Season 8, Episode 28: Reader Speed Dating + CR Style Book Clubs

The Currently Reading Podcast

Meredith Schwartz

Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Bookish Moments: A new bookish metaphor and book moms in the wild
Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately
Deep Dive: Explaining a Currently Reading literary society
Before We Go: our new segment featuring bookish friend posts and a sleeper hit you should read.

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

1:28 - Bookish Moments of the Week

5:56 - Current Reads

6:23 - A Violent Age by Sarah Blake (Meredith, amazon link)

7:25 - Clean Air by Sarah Blake

13:08 - Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai (Kaytee)

15:28 - Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

16:41 - Currently Reading Website

17:59 - Speedy Death by Gladys Mitchell (Meredith)

23:34 - A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid (Kaytee)

23:52 - History Lessons by Zoe B. Wallbrook

24:05 - The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

26:27 - The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

26:28 - Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

26:32 - House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

26:42 - Sing Me To Sleep by Gabi Burton

26:50 - Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

28:59 - The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan (Meredith)

33:18 - Booktenders

33:37 - Everyone Is Lying To You by Jo Piazza (Kaytee)

38:40 - Currently Reading Style Book Clubs

42:49 - A Violent Age by Sarah Blake

50:16 - Before We Go

Kaytee highlights a bookish friend post

50:34 - Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

50:36 - The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

50:37 - Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

50:40 - The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

51:22 - The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai

51:39 - Confessions by Kanae Minato

Meredith's Sleeper Hit:

52:34 - Sphere by Michel Crichton

52:39 - Timeline by Michael Crichton

54:06 - Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

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. February's list is a special romance curated list from Open Door Romance, The Novel Neighbor's Romance adjacent bookstore in Webster Groves, MO.
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 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
0:21.6	from having strong opinions. So get ready. We're light on the chit-shot, heavy on the book talk,
0:27.3	and our conversations will always be spoiler-free. Today we'll discuss our current reads,
0:31.7	a readerly deep dive, and a little something bookish before we go. I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz.
0:36.6	I'm a mom and a Mimi and a full-time
0:39.6	CEO living in Austin, Texas, and teachers still make me better at reading. And I'm Katie Cobb,
0:46.5	a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona, and I love the comfort of finding readers in the wild.
0:52.7	This is episode number 28 of season eight, and we are so glad
0:56.4	you're here. Katie, have you been out, have you been out in the wild with readers? Have you been
1:01.4	meeting people randomly? I mean, yes. I'm going to talk about it in my bookish moment, but I'm calling
1:07.5	it reader speed dating. That's not what it is, but that's how I'm framing it in my head.
1:11.3	I like it. Before we get to that, though, we'll let everybody know that our deep dive today is about
1:16.0	currently reading style book clubs because we do a different thing here on currently reading.
1:20.8	And sometimes you can translate that into your book group of choice. So we'll chat about that in a bit.
1:27.4	But first we'll start with our bookish moments and as a lover of choice. So we'll chat about that in a bit, but first we'll start with our bookish
1:29.2	moments. And as a lover of all things teacher and education, Meredith, I can't wait to hear
1:35.0	what your bite size intro is about. Okay, so we heard this week via email from our bookish friend
1:42.6	Ilsa who says this, hi Meredith. After hearing your metaphor about
1:47.6	cooking ground beef. Yes. I wanted to share another metaphor for reading that we use with kids a lot.
1:55.9	I'm a teacher and a literacy coach, which by the way, what's a literacy coach? And I love that idea. Here we go.
2:02.2	The beginning of a book, especially that 20 to 50 percent, is like riding a bike uphill.
2:08.9	You have to work harder, pump harder, maybe even stand on the pedals. Once you reach that point
	...

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