The life cycle of the publishing calendar and how our team buys books

[00:00:00] BRIGID MISSELHORN: What am I going to do with this dust jacket?

HOLLY WIELKOSZEWSKI: I can't deal with it. It's distracting.

LEIGH KRAMER: It just stays on.

HOLLY: It bothers me.

WILL BOGEL: It's a jacket.

LEIGH: It's a jacket.

WILL: The book just wears it. It just stays on. You don't have to do anything with it. It just stays on the book.

BRIGID: I like my books naked.

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.

[00:00:38] Today we're shining a light on our Patreon community and the types of conversations that happen over there every Friday. For members of our bonuses and events and all-inclusive tiers, we share a new bonus episode every week from a regular rotation of topics. Our bonus episodes include Mini Matchmaking, where I do a speed round of book recommending in the format you hear each week on this podcast, Dear Book Therapist, where I tackle tricky reading questions or conundrums, and Industry Insights, where I bring you along to explore unknown facets of the publishing industry.

We also make episodes dedicated to bringing you a whole bunch of great books on an interesting theme or topic. We often feature conversations or solo episodes from members of our team there, like our Starter Guide collection, One Great Book episodes, and Wild Card conversations on bookish topics that come up in conversation in our comment sections, or at team meetings, or are sometimes suggested by our Patreon members.

[00:01:33] Another perk of being a patron at the bonuses and events tier, or all-inclusive, is automatic access to our marquee events, like our recent Fall Book Preview Unboxing, and our upcoming Team's Best Books of the Year event coming in January 2027.

In our episode today, we are sharing three popular Patreon bonus episodes to give you a sampler of what we do every week in that community. If this episode sounds like something you'd like to hear more of, come join us at Patreon. That's patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.

This past summer, we also rolled out our new ad-free episodes tier, which I know many of you have been waiting for and asking for and are really loving now. That tier is for one thing only, and that is the delivery of ad-free episodes, and it does it really well. But the ad-free episodes tier does not include those weekly bonus episodes, so make sure to check out the options on our Patreon sign-up page to choose the right fit for your reading life right now.

[00:02:29] We are kicking off today's episode with a fan favorite bonus from our ongoing Industry Insight series. I hope you'll hear some useful ideas and fascinating insights in this bonus.

Hey, readers, it's Anne, and I'm here with a special just-for-you bonus episode. Recently, I had the pleasure of circling back with some of my favorite booksellers for the State of the Bookstore episode we made for you and aired in early March.

Initially, like I said here in the discussion thread post, we'd envisioned that we would have a single episode with six bookseller interviews, and then we got so much good tape we couldn't bear not to share it. So you haven't actually heard part two of that episode yet, but it's coming, and in it, you will hear from Alison Frenzel and Elizabeth Barnhill of Fabled Bookshop in Waco. Alison is the co-owner of the bookshop, and Elizabeth has been Fabled's book buyer since before they even opened in late summer 2019.

[00:03:23] During our conversation together, and I'm sorry to say, this was after we stopped recording, we were talking about spring and summer reading and all the books coming out, and Elizabeth made a comment that I thought was worth putting in front of you today. She said her favorite books of the year are consistently the ones that come out between January 1st and the first week of April.

Now, if you're not familiar with the publishing calendar or with Elizabeth as a reader, you might posit that she starts strong on her New Year's resolutions and then fizzles. Or maybe you would think it was situational. But she didn't say she reads her favorite books in the first 30% of the year. She says they're published then. I thought this would be a good opportunity to look at the publishing calendar and what kinds of books are typically published when.

We're talking about why certain books come out at certain times of the year. So let's start by saying very clearly that oftentimes the book's release date has nothing to do with its seasonality. None. Sometimes that pub date, and when I say pub date, I mean publication date, I think you know that, let's be sure here. The pub date is what it is simply because that's when the book is ready.

[00:04:29] To give you an example, Laura Vanderkam, who writes primarily in the productivity space, once said that after she went through the process of book proposal to contract, the next available spot in her publisher's production calendar was May. And so she went on to write her first draft, then go through editing and copy editing, galley proofs, the whole shebang, she hit all her deadlines, so it did in fact have that planned May release date.

Because each of her subsequent books followed the same basic timeline, many of her books ended up coming out in the spring. But her most recent release didn't follow that same timeline. Tranquility by Tuesday came out in October because that's when it was ready, and that was fine.

Also, that's the book Laura talked about when she was on the podcast earlier this year, and I think we both mentioned then that we are in a writing group together, and this is exactly the sort of stuff we talk about in that group.

The general balance of the publication calendar is a consideration when publishers are choosing release dates for their books. Even though sometimes it does not appear to be the case, publishers do aim to plan their releases so they're nicely staggered. They don't want all their big releases, when I say big, I mean the books that they have decided in advance to print the most copies of, to give the most marketing support to before they even know how the readers are going to respond.

[00:05:44] They don't want all those big releases to release on the same day. And by that I mean both that Macmillan, say, wants to stagger their own Macmillan releases so they're not in competition with each other, and they also don't want to go up against too many big books from Penguin or Hachette either. Sometimes this does not work out at all, and it seems like a zillion major releases come out all on the same day.

April 2022 famously saw several major, major Tuesdays. That was due in part to the pandemic and how it wreaked havoc with publication dates and timelines, in part to the fact that despite everyone's best intentions, this happens sometimes.

But even this year, just in the course of my Summer Reading Guide prep, it seems like May 2nd is going to be a dizzyingly big publication date, with scads of heavily promoted titles dropping all at once. That's not a huge surprise, as April, May, and then September are historically big months to release books.

