A deep dive through a massive TBR

[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

Readers, we know so many of you have already devoured your 2024 Modern Mrs. Darcy Summer Reading Guide. We know you placed all your holds and pre-orders. But if you haven't snagged yours yet, well, it's here, it's available, it is ready and waiting for you. Go to modernmrsdarcy.com/srg.

Now, anyone can get a copy of our Summer Reading Guide. Our patrons and Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club members enjoy it as a perk of those membership communities. And also, we hear you when you say you want an a la carte option. It is available. Modernmrsdarcy.com/srg.

[00:01:16] Now, to financially, sustainably keep us in business during these wild, weird podcasting times, we do greatly appreciate your ongoing patronage, and we help you decide if that's the route you want to go at that page, modernmrsdarcy.com/srg.

We also know that many of you just want to get in, get out with your guide. That's what that a la carte option is for. There's so much good stuff in this year's guide. Thank you for your feedback. So many of you say this is the best yet, which makes us feel so good. Also makes me think, ah, what are we going to do for 2025? But it's just 2024. We don't need to get ahead of ourselves.

What we do need to do is stop and appreciate this year's crop of summer books. This year's guide is packed with backlist titles from our team and also 42 amazing new novels for 2024. From thrillers to family dramas, excellent historical fiction, lots of genre-benders, love stories to midlife reckonings, and a whole lot more besides. Get the lowdown, find out how to get your guide, modernmrsdarcy.com/srg. Thank you so much for your enthusiasm for summer reading and your support.

[00:02:28] Today's guest is a native Parisian. And while many of her neighbors may be excited about the summer's Olympics coming to the city, Corinne Yan has a different kind of Olympic experience in mind. She plans to get out of town and take a road trip to the northern Alps of Italy, as you will hear.

Now, Corinne doesn't love the idea of being stuck in a car, and so she would love great audiobooks to pair with this long drive. We're going to talk today about the titles she might find most suited for this specific trip. We've got lots of options.

But before we do that, we're going to hear about Corinne's dreamy book job. She works as a book restorer at the oldest French public library, the Bibliothèque Mazarine.

Corinne's work allows her to restore a wide range of documents, from 78 CE papyri to Middle Age religious manuscripts to 19th century Napoleon caricatures. And, of course, we need to hear more about all of that today.

Before Corinne and I dive into her summer audiobook selections, we'll also chat about Corinne's To Be Read list, which has more than 1,700 titles on it right now, and how Corinne might be able to balance the occasional reread of beloved books with the intentional pursuit of new-to-her reading experiences.

[00:03:42] This is a good one. Let's get to it.

Corinne, welcome to the show.

CORINNE YAN: Hi, Anne. I'm happy to be here.

ANNE: Oh, the pleasure is mine. Thank you for joining us all the way from Paris to talk books today.

CORINNE: Thank you to welcome me.

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

CORINNE: Yes. Well, first of all, I am French, which you can probably tell by my accent. I live in Paris and my day job is that I am a book conservator, which means that I am responsible for the physical care of books and also a little bit of graphic arts.

My current job is at the Bibliothèque Mazarine, which is the oldest public library in France. It is located in the very center of Paris and it's a few meters from the Seine. I can even see the Louvre from my windows, so it's very central.

[00:04:46] By the way, if you plan on going to Paris, I would highly suggest visiting the library because it is gorgeous, it has big wooden tables, it has green lamps and huge shelves full of old books. And it's just like the movies, like the Beauty and the Beast, I think, kind of library.

The documents that I restore come from different periods in our history. For example, I recently worked on fragments of papyrus that were discovered in the ruins of Herculaneum in the 18th century, after they were burned during the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD, I remember correctly. It's the same eruption as for Pompeii.

I am currently restoring a collection of 19th-century caricatures of Napoleon and I also work on some medieval illuminated manuscripts. So you can see how diverse my work can be. I'm really lucky to be working in such a beautiful place and with such beautiful parts of our history. I never get bored, which is awesome.

[00:06:05] ANNE: Oh, this is giving me pangs because as we were talking before we hit record, I was in Paris last year with my family and we walked right by the Bibliothèque Mazarine, and we didn't know what we were passing up. We'll have to visit next time. The online photos are absolutely gorgeous. What a workplace!

CORINNE: Yes, yes. I discovered that a lot of tourists don't know about our library, which is public. So you can just register and come sit and study. And the visits are free. So it's not like any museums, it's completely free. It's underrated, I think.

ANNE: You have to be in the know to make plans to go. So thank you for enlightening us. Corinne, how did you get into that line of work?

