrea Griffith talked about her relationship with that publication in 2016, in Episode 28 that is called books that no one is writing about in Entertainment Weekly. So I had to note that.

Also, Tiffany, I'm wondering if when you say "should" what you mean is you're looking for another outlet that chooses books that really match your taste. So it's not like anybody's hanging over your head saying, like, you must accomplish this to be like, you know, to be a real reader and a decent human being, but like, you think you're going to like them.

TIFFANY: Right. Which I think is why I was specifically drawn to this podcast and being a Patreon member is because I like hearing the variety of books that different readers bring onto the program, as well as the readers' opinions and your opinion and saying, yeah, that sounds exactly like something I'm looking for.

[00:13:20] Or maybe it's not exactly something I'm looking for, but it's something that sounds interesting enough to try and to see: do I like it, do I not like it, is it a genre or a subject matter that's worth exploring further? So I really do like it from that aspect as well.

ANNE: I love the way you put that. Now, it sounds based on what you said that you do really find a lot of joy in choosing your next read, but it sounds like you actually enjoy the process when your options are limited. And I mean limited in a loving way. Like here, I've done some sorting and sifting for you. Choose from 10, not from 10,000.

TIFFANY: Absolutely. And I think I can get overwhelmed very easily with too much information and too much content. As an Enneagram 9, I think I struggle to make decisions a lot of times anyways.

ANNE: From one Enneagram 9 to another.

TIFFANY: Right. So that was the struggle for me is making the decision and then committing to like yes, this is actually what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to read with my crafting. Yes, this is the item that I'm going to make because I'm like, I could do this and I could do that. And it gets very overwhelming and confusing sometimes.

[00:14:33] I've learned over time that, yes, limiting my options does absolutely seem to help. I think that was another reason I was drawn to these subscription boxes because yes, they have an extensive backlist that I may want to add to my box someday. But right now I'm focused on these five or six books that are releasing, you know, within the next month.

And I think, you know, whichever book of this group is the best fit for me. I know that I'm almost always going to gravitate towards the romance pick because that just seems to be my happiest place. I like to say that it's so comfortable for me that it's like slipping into an episode of Friends that I've seen 20 times over the past,

well, I guess 25 years now. So I like that comfort in knowing that in a lot of times the happy ending is baked right in.

I know that that is one genre I can almost always gravitate towards and it's probably going to be an author either I've never read before or it's going to be an author that I really love. Like how I found Abby Jimenez that way. So yeah, it just really distills that drama of picking something. While I enjoy that process, too many choices just get overwhelming.

[00:15:54] ANNE: I can appreciate that. You're loving this, it's working for you. Also, it does come with its own set of challenges. Tell us more.

TIFFANY: I have two accounts, so I can get up to 10 new books per month. Normally, I'm averaging, I would say, anywhere from 5 to the full 10. Now I have stacks and stacks of books that I know that I want to read. But now even the choices that were called down for me have become an overwhelming number. I shared a spreadsheet and I think it had close to 150 picks on it.

ANNE: Which I thought was quite reasonable. But it's too many for you.

TIFFANY: That is just one of my bookshelves. I have three others that have books that I found either

through the What Should I Read Next? podcast or Patreon or just other methods that I've seen on social media of people who really liked a certain book, and then I read the synopsis and I'm like, yeah, I definitely want to read that too. And now I just don't have time to read everything.

[00:16:57] Now I have close to 150 titles on my to-be-read list just from my subscription boxes. So now I'm kind of like, Oh, where do I go from here?

I love listening to the What Should I Read Next? seasonal reading guides because there's a lot of overlap between those titles and the books that are offered through the subscription box.

I will go back... and I've gone through years prior reading guides where I wasn't listening to the podcast before I found it. And I'm like, Ooh, that was a title and I can get that for $11. So I'm just adding backlist to my boxes now too.

