2026 Holiday Gifting Special: our team recommends books for the readers in your life

[00:00:00] BRIGID MISSELHORN: My cousin Brendan said, "Hey, you got to meet my friend Tom. He's a writer." And sure enough, it's Tom Coyne. And I said, "Wait, Brendan, I buy Tom's books for my father-in-law every year." And Brendan says, "I'm in all the books. Didn't you realize that it's me?"

HOLLY WIELKOSZEWSKI: Oh my goodness.

BRIGID: And my cousin, his wife Tricia, and I said, "No, I don't read the books. I just buy them for my father-in-law as gifts."

[00:00:32] 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, and since this is our annual team holiday gifting recommendation episode, you may be lamenting that we don't boss you more on this show. But what we do do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read.

Now, many weeks what we're doing is recommending books to one specific reader and evaluating their reading taste in detail. But today, as we've done every year for a good long time now, we are featuring a range of book gifting requests in our annual holiday gift recommendations episode.

Before we dive in today, if you are looking for bookish goods to gift your favorite reader, or honestly yourself this season, check out the Modern Mrs. Darcy shop and fill your tote. And we have a special sale for that. When you purchase one of our fan-favorite What Should I Read Next? totes and bundle your purchase with another item, you'll take 5% off. Now, that isn't much, but pair your tote with two items for 10% off, or add three or more items to your tote and you will save 15% on your order.

[00:01:52] Readers, we don't put stuff in our shop on sale, so this is a big deal for us, and we hope you find it a great way to add your favorite bookish accessories like book darts, any of our new Ampersand Leuchtturm journal in new custom colors, or a cozy sweatshirt or tee, and save on the whole bundle. No coupon required. The savings are automatically applied when you add the items to your cart.

To take advantage of this special rare offer, please visit modernmrsdarcy.com/shop to check out the offerings and place your order. And we are a small business, and postal delivery times have been slow this season, so please, we would really appreciate your early order, and I bet you would love to get your stuff sooner. Again, that's at modernmrsdarcy.com/shop.

[00:02:40] Okay, readers, over the past few years, we have enjoyed answering listener questions on one of these tough bookish questions: what should you give the fellow readers in your life for the holiday gifting season? Today, we are back with members of our Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next? team to answer a selection of questions received from our Patreon members. Now, we are running this in mid-November for a reason, but we're not recommending books today that you couldn't use any time of year. So, if you hear something that sounds good for later, tuck it away. This is evergreen.

Today, we are tackling your gift requests for everything from the kids in your life to your toughest-to-buy-for family members. And this year we did notice that most of you are shopping for family, and some of you are really stumped. Whether you submitted a gift request or you just like ideas for highly readable, propulsive, and reliable book ideas, I think you'll hear something in today's conversation that is worth making a note of. And if you have a specific request or are on the hunt for something in particular, our community of readers is always ready to help out. Leave a comment on our show notes page at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to get an assist from your fellow readers. Let's get to it.

[00:03:54] Okay, this is the moment where I usually say welcome to the show, but today I am welcoming many of our team members to the show. I am so glad you all are here sharing the mic with me today. So welcome, Brigid, Holly, Shannan, and Will. We're also sharing recommendations today from Leigh and Ginger, who are not joining us live, but are with us in spirit and through their recommendations. Would you all introduce yourselves and share what it is you do around here for our listeners?

BRIGID: Sure thing. Hi, I'm Brigid Misselhorn. I'm the community coordinator here at Team Modern Mrs. Darcy, which basically means I do a lot of different little things on any given day, and it's an absolute delight.

ANNE: That's the biggest understatement. Just a bunch of different little things. The

WILL BOGEL: The emphasis was on lots. It was on lots of different things.

ANNE: Lots and lots and lots.

HOLLY: All right. I'm Holly Wilkoszewski. I'm our media production specialist. And like Brigid, I do a lot of different things here at Team MMD, but I mostly help out with getting our podcast into your podcast feeds, apps, email boxes, all of the places that you listen to it every week, and also with our Patreon community, helping out with customer service and all the things behind the scenes over there.

[00:05:10] SHANNAN MALONE: I'm Shannan Malone, and I'm the Patreon community manager. I am responsible mainly for getting those bonus episodes to you guys in a timely manner.

WILL: I'm Will Bogel. I am the executive producer of the podcast. That's actually how I introduce myself to people because they're always like, "What do you do?" And I'm like, "This is hard to explain." So I worked on things like this, like creating a kind of special episode for this. I also do a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, including mailing all that merch. So thank you for suggesting people place those orders early, because that's me stuffing all the totes and getting them in the mail. Those are some of the things that I do behind the scenes.

ANNE: Team, I'm so glad you are here so that we are drawing on our collective bookish resources as we answer team gifting queries. I almost called them pleas for help. Sometimes it feels like that. Sometimes they are identified like that today.

[00:06:06] So we are diving into a bevy of listener-sourced questions, and what we did this year is ask members of our Patreon community to say, "How can we help you? Please tell us, and we will bring it to What Should I Read Next?" on a holiday season Tuesday. And readers, one of the specific perks that we do say Patreon members get is a peek behind the scenes, insider access, and the ability to participate in special episodes like these. So we are grateful to these patrons and to their requests. And now we are jumping in. Now, William, you said that you, in your role as executive producer, pulled all this together. Are these in any particular order today?

WILL: I meant more like I had the idea and plan for the episode. I'll give credit to Holly. Holly actually pulled this all together, so I don't want to say that I pulled this all together.

HOLLY: It was a team effort.

WILL: Are these in any particular order? It was a team effort, but I'll defer to Holly. What order are these in? How did we come up with these?

[00:07:02] HOLLY: These are not in any particular order. These are in a random order because that's more fun.

WILL: Okay.

ANNE: All right. We are answering listener queries in no particular order, beginning with Laura. Laura says that she loves literary tourism, especially books where she is actually traveling to those places. Her mom is traveling too in this season to come. She's using her newfound retirement freedom to do lots of international travel, and Laura thought she would enjoy doing some preparatory reading. This spring, Laura's mom is traveling to Rome, Florence, and Venice, so Laura is looking for fiction set in these places to help get her mom acquainted, and I'm sure excited for her travels.

I gotta say, this sounds like a dream request, and one that we hear about all the time. I thought, "Oh, well let's see what we wrote about on Modern Mrs Darcy in our ongoing literary tourism series," where we have this ongoing series and have for years where we recommend reads for those who are getting ready to go to a place, or who would like to visit that place from the comfort of their favorite reading spot on the page. But we haven't done Italy yet, so I think Shannan and I have recs today to take Laura away to Rome, Florence, and Venice.