CORINNE: I always loved books as a kid. I wanted to work with books. At the beginning, I wanted to be a librarian. But I also liked doing things with my hands, creating stuff, drawing. One of my hobbies is knitting, for example. So I wanted something that combines the love of books and also arts and also doing stuff with my hands.

[00:07:23] Naturally, I went into an art school where I learned bookbinding. So I'm a bookbinder at first. I know how to build books and also ornate them and gild them. During my studies, I discovered the cultural heritage around and got interested in it because I also love history. So naturally I became a book conservator.

ANNE: Naturally.

CORINNE: Yes. It was very smooth, kind of a natural pathway for my passions and studies.

ANNE: Corinne, what does a typical workday look like? So you go into work on a Tuesday morning.

CORINNE: Yes.

ANNE: What happens next?

CORINNE: Every day is different. And that's why I love my job so much, it's because in the big picture, I do every day the same kind of things. For example, if a paper is torn, I will repair the tear. But every day is different.

[00:08:29] Sometimes I work for weeks and weeks on one book. Sometimes I have this big project that I do with a lot of coworkers and we restore maybe a hundred papers in one day. I also do a lot of formation. I teach my co-workers how to do certain things, how to repair that kind of materials. So yes, every day is kind of different. I don't know if it's...

ANNE: You said you never get bored.

CORINNE: Yes.

ANNE: I can see how that could be a reason why. What happens to these manuscripts when you are done restoring them?

CORINNE: I give them back to my co-workers who store them. Sometimes they can be lended to other institutions, for example, museums in France or elsewhere.

[00:09:30] Today I worked on a little drawing that will go to the Netherlands. Yes, it needed a little bit of dust removal because it was a little bit dusty and we will give it a frame because it will be in an exhibition and then it will go to the Netherlands and then come back, hopefully.

ANNE: Thank you for the glimpse, behind the scenes of the Bibliothèque Mazarine. Corinne, as a Parisian, you have a very specific literary dilemma happening this summer, and I'm excited to get into that. But first, would you give me a picture of what your reading life looks like right now?

CORINNE: Right now, I have a good relationship with reading. I searched myself for a few years when I was a teenager. Because when I was a kid, I read a lot. I loved reading growing up. I spent a lot of time in libraries, and that's why I wanted to become a librarian.

[00:10:39] And then as I grew up and I became a teenager, this reading life slowed down a lot because of school, because of social events, and above all because of the internet. I discovered Facebook and Instagram and it went downhill from there.

My love of reading came back when I signed up on Goodreads in 2012. Thanks to the reading challenge because it helped canalize me. Since then I did nothing but reading in my spare time. Now I read whenever I can. During my commute, when waiting in line at the grocery store, between sets at the gym, and while knitting for example.

I am a mood reader, I think, but I am also an INTP so I love planning. For a few years now, each year I select 80 to 90 books and I put them in a spreadsheet and I sort them with different criteria such as fiction, non-fiction, or if I own it or not.

[00:11:54] I always choose a right balance between the genres that I love and different length and pace. This way, when I'm looking for something to read, I can just pick one up from the list, and depending on my mood, I don't feel lost faced to what seems like an endless to-be-read pile.

ANNE: Thank you for that. I'll keep that in mind. And oh gosh, I love the way you described how you enjoy planning. And it sounds like you really do truly enjoy that as part of the process.

CORINNE: Yes, yes. I usually do it in December at the end of the year, and it's my little treat. When I finish the chore, I go to my computer and I work on my list. Day by day, I see it growing up and I search for where I can find it, if my library has it. And I give myself a certain number of horror books, fantasy books. It's like a puzzle game and I love it.

ANNE: It sounds like you do. I hear that. Corinne, our team laughed when they saw your submission about your Parisian dilemma in this season. Actually, would you tell us more about that now? I mean, we laughed because Paris has been in the global spotlight. And reading your submission, I think we all collectively went, Oh, of course, this makes perfect sense. Tell us more.

[00:13:30] CORINNE: So you know that this year, this summer, Paris is welcoming the Olympics. So I think the world is very thrilled to be watching the competition and the sports. Some people may even come from your listeners. Some of them may even come to Paris to see the show.

But I am on the inside of it and very in it, because, as I said, I live and work in Paris. I work in very central Paris and we are directly impacted by it. It will make everything difficult because some areas will be strictly restricted. The access will be controlled by the police, by different security teams. Overall, if you don't come here to see the games, I think you will have a hard time visiting Paris this year.

