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The Currently Reading Podcast

Episode 38: Five-Star Novels + Our Bookish Demerits

The Currently Reading Podcast

Meredith Schwartz

Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.61.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2019

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kaytee and Meredith are back in your earbuds this week to bring you Episode 38, including a few literary confessions or demerits.

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! If we use your question, we'll send you a coveted Currently Reading bookmark (and our everlasting thanks, of course).

You'll hear a "bookish moment of the week" from each of us: an indie bookstore day recap and a bookish "retirement" gift.

Next, we discuss our current reads for the week. We both read quite a few books that we REALLY loved this week, so don't hesitate to use those show notes below!

For our deep dive this week, we have decided to give ourselves bookish "demerits" a la Gretchen Rubin's Happier podcast. These are places in our reading lives where we think we could improve. Sometimes we commiserate with each other and sometimes we chide each other!

As always, we finish up with A Book (yep, capitalized) that we'd like to press into every reader's hands. This week we are talking about a fantastic mystery/police procedural, and a multi-generational family saga.

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! 

5:23 - Thriftbooks.com my favorite used book website!

6:02 - A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny

9:43 - Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen

11:07 - A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

11:24 - Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

14:18 - Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson

15:22 - Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage

15:23 - The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

15:25 - Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

16:49 - My Name is Venus Black by Heather Lloyd

17:15 - The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms

21:18 - A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

21:42 - Beauty by Robin McKinley

25:16 -Uprooted by Naomi Novik

25:17 - Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

26:48 - Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon

27:05 - Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Pat by Patricia Williams

27:47 - The Elephant in the Room by Tommy Tomlinson

28:38 - The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray

30:45 - Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

30:47 - The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson

31:01 - Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend

31:02 - Winterhouse by Ben Guterson

32:30 - Robert Galbraith series

32:45 - Three Pines series by Louise Penny

32:47 - HP Series by JK Rowling

33:02 - Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins

33:02 - Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer

33:34 - Scythe by Neal Shusterman

42:01 - A Place of Execution by Val McDermid

42:09 - Tana French books

43:25 - Distant Echo by Val McDermid

43:51 - Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

*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

Hey readers, welcome to the currently reading podcast. We are two bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently, and we don't shy away from having strong and sometimes snarky opinions, so get ready.

0:24.1

I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom of four, and full-time CEO living in the San Francisco Bay Area,

0:29.6

and one thing I know for sure is that book hankervers are real.

0:34.5

And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mama four aged 8 and under, living in New Mexico, and I read voraciously

0:40.7

when I'm stressed out.

0:42.4

This is episode number 38 and we are so glad you're here.

0:46.6

That's very interesting because when I am super stressed that's when my reading tends to go down

0:51.4

So I think that's a great thing that when you're stressed your reading goes up. I think that's a great thing that when you're stressed

0:53.6

your reading goes up. I think that's a great coping mechanism.

0:56.8

Unless it leads to procrastinating. Like, you know, I'd rather sit down and read this book

1:01.4

than pack my children's toys so we can move next week.

1:05.0

Yeah, which is what's happening right now.

1:08.0

That's true.

1:09.0

Yes, that can definitely be, that's a very stressful thing to do a big move too. I mean it's so so much work.

1:14.8

It's a little crazy. Yeah. It's okay. Anyway I'm excited to be here today and I wanted to let our

1:21.7

listeners know that we have a deep dive coming up today where we're giving ourselves bookish demerits, which, you know, it's a little bit of a confession time and maybe some helping each other out on that.

1:32.6

And then also I just a reminder from last week

1:35.8

that we are still looking for, ask us anything questions.

1:38.7

We're going to be doing a special episode later in the summer

1:41.0

and we want to know what you guys want to know about us.

1:44.4

So send those over to us, direct message, email, however you want to get them to us, we can't

1:49.7

wait to hear what you want to know.

...

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