DONNA HETCHLER: You know, I love a book project, but I really love doing it with other people. So in book club, I put a note out saying what I was going to do, and honestly, Anne, I swear to you, I thought five people would say yes.
ANNE BOGEL: And that would have been fun.
DONNA: Which would have been great. Next thing I know, 50 people have signed up and we are just having a blast.
ANNE: Hey readers, I’m Anne Bogel, and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that’s dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don’t get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read and ask questions to get you thinking about your own reading life in a fun and really helpful way.
[00:00:58] It’s hard to believe another year is nearly over. This is our last episode for 2025. It’s been an incredible year and we are looking to so many exciting things in 2026. We have lots of milestone moments and celebrations and also special events like our upcoming team’s best books of the year.
I want to send a big thank you to everyone who helps make this show happen. Our whole team, everyone who’s joined me in some capacity to talk books on the show, our What Should I Read Next? Patreon community whose contributions in the spheres of finances, morale boosting, and great input and ideas sustain us, readers who comment with book recommendations, email with feedback, and spread the word on social media, and each and every listener Thank you all for making this show possible and for sustaining us for going on 10 years now. That’s right. What Should I Read Next? turns 10 on January 12, 2026, and we’re making plans.
[00:01:54] But first, to wrap up our ninth year together, I’ve invited our What Should I Read Next? team members to join me today and share insight into what the past 12 months have meant in each of their reading lives. We’re borrowing a long-time tradition that I’ve really enjoyed participating in on Modern Mrs. Darcy, the blog where every year I ask myself what worked and what didn’t. So we’re doing that today here, from the unexpected wins to what’s decidedly not worked in everyone’s reading lives.
I’m checking in with each of our team members today for a lightning round of book talk. We love talking books as a team, and it’s so fun to get to do it with the microphones on for once. I’m really excited for you to listen in. I know many of you have been really looking forward to this.
Let’s get to it.
Hi, Brigid.
BRIGID MISSELHORN: Hi, Anne. I’m so excited to be here today.
ANNE: Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to hear what you have to share. So, first off, would you tell our readers what you do around here?
[00:02:49] BRIGID: Yes. Okay, so my name is Brigid Misselhorn. I’m our community coordinator, which means I work a lot in our book club space and for What Should I Read Next? podcast, doing things like, well, just before we have done, inviting some guests who have entered submissions to be on the podcast.
ANNE: Was it you? Please say yes.
BRIGID: If it wasn’t you and you’re interested, you can always fill out a form, a submission form online.
ANNE: And then Brigid will hopefully send you an email.
BRIGID: Exactly.
ANNE: All right. Brigid, what worked in your reading life in 2025?
BRIGID: This is funny, Anne. I’m really glad we kind of talked about as a team. This was one of the questions that would be there because my very first inclination, my immediate answer would be community reading classics. I hadn’t read a classic in a while. I really enjoy them, and it seems to be most effective when I read them like buddy read style.
[00:03:51] But then I went and reviewed my StoryGraph and Goodreads in preparation for today and to just kind of look at my year as a whole, and the big thing that really worked for me in my reading life, and it’s connected to reading community classics, was vampires. Vampires.
ANNE: Didn’t see that coming.
BRIGID: Great. I didn’t either, but I should have because I’m the one that’s reading a lot of books about vampires. And it really comes as no surprise because I think back to our blog series where we talk about the books that shaped us. And one of the books that shaped me was Interview with a Vampire.
I shouldn’t be surprised to see it be such a big theme in 2025. When I say vampires, I mean bad ones, good ones, morally gray ones, funny ones, scary ones, just everything. And I was like, “Wait, is this recency bias?” Because I am currently finishing the Dracula community read that I’ve been a part of, that Elise has been running over at Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club in the forums. And it’s been so fun because I’ve been doing it as the Dracula Daily. I’m behind, admittedly, but not horribly behind. But I am behind.
[00:05:11] But I thought, “Maybe this is recency bias.” I’m reading that currently. I just finished The Late-Night Witches by Auralee Wallace, and I absolutely adored it. So, I thought, “Okay, but no, I went back. I’ve been reading vampire books all year, and in January, I started it off strong with my favorite book of the summer.” Now, I counted it as a summer book because it came out in the summer, but I read it in January. And that was Of Monsters and Mainframes.
So, I don’t know what that says about me, why that’s working for me this year. But I looked, and 15% to 20% of the books I’ve read this year have vampires in them. I don’t know. But it’s bringing me joy. Sometimes they’re classics, like Dracula, sometimes they’ve been sci-fi, romances. It’s run the gamut. And it makes me want to look up more vampire books to read. So, I think that’s a good thing.
[00:06:08] ANNE: All right. Readers, I think I just heard Brigid say she’s open to suggestions, if you have any.
BRIGID: I am. Please, please. What I will say, though, is that, and I’m on record as this, I don’t mind scary books, but they can’t be super, super graphic gory. I did notice on my StoryGraph that most of the books that I’ve read are in that lighthearted realm. I do like a funny, lighthearted. And I would say the majority of the vampire reads that I’ve read in 2025 that really worked for me well were funny. I can’t say that for Dracula. Cannot. Cannot say that for Dracula. It was really not funny at all.
ANNE: Wow. I never would have seen vampires coming. Yay, Reading Journal, for revealing this to you. I mean, StoryGraph being your digital journal.
