Ep. 196: Spring 2025 Circle Back with Catherine (@GilmoreGuide)
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
Sarah Dickinson
4.9 • 732 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 196, Sarah and Catherine of Gilmore Guide to Books catch up on the 12 new releases they shared in the Spring 2025 Book Preview, now that they’ve read them. They share their reading stats, chat about what worked — and hash out which books didn’t work and why.
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CLICK HERE for the full episode Show Notes on the blog.
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Highlights
- Catherine is rocking a 100% success rate for spring!
- Sarah had another barbell season with two 5-star books and 3 DNFs with a 50% success rate.
- Catherine has a mix of darker and lighter books from spring, leaning into what is currently working.
- Now that Sarah doesn’t have to balance reading for the 2025 Summer Reading Guide and the Spring Preview, Sarah hopes her summer reading will fare better.
- They name the best and worst books picks for spring!
Books We Read Before the Preview [3:37]
April
Sarah’s Picks
- The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett (Apr 29) | Amazon
| Bookshop.org [4:04]
Spring 2025 Circle Back [5:27]
April
Sarah’s Picks
- The Family Recipe by Carolyn Huynh (Apr 1) | Amazon
- I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney (Apr 1) | Amazon
- The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff (Apr 22) | Amazon
- Gold Coast Dilemma by Nana Malone (Apr 29) | Amazon
Catherine’s Picks
- Cat’s People by Tanya Guerrero (Apr 1) | Amazon
- Heartwood by Amity Gaige (Apr 1) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [12:12]
Other Books Mentioned
- The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh (2022) [8:48]
- Talk to Me by John Kenney (2019) [15:58]
- About a Boy by Nick Hornby (1998) [17:26]
- I Could Live Here Forever by Hanna Halperin (2023) [24:24]
May
Sarah’s Picks
- Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle (May 20) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [38:57]
Catherine’s Pick
- Home of the American Circus by Allison Larkin (May 6) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [18:16]
- The Man Made of Smoke by Alex North (May 13) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [26:35]
- Abigail and Alexa Save the Wedding by Lian Dolan (May 20) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [35:23]
- Storybook Ending by Moira Macdonald (May 27) | Amazon | Bookshop.org[42:02]
Other Books Mentioned
- The Angel Maker by Alex North (2023) [26:44]
- Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler (2016) [41:02]
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022) [41:08]
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020) [41:13]
- Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune (2021) [41:19]
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020) [41:23]
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm your host, Sarah Dickinson. Join me every other week as we get real and sometimes a bit snarky about books and reading. Let's get rolling. |
| 0:20.7 | Welcome to the spring 2025 circle back |
| 0:23.2 | episode, where we discuss books that we shared in the spring preview now that we've actually had a |
| 0:28.6 | chance to read them, or at least attempted to read them. Catherine is joining me as usual. Welcome back, |
| 0:35.5 | Catherine. Hi, thank you. How did your spring reading turn out? |
| 0:40.2 | Well, I thought I'd use a sports comparison for your sake. Nothing but net. That was like the most |
| 0:48.8 | smug tone of voice I've ever heard. Swish. |
| 0:55.8 | That I'm happy for you. |
| 0:56.2 | Yeah. |
| 0:58.8 | And I'm just following in your footsteps from last spring. I had 100% success, but in the same way as you, just barely. |
| 1:06.0 | Right. |
| 1:06.4 | You had a couple books that were like just over the line. |
| 1:08.6 | Exactly. |
| 1:09.4 | And given that 2024 was 50%, I'm thrilled. |
| 1:14.3 | So, and I feel like I called it correctly for myself, lighter and paste forward books were my sweet spot. |
| 1:21.6 | The only thing I need to do is keep fine-tuning rom-com a bit. Oh, yeah. Well, also, those can start to run together if you read too |
| 1:30.7 | many of them, which definitely happened to me this spring. Mm-hmm. I just feel like you need to read |
| 1:36.6 | the right amount of them. Yes, they need to be written in a certain way. It may be that in order for |
| 1:43.3 | me to enjoy it, I hold the writing to an even |
| 1:45.6 | higher standard than I do the rest of my reading because if it's too trite or basic or whatever, |
| 1:53.8 | then I get bugged. And it's like, no, okay, I'm finished. So, well, how about you? |
| 1:59.8 | Well, I, let's see, I'm trying to think of a basketball analogy. |
... |
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