Now I have six boxes stacked in my foyer that I haven't unpacked from the previous three months, but they're all books that I really want to read and I've heard blurb and sound amazing.

Then I have new releases of authors that I have to read, like the new Kennedy Ryan, This Could Be Us book that just recently came out. I had to drop everything and read that one immediately. It is a constant struggle.

[00:17:57] ANNE: I think avid readers know what you mean by "have to" in that situation.

TIFFANY: Yes.

ANNE: All right. So it sounds like you've done a really top-notch job of curating your own little library that's becoming quite robust. And so now you're facing the question with more, perhaps, urgency. It's a little harder to make the decision of what you should read next.

TIFFANY: Yes, absolutely.

ANNE: We're going to get into it. Tiffany, you know how this works. You're going to tell me three books you love, one book you don't, what you've been reading lately, and I have actually both of those spreadsheets that you created, that you referenced, in my hot little hands, we'll see what we can do about your completely enjoyable, wonderful, abundant, readerly dilemma.

Tiffany, how did you choose these books for today?

TIFFANY: These are books that I just keep thinking back to of how much I enjoyed the reading experience of them.

[00:18:54] Two you will find are romances, which, like I've already said, is kind of my go-to genre. It just creates such a sense of comfort when I read those. I just love the evolution of the stories and the relationships between whatever character it is of the author that I'm reading for the romances.

Then the other pick was a science fiction choice that I wouldn't have necessarily have gravitated to had it not been a selection through the subscription box. I had seen other readers talking about it in the online community for this specific subscription box, and it seemed like something I would enjoy, but I wasn't entirely sure. But because it was science fiction, and I enjoyed, you know, science, then I thought I would give it a try and see what happened, and I absolutely ended up loving it.

It's been over a year since I've read these, but I look at them and they just fill me with such joy that I just love those books. And I tend to recommend those books to others as well.

[00:19:59] ANNE: Yeah, that's a great sign. They've stuck with you for over a year, you find yourself thinking about them, recommending them to other readers. I love it.

I also love the way you described your relationship with that science fiction book. I do love an analogy. It reminds me of going out to a new place with friends recently and my friend ordered a bacon and date pizza that was on the menu, which I thought, What a weird thing to put on pizza. But I love bacon and dates together. I love cheese. There was a spicy sauce on the top.

Like I never would have thought to ask for this thing or seek it out. But when we saw it on the menu, we went, Oh, yum. It was delicious, in case you were wondering.

TIFFANY: That sounds amazing.

ANNE: And you love the science fiction novel.

TIFFANY: Yes. So yeah, I love the science fiction novel. It's a long book. I think it clocked in about 400 pages, which for me is a longer read, Anne. I didn't want the book to end, but I so desperately wanted to know how they were going to solve their dilemma

[00:21:01] ANNE: All right, well, you have to tell us more about it. What is the first book you love?

TIFFANY: This is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I thought it was a thoughtful and thought-provoking science fiction story that could actually one day happen. It was filled with wit and humor. It was quite adventurous and thrilling, and it kept me turning the pages to see how the two main characters were really going to solve their dilemma.

Basically, Ryland is the main character in this book. He finds himself in outer space, he wakes up, he has absolutely no idea what's happened to him, why he's there, why did the rest of his crew die, and he's still alive. He is just all discombobulated.

He ends up finding an alien spaceship in his orbit. That character, who is Rocky, they form this friendship that develops over the course of the book.

[00:22:02] Also, as Ryland is kind of remembering what took place in his life that led him to this problem that he now faces in outer space, the relationship between Ryland and Rocky that develops is really, to me, reminiscent of a true bromance.

I think Rocky, the alien, is one of my all-time favorite characters. I just found him so fascinating and so smart to have been an extraterrestrial life. In my opinion, yeah, it's science fiction, but kind of like The Martian, it's something that could really happen in the not so future future.