[00:06:38] To give you a bit of insight into how editors might think strategically about timing, my editor and I were once discussing a certain title, and she said, "I made that book a bestseller," which sounds maybe a little audacious, but she went on to specifically explain that she'd done it by changing the release date.

The book in question had been slated to come out in the midst of a jam-packed September. So seeing that it did have potential to hit the list, and when an editor talks about hitting the list, they mean The New York Times Best Seller list, she moved it to August, where it had much less competition and did in fact hit. Maybe that doesn't seem like playing fair, but today is about the reality, not how things should be.

So let's go back now to Elizabeth's comment about how her favorite books tend to be published between January 1st and the first week of April. That's not about when the books are ready or the publisher's desire to spread their offerings evenly throughout the year. That is about the seasonality of the publishing calendar. So let's look at that next.

[00:07:37] Generally speaking, there are three seasons in publishing: spring, summer, and fall. Sometimes books are, on purpose, deliberately published in a certain season. If a book has a seasonal hook, it's far more likely to come out in that season.

Every derby book that has ever existed has probably been published in April. That is a real thing. I'm in Louisville. The derby is the first weekend in May, except when the pandemic one time made it in September. If a book has a seasonal hook, it'll come out in that season, usually.

Here's a really obvious extreme example. Hannah Orenstein's book, Head Over Heels, is about a retired gymnast coaching an aspiring athlete as she trains for her first Olympics. So this book was slated to come out a month before the 2020 Tokyo Games, the ones that got postponed a year because of the pandemic, but the book did not. But independent of such a strong hook in the actual book, the publishing calendar follows certain rhythms.

[00:08:31] So listen in as we talk about it, and while you do, think about Elizabeth's comment about her favorite books publishing between January 1st and the first week of April. You'll get a good idea of what she enjoys in her reading life.

We'll start with January, obviously big for any kind of story of new beginnings and fresh starts, and also a big season for self-help, personal growth, and career books.

February is for books about love and sometimes books that are adamantly not about love. For example, you may remember from the Spring Book Preview that Stone Cold Fox, a... I thought, deliciously devious novel about a scheming social climber determined to marry into the 1% and attain forever freedom from her ruinous past and do whatever it takes to make that happen. It cheekily came out on Valentine's Day.

[00:09:16] February is also a big month for poetry. March, April, and May are huge months for publishing. I remember talking to Mary Laura Philpott when her book got assigned an April release date, and she was freaking out a little bit saying, "Ah, they put me in April. I feel like I have a lot to live up to. Yikes." Her book was great, just by the way. She did fine.

But April means something to authors. March is a big month for spring releases and books expected to be popular with book clubs. In fact, two of our summer 2022 Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club selections were published in March: Bonnie Garmus' Lessons in Chemistry and Peng Shepherd's The Cartographers.

March and April are also huge for historical fiction, and late April is when the big summer releases start coming. Like this year, the new Emily Henry is landing April 25th.

May sees memoir, romance, and books tied to Mother's Day and graduations. May to August is when we see lots of fantasy, adventure, science fiction, and thrillers.

[00:10:14] June sees beachy reads. This is Elin Hilderbrand's publication month, just to give you the flavor, and it has been for a long time.

July and August see a lot of mysteries and thrillers. For many years, Louise Penny's books came out in August, and readers knew they could depend on her to deliver a new book every August. When her husband Michael died, she thought she would take a year off from writing while she grieved, but ended up turning to writing for comfort. If this all sounds familiar, we touched on this topic when she was a guest on What Should I Read Next?

She did actually go on to write a book that year, but that book wasn't ready in time for her typical August release. The publisher couldn't even make that happen for Louise Penny, so that's the year she shifted to November, and since then, her books have come out every November. But back to the August Louise Penny left behind, on the whole, it tends to be a quieter month before that typically packed September.

[00:11:04] September issues in the season of literary fiction. Generally speaking, heavier, more serious, hear my air quotes there, come out in the fall, with September and October being the biggest months for this genre.

October is for the spooky stuff, horror and suspense.

And November is really interesting. It tends to be a light month publication-wise. Some of that has to do with the broader cultural landscape, like relatively few books come out in the Novembers of presidential election years. Publishers don't know what's going to happen, what public sentiment will be, if they'll be spending money. They don't go there.

But two categories are considered welcoming for November releases, and those are children's books and cookbooks. Remember, we're talking about publication dates being thin, but book sales are huge in November and December. However, most of those books that are selling are deliberately released well before Thanksgiving, so they're already in stores and have some momentum behind them when the holiday shopping blitz begins.

[00:12:00] Some exceptions of late that might give you a feel for what kinds of books are released immediately before Black Friday are the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook, Ann Patchett's These Precious Days, and Michelle Obama's The Light We Carry.

Now for December. Nobody wants to be a December release. Some wonderful books publish at the end of the year. I truly do not understand, but would like to if you have any insight, who would want their book to come out the last week of the year when readers are busy and distracted and the best of the year lists are already out? Book sales continue to be strong in December and right on into January, so perhaps that's part of it. I do not have the answer here.

I hope it's clear that while exceptions abound, there is a life cycle to the publishing calendar, and it could very well be impacting your reading life. If you think nothing looks good on Bookstagram in July, or that everything looks good on Bookstagram in July, it might not be your mood or mindset, but the reality that new books overshadow old on social media, plus a certain kind of book is more likely to be published in July.

[00:13:00] Or if everything on the new release table looks good in September, or nothing looks good on the new release table in September, that may very well be about your taste as well. We're not talking about these factors today as good or bad. Instead, we're looking at how things are, and I'm inviting you to reflect on what this may mean for your reading life.

Readers, thanks for joining me on this bonus. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments as always. Till next time, happy reading everyone.

