Season 7, Episode 30: New Indie Bookstores + Our Six Star Reads

Currently Reading

Meredith Schwartz

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

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Bookish Moments: Kindle samples and getting new indie bookstores
Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately
Deep Dive: six star books to which we will take no criticism from anyone
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)

1:01 - Ad For Ourselves

1:18 - Currently Reading Patreon

1:34 - An Unlikely Story

2:35 - @anunlikelystory on Instagram

3:37 - Our Bookish Moments Of The Week

6:48 - Literally, A Bookshop

7:54 - @Literallybookshop on Instagram

8:52 - Our Current Reads

9:23 - The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley (Meredith)

16:32 - All the Right Notes by Dominic Lim (Kaytee)

16:40 - Tucson Festival of Books 2025

19:52 - Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manasala

20:13 - This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab (Meredith)

21:47 - A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

23:20 - The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

23:49 - They Came for the Schools by Mike Hixenbaugh (Kaytee)

24:11 - Southlake Podcast

27:46 - Past Crimes by Jason Pinter (Meredith)

29:44 - Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

31:06 - Recursion by Blake Crouch

31:40 - The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues by Beth Lincoln (Kaytee)

31:49 - The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln

35:11 - Our Six Star Reads

36:08 - The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

37:29 - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

37:33 - A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

40:17 - Happy Place by Emily Henry

42:32 - The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

42:37 - The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

42:38 - In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

42:41 - The Stand by Stephen King

42:43 - The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher

42:44 - A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

44:44 - All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle

45:00 - This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

45:09 - Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge

45:13 - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

45:14 - Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

45:17 - Babel by R.F. Kuang

45:38 - Lobizona by Romina Garber Russell

45:43 - Cazadora by Romina Garber Russell

49:14 - The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

49:49 - The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

51:22 - Meet Us At The Fountain

51:43 - Sarah’s Bookshelves Live

51:53 - I want everyone to listen to episode 188 of Sarah’s Bookshelves Live if you enjoy fantasy reading. (Meredith)

51:54 - Sarah’s Bookshelves Live episode 188

53:09 - I wish for a book aggregator that would house all book covers of all books so we could compare easily and find the ones we want to purchase quickly without having to browse multiple sites. (Kaytee)

54:09 - Greenwood by Michael Christie

Support Us:

Become a Bookish Friend | Grab Some Merch

Shop Bookshop dot org | Shop Amazon

Bookish Friends Receive:

The Indie Press List with a curated list of five books hand sold by the indie of the month. March’s IPL comes to you from our tried and true partner, An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA.
Love and Chili Peppers with Kaytee and Rebekah - romance lovers get their due with this special episode focused entirely on the best selling genre fiction in the business.
All Things Murderful with Meredith and Elizabeth - special content for the scary-lovers, brought to you with the behind-the-scenes insights of an independent bookseller
From the Editor’s Desk with Kaytee and Bunmi Ishola - a quarterly peek behind the curtain at the publishing industry
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:

The Show: Instagram | Website | Email | Threads

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

Production and Editing: Megan Phouthavong Evans

Affiliate Disclosure: All affiliate links go to Bookshop unless otherwise noted. Shopping here helps keep the lights on and benefits indie bookstores. 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 bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently, and as you know, we won't shy away
0:21.4	from having strong opinions. So get ready. We are light on the chit-chat, heavy on the book
0:26.3	talk, and our conversations will always be spoiler-free. Today we'll discuss our current reads,
0:31.3	a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit The Fountain. I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom of four
0:36.2	and full-time CEO living in Austin, Texas,
0:38.8	and sometimes a little taste is all I need. And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mama four,
0:45.0	living in Arizona, and finding a new bookstore is like getting a bonus dessert. This is episode
0:50.1	number 30 of season seven, and we are so glad you're here. Oh, Katie, do you have a new bookstore?
0:55.7	I do have a new bookstore and I'm so excited to talk about it. That's coming in my bookish moment.
1:00.3	First, we have some mischief to manage. We are going to talk this month like we do at the very first
1:06.2	Monday of every month about how we keep this show running without ads. And we do that because we have one ad for
1:12.4	ourselves each month. So this month we wanted to throw a little bit of a highlight, a little
1:16.8	spotlight on our indie press list where we partner with an independent bookstore. They give us a
1:22.5	stack of five books. They're phenomenal. Working with indie bookstores is always so fun, like I mentioned in my
1:29.3	Fountain Wish last week. But March is a special month because we have an unlikely story as one of
1:35.6	our anchor stores. And we get to partner with book boyfriend Bill. Yes, we love book boyfriend Bill.
1:43.0	I have so been looking forward to this.
1:46.0	I have, too, and that's because March's episode is extra special book boyfriend Bill,
1:51.3	Triple B, as he's known in the industry now, is joining us live for our recording.
1:57.0	So everyone will get to hear him talk about the books, why he thought they were such a perfect
2:01.6	fit for our group and just be his regular amazing self. We just love him so much.
2:07.5	Nobody sells a book better than Bookboy from Bill. And the stack is really, really good.
	...

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