BRIGID: Yes, I’m really glad I was able to check that out.
ANNE: Brigid, what didn’t work for you in 2025? In your reading life, that is. Narrows it down considerably, perhaps.
[00:07:05] BRIGID: I started with community reads and buddy reads working for reading a classic, Dracula, but also what didn’t work was buddy reads. Because…
ANNE: Ooh, say more.
BRIGID: Well, I’m behind on Dracula. I’m just finishing it. I joined one for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a book that’s been on my radar forever with team member Ginger and Bailey. I shouldn’t have taken that one on. I didn’t get very far at all, so I fear that was my own fault. I already had too many going.
And then the other thing that’s not working is I did the Murder, She Read buddy read for years, where we would read a monthly murder mystery written by a woman, and it’s not working. And that I’m going to say, is because of social media. I had always run it through Instagram, and we would chat in group message on Instagram about the mystery read that we chose each month. And I tried to step away from Instagram, and that really hurt keeping up with that monthly buddy read.
[00:08:12] So, yeah, that didn’t work for me this year. It’s strange that it did work to get me to finally read the classic, Dracula, that’s been on my TBR, I think, the longest on Goodreads. It’s one of the oldest books on my TBR. But one of my hopes for 2026 is to get back into Murder, She Read. I even tried it on Discord this year in 2025, and I just don’t use that enough. So I may have to go back to Instagram.
Listeners, if you do Murder, She Read with me, let’s talk, because I really want to get back to it, because that has brought me a lot of joy and has worked for me many years. So I miss it.
ANNE: Fingers crossed for 2026. Brigid, based on all you’ve seen and done and learned in 2025, you got any new bookish tips for us?
BRIGID: I do. I do. One thing that’s really helped me this year, and I think you and I were talking about it, ever since you shared the priority TBR tip on a little Post-It, I keep mine in my iPhone Notes app, and I keep it up to date each month for what I need to read.
[00:09:17] But I was finding that I’d go to read the book, and I’d be like, “Where’s that book again?” Whether it was an audiobook, a digital, a print. So not only do I keep, you know, five or so titles in that priority TBR of what I want to read each month in my Notes app, I’ve now started writing where it’s actually located. Do I have it in Libro.fm? Do I get it through my library’s Hoopla? Wherever this is located. I don’t have to think about it and go searching for it again, and that is saving precious reading time. So that’s a tip that I had made a big difference in my reading life this year.
ANNE: All right. Lessen the friction. Ease the transition.
BRIGID: Yes.
ANNE: I love it. I’m glad that’s working for you.
BRIGID: Thank you.
ANNE: All right. Brigid, here’s to 2026. Thanks for coming on.
BRIGID: Oh, that was my pleasure. I always love to join you here, Anne.
[00:10:09] ANNE: Now we’re on to the next. Let’s turn the page to Shannan.
Hi Shannan.
SHANNAN MALONE: Hi Anne.
ANNE: Would you tell everybody what you do around here, please?
SHANNAN: Yes. I am the What Should I Read Next? Patreon community manager, and I am also a co-host in Book Club.
ANNE: Right. Which of course 100% captures it all.
SHANNAN: Not really, but that’s what I’d say.
ANNE: That’s a great quick and dirty overview. Shannan, what worked in your reading life in 2025?
SHANNAN: Well, I’ve said this extensively on various episodes, bonuses, blog posts. My only goal was-
ANNE: We love consistency.
SHANNAN: My only goal was to read 25 five-star reads this year. And usually I have all these goals and whatever, but I really wanted to focus very succinctly on one thing. I did enjoy that, not having a huge reading goal. It was great and it really worked for me.
[00:11:14] I enjoyed the lack of pressure, just the, oh, 25. I usually aim to read my age, which is not 25, but focusing on 25 was great. So, as of this recording, I have read 13 five-star reads and 11 four-star reads for a total, if my math is correct, of 24 four and five-star reads. That counts for me.
ANNE: Plus, I believe you’ve got another wonderful book waiting for you before the year is out.
SHANNAN: Yes, for sure. I’ve read 32 in all.
ANNE: Dang.
SHANNAN: But 24 were four and five stars, which really, really works for me. I’m reading the right books for me, which is also great. And I’m not upset about those eight books, again, math, I’m in English and reading for a reason, that I read that were not four or five-star reads. I read them with the knowledge that I would probably just like them, which is three stars. And I was okay with that and they were great.
[00:12:25] ANNE: Well, that sounds great. What didn’t work for you in 2025?
SHANNAN: I thought I would have time to deep dive into a book or a subject that I was really interested in with just a 25-book goal, and I did not. And that didn’t work. That didn’t work for me. So I’m wanting to do that in 2026. If anyone listens to any of my episodes before about my reading life, I feel like I’ve been just going from broad to narrow. And 2026 will be even more narrowing, even more focused than 2025 was. I feel that in my spirit.
I did read a couple of books that were very good flights together, so they were in conversation with each other, which was wonderful. But I want to go deeper. Like very, very, very deep. I’m still working on what that looks like. So don’t ask me now. But-
ANNE: Could you sense the question forming on the tip of my tongue? Okay. So ‘plans are in process’ is what I’m hearing.
[00:13:28] SHANNAN: Yes. And in fact, at the time of recording, book club is doing a Join Us for Journaling this evening. And I will work on that during the Join Us for Journaling. So plug for book club. Join and get your reading life together.