I really didn't know how they were going to solve their dilemma or how the book was going to end. You know, were they both going to die? Was one of them going to survive? Was Ryland going to make it back to earth?

[00:22:58] You really didn't know what the decision was gonna be until the final chapter. I just thought this entire book was so well done and so engaging. I keep coming back to it and thinking about it. And in the words of Rocky, I just found that this book as a whole was amaze, amaze, amaze.

ANNE: I love the way you describe that. You know, I have a friend who describes finding certain things in her life like she couldn't have missed them. Like she tripped and fell over them and there they were and there they were together. It sounds like that's what happened to you with Project Hail Mary and I'm so glad you did.

TIFFANY: Yes. I highly recommend that book.

ANNE: Tiffany, what is the second book you love?

TIFFANY: The second book is Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan. This is a romance. I would like to call it maybe a complex romance because it is about a couple who has gone through a divorce. They now find themselves having to co-parent their children while being business entrepreneurs together.

[00:23:56] They own a restaurant in Atlanta called Grits. Obviously, I love to cook and eat. So the food aspect was just another kind of subplot that really did it for me.

The main character is Yasmin and she has this circle of girlfriends who are really her support through this time of divorce and co-parenting. I will also say that one of the subplots is how Yasmin has had a miscarriage or a stillbirth. So that would definitely be a content warning there to check out about the miscarriage and the stillbirth.

But she's gone through this very depressing, heart-wrenching time, gone through therapy, and over the course of time, while Yasmin and her now ex-husband are co-parenting, but they're still involved with each other because of the business, it's a second chance romance. And that has to be one of my favorite romance tropes, the second chance romance.

[00:24:57] So seeing how they, I guess, without giving too much away, how they eventually find their way back to each other and their family. There's another character that was close to both Yasmin and her ex-husband that passed away as well. So working through their grief together, their trauma, at times it was heart-wrenching, but at the same time, the book focuses on forgiveness and reconciliation, and it just gave me all the feels.

This was the first book in Kennedy Ryan's Skyland series. The second book in that series, which focuses on another character from Yasmin's girl group, just came out and I read it. It was amazing as well. I love how she portrays what I like to say mature females, like ladies who are my age with children and families, and their interaction with her husbands or their ex-husbands.

[00:25:57] I like how she writes from the perspective of both the male and the female. If you haven't checked out any of her books, her cover artwork is gorgeous. Both Before I Let Go and This Could Be Us, the covers are just so pretty and colorful and vibrant. That absolutely drew me in before I ever turned the page. That whole reading experience was just so good.

ANNE: I love the way you described that. Now we really understand why you have to read the second book very, very soon.

TIFFANY: Absolutely, yes.

ANNE: Tiffany, tell us about the third favorite you chose for today.

TIFFANY: My third favorite book is Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez. This does also have some trigger warnings. There's some verbal, emotional, and physical abuse in that. So if that's a problem, be sure to check that out.

[00:26:51] I would say that this is a romance with a lot of depth, but it has just enough of those hallmark moments that it draws you in. It is a big city doctor with a small town carpenter and how that relationship really evolves throughout the book.

One thing about Abby that I love is that I feel like there's always a cute dog involved in the story. And this one is no different. I was also very drawn to the fact that the main character was a doctor since I'm a pharmacist. And at the end of the book I think the healthcare professional in me as well as the person who loves romance. I was bawling at the end.

This is more of an opposite-attract trope. Abby also typically writes from both perspectives. I enjoyed this book so much that I actually went back and read Abby's three previous books. I read Yours Truly which is the second book in this series as soon as it came out. Now I am very much anticipating her next release which is called Just for the Summer.

[00:27:59] So, again, this one just got me in all the places between the healthcare side of things as well as the romance and the dog. Yeah, it just had everything as well.

ANNE: Tiffany, I love the way you described how this book has both the Hallmark moments and, you know, like a lot of real-life complex stuff. And I'm so glad to hear that Just for the Summer is already on your radar because you are going to get to revisit a character that you met and probably hated in the past. You get to see him continue on his journey in that new book. I think that's going to be fun for you.