[00:14:37] So, like many other Parisians, I plan on fleeing the city, even if our Mayor said that, no, don't flee the city during the summer. But I want to go away from the madness of it, from the crowds to search the quietness of the countryside and read in peace.

ANNE: That sounds lovely. Where do you plan to go?

CORINNE: I'm going on a little road trip with my boyfriend. We are going to northeastern Italy where his grandparents live. They have a little house in a charming village in the mountains of Italy. From there we will stay a week and then go to Germany and then go back to France.

ANNE: Oh, that sounds lovely. Corinne, tell me how reading fits in to your summer plan.

[00:15:42] CORINNE: I'm very happy to go on a road trip because I usually travel with trains or plane and every reader know that it's a big dilemma for books, because I own a Kindle and I love it but I also like my paper books so I can't always take all of them with me.

This time I will. I will fill the trunk with books and at the same time I'm not really fond of being in cars. I don't drive. I don't have a driver's license. I also have bad motion sickness. So when I'm in a car, I can't read, I can't do anything and it's boring.

So I was hoping to get suggestions, to get audiobook suggestions for passing the time while on the road because it's long, it will be long. I can't recall how many hours. I think in total it's more than 15 hours of driving. So it can be long.

[00:16:53] ANNE: I relate to that myself. Don't particularly love to be stuck in the car, but a good book sure does help. Let's see what we can do. And I think to find books that we have good reason to suspect that you will truly enjoy, I mean, you know what we do here. We need to hear about what you love and don't.

Corinne, are you ready to share your books with me?

CORINNE: Yes.

ANNE: You know how this works. You're going to tell me three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately, and we will endeavor to find some audiobooks you can listen to on your upcoming trip. Corinne, how did you choose these today?

CORINNE: I tried to choose books that I would recommend to people and that I have recommended to people. I also wanted to put a French book in the three books I love, just because I think it's one of my favorites, but also for your listeners to have them get a glimpse of French classic literature if they want to.

It wasn't so hard to choose because, yes, it's the books that I always suggest to people.

[00:18:05] ANNE: That sounds like a great way to pick. Corinne, tell me about the first book you love.

CORINNE: The first one would be Stoner by John Williams. Often when people ask what my favorite book is, I want to answer Stoner, but I always struggle to explain exactly why. I don't recall the full story because I've read it a few years back and I have bad memory, but I remember going through all of the feelings while reading it, and it's made its mark on me, in a kind of way.

It's a very simple story. It's the story of William Stoner, who is a humble man with a very simple life. He's a professor. He's married. There is nothing fancy really about his life and even his personality. And it seems a little bit boring when I say it like that, but really it's not. I think if someone described it to me like that, I wouldn't have read it. I don't know why I picked it up in the first place, but I loved it.

[00:19:12] We embark on a journey with him. It's the journey of a life that, yes, may seem boring from the outside, but it was still very worth living. Because even if he experiences disappointment and solitude, there is also a glimpse of love, of hope, a little bit of passion.

I saw that someone spoke about it like it was a perfect book, and I think it is. It was perfect, but it's very hard to describe why. I also read it in French, in translation, and I am curious to read it in English one day because I heard that John Williams' prose was very beautiful, and I am curious to see that.

ANNE: Corinne, I've not read this yet, but your description makes me want to. Thank you for nudging me to bump it on my list. What is the second book you love?

CORINNE: Actually, I cheated for the second one because it is a series. It's the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. This one represents my love for medieval fantasy. The trilogy is engaging, it is fast-paced and epic. I read it on paper the first time and on audio the second time and both times I couldn't put it down or stop it.

[00:20:35] Robin Hobb is very good at creating an immersive setting. You can really feel the life in the world he creates, you can hear the weapons and the soldiers during the battles, you can smell the food in the castle kitchen. It's lively.

There is also great characterization. The cast is interesting and everyone is flawed and often sad. I like to say that the main character is like this fantasy emo kid and they all have nuanced developments. There is romance that is not too romance-y because I'm not into romance, but this one was okay. It's very engaging.

ANNE: This is the kind of cheating I heartily endorse. Thank you for sharing that with us. Corinne, what is the third book you love?

[00:21:31] CORINNE: The third one is The Rougon-Macquart Cycle by Émile Zola. I also cheated for this one because it is a series of 20 novels this time written in the 19th century by a French writer named Émile Zola. It is considered a classic in France and we often study it in high school.

The subtitle of the cycle is A Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire, and it is just as it says. Zola's project was to depict the influence of heredity and how it affects the descendants of one family, the Rougon-Macquart.