ANNE: I love it. Shannan, you plan your reading perhaps more than anyone else on our team, just methodically picking and choosing and filling in your matrix. So I’m so curious, was there anything not on your radar at the beginning of the year when you were making your grand plans that walked into the room and blew you away?
SHANNAN: Yeah. Ginger asked me this question in team meeting, which was fun to kind of go back and look at. One of the things that I do not do is plan all the books that I’m going to read. I have a general idea and then I allow for space for surprises and books that were not on my radar or a favorite author has a new book coming out and I didn’t know.
[00:14:28] I did use to plan the books I read very succinctly and very carefully and very, you know, structured, but I don’t do that anymore. However, I did have a few surprises. How to Read a Book by Monica Wood. This was March, I want to say, Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club selection. And at first I was like, “I don’t know if this is for me,” just on the description and they’re difficult topics, but I decided to give it a go, and it was so good. I enjoyed it so much.
And there are times when I still kind of think about it, which means it did make an impression on me. And I really, really, really did like it a lot more than I thought I would.
Another one that I read was You Don’t Need a Budget by Dana Miranda. And listeners on the bonus feed will have heard me discuss my financial journey over the past year. And this one was a very interesting read. The subtitle is Stop Worrying about Debt, Spend without Shame, and Manage Money with Ease.
[00:15:42] It really made me think about money in a whole new way. Like, if there’s some social justice commentary that she included in the book, and not just social justice, but disability justice, there was a whole lot of facets into your finances that I never thought about. I will be referring to this one often, along with, of course, my dude Ramit Sethi, I Will Teach You to Be Rich.
ANNE: Oh, speaking of your dude, you and Will did a bonus episode on books about money and finance and Patreon. It feels like it just happened. It was probably in like March. You know, that and Monica Wood. I don’t know. We read that back when it was cold out. That’s the amount of detail my memory has.
But Will had a lot of great recommendations from our readers from that episode. I’m wondering if the same thing happened to you. And also how you happened to find out about this book. You said Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club brought Monica Wood into your life, or maybe brought her into your life again. But do you remember how you came across this one?
SHANNAN: Honestly, no. That’s bad.
[00:16:51] ANNE: It appeared when you needed it?
SHANNAN: I am horrible with my reading journal and tracking that kind of stuff. I will say that I was reading Rich Girl Nation by… I cannot remember her name.
ANNE: You told me about this one before.
SHANNAN: Yes. And she may have had her on the podcast. She also has a podcast. So that may be how I heard of it. Yes. Yes. I think my memory is coming back to me. That was probably how I heard about it, from Rich Girl Nation’s podcast interviewed Dana Miranda. And I was like, “Oh, interesting,” and then picked up the book.
ANNE: All right.
SHANNAN: But we did that one in that bonus episode. Will and I did that bonus episode in April around tax season. I do remember that.
ANNE: Oh, that’s right. I do remember that.
SHANNAN: So I do have one more that I read very, very recently. That one is Escape!, a novel by Stephen Fishbach. I’m a huge fan of Survivor. I have rewatched entire seasons probably twice. I regularly listen to podcasts about Survivor.
[00:18:01] Former player Stephen Fishbach has written a novel which is inspired by Survivor. It is not Survivor, which was a little disappointing to me, I have to say. And I should not have read it, expected it to be that because I was a little disappointed. But I did hope it would be more about it. It wasn’t. He kind of took reality television as a whole and presented behind the scenes. Look at it. It did take a turn I was not expecting. Maybe a little bit more serious than I thought. He discusses reality TV and its effects on people. I still think about this one. It’s coming out in January.
ANNE: Okay, something to look forward to.
SHANNAN: Yes.
ANNE: Shannan, you mentioned that you are honing in even further in 2026, but you’re still open to surprise in the year to come.
SHANNAN: Yes, definitely.
ANNE: Can’t wait to hear where it takes you.
SHANNAN: All right.
ANNE: Thanks for talking books with me.
SHANNAN: Thanks. Have a good one.
[00:19:02] ANNE: Hi, Donna.
DONNA: Hi, Anne.
ANNE: Thanks for talking books with me today.
DONNA: I’m excited. I have deep thoughts today. Deep thoughts.
ANNE: I can’t wait. Now, we’ve talked a little, but we haven’t addressed these specific questions. First, would you tell everybody what you do around here?
DONNA: Sure. Well, I do a little bit of everything. I mainly do some metrics and reporting, but I do some content creation. I just co-hosted a class with Ginger. We were talking about our reading intentions for 2026. I think that’s what got me thinking about this. So I’m excited to talk about it today.
ANNE: Perfect timing. I love that session. It was so fun. You all got to do it. I got to hang out in the chat, which isn’t how we usually roll around here, but I’m so grateful for the very good questions you ask.
DONNA: Thank you. It was a lot of fun.
[00:19:59] ANNE: Also, that you’re letting me ask the questions today. I get to hear both. Donna, what worked in your reading life in 2025?
DONNA: Well, I think what worked for me is me being more honest with myself about the reader that I am today versus the reader that I used to be. Do you see what I mean about deep thoughts?
ANNE: Ooh, I’m here for it.
DONNA: So I just realized that I have to be, like I said, honest with myself, that my attention span has changed. I wish it hadn’t. I keep trying different things to bring it back, but the phone has impacted my brain and I don’t read in the same way that I used to.
