Branching out thanks to a book bingo challenge

[00:00:00] EMILY HOLLADAY: That would be a good... what do we call it? Side... What do you call it when we have two books together?

ANNE BOGEL: A flight.

EMILY: Flight, yes. Why could I not think of that?

ANNE: A side quest? Is that what we're doing? We could call it that too.

Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel, and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading, and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

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[00:02:45] Readers, today's guest is a Kentucky neighbor who came to me with both a specific reading project and a dilemma I know is shared by many readers. Emily Holladay is a pastor in Frankfort, Kentucky, where she lives with her family. As a newish mom, Emily is still finding her outside-of-parenthood hobbies, but reading has been a constant throughout her life.

Emily's a member of a book club at Carmichael's Bookstore, which you may recognize the name of because it happens to be my local bookstore. When Emily completed her guest submission form and told us there about her struggles with covering some specific spaces on her Carmichael's bingo card, well, I knew exactly what she was talking about.

And because our listeners have responded enthusiastically to episodes featuring readers' various reading challenges, we thought it might be fun to dig into the details of this particular bingo challenge. What compelled Emily to sign up? What has she read so far? Which categories are tripping her up? And what might she read to get the cover all that she is aiming for?

[00:03:43] Emily also has a near universally relatable reading dilemma that we'll dig into today. Like many readers, Emily often finds herself browsing Libby for her next read without a good sense of which of the available options, that is the ones that she can click and download right then, which of those options might fit her reading tastes best.

As Emily put it in her submission, she often feels like every book that's top of mind for her is also on everyone else's mind, since they tend to be the same new releases and buzzy books that everyone is seeing everywhere, or so it seems.

Emily suspects she would be happier if she had an assortment of backlist books on her radar, top of mind, that would make for satisfying reading for her, and that hopefully will be available on Libby right then when she wants to download when she's ready for her next book versus those long wait times she's encountering for the new releases. You know I have ideas for Emily for bingo and for Libby strategy. This is going to be fun. Let's get to it.

Emily, welcome to the show.

EMILY: Thanks, Anne. I'm so glad to be here.

[00:04:43] ANNE: Oh, the pleasure's mine. I was really excited to read your submission when it came through. So we are airing this episode the end of July. We've still got some summer left for summer reading and other summer enjoyment. And I had a personal connection to this challenge that was really fun. It sounds like we have a lot of overlap in our personal life. It's nice to talk to somebody from the great state of Kentucky.

EMILY: Yes, I'm so excited. It's so fun to listen to you and know that we have some history in common, and now to be able to talk to you is so cool.

ANNE: Well, thank you. I'm delighted to dive in today to your reading life and summer book bingo. And readers, the thing that caught my eye specifically was Emily's pursuit to get a cover all in her Carmichael's Bookstore bingo card, but I knew many systems throughout the country do book bingo and summer book bingo. And also, y'all love to hear about a challenge, and I love to talk about a challenge, no matter what kind of challenge it is. So there's lots here to enjoy today.

Emily, could we start by just giving the readers a glimpse of who you are? Please tell us a little about yourself.

[00:05:48] EMILY: As we alluded to, I'm originally from Louisville, Kentucky, but I now live in Frankfort. I'm the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Frankfort. I have lived in Kentucky for a total of 27 years, but I've also lived in Birmingham, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, and a little sojourn to a town outside of DC called Bowie, Maryland.

I'm married to Scott, who's a middle school English teacher. We have a seven-year-old boy and a two-and-a-half-year-old girl, and we love them so much. But a lot of our time is obviously spent at the pool, carting them around to summer camps, and all these different kids' events.

One of the questions that always comes up is, you know, what do you do outside of that? And I'm still kind of learning what my outside of parenthood and also outside of pastorhood hobbies are. But reading has always remained a constant for me, so I am just very excited to talk about books today.

[00:06:54] ANNE: Oh, well, I imagine that reading as a constant is very relatable to so many of our listeners. But if you're new to reading as an adult, like reading for the thrill of it, the enjoyment of it, you are welcome too.

EMILY: One thing that I will add is I would love to share about the pilgrimage that I went on this past October. I went on a pilgrimage to Switzerland. And this kind of combines my book life with just my real life. Not that those are actually different things. But Common Ground Pilgrimages does these pilgrimages. And we went to Switzerland and talked about Frankenstein. The hosts of the podcast Pantsuit Politics were our guides for that experience.

Something about traveling to another continent by myself and having this experience has just really had a major impact on my life, and I think will kind of come up in some of the themes that we talk about today because I've started to slow down more and soak in just the beauty of the world around me.

[00:08:01] I mean, I know you can appreciate this. Kentucky is such a beautiful place, but being home, you can kind of forget how much you have just staring you in the face every day.

I've been joking that going across the ocean has taught me more about being rooted and growing where I am than anything else. Some of the things that have really stuck out to me recently have been people and stories of people who are learning to be where they are, and either make a difference there or just be okay there. And that's been really inspiring to me, and been just very impactful in my life right now.

ANNE: Oh, I'm glad to hear it. Okay, so you need some distance to really see and appreciate what's easy to take for granted otherwise. I don't like the phrase "take for granted". It doesn't feel quite right. But you need some distance to see clearly the things that are familiar to you, maybe.

EMILY: Right.

ANNE: Right. Okay. And that interest applies to your reading life as well?

EMILY: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:05] ANNE: Okay, I will keep that in mind. Emily, please tell me about your reading life.

EMILY: I have been a reader all my life. My mom would often tell us that we couldn't afford things, but books were the one thing that she would spare no expense on. I remember as a kid coming home from school when they would pass out the books from the Scholastic catalog, and I had a box of books, whereas other kids were coming home with one or two books. We would often spend, you know, hours browsing bookstore shelves after dinner on a Friday night. So it just has always been a part of my life.

When I came back to Louisville after seminary, I decided I wanted to join a book club because I wanted to meet some people outside of the, you know, family and friends that I had known all my life. And so I discovered that Carmichael's, the independent bookstore we've been talking about, that was just up the street from where I grew up.

[00:10:08] I discovered that they had a book club and they were about to read The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, which just made my nerdy heart sing because I love Pride and Prejudice. And these annotated versions are one side of the page is the actual book, and the other side is all these notes about the book. And so I said, "This is the perfect time to join," and started going to that book club.

