Season 8, Episode 33: Reading Grooves + Our Reading Hermitages

The Currently Reading Podcast

Meredith Schwartz

Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Bookish Moments: Reading modes and finding books for every moment
Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately
Deep Dive: Which authors' complete works we would take to our hermitage
Before We Go: our new segment featuring bookish friend posts and a sleeper hit brought by Elizabeth.

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

:10 - Bite Size Intro

:51 - Fabled Bookshop

:57 - Currently Reading Patreon

2:47 - Our Bookish Moments of the Week

8:23 - Our Current Reads

8:52 - These Is My Words by Nancy Turner (Elizabeth)

10:37 - Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

10:40 - Centennial by James Michener

11:50 - This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum (Meredith)

16:34 - London Falling by Patrick Raddon Keefe (Elizabeth, pre-order releases April 7, 2026)

17:06 - Defending Jacob by William Landay

17:07 - Someone We Know by Shari Lapena

19:14 - The Plea by Steve Cavanagh (Meredith)

21:40 - Thirteen by Steve Kavanagh

21:41 - Fifty Fifty by Steve Kavanagh

22:40 - The Defense by Steve Kavanagh

24:20 - Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Elizabeth)

28:42 - Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Meredith)

***Each current read this week is 10% off if you order through Fabled Bookshop with the code "currently"

35:47 - Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser

35:58 - Wait for Me by Amy Jo Burns

36:20 - To sign up for Book Lover Weekend head to their website!

37:07 - Deep Dive: The Works of Five Authors for the End of Time

Min Jin Lee (Elizabeth)

39:12 - Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

39:16 - American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee

Louise Penny - all of them (Meredith)

Anthony Horowitz (Elizabeth)

40:22 - Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

41:02 - Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

Charles Dickens (Meredith)

41:56 - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

42:02 - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

42:07 - Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Patrick Radden Keefe (Elizabeth)

42:42 - Dead Wake by Erik Larson

David Sedaris (Meredith)

Kristen Hannah (Elizabeth)

Stephen King (Meredith)

45:46 - Fairy Tale by Stephen King

Liz Moore (Elizabeth)

46:31 - Long Bright River by Liz Moore

46:32 - God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Debbie Macomber (Meredith)

Rick Bragg (Elizabeth)

50:40 - Before We Go

Meredith highlights a bookish friend post

51:33 - StoryGraph

Elizabeth brings a sleeper hit

52:35 - No One's Coming by Kevin Hazzard

52:40 - Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Support Us:

Become a Bookish Friend | Grab Some Merch

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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. March's IPL is brought by our lovely friends at An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA.
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 read recently. and as you know we won't shy away from
0:21.7	having strong opinions so get ready we are light on the chit-chat heavy on the book talk
0:27.5	and our conversations will always be spoiler-free today we'll discuss our current reads a readerly
0:33.4	deep dive and a little something bookish before we go i I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz. I'm mom and a
0:39.4	Mimi and a full-time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And my first instinct for anything new is always to
0:46.1	start with reading about it. And I'm Elizabeth Barnhill, the book buyer at the beautiful
0:50.9	fabled bookshop in Waco, Texas. And Meredith's co-host on All Things Murderful,
0:56.6	part of the Patreon content for currently reading, and my spring fever has turned into book fever.
1:03.2	This is episode number 33 of season 8, and we are so glad you're here.
1:08.6	Oh, Elizabeth, I am so glad to be recording a big show episode with you. This is the
1:14.6	first time you've ever done the big show. I know. I've been so excited about it and just thinking all
1:20.7	week, what books do I want to bring and what do I want to talk about? I've been so excited to do this
1:25.8	all week, Meredith. And when you thought about your current
1:28.2	reads, they didn't have to all be murderful. So that kind of freed you up to, we really want people
1:33.3	to know you and people want to know you beyond just the murderful parts of you because you love
1:40.1	all kinds of books and reading. I do. And I, of course, murderful books I've loved since I was a
1:45.9	little girl, but I'm a very eclectic reader, and I love that I get to share some of my other
1:52.3	loves with our audience today. All right. Well, along those lines, I will let you know that our
1:57.2	deep dive today is one that I am very interested in talking about with you,
2:01.8	Elizabeth, because we had somebody mentioned in the Bookish Friends Facebook group that they were
2:06.9	trying to pull together if you were going to live in a cabin by yourself, you were going to be a
2:12.3	hermit, and you were going to have no TV or internet, and you could only take the works of five authors.
	...

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