TIFFANY: I think I have a feeling who that might be, and I'm so excited to read that when it drops. So that will be a book that I drop everything to read when it comes out.

ANNE: Tiffany, now tell me about a book that was not right for you. That was The Rewind by Allison Winn Scotch, I believe. This was a second-chance romance. This trope should have been right up my alley, but I was just so disappointed really, with the plot and the character development.

[00:29:01] Basically, it's this couple who are now in other relationships reconvene for a reunion at their college. They see each other again, and of course, some of those feelings start to come back. But they go out one night and they get totally trashed and something happens and now they have no idea what it is.

So they, in my opinion, mostly spend the book kind of running around campus and town trying to piece together what happened the previous night. But it just really did not come together for me. It was really just missing that sense of nostalgia and romance that I felt I should have felt.

By the end, I just did not care if they ever figured out what happened the night before, because I just wanted them to figure it out. It just did not develop quite as well as I had hoped.

[00:30:02] ANNE: Tiffany, tell me if this rings true. Something I'm really noticing about your books is that you're really interested in the character's interior journey. Like you want to know what they're thinking and what they're feeling.

It seems that you like books that have a hefty dose of realism. Like if they're not real, then you can imagine that it's possible for these things to actually come to pass in the real world someday.

The Rewind is more of a caper. I'm also wondering if the almost slapstick sense of humor in this book just was not what you were hoping for here.

TIFFANY: Absolutely. I love humor. I love sarcasm. I like dry and wet. I can engage in slapstick, but those are really the other types of humor that I gravitate towards.

ANNE: Okay, so this book was not what you wanted it to be.

TIFFANY: It was not.

ANNE: Character comes first and the rest could be bonus, but it's not like the thing for you.

[00:31:01] TIFFANY: Right. But the plot has to make sense and it has to develop to a point that it gets resolved. Tiffany, what have you been reading lately?

ANNE: Another book that I got from my subscription box was The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young. I had also really enjoyed Spells for Forgetting from her. I do enjoy magical realism as well. Although those two books are different, they still have magical aspects to them. I think I like The Unmaking of June Farrow just as much or more as Spells for Forgetting.

Adrienne Young has really become an auto-buy author for me because I really do love the two books I've read by her.

ANNE: That's great. That's really satisfying to find that you like it as much or more.

TIFFANY: Yes. Elin Hilderbrand is another author I found through my subscription box even though she was a very well-established author prior to me finding her.

[00:32:01] I am now trying to be a completist of her works. I've got 11 of her books completed, and I'll be working throughout the year to kind of finish up all her other books. I'm very much anticipating what she says is her final novel coming out this summer. So I'm very excited to read Swan Song when it comes out.

ANNE: That's a fun one. I think you'll enjoy it. Knowing that you read 11 so far, I can gauge your level of commitment. I think you'll enjoy it. I hope that proves to be the case.

TIFFANY: I'm sure it will.

ANNE: Tiffany, we've talked a little bit about what you're looking for in your reading life right now. And as I understand, that's largely to help curate your curated selections. It sounds like you're specifically looking for books where your physical TBR matches what you want to read right now. And then you also noticed and sent me a spreadsheet showing the books that we've shared in the Summer Reading Guide and our seasonal previews that align with what you already have on hand.

TIFFANY: Yes.

[00:32:59] ANNE: What would you add to that? And I'm thinking about narrowing it down further. You gotta help me out by not adding wider things. Let's hone it in.

TIFFANY: 150 books is just... that's a lot to sift through. Something that might surprise me that I'm obviously interested in but wouldn't have necessarily bumped to the top of my TBR, the romances are always typically a hit for me. I do enjoy thriller, but that's probably one of the genres I tend to delve into the least, just because I find those tend to be a little more hit or miss for me.