And then long story short, because of my love for books and for Carmichael's in particular, my husband proposed to me at Carmichael's with the book club leader and my best friends among his accomplices. I mean, I was so surprised by that. I still can't turn the corner at Carmichael's without picturing him sitting there.

[00:11:00] So that's kind of overview of my life of reading, but I will read just about any book I can get my hands on. My favorite novels are generally contemporary romance and historical fiction. I love characters that you want to root for and storylines that pull at your heartstrings.

I really hate being confused by a book and feeling like I wasn't smart enough to get it. I feel like a very smart person, and so when I'm reading a book, and I just think they went way over my head or I don't get what everybody else got, that's really difficult for me.

But I prefer plot-driven books versus purely character-driven books. But I really want to have both that propelling plot and good character development to keep me invested in the story. My guilty pleasure is celebrity memoir, especially if it's read by the author on audio.

ANNE: Favorites?

[00:12:08] EMILY: I just recently read Chelsea Devantez's memoir, and that was really great. One of the first ones that really got me into celebrity memoirs was Jessica Simpson's, Kelly Bishop, hers was really fun, and Lauren Graham. I love Gilmore Girls, so those are fun. Matthew Perry, of course I read his. There's so many. I will blow through them.

Of course, I really gravitate to ones where they'll spill the beans on whatever happened on set. Oh, Barbra Streisand's memoir that I read earlier this year. Oh my God, I went down such a rabbit hole of watching all her movies and listening to her music. I did not know I adored Barbra Streisand until I read that memoir. She's so fun, and she's… what a woman! I mean, oh, wow. So yeah.

ANNE: Wait a second. Okay, this is pinging something in my brain from your submission, like the idea of you going down a rabbit hole, just like doing a really nerdy deep dive does not sound unfamiliar based on what I've read.

[00:13:12] EMILY: Yes. That is very common for me. I love to read a book that then makes me want to read about other things or go deeper on that topic. One example I think I gave on my submission was the book We Burn Daylight, that one of your guests, I think, recommended. Because I remember there was a... She made a joke about how it was billed as being historical fiction, and it was about the Branch Davidian and David Koresh saga in the 1990s. And she's like, "That could not be historical fiction. That's not cool."

But the way she described the book, I was like, "Oh, I need to read this." And so I read it, and then I just kept reading more about the Waco David Koresh saga. It was a weird thing to have that popping up on my Netflix and everything else over and over again every time there was a documentary that came out. But, you know, it was a part of my recent, I feel like, history.

You know, Toy Story 5 is coming out, but Toy Story 1 came out somewhere around then, and I feel like that was just yesterday. I didn't know much about it, but learning about that was fun for me.

ANNE: Okay. So you

EMILY: Feels weird to say fun.

[00:14:35] ANNE: You don't like to be impressed, you like to be moved, and you really like the details.

EMILY: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. So, Emily, I think you've been listening for a long time. What brings you to the show right now?

EMILY: Yes, I have been listening for a long time, probably since about the beginning or close to it. Since about the time that you interviewed Rider Strong.

ANNE: Oh, gosh. Well, thank you. That is a long time.

EMILY: So one of my friends from Louisville recommended the podcast to me, and then I saw that you had interviewed Rider Strong, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Boy Meets World," you know? So I thought that was so cool.

What brings me to the show today. I know I have filled out the submission form a couple times, but this time I thought, "I finally have something to talk about." Because normally there's that question, "What would you like to talk with Anne about?" And I'm like, "I don't know. Books?" And this time I said, "Oh, I've got this bingo challenge that our local bookstore does, and I would love to talk about how to fill some of the categories that I don't immediately have books that come to mind for those categories."

[00:15:44] So I've done this bingo card. I think Carmichael's has done it for three years, and I've done it all three. Maybe it's been more than that. I can't remember. But last year I did not cover all. I came within one or two books of covering all, and I was so upset because you get one entry for a gift card for one bingo, and you get two if you cover all. But you don't get extras for bingo-ing multiple times if you don't cover all. So I really wanted to do that.

And some of the categories are really fun, but they're meant to stretch you outside of your comfort zone and things like that. And so I just didn't immediately have picks for that. So that's what I was hoping we could talk about.

ANNE: Okay. Well, I'm looking at the Carmichael's bingo card, and readers, you can too. We will link it in our show notes. But can I ask you some of the books you have chosen already?

EMILY: Yes.

[00:16:42] ANNE: What were the first ones you picked? What did you look at and be like, "Oh, I know a book in a genre I don't usually read," or, "I know a book with a number in the title that I want to do this summer"? I'm wondering what book you picked just for the cover if you've done that yet, or the long book, 400-plus pages.

EMILY: The book just for the cover was The Wedding People. I have had that book on my mind for a long time because that cover, it's just kind of the ocean with a wine glass or something coming out of it. And at first I said, "That book looks like it's just too marketed to everybody. It's meant to be too cool," or something like that. But then I heard good reviews about it, and so I kept coming back to it. So I picked out The Wedding People, and I really enjoyed that book. My book with 400-plus pages was My Name Is Barbra, that we talked about, Barbra Streisand. That I did listen to on audio, but I don't feel like that's a cheat because it was still a big time commitment.

ANNE: Not a cheat.

[00:17:48] EMILY: And then the book with the number in the title is probably either 107 Days by Kamala Harris or Dog Man: Fetch-22, which I've been reading all the Dog Man books with my son. I got so frustrated with him because there were no books with numbers in the title for the longest time, and I'm like, "Come on, these are kids books. You've gotta... We've read, you know, 15 books so far. None of them have numbers in the title." And we finally got to Fetch-22, and I was like, "Yes, I can use that."

ANNE: Or is a book recommended by someone under age 12.

EMILY: Yeah. I wondered if that counted since I don't know if he technically recommended it to me. But I think it does, right? Because we're reading it together.

ANNE: I mean, you are the boss of your own book bingo. But if it were up to me to decide, absolutely. A book that takes place somewhere you want to travel?