[00:13:28]

ANNE: We'll be back in Patreon on Friday, October 30th with our next Industry Insights episode. That one is dedicated to the personalities of various literary awards.

Next up, we're sharing a recent bonus conversation among members of our Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next? team. Our team members often pair up to talk about reader-ly topics of interest in our Patreon community, and this fascinating and delightfully detailed conversation about how our team members approach buying books sparked a lot of great conversations. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

SHANNAN MALONE: Say hello, y'all.

BRIGID: Hi.

WILL: Hey, everybody.

HOLLY: Hello.

LEIGH: Hi there.

SHANNAN: As Anne would say, let's get to it. So to start us out, I'm curious, how many books do you read per year, each one of you?

WILL: Do we need to self-rank before we give the answer?

SHANNAN: What do you mean by that?

WILL: I'm going to be the lowest. I think 42.

SHANNAN: 42.

WILL: I think I read 42. And I bet that's less than everybody, but...

SHANNAN: No.

WILL: No?

SHANNAN: I was about 40 last year.

HOLLY: I think last year I was 65. I'm usually in the 60 to 90 range. It just really depends on the year.

BRIGID: This is interesting, because I'm about 80 to 90, around there. Almost always 79 to 88, somewhere within there.

SHANNAN: Which is wild to me.

HOLLY: That's a very specific number.

BRIGID: Which is wild. That's wild.

SHANNAN: And Leigh.

LEIGH: And I am on the high range, around 200 per year. Last year was 187, and the year before was 223.

SHANNAN: Will, we did self-rank.

WILL: Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did.

SHANNAN: Unintentionally.

WILL: Also, I probably could have guessed that too, like put them in order. I'm amazed by you all that have a 30-book range, because I said 42, I just made that up, but 40 to 44 every year. It's almost always exactly the same.

[00:15:29] SHANNAN: It is. And out of that number of books that you read, how many do you actually purchase? Because we're talking about adding the books to the actual physical library or digital library.

BRIGID: I have an exact answer to this from last year because I kept track of it with...

WILL: Research.

BRIGID: ...Donna and Shannan. We kept track of some of these things together, and a spreadsheet, of course, that Donna created. And of the 80 books I read last year, 10 of them I had purchased in print. But I only bought 14 new books last year. I feel like that's a good percentage, 10 out of the 14 I read. But now that's talking new books. Used books is a totally different number.

[00:16:22] SHANNAN: So you mean you purchase new books. I mean, you purchase old books and used books.

BRIGID: I purchased 14 new books, and I read 10 of them. They were 10 of the 80 I read. But I also purchased a lot of used books. Those I did not include in the new book count.

SHANNAN: So we really don't know how many because honestly, I don't know exactly how many I have purchased. I know how many I have let go of, but I don't know how many I actually brought in. I'm beginning to track that now.

[00:16:56] WILL: But you keep track of how many you get rid of?

SHANNAN: Yes.

WILL: Okay. I mean, because it's like a tax deduction? You're keeping your little [Goodwill?] receipts or something?

SHANNAN: No, it's more of a... I have my library in Goodreads, so when I get rid of them I have to take them out and I know how many-

WILL: You mark it off.

SHANNAN: ...that have gone out of my house.

LEIGH: And Shannan, you have a guest post about this topic coming up on the blog soon, so people can look forward to that.

SHANNAN: Yes. Thank you, Leigh. And now I'm nervous. Anyway, Holly, what you got?

[00:17:39] HOLLY: So the last year or two I've been really focused on trying to read through books I have bought in the past and have not yet read. So this past year I purchased seven books total, and I read 11 books that I'd purchased in previous years and hadn't read yet, and then everything else came from the library or whatnot.

SHANNAN: Now, we know you're a digital nomad, so are these physical or digital books, or are you counting them as the same?

HOLLY: I count them the same when I'm doing my stats as far as purchased and everything like that. But I do read mostly digital, but I still have a pretty good stack of physical TBR pile books that I'm working my way through also. And I like to take one of those with me on every trip and leave it in a little free library somewhere when I'm done.

LEIGH: Aw.

SHANNAN: Leigh.

[00:18:30] LEIGH: I do have a spreadsheet for all of this. And actually I did a bonus episode about this. This was one of my goals from... I feel like maybe it was two years ago where I wanted to read everything that I purchased within a month of buying it.

SHANNAN: Yes, I remember this.

LEIGH: Now, I have kind of fallen off with that. I'm still doing a pretty good job, but I'm not as militant about the one month rule. But because I track everything I read or I put it in the spreadsheet, I know that I have purchased around 100 books per year. And it's probably 70% e-books, 30% physical copies. But I will say also I'm a heavy, heavy library user, so most of these are something that I've gotten from the library, loved it, and then purchased after the fact.

[00:19:27] SHANNAN: So that's going to get to the crux of the conversation, which is what I wanted to talk about. But Will, I don't even know if this is appropriate question for you. I think when I'm looking at books, I'm thinking about you personally because I know books come in and go out, and come in and go out with Leigh's help sometimes, as Anne has told us. But how much do you bring in for yourself?

WILL: I mean, I'd like to say I don't buy books, but that's not actually true. I bought two books last week. I bought two books last week. I don't buy a lot of books, though, no. Yeah, pretty much no. Three or four? I don't know. I think people know because we've definitely talked about it a number of times. We have a used book sale in town that we love. And I usually buy half a dozen there. But then, I mean, going to a bookstore or whatever, that doesn't really... I don't do that.

[00:20:33] SHANNAN: Which brings me to the ultimate question. When do you decide to add a book to your physical and/or digital library? And Leigh, you had-

WILL: I was going to say I feel guilty because I just said I don't go to bookstores and I don't buy books, but I did buy two books last week, so I want to clarify. So why don't we just jump right in here?

