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The Currently Reading Podcast

Episode 37: Books That Surprised Us + Where to Get Great Recs from Librarians, Booksellers and Podcasters

The Currently Reading Podcast

Meredith Schwartz

Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.61.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2019

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Meredith and Kaytee are happy to be recording again, and can't believe we are already up to Episode 37!

We have a few important announcements right at the top of the show, one of which requires your help, listeners! Send us your Ask Us Anything questions via email, Direct Message, or as a comment on show notes, and we'll feature them in a future episode!

You'll hear a "bookish moment of the week" from each of us: each of them this week centers on reading with the kiddos.

Next, we discuss our current reads for the week. We have an eclectic mix of titles from middle grade to adult, fiction and non-, humor and serious. A bit of everything!

For our deep dive this week, we are chatting about the fifth category in our 2019 Reading Challenge: a book pressed into your hands by a librarian, bookseller, or podcaster. And we've got a trove of resources for you if you're stuck on this one!

As always, we finish up with A Book (yep, capitalized) that we'd like to press into every reader's hands. This week has us pressing favorites that we've loved for a long time but were out of sight/out of mind until someone brought them back to our attention.

As per usual, time-stamped show notes are below with references to every book and resource we mentioned in this episode. If you'd like to listen first and not spoil the surprise, don't scroll down! 

3:18 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

4:20 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

7:00 - A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum

7:37 - The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupéry

9:17 - Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

10:43 - Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View by Ramin Setoodeh

12:55 - Most Talkative by Andy Cohen

13:09 - From Scratch: Inside the Food Network by Allen Salkin

14:20 - First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

16:42 - Scythe by Neal Schusterman

16:43 - Ghost Whisperer (TV series)

17:13 - Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

19:44 - Truly, Madly, Guilty by Liane Moriarty

20:50 - Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

21:41 - Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown

21:42 - Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

23:55 - The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson

27:00 - The Currently Reading 2019 Reading Challenge

27:27 - I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

28:30 - libraryreads.org

29:30 - Indie Next List from indiebound.org

30:42 - All the Books podcast

31:08 - Liberty Hardy @franzencomesalive

31:27 - Anne Bogel on What Should I Read Next

31:37 - Anne Bogel on One Great Book (and Patron feed)

31:59 - Annie Jones on From the Front Porch podcast

32:23 - Book Drop subscription box

32:26 - Shelf Subscription from Bookshelf Thomasville

32:31 - Reading Bug Box

33:04 - Sorta Awesome podcast

33:14 - Jamie Golden (and Knox) on The Popcast or at @jamiebgolden

33:08 - Laura Tremaine @laura.tremaine on Instagram

33:45 - Gretchen Rubin on the Happier podcast and her FB page

34:17 - Read Aloud Revival with Sarah McKenzie

34:27 - Sarah's Bookshelves Live podcast

34:38 - The Librarian is In by the NY Public Library

34:56 - Reading Women podcast

35:05 - @parnassusbooks on Instagram

35:06 - @powellsbooks on Instagram

35:56 - @bookshelftville on Instagram

36:20 - Book of the Month subscription

37:05 - A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

37:21 - Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness

37:31 - Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

37:32 - The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

39:29 - What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

40:39 - Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

*Please note that all book titles linked above are Amazon affiliate links. Your cost is the same, but a small portion of your purchase will come back to us to help offset the costs of the show. Thanks for your support!*  

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi readers, my audio is a little messy this week.

0:03.4

You'll hear it in a second.

0:04.5

We didn't realize it until after we had finished recording, but sometimes that's what happens.

0:09.1

So give us some grace this week and I promise we'll be back to normal next week. Hey readers, welcome to the currently reading podcast.

0:28.0

We are two bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read

0:32.1

recently and we do not shy away

0:34.2

from having strong opinions so get ready. I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz a mom of

0:38.8

four and full-time CEO living in the San Francisco Bay Area and one of my favorite parts of reading

0:44.5

is being totally surprised by a book.

0:47.0

Ooh and I'm Katie Combe a homeschooling mom of four aged eight and under living in New Mexico and I read to stay grounded in the chaos

0:56.7

This is episode number 37 and we are so glad you're here

1:00.8

Were you interested in my what I said being surprised by a book? I have a

1:04.8

couple books this week to talk about that that surprised me and I really love that. I love

1:08.9

it when I go into it thinking one thing. Yeah. All right before we get started on those though and before we even get started on our bookish

1:15.3

moments of the week, we want to talk about just a couple of things.

1:18.8

Our many deep dive today, later in the show, is going to be about one of our currently reading

1:24.8

reading challenge categories which is books that are pressed into your hands

1:29.4

by a librarian, bookseller, or podcaster.

1:33.2

So we're going to give you some recommendations

1:35.4

for places to get those kinds of really good book presses.

1:39.7

And then Katie, you wanted to talk a little bit

1:41.5

about something else we have coming up that we really are excited about, but we need our listeners help with.

...

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