[00:18:49] EMILY: I had two books that I'm trying to choose between. One was Agent Josephine, which is about Josephine Baker, and it takes place mostly in Paris. I have been to Paris, but I loved Paris, and I want to go back. I was on a tour with somebody who took me to this crepe stand and said, "If you want to be a real Parisian, you get lemon sugar crepe." And that thing was so good and not overdone like the crepes we make here. I dream about it. I want to go back.

She also told me about Josephine Baker, and she said, "I can't believe how many of you Americans don't know about her." So I read Agent Josephine. I also read her memoir, which I put under the category of a book by a Black author. But she has a memoir called Fearless and Free.

[00:19:51] And this woman was a Black American who moved to Paris to be a dancer and singer and just live in a place where she could be more appreciated because America was not open to people of color. She ended up becoming a spy during World War II, and just having this amazing life that's so cool to hear about and read about. Then also, you know, to just hear more about Paris, and it made me want to visit more places in France. Again, this whole book bingo is about broadening your horizons. And it broadened my horizons even about a place I'd already been, so it was pretty cool.

ANNE: That does sound really cool. I want to read that. Emily, some of these categories have really stymied you.

EMILY: Yes.

ANNE: How are you deciding what to read for each category? Like, what kind of mindset are you bringing to the challenge? So you've talked about broadening horizons. Are you finding yourself, for example, using this as an opportunity to read books that have been on your radar for a long time that you just haven't gotten to yet? Is it discovery? Is it other things? Is it all of the above?

[00:21:07] EMILY: I think it's all of the above. One of the categories is a book by a Native author, and I chose to read There There by Tommy Orange, which has been on my shelf for a long time. It actually was a Carmichael's Book Club pick a long time ago, and I just didn't make it to that book club. And so, you know, I said, "Okay, rather than trying to find something new, let's read this book that you have been intending to read for a while."

Others have been, you know, I've been in book clubs and things like that, and so it's just made a lot of sense to just go ahead and use one of the books that I'm already reading for the book club. A book with two or more authors. I chose Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent because I heard somebody talk about it on here. I think they said the only way to read this book is on audio, and it just happened to be that it was available on Libby, and I said, "Okay, got to read that," so it counted. So it's a little bit of everything.

[00:22:10] ANNE: Okay. I'm glad to hear that. What are the categories that you are still in need of titles for? Maybe that's the wrong way to put it, but what categories are you feeling stymied by?

EMILY: One of the categories is a book written by an author from the state of your birth. So they changed this category. Previous years it's been a book written by a Kentucky author, and then they made it more inclusive. Well, I was born in Kentucky, so I'm still needing a Kentucky author.

I keep going with Barbara Kingsolver and Emily Bingham. I want to read Jayber Crow so bad, but I don't think I'm going to commit to that this year, so then I'm lost. I don't know where to go and what to pick for a book from a Kentucky author. And I feel like I get stuck because there are so many authors I'm sure from Kentucky, but I always just think of Wendell Berry, Silas House, Barbara Kingsolver. That's kind of where my mind goes, and I would love to be introduced to some other great authors from the state of Kentucky.

[00:23:18] ANNE: Oh, I would love to claim her, but I'm pretty sure Barbara Kingsolver was born in Virginia.

EMILY: Yeah, but we-

ANNE: Can we pretend that's not true, though? It's too Kentucky.

EMILY: I know she was born in Virginia, but they claim her... On her bio they say she's from Kentucky.

ANNE: Oh, do they?

EMILY: Yeah.

ANNE: Okay. Well, I'm going to put my trust in Barbara Kingsolver official here.

EMILY: I think it's kind of where does she claim. So I claim her even though, yeah, technically not born here, but it was the state of my birth. You know, it's kinda like where is Abraham Lincoln actually from? Everybody in the Midwest claims him, but where is he really from?

ANNE: I'm curious about the "you know you want to read Jayber Crow, but not yet" thing. Do you find it intimidating? Is it not the vibe you're going for?

[00:24:07] EMILY: It's just a slower read than what I feel like I want to commit to right now. Because it's not necessarily too long, but every time that I pick it up, I want to sit with it, and I don't have a lot of sitting still time right now. Although I know I'm saying that, and all this conversation about being rooted and finding the beauty of the place where you're in is such a Jayber Crow thing, so I know I'm contradicting myself there. So maybe you can convince me that Jayber Crow is the one for that category.

ANNE: I mean, I don't know. I don't want to send you to it begrudgingly, but I was curious. Are you feeling the same way about Silas House?

EMILY: I just don't know where to start with Silas House, honestly. I have a bunch of friends who talk about how wonderful he is, and I've come to him a little bit late, and so I'm not sure where's the best place to start.

[00:25:08] ANNE: I mean, I think the one about the pastor who has the meltdown. Or is that absolutely not for you?

EMILY: Yeah. No. Pastors... I'm known to melt down from time to time.

ANNE: Okay. Well, that would be Southernmost, and we will come back to that.

EMILY: Okay. Another category is a banned book. I am always so confused about what counts as a banned book, so it's hard for me to kind of narrow that down. Another one being a book of poetry, because poetry is not always my go-to, but I do enjoy when I've read it. One of my favorite books of poetry that I've read recently is Amanda Gorman's book that came out after she read the poem at President Biden's inauguration. Her poetry was so good and so relatable, and I loved it. And then I still don't ever turn to poetry, even though I know I've had good experiences with it.

[00:26:10] A retelling of a story is just one I don't have on my to-be-read list, or something that just comes out to me, a retelling of a story. And a book with a non-human narrator. I guess you said earlier that, you know, I'm the boss of my own list, but I'm like, Cat Kid Comic Club does not count as a book with a non-human narrator.

ANNE: You don't feel like that appropriately runs your horizons in the way you're hoping this book bingo would do?

EMILY: Exactly.

ANNE: Okay. All right. This sounds fun. Okay, let me see if I jotted this down fast enough. You are looking to find titles for the categories that are a book from, for you, Kentucky, the state of your birth, poetry, a banned book, with what counts being a big question, a retelling; and a non-human narrator.

EMILY: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: Ooh. Okay. Can we talk about your options?

EMILY: Yes.