I used to fight that a lot and this year I just kind of gave in and I read in a little bit of a different way. So a lot of books that are page-turning, short chapters, nonfiction, because honestly, a lot of times I skim it, and series that are easy for me to get into because I know the characters already. That was the bulk of what I read and I loved it.
[00:21:20] I had a great reading year, rather than feeling bad about myself when I’m trying to read something longer or deeper or a little bit more descriptive and was struggling with it. And sadly, I kind of gave up a little bit on that this year.
ANNE: But it worked out.
DONNA: But it worked out. I’m enjoying my reading life.
ANNE: Oh, those reality checks are hard because so often we form this picture of who we are as readers and at least… well, for me, and then I talk to readers every week, those things we learned feel like things we have attained that will not change.
DONNA: Exactly.
ANNE: Until they do.
DONNA: They do.
ANNE: Okay, what didn’t work in 2025?
DONNA: Well, a little bit related to what I was just talking about. I usually read three books at a time. So I’ll do an audiobook, an eBook at night, and then a physical book during the day. That didn’t work for me this year.
[00:22:21] I think that again, because of my attention span, what would happen is I would just lose momentum. And then a book would take too long for me to finish. A lot of times I would DNF it and I would forget who the characters were, I’d forget the plot. And yeah, it just didn’t work. So that was one of the things I was thinking about for 2026, reading intentions. I’m going to try to read just one book at a time. Just one.
ANNE: That sounds like a big change.
DONNA: It’s a big change for me. But it’s also going back to how I used to be as a reader. When I was younger, I didn’t think twice about only reading one book at a time. It’s really been the last, I don’t know, 10 years that it changed.
ANNE: I’m curious what kind of friction you’ve experienced. Because I’m imagining, what if I did this in my own life? I listen to audiobooks in the car. I read in print. I read on Kindle. Are you enjoying the same book in different formats or are you just committed to whatever book in whatever format you’re listening to then? Because I know Ginger recently was talking about how she’s done a lot of audiobook plus print book. It’s the same book. There has to be a better way to say this. I hope you’re tracking.
[00:23:37] DONNA: I definitely am tracking. And I’ve definitely been thinking about this. I think the one way for me to do it is to just read on my eBook reader. I think that I can take it anywhere. That’s definitely what I like to read at night. So if I’m just going to have one book at a time, I think it has to be on my e-reader.
ANNE: I’m glad it’s working for you.
DONNA: We’ll see. I haven’t tried it yet.
ANNE: I’m so curious to hear how it works out. Donna, I’ve really enjoyed hearing about your often in-depth reading projects you’ve taken on through the years. What’s a book project you enjoyed doing in 2025?
DONNA: Oh, I do love a book project. I love it. This year, I started a Taylor Swift reading project. Well, it’s a reading and listening project. So I made my own reading prompts that are related to her 12 albums. So, you know, some obvious stuff, The Tortured Poets Department, I read poetry, The Red Album, I read a book with a red cover, you know, things like that. It was just a lot of fun.
[00:24:51] And then each month, I’m assigning myself two albums to listen to and then I do a song bracket battle. So that’s been a lot of fun. You know, I love a book project, but I really love doing it with other people. So in book club, I put a note out saying what I was going to do. And honestly, I swear to you, I thought five people would say yes.
ANNE: And that would have been fun.
DONNA: Which would have been great. Next thing I know, 50 people have signed up and we are just having a blast. It’s really been a lot of fun.
ANNE: If people want to take a peek at your ongoing Taylor Swift book project adventures, is there a place they can do that?
DONNA: Basically, in book club people send me a direct message, and then I can show them the reading challenge.
ANNE: All right. Well, Donna, I can’t wait to hear more about Taylor and where these good intentions take you in 2026.
DONNA: I also can’t wait to find out.
ANNE: All right. Cheesy saying here. That’s so true. Like the joys in the journey or something like that.
DONNA: That is so true.
ANNE: Donna, thanks for talking books with me.
DONNA: It was so fun. Thanks, Anne.
[00:26:01] ANNE: Hi, Leigh.
LEIGH KRAMER: Hi, Anne.
ANNE: I’m excited to talk books with you today.
LEIGH: I’m excited too.
ANNE: All right. Would you tell our readers real quick what it is you do around here?
LEIGH: I’m the editor, social media manager, and event project manager.
ANNE: Ooh, succinct. Although not in the execution.
LEIGH: That is the first time I’ve actually said that publicly. But yeah, that is a new role that I have.
ANNE: I love it, and I’m grateful for it every day I am at work. Leigh, what works for you in your reading life in 2025?
LEIGH: This is going to sound funny given the podcast that we’re on, but reading less turned out to be a good choice for me. But to explain why, I need to go back a little bit and explain why this year is so different. I’m going to start out by saying I’m okay. But last fall, I was diagnosed with colon cancer, then I found out that I have Lynch syndrome, and so I scheduled a preventative hysterectomy to reduce the risk of that particular cancer and found out that it was a necessary procedure because I also had endometrial cancer.
[00:27:09] So thanks to both of my surgeons for removing those cancers from me. We are in cancer surveillance, and I’m doing well. But understandably, that has changed everything. It’s changed my actual day-to-day life. It has also changed my reading life in that I don’t want to read the things that I used to gravitate towards. I don’t read grief novels. I don’t read books about cancer. I did a whole Patreon bonus episode about medical nonfiction. I can’t read any of that anymore.
