Dozens of New-To-You Books for Your TBR Pile

Culture Study Podcast

Society & Culture, Arts

4.5 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over on the newsletter, our book concierge threads — when people ask for specific book recommendations, and readers then offer their suggestions — regularly top 1500 comments. We wanted to bring the same energy to the podcast, and Maris Kreizman, author of The Maris Review and I Want To Burn This Place Down, reads more (and more widely) than anyone else I know. I promise: you’ll leave this episode with a new pile of books you want to read immediately. (And honestly, that’s the Back to School Adult Energy I crave).Thanks to the sponsors of today’s episode!Go to HelloFresh.com/CULTURESTUDY10FM to get 10 free meals + a free item for lifeGet 35% off your entire order at LolaBlankets.com using code CULTURE at checkoutGet a great night’s sleep with a new mattress from Birch. Go to BirchLiving.com/CULTURE to get 27% off sitewideTry OneSkin for 15% off using code CULTURE at oneskin.coShow Notes:Subscribe to Maris’s newsletter, The Maris Review, here.Buy Maris’s new book, I Want To Burn This Place Down, here!Listen to our previous episode with Maris on How Goodreads Got SO BADBOOKS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODEEveryone Is Lying To You by Jo PiazzaThe Parisian and Enter Ghost by Isabella HammadFlashlight and Trust Exercise by Susan ChoiAudition by Katie KitamuraWild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghyEat the Document by Dana SpiottaBoy, Snow, Bird by Helen OyeyemiThe Trees by Percival EverettPerma Red by Debra Magpie EarningOutlawed by Anna NorthWhiskey When We’re Dry by John LarisonNews of the World by Paulette GilesThe Best Bad Things by Katrina CarrascoLiquid: A Love Story by Mariam RahmaniThe Rachel Incident by Caroline O’DonoghueWriters & Lovers and Euphoria by Lily KingThe Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCrackenHappy All The Time by Laurie ColwinThe Boys of my Youth by Jo Ann BeardCowboys are my Weakness by Pam HoustonThe Dud Avocado by Elaine DundyFreedom; The Corrections; and Crossroads by Jonathan FranzenThe Family Fang by Kevin WilsonLove Medicine; The Master Butchers Singing Club; The Night Watchman; and LaRose by Louise ErdrichThe God of the Woods and Long Bright River by Liz MooreDare Me; The Fever; and The Turnout by Megan AbbottThe Flavia de Luce series by Alan BradleyNevada by Imogen BinniePaul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea LawlorLove & Other Disasters by Anita KellyThe Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthyMutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-SmithWe Ride Upon Sticks by Quan BarryHelp Wanted by Adelle WaldmanMy Friends by Hisham MatarThe Catch by Yrsa Daley-WardOn the Calculation of Volume by Solvej BalleThe Old Drift by Namwali SerpellCloud Atlas by David MitchellThe Safekeep by Yael van der WoudenThe Sellout by Paul BeattyFight Night and All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam ToewsHidden Valley Road by Robert KolkerA Marriage at Sea by Sophie ElmhirstGreat Black Hope by Rob FranklinThe Dream Hotel by Laila LalamiBlack Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn IveyDisappearing Earth by Julia PhillipsThese Summer Storms by Sarah MacLeanSeating Arrangements by Maggie ShipsteadThe Wedding People by Alison EspachThe First Wives Club by Olivia GoldsmithWe’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:Running a Small Business — and How to Make It Sustainable & Survivable (with Jen Hewett!)All things Love is Blind with Audie CornishDifferent Modalities of Hanging Out (aka, best ways to hang out with different people) with Mary HK ChoiBaseball Culture (with Ali Liebegott and Melody as additional co-host!!!)The history/utility/culture of OUTDOOR PERFORMANCE GEAR with Avery Trufelman (of Articles of Interest)What an actually family-friendly society would look like (with Elliot Haspel)An ADULT HOBBIES crossover episode with Forever35!Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) hereFor this week’s discussion: In addition to our recs… what other books would you suggest for our question-askers?

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
0:10.6	Hi, I'm Maris Kreisman, and I'm the author of the new essay collection. I want to burn this place down,
0:17.1	but I'm also a really avid reader and have worked in and around books for my entire
0:22.8	professional career. I feel like there's all these old-fashioned ways that people used to discover
0:27.5	books. Maybe I'm just imagining this like Maris has like books just at her door all of the time.
0:34.5	I do. I actually do. I'm just books at you. Like, I think about the,
0:38.8	the Buzzfeed mailroom. Yes. I sat next to Ariana when she was head of the book section,
0:45.9	and she would just have to devote an entire day to opening up books. I do that from home.
0:54.0	But what is your favorite way to discover new to you books?
0:58.4	My favorite way to discover is by going to indie bookstores and talking to people and looking around
1:06.0	and touching things. Yes. No offense to digital reading, but there's something about having the tactical
1:12.6	experience that I think really helps. Yes, I love it. I love the bookseller
1:18.9	recommendation part, like corners of the bookstores, which are always such a mix of old and new.
1:25.8	I love all the like indie What's Next picks. I'm like, these are always really good.
1:31.0	Yeah. I was just at riffraff in Providence, Rhode Island on book tour. And they have such a small,
1:38.9	but perfectly curated selection. So I kind of just knew like whatever book I picked I'd be happy with.
1:47.0	That's how you know it's a bookstore for you. Like there, I've been to a couple of
1:49.9	bookstores like that that I've been like, I wish this could be my local. Because every time
1:55.7	you go in, you're like, that's the thing. My best friend's mom has a bookstore in her little neighborhood in Seattle where she just knows, like, that the bookseller, there is always going to be a book front and center at the bookstore that is like for Patty. Like it is Patty's book.
2:11.6	That's so lovely. I know. Isn't that great? The best. So you mentioned you're on book tour. Your book is everywhere.
2:19.2	And I want to tell readers, like, I have my copy that I've been like, it's essays
2:23.3	so you can like work through it because I think a lot of it is very, very present.
	...

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