[00:08:14] I'd like to start with an oldie but goodie, and that is E.M. Forster's A Room with a View. This is a classic that is about, among other things, the transformative power of travel. It's set in Surrey in England, and also Florence and the surrounding countryside. So if you have needed an excuse to read this, a trip to Italy could be just the thing to give you a nudge.

Now, Laura said that she was looking for fiction for her mom, but when I hear Rome, I think of Anthony Doerr's memoir, Four Seasons in Rome, and I just pulled it off my shelf to flip through it this morning to think, "Would this be good for Laura's mom?" And I think absolutely, yes. He has this way of writing so evocatively about what he sees through his eyes on the streets of Rome and out his window, that just makes you feel like you are there.

And he wrote this book because he won some kind of fellowship in order to work on the novel, All the Light We Cannot See. And he is there for a year, four seasons, in the city of Rome. He's living there with his wife and two infant twin babies. And sometimes he's sightseeing, sometimes he's buying groceries, sometimes he's tending his sick wife, sometimes he's staring out the window thinking of journal entries to put together to sharpen his writing skills. But I Googled so much Italy when I was reading this. It's written in the present tense, and just feels so immersive and evocative. I feel like Kathleen Kelly, "Read it. Read it, Laura's mom. I know you'll love it."

[00:09:46] Also, I think sometimes the right book is one that we think we might have read anyway, or have been meaning to read, but we just needed a nudge and maybe didn't realize it fit our yearnings in the season. And I wonder if many readers will feel that way about Maeve Binchy's Evening Class. It's a 1996 novel that is set largely in Ireland, but also in Rome. I read it after a podcast guest named it as one of her favorites. I've been meaning to read it for 20 years.

But it's about this group of Dublin strangers from all walks of life who are brought together by an interest in Italian, and they take lessons at a maiden voyage, a trial balloon, for a local school's adult education class. So they come together to learn Italian, and they all have their different reasons, but long story short, they do it, and then they go to Rome, and then they have adventures. Let's see. I think that's a good place to get started with Italian novels. Okay, Shannan, what do you think?

[00:10:45] SHANNAN: I was just going to add Every Time We Say Goodbye by Natalie Jenner. This is the third book set in the Jane Austen Society universe, and it follows the bookshop girl Vivien Lowry to Rome, where she takes a job as a script doctor. While there, she gets a chance to uncover what happened to her deceased fiancé during the war. It's very immersive in Rome. I also did a lot of Googling, like, did this happen, where is this place, so on and so forth. And I think it will serve Laura's mom quite nicely.

ANNE: That sounds great. Thank you. Next we have Amanda, who lives in Michigan near the shores of Lake Michigan. Amanda says that she would love to find books for her 11-year-old son, who loves video games and LEGOs. He's a big fan of the Wild Robot series and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and he also enjoys reading nonfiction books about any topic that interests him. He recently started reading a book about cat breeds, but she's thinking that he would probably love a long series, although a single book would be great, too. Amanda says Will has ADHD, so a book that has that representation would be a bonus. Okay, Shannan, microphone back to you. What do you think?

[00:12:07] SHANNAN: Okay, the Buddy Man who I have mentioned in all the spaces of MMD, this is my son, he just turned 12. He is not a reader, much to my shame.

ANNE: This is a shame-free space, Shannan.

SHANNAN: I did. I did.

ANNE: But sometimes it's like group therapy also.

SHANNAN: Yes, yes. Okay.

ANNE: Though we are unlicensed. We should make that very clear.

SHANNAN: But when he does read, he reads the Wimpy Kid series. He loves it. He actually went and bought his own copy of a book in the neighborhood when they were selling. I was so proud. But what I am actually recommending is New Kid by Jerry Craft. It is a series. It is a graphic novel. What drew my attention to it is that Jeff Kinney, the author of the Wimpy Kid, loved it and said it was funny, sharp, and totally real. Buddy Man really enjoyed it and asked me to get the second book. Has he read it? No. But he did request it.

ANNE: That's relatable.

[00:13:21] WILL: All right. Well, I want to say hi to Will. One Will to another. Hang onto that. Don't let anybody call you Bill. And just want to say, yeah, I remember this phase. We actually have a whole shelf of nice kinda middle-grade readers that our youngest really enjoyed, one of which we keep getting in the mail, right? So City Spies from James Ponti. I think he jumped on this when there was maybe one or two books, and of course, books get published a lot slower than kids grow up. And so they keep sending us review copies, and I'm like, "Well, he's not going to read this," but really did enjoy that series at the time, and there are now probably six books or something like that. So would be a long series that Will could jump into.

And then also, and again, this was a little while ago, and I do mix up, like, how old was my kid when he read this thing? But we're also big fans of Big Nate in our household. That's the Lincoln Peirce series. But he has a second series called Max & the Midknights. I think this actually would be a great one for Will. It gives you a little bit of history stories. Sorry, Midknights being knights with a K. But also just a lot of fun and kind of silly like the Wimpy Kid series.

[00:14:40] ANNE: Maybe worth saying is that I was surprised that when we brought the Big Nate kids into our home for our youngest child, our older daughter, who is a really strong reader, just noticed them lying around, thought, "These look fun and silly," and just dove through the series.

BRIGID: Oh, I love that. My kids when I mentioned this question said Max & the Midknights was a perfect pick, Will. So you're right on with the age. I have a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old, and-

ANNE: Man, when you get the kids' seal of approval, you're doing it right.

BRIGID: So we kind of got a little bit of bonus recommenders, as Holly called them earlier. But I read them this request and for Will, and they both immediately said, almost in unison, the Percy Jackson series. Now, this may seem obvious, but if he hasn't read it yet, that is a great one. It's very long. And Percy has both ADHD and dyslexia, so there's a bit of rep there. And I think it would be really fun to pair it with a nonfiction book since he's enjoying those. I would especially recommend the Greeking Out book series. It's by National Geographic. It's inspired by their podcast that goes with it. So that would be a really fun gift to give together.

[00:15:57] And since he's interested in cat breeds, they both also mentioned the Warrior series, which is a bit older, but it is still super popular. I was volunteering at the book fair the other day, and those were flying off the shelf for the third and fourth graders.

WILL: Actually, if we're going to pair nonfiction there with Percy Jackson, D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths would also be a really good one, that's a little more like the classic Greek myth stories as opposed to Percy Jackson, which is sort of playing with that idea. That's one that our kids read. It's one I keep looking at on the shelf occasionally where I'm like, "Oh, would I learn more about what's happening in my adult novels if I studied up on these Greek myths?" But that could be a fun one for him too.

SHANNAN: That is a great idea. I don't know why I haven't thought of that, Will.