His theory was that negative and positive traits are passed down through generations. Each book follows one member of this big family and the setting is different each time.

For example, the most famous one is Germinal and it talks about a coal miner strike in the north of France.

[00:22:37] There is another one named Au Bonheur des Dames, which is about the creation of department stores in Paris, like the Galerie Lafayette, which still exists today.

Another favorite of mine is La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, which follows a young priest in Provence. So it's very diverse and wide.

Zola did a lot of research for his novels, so they are historically accurate. But they are not boring at all. It's still like the Farseer trilogies, engaging you really in it. His descriptions are harsh and they are so realistic that you can really imagine being in the story and in the time and in the minds, for example.

The tone is overall quite depressing because he says that globally social determinism and family traits drive the character's destiny and they can never or rarely escape it. So it's kind of depressing, but still, I would suggest it to someone who would love to dive into French literature. And I think they are translated in English.

[00:23:57] ANNE: Corinne, have you read this whole series?

CORINNE: Yes. Yes, I finished it last year. It was a life project.

ANNE: Tell me about a book that wasn't right for you.

CORINNE: For this one, I chose a book that I finished because usually when I don't like a book, I have no problem abandoning it. So as you can see, I'm not really into light and fluffy books. I like depressing, gloomy stories with sad characters and tragic fates.

So when I first heard of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara I was instantly sold. It's about a group of friends, four friends. They grow up and get older together. They live in New York. We follow their ups and downs. I thought it was about friendship, male friendship particularly, and these friends they all revolve around a central character named Jude. So I was very excited to read it and it was a huge disappointment.

[00:25:07] I can say I hated it. I have no problem saying I hated this book. To this day, I don't know why I didn't abandon it, because it was long. Maybe I was waiting to see if there was something interesting hidden at the end, but the answer was no.

Yes, I am not afraid of difficult topics, on the contrary, but this book was just... I felt it was just plain trauma porn, and I'm not interested in this. The characters they only existed to suffer and they were very dull and unidimensional. There was time when I wanted to shake them because they were boring.

The whole story is also implausible to the point that it became ridiculous. The characters all rise smoothly from the bottom to the top. And in some passages, the novel read like a lifestyle magazine. All of this made that I could not suspend my disbelief for one moment in the whole book.

The book was long and repetitive. I felt like there was no subtlety either because everything was told and not shown, so it was... I felt like a waste of time, of my time. So I hated it.

[00:26:39] ANNE: It sounds like it was not a good fit for you.

CORINNE: No, no.

ANNE: Okay. Now we're not giving specific, you know, writerly requests or instructions, but Corinne, what was this book missing that you thought you would find there that would have made it a worthwhile reading experience based on what you tend to enjoy?

CORINNE: I think it lacked cutting. Because if it was a 200, 300 pages book, maybe I could get over the trauma porn and the lifestyle magazine passages, but really it was very long and repetitive and I couldn't get into it.

But I am not a writer, so I can't really judge a book from the writing perspective, but the trauma dumping served no purpose, really, except for a shock value, I think, a shock factor. Maybe if this shocking scenes were written differently, with more compassion and empathy maybe I would have liked it more.

[00:27:56] ANNE: Interesting. So many readers love this book, and they appreciate spending time in this world with these characters. And what I'm wondering is, was this a place that you might have appreciated a brief trip to, but not an extended stay in?

CORINNE: Yes, exactly. I think a glimpse of it would have been enough.

ANNE: Okay. That's what I'm trying to figure out because it has so many qualities you like and yet it wasn't a fit.

CORINNE: Yes, I was first surprised.

ANNE: Okay. I'm going to hold that theory as we move forward. Corinne, what have you been reading lately?

CORINNE: Lately, I read A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon. And this one I found everything I love in it. It has a diverse cast of characters with great storytelling and a great world-building. It's fantasy, and you can't go wrong with fantasy, I think.

ANNE: You mean you can't go wrong with fantasy.

[00:28:59] CORINNE: Yes, I can't go wrong with fantasy. I also read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. My sister lent it to me and she was praising it so hard that I could not not read it. So I read it and was totally embarked in the story. I loved it because I like multi-generational stories. I am also a big fan of magical realism.

Finally, I recently read Yellow Face. by R. F. Kuang. I was absolutely fascinated by the story, and I read it in almost one sitting. As a Chinese descendant, I related a lot with everything being said, and at the same time I was happy to get to learn more about the publishing world today. I did not suspect it would be like that. It's a very cruel world. Maybe I live in my own bubble, but I thought that being a writer was kind of a dream job, but it appears not.