Number one, I have to do a lot more research before I start a new book because, surprise, cancer is in a lot of things you would not expect. And I just can’t go down those roads. Maybe I will be able to eventually, but not right now. So yeah, I don’t want to read about it. I don’t want to write about it. My novel is a grief novel. All of my ideas are just out the window.
[00:28:08] So I’m more focusing on the things that will distract me from my medical anxiety. I have a Peacock subscription, thanks to friends. I’ve been watching a lot of Bravo Reality TV. I’ve gotten back into embroidery, which has been such a great stress reliever. Still doing puzzles. I think reading less has helped my focus be where it needs to be.
I’m still reading a lot. So I think if I tell people what my numbers are, they’re going to be like, what are you talking about? But I know that it is a change from where I was at last year.
The other thing that has worked really well for me is buddy read projects. So a few friends and I have been doing a romance history project for the past couple of years. And it has been fascinating and disturbing at times, but mostly we’re having really great discussions.
[00:29:05] We just read our first paranormal romance, which was a really fun discussion. And then the other project I’m doing, a friend and I are reading through Robin Hobb’s gigantic universe. So we just read the second book in the second trilogy. And these books are tomes, fantasy tomes. But the world-building, the character work, I mean, no one is doing it like Robin Hobb. It’s just incredible. So that has brought so much joy into my life this year.
ANNE: Lee, what didn’t work for you this year?
LEIGH: I just can’t really figure out what I do want to read. Now that I know I can’t read grief books, cancer books, like what are the things that immediately make me know I want to read something? I’m not sure because I keep gravitating towards the books that I would want to read.
I was literally looking for something before this call and I was like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,” and then it was like, “No, what are you talking about? You can’t handle that right now.” So, yeah, what are the things that will work for me if I’m not going down the road of stuff that I knew would have worked in the past or would have been more likely to work in the past?
[00:30:23] I also feel like I may be reading too many new releases. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like to read, especially new books from favorite authors. I like to see what debuts are coming out. I like to be in the mix of what people are talking about. But I’m just wondering if that is meaning that I’m reading more duds, or maybe they’re not duds, but they’re just not right for me right now. So I feel like maybe I need to go back to more backlist, which I am still reading, but I’m not prioritizing it as much.
And then I think I also need to go back to rereading, which I’ve never done a ton of, but last year I did a ton of rereading because I was just having trouble figuring out what I wanted. And then once I was diagnosed, I just wanted stories that I knew would work for me. I just couldn’t really take chances on anything.
[00:31:24] So I reread 24 books last year, and I’ve only reread seven this year, which is still more than I used to reread. But I’m like, Maybe that is part of my problem, that I’m not going back to these tried-and-true stories. Maybe that will help me keep momentum. I just feel like I am just having trouble getting lost in a good book.
If I’m reading less, which is working for me, then when I am reading, I want to get lost in those pages more easily than I am. So that’s kind of where things are at. Kind of a mixed bag. I think I’m on the right track, I just need to be more consistent with what I’m picking up.
ANNE: Leigh, what tropes do you want to see more of in your reading life or on bookstore shelves in 2026? I had to think really hard about what year it is and what year it’s about to be.
LEIGH: So my favorite niche tropes these days are Neighbors to Lovers and Roommates to Lovers. I just read the best Christmas Neighbors to Lovers short story. It’s All Wrapped Up in You by Rosie Danan. It was just so perfectly what I wanted right now. It’s just this really delightful little morsel of a story, a kind of a different play on Neighbors to Lovers because they don’t realize that they’re neighbors.
[00:32:48] I just really like that kind of close proximity, not forced proximity, although that can be fun. But this is like a close proximity and kind of seeing how people navigate those dynamics. If I could get more of that, more of those, less fake relationship, that would make me happy.
ANNE: A delightful little morsel of a story. I love the way you put it. That sounds scrumptious. Can I use that word in this context?
LEIGH: It’s very fun. It’s set in Chicago, like in Hyde Park, which is my old stomping grounds for grad school. It was just so tailor-made for me.
ANNE: That sounds amazing. I wish you not the same, because reading is wonderful because it brings you new incarnations of things you love all the time, but as far as the reading feels go, I wish you more of the same in 2026.
LEIGH: Thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:33:42] ANNE: Hi, Holly.
HOLLY WIELKOSZEWSKI: Hey, Anne.
ANNE: How are you doing?
HOLLY: I’m doing great, thank you. Happy to be here.
ANNE: Oh my gosh, well, welcome back to the continental U.S. I know you keep doing your thing when you’re on the other side of the world, but it’s nice to know you’re closer.
HOLLY: It’s nice to be back in Mountain time zone for a bit. Yes.
ANNE: Would you please tell everyone what you do around here?
HOLLY: I am the media production specialist, so I help get the podcast to all of your listening ears every week, which is a lot of behind-the-scenes work and getting to work with Anne and other members of our team and just making sure everything shows up nicely in your inbox and your podcast app. And I also help out a lot on our Patreon production, doing a lot of the same types of things over there.
ANNE: Making it happen every Tuesday and Friday.
HOLLY: Yes.
ANNE: Well, I love hearing about your reading life because it’s so… I mean, I was going to say so, unlike mine. Your specific titles are often unlike mine, so those surprise and delight recommendations I don’t see coming often come from you.
