A Journey to Three Pines - Episode 10: The Long Way Home
Currently Reading
Meredith Schwartz
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2025
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We are so excited to journey with you to Three Pines, the fictional French-Canadian village created by Louise Penny for her Three Pines series, featuring Armand Gamache. This spin-off podcast series will tackle each of the books in the series in turn, in a spoiler-FILLED format. Be sure you've read the book before listening to the episode.
As you've come to expect with all Currently Reading content, Meredith and Roxanna will follow a regular episode format, with regular segments, so you know what to expect each and every time. We love staying focused on the book, rather than conversational rabbit holes.
Show notes for this series will not be time-stamped except for broad sections, but will include links to Bookshop dot org or Amazon for any books or resources referenced in the episode.
3:15 - Putting the Book Into Context
The Long Way Home by Louise Penny
Published Aug 26, 2014 by Minotaur Books
4.07 rating on Goodreads
Seasonal setting - Summer
Book Awards: Finalist for the Agatha Award for best novel, but did not win, nor win any other awards.
Critic Reviews
Meredith's and Roxanna's encounters with the book
13:17 - The Setup
11:21 - A Deeper Exploration
First paragraph
The pacing of the novel
How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny
Unlikeable main AND side characters
No actual murder mystery to solve
Prose and plot do not compliment one another. Prose is beautiful.
P.92 quote
Is there a villain?
P.138 quote
Portrayal of Ruth
P.362 quote
Themes: redemption, Clara's arc to confidence, the long way home
Canadian elements
1:03:18 - Superlatives
Favorite Scenes
Character MVP
Biggest loser
Best food description
Is this book skippable?
No spoilers this episode!
The next book will be The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to A Journey to Three Pines. In this special limited edition series from the currently reading podcast, we are doing a deep exploration of each book in Louise Pinnies's Three Pines mystery series. And we are going deep into it. |
| 0:33.7 | We're talking about the mysteries, of course, but also the characters we've grown to love, the gorgeous |
| 0:39.1 | Quebec settings, and all the deeper themes that Louise Penny weave so masterfully into each story. |
| 0:45.2 | We'll discuss why we love Armand Camash and all of the rest of our characters so very much. |
| 0:51.3 | I'm Meredith Mundy Schwartz, co-host of the currently reading podcast, and the Three |
| 0:55.7 | Pines series is my favorite book series of all time. And I'm Roxanna Kasimkara, a Canadian reader and |
| 1:03.0 | podcast regular who is deeply obsessed with Inspector Gamash. In today's episode, we're tackling |
| 1:09.1 | the long way home, the 10th book in the series. |
| 1:12.4 | We will tell you that it, right at the top, that this podcast series is for people who have read the book we're diving into. |
| 1:20.6 | Please know, there will be spoilers about the long way home in this episode. |
| 1:25.7 | So if you haven't read it yet, you may want to press pause |
| 1:29.1 | and come back when you've got that reading in. We'll be discussing each book in context of the |
| 1:34.6 | series as a whole, but anything that is spoilery beyond this book, we will not talk about. So you |
| 1:41.1 | just need to be caught up through the long way home to really, really enjoy |
| 1:45.6 | this series. And yes, of course, we say this always, but we really, really mean it. This series |
| 1:52.3 | must be read in order. Let's get that out of the way right at the top. All right, as we mentioned, |
| 1:59.7 | Roxanna, we are going to be talking about the long way |
| 2:02.5 | home, the 10th book in the series, which means, my friend, we have arrived at the halfway point of |
| 2:08.8 | a journey to three pines. That is so crazy to me. I was just thinking yesterday, Meredith, as I was |
| 2:14.2 | prepping. That means we've recorded 20 hours of audio on a journey to |
| 2:19.4 | Three Pines roughly. We've probably spent 80 hours rereading the books and prepping for the books |
| 2:26.0 | together. And it has felt like a journey, an incredible journey. But I feel like I know these |
... |
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