Hi, everyone and welcome to another episode of Women Who Travel, a podcast from Connie Nass Traveler.

I'm Meredith Carey and with me, as always, is my co-host, Bala Airokoglu.

Hello.

We have two very familiar voices on the podcast today to talk about one of our absolute favorite

things, which is books, of course.

We're joined by Lisa Lucas, publisher at Pantheon and Shockin Books and Jin Dilling Martin,

deputy publisher at Riverhead Books, to talk specifically about books that help us reset and

relax, books that bring us a little bit of Zen. But before we get into your recommendations, and before I

say the word books, another 30 times, Jin and Lisa, I'd love to ask you when you first knew that

reading was an escape for you? Well, I was an only child until I was 13 and my brother was born.

And, you know, I was an 80s kid, you know, working parents,

latchkey. And I think I just, you know, has high energy. I really always wanted to be talking

or doing something or, but that just wasn't the reality of kind of like a sleepy suburban

latchkey kid 80s childhood and so

I don't know exactly when but I remember realizing that if I was just stir crazy and you know losing

my mind and like I didn't want to watch Wheel of Fortune that a book was going to be something that

kept my attention and passed the time and felt

kind of like a friend when I couldn't go out and play with friends.

So it was really early for me that books became a real replacement for social activity that I

might not have access to on a rainy day or a snowy day or after school when I

couldn't go out. So I think that was the origin point. And it served me really well, you know,

to this day. You know, it's like, look, there's been a big long pandemic if you haven't heard.

...