[00:34:41] But, Holly, I can’t wait to hear what works for you in your reading life in 2025.
HOLLY: Absolutely. So, one of my goals for 2025 was to really reduce my purchasing of new books because, like so many of our listeners, I have an almost embarrassing to-be-read list pile, a collection of totes in the storage, you know, whatever you want to use to describe it. So I made a lot of progress this year, which I’m really pleased with.
I discovered some great reads, but I read extensively from my owned pile of books as well as from the library, which is not exactly what I was trying to do, but had another positive effect on my book-buying budget, at least for the year. That is something I definitely will plan to continue, but worked really well for me in 2025.
I think the other thing that really stands out is I read a bunch of books this year that were recommended to me by other people, either explicitly or kind of just in the world of book talk, and books that I’d sort of resisted reading for a long time for no good reason, like Red, White & Royal Blue or The Frozen River or The Space Between Worlds, which came from Shannan on our team.
[00:35:49] That worked really well for me too. I found some great book discoveries by actually tuning in a little bit more closely to the people in my life and what they were telling me I should maybe try to read.
ANNE: I’m so glad that’s working for you. What hasn’t worked as well in 2025?
HOLLY: Okay, so you will probably laugh at this one because we are readers of a similar age and generation. Font sizes are not working for me in 2025.
ANNE: Tell me about it.
HOLLY: So my last two appointments with the eye doctor, they have tested me and said, “No, you don’t need reading glasses yet. You’re still seeing fine close up.” But I’ve gone into so many bookstores and picked up a book that I really want to get and I open it up and I’m just like, “Is this written for like a microscope? This cannot be the same size font that I read as a child or as a teenager or as a young adult.”
So I’ve been finding myself putting books aside because I’m like, “Nope, that font size does not feel hospitable to me right now.” And it’s kind of frustrating at times. Like, there’s a book that I really wanted to buy at a bookstore in Vietnam and I didn’t buy it because I was like, “I’m not going to hold a magnifying glass up to this and read this book, so I’ll have to find it in another format.” So that did not work for me this year.
[00:37:00] ANNE: You’ve reminded me that for, I think, the very first time ever, I bought a book I was excited to read. I started trying to read it at night and I’m like, “I cannot, because the font size is so small.” It’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley that I bought immediately after talking to Julie Berry on the podcast, and she mentioned it and talked about how it had been so influential in the development of her writerly voice. I think I just need to not read it at night with very dim lighting, or at least this is the story I’m telling myself to make myself feel better.
HOLLY: Absolutely.
ANNE: But that was an unwelcome first in 2025.
HOLLY: It’s not my favorite. And I have one other sort of related thing that is found uniquely kind of problematic for me recently, is international book editions. So, I’ve got one or two series I’ve gotten hooked on in my travels, only to come home and find that they are not available through English or American publishers. So right now I’m trying to decide if, much like you have done, if I want to brush off my very rusty high school German and try to read the German language edition of this Icelandic mystery, or if I’m just going to wait until the next time I find myself in the world that it is published in English. So, we’ll see. But kind of a disappointment.
[00:38:10] ANNE: Oh, I’m sorry.
HOLLY: It’s okay.
ANNE: This is not a problem I have a lot, but my heart breaks for you all the time. I would say maybe you need to take a trip, but you just got back.
HOLLY: I know. Well, I did put out a call to my sister-in-law. Lives in the UK. I was like, “Can you help me track down an English version of this book, maybe?” So-
ANNE: We’re rooting for you, sister-in-law.
HOLLY: We’ll see what happens.
ANNE: Holly, did you have any surprising discoveries or unexpected wins in 2025 that you want to continue or build on in the year to come?
HOLLY: Yeah. I love data. I use StoryGraph to track all my reading. And so I kind of pulled it up when I was thinking about what we might talk about today. I think because I read so much in the science fiction and fantasy world, I tend to read a lot of series or a lot of books by the same author. And I definitely have my go-to must-read auto-buy authors, particularly in those genres.
[00:39:04] So I was really surprised to see that so far 70% of my five-star reads from 2025 were new-to-me authors. And I love this because I don’t really explicitly go out and seek out new authors as a rule. I’m more driven by book description or recommendation or genre or whatnot. And it was just really illuminating to me to see how many of my favorites this year were from authors I’d never read before. And it’s really encouraging me to prioritize reading by new authors in the year to come.
ANNE: What’s going on there? Do you know, or do you have theories?
HOLLY: I don’t really have theories yet. There was some overlap with the book recommendations from other people. I think that, to be honest, restricting my ability to buy new books and sort of looking through what I had or what was available in the library made me get a little bit more creative about what I was reaching for and when.
[00:40:00] To be honest, too, I think having listened to so many conversations with you and guests and listeners about how do we further refine what are we looking for in a book, some of those lessons are solidifying in my brain here after a couple of years of working together. So I think there’s a couple of those things going on.
And there’s just, I think, a lot more visibility into new books that are out there and what’s coming our way. I feel like I’m just getting a lot of good recommendations from a lot of different sources and enjoying exploring this.
ANNE: I am so glad. Okay. I can’t wait to hear what you discover in 2026. What a fun discovery. I love that for you.
HOLLY: It’s been fun.
ANNE: Thanks for checking in.