SHANNAN: Okay, go ahead, Will. Jump right in.

WILL: As you said, we have a lot of books, and a lot of books come into our house. So I read a lot of books that Anne gets, and she's like, "Oh, I think you might like this." I read a lot of library books. Those are the two ways I generally read books. I generally only buy a book if I think I can't get it somewhere else. So if I see a book... I'm trying to think a book I bought last year, because I just bought two books last week, but I'm thinking last year. I can only think of one book that I bought.

[00:21:28] We were in St. Louis, and we stopped at The Novel Neighbor, and Holland was there, and Anne was talking for a while, and so the kids and I were shopping, right? And I was like, "Actually, I think I am going to buy this book. I've never heard of it. It seems right up my alley, and it's possible it's at the library, but it is very distinctly possible that it's not at my library." So I bought a book that I thought, "This is the moment, and I don't know that I could get it again." Of course, I could take a note and I could buy it online and what... I'm sure I could get it again. But for the most part, they're books that I feel like I can't get ahold of.

The two books I bought last week, same thing. One was a sort of philosophical treatise on design. I don't even know what kind of bookstore you would buy that in. I don't know what section it would be in. I came across it and I'm like, "This sounds really cool," so I bought it, just like that.

[00:22:18] And same thing with the used book sales. Our used book sales have tons and tons of what I would call library books. I don't need those. I can get them at the library any time. But then I come across something and I'm like, "Oh, well, this is not going to be in a bookstore because it's more than a few years old, and bookstores just don't keep copies of stuff that's not new unless it just continues to move. So I'm not going to come across it in a bookstore, and if I don't browse the library the right way, I just won't ever find that book again kind of deal. So those are the books that I buy.

And especially for the used bookstore... Well, actually, you know what? Even traveling. Even traveling, going to bookstores, buying souvenirs, I don't always read them. So those are the books I buy, but I... Leigh's 30-day rule, I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

SHANNAN: All right. Leigh, you were starting to say something about why or when you buy books, so please tell us more.

[00:23:19] LEIGH: So library first as much as possible unless it's not available at any of my libraries. And I do search near and far because I am on a budget. But I will pre-order a book from a favorite author. Like I just got a signed copy of The Paris Match by Kate Clayborn. And that is 100% worth it to me. Also, I'm friendly with Kate, so this is not me being a total punk, but I told her a compliment that I wanted her to write about me.

BRIGID: I love this.

LEIGH: And I've done this a couple of times, and she goes along with it. She's great. Again, we are friendly. I don't do this to every author. But part of it is to make her laugh when she's signing, and part of it is because I wanted to have something nice about myself forever emblazoned in a book that I love.

[00:24:19] SHANNAN: I love that.

LEIGH: So there's that. Also, special editions can be tempting, but again, it has to be a book that I know that I'm going to love. I rarely buy books that I haven't read, because I really want to get it from the library, because it really... I struggle with buying a book and then hating it. It just feels like such a waste. But if I get it from the library, the author's still getting that money, and I am saving my money. So that is a good gamble for me.

And then I love going to McKay Used Books whenever I'm back in Nashville, and I will sell stuff back, so I get a lot of credit from them. That is where I will get a lot of my out-of-print romances that I want for my romance history project that I'm doing with friends or just books that I love in general. That's where I will pick them up.

[00:25:22] Also, a lot of e-book deals. If it's a book that I love, I'll kind of wait until it goes on sale. And sometimes they don't go on sale, and maybe I'll just eventually get it because I want it anyways. But I feel like those are the usual metrics. Oh, thrift books also is another used source. Yes, Will. I can see Will is [crosstalk 00:25:48] for me.

SHANNAN: You guys can't see this, but Will is raising his hand, y'all.

WILL: I got a question. If you've already read the book, does the 30-day rule apply? I'm confused.

LEIGH: No. No. No, the 30-day-

WILL: Because you already read it.

LEIGH: The 30-day rule doesn't apply anymore. This was a couple of years ago. I'm more lax about it now.

WILL: Mature.

LEIGH: But if I got it from the library, then I've already read it. It goes on a separate column on the spreadsheet, the already read column, as opposed to the month by month column of here's what I have purchased and what I need to read in a timely manner. So I don't feel like I'm wasting my money on stuff that I'm never going to get around to, and reducing the clutter.

WILL: I see.

[00:26:34] SHANNAN: So do you ever think... and this can be for everyone. Do you ever think, "Oh, that sounds so great," when you hear about it or see it in the bookstore, and you're like, "I'm going to buy that now"? Has that ever happened to anyone, or is that something that generally doesn't occur in this group?

LEIGH: A book that I've never... I didn't know about it and I encounter it in the bookstore, and then...

BRIGID: I can count on one hand the amount of times that's happened to me.

WILL: Really?

BRIGID: Yeah. Usually...

HOLLY: I do that a lot.

BRIGID: You do that a lot?

SHANNAN: Okay, Holly, share, please.

HOLLY: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Brigid.

BRIGID: No, go. I'm very intrigued.

HOLLY: I do that a lot. I have four different categories where I buy a book, and I'll tell you all four of them in a minute, but two of them fall under this situation. One of them is when I'm traveling, because if I go to an international bookstore, my goal is to discover a local author I've never heard of before and buy a book. So in that case, I have no idea what I'm going to find, and I just wait and see what I discover.

[00:27:43] The other situation is if I go to, and this is often usually when I'm traveling, but if I go to a bookstore and there's an event with a local author that's sitting at a table selling their book, I will often buy a copy to support local writers. And then I often don't know what I'm getting in that case, and it ends up going eventually to a little free library. And sometimes those are wins, and sometimes they are not at all, and that's okay, because I'm supporting local writers.

