Season 8, Episode 29: A Website Refresh + Curating A Bookstagram

The Currently Reading Podcast

Meredith Schwartz

Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2026

⏱️ 65 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).

1:44 - Bookish Moments of the Week

1:52 - Currently Reading Website

1:56 - Books We Want To Press Into Your Hands

3:03 - Best Books for Babies and Kids

3:42 - Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge

5:55 - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on HBO Max

7:12 - Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

7:16 - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R. R. Martin (all 3 Dunk and Egg novellas)

7:55 - Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

8:33 - Current Reads

8:41 - The Secret Library by Kekla Magoon (Kaytee)

11:47 - The Book Wanderers by Anna James

11:50 - The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

11:54 - The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

13:08 - Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Meredith)

15:10 - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

15:11 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

15:45 - Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

22:27 - Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

24:10 - Six Feet Over by Mary Roach (Kaytee)

27:20 - Gulp by Mary Roach

27:21 - Bonk by Mary Roach

27:22 - Stiff by Mary Roach

28:51 - Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (Meredith)

32:06 - Agatha Christie's Marple by Mark Aldridge

34:18 - The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden (Kaytee)

34:33 - Charter Books

39:00 - Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Meredith)

42:28 - Dracula by Bram Stoker

45:21 - Turning Instagram into Bookstagram

47:25 - Sign up for the newsletter on our website

47:26 - Currently Reading Substack

50:48 - Currently Reading Instagram

50:54 - @HelloSunshine on Instagram

50:58 - @BookRiot on Instagram

51:00 - @NYTBooks on Instagram

51:40 - @Iamblackharry on Instagram

52:10 - Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

52:28 - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

52:42 - The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower

53:42 - The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

53:48 - God of the Woods by Liz Moore

54:03 - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

56:13 - Sarah's Bookshelves Live

58:44 - Before We Go

Meredith highlights a bookish friend post

59:34 - The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

59:54 - The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Kaytee's Book She DNF'd:

1:01:22 - The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor

1:01:28 - Bookshelf Thomasville

1:02:57 - From the Front Porch podcast

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
0:21.4	from having strong opinions, so get ready.
0:24.7	We are light on the chit-chat, heavy on the book talk, and our conversations will always be
0:28.8	spoiler-free.
0:29.6	Today we'll discuss our current reads, a readerly deep dive, and a little something bookish
0:33.8	before we go.
0:34.7	I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz.
0:36.1	I'm a mom and a Mimi and a full-time
0:38.6	CEO living in Austin, Texas, and even book podcasters get slumpy. And I'm Katie Cobb,
0:44.7	a homeschooling mama for living in Arizona. And our website is a treasure trove of goodness.
0:50.2	This is episode number 29 of season eight, and we are so glad you're here.
0:59.7	Katie, did you notice when I came in just at that intro that for a split second, I completely forgot what podcast I was supposed to be opening up? And that tells me I have been recording
1:04.2	too many things. It's a thing, especially when, I mean, it happens to me, too, even though
1:10.2	almost all the things I record
1:11.6	are for currently reading, if I'm doing three or four episodes in a single weekend, I'm like,
1:16.2	who are you? What are we doing here? Right. That split second, I was like, oh, wait, no, it's a big
1:21.7	show and here we go. We got this. We got it. Professionals. We got it. All right. We will let you
1:27.4	know that our deep dive today is going to be on how to find your book twin on Instagram.
1:35.3	We can't guarantee you're going to be able to do it, but I think we can steer you in the right direction.
1:41.2	All right.
1:41.4	But before we get to that, Katie, let's talk about our bookish
1:45.3	moments of the week. What have you got? All right, Meredith, as you know, we have been spiffing up
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

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.