[00:30:11] ANNE: Well, an ordinary writer's job maybe isn't this tough a fiction.

CORINNE: Yes. And yes, it was really good. I read this one in English and I thought that Kuang's pen was sharp and brutal and also cynical and I loved it.

ANNE: I'm just sitting here smiling. There's so much we could work with here and I'm really excited to dig in. Okay, Corinne, you loved Stoner by John Williams, The Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb, and The Rougon-Macquart Cycle by Émile Zola.

Not for you was A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. And I'm hearing you can't go wrong with fantasy. You like magical realism. Yellow Face wasn't what you expected, but you really, really liked it. And you are looking for really wonderful audiobooks for your future road trip.

Also, you mentioned another little bit of a dilemma you had. Would you tell me about your 1,700 book, TBR?

[00:31:11] CORINNE: Yes. I listen to a lot of book podcasts like yours. And except from romance and young adult, I really like all kinds of books and genres, so I always want to read everything. I also read nonfiction and memoirs.

So when I hear someone speak about a book, there is a 90% chance that I will add it to my want-to-read list. So it became kind of a nightmare because I read one book and I add 10 at the same time and it's... yes, it's too much.

I'm a bit overwhelmed with it. It also stops me from rereading books that I love. I would love to reread books, but every time I'm starting to read a book that I've already read, I feel this guilt when looking at this virtual pile of to-be-read books.

[00:32:09] So, yes, I would love if you could pick books from this endless pile of book that scares me.

ANNE: Do you ever go back and look at it?

CORINNE: Yes, I go back and look at it. I draw my yearly list from it hoping that it would slowly decrease the pile, the pile of shame, I call it.

ANNE: Corinne, we need to find different framing for that.

CORINNE: Yes.

ANNE: I mean, it could be a pile of possibility.

CORINNE: Yes. I recently saw on the internet that some people call it a wine cellar. It's like a wine cellar when you collect wine bottles and you wait for the right time and the right place to open it. I've seen people comparing it with books. But still, I think 1,700 is a little bit too much.

ANNE: 1,700 is a lot of books.

[00:33:13] CORINNE: Yes, it's a lot. Even if I read 100 books per year, which I don't, it would take me 17 years. And it's a lot of years.

ANNE: It is a lot of years. And that's not counting time that you could set aside for rereading some of your favorites.

CORINNE: Yes.

ANNE: What makes you think you might enjoy re...? Now, I'm saying this as someone who loves to reread. But what has you thinking that you may enjoy going back to revisit some books you've already read and loved?

CORINNE: It's because I have a very short memory. I read I think kind of a lot. I read about 80 books a year and I think it's too much because I can't recall what I read two months ago. I can recall the beginning plot and maybe the ending but what's in the middle, I don't know.

My friends all know that I love to read, and when they ask me for something to read, I just can say I loved it, but I can't say why, because I can't recall the story. I can't be taken seriously like that.

[00:34:23] So I would like to revisit books that I know I loved but just can't remember what happened. Like Stoner, for example.

ANNE: Well, you do love to plan ahead. And something that you could do for yourself is think about what... you could start small, three to five, maybe even just one book you want to revisit in the future. I don't know if you want to plan for your fall or for your 2025, but you could try this. You could see what happens. You could see how it feels.

CORINNE: Yes, that's a great idea. I've never think of it.

ANNE: It's an obvious one, so I don't know if there's something you've experimented with. I hope it feels doable. It's something that you could just try and see how it goes.

CORINNE: Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

ANNE: All right, well you did send me your TBR and I scrolled through all of Goodreads and I noticed some really interesting things. Can I share them with you?

CORINNE: Yes.

[00:35:23] ANNE: You had so many of the same authors appear repeatedly. You added the same book in different languages multiple times, like the French edition and the English edition, that you would add four years apart, but they're both on your TBR. So that means that you don't actually have 1,700 books. It's only like 1,689.

CORINNE: That's a relief.

ANNE: And the number of authors is much, much smaller because I saw multiple instances where you have four to seven books by the same author.

I noticed also that over time your taste feels remarkably constant. Do you feel like you still enjoy reading in 2024 some of the books that you really loved reading five, seven years ago? Because I think your TBR indicated that you're still consistently adding the same kinds of books, which is both a good and a bad thing.

If your taste had really evolved, then you could maybe cut your TBR in half really quickly. But also, I thought that constancy was really interesting to see in a reader.

[00:36:35] CORINNE: Yes, I think you're right. I think I never really changed my way of reading and the things I love reading since I was maybe 18, so 10 years ago. Yes, yes, you're right.