[00:16:49] ANNE: I love it. Thanks, y'all. Next, we have an anonymous submission. Here we go. Stumped in Texas needs help with recommendations for her 88-year-old father-in-law. She says he reads constantly, but mostly online, and she is looking for nonfiction books. Last year, she gave him 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin and The Power Broker by Robert Caro, and both of those were successes. So do we have any engineering, finance, or American history books that are nonfiction because he is nonfiction all the time to help her repeat last year's success? What do we got, team?

WILL: I have one here from Ginger. She wanted to make sure that we got this one in. She was talking about The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. This is what Ginger had to say about that. She's reading it right now for a personal book club, and it's about a period of history she doesn't know much about. After the Civil War, a group of thinkers called the Metaphysical Club met for less than a year, and yet the reverberations are still being felt today. The story of ideas is really the story of their biographies, including US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and psychologist William James, as well as other friends and influences like Ralph Waldo Emerson and other names you'd recognize.

[00:18:13] What they witnessed in the war and its political precursors and aftermath influenced them and, in turn, the policies they set in motion. Bonus, Menand, the author, has an excellent writing style, blending history with wry humor and an ability to find the really relatable bits, like an amusing string of diary entries by Holmes agonizing for months on end about whether or not to resign. I've never heard of this book, but Ginger and I actually share a lot of nonfiction recommendations, and so I trust her on this, and I will actually be checking out The Metaphysical Club myself.

HOLLY: I will hop in with two of my most anticipated nonfiction reads. I definitely share this area of reading interest, both for myself and also for some of the dads and people in my life that I gift for. Two that are on my radar that might work here are Nathaniel Philbrick's The Rush, which is all about the California Gold Rush. I feel like this is a space in American history that I know some about and there's been a lot of fiction about, but a really good, meaty nonfiction take, and Nathaniel Philbrick is one. He does this so well. So that is definitely one I would share.

[00:19:20] And then also Craig Fehrman's This Vast Enterprise. This considers the story of Lewis and Clark from different angles. I know Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage is perhaps one of the all-time books for this style of reader, and I'm excited to see how This Vast Enterprise looks at this story from a fresh take, given that it's just such a significant slice of American history. So those are two I would put on radar for Stumped in Texas.

ANNE: That sounds good. Thank you, Holly. Next, we have a query from Judith, who lives in Toronto with her 17-year-old son. "He's a lifelong reader," Judith says, "but he sounds like what I would call a supply-side reader. He does not tend to read unless something good is handed to him." So Judith is asking us to help her do just that, to hand him something to his taste. She says her son is into music, sports, and comedy. He loves thrillers and is okay with some horror elements in his books. He enjoyed Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, Where the Crawdads Sing, and recently a Freida McFadden thriller. Okay, team, what do we got?

[00:20:26] SHANNAN: Well, I would be remiss if I did not recommend The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb, which follows a young violinist that's in the Tchaikovsky Competition, which is the Olympics of classical music. Before the competition, his violin is stolen. "Who stole it?" will keep you turning the pages. Anne, would you say this is a thriller or a mystery or somewhere in between?

ANNE: Ooh, I don't know. I was busy envisioning that iconic scene. I feel like it earns iconic, which is a big word, where he goes to take his violin case out of the overhead bin and the priceless Strad has been replaced with a pair of Chuck Taylors and a ransom note. It's mystery with some thrillery.

SHANNAN: Mystery, yeah. I would say there is a little more thrillery elements than just completely mystery. And the musical numbers discussed should have him loading up his music player, which is what I did. So check that out, see if he's interested. I really wanted to recommend this also because Judith's son likes Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, and Brendan Slocumb is also an African American male, and that diversity in the story is a very important part, and I think her son would enjoy it.

[00:21:51] BRIGID: I totally co-sign on that book. I love that book. It is one of the best. Definitely a page-turner for me. I'm going to add in one that's on my own TBR, I feel like this is very timely, and especially because Judith's son is into country music and thrillers, is Run Rose Run. That is the book that was written by Dolly Parton and James Patterson. Now, I don't know if he likes audiobooks, but I have heard that Dolly herself narrates a portion like a character in the audiobook, so that's something to keep in mind if he has interest in audiobook versions. But knowing James Patterson, this is going to be a page-turner no matter what.

And then one that I have read and loved, which to me feels very cinematic, it was recommended by Donna, it's called Going Zero by Anthony McCarten. The best way to explain it is kind of a running man game show-type feel where people are competing, but it's much more timely and futuristic, and it is... talk about a page-turner. So that's Going Zero by Anthony McCarten.

[00:22:59] ANNE: Well, I also read Going Zero on Donna's recommendation, and think about that book once a week.

BRIGID: Right?

ANNE: Yeah.

BRIGID: It has stuck with me, and some of the characters especially. And it does some twisty stuff too, which is fun.

ANNE: Which is fun. Okay, quick hits for me are Colin Jost's memoir, A Very Punchable Face, and that one specifically because more than half of my household members read it, and loved it-

WILL: We did. We loved it.

ANNE: ...in various formats. But also, depending on what kind of comedy your son is into, many SNL cast members and comedians, past and present, have memoirs, that if there's a comedian he's interested in, maybe they have a memoir, whether it's like a 30, 40, 50-year-old one, or whether it's a current comedian with a Netflix special.

Also, Rick Rubin's book, The Creative Act, speaks to creativity of many kinds, and maybe many buckets of your son's interest. Also, for a novel, What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown is a thriller that asks big questions. It's an Alex Award winner, which means the American Library Association said in the year it was published, I think 2025, this is a novel written for the adult market that is of special interest to teen readers. And it's about an isolated teenager who grows up just with her father in Montana. He used to be a tech developer in Silicon Valley. Now he's a Luddite. He thinks technology is evil. He wants to save the world from it.

[00:24:30] I wasn't overly familiar with the story of the Unabomber, so it took me a long time to realize that was the inspiration for this story. But this teenager gets implicated in her father's scheme to send a message to the world, and then she takes off for San Francisco to kind of redeem herself/make her own way. He may find it interesting.

Next, a longtime listener from Ohio is looking for help to solve a mystery, and that is she's looking for sports books for her father. He really likes sports books of all kinds, whether they're fiction or nonfiction. For example, he loved the YA mystery series, The Sports Beat by John Feinstein, although he didn't love Mike Lupica. Other clues to help find the right books for this reader, he's not interested in romance, foul language, or long books. She says keeping it in the 250-to-350-page range would be helpful.