ANNE: Well, those aren't about character, Tiffany.

TIFFANY: So that's kind of where I am right now, is I've got this 150 book lists and what should I be moving to the top that I need to read now?

ANNE: Tiffany, first of all, thank you for the spreadsheet. I love it when our readers help me solve down to brass tacks their reading life. I want to not say problems. You know, challenges that need addressing.

TIFFANY: Opportunities.

[00:34:01] ANNE: Exactly, like where is the opportunity and how can we make the most of yours? You know, I always want to say that it's not about maximizing everything, but this is the point where Ginger on our team says, "I'm the resident maximalist. I'll help with that. Maximize away."

Something you've done on this sheet that it looks like goes back to, in some cases, 2019 and shows that overlap between books that we've chosen to really highlight on Modern Mrs. Darcy and our What Should I Read Next? Patreon community and what you have from your book boxes that caught your eye that you brought into your home.

You've already highlighted the books that you have read but I don't know how you felt about them. So, can we do a little bit of a lightning round where you can give me your gut reaction on some of these titles that you read and how you felt about them?

TIFFANY: Absolutely. I love lightning rounds. I'm like Monica on Friends. I'm all about lightning rounds.

[00:34:59] ANNE: All right. These are alphabetical, folks, so if you're noticing a pattern, it's sorted. Banyan Moon.

TIFFANY: I very much enjoyed that as a debut book. The relationship between the generations of characters, I very much like that.

ANNE: I wanted to know how reflective, contemplative, and interior you would enjoy going. And the answer is pretty far. Carrie Soto Is Back.

TIFFANY: I enjoyed it. I played tennis in high school, so there was that connection to me. But I have to say, I loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I enjoyed Daisy Jones. The format was a little different for me in that way, but I enjoyed the story.

I loved Malibu Rising. I love anything that's set in the 80s and 90s. That's also a big hit for me. But I would say Carrie, as far as Taylor Jenkins Reid's books go, that one is lower compared to some of her others. But I did enjoy it.

[00:36:01] ANNE: Okay. Georgie, All Along.

TIFFANY: Loved it. I am so excited for Kate Clayborn's book that's coming out soon, I think. But yes, I loved Georgie, All Along.

ANNE: I expected you to love her based on what you said about the romance novels you enjoy. I wanted to see if my hunch was correct.

TIFFANY: Yes, I was so glad I found that author and that book.

ANNE: What about The Vanishing Half?

TIFFANY: I enjoyed that. I feel like I actually learned a lot reading that book about how some people are able to pass between being Black and White. That was very eye-opening for me. I really enjoyed it. That's the only book I read by that author, but I did enjoy that book very much.

ANNE: What did you think about Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?

TIFFANY: I loved it. I'm very much into that Hollywood glamor period. I really enjoyed it. As soon as I saw it was on, I think it was last year's Summer Reading Guide and it was a pick through the subscription box, I had to add it.

[00:37:08] I love The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo so much that I'm very much into those style of books and Kitty Karr really fit into that for me.

ANNE: Okay, I'm glad to hear that. So it sounds like you were discovering books that lots of people would see on Instagram through the book subscription box, but there are so many books on Instagram that it sounds like this has been a really effective way to still keep up. It sounds like you like to read what's fresh and new but limit the onslaught.

TIFFANY: Right. But then once I find an author that I really love, I like to go back and delve into their backlist as well. So that's how I've gotten into Elin Hilderbrand, Abby Jimenez. Even Kennedy Ryan I want to go and read. She has a pretty extensive backlist that I would like to go back and get into as well.

ANNE: Okay. Tiffany, I've really enjoyed our conversation. Hearing more about the nuances of what worked, what didn't, and why has been super helpful. Let's see what we can do.

I'm going to highlight... let me think, one, two, three, four, five, six? Six titles for you. Three doesn't seem like enough when you have this big TBR at home.