ANNE: Can I mention one book, just one, that's not on your TBR?

CORINNE: Yes, yes, of course.

ANNE: The one book that is not currently in that 1,700-book TBR that I kept thinking of when I was reviewing your favorites is by Canadian author Carol Shields. It's called The Stone Diaries. This won the Pulitzer in 1995 for those who care about such things.

And, you know, like right down to the name, The Stone Diaries, it reminds me so much, especially of Stoner by John Williams. This book details the life of Daisy Stone Goodwill, like the title also comes from her last name, like is the case for Stoner. And you follow her over the course of 80-ish years of her life from her eventful birth in a small town in an outlying Canadian province to her death in the state of Florida in the U.S. many, many years later.

[00:37:47] This is supposedly a chronicle of what is explicitly called, but you may or may not agree actually is, an ordinary life. I'm not sure what language you may read this in, but the English edition, and it was originally written in English, has been praised by many for its just beautiful, shimmering prose.

I think it has a lot of the qualities that your favorites evidence you really enjoy. Now, I don't know what has some of those other characteristics. It's definitely a little bit dark, a little bit gloomy, but it doesn't have the fantasy or the magical realism.

It's not particularly adventurous or mysterious like some of your favorites are, but just wanted to put that out there. But I do want to choose some books from your TBR because I think you're choosing really well for yourself.

Also, something I noticed is so many of your reads naturally cluster into certain groupings that just have similar themes that might be fun to read like close to each other. So that's another way that maybe your TBR can feel smaller even if it's still quite a few titles.

[00:38:58] Do you have a sense... like if I asked you, what authors do you think are really strongly represented in your Goodreads TBR, would you be able to toss out some names? I'm wondering how much familiarity you have with what's there or if it truly is just your external reading brain.

CORINNE: Yes, I think it's my external reading brain because when you said that you noticed a few authors that came back a lot, I can't... I don't know. I have no idea.

ANNE: Well, I have the gift of not being in your reading brain. So I have a different perspective, an external perspective when I'm reading your TBR. So I'll share my notes with you. Also, let's focus on a few right now. Can we do that?

CORINNE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. So let's start with a series. You mentioned that you really love fantasy, you can't go wrong with fantasy. I noticed you only added the first book of the series. Shoot, Corinne, now I'm actually giving you potentially three books.

[00:39:56] But you had the book Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James on your TBR. That is the first book in his Dark Star trilogy that is now complete. All the novels are ready and waiting for you.

These stories are immersive and atmospheric. They all are set in the same world but you get very different points of view in each book from different characters in this story.

These three novels follow three characters. They are the tracker, the moon witch, and the boy. And in each novel we get one of those characters' perspectives on what unfolded in this nine-year period and James' world that he's built is really interesting.

He uses African myths and legends as his foundation. He adds these fantastical creatures into the mix and other really imaginative, epic-feeling developments and plot points.

I think you may really enjoy spending time in this world. I think it has a lot of the elements you love. You don't mind the dark, adventurous, epic, mysterious. You're not afraid of long books. This whole series delivered. How is this sounding to you?

CORINNE: That sounds amazing. I can't recall putting it in my list, so that gives you an idea of how a dump of my brain my list is. But it sounds amazing.

ANNE: Hearing it as if for the first time.

CORINNE: Yes.

[00:41:28] ANNE: Okay. I want to surface the work of Daphné du Maurier. Five of her works are on your want-to-read list. And something I noticed is that you've added her works to your want-to-read list at a steady pace, almost one a year since 2019. With the most recent du Maurier you just added that a few months ago.

I would actually recommend... now you could start anywhere. If you look at the du Maurier books you want to read on your TBR and think, yes, that one is jumping out at me, you could certainly jump in. But if you'd appreciate some guidance, I would say start with Rebecca. It's the first one that you added to your list back in 2019.

It was written in the 1930s. It's a classic novel that's well-known by many of our listeners tuning in right now. Something that's interesting about it is I think it also feels really, really fresh. It's full of spine-tingling tension. It'll make you pay attention. You'll want to know what happens next.

I think this could be really good for someone on a road trip that they're maybe, you know, excited about the destination but not so much about the journey. This could be a nice distraction.

[00:42:36] Her approach here is really interesting. Rebecca, our title character, is dead before the action begins. She is the first wife of Mr. de Winter, I believe. I haven't talked about this book in a long time. And his young second wife is our narrator, and we never find out her name.