[00:25:27] Our team had a lot to say about potential avenues of exploration for this Ohio reader. I will begin by sharing one that Leigh and I both wanted to bring to this Ohio reader, and that is There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib. This was in the Modern Mrs Darcy Summer Reading Guide several years ago. And in Leigh's words, she says, "This is some of the finest writing about what it's like to be a sports fan generally, but specifically a basketball fan," that she's ever encountered. And William, would you share Leigh's other recommendations with us?

WILL: Yeah. She had another basketball recommendation, The Sixth Man by Andre Iguodala. She says this is a fantastic basketball memoir. She really appreciated learning more about Iguodala's career and the way he shared the way colleges exploit their athletes, the physical cost of playing, and the toll of systemic racism. She thought it was a good balance between the love of the game and the reality of the players.

[00:26:22] This question, I am impressed with us because I don't think our team is really sports ball fans. We actually laugh about the sports ball part, right? Because we do a lot of sports, right? Shannan and I are into cycling, and she watches Formula One.

SHANNAN: Formula One.

WILL: Yeah. Holly and I do a lot of like... you know, follow the outdoorsy sports. But Leigh coming in hot with the book recommendations. She's got two books by Keith O'Brien. The first one is Heartland: A Forgotten Place, An Impossible Dream, and The Miracle of Larry Bird. So this covers Larry Bird and his time playing for the Indiana State Sycamores and their 1979 NCAA finals showdown with Magic Johnson and Michigan State. And then O'Brien's second book, which for an Ohio reader, if your dad's up in that area as well, this might be a great one, is Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose and the Last Glory Days of Baseball. Leigh says, "Whether you love or hate Pete Rose, this is an astounding account of his career and downfall." Actually, I've been meaning to read that one, because I, yeah, interested in. I was there right at the end of the tail end of his career.

[00:27:31] ANNE: I was not there, but I read that one, and wow, it was a doozy.

WILL: A doozy, yeah.

ANNE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

BRIGID: And Will was not wrong because also both Ginger and myself have more sports recommendations. Now, Ginger wanted to make sure to recommend Lane Being Lane. This is a new book that's just out this fall, so maybe your dad hasn't even seen it around. But Ginger says, "It's by sports journalist John Talty. Lane Kiffin is one of the most polarizing figures in college football, and if your father is a sports fan, he will likely has an opinion about Lane Kiffin's career and persona and might enjoy reading this one."

For myself, my ears perked up with sports mysteries, and especially there was a mention of golf and baseball. I love a mystery. And one of my favorites of the summer, I think I talked about this in our team's best books of the summer, was Get Lost by Justin Halpern. It's about a former baseball player and his estranged daughter who happens to be a baseball scout, and they are searching for her missing mother because her former baseball player father has been arrested for her disappearance. I thought that one was just fabulous. There is a teeny bit of foul language in it, I will warn, but not much at all.

[00:28:59] And then the second is one I literally started yesterday. It's a classic by the queen, mystery queen herself, and that's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie. It literally starts on a golf course, and there's much talk of the links and other aspects of golfing that I think you might enjoy. And speaking of golf, I have a really great recommendation of basically any Tom Coyne's nonfiction golf books. I have been giving these to my own father-in-law for years. And funnily enough, was visiting family in Pennsylvania when my cousin Brendan said, "Hey, you gotta meet my friend Tom. He's a writer." And sure enough, it's Tom Coyne. And I said, "Wait, Brendan. I buy Tom's books for my father-in-law every year." And Brendan says, "I'm in all the books. Didn't you realize that it's me?"

HOLLY: Oh my goodness.

BRIGID: ...My cousin, his wife Trisha, and I said, "No, I don't read the books. I just buy them for my father-in-law as gifts." So now we have this really great connection with Tom Coyne, who is often very kind enough to write a little special note to my father-in-law. But his books are super fun, and there is a new show coming out based on the course called Ireland, featuring Tom's time golfing in Ireland with Bill Murray. So lots of fun to be had there.

[00:30:31] WILL: That is a great recommendation.

BRIGID: Can you believe that? For years I was buying these books and had no clue.

ANNE: That's so fun. Also, I was not expecting Agatha Christie to show up in this part of the conversation.

BRIGID: Right? It is so good. And it's funny Agatha Christie, which is rare. So highly recommend. And it has also a television adaptation if your father ends up liking that as well.

ANNE: Next we have Sarah from New Zealand seeking sci-fi. She gives her brother a sci-fi book every year, and she feels like she's done really well in the past because she also loves sci-fi and can vet her picks in advance. Previous winners for her brother have been The Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson, Upgrade by Blake Crouch, and I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. He has read a lot of Pratchett, all of Lee Child, The Expanse series, and some Adrian Tchaikovsky. He likes deep-thinking books, the ones that are more thoughtful. She specifically says Dungeon Crawler Carl might be too kooky for her brother. Her main problem is that she's not been in the head space this year to read these big, deep sci-fi books, and she's personally been leaning heavily into the cozy and cute, but that's not going to work for her brother. So, team, what can we bring to Sarah?

[00:31:48] HOLLY: All right, I've got some suggestions for Sarah for sure. First of all, I think that Seek the Traitor's Son by Veronica Roth could be a great pick. This is a sci-fi tome that deals with a lot of heavy topics and deep questions, but it is also fun. It has a romance, but it's a subplot. I think it's one of the better new sci-fi epic tales that has been out recently. So I definitely would put that on the radar.

Also, this isn't quite sci-fi. I would put this more in the speculative space, but it does ask some interesting questions. This is a recent title I enjoyed from an Australian author. It's called Arborescence by Rhett Davis. This explores a world in which people start to suddenly and voluntarily root themself into the earth and turn into trees. And why they are doing this and why this is happening and what happens next is all part of the story. So that is one I would definitely suggest.

[00:32:46] Finally, just a couple quick hits. If you love The Expanse series, The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed is exactly scratching that itch while also being a very different story. This is set on a generation ship. It has a mystery. It has class dynamics. There's a lot going on here. It's very cinematically written. I could practically see it being optioned immediately for some sort of a streaming series. And there is a sequel coming out in the coming year.

Then lastly, something that's a bit more in the weird science fiction space, Sascha Stronach's The Dawnhounds and its sequel might fit this crossover space really well and features New Zealand in so many different ways. So those are a few titles that I would definitely suggest Sarah check out if those are not yet ones that he has read.

WILL: I have a question about Arborescence. Did you say they involuntarily plant those trees?

HOLLY: Voluntarily.

WILL: Oh. Suddenly involuntary.

HOLLY: Yes.

WILL: They choose this.

[00:33:45] HOLLY: They choose this, and that choice is very-

WILL: I'm very curious.

HOLLY: That choice is very discussable in society. People have a lot of opinions, as you might imagine.

WILL: I like that one.