SHANNAN: In a percentage, how much of that happens for you out of the books that you do buy, percentage-wise? Do you know that?

HOLLY: I don't have that data, but I would guess it's actually a fairly high percentage because of the travel purchasing situation. And that also ties back a bit to Will's comment that those are books I could not easily acquire in any other context because they're either from an Australian publisher that doesn't distribute, or it would cost me $60 to have the book shipped to the US or whatever. So that's actually a pretty high percentage of my new book purchases. Or book purchases. Sometimes they are used.

[00:28:53] SHANNAN: Go ahead and tell us your other categories.

HOLLY: My other two categories. So a slight caveat is I used to buy digital books for my Kindle like it was going out of style, and since they've locked down all of their DRM things, I have not purchased any Kindle books since then because I object. And I'm still figuring out what my plan is for e-reading going forward other than Libby and my library.

But usually at the end of the year I go back through my five-star reads, and I look at that list and say, "Do I want any of these to exist in my permanent physical library?" Because most of the time those are books I've gotten through the library or some other transient context. And I will typically end up adding, depending on the year, maybe one to three of those to my library kind of for long-term that I think I would either want to read again or it's a favorite author that I'm kinda building my library or it just made a really, really strong impression on me.

[00:29:47] And then the last one is... well, I guess it's sort of twofold. I already kind of talked about books that I can't really get other places, and that also includes hard-to-find books in the US, it's not just internationally.

But the last category is what I call business expense books. So say I'm working on a book list for a post and I'm like, "Oh, I want to read these books to consider for this," if I buy those with my own money, I then count those as a business expense on my business ledger. I don't count those necessarily in the same way as I count personal books.

SHANNAN: I love the idea of going through the year and seeing the five-star reads that you had, and then saying, which ones do you want to add? I need to do that because I set a book budget for the year, y'all, and it's gone already. And I'm like, it's April. And we haven't made it any space. Now mind you, it's a very small budget, which is probably part of my problem, but I'm like, "It's already gone and we're already in April."

[00:31:03] LEIGH: Wait, does that factor in the stipend that we get? This is our great work perk.

SHANNAN: Yes. What Leigh is referring to is the great work perk that we have of a book stipend. It's not seasonally, I think, is more... is appropriate. No, that does not factor in. I am referring to my own personal dollars. And I had a number in my head, and it's gone. I'm like, this is a problem. Brigid-

LEIGH: But it's not because you still have some stipends coming your way.

SHANNAN: Well, I mean, I still...

LEIGH: So I mean, your personal may have run out, but...

SHANNAN: I actually just started over. I mean, I have money to buy books. I mean, that's what I'm going to do. But I'm like, "Okay, from now we're only going to spend this amount of money," which is part of the reason I wanted to have this conversation. Brigid.

[00:32:01] BRIGID: This has been fascinating. I wish everybody listening could see my face every time somebody has said something because I'm either shocked how close it is to what I do or how different, how different, you guys. So, first of all, when I said 14 books at the beginning, those were new books from a bookstore, new books. I did not include digital or audiobook. And I would say I buy about one audiobook and one Kindle book, or an e-book, not necessarily Kindle, because I do sometimes buy from bookshops, e-books.

Anyways, I usually buy about one a month of those. And the majority of the rest of my books buying is from used bookstores. I love a used book, or from the book sale at the library, my local library. Not just the big one they do every year, but they have a whole shelf. So I look at that shelf every time I go in.

[00:33:00] But here's where I'm different. I do not like buying a book that I've already read. That's very, very rare for me. I have kind of... you guys, I'm probably not going to surprise you. I have a hierarchy, a whole process of how I decide to buy a book, and it's like a pyramid. So it's, like everybody else, can I get it at the library? Because I would say the majority of my reads are from the library, whether they're in audio, e-format, or hardcover.

Second, it's... and I'm going to say sorry to all authors who do this, if you are writing about a British, Irish, South African, Nigerian, or Australian character, I'm listening to that in audio. I'm never going to buy it in hard copy. I'm sorry. I want to listen to those books be read to me in those accents. So that's number one. Now, does it have map-

LEIGH: That's not apology-worthy, though. You're still listening.

[00:33:59] BRIGID: I mean, I'm still consuming the book and I'm still reviewing it, but I will never buy it in hard copy. I will never. This is a daily thought of mine. Even at a library, if I see a hard copy of something that I'm interested in reading and it's got an Irish character, I'm like, "Nope, I'm going to be listening to that," so I'm going to have to go get it electronically.

Does it have maps? That's a big one. If it has maps, then yes, I'm more likely to buy it in print. Does it have recipes? I love a fiction that has recipes, so I like to own ones myself that have recipes in them.

LEIGH: And Brigid had a guest post along those lines that we can link to in the show notes.

BRIGID: I do. I love a book with recipes, and I love a novel with recipes. Cookbooks also, but I love a novel with them. Does it have illustrations like a graphic novel, or is it mixed media, like there's emails and messages or newspaper clippings printed within the book? Those I do like to buy a book that has that.

[00:35:04] Like Holly was saying, is it something hard to find? Is it an indie-published print, or is it from a place where I would normally never be able to get it while traveling? Because I do buy the majority of my books while traveling.

Then the next is I like a paperback. So I'd rather buy a paperback than a hard copy. And then is it poetry? Poetry I like to have a hard copy of that. And then I kind of have a very specific... is it written by these or is it part of this series? Is it written by Kerry Winfrey? Is it written by Rainbow Rowell? Is it part of the Empyrean series from Rebecca Yarros? And I say this not because I even really love those books, I'm okay with them. But you can listen to a bonus episode where Anne talks about the special editions and the industry insight, and she kind of tells a little bit of a story of how I accidentally bought a first edition painted edge Fourth Wing. And so now I have to buy all the first edition painted edge ones. I don't make those rules. But I got to.