[00:27:11] ANNE: There's so much good stuff here. And really I'm imagining, maybe this is my cluttered brain, but I'm imagining that your answers for how you want to fill in these boxes are going to emerge in composite. So we're probably going to talk about Kentucky books that have a lot of different sorts of tones, and you're not going to hit that same tone for all five categories. You're probably going to want some variety, is what I'm hearing from the way you describe your reading life. So we're going to give you some options.

But Emily, you also mentioned something else in your submission about this recurring moment of readerly pain you have in your reading life where you open up Libby, and you're just like, "Aah, choices." Would you tell me about that in your own words? Because I'm definitely going to keep that in mind as we're talking about these various options for the book bingo categories.

[00:27:57] EMILY: Yes. I like to always have an audiobook going, and I mostly use Libby for that. It tends to be that I end up having a lot of holds because I'm looking at the Summer Reading Guide where books are just now coming out or I hear about books that are pretty popular and I put that on my holds list. And then I'll finish a book, and I have nothing actually available.

I search through Libby and try to find something that's on my bookshelf or TBR, and they're all still, you know, a two-week wait or a five-week wait or God forbid, a year-long wait. I go to the "Available Now" section on Libby, and I have to scroll through... And no offense to anybody, but I have to scroll through dozens of Freida McFadden and ACOTAR books. And those just... they just don't stand out to me. I want to read something that somebody in my life has said, "I think you'd enjoy that." So I'm not just listening for the sake of listening, but listening because there's something that connects me to that book or makes me want to listen to that book.

[00:29:12] It's like when you scroll Netflix at night trying to find something to watch. I'm scrolling Libby, just endlessly trying to find an available audiobook, and it's so frustrating how many flicks of the thumb I have to make in order to find one that fits.

ANNE: Do you keep some sort of running priority list of audiobooks that you may want to listen to on Libby next?

EMILY: I have a nightstand beside my bed that has probably 10 books that are my books I want to read next. And they're all physical copies, but I don't really care how I read them. So if I read them with my ears instead of my eyes, I'm good with that. So that's kind of the first thing I do is I look to see if any of those books are available on audio. And if they aren't, I will just try to think of what are the most recent books that I heard about. Either my book club, we take a time at the end to say, "Hey, what's everybody reading?" And we'll write down what we're reading, things like that.

[00:30:23] Sometimes I'll go through my Libby searches to see if anything that I have recently searched for or anything, any holds I recently had to drop have become available. And if none of that works, then I'm going to the "what's available right now" list.

ANNE: So those are great ideas, but it sounds like it's not working as consistently as you would like if you keep finding yourself in this situation.

EMILY: Yeah, because the books that are constantly on the top of my mind are often books that are on the top of everybody's minds. I think 10 years ago, I was really good at remembering both the backlist and the frontlist books, and now I do need to rethink how I'm keeping that list or keeping those things in my head because I have two kids and a full-time job, and life and memories just don't work the way that they used to.

ANNE: There's not a lot of RAM available?

EMILY: Yeah.

[00:31:30] ANNE: I hear that. Well, we are going to talk about a lot of titles today for your various book bingo categories that many of these could fulfill multiple categories, and because the prompt that your brain gets working on are things like a retelling, your mental search isn't limited to... or our conversations today won't be limited to what's on the new release table at the bookstore.

So I hope that you can use... and like listeners, you can always use our show notes as a reference. We talk about titles from new and old. Some of our episodes are ones in which readers are specifically asking for backlist gems. I know that our old Summer Reading Guides and fall and spring book previews are very popular for readers who are like, "I want something available at the library now." But I hope your notes will be a nice resource. And you know, it could be fun to go through your old book club notes and just make a list of, "Oh, I remember that sounding really interesting. Maybe that's available right now since it didn't come out in April."

EMILY: Yeah, that's a good idea.

[00:32:27] ANNE: Emily, we have talked so much about your reading life, and I feel like I have a good image of what you've enjoyed and what you're willing to try, but we haven't talked about the books that you love yet. You know how this works. You brought three books you love, one you don't, and what you've been reading lately. Let's round out the picture before we move forward. Does that work for you?

EMILY: Yes, absolutely.

ANNE: Okay. How'd you choose these?

EMILY: I took very seriously the three books you love because I'm very bad at picking favorites. So these three books are books that are some of my favorite reading experiences, and are indicative of the kind of books that I'm loving right now and what works for me in a story, in a reading experience. These are not in any particular order, but just three books that I really love. And here it goes.

[00:33:23] The first book that I chose was The Guncle by Steven Rowley. I first heard about this book actually on an episode of What Should I Read Next? back when it came out in 2021. It was one of the best books of summer episodes. One of the team members said they loved The Guncle, and she described the book as sweet, funny, and also a tearjerker, and that really intrigued me, along with the title. So I ordered it right away. And it was one of the best reading experiences that I can remember.

The book is about a washed-up actor named Patrick. He lives in Palm Springs, and his niece and nephew call him Gay Uncle Patrick or GUP for short. His niece and nephew, their mom, so his sister-in-law, dies of cancer, and his brother is like, "Hey, dude, I need you to take care of these kids for the summer so I can kind of figure my life out."

[00:34:22] He agrees to do it, but he's really in over his head, and the life he leads is not really a kid-friendly life. So we just walk with him throughout the book and learn that he is doing his best to be there for the kids, but dealing with these layers of his own grief. He creates these Guncle rules for the kids, which is one of my favorite things. Things like, "Guncle rule number one: brunch is splendid," or, "Guncle rule number five: we wear what we want." They seem really silly, but they turn out to be pretty profound. The progression of the rules goes along with his progression as a caregiver for the kids. I just love that development of relationship, the journey they walk together. It's so sweet.

Rowley is such a clever writer, and everyone just has such a unique voice. When I say that this was such a great experience reading, it's because I normally would binge a book like this. But when I read The Guncle, I ended up waking up every morning early and reading a chapter to start my day because I felt I just wanted to savor it. I did not want to leave... From Patrick and Maisie and Grant, I didn't want to leave their presence too quickly.

[00:35:42] I can't even tell you how many people that I gave this book to as a birthday present or Christmas present, or just shoved in their hands and told them they had to read it after I read it. It was so fun. It was tender. It was emotional. I laughed out loud. I cried. I just loved it.