ANNE: Thank you, Holly. I'm also wondering about some of the big literary sci-fi and speculative novels out this year, especially this fall. We've talked about Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel and Understory by Chloe Benjamin in Fall Book Preview. I also wonder about Monsters of Ohio just out from John Scalzi, who has a reputation for writing those big question-wrestling books. That one is just out on November 3rd, and I haven't read it yet, but I really like Scalzi, though I am saying that as someone who reads far less in these spaces than, say, Holly or Shannan do.

[00:34:35] But I'm intrigued by what he said about this one and how he wrote it in 2025 and very early 2026, and it is inspired by our times here and now in the United States. And in his book, the people, like the ordinary people, including the ordinary people of this fictional but based on the place he lives, small town in Ohio, they are so stressed out by what's happening in the world and in their nation, their state, their city, that they turn into monsters. And that's a whole problem. But he says the story is ultimately hopeful as once the monsters come into being in regular, ordinary Ohio, the community has to come together in order to save itself.

And I'm definitely... Well, you know, I guess the real question is what Sarah from New Zealand is up for right now, but I know many readers are asking, "But will it leave me in a puddle on the floor, or will it leave me with a sense of hope about the books they're turning to or looking to gift this season?" So I hope that is helpful.

[00:35:39] Next we have Zippy Turner, a What Should I Read Next? alum, which is how we refer to our past guests. Zippy is looking to help rehab her mom's reading habit, which stalled a bit following a surgery. Some books her mom has loved are The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, The Oak of Golden by Ellen Levi. In addition to historical fiction, she also enjoys nonfiction and biographies such as The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World by A. J. Baime. One book that did not work for Zippy's mom was The Names by Florence Knapp. Zippy asks if we have something that will pull her mother in from the start and doesn't deal in too heavy a subject or isn't too long. Something warm and hopeful would be perfect.

[00:36:25] Okay, Zippy, I can't help but notice that two authors your mother has enjoyed in the past have new books out that do feel like they at least partially check those boxes your mom is looking for. Whistler by Ann Patchett, warm and hopeful. Yes, yes. Draw her in from the start. I think so. I hope so. And American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee does go to some difficult places, but there is much warmth and hope in it.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans also sounds promising for her. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson is a series that I think she could get lost in. And Zippy, I know that you asked specifically for fiction, but I have found myself recommending Ann Hood's memoir, Fly Girl, that came out a few years ago to many readers who've enjoyed the same kind of books your mom has enjoyed of late. This is her memoir of the time she spent working as, they called them stewardesses back then, for a commercial airline, and it's just filled with stories about her time in the air. And I wonder if that would pull your mom in and take her away to an interesting place, and perhaps one she's not visiting in the pages of her books often these days. Brigid, I know you have an idea.

[00:37:40] BRIGID: I do, especially once I read, "Not too heavy, not too long, warm and hopeful," I immediately thought of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower. This has been so popular this year, and I just think they're so beautifully little printed. It would make the perfect little gift, a stack of them. The first one's very short. It would be easy to get pulled in right from the start, especially since she likes historical fiction.

ANNE: That sounds good. Thank you. Next, we have Jackie, a lifelong reader of all the genres, who is looking for fantasy audiobooks for her husband, who has recently, finally, she says, "gotten back into reading". And he did this two years ago when audiobooks became necessary for a long commute. He became a Brandon Sanderson completist and is making his way through the Robin Hobb series. He also has enjoyed Joe Abercrombie's The Devils and Pierce Brown's Red Rising. Jackie is looking for fantasy series that are great on audio that he can really dive into.

[00:38:43] BRIGID: Oh, I've got a great recommendation here because I, too, got into long fantasy audiobooks when I had a commute years and years ago, and that started with the Game of Thrones series. That's what I was listening to at the time. But ones that I would recommend for Jackie's husband are The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty. This one is so fun. It's got a retired pirate, gets pulled in for one last job in a fantasy version of the Indian Ocean. I thought it was fabulous.

It is part of a series. The first two are available. I remember starting the audio, and it does something so uniquely fun just a few minutes in that I paused it, and I sent Anne a message right away and said, "Anne, you got to listen to this because I've never heard an audiobook do this before." So that's a great one.

[00:39:43] And then I would also recommend the Legendborn Cycle by Tracy Deonn. This starts with Legendborn. It is set in more of a modern time period in North Carolina. But instead of just a normal UNC campus, there are Knights of Arthur's Round Table involved, and all of the types of creatures and mages that you would find there. And the world that Tracy Deonn has built in the Legendborn Cycle is just very intriguing and has a lot to do with our modern life as well.

Lastly, I have to throw in one of my very favorites. That's Murderbot by Martha Wells. This is more sci-fi of course, but it is a great series. It's fantabulous, if I can say on audio, read by Kevin R. Free. She also has a backlist of fantasy novels, which I have not read myself, but he might enjoy. I have a blog post over on Modern Mrs. Darcy all about science fiction and fantasy audiobooks that include these and have some others as well, in case you want to check those out. We will make sure to link it.

[00:40:57] HOLLY: Awesome. Brigid, you make me want to go back and listen to the Legendborn series on audio now. It's so good.

BRIGID: It's so good. It is so good.

HOLLY: Well, I don't do a lot of audiobook reading in this space, but I have a few that I think might work really well, so I'm going to throw these out there for consideration. One is... it's actually a pick from team member Leigh from a few years ago. This is Ilona Andrews' This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me. This is an act, fantastic immersive world-building fantasy novel, and the audio edition is narrated by Kristen Sieh, who has a really extensive catalog of audio narration work, including a lot of really well-known titles. So I think that's a great argument in its favor.

If that series works well, Andrews has a huge back list of titles, including their Kate Daniels urban fantasy series. And most of those works are abridged in audio, but feature full cast dramatized narration. And I know that's a way that I really enjoy listening to a story like this. So I would put those two titles on Jackie's list of considerations for fantasy audiobooks.

[00:42:02] ANNE: All right. I love this one. Another mother is looking for books for her son. In this case, Brooke from Massachusetts is looking for recommendations for her college senior who aspires to write or possibly work in publishing. He has eclectic tastes and love things that are surprising or out of the ordinary. So she says possibly something with an interesting or unusual literary structure. Past favorites include The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl, and Capote's Women by Laurence Leamer.

Given his interests, I thought immediately of Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia that came out a few years back. I have a lot of respect for Moreno-Garcia as a novelist. She writes just wildly ambitious stories in every genre that just make me think, "How did she come up with that?" This thriller is unique. It's darkly funny. It's set in 1990s Mexico City. And I will say in this book, I almost said in this film, movies are magic and cast spells, and there is a pair of childhood friends who get themselves into some deep, deep trouble when they get persuaded to help a legendary director complete an unfinished horror film from the '30s, the script for which was written by a Nazi occultist. And it gets dark and deadly, but they're going to find their way through.