She does not understand what's happening in this story. She doesn't have a lot of agency in her life for a long time in the book. And the reader doesn't know either. And you slowly begin to wrap your mind around what is really happening in this house, in this family, in this world. And by the time you discover what really happened, you may find yourself to be one of the many readers who feels almost complicit in what happened.

The story begins with a mansion going up in flames. It ends with the discovery as to why. For those looking for a different kind of summer reading experience, there's so much to discuss here like with your fellow readers or in book club. Marriage, the manor home, oh, just some of the characters who do creepy things.

[00:43:48] The narration for the English edition is done by narrator Anna Massey. It's just superb. You have four more du Maurier books on your TBR that I think you may enjoy reading next. Very different stories, similar to varying degrees vibes. How does that sound to you?

CORINNE: Well, I'm so sorry to say that I've read Rebecca.

ANNE: You have!

CORINNE: I have.

ANNE: Look at you, checking off your books!

CORINNE: I have. But I think it's because I've read it in the French edition, so Goodreads didn't get that I've already read it. And maybe it's still on my TBR list for this reason. But I've read it and I absolutely loved it.

I haven't seen the movie by Hitchcock, but I was told that this was a great adaptation. But I loved du Maurier's work. I've read the other one. It's My Cousin Rachel, I think.

ANNE: Is also on your want-to-read list.

CORINNE: Yes, I've read it. But it's the two only books I've read of her.

ANNE: Okay.

CORINNE: I plan on reading more because I like her writing.

[00:44:57] ANNE: Well, you're crossing these off your list. You also have The Birds and Other Stories, Frenchman's Creek, and The Scapegoat on your want-to-read list.

CORINNE: Yes, I will look into it.

ANNE: Well, I'm delighted to hear it. So another author I saw over and over again on your want-to-read list is Barbara Kingsolver. Now before I go any further, have you read more of her works recently?

CORINNE: No, but I have Demon Copperhead on my 2024 list and they have it at my library so I was planning on reading it maybe this summer. And that's the only one I think. I don't recall putting the others on my list.

ANNE: Corinne, the other books on your want-to-read list are Prodigal Summer, which it is the summertime. Now could be time for that story.

You know, we were just talking about Marlon James. This one also incorporates a group of three. She follows three couples over the course of a life-changing summer in Kingsolver's native southern Appalachia.

[00:46:02] The characters are a wildlife biologist who returns to her home county to work. There's a widowed farmer's wife who is feuding with her husband's family. And then we have a pair of neighbors involved in their own ongoing spat. And this is very lush and vivid writing of the natural world, the same way she did in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the same way she does in many of her books, actually. So now could be the right time for many readers to dig into that one.

But also on your TBR were Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Unsheltered, and The Poisonwood Bible.

CORINNE: Yes.

ANNE: Are those still waiting to be read?

CORINNE: Yes. I can remember it now that you said it.

ANNE: Okay, that's so interesting. Can we go back to the fantasy event?

CORINNE: Yes, of course.

ANNE: I noticed you had Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. This is the book that our team member Brenna sent zipping through our team and then through the interwebs.

[00:47:02] This is the book about the killer mermaids or sirens in the deep sea. Do you remember adding this book to your TBR?

CORINNE: I think I do. I can see the cover. I think it's bluish.

ANNE: You may have seen a different edition. My U.S. one is black.

CORINNE: Oh, maybe I don't remember.

ANNE: But this is a book about a deep sea expedition gone terribly, horribly wrong with those killer sirens. The story of human hubris. These scientists set out on the expedition to end all expeditions. They're going to make their discoveries and learn the truth once and for all and the sirens get the better of them.

This book jumped out at me because my family's getting ready to go to the beach, and Will's decided that he's going to read Into the Drowning Deep this year. And at dinner last night, we were talking about this, and my 19-year-old said, "Oh my gosh, do you remember when I read that last year? Do you remember me jumping out of my chair? Do you remember how I had to make myself slow down because I was just skimming so fast, because I had to find out what happened next, because I was so tense? And I had to block off the pages with my hands to make myself read every word. It was so good, Dad." That's how that story ended. So I was just thinking about this.

[00:48:19] But I noticed that you had Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield also on your want-to-read list. Do you remember putting this one on there?

CORINNE: Yes, this one I do.

ANNE: Okay. This is another story of a deep sea expedition gone terribly, horribly wrong. This time, one of the women in a married couple is a scientist. She's supposed to go on a three-week deep-sea dive because there's a malfunction. Instead, she's gone six months, and she comes back changed and her wife is not sure for a long time what happened, what is wrong, but she gets the increasing sense that something is.