And then I reread it and I read The Guncle Abroad through audiobook. The author narrates those books, and his voice just brings the characters off the page. It's pretty amazing. I loved that book.

I can't remember if it comes up in just one or in both of the books, but Patrick mentions that he was accepted into the residency program at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and unfortunately he turned it down, but I thought how fun it was that-

ANNE: I do not remember this.

EMILY: Yes. I just got so excited. I was like, "That's my town." Actors Theatre, that residency program is actually a pretty big deal. So it's a fun shout-out, but I wish that maybe he would go back and write a book about that, because it would be fun to see a book in Louisville.

[00:36:53] ANNE: For sure. Thank you. That's The Guncle. What's the second book you love?

EMILY: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Rainbow Rowell is one of my favorite authors of all time. I would seriously just read a Post-it Note if she wrote on it. But I first found out about her the year I graduated from seminary, because one of my best friends was a master of library sciences. She was getting ready to start as a high school librarian, and she said, "I think you will love this author." I am almost a completist, but she's written some comic books that I haven't kept up with. And I haven't read her newest books. I'm not a completist yet.

But Fangirl, it's written from the perspective of Cath Avery, who's entering her first year of college. She's a huge fan of what's called the Simon Snow series, which I think at the time Rowell was relating to the Harry Potter series. So it's about a young magician who goes to school and faces a bunch of challenges against dark magic.

[00:37:54] Cath and her twin sister have spent a lot of time in high school writing Simon Snow fanfic, and they've become very popular on fanfic blog sites, which I didn't even know existed until I read this book. So when they go to college, Ren, her twin sister, wants to explore new passions, wants to learn more about herself, and Cath is this awkward introvert who's just so used to just sticking to her sister, and she's left to figure out how to finish their fanfic story on her own and try to grow into her own person without the comfort of being constantly with her twin.

It's such a sweet coming-of-age story. It has everything from the magical realism of the Simon Snow universe interspersed between chapters, where we get to see bits and pieces of both the fictional Simon Snow novels and Cath's fanfic. And it has family drama, young adult angst. Rowell really gives you someone to root for.

[00:38:59] I really buried the lede here, but there's a love scene involving a side-by-side reading of The Outsiders, which is probably the book more than any other that drew me into being a reader, like a real reader. I swoon every time I read that scene, and I've read this book multiple times. It's just so charming. It also spawned a series of Simon Snow books that Rainbow Rowell wrote based on the characters she imagined. And so for anybody who's looking for a book that then turns them on to more books, this is the one.

ANNE: Love a book like that. And also one that you love so much you've read multiple times.

EMILY: Yeah.

ANNE: Emily, what's the third book you love?

EMILY: The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson. To be honest and possibly name-droppy, not meaning to be that way, but Joshilyn Jackson is a friend of mine. We met at church when I was in seminary, post her Gods in Alabama writing. I didn't realize who she was at first, but when she told me she was an author and I asked her what she wrote, she said, "I like to think of my writing as Southern Christian fiction with cuss words, but bookstores don't always classify me that way."

[00:40:19] Her books are kind of everything: Southern fiction, domestic fiction, mystery. Now she writes thrillers. This book, The Almost Sisters, it's so much fun. It's told from the perspective of Leah Birch-Briggs, who is a comic book writer who's become most notable for her graphic novel, Violence in Violet, which has this really amazing female protagonist.

She attends a convention to promote her book, finds herself in the throes of a romantic encounter with a man dressed as Batman, and then following the convention, has to kind of drop everything and go to this small town in Alabama where her grandmother lives with her best friend. And she's gone down there to sort out family drama involving her stepsister's marriage, but stays when she discovers that her grandmother has been hiding her dementia along with some other family secrets.

[00:41:25] Batman does come to play a role again, as in the midst of all of this, Leah discovers that one night at the convention was more than one night. She's pregnant, and she has to find a way to share this news with her family in that conservative environment in Alabama. I'll tell you, I don't ever really think my Storygraph reviews are very good or very helpful, but what I said about The Almost Sisters kind of sums it up for me. "It's a must-read book for anyone feeling the tension of what the South could be and what it still is, or really anyone feeling that tension in culture in general. She makes you feel like you're reading the story of your own hometown, neighborhood, or church. The book is so entertaining that you'll find yourself laughing hysterically on one page and challenged to create a more loving society on the next."

[00:42:18] I love this book. I think I would love it even if I didn't know the author. And I feel like I'm not doing complete justice to describing the story because there's so many parts, but that's what she does so well, is just pulling together the chaos and ever-evolving pieces of our lives and weaving them together into this unputdownably relatable book. And I love it.

ANNE: Ooh, I love that description. Emily, tell me about a book that was not right for you, and I'd love to hear why.

EMILY: Okay, the book that was not right for me was My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. This is a book about a young woman who recently graduated from Columbia University in New York. She lives in this fancy apartment paid for by her inheritance from her family, and she decides to do what she calls a year of narcotic hibernation.

[00:43:18] So there's this crazy psychiatrist in town who prescribes her meds for this, quote-unquote, experiment. And so it's this story of a young woman spending a year under the influence of drugs and trying to hide from the world and all that's going on. It's also set beginning in the year 2000, so there's a bit of a 9/11 through line in the story. And I felt like that ended up being, for me, more gratuitous rather than helpful to the story.

I found the narrator really unlikable and unrelatable, and that, for me, is not a good sell. I want to relate. I want to root for somebody. I'll mention my Storygraph review one more time because I laughed at it. I said, "I had a lot of trouble suspending my disbelief long enough to believe that someone on so many drugs could have the reflections she has as a narrator." I could be wrong about that.

[00:44:15] I just read John and Paul, the book about the Beatles, and they wrote a lot of great songs while they were on LSD, but they were taking drugs to heighten their awareness, and she was taking drugs to escape from it. I also read this book as a part of a book club that I went to, which had previously been led by a friend of mine. It was in a bit of transition, and the focus was on getting more people there. But when I was describing why I didn't really jive with the book, there was a new guy there who decided to mansplain to me why my opinion was wrong and to tell me how I actually enjoyed the book. That experience, along with really not enjoying the book, made it an even worse reading experience for me and left a really bad taste in my mouth.

