Hello, I'm David Kern.

I'm Heidi White.

And I'm Tim McIntosh.

And you are listening to Close Reads, a podcast for the Incurable Reader on which we are discussing

Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Tools, a novel written originally in the late 60s and published in 1980 posthumously.

We will dig into that and fall over the next four or five weeks as we conclude the

2021 reading list here on Close Reeds.

We're coming to the end.

Hey, Tim, before we dig in, you know, one of the things we like to do at the end of the year

is we like to talk about the books that we have read this year that, you know, one of the things we like to do at the end of the year is we like to talk about the books that we have read this year that, you know, we had a great time with that surprised

us, that meant a lot to us. And we're going to have, we're going to record that episode in

December. We're going to run that before the new year. But I am curious, could you, could you

give us a little preview into what such a list might look like for you?

Could you choose one book that surprised you this year? I did not ask them this ahead of time.

I just thought, you know what? Let's see if Tim and Heidi have something on their mind that has been

meaningful enough to them to want to mention it offhand.

You don't have to give us too much about it,

but just a little preview of what your reading year has looked like.

Okay, I gave you about 45 seconds there.

Okay, for the Close Reads Retreat, we read a memory of old Jack.

Wendell Berry. Which I, yeah, I just found that book really, really

moving. And I'm going to be a little nerdy. This doesn't really, does it, does a great book's

...