[00:36:20] And then I really like fun copies of Anne of Green Gables. And then I also love the 81, 831 romances, so those are it.

But then lastly, this is lastly, if I still have gone through all of these and it doesn't quite fit, if it's a book that my mother-in-law or my mom would like to read after, I buy it in print. Because they love to read in print, and the majority of the books that they get in their hands that aren't used copies from used bookstores are books that I give them. "I read this, I think you'd love it." So that's usually…

SHANNAN: Now, are all of these things written down, Brigid? Do you literally have a checklist, when you look at the book and you go, "Check, check, no," or is this just mental?

BRIGID: I have a mental checklist, and I literally run through every single one of those depending on the book.

SHANNAN: Wow.

[00:37:13] BRIGID: And then I also do keep a notes app for very specific authors. One I didn't mention is Tessa Dare. I keep a very specific, do I have it? Have I read it? Here's what's the situa... is it signed? But no, I do have it written down now because I wanted to make sure I had it all copied down so I could tell y'all and not forget any of them. And it is now in my notes app. So if I ever forget it.

LEIGH: I have a notes app too for any book or author that I am looking for, especially when I'm at a used bookstore.

BRIGID: Oh, I also keep Leigh's. She didn't mention that, but I also keep Leigh's wants in my note app. Because I love hunting for used books, not just for myself. So I look for Leigh when I'm out and about.

LEIGH: And I have a couple of friends that I look for their stuff as well.

SHANNAN: So the list that you have in your app, is that a list of books, or is that a list of criteria that you're actually checking off?

[00:38:14] BRIGID: For me, it's books, and now I also have the criteria one, thanks to this recording.

SHANNAN: And you prepped the criteria because of this bonus. Leigh, is it just a list of books?

LEIGH: Just a list of books.

SHANNAN: Readers, y'all thought...

LEIGH: Oh, but I'll throw in...

SHANNAN: I mean, I thought that I would had overthought this.

LEIGH: No, this is not overthinking. This is because when I'm in a bookstore, I cannot remember all of the different books, because I... especially at McKay's. If you've ever been to a McKay's, it is a huge warehouse of a place. It can be overwhelming. And when I get in those stacks, I get very distracted and I can forget about especially the out-of-print ones that I don't necessarily remember offhand. I need to be able to look. And also any recent five-star books that I got from the library that I do want a copy in my home, a la Holly's approach.

[00:39:09] SHANNAN: I wasn't saying you were overthinking the reason why you had the list. It's just I was thinking, am I overthinking this process of trying to figure out what books I'm going to add and how I'm going to go about it? And as Anne would say, and Ginger also would say, "It's never just you."

LEIGH: Never just you.

SHANNAN: So I feel so much better about myself.

BRIGID: I feel like we're in good company with these, for sure.

LEIGH: Definitely.

SHANNAN: I have noticed something. I get put off by the plastic covers on library books recently. That is a recent thing. Is that just me?

BRIGID: They don't bother me.

LEIGH: Doesn't bother me.

BRIGID: But I've had other people say things. And I don't post a ton on my Instagram, but a lot of times if it's a book that I enjoyed from the library, I'll post a picture of it, and people have said something like, "Oh, that shiny library cover."

[00:40:05] HOLLY: I'm not a fan.

SHANNAN: You are not a fan.

BRIGID: You're not a fan.

HOLLY: I'm not a fan, no. Again. I pretty much only get digital, audio, or paperback from my library because I don't like the crinkly plastic cover.

SHANNAN: Once again, readers, it's not just me. So excited. Because I will not want to go to the library and get a book if it's in hardcover. I literally will be like, "Uh-uh, I don't want to," because I hate the way it... And it distorts how pretty it is, also. It feels like it doesn't give me that experience.

Now this is a recent phenomena since I started buying books, which probably happened in 2019-ish. So before then, I was a definite library user. And I think COVID tripped me up too because even though you could get books from the library eventually, I was like, "I don't know where this book has been." I'll just either do digital or buy it.

[00:41:05] HOLLY: I have a follow-up comment too, though.

BRIGID: When you are re...

HOLLY: Sorry. Sorry, Brigid. I was just saying I hate dust jackets in general. So even if I buy a hardcover of my own, the first thing I do is take the dust jacket off and put it somewhere else.

BRIGID: Why?

HOLLY: I can't read a book with a dust jacket on it.

BRIGID: That was literally my question, Holly. Of course that's... You stole the words right out of my mouth. Do you guys take the dust jackets off?

HOLLY: Never.

BRIGID: Because that's why I like paperbacks better, because I don't like dealing with, what am I going to do with this dust jacket?

HOLLY: I can't deal with it. It's distracting.

LEIGH: It just stays on.

HOLLY: It bothers me.

WILL: It's a jacket.

LEIGH: It's a jacket.

WILL: The book just wears it. It just stays on. You don't have to do anything with it. It just stays on the book.

BRIGID: I like my books naked.

HOLLY: Nope. Can't deal with it.

SHANNAN: So I have a question about that to Holly. Holly, what do you do with that? Do you literally have a bin full of dust jackets?

LEIGH: Do you like throw them away?

HOLLY: I just take it off when I'm reading it, and then once I'm not reading it, I put it back on.

LEIGH: Same.

HOLLY: ...and I put it on the shelf. I just can't have it on while I'm in the act of reading it.

BRIGID: This is the same. I think, Holly, this is a birthday twin thing because I have to take it off.

SHANNAN: This has been very informative

WILL: This was fascinating.