[00:38:16] TIFFANY: I am so here for that.

ANNE: But please know that there are lots of titles on this list that I can totally see how they ended up on your shelves and how they feel really promising for you. But you said like, let's please highlight some books that feel like you should read, because they're right for you. And also some ones that you might pass by otherwise. So we're going to do it. You ready?

TIFFANY: Okay.

ANNE: We're going to start with A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams. This is your complex romance. This was published back in February. It's not February anymore. But this year was a leap year in 2024.

And there's a touch of magic to this story, and the magic has to do with leap years, because that is when the rules of reality bend. So we've talked about how you've enjoyed books with a touch of magic. They don't have to be 100% purely realistic. This could happen in this world. But in this book, every 4th February, things get weird. That's how one character describes the action in the book.

[00:39:19] But this is a love story from Tia Williams, who has written some that you may enjoy going back to read after this, especially Seven Days in June. But it's a romance, an impossible romance, but for the leap-year connection. But also it's a story of found family and intergenerational friendships. And you get to go inside these people's heads. And I think you're going to enjoy being able to do that in these pages.

TIFFANY: That sounds exactly what I'm looking for. I will be pulling that to the top of my TBR tonight and adding that to what I'm reading in the next few weeks.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Next, I'm going to pull Hello Beautiful from your long spreadsheet for you. This is by Ann Napolitano. This is an homage to Little Women, which I saw was also on your list.

She describes this as The story of one young man, four sisters, the secrets that threaten to shatter their family, and a love powerful enough to heal it.

[00:40:20] This is set in recent Chicago. The place names, the streets, many of them are absolutely real. You can Google them. You can see what the setting is like. Can you see where the train station was, and the apartment, and the library? One of the characters works in the library, and that is important to the story.

This is one of those books where you can just fall completely in love with the characters and the family. It's a big family, but you will get to know each one individually, even though some are in the story more prominently than others.

This is a complex story. There are a lot of difficult things in these pages. But ultimately, it's a redemption story. I think, especially, this is why I asked about The Vanishing Half, I think ultimately, you're going to enjoy the journey.

This is also a book on the longer side. So you have lots of room to get to really know these characters and stay with them and see where their paths lead them through many years and many hard things. How does that sound?

[00:41:19] TIFFANY: It sounds very good. It sounds very reminiscent to me of We Are the Brennans, which I also read within the last year from hearing about it on a previous podcast. And I really enjoyed that one as well. So it sounds to me very much in the same vein. So I think I will definitely enjoy that one.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear that. Next, you said, maybe a book you wouldn't gravitate toward otherwise. And it's true that we're looking at the books that are on your list. So maybe that's unfair. But there's not a lot of nonfiction here. And I want to highlight Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb.

Now, I feel like this book is now everywhere. It really changed the course of Lori Gottlieb's career. She was a psychotherapist writing this novel. Oh, my goodness. You can tell how I experienced this book, but it's not a novel. This is nonfiction.

But you love character development and spending time with people, like getting in their heads, knowing what they're thinking and feeling, seeing how they evolve, seeing how they respond to circumstances and how it changes them.

[00:42:20] Those questions are at the heart of this book, where Lori Gottlieb is telling her own story of going to therapy. She went through a bad breakup. She thought she was at a different place in her life and in a relationship. It's really disorienting for her. And she, the therapist, goes to therapy.

So we see her in that seat in that therapeutic relationship. But then to show us what it's like from the other side, she introduces us and we really get to know so well four different patients. And she takes us inside the room, metaphorically speaking, to show us what happens in their sessions.

And we learn about what brought them to therapy, like their hardships, their challenges, the things they know that need to be changed, the things that we can see need to be changed that they're not ready to change yet.

I inadvertently called this a novel. I was so invested in their stories that it felt like I was reading a story. I so enjoy getting to know the people in these pages. Like you just meet them session by session. And I feel like these are characters, real-life characters, people that you're going to root really hard for as they work through their hard things and the process.

