Season 7, Episode 43: Bookish Get Togethers + Virtual Reading Retreats

Currently Reading

Meredith Schwartz

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

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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

Bookish Moments: bookish get togethers and bookish connection events
Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately
Deep Dive: the ins and outs of a virtual reading retreat
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)

1:32 - Ad For Ourselves

1:45 - Currently Reading Patreon

3:41 - Our Bookish Moments Of The Week

4:33 - Mystery to Me bookstore

9:56 - Our Current Reads

10:10 - Lightfall: The Girl & the Galdurian by Tim Probert (Mary)

16:38 - The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon (Meredith)

21:22 - Set Piece by Lana Schwartz (Mary)

25:15 - Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie (Meredith)

26:20 - The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie

27:57 - Poirot by Mark Aldridge

29:08 - Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan (Mary)

33:16 - The Farm by Tom Rob Smith (Meredith)

34:48 - Cold People by Tom Rob Smith

37:38 - Virtual Reading Retreats

51:26 - Meet Us At The Fountain

51:38 - I wish everyone would try a buddy read with an unexpected buddy reader. (Mary)

51:50 - The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys

54:33 - I wish everyone would consider putting a virtual reading retreat on their calendar. (Meredith)

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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. June’s IPL is brought to us by one of our anchor stores, Schuler Books in Michigan
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

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

Production and Editing: Megan Phouthavong Evans

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Transcript

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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 from
0:21.6	having strong opinions. So get ready. We are light on the chit-chat, heavy on the book talk,
0:27.5	and our descriptions will always be spoiler-free. Today we'll discuss our current reads,
0:32.3	a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain. I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom of four
0:37.2	and full-time CEO living in Austin, Texas,
0:40.0	and I love to talk about books at all my jobs.
0:43.5	And I'm Mary Heim, a therapist and mom living in Wisconsin, and I just want to be with book
0:47.9	people all the time.
0:49.6	This is episode number 43 of Season 7, and we are so glad you're here.
0:56.8	All right, Mary, I am so glad you are here. It is so good to talk to you. It is so good to talk to you, Meredith. I'm so excited for
1:04.3	this episode today. All right, well, and you'll, you might be able to hear from my voice that I am
1:09.3	a little bit suffering from the flu.
1:12.4	My middle schooler, now high schooler, I can't even believe that, brought it home in the last week of school.
1:18.5	And so I might sound a little bit like that.
1:20.7	But, Mary, if there is anyone on the planet who is chicken soup for the soul, it is you.
1:26.1	So I am so excited to be talking about books with you today. Before we do that,
1:31.4	we have a little bit of mischief that we need to manage because it is the first Monday of the
1:36.4	month. And that means that we are going to talk just a little bit about having you guys, if you
1:42.3	haven't already, join us as a bookish friend on
1:45.8	Patreon. So we do this at the beginning of every month just one time because this, the fact that
1:52.7	what we do, what we do on Patreon is what enables us to keep the big show commercial free all
1:59.2	month long, which we know, tons of you have told us, is the number
	...

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