ANNE: Didn't win you over.

EMILY: No.

ANNE: That one is also quite a bit darker than the books you've enjoyed.

EMILY: Yes.

[00:45:15] ANNE: Coincidence, or just part of the package?

EMILY: I think I don't prefer dark books. If they're done in a way that makes you want to still root for the person, I guess, or feel there's some sort of redemption, then I can go with it. But I didn't feel that from this book.

ANNE: Okay. I know you want to broaden your horizons, and also I was having a hard time syncing that up with characters you want to root for and books that pull at your heartstrings.

EMILY: Yeah, that's true.

ANNE: Okay. But all in all, not a great reading experience.

EMILY: Yeah.

ANNE: Okay. Emily, what have you been reading lately?

EMILY: I recently finished Ordinary Time by Annie B. Jones. It was part of the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club. I didn't actually make it in time for the book club, but I just loved the way that... It just felt like you were having a conversation with a friend.

[00:46:10] Her emphasis on, again, like rooting yourself where you are and really coming to love the place that you're in, even if it's the home that you were formed in. I loved that reading experience, and I thought it was so much fun. And I didn't know anything about her before going into it.

I also recently read The Shippers by Katherine Center. I love Katherine Center. I thought that was the perfect book for vacation. Felt like it was the perfect beach read, and I was very committed to having a good beach read, because my book club books were not beach reads. So...

ANNE: Okay. A vacation book for your vac...

EMILY: Yes.

ANNE: I mean, a book that's set... Oh, it's a destination wedding, is it?

EMILY: Yes, yes. It's set on a cruise ship. It's her characteristic quirkiness, fun. You're going to laugh, you're going to cry, but you know you're going to be taken care of in the end. I love how she's able to maintain all that, and you know she loves and respects her characters and you as a reader. I know that if I'm ever in a reading rut, picking up Katherine Center will help give me that palate cleanser that I need. So she did not disappoint with this new book.

[00:47:28] ANNE: Oh, I'm delighted to hear it. Okay. I think we know what you're looking for. I mean, we could talk about your options for the rest of the day. But let's start with Kentucky. Does that work for you?

EMILY: Yes.

ANNE: You are so correct that Silas House, Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver are excellent picks, but you have more, and in different broader genres as well. Like, you could look back in time and go for like a Jesse Stuart or a bell hooks, or you could do more contemporary. You could do a Meg Shaffer cozy fantasy, or Kim Michele Richardson historical fiction, or Leesa Cross-Smith contemporary. Or you know who I really like for you perhaps is Kayla Rae Whitaker. Have you read anything by her?

EMILY: No, I haven't.

ANNE: Okay. Am I remembering correctly that a sophomore novel is also a category that you were curious about how you're going to fill?

EMILY: Yes.

[00:48:30] ANNE: Well, her sophomore novel, Returns and Exchanges, just came out in May 2026. It's in this year's Summer Reading Guide. It's historical fiction that has an epilogue set in more contemporary times, but it's mostly set in the 1980s, and it's mostly set in Lexington, Kentucky.

I live in Louisville. I've not spent a ton of time in Lexington, but it's close enough, and Kentucky gets so little love at all, or appearances in fiction, that to read a book that was set granularly, like with locations and street names and historical landmarks in Lexington was... It's not something I get to do a lot.

She is a writer of, or at least her first two books have been queer fiction. Returns and Exchanges is a fascinating multi-generational epic about this married couple who married at the age of 16. They fled intense rural poverty and an abusive household, and came to the big city of Lexington, Kentucky, and are this unexpected success story as the founders of this Walmart-like Lexington-only discount chain store that expands and grows over the years.

[00:49:40] It feels a little Gatsby-esque in that they have, by so many standards, made it, but the husband especially still chafes against the fact that they have new money and have no standing or credibility in the eyes of Lexington blue bloods. And that's the backdrop to the wife developing what she doesn't even recognize as a crush on her female assistant manager, because that's not a category she can think in. But over time, that relationship grows, and it just creates upheaval in the family, the business, the community.

I mean, this is definitely a story of being rooted, but also how stretching against those constraints that at one time felt pleasing and now feel suffocating is a constant theme of the book as it unfolds over decades.

ANNE: Her first book, The Animators, is about two female animators who meet in college and make big projects. They have a tumultuous working relationship, it's complicated, but they make amazing indie adult animated films.

EMILY: Wow.

[00:50:45] ANNE: But there's this passage where they go to Louisville, and the way they describe Louisville, Kentucky, as this weird little quirky, lovable, adorable place that isn't quite any one thing, because it's kind of in the middle of everything, and it's not too big and not too small, and it's not the North and it's not South, but it's not Midwest. The way she describes Louisville is a way that could only be done as a Kentuckian, but I think, like, "Aw, somebody likes us. Somebody makes us sound good." And that aspect is, I'm going to boldly say, delightful. No equivocating, delightful. But she could be really fun for you. But you do have lots of options.

Based on what you've enjoyed, I do really wonder about The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer, bell hooks would get you a banned book for sure. I love Crystal Wilkinson. She has a poetry/prose collection called Perfect Black that could be a really interesting pick for one of several categories for you. It came out, ooh, I'm going to say five-ish years ago. I really also did love her interesting food and writing and history and ancestry collection, Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts.

[00:51:55] But Perfect Black is... She covers so much ground, like joy and heartbreak, love and trauma, lots about heritage and family. There's this wonderful piece about her love for Prince songs, and there's so much food throughout the book. So it's not solely a poetry collection, but I don't think the people at Carmichael's would raise their eyebrows if you wrote that in to your little poetry slot.

For Kentucky, and also poetry, I do wonder if those books that you're not sure where to start or you don't want to start now for like Wendell Berry and Silas House, I wonder if you could do poetry for one of those. Wendell Berry has several new... not new collections, old collections that are available on e-book. I don't know if they're read on audio or if you'd want to do that format. But he has tons of collections, but I personally really like his New Collected Poems and the pretty little hardcover, A Small Porch, that's also available on Libby on e-book. That could be a good place to start.

[00:52:59] And Silas House has a new poetry collection. Well, you know what? I guess at this point it came out last summer, but he has a new collection called All These Ghosts. I wonder if the poetry could be a good alternative to a novel for either of those authors right now.