[00:43:23] So this is a little bit memoir, like definitely story-driven, but you also get real insight into what therapy looks like for everyone involved. So if you enjoy a good story, this is great for you. If you like to learn something from the books you read, this is potentially for you. How does that sound to you, Tiffany?

TIFFANY: It actually sounds amazing. I think this is not one I would have necessarily picked up otherwise, especially from the standpoint of a healthcare professional. So I'm definitely interested in it from that standpoint. But yeah, it sounds amazing.

I do actually love to read nonfiction. One of my favorite nonfiction authors is Candace Millard or Millard, I'm not even sure how to say her name. But I very much enjoy her books.

And while this may be a little different, I love how you get to know the characters or the patients in this case and see those people develop even though it's a true nonfiction story. This absolutely sounds like something I would enjoy and I am definitely going to have to read that now.

[00:44:25] ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Okay, we have more medical nonfiction for you. So this is your field. I want to pull out Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez that came out a few years ago. This is historical fiction, but it's loosely inspired by a real-life court case.

So this goes back and forth in time. It begins in 2016 Memphis where a distinguished Black doctor is preparing to retire. I think she's getting an award. But she has to make peace with the past and take a trip and talk to some people before she can feel like things are truly settled.

The core of the action here happens in 1973 Montgomery back when this doctor was a young and idealistic nurse. She takes her first job at a reproductive clinic serving Black women in her community and quickly becomes alarmed at some of the things that both she witnesses happening but also that she is asked to do.

At the heart of the story and the heart of that real-life court case is when one of her patients is sterilized without consent, and she becomes involved in that lawsuit in the story.

[00:45:30] Dolen Perkins-Valdez has said that she believes in fiction's power to influence hearts and impact lives. This is an emotional, intimate story. I think it's one that has your name written all over it. What do you think?

TIFFANY: I think it definitely does. And I think that's exactly why it's currently sitting on my shelf. There's a quote about how a TBR is curated almost like a wine cellar where you have to find the right mood and the right time and the right place to read that particular book. And I very much believe that.

I feel like this is something definitely, given the current events of our country, that definitely kind of plays into that, that I think about a lot as a healthcare professional and a mom and a woman. So yeah, I think this is definitely something that I could see myself connect to when I read it.

[00:46:22] ANNE: Well, I'm excited to hear what you might think, should you pick it up. All right, this next book is going to be another that you might not gravitate towards, although it sounded interesting enough that you brought it to yourselves. It's by Laura Dave, who wrote Eight Hundred Grapes, the story of a family-owned vineyard. You just mentioned the wine cellar analogy. But we're not talking about that one.

She wrote a book that I really feel like has been everywhere, became a streaming series. It's called The Last Thing He Told Me. But it's a thriller, and you don't pick up thrillers. I'm not certain you'll like this book. But Tiffany, if you wanted to experiment with what a thriller that did work for you might look like, I think this one is really promising. Because yes, it's very plot-driven, but also, the stakes are very emotional. I read this and it might have been an evening. That doesn't mean you will.

But in this story, we meet Hannah and Owen. They've been happily married for a year. They each have cool jobs. She makes custom furniture for wealthy clients, and he works at a tech startup that builds privacy software.

[00:47:27] But the only thing that they really struggle with in their fairytale marriage and relationship is that her relationship with his 16-year-old daughter is tenuous. But then the action kicks into gear when one afternoon. Hannah, the mother, receives a hastily scrawled note from her husband that just says, "Protect her." And she knows that the person she must protect is her 16-year-old stepdaughter. But like, why? From whom? What's happening here?

She can't ask her husband because he's gone, and she doesn't know why, but she is determined to find out. And it leads both these women, actually, Hannah and her daughter Bailey, on a journey. They go places, they're going to figure it out. I think my heart's beating faster. I just really enjoyed this journey. I don't feel like I have the words conveyed to you without spoiling things.