HOLLY: Yeah, this is great. Thanks.
[00:40:50] ANNE: Hi, Ginger.
GINGER HORTON: Hello.
ANNE: Thanks for talking books with me.
GINGER: Always happy to do that.
ANNE: All right. Would you tell everybody what you do around here, please?
GINGER: Yes. Well, my official title is book club community manager. I think that really is descriptive because that means I hang out in book club and with the community. So this time of year, what that means is fun things like end-of-year lookbacks. We’re hosting some classes about how to set reading intentions for the year ahead. And definitely about to launch our Book Club Yearbook, which is one of my favorite things we’ve done. It’s a new tradition.
And that just means we put together a thoughtful kit, or printed this year yearbook of what all we’ve read, the classes, the community conversations that we’ve had. I mean, did you hear that alliteration just roll off my tongue? I really didn’t mean-
ANNE: That’s 10 years in the making.
[00:41:45] GINGER: Right? That is literally what we do. So it’s a good tagline: classes, community, and conversation, because those are the things we’ve done over the year. We’ve done classes, we’ve been in community around these books, and we’ve had great conversations. S
ANNE: I love it. I’m glad to be a part of it with you. Ginger, what worked in your reading life in 2025?
GINGER: Okay, well, this feels like something that came together in 2025, but this has been trial and error for me for years. And that is really matching the format of the book to the text of the book. And by format I mean audio, Kindle version, a physical book, whether it’s from the library, am I buying that. I feel like I’ve been circling around this, getting better and better, trial and error over the years, but this is the year that it just sort of matched. It just kind of worked. The magic came together.
[00:42:33] I would say the biggest part of that for me is audiobooks. I think you are on record as being different than me. But I cannot listen to any literary fiction on audio. I know that in my brain, and yet I kept trying it until 2025. And I said, “No more.” I love to look at the structure. Characters don’t always stick in my head. I’ve got to flip back and forth. And so I just put the kibosh: no more audio literary fiction.
But what works really well for me is any kind of personal growth books, narrative nonfiction.
ANNE: We are the opposite.
GINGER: Right? It’s like almost the opposite. So this is such a thing of like, “Reader, know thyself,” because I feel like if it works for you, great. You can sing in the story. It can wash over you. In my case, that was not working. And so, yeah, just learning also, do I need a physical copy of this book? And also, I’m going to go ahead and spring for the Kindle version because I need it to be searchable. Is this what I’m going to fly through and I don’t need to take notes on? Get that from the library. My bookshelves are sagging. I need the space. So matching that has been such a success for me this year, and I am celebrating.
[00:43:36] ANNE: Okay, not a superlative, just whatever comes to mind first. But what’s an example of where the format really suited your specific reading experience?
GINGER: Oh, I’ve got a great answer to this. A great answer to this. I read this year on my sister’s recommendation, Graydon Carter’s new memoir, When the Going Was Good, about the magazine industry. And I listened to that on audio. And hearing him tell the stories and name-dropping a little bit in the most delightful way, perfection.
But I also bought a physical copy because I wanted his epilogue about all the lessons he’s learned. And so that’s a perfect example of the format was perfect, but, hey, I wanted a second copy. And I’m just letting myself be a patron of the arts, support those authors with a band on. If I want two copies in two different formats, by golly, I can do that.
ANNE: Love it. Ginger, what didn’t work for you in 2025?
[00:44:27] GINGER: Okay, well, this is a story of “it worked until it did not.” I had this goal at the beginning of the year to read more long books. I often find that I really enjoy a book that’s maybe 500, 600, 700 pages, but I don’t prioritize them because I’m a slow reader. So I shy away from them, and then when I read them, I think, “Why don’t I do more of this? I love what an author can do in a long book.” But I don’t want to do them often.
So I just decided, “Oh, wait, I can pick a number. I don’t have to have this hovering goal all the time. Let me read four,” and I read one per quarter. And that worked great until it didn’t. And I started grad school in the fall, and all of that went out the window.
So long books are not going to work. I don’t know how much time I’ll have to commit. I don’t know if that paper is going to take me one day or one week or one month to write. I don’t know if a professor is going to change an assignment on the syllabus. And so what I’m focusing now on are books that I can read in one sitting-ish. Like Catherine Newman’s book, Wreck, worked so well for me recently because I read that sitting down on my chair on a Sunday. And I knew I can commit this Sunday to some fun reading, but I don’t always know that I can do that for long books. So I still love them, they serve their purpose in my life, but this is not the season for those.
[00:45:39] ANNE: Not the season. Okay, speaking of grad school and that great books program, I know you’ve been reading a ton of classics this year because of that program. Like, what’s surprised you?
GINGER: One thing surprised me, and that is, Anne, I have read 30 classics this year.
ANNE: What? What? When you say this year, since when?
GINGER: Since January 1st, 2025.
ANNE: Okay, not just like when your program started?
GINGER: Right. No, no, no. Sorry. This calendar year.
ANNE: I mean, one of the reasons you’re in a great books program is because you enjoy reading this way.
GINGER: I love classics. Exactly. I have had a goal since 2018 to read 18 in 2018, 19. Some of you all have heard me say this. And this year, I did not intend to read 30, but I just couldn’t stop myself. So a lot of these fall in the realm of fun. A lot of these fall in the realm of school. I would say it’s about 50-50. But I have been so surprised by so many.