[00:43:37] Also, in Brooke's longer message to us, she mentioned that her son loved strategy-based board games, and that made me think of Tiger's Mouth by Lucy Tan. This book is just out this September. It's a literary novel, and it's about two fast friends who become rivals and then something like enemies after a deep betrayal. So when these two protagonists meet, their names are Jack Chen and Jack Owens, both named Jack. It's not confusing, because they go by their last names throughout practically the entire book. But they both get this highly competitive internship at a tech company, and one is the founder billionaire's son, and the other is a real hustler, bootstrapper son of caterers from Queens. She's coming on the podcast. You'll get to hear that episode.

What I want to tell you now is that the ancient Chinese strategy game of Go, which is often described as more difficult, more complex than chess, features prominently in this book. It's the place where the title Tiger's Mouth comes from. It's discussed at length. Some of the maneuvers are appearing in the pages. You hear the characters think through what they want their moves to be and why, and what they like about the game. I wonder if that'll be a fun in for him to a book that doesn't seem unlike his taste, but also doesn't replicate any of the books that you specifically mentioned that he loved, Brooke.

[00:45:04] HOLLY: I'm going to jump in with just a real quick recommendation here for a unique structure. And this is Helm by Sarah Hall. This was one of my best books of the summer, or maybe my more best books of the summer, but in any case, it was a best book for me. And this follows a named wind in the United Kingdom. It's narrated through multiple periods of time. The wind is personified and has this incredible voice. I don't want to say too much about it because it's so unique, but it is fun, and I think it could be a great pick.

BRIGID: That does sound fun. I've had that one on my list since you've been talking about it, Holly. I might need to buy it for myself for a gift. I wanted to jump in for Brooke's son with a great, like Thursday Next comp since you mentioned he loved that series. I recently read The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer, and the main character, Rainy March, is from a family of book witches who travel in and out of literary tales using magical umbrellas and dots on the page of a book to save the books from evil forces. It takes a lot of interesting twists in real, actual famous books, especially those that are in the public domain, I think. And it's perfect for an aspiring writer or someone who wants to work in publishing. I guess I would say think like Thursday Next mixed with Mary Poppins meets the old television show Quantum Leap. It's a lot of fun.

[00:46:33] ANNE: Quantum Leap keeps coming up in conversation lately, and it always brings a big smile to my face when it does. Lisa says she has what might be a tough request for us. She says she spent years choosing books that help each family member in her family feel seen, but this year she is looking for one story they can all share. And she knows this could be hard, but she says, "I'm looking to do something new this year, and will need one book recommendation for my family to read together."

Here's the family. Her oldest daughter loves books with social justice themes that teach her something. One of her favorites is Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Her husband loves sports and music, and enjoyed Phish: The Biography by Parke Puterbaugh. Her middle daughter enjoys a variety of books. Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino was a good match. Her husband introduced me to short stories, and likes Raymond Carver. The youngest, Lisa's son, loves cooking and learning about food cultures. Notes From a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi was perfect for him. His girlfriend enjoys contemporary fiction, including The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Lisa asks, "Could you recommend something fast-paced and funny, matched to all their tastes, and centered on social justice?" She forgot to share everyone in her family loves to laugh. Her husband is the outlier. She says, "He laughs, but he doesn't really read, but he listens to music while we do," and she tells him little chapter summaries so he can still participate in the conversation. All right, one book for all these disparate readers. Brigid, I hear you have an idea.

[00:48:08] BRIGID: Yeah. I have two, maybe possibly three, but the first one may seem a little obvious, or it's been around a lot this year. And that's Project Hail Mary. It really does fit that funny, fast-paced. It's got a musical quality to it, especially on audio, that maybe her husband would like. But I think it would have something for everybody, because it just is a wonderful, wonderful story. If they wanted to go darker though, I did think of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, because it fits a lot of those social justice, and it's also fast-paced and darkly funny. So that may work, and is highly discussable for them to get to enjoy reading and chatting about after.

ANNE: I'm really excited about this idea. Lisa, I wonder what you're going to think, but I think Louise Erdrich's 2021 novel, The Sentence, checks all your boxes. This is contemporary, realistic, literary fiction that Louise Erdrich wrote in real time. She said that she made several runs at thinking, "I've always wanted to write a ghost story. This is going to be my ghost story set in a bookstore." Bookstores already feel like haunted places because we're surrounded by voices from the past and present, and I guess future, if you want to talk about the different genres. But the bookstore seemed haunted.

[00:49:35] She was going to write a ghost story. She sat down to write it over the course of one year in real time in November 2019, and y'all, we know what happened in the year that began November 2019, so the story became something else. Or how about something different than Louise Erdrich envisioned? But before we get to the something else, what I want you to know about this book is our protagonist is a woman named Tookie. We hear from Tookie in the first person beginning with the opening lines, which were, "While in prison, I received a dictionary. It was sent to me with a note, 'This is the book I would take to a deserted island.'"

In the first 20 pages, we find out that Tookie has landed in prison for committing this ridiculous crime, the details of which sound almost slapstick. Like, it's unexpected. Tookie is a winning character. Tookie is a woman who has endured some things, she's seen some things, and she has either been born with or emerged with a deeply funny, dark, but deeply funny sense of humor.

[00:50:45] So I know that checks one of your family members, maybe all of your family members’ boxes. But Tookie falls in love with books in prison. Tookie gets her sentence commuted, and ends up working upon release at... it's never named, but Louise Erdrich's bookstore in Minneapolis, Birchbark Books. Shortly after, Tookie's most annoying customer dies. This customer, who died on All Souls' Day, returns to the bookstore to haunt specifically Tookie. Then things get serious, and things get dark, and there are reckonings on many levels that happen in this story, and there are hauntings that happen on many levels. So for anybody looking for a deep literary read that you could read a dozen times and see new things in the story every time, this could be your book. But for someone who wants to laugh with Tookie and who can handle the ghostly parts, this could also be your book.

[00:51:41] ANNE: But let me go through your checklist, Lisa. You've got your social justice themes. You've got the books that teach you something. You've got a nice variety. You have book mentions galore in my mind. Short stories, genres of all kinds that readers in your family are going to notice perhaps connection points. Cooking and learning about food cultures, oh, my. The discussions about Native American food and food cultures and recipes and food preparations in this book are copious. And contemporary fiction, you got it. Love to laugh, plenty to talk about, fast-paced, funny. Not only funny, but funny. I hope this sounds good.