[00:42:10] SHANNAN: And fascinating. I am going to go and write down my rules and feel good about the Summer Reading Guide season and my new budget that I am starting over.

LEIGH: Oh, can I offer one tip for people if they don't have this already?

SHANNAN: Absolutely.

LEIGH: I recommend downloading Libib, L-I-B-I-B. It is an app, and you can scan the barcodes of your books, and so you will know exactly how many you have. And when you are in a bookstore, and you're like, "I really love this book, but do I have it?" I can open up my app, and I can type in the title or the author and see if I already own it or not, and then you don't have to buy any duplicates.

WILL: Oh, this is amazing.

LEIGH: There are other apps along those lines but Libib is the one that I've used for several years now.

WILL: We have bought duplicates at the same used book sale. So we didn't have it at home, but then we came home with two copies. It's like, I don't know there's any preventing duplicates. But yeah.

[00:43:05] SHANNAN: Who else intentionally buys duplicates?

WILL: Intentionally?

LEIGH: Well, I do buy duplicates of some things.

SHANNAN: Yes.

WILL: Certain books.

SHANNAN: I know our book club community manager, Ginger, has several copies of certain books. Does anyone else do that?

BRIGID: I only do it for Anne of Green Gables.

LEIGH: A Prayer for Owen Meany, Persuasion, and then Sierra Simone is one of my favorite romance authors, and I have multiple copies, multiple editions of hers. But I don't consider them to be duplicates.

WILL: Because you're looking for...

LEIGH: Because they're different editions.

WILL: Different editions, yes.

SHANNAN: You collect the editions.

BRIGID. Same. Same, yeah.

SHANNAN: Fascinating.

WILL: There are a couple books I would snap up any time I see them, just because I don't come across them and I want people to have them and whatever.

SHANNAN: So you're buying them to give them away maybe?

WILL: Yeah.

SHANNAN: Okay.

[00:43:56] WILL: I'm kind of stingy about loaning out my books. So if there's a book I don't want to let go of, but I'm like, "Oh, I want to recommend this to people," but I don't actually want to give them mine because who knows what's going to happen.

LEIGH: Yeah, I do the same thing. A friend who I am still friends with, and that should tell you how much I love her, she dropped one of my books in the pool, and I have not loaned any books to anyone since. She did pay to replace it.

SHANNAN: So sad.

LEIGH: But I was like, never, never again. I know everyone's probably on the floor right now in horror.

SHANNAN: Horror. Horror.

LEIGH: This was 20 years ago. And we're still friends, but I was very angry at the time.

SHANNAN: Again, this has been so helpful to me. Thank you so much. And I know it is going to be helpful and fun for our listeners. Will, Holly, Leigh, Brigid, thank you for joining me.

[00:45:00] ANNE: For more from our Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next? team, be sure to check out our bonus episodes archive on Patreon, or explore our team members collection there.

We are wrapping up today by sharing a One Great Book bonus episode. In these periodic bonuses, I, or sometimes a member of our team, tell you all about a book I love from my own shelves, usually in about 10 minutes or less. This collection features a range of titles from contemporary fiction to classics, middle grade to nonfiction, genres of all sorts, everything in between.

In the episode we're sharing today, I'm discussing a favorite title that's been recommended and discussed here on What Should I Read Next? several times at this point. That is The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard.

[00:45:46] Hey readers. It's Anne, and I'm here with a bonus of One Great Book. "No one should have to read it for the first time." Perhaps that's not the kind of comment you'd expect to hear about an award-winning novel, one that contemporary writers have referred to as a self-contained masterclass in writing fiction.

For example, Lauren Groff says she reads it once a year, and has for nearly two decades now, because these pages teach her everything she needs to know about writing a novel. And yet, these words were famously spoken by Shirley Hazzard's husband about what is arguably her best novel, The Transit of Venus. No one should have to read it for the first time.

As someone who picked up the book after hearing trusted readers and writers rave about it, I see his point. I picked up my copy several years ago expecting only good things, wholly unaware of her husband's warning. It is true, there is a precipitous amount of foreshadowing in this book.

[00:46:46] In fact, the book's very first line, "By nightfall the headlines would be reporting devastation," is a decent summary of the entire story for the rereader. What's more, Hazzard tells us plainly in the opening pages that one of her characters will die, and how that happens, and yet it means absolutely nothing to the first-time reader, since they are not yet acquainted with the man or any other character.

Perhaps such things are exactly what Hazzard's husband had in mind. I don't know. But for me, the vexation of my first read was that I just didn't get it. I did not understand the story or why it mattered. The writing was gorgeous, sure. Hazzard famously revised each page upwards of 20 times in order to get each word to fall in exactly the right place. She worked on this novel for 10 years, but I was bored. I didn't know what was happening. I could not keep the characters straight, and I didn't even care.

[00:47:40] But then, right about page 75, it clicked, and by the time I reached the spectacular and spectacularly devastating ending, I was ready to flip to the beginning and start again right then, because I knew this time I'd be riveted.

The Transit of Venus takes its title from a rare astronomical event of the same name. In fact, it's one of the rarest astronomical phenomena that can be predicted. A transit is similar to an eclipse, and observed from Earth, it looks like a small black dot on the face of the sun as Venus passes between it and Earth.

The pattern isn't complicated, but it is a little tricky to describe. The complete pattern repeats every 243 years and includes two pairs of transits eight years apart. So there will be a pair of transits, a transit being that eclipse-like passing of Venus in front of the sun, a pair of transits eight years apart, and then a gap of 121 years, and then another pair of transits eight years apart, that time followed by a gap of 105 years.

