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Currently Reading

Season 6, Episode 18: Reading Trackers + How the Holidays Affect Our Reading

Currently Reading

Meredith Schwartz

Allthebooks, Books, Read, Arts, Bookpodcast, Reading, Whatshouldireadnext, Society & Culture

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Meredith are discussing:

  • Bookish Moments: the 2024 reading tracker and Christmas picture books

  • Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately

  • Deep Dive: how the holidays affect our reading lives

  • The Fountain: we visit our perfect fountain to make wishes about our reading lives

Show notes are time-stamped below for your convenience. Read the transcript of the episode (this link only works on the main site)

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2:04 - Currently Reading Patreon

8:24 - Our Bookish Moments of the Week

9:19 - Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry

10:25 - The Poison Pen Bookstore

10:46 - The Secret of Helmersbruk Manor by Eva Frantz (Blackwell’s link)

11:06 - The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

11:11 - The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum

12:44 - Current Reads

12:59 - Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter

13:19 - Close to Home by Cara Hunter (Meredith, Blackwell’s link)

17:55 - The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James (Kaytee)

18:04 - CR Season 5: Episode 44

21:53 - Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill (Meredith)

24:15 - The Novel Neighbor

25:56 - The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

26:43 - The Novel Neighbor on Instagram

27:03 - The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wray Gregoire

29:12 - Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski

30:24 - Unhinged by Vera Valentine

31:06 - The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes (Meredith)

31:16 - I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

33:29 - Blackwell’s UK

33:48 - booktalketc on Instagram

41:26 - Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree

42:14 - The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (Kaytee)

43:27 - Libro.fm

54:14 - The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

48:25 - Deep Dive: How Holidays Can Change Our Reading Habits

50:33 - The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Dicamillo

51:08 - The Novel Neighbor

55:09 - The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand

55:14 - Marley by Jon Clinch

55:54 - The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict

56:54 - The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry

57:34 - Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber

58:09 - Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

59:20 - Meet Us At The Fountain

59:42 - My wish is that you read I Am Pilgrim (Meredith)

59:48 - I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

1:01:54 - I wish that Google Sheets would allow “select multiple” in drop downs (Kaytee)

Support Us:

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Bookish Friends Receive:

  • The Indie Press List with a curated list of five books hand sold by the indie of the month. December’s IPL will be a yearly recap from us, so we can give our beloved Indies a break for the holidays!

  • Trope Thursday with Kaytee and Bunmi - a behind the scenes peek into the publishing industry

  • All Things Murderful with Meredith and Elizabeth - special content for the scary-lovers, brought to you with the special insights of an independent bookseller

  • The Bookish Friends Facebook Group - where you can build community with bookish friends from around the globe as well as our hosts

Connect With Us:

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The Hosts and Regulars: Meredith | Kaytee | Mary | Roxanna

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:16.9

Hey readers, welcome to the currently reading podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books we've read recently and as you know we won't shy away from

0:21.8

having strong opinions so get ready.

0:24.5

We are light on the chit chat, heavy on the book talk, and our descriptions will always be

0:28.3

spoiler free.

0:29.3

Today we'll discuss our current reads, a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.

0:34.0

I'm Meredith Munday Schwartz, a mom of four, and full-time CEO living in Austin, Texas, and I'm

0:39.0

getting all the Christmas vibes from my reading.

0:42.1

And I'm Katie Kom, a homeschooling Mama 4, living in Arizona, and I like big

0:47.0

spreadsheets and I cannot lie. This is episode number 18 of season 6 and we are so glad you're here. Oh Katie the spreadsheet

0:54.5

goodness the Christmassy spreadsheet goodness is upon us. It's it's here it's here

1:01.3

I'm so excited it's here. I'm so excited. It's here. Yes, I am so excited. That gets us into our little bit of mischief that we have to manage for today, Meredith, because it is the first Monday of the month, the first Monday of

1:14.4

December and for me that means I have a hard deadline today and all our bookish

1:19.0

friends are getting to open their emails which has a Christmas present for me in it, it is the 2024 reading

1:26.0

tracker, which, as always, is bigger and better and has more features and more tub tabs and more goodies than ever before.

1:35.4

I pulled the bookish friends, I said, what would you like, like in your perfect world,

1:39.3

what would you like to see and they delivered in a big way.

1:43.0

Yes, they have a lot of opinions, a lot of people,

1:47.0

hundreds and hundreds of people have been using this spreadsheets.

1:50.0

A lot of people, Katie, we know from some surveys that we've done, this is the reason they become

1:56.7

a bookish friend. This is the spreadsheet is the thing that is worth the five dollars a month that it costs you to be a bookish friend.

2:05.2

Now, of course, people could, if they wanted to, dip in for a month, grab that spreadsheet,

2:10.8

and then they could bounce. And that's totally doable and that

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