Season 8, Episode 11: Book Bundles + Books That Zigged When You Thought They'd Zag

Currently Reading

Meredith Schwartz

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

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Bookish Moments: back to buddy reading and book bundles
Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately
Deep Dive: books that surprised you all the way through
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).

1:46 - Our Bookish Moments of the Week

1:55 - Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

2:19 - Babel by R.F. Kuang

2:41 - The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

6:38 - Our Current Reads

9:54 - The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Vol.1 by Beth Brower (Roxanna)

9:04 - Libby

9:29 - 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

14:15 - The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery

14:41 - Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer (Kaytee)

17:19 - Lord of the Flies by William Golding

19:37 - Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (Roxanna)

25:00 - Hollowpox by Jessica Townsend

27:41 - Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong (Kaytee)

31:09 - The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman (Roxanna)

33:05 - Type Books Canada

34:45 - Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

33:47 - A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers

36:19 - Audre & Bash are Just Friends by Tia Williams (Kaytee)

36:30 - Libro.fm

36:38 - Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

39:24 - The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

40:52 - Books that Zigged When You Thought They'd Zag

41:45 - The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman

45:03 - Piranesi by Susanna Clark

45:19 - Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

46:02 - The Unseen World by Liz Moore

46:43 - Hazel Says No by Jessica Berger Gross

46:47 - Fabled Bookshop

48:05 - Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

49:15 - I Keep My Worries In My Teeth by Anna Cox

49:23 - Commonplace Books

50:51 - Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson

50:53 - Parnassus Books

50:55 - Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill

50:58 - The Novel Neighbor

51:00 - Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

51:03 - An Unlikely Story

51:07 - Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

51:33 - The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Z. Hossain

52:10 - Wicked Nix by Lena Coakley

53:38 - Meet Us At The Fountain

53:45 - I wish to press The Ghoul of Windydown Vale by Jake Burt. (Roxanna)

53:54 - The Ghoul of Windydown Vale by Jake Burt

56:06 - I wish Libby would bring back "Deliver Later". (Kaytee)

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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 already know, we do not shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.
0:23.6	We're light on the chit-chat, heavy on the book talk, and our descriptions will always be spoiler-free.
0:28.9	Today, we'll discuss our current needs, a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.
0:33.4	I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mama for living in Arizona, and my goal is to put books in the hands of every reader.
0:40.3	And I'm Roxanna Kasimkara, a mom, a business owner, and a mood reader living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
0:47.0	And I love books that's Sig when you expect them to zag.
0:50.3	This is episode number 11 of season 8, and we're so glad you're here.
0:54.5	Perfect.
0:55.1	I am so excited to be with you on Mike today, Roxanna.
0:59.1	As we know, our beloved Meredith is traipsing through the UK.
1:03.5	In fact, I saw on her stories this morning that she and Betsy have declared a stay-at-home
1:07.8	and relax day.
1:09.5	I was like, damn you, woman.
1:12.5	That's all I want in my whole life is to be in the UK and just declare,
1:17.7	stay at home and relax.
1:19.8	In a stormy, wind-swept place with a cute tour guide and some delicious cocoa.
1:25.5	Bagpipes outside.
2:18.3	God, are you kidding me? Killing me. Ridiculous. All right, but we are here. We are so excited to do a deep dive today on. Roxanna just hinted at it in her bite-size intro, the books that Zigg when you expect a zag. I'm very excited to get into this with you, but we will get started the way we always do with our bookish moments of the week. What is yours, friend? Okay, well, mine, Katie, is actually a great time, buddy reading. I'm buddy reading Catabasis with R. F. Kwong, with Meredith. I had to think before I said that, it's, I've looked it up. It's catabasis. So I've seen it probably. I've been saying it wrong in my head. Me too, the whole time. But that's okay. I'm practicing now. I actually listened. I saw a video with her and she said she even pronounced it catabasis and then was corrected. Good. Called it catabasis. So I feel better about that.
2:22.2	And she also says Babel, but she's fine with people in UK saying Babel.
2:24.7	So just now we know her two big books.
2:26.2	So that's just an aside. But I'm bringing this because, funnily enough, Meredith and I have not buddy read in a while.
2:32.2	You know, there's been lots of life issues and bandwidth issues.
	...

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