EMILY: I think that would be great. That's one thing with Wendell Berry that I often find that there's just so much that it's nice to hear just a couple options to start with because he's such a prolific writer and such an amazing writer and representative of Kentucky, but the options can be overwhelming sometimes.

ANNE: You just said fewer options were good, and now I'm going to give you one more.

EMILY: That's okay.

ANNE: His newest novel in what is known as the Port William series — it has something like a dozen books right now — came out last fall, and it's really short, small format. It's less than 200 pages, and also the pages themselves are small.

[00:54:00] But what I like about this one for you... Well, what I don't like about this one for you is you won't know any of the characters, but I think that's okay. But in this book, he's very explicitly repeating a lot of his philosophy about agriculture and community and politics that he's repeated throughout his entire career and in much of his nonfiction work. And he's telling you a formative story in... it's the Catlett family, who live in this... it might be Henry County, but his Port William community is based on a real town near Carrollton, Kentucky.

But it almost feels like an origin story, like it's a myth in this family that actually happened, but is so formative in how they think about themselves. And I wonder if it's a nice little easily digestible package that's representative of his novels and his nonfiction.

EMILY: I think that sounds great.

ANNE: Well, that is called Marse Catlett, and that's the protagonist's name, the Force of a Story. Can we consider the Kentucky options done?

[00:55:06] EMILY: Yes, I think I could make a Kentucky bingo card in itself now.

ANNE: I think maybe you could. Now, that wasn't a lot of poetry, but it was some poetry. What do you think?

EMILY: Yes, I think I've got a place to go with poetry now.

ANNE: Okay. Banned books. I mean, some of those will get you the... You know what? Let's skip banned books for now, because I think we're going to touch on some. But Carmichael's has had great displays through the years. If you're not sure what... Okay, look, I'm a first-born daughter, good girl, rule follower by nature, but they've had wonderful displays through the years. And you could browse their Instagram and see what they put on their display. But you could go old. You could go new. You have so many options. Actually, you might have too many options. Maybe I should ask, is there anything you're inclined to read as a potential banned book?

EMILY: I would love to read a banned book that's newer. I know a lot of the older banned books. I've read, you know, Toni Morrison, and Octavia Butler, and things like that. But I'm interested in what books are coming out now that have been very quickly banned, or that people have just wrestled with that are newer.

[00:56:20] I feel like it's interesting to me to read books that to you and me would just seem like, "Oh, that's a story about such and such," and then somebody else really did not jive with that book and wanted it off the shelves. Not the books that you look at and you're like, "Oh, yeah, that's going to offend somebody."

ANNE: Okay. Something readers can always do is go to the American Library Association website that keeps records of top banned books for every year. So I doubt they have 2026 yet, but they'll have 2025 and prior, and so it would be really easy to see at a glance. Can I recommend one of my favorite banned books from recent years?

EMILY: Sure.

ANNE: Okay, this is now aging a little bit. It might be as many as five years old, but it's not older than that. That is Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri. And it was kicking around in my brain because you were talking about Libby, and I remember the experience of hearing amazing things about this book and being so gratified that it was available right away on Libby. That just really stuck with me. I should ask first, is this one you've read?

EMILY: No, I haven't.

[00:57:25] ANNE: Okay. I don't believe this is an adult novel, but I've heard many adults with wildly disparate tastes gush about it. And they specifically recommended the audiobook. And I just looked. There's only one hold on it right now on our library network. Actually, you know what? Maybe you have it at Frankfort Library, but on the Louisville Free Public Library, Libby, there's just one hold on it right now.

But it's this beautiful, heartbreaking, hilarious book that really pulls on your heartstrings. You want to root for this kid so hard. And that kid, our narrator, is a 12-year-old Iranian kid who lives in Oklahoma and is known as Daniel because his Iranian name, Khosrou, that's not going to fly in Oklahoma Middle School. And he is a storyteller. He has this great quote that's something like, Every story is the sound of a storyteller begging to stay alive, so you can hear what they're going to tell you that'll be worth listening to. Like, that's the only way they're going to make it.

[00:58:25] But he tells story after story drawn from his family, from his heritage, from ancient Persian folklore, and sometimes from the by turns heartbreaking, horrendous, hilarious, ordinary moments of Oklahoma Middle School. How does that sound?

EMILY: I got goosebumps when you said, "Every story is the story of a storyteller begging to stay alive." Literally, the hair on my arm stood up, so that sounds beautiful.

ANNE: Amazing. I'm glad to hear it. Okay, we have lots of retelling possibilities and also lots of non-human narrator possibilities, and it just depends on what you're into. Have you read any Kevin Kwan?

EMILY: I have not. I've watched the movie, of course, but I haven't read Crazy Rich Asians or any of his other books.

[00:59:17] ANNE: Well, I feel like just here on the podcast we were recently talking about Lies and Weddings, which is a retelling of Doctor Thorne. You could read This Motherless Land by Nikki May, which is a Jane Austen retelling. That's Mansfield Park. And we've had her as a guest on the podcast, so it's possible that sounds familiar.

You could read Xochitl Gonzalez's new one, Last Night in Brooklyn. It's a gender-swapped Gatsby contemporary retelling. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie is an amazing, punchy... Ooh, maybe not characters to root for, actually. It's a retelling of Antigone. It's pretty bleak, but wow, is it striking.

Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful. It's not a retelling exactly, but she calls it an homage to Little Women. Where the Rhythm Takes You by Sarah Dass is a YA Caribbean retelling of, again, Jane... not again, of Jane Austen again, but of Persuasion this time.

[01:00:08] Fault Lines by Emily Itami is dark, but has some hope to it. It's got Madame Bovary vibes. Of course, there's James by Percival Everett, which is Huckleberry Finn. Demon Copperhead, of course, by Barbara Kingsolver. That could be your 400-plus page book, but you already checked that box. How are any of these sounding? I mean, I didn't tell you very much, but is anything pinging your brain?

EMILY: No, that sounds great. This Motherless Land, I just finished Mansfield Park as a part of that Jane Austen class I'm reading, so that would be a good... what do we call it? Side... What do you call it when we have two books together?

