Season 8, Episode 17: New Bookcases + Reading Therapy w/Mary Heim

Currently Reading

Meredith Schwartz

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

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Bookish Moments: new bookcases and making space for new TBR
Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately
Deep Dive: bookish therapy with Mary
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).

1:36 - Our Bookish Moments of the Week

1:43 - @maryreadsandmakes on Instagram

2:21 - Ikea Billy Bookcase

6:00 - Half Price Books

8:14 - Our Current Reads

8:20 - The Executioners Three by Susan Dennard (Mary)

11:22 - 25 Days by Per Jacobson (Meredith)

17:37 - The Academy by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham (Mary)

21:50 - Madame Pamplemousse and Her Incredible Edibles by Rupert Kingfisher (Meredith)

24:24 - Daunt Books

26:54 - Blackwell's

28:06 - Wild Reverence by Rebecca Ross (Mary)

28:52 - Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

32:38 - A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross

33:07 - Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

33:08 - A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

33:34 - The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage (Meredith)

35:39 - The Popcast

37:24 - Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland

37:43 - American Royals by Katharine McGee

39:08 - Reading Therapy

43:17 - Gemini Wrongs by Met Tietz on Substack

44:19 - The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte

44:22 - The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte

44:39 - Be Ready when the Luck Happens by Ina Garten

49:51 - Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

50:08 - Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

52:46 - Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

56:31 - The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

57:05 - The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon

58:43 - Meet Us At The Fountain

58:46 - My wish is that you evaluate your reading life and if you're struggling, to reflect if you need extra support in your life. (Mary)

1:00:47 - I recommend watching the show All Her Fault on Peacock if you liked the book. (Meredith)

1:00:58 - All Her Fault by Andrea Mara

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. November's's IPL is brought to us from Content Bookstore in Northfield, Minnesota.
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 read recently. and as you know, we won't shy away from
0:22.4	having strong opinions, so get ready. We are light on the chit-chat, heavy on the book talk,
0:28.0	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. I'm a mom and a
0:37.4	Mimi, and a full-time CEO living in Austin, Texas.
0:41.0	And parting with my books can be very sweet sorrow.
0:44.8	And I'm Mary Heim, a therapist in mom living in Wisconsin.
0:47.6	And I am hanging my proverbial Lucy Van Pelt therapist sign up because the reading doctor is in. Also, I should clarify,
0:55.8	I'm definitely not a doctor. This is episode number 17 of season seven and we are so glad you're here.
1:02.2	Oh, Mary, I am so glad to be recording with you as always, but we are going to be doing
1:07.0	reading therapy for our deep dive and I am so excited to see how this is going to go.
1:13.9	I'm not sure we've ever done anything exactly like this. No. So we're going to, we're flying by
1:19.5	the seat of our pants. We're going to see how it goes. It's an adventure. It is, exactly.
1:24.5	But you are the person to be on this adventure with, so I'm really, really excited about it.
1:29.0	So that's our deep dive. That's what we're going to do. Reading therapy. But first, let's do our
1:35.8	bookish moments of the week. Mary, what is yours? So, Meredith, if any of our listeners are friends with me
1:43.6	on Instagram, they have probably seen a lot of renovation content from me over the last 18, 24 months or so, and one of my biggest crosses to bear, LOL, is that our primary family bookshelf came down when we started our renovation.
1:57.8	And it wasn't until our addition was complete that we could even begin
2:01.3	to consider adding in our new bookshelf while life happened this year the space is kind of wonky in
2:06.3	size and so it wasn't necessarily a super straightforward project and the bookshelf was just not
2:11.6	our main priority for a long time but the end of august rolled around my husband got that
2:16.0	determined look in his eye and he went all in on tackling this project of turning a couple of IKEA billy bookcases into a built-in in our lovely little living room nook edition.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 21 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Meredith Schwartz, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Meredith Schwartz and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.