So this is a very moody story. It has elements of horror but at the same time, it's very much a portrait of an evolving and perhaps disintegrating relationship. I think it has some of those vibes you like. So it's got a bit of horror fantasy. It's definitely mysterious. You don't mind dark and gloomy. How are you liking the sound of this pairing, either individually or together?

[00:49:31] CORINNE: I like the sound of that. One of my phobias is underwater. I don't know how to swim and I hate the idea that it's dark and there is no light in the deepness of the ocean. But I like confronting my phobias into my reading life because you have this sense of safeness.

Reading is my safe place so I can't risk anything while reading. That's why I like dark and gloomy and even horror books because I know I'm safe here. So maybe I will look into that next. I don't know yet, but it's interesting to have these two together.

ANNE: I thought so. Finally, let's end with something a little bit different. I noticed that you had In Memoriam by Alice Winn on your list. This is historical fiction set during World War I. This feels a little bit coming of age. It's a definite love story. This is the debut novel that begins when two young men are in boarding school.

I remember Anne Helen Peterson sharing on the podcast that she loves stories of pining. And this is definitely a love story full of pining. Both young men end up signing up for war. They go to the front. Their relationship evolves from there. I don't want to give anything away. But we do go from the early dynamics at a British boarding school to battlefield conditions and just the brutality of that setting.

[00:51:12] I wonder if as an archivist you would be interested to know about Alice Winn's history writing this story. She read so many World War I histories and novels and primary sources to be able to write the story authentically. She read Memoirs of [Infantry?] Officers, and then some classics like Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, E.M. Forster's Maurice.

Something else I like about this for you, aside from the like it's longish, it's 400 pages, it has a strong plot, big feelings, you don't mind dark and gloomy, this book is very much about empire and privileged young men, also about forbidden love.

It's told as a narrative, but also much of it unfolds in letters and in articles in the school newspaper, which adds a really interesting component and gives the book a texture that similar books don't have. How does that sound to you?

CORINNE: That sounds great. I love historical books and Forbidden Love.

[00:52:13] ANNE: Well, I'm curious to hear what you think. You gave me so much to work with your TBR. Can I share what else I noticed from your 1,700 books?

CORINNE: Yes, of course.

ANNE: Okay. You had so much Virginie Grimaldi, many titles by Christine Delphy, Katherine Arden, Rebecca Ross. I noticed that you had The City of Brass trilogy. I think you would really enjoy that, along with The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, which I feel like we've talked a lot about on the podcast recently. So it's not on your TBR, but definitely, I think you would be a good fit for that book.

I noticed November Road by Lou Burney, which made me go, Oh, I didn't expect that, but I can kind of see why Corinne might like that. Lots of Agatha Christie-ish mysteries, like those by Ruth Ware. I noticed you had some Greek retellings, like by Jennifer Saint and Pat Parker. Lots of poetry. Christina Rossetti, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks.

You have a lot of good stuff waiting for you, Corinne, if that's how you choose your 2025 reads.

[00:53:21] CORINNE: Yes, my plan in 2025 is to dig deeper in the poetry. I recently bought The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson and haven't started yet, but it's one of the books that I will take with me this summer. So thanks for noticing everything.

ANNE: Well, I can see it. I can see it. And I'm so excited for your summer travels and your summer reading. Corinne, we talked about a lot of books today. We scooted in a new tier TBR potential edition that is The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. We talked about Marlon James' Dark Star trilogy, the works of Daphne du Maurier, some of which you've read, some of which are still waiting for you, Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, and Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. We talked about the works of Barbara Kingsolver and In Memoriam by Alice Winn. Okay, that's several thousand pages of books you could be reading next. What do you think you might?

[00:54:23] CORINNE: I think I will try to find Into the Drowning Deep. I think it's perfect for this summer, something I can dive into, if I may say it. And maybe followed by The Stone Diaries, which was not in my TBR but will soon be in it.

ANNE: Well, I like the sound of that. Corinne, I wish you and your fellow Parisians the best this summer.

CORINNE: Thank you.

ANNE: Whether you be right there at home or in far-flung places escaping the Olympics and all the hubbub and tourists and everything coming to visit this summer. Thanks so much for talking books with me today.

CORINNE: Thank you.

[00:55:07] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Corinne and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Corinne on Goodreads. We've got that link along with the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Follow us on Instagram, we're there @whatshouldireadnext.

Another way to keep up to date with our show that is not algorithm dependent is by subscribing to our email list. Sign up at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

And make sure you're subscribed and actually downloading the show in Overcast, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.