But they have to understand not just what happened, because something is dicey with that privacy software situation. But it's not just tactical. Many of the answers are emotional. I think that combo means if a thriller is going to work for you, it's going to be something akin to this. What do you think?

[00:48:35] TIFFANY: I am definitely interested. This sounds really good, so I will definitely be moving this into my pile of things I'm going to read soon. I think you're absolutely right as far as a thriller that's going to work for me.

ANNE: Okay, I'm glad to hear it. And then we're going to end with another historical, largely because they're represented on your list, but we haven't talked about them as much in your loves, what you've been recently reading. So we're going to elevate this one.

It is The Personal Librarian, co-written by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. This is biographical fiction about Belle da Costa Greene, a real-life character from history who served as J.P. Morgan's personal librarian and had just almost inconceivable power and responsibility for a woman of her era and what she was able to do: the money she was allowed to spend, the travel she embarked upon to acquire just like priceless works for his personal library that are still on display in New York City's Morgan Library.

[00:49:38] Even more incredible is something that the public did not know until fairly recently. And that is that Belle da Costa Greene was born Belle Marion Greener to a prominent African-American family. Her father was Harvard's first Black graduate. He was a noted attorney and activist.

But when her parents separated, Belle moved with her mother to New York City, and the family decided to pass as White and change their last name. And J.P. Morgan hired her assuming she was White. It was scandalous for him to hire a woman, but to hire a Black woman, that never would have happened.

So this is her first person, present tense, it feels very urgent, interior story where she shares her thoughts and feelings, and experience as a woman from about the time that her family is deciding to change their last name and become an ostensible white family in New York City to well into her career at the Morgan.

[00:50:39] This is another book that will inspire many readers to do a lot of googling just so you can see the work she acquired, what it meant to her, where these locations were, who are these other characters from history and how do we remember them. Because she lived large.

A lot of really exciting things happen in these pages. And this is gripping, fast-paced biological fiction. The issues it addresses are complex, but this is easy to just tear through. How does that sound to you?

TIFFANY: It really sounds amazing. I don't know if I would have bumped that up to my top of my TBR without kind of your very good description of what that book is about. Now I may have to take a trip to New York City. I do love to travel to go to the Morgan Library as you were talking about it.

I studied for a semester in Italy when I was an undergrad. So being able to see these works of art that are described in the book to me just really brings that home.

[00:51:37] It really sounds amazing for the story itself and the characters. And I love nothing more than a strong woman. So it sounds amazing.

ANNE: That sounds great to me. Tiffany, we talked about a lot of books today, and thank you for the opportunity to do that. So of the titles we covered in the end, we have A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams, Hello Beautiful by Anne Napolitano, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Laurie Gottlieb, Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, and The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. We know you've got all these books. They're right down the hall in your shelves. Tiffany, what are you inclined to read next?

TIFFANY: Oh gosh, I think all of them are going to be bumped up. The question is how many can I get in before some of the new releases I'm looking forward to drop. Definitely, these are going to be read hopefully before the summer Reading Guide Comes out.

[00:52:35] I'm so excited to go and pull these from my own bookshelves and just delve straight into them. Something tonight, actually. So yeah, I'm very, very excited to do that.

ANNE: Well, I can't wait to hear what you pick and what you think. Tiffany, thanks so much for talking books with me today.

TIFFANY: Thank you so much for having me on the show. I've enjoyed it so, so much.

ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Tiffany and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Let us know in the comments over on our show notes page where you'll find the full list of titles we talked about today. That's at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Join in more bookish conversation over on Instagram where you will find our show's page @WhatShouldIReadNext. It's a great place to get your daily dose of bookish inspiration.

Never miss an episode by following in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:53:30] Subscribing to our newsletter is another way to keep up with all things happening at What Should I Read Next?. Sign up 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.