Fall 2025 Circle Back with Catherine (@GilmoreGuide) (Ep. 211)
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
Sarah Dickinson
4.7 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 211, Sarah and Catherine of Gilmore Guide to Books catch up on the 14 new releases they shared in the Fall 2025 Book Preview, now that they've read them — or at least tried to! They share their reading stats and discuss which books worked and which didn't…and why.
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CLICK HERE for the full episode Show Notes on the blog.
Highlights
- Catherine's success rate bounces back from summer.
- Sarah's fall reading felt kind of "meh" despite a higher success rate.
- They also share their combined 2025 Preview success rates.
- Their fall pick ratings were all over the place, with only one DNF, but books range from 2 to 4 stars, with Catherine boasting the sole 5-star book!
- A couple of books suffered from an identity crisis, while others were surprise successes.
- Catherine's assignment for next season is to check the page count and look for authors following-up award-winning books.
- They name their best and worst books picks for fall!
Books We Read Before the Preview [5:57]
SEPTEMBER
Sarah's Picks
- The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy (September 16) | Amazon
| Bookshop.org[6:01]
Fall 2025 Circle Back [7:23]
AUGUST
Sarah's Picks
- Dominion
by Addie E. Citchens (August 19) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [7:29]
- We Loved to Run by Stephanie Reents (August 26) | Amazon
Catherine's Pick
- Katabasis by R. F. Kuang (August 26) | Amazon
Other Books Mentioned
- Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (2025) [9:28]
- Inferno by Dante (c. 1321) [11:29]
- Babel by R. F. Kuang (2022) [13:16]
- Yellowface by R. F. Kuang (2023) [13:25]
- The Ensemble by Aja Gabel (2018) [16:12]
SEPTEMBER
Sarah's Picks
- Buckeye by Patrick Ryan (September 2) | Amazon
- Hot Desk by Laura Dickerman (September 2) | Amazon
- Underspin by E. Y. Zhao (September 23) | Amazon
Catherine's Picks
- The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (September 23) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [17:12]
- Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent (US release: September 30) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [24:01]
Other Books Mentioned
- The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary (2019) [28:07]
OCTOBER
Catherine's Picks
- Workhorse by Caroline Palmer (October 14) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [31:24]
- The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson (October 14) | Amazon | Bookshop.org[34:49]
Other Books Mentioned
- The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger (2003) [32:43]
- The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (2012) [38:35]
- The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (2006) [39:03]
NOVEMBER
Sarah's Pick
- Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel (November 4) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [44:37]
Catherine's Pick
- Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino (November 25) | Amazon | Bookshop.org[42:48]
Other Books Mentioned
- The Ensemble by Aja Gabel (2018) [44:43]
DECEMBER
Catherine's Pick
- The Day I Lost You by Ruth Mancini (US release: December 2) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [47:49]
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 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. |
| 0:23.4 | Welcome to the fall 2025 circle back episode, where we discuss books that we shared in the fall preview now that we've actually |
| 0:28.6 | had a chance to read them, or at least attempted to read them. Catherine is joining me. Hi, |
| 0:34.3 | Catherine. Hi. For those who tuned into the fall preview, I'm just going to get right |
| 0:39.2 | to it. You assigned yourself 4,000 plus pages to read in preparation for the circleback episode. |
| 0:48.3 | Yes, I did. Did you get through all that? No, no, I didn't. Okay. |
| 0:56.3 | So we've got some DNFs today. |
| 0:57.4 | Just one. |
| 0:58.4 | Oh, okay. |
| 1:00.3 | Was it one of your chunkers? |
| 1:01.3 | Yes, it was. |
| 1:03.7 | Best did it work out that way, right? |
| 1:05.4 | Right, right. |
| 1:08.7 | For your sanity and time and all of that. |
| 1:09.7 | There you go. |
| 1:10.2 | Yep. |
| 1:12.4 | So how did your fall reading turn out beyond completing or not completing your 4,000 pages? A lot of pages. Actually, it was pretty good. |
| 1:18.1 | I had a 57% success rate with one five star and only one DNF. So that's a big improvement over summer. And even over last year, I only had a |
| 1:30.8 | 50% success rate. So it's just as I start looking further back that I see the days of success |
| 1:38.6 | ratings in the 80% range. Those days are gone. You had those? Yes. Oh, see, I didn't even realize that. That's rare for me. |
| 1:47.9 | I had it this past summer, and that was like the pinnacle of previews for me. Right. Well, you know what? |
| 1:55.5 | Then I guess we can agree they're anomalies. It's not a goal to shoot for. It's not that realistic. But yes, I had things like |
... |
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