Ep 519: Let's plan a Read the USA project

What Should I Read Next?

Anne Bogel

Arts, Books, Leisure

4.8 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We hear about all different kinds of reading challenges around here, and today's guest is seeking titles to help mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. Mary Pogue lives in St. Louis with her family, where she enjoys her work as a digital marketing strategist and her hobbies like coaching field hockey, traveling, and of course, reading. This year, Mary's embarking on a challenge she is calling Read the USA. Her goal is to read a book set in or written by an author from every U.S. state. While Mary has made great progress already at this point in the year, she is hoping for Anne's help in picking books for a handful of states Mary has yet to visit, either in person or on the page, and is having a hard time finding options for. Mary would be thrilled if these books could do double duty. She especially enjoys learning about each state's history and culture through works of historical fiction, and she has a preference for titles she'll find at her local library. But as you'll hear today, Mary is open to all kinds of options. Today we'll tackle her list of outstanding states and discover titles she might want to add to this reading road trip. Find the list of the books discussed today and leave your suggestions for Mary on our show notes page at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/519. Chapters: 03:56 Meet Mary 08:32 Mary's Read the USA reading project 16:56 The Huntress by Kate Quinn 20:44 The Secret Book of Flora Lee by Patti Callahan Henry 23:05 The Library Book by Susan Orlean 25:47 Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein 41:11 The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich 44:57 The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver 49:15 Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse 51:22 Montana 1948 by Larry Watson 56:04 Groundskeeping by Lee Cole 57:56 What will Mary read next? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm calling it the Read USA Challenge. And when I was talking to my dad about it, he's like,
0:05.1	so are you going to count it as just physical books, audio books, what are you going to do?
0:10.6	Not your dad's first conversation about books with you.
0:16.6	Hey, readers, I'm Anne Bogle, and this is What Should I Read Next?
0:22.0	Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader.
0:26.6	What should I read next?
0:28.2	We don't get bossy on this show.
0:30.1	What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read.
0:34.6	Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary
0:37.7	matchmaking with one guest. Raders, I would love to talk to you about emails real quick. Every
0:47.0	week we send out a variety of email newsletters. And the balance we're trying to maintain is we want to make sure you know about the things you
0:55.8	want to know about. And we do not want to send you emails that you do not find useful or
1:01.2	informative. Like some of you got an email in your inbox this morning about today's episode of
1:06.0	our show. But if you're not on that list, we don't send that to you. We love sending you the emails
1:10.8	you want and none of the emails you don't send that to you. We love sending you the emails you want
1:11.3	and none of the emails you don't. So I want you to know you can customize which ones you receive
1:17.7	by telling us which ones you're interested in when you visit modern mrs.darcy.com
1:22.7	slash subscribe. And you can choose any or all or actually none none, in which case, don't go to the page
1:28.6	at all, but we hope that you'll sign up for at least one of our email so you can stay in the loop
1:33.2	because we don't have control over what the algorithms show you, but we can email you the news
1:37.8	that you want to know. There are also perks to being on our email list. Like with summer
1:42.5	reading season ahead of us, subscribers will be
	...

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