[00:48:48] If you're listening to this and you didn't observe the last transit, you have missed it for a lifetime. The last transits took place in 2004 and then 2012, and we won't see the next pair, well, no one will see the next pair until 2117 and 2125. It comes as no surprise to hear then that Hazzard's novel is laden with pairs of things: a pair of sisters, a pair of lovers, of sickly sons, of watches and umbrellas that carry great meaning in the story.

This is a story of missed connections, of missing the point, of meeting the right person but at the wrong moment, of not realizing key truths until it is too late. The plot by which Hazzard explores her really philosophy of living, I think, is this. Sisters Caroline and Grace Bell are orphaned in Australia when their parents die in a ferry accident, and they subsequently travel to England to make a new life under the guardianship of their oppressive and soul-crushing half-sister, Dora, which Hazzard based largely on her own mother. That is another story.

[00:49:54] Grace is fair-haired and complacent, pleasing, and soon enough she marries a wealthy bureaucrat who may be smug but is absolutely smitten with her. Caro is dark-haired and independent-minded, and a kind astronomer is smitten with her, but she has already fallen in love with a dashing playwright who is married but so charismatic, Caro fails to recognize how horribly he treats others, including her.

The story follows these characters for decades, well into their middle age, and we see the choices they make and where those choices lead them. All the while, Hazzard is showing us what she believes to be true about romantic and filial love, about the nature of intimacy, and about power dynamics in relationships.

I read this novel for the first time at age 40, and I never had the opportunity to learn what I would have thought of it had I read it for the first time at 18 or 25 or 32. But I do suspect it's one of those novels, like Crossing to Safety, which I love, that is best appreciated at a certain age. Readers, I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

[00:50:59] The novel may not be hospitable to first-time readers of any age, but I sincerely hope and have reason to think that those who persevere will find it worth their while. Not that they will love it necessarily, but that they will appreciate the scope of Hazzard's story and her skill in its telling.

It would be a joy, I mean, a nerdy joy, but a joy, to excavate its pages in a book club or English seminar, to tease out every moment of that foreshadowing we talked about, to explore the meaning of that spectacularly devastating ending for hours.

I do find this is one of those books that is near impossible to adequately discuss without acknowledging the ending aloud, as it colors the meaning of every word in the novel. The first read may not be easy, but many find it to be a hard novel to read only once.

Calvino once defined a classic as a book that is never finished saying what it has to say. Great works not only bear up under, but improve upon repeated rereadings, revealing new things to the reader each time. I think we can safely say The Transit of Venus is one of them, and for that reason, I would call it one great book.

[00:52:09] We started today by quoting Shirley Hazzard's husband, and I'd love to tell you a little about her personal life before I sign off. That personal biography is charming and way more fascinating on first encounter than the first seventy-five pages of The Transit of Venus, if I can say such a thing. I think I can.

That husband I keep quoting is Francis Steegmuller, a novelist himself, as well as a translator of Flaubert, biographer of a handful of French writers, including Jean Cocteau. They met at a party hosted by Muriel Spark that was attended by Shirley Hazzard's numerous friends from The New Yorker, who published her nonfiction for years, which was largely based on her experiences working at the UN, a job incidentally, that she abhorred. She also wrote several nonfiction book-length works about that time in her life that are critical of the UN, but what I want you to imagine here is the circles she was running in.

[00:53:00] Another lifetime close friend was Graham Greene, but she met him in an altogether different manner, far from New York parties. I'm going to quote Hazzard's obituary from The Guardian to tell what happened in an Italian cafe in the late 1960s. "Hazzard was completing the Times crossword while sipping coffee in the Piazzetta, the central square on the isle of Capri one morning, when she recognized a man at the neighboring table as Graham Greene. In the course of conversation, he began to quote a poem by Browning, but stalled at the last line. Hazzard supplied it." The poem was The Lost Mistress. The line, "Or so very little longer," and the ensuing friendship lasted a lifetime. Hazzard even wrote a short memoir called Greene on Capri, which I haven't yet read, but hear from some of the same people who loved Transit, that it is excellent in its own right, and particularly as a window into the rest of her life, her non-writing life.

[00:53:57] Finally, I have to confess the reason Shirley Hazzard has been top of mind for me all summer, and bundle that reason with a book recommendation. When I was in Paris in July, I read Antoine Laurain's new release, An Astronomer in Love, which I just found out the transliterated title would be The Whims of the Stars, which I just love.

This book was translated from the French by Louise Rogers Lalaurie and Megan Jones, and published here in the US on June 27th of this year. But it was published back in early 2022 in France. The transit of Venus sits right at the center of that story. You can even see the astronomical occurrence depicted on its cover.

The novel unfolds in two timelines. In 1760, King Louis XV's astronomer sets sail for India, where he hopes to observe a transit while he can. The conditions have to be perfect, or he'll get one more shot in eight years, and then that's it. He'll be dead before the next one occurs. So 250 years after King Louis XV's astronomer sets sail, in Paris, a real estate agent finds himself in possession of this same astronomer's telescope, which is soon to bring both chaos and new love into his life.

[00:55:08] I talked about reading this book and reading it in Paris, and why it was the perfect book for that leg of our trip, in the recent episode I recorded with Will about our summer travels. That's number 389, and it's called Anne and Will's European Reading Adventures.

Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed this sampler selection of Patreon bonus episodes. A quick heads-up that we're taking next week off before returning to your podcast app with a brand-new episode in the beginning of November. But we will have a brand-new Patreon bonus episode next Friday, so come on over and join us in Patreon if you can't wait for new book talk in your earbuds.

Find the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. And make sure you're following along in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow our show on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext. We love to see what you're reading lately and the titles you've discovered thanks to our show.

[00:56:08] And make sure you're on our email list for regular updates on new episodes, merch, events, and more. 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 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.