Season 8, Episode 37: To The Moon And Back + Low Rated Books That Stuck With Us

The Currently Reading Podcast

Meredith Schwartz

Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Bookish Moments: Whiny men in books and reading to our kids
Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately
Deep Dive: books we rated fairly low, but have stuck with us over time.
Before We Go: our new segment featuring bookish friend posts and a sleeper hit from Roxanna

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

1:50 - We encourage you to spend your dollars at indie bookstores this Saturday, April 25th for Independent Bookstore Day!

4:26 - Bookish Moments of the Week

4:49 - Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

5:47 - The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett

7:35 - Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney

10:00 - Current Reads

10:08 - Good People by Patmeena Sabit (Roxanna)

12:21 - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

18:58 - Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (Kaytee)

24:01 - One Woman Show by Christine Coulson (Roxanna)

28:12 - Sarah's Bookshelves Live

28:34 - Meet the Neighbors by Brandon Keim (Kaytee)

31:56 - An Immense World by Ed Yong

32:11 - Fuzz by Mary Roach

33:34 - Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke (Roxanna)

37:01 - Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

38:15 - Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill (Kaytee)

40:23 - The Princess Saves Herself in this One by Amanda Lovelace

40:31 - Love in Color by Bolu Babalola

41:48 - Deep Dive: Lower Rated Books That Stuck With Us

42:57 - Wine Witch On Fire by Natalie MacLean

48:27 - Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain

50:08 - Save Me The Plums by Ruth Reichl

50:10 - Blood Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

50:46 - Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

51:51 - To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

55:29 - Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey

56:44 - How To Kill A Guy In Ten Dates by Shailee Thompson

57:10 - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

57:13 - A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

57:42 - Dawn by Octavia Butler

57:48 - Kindred by Octavia Butler

1:01:24 - You by Caroline Kepnes

1:04:56 - Before We Go

Kaytee highlights a bookish friend post

1:05:12 - Currently Reading Patreon (gets you access to our Discord!)

1:05:31 - Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Roxanna brings a sleeper hit

1:06:25 - Food that Really Schmecks by Edna Stabler

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. April's IPL is brought to us from a new to us bookstore, Two Friends Books in Bentonville, Arkansas
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	Hi, readers. Welcome to Currently Reading Podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week
0:16.2	talking about the books that we've read recently. And as you already know, we don't shy away from having
0:20.9	strong opinions. So get ready. We're light on the chit-chat, heavy on the book talk, and our
0:25.6	conversations will always be spoiler-free. Today, we'll discuss our current reads, a readerly deep dive,
0:31.6	and then a little something bookish before we go. I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mama four,
0:36.7	living in Arizona, and I love reading to the moon and back. And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mama four, living in Arizona, and I love reading
0:39.0	to the moon and Beck. And I'm Roxanna Kasemkara, a mom, a marketer, and a mood reader from Toronto,
0:45.7	Canada, and there's nothing that I hate more than whiny men, Katie. Same girl. This is episode
0:53.5	number 37 of season eight, and we're so glad you're here. So glad to be here. So glad to be here with you, Roxanna. It's been quite some time since we got to record together. It's been so long, and I'm so excited to be here. I have some great books for you and for all our listeners, and yeah, it feels like it's been a really long time. Now at least,
1:11.7	the springtime sunshine is coming in. We're feeling it even here in Toronto. And I just have all
1:16.4	this light and hope and optimism to bring to the show today. That is what we are doing in my life
1:21.2	right now is seeking joy. We are seeking joy because it's like a deep breath in and a deep breath out. I am going to let everybody
1:29.2	know right here at the top of the show that our deep dive today is about the three star books we read
1:34.4	that ended up sticking with us. So it's a little bit of a look back. I'm excited to get into this.
1:40.6	Great idea, Roxanna. But before we get started the way we always do, we have a little
1:44.8	mischief to manage. Not our regular mischief. I'm so excited. Roxanna, this mischief is not for us.
1:51.5	It is for Indie Bookstore Day. If you are listening in real time on the Monday of this week,
1:58.3	April 20th, we are so excited to remind you that independent bookstore day
2:02.1	is this coming Saturday. This is a holiday of sorts in the United States, certainly for us readers.
2:08.2	Do they do this in Canada, Roxanna? I think they do. Yeah. I think it's caught on now. They get started
2:14.5	in the U.S. and it's caught on here because we all love our indie bookstores, let's be honest.
2:18.9	We really do.
	...

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