ANNE: A flight.

EMILY: Flight, yes. Why could I not think of that?

ANNE: A side quest? Is that what we're doing? We could call it that, too.

[01:00:50] EMILY: So that would be fun. A couple of those I had already read. Of course, Demon Copperhead was one that I've read before. But yeah, This Motherless Land stood out to me. And I think Lies and Weddings. I think I remember you talking about that on a recent episode, and that was one that I flagged in my head as well. And Last Night in Brooklyn, I think could have been a book you pick for the cover, because I remember that one standing out.

ANNE: Yeah.

EMILY: I mean, I don't think it has a lot of graphics or anything. It's bold.

ANNE: It is. It's like a bright yellow.

EMILY: Yes.

ANNE: And I think both of those books, Lies and Weddings and Last Night in Brooklyn, seem like good fictional picks for fans of celebrity memoir.

EMILY: Okay.

ANNE: Now, I remember for your non-human narrator you didn't want to use Remarkably Bright Creatures because you already read it. But readers, if you find yourself in need of a non-human narrator for book bingo, that is, I imagine, a very popular pick right now.

[01:01:52] Let's see. I mean, there's so many books that have been around forever, like Redwall, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Watership Down, The Book Thief, The Murderbot series, The Call of the Wild, Grendel. The Screwtape Letters. You could go old if you wanted to or you could go more contemporary.

Lessons in Chemistry is a book that feels like it fits in with your favorites. I don't know if you've read it, by Bonnie Garmus.

EMILY: Yes, it's one of my favorite books as well.

ANNE: Okay. Well, good. I'm glad to hear it. Well, that's not going to work, but readers, if you're like, "What are you talking about with a non-human narrator?" much of it is narrated by a dog named, I think, Ninety-Nine. Does that sound right, Emily?

EMILY: It is a number. That's almost one of the book bingo categories.

ANNE: Okay. Well, I wasn't sure if you would like this based on what I knew about your favorites, but hearing what you have read and appreciated and what you're looking for, it's possible this could pull on your heartstrings a little bit. But there's this book that came out in 2023 called Open Throat that was actually recommended to me by What Should I Read Next? alum, Michelle Wilson, so thanks for that, Michelle.

[01:03:06] But this is a slim little book, but it really packs a serious punch. And it's less than 200 pages, and I think it's also small format, but I read it on Kindle.

This story is told by a mountain lion who lives in the wilds near L.A, which to give you a sense of what it's like to read this in the mountain lion's voice, Los Angeles appears as E-L-L-A-Y in the book because they're just repeating what they've heard. And this mountain lion watches hikers from the shadows and keeps close tabs on one human family in particular in this nearby encampment of unhoused people. And the mountain lion is just telling it to you as they see it, how the humans are acting and how the mountain lion is trying to make sense of it. And this is definitely strange, but it's got this sly feel to the tone, and really... it's really different. How does that sound to you?

[01:04:03] EMILY: I love that idea. I feel like that was what I was hoping for with a non-human narrator. So I've read The Art of Racing in the Rain, and I really... Talk about pulling your heartstrings. And I want to have that experience again. But it feels like so often the books that have non-human narrators, it's like Remarkably Bright Creatures where it's just interspersed with other things and you're seeing their perspective. But I could have read a whole book just narrated by that octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures. And so I think this sounds amazing.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it, but I'm going to give you more options in case. I just saw the trailer for Kazuo Ishiguro's adaptation of Klara and the Sun, and I imagine that's going to send many more readers back to that book. But that's narrated by a non-human.

[01:04:56] And also Elif Shafak, who was a guest on What Should I Read Next?, she's brilliant and so fascinating to listen to. She's written several books that have non-human narrators, or non-human narrators in part. The Island of Missing Trees has a final section narrated by a fig tree, and then There Are Rivers in the Sky, which is the book we mostly talked about when she was on the podcast, I think two late summers ago, is narrated by a raindrop.

EMILY: Wow.

ANNE: Yeah, it's real cool. It's real cool. Those are both a bigger investment, especially, There Are Rivers in the Sky, a bigger investment time-wise than something like Open Throat would be, but I mean, you know, maybe they're what you're looking for.

EMILY: Well, and it sounds like because those are a little bit older, that they probably would be more readily available on Libby, if not right away. So that sounds like a good option to add to my list, for sure.

ANNE: Emily, we just talked about a lot, a lot of books. How are you feeling about your book bingo?

[01:05:55] EMILY: Well, I think I'm going to get it done this year, so that's really exciting.

ANNE: You have the options. The reading of them is up to you.

EMILY: Yes, that's right. And maybe I won't be turning it in on December 31st this year like I did last year.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. I'm not going to rattle all these titles off, but readers, I want to remind you, if you go to whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com, we always list all the titles we talk about in the episode so that you don't have to frantically jot them down while you're driving or doing dishes or working out or, I don't know, laying on your couch. Whatever it is you like to do when you listen to podcasts, we got you covered.

But Emily, I'm really wondering what stands out to you and what you're thinking you may read next or soon.

EMILY: I think I'm going to go for Kayla Rae Whitaker and those two books that you recommended because they just sounded so good. They sounded so good. I also have not spent a ton of time in Lexington, but I live a lot closer to Lexington now than I used to, and so I feel like it would be fun to go to Costco one day and then just drive by some of the places that she talks about.

[01:07:10] ANNE: It could be. It could be. I mean, some of the street names you'll see on the highway signs. It'll look familiar. All right. Well, I'm excited that you're feeling good about your book bingo, and I can't wait to think about what you read. Thanks so much for talking books with me today.

EMILY: Thank you.

ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Emily, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Emily on Instagram at RevOnTheEdge, and find the full list of titles we talked about at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. We also have links to other things that came up in conversation, like that bingo card.

Keep up with our show by following along on Instagram. We're there @whatshouldireadnext.

And like we mentioned at the top of today's show, two fast and free ways to support our show are by joining our email list at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter, and please open those emails. It's a small thing. It might sound silly. It helps us so much. As does following or subscribing to our show wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever it is, follow or subscribe and download new episodes. It helps us so much. Thank you so much for taking a moment to check your settings and subscribe.

[01:08:22] Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, Media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at 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.