WILL: I'm really impressed, Anne and Brigid. Lisa, I hope one of these works for you, but my first note on this doc says, "Help," with three exclamation points. "Anyone?" So I'm super impressed you guys could come up with a couple options there for her.

[00:52:38] ANNE: I thought it was funny that Bridget said, "This may be obvious." It was not obvious to me. I had no idea what you were going to say next.

BRIGID: Oh, I just feel like, if you haven't read Project Hail Mary now, or haven't heard of it, then it's definitely time.

ANNE: All right, now we have a request from someone who's been listening since the very first episode. Thank you. Thank you. Jenny from Minnesota. Jenny loves giving books because it is the one thing she can get for people who can buy whatever they want for themselves. However, she struggles to find something for her father-in-law. Her father-in-law is in his early 80s and has become a reader in his retirement. He was a physician and used to be an avid gardener. He likes thrillers and adventure stories. He enjoyed All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Ooh, so maybe Four Seasons in Rome. And he always reads the newest John Grisham. Okay, team. What do we got?

[00:53:29] HOLLY: All right. I've got a few ideas here. First is a nonfiction pick. And I know Jenny mentioned her father-in-law likes gardening. This has to do with rocks. It's written by a geologist, but go with me here. So this is Weathering by Ruth Allen. She is, like I said, a former geologist who is now a therapist, and her bio describes her as a geotherapist, which I think is a wonderful idea that maybe might appeal in this space. And just is a wonderful investigation of time and kind of in the similar story to The Understory by Robert MacFarlane from a few years back. I think this could be a good pick for him.

And then I know Will and I have both mentioned it many times before, but Chasing the Thrill by Daniel Barbarisi could fit the bill here for such a riveting adventure story that is a real-life thriller. So those are my suggestions here for Jenny and her father-in-law.

[00:54:25] WILL: I'll pick back up with the gardening as well. This spring when we were visiting Mel and Dave in Prague, I picked up a copy of The Gardener's Year by Karel Čapek. He's a playwright and a novelist, essayist from the early 20th century. Gardener's Year is... you know, it's chronological. They're not all complaints, but there's a lot of funny complaining about the weather. The thing's really witty. Penguin Random House has a series called the Modern Library Gardening Series that was edited by Michael Pollan, so there's maybe six books in this series. So you could look at some of the other ones as well, but this is the one I picked up, and like I said, it's witty, it's funny. It really kind of gets to what it means to be someone who's dealing with this thing you can't quite control, you know? So he's got some really funny things about, like, you plant grass and you get weeds and maybe you're planting weeds and not grass. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff. Speaking of plants and all, I thought of the... and I didn't write it down. The botanist book in the Grand Canyon. Somebody help me out here.

[00:55:33] ANNE: Yeah, I can see it. It's green.

WILL: It's green. There we go.

ANNE: Brave the Wild River?

WILL: Brave the Wild River. This is the first two women down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and they are there to study all the plants. This was a nice mix of sort of an adventure tale. This is back when the... I mean, the Colorado River's still pretty wild, but back when it was very, very wild and still new idea to try and raft it, and then also the sort of plant life and what's growing in different places. To that point, also if you're thinking of adventures, Kevin Fedarko, Walk in the Park, is a great adventure story and exploration of the Grand Canyon.

ANNE: Next, we have Ann O'Brien, who is looking for books for her sister. They went to Iceland together in December of 2023 and celebrated Jolabokaflod, reading the same book on Christmas Eve while eating chocolate. Ann selected the book, The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson, because it looked like a short, festive, holiday-themed mystery. Ann says it was short, which was good, because it was also creepy and bloody. Ann's sister asked her to take her copy back so she never had to see it again. So Ann says this year she needs to redeem herself. Ann is looking for something short, but not sad or scary. She thought about Claire Keegan, but thinks her sister might find that too slow-paced. Her sister is a children's librarian, and does not read much adult fiction, nor does she like romance or YA.

[00:57:00] Okay, Ann, I have three recommendations for you, maybe. I wonder if two sisters would enjoy reading one of Beth Ann Fennelly's small collections. Heating and Cooling is 100% micro-memoirs. They are short, short, short. Sometimes there are only 40 words on one page. They could go fast. You could read this in one sitting. The Irish Goodbye is her newer collection that came out in February. We talked about it at Spring Book Preview, and it's still incredibly short, and I think you could read it in one longer sitting. But it has quite a few longer, like six or seven essays in it that are... look, 12 pages of text feels like a lot of text compared to the text in Heating and Cooling. I think these could be amazing for you.

And also I want you to know that key to Beth Ann Fennelly's work and key in her life, bb key I just mean momentous in her life, was her sister died of a sudden illness. So she speaks often about sisterhood, but it's often bound up with loss. And you are the one to decide for you, and your particular sister, and your relationship if that's something you want to do or if it's not.

[00:58:20] Now, those are not the only themes in the book. The thing that I most get excited about is thinking about you and your sister discussing Beth Ann Fennelly's story about getting together after many, many years with her college roommates, or Beth Ann Fennelly's essay that I've talked about multiple times in multiple places about how and why she decided to pose nude for an artist passing through her town of Oxford, Mississippi, in a very not erotic, just very human portrait. I can't tell you why I Googled the artist's works and was like, "Oh, this makes me want to weep for how tender it is toward humanity." But she talks about what on earth possessed me to do this, and then you and your sister are going to want to talk about it. But there's a lot there, but I want you to know what's in the pages going in because it sounds like you didn't with Peter Swanson, and that didn't work out so well. I do not want to spoil your redemption gift here.

I also wonder about Ada Limón's Against Breaking. There's poetry in this, but there's also a discussion of the importance of poetry and literature in a way that feels accessible, not shoulding or shaming from Ada Limón, and there could be a lot there to talk about.

[00:59:26] And I wonder about just a short story that's poignant but joyful, like Babette's Feast by Isak Dinesen. I bet you could get a pretty little bound edition and, yeah, read it together, eat some good food, talk about it. I hope that sounds good. Our last request is from Liza from Houston, who's looking for books that will keep her 10-year-old son engaged in reading. He's read all of James Ponti's Framed! series. He likes Dog Man and The InvestiGators series, and he's currently reading The Experiment by Rebecca Stead. Liza is thinking books that include characters that are around his age that use their strengths and abilities to solve problems or mysteries, like ones with witty characters or that are funny, would be good choices. She also mentioned that he and his twin sister also read everything the other one reads. So it sounds like we have a little bit of a twofer situation happening here. Okay, Will, I know you had ideas. Start us off.

[01:00:22] WILL: I was thinking about young people solving mysteries and kind of solving their own problems and using their strengths and all. Mac Barnett, who I think is best known for The Terrible Two, but he's a picture book author, he's done some great illustration stuff, he's got a series that is loosely based on himself as a kid called Mac B, Kid Spy, and this is a great story of sort of if his life took a different trajectory. This is the old, you know, as a kid growing up, I thought I was going to be an astronaut or a firefighter or whatever, you know? So Mac, now that he's a writer, gets to write this, like, what-if story about himself. And so Mac B is a spy, and there's a nice little set there. So if your son, or your kids, both of them, enjoy this, there's several to go along together.

[01:01:18] ANNE: I remember Blue Willow Bookshop handed me the first Mac B book when it was new in 2018, and my child was so happy when I brought it home, and we waited impatiently for every new installment to come out. And Liza, now your 10-year-old has all these books ready and waiting for him. I'm so jealous.

I want to say don't miss James Ponti's newest series called The Sherlock Society. It's new. I believe there are only two books in it, so you might be impatiently waiting for new installments, but I'm so glad it exists. Also, the two-book Loot series by Jude Watson, which is the pen name for Judy Blundell, could be a good one. I especially like that it's about twins.

The setup is after his jewel thief father's last job goes terribly, horribly wrong, the 12-year-old son of this notorious thief is shocked to find out in the aftermath that he has a twin sister that he's never met. So the two end up teaming up, and hijinks ensue. It's a two-book series. I wish there were more, but don't miss the sequel. It's called Sting.

[01:02:23] Then Gene Luen Yang has a series called Secret Coders, and it's about a group of bright kids at a decidedly strange, maybe even spooky elite school, and they know there's this mystery lurking just beneath the surface as they live their lives. But they suddenly realize the key to cracking their school's secrets is coding. So they use programming language to figure out what that mystery is beneath the surface. And it's not easy or quick to crack. There are six books in this series, so hopefully that can keep your son and your twins busy for a little bit.

All right, now we have a lightning round with quick hits for the littles in your life. We have a classic request here from Amanda in Michigan. She has a three-year-old who loves books about vehicles. What are y'all's favorite vehicle books?

[01:03:19] SHANNAN: I don't know about a series, because I do believe she talked about a series in the submission, but the Buddy Man loved Alphabet Trucks by Samantha R. Vamos, illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke. And since the Buddy Man also liked trains, which are a kind of vehicle, My Best Pop-Up Noisy Train Book by DK Publishing was a hit with him. Not so much with us, but ultimately, definitely with him. They might like it.

ANNE: Love it. Okay, I've talked a lot about a lot of transportation books over the years, but I got a new one, A Bear, a Man, and a Donut Van by Daniel Bernstrom. It's cute. The text is rhyming. It's part of a popular series.

WILL: Wow, that's a new one.

ANNE: A new one.

WILL: I'm going way back. My-

ANNE: I go to the bookstore. I pay attention.

[01:04:20] WILL: My favorite when I was a kid was a Snoopy book about different kinds of trucks, and I really only remember one truck. It was a glass truck. And I'm like, "I didn't know that you could put glass on a truck," but I don't know how you... As a kid, I don't know how I thought you got glass around. This is called Snoopy's Facts and Fun about Trucks, but it also introduces Snoopy and the gang, so if they like the characters, there's a lot to build on there.

ANNE: You know what my favorite vehicle book might be, like all-time? Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.

WILL: Richard Scarry, he's a winner.

ANNE: That's a classic. Okay, next. Nicole is seeking books for a four-and-a-half-year-old who loves, her words, "Anything fancy," as well as things that are spooky and mysterious. She is graduating into chapter books, but her mom is struggling to find ones that are age-appropriate.

[01:05:05] BRIGID: Oh man, this just totally... my ears perked up with the spooky, mysterious, and fancy. We love all those things at our house. So I have a list of mysterious books, and I'm going to start with the ones that have the most pictures, less chapters, and then go on. The first one being The Pup Detectives graphic novel series by Felix Gumpaw. This is a comic book graphic novel series. And the next would be the Detective Beans Series by Li Chen. Now, Pup Detectives is obviously about dog detectives, and Detective Beans is a kitty detective, so we've got both here.

The next is Fabio. Now, this is not a dog or a cat. He is the world's greatest flamingo detective, and I just love the pun of the first book in that series. It's Mystery on the Ostrich Express, and that's by Laura James, and it's really beautifully illustrated by Emily Fox with black and white and then hot pink and hot orange. So it's kind of unique and eye-catching.

[01:06:16] And then this one was a classic series that was a huge hit with my oldest, who is still a huge mystery lover, and that is the Meg Mackintosh series. The first one's called The Case of the Missing Babe Ruth Baseball. This gets a little older. It does have a lot of pictures, and it would allow her to try to piece together all the clues herself of the mystery. And that's by Lucinda Landon. Then lastly is the Hilde Cracks the Case series. This is by Hilde Lysiak, and it's a more modern-type version of those mystery stories I was mentioning with Meg Macintosh.

ANNE: Thank you, Bridget. Next we have a request for a six-year-old girl who is a beginning reader and likes books that are fun or silly. Her mom, Beth, has one specific request: books that will encourage her daughter to try out her new reading skills, but please make the books well-written. So this mom doesn't feel like she wants to throw the book across the room at bedtime. Brigid, you know I'm looking at you again.

[01:07:19] BRIGID: Yes. I love this request. A couple that really quick came to mind are Dory Fantasmagory, if we mentioned that before, I'm not sure. Now I love the Narwhal and Jelly series by Ben Clanton. This might not be the most well-written, but I find anyone who can make that many puns about narwhals and jellyfish really clever.

I've talked about the next one so many times, and Will already brought Mac Barnett up, but that is The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza series by Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris. This is well-written and so silly. And as she gets older and might be ready for more chapter books, I've got a couple of classics to recommend. That's Freckle Juice by Judy Blume. I still love a Judy Blume book from my own childhood. And Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar literally is sitting on my kitchen table right now because my kids cannot stop reading those over and over again.

[01:08:23] And if your family happens to be in Dungeons and Dragons, I did buy my own daughters a really funny and silly and sweet series of books called, there's two in it, called DnDoggos, for Christmas, after I met the author, Scout Underhill, at the Southern Book Festival recently. So that's going to be wrapped up for my own readers.

ANNE: Thank you very much. Team, thank you for your recs. And readers, if you have your own questions, take them to our comments at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com for this episode.

Readers, I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I would love to hear what you think might make a great gift idea in general, for the readers you are shopping for, or for any of the reader queries you heard today. You can find the full list of titles we talked about today and share your own suggestions on our show notes page. Again, that's at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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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.