[00:46:29] Let me talk about the ones that I read sort of for fun. And by fun, I mean, not assigned. And that is The Great Gatsby with the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club. We did a community read of this. Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin is, eh… I’m using “classic” loosely here. This means a book that’s older than me, but it is not an old, old, old book. But classics don’t have to be fussy.
I read both Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath this year, which I feel like are such good book flights. I liked The Bell Jar better, by the way. Although, Joan Didion has had a lot of reading from me this year because of Alyssa Wilkinson’s new book on Joan Didion. I finally read The Wind in the Willows. I’ve already talked about The Caine Mutiny. I have gushed about The Caine Mutiny on a previous bonus episode. Okay, so that was all the fun reading.
And then came school. I did not love The Iliad, but I loved The Odyssey. I feel like The Odyssey is really Penelope’s story. That is the softer, more feminine version if you want to read Homer. I loved The Oresteia. I was really surprised at that. King Lear. I was not surprised to have loved Antigone because I did read that as a flight pick in the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club a few years ago with Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie, one of my favorite book club books of all time.
[00:47:43] Finally read some literary criticism by Aristotle, Poetics. This is the one that was horrifying, and I’m so glad I read it. And that is Euripides’ Bacchae. I’ve been wanting to basically study this program, the Greek classics, because of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, and I finally read the Bacchae, and I feel like I belong in that little cadre.
An honorable mention, this goes back to personal books, is Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is the same author who wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, and that was also such a surprise for me. I mean, I didn’t even list half of the classics I’ve read, but…
ANNE: If there was a team competition to squeeze the most number of book titles into this segment, which there is not, you take home the prize.
GINGER: Sorry, whoever’s putting together these show notes.
ANNE: Ginger, thanks for talking books with me.
GINGER: Always glad to do so. This is a good time. I can’t wait to hear everybody else’s year-end reflections.
[00:48:39] ANNE: Hi William.
WILL BOGEL: Hi.
ANNE: I’m excited to talk books with you, officially on the air.
WILL: I say I’m always excited to talk books with you, but yes, on the air. That sounds great.
ANNE: Would you tell everyone the brief version of what you do around here, please?
WILL: I’m the, I think, executive producer of What Should I Read Next?. So I help figure out sort of what do we want to do with the show? So that’s not just picking guests, but like what kinds of episodes we want to have? When do we want to break format, when do we want to have special episodes like this, where we invite the team on? And then I also do a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, including listening to you verbally process. So a lot of the work gets done.
ANNE: Listen and verbally process. That’s very high on your list of official duties.
WILL: Official duties. That’s right. “Can you just verbally process this with me?” Which I usually end up non-verbally processing. You do all the work.
[00:49:33] ANNE: Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. You know what we’re doing. William, what worked in your reading life in 2025?
WILL: This year I ended up, ended up with, we’ll put it that way, a reading project. Definitely not anything I had ever… speaking of being an executive producer, we have reading project guests on all the time, people that have a plan: “Here’s what I want to do.” It never occurred to me. I sort of stumbled into one.
Actually, you and I talked about this on Patreon just a couple weeks ago. I was doing, what do we call it? A personal curriculum?
ANNE: A personal curriculum.
WILL: Which in that episode, I hadn’t really thought it through, but I think the overarching theme was the control of nature. So that was mostly nonfiction reading, but I ended up in the middle picking up a novel that like just perfectly matched all the nonfiction reading I was doing. Nonfiction worked pretty well overall.
I read a few memoirs earlier in the year, but the personal curriculum project really got me going on a single topic that then just sort of popped up everywhere, but also helped me check off a couple of books from my long-standing TBR. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
[00:50:43] ANNE: It felt very true to you.
WILL: It felt true to me too. When I say I didn’t plan it, like, yeah, it just sort of… things a little bit snowballed, where I ended up referencing the bibliography in the back of one of the books to kind of see what else I might want to read, but also just kind of felt like, well, I was in the mood. So again, I went to my TBR and was like, “Hey, this worked great. I’d rather read something along those lines again.” And I know exactly where to look because, yeah, they were books that I had already said I wanted to read and just hadn’t got to.
ANNE: Love it. William, what didn’t work this year for you?
WILL: It’s hard to say like just overall didn’t work, but I’m in the middle of five series.
ANNE: You know, I really thought you might call out that romance trope thing in your current read that you were like, “I don’t know, this is kind of weird.” I thought that you might choose something super niche and granular like that.
WILL: That seems really specific. No, a little broader than that, a little broader than that, instead of the plot of one book, because I’m mostly enjoying that. No, just the serial kind of nature of the installment series books. I think people know I’m a big fan of William Kent Krueger and Cork O’Connor. I read the new one of those. That’s going strong.
[00:51:57] He’s twenty-two or three books in, and you know, I’m sort of disappointed in some of the larger plot choices, but, you know, we don’t get to read the books ourselves. But there are a couple others that, I don’t know, just make me wonder if I’m not as invested in the character and that larger plot and like the individual sort of mystery or whatever element. It just doesn’t hold up. I don’t know.
I will say getting ready for this, I was trying to figure out what, what books am I talking about here? One of them is Alice Henderson’s Alex Carter series. And when I looked it up, it said it was book two of five. And I’m like, “Five? I thought I was caught up on this series.” So they’re only announced five. But book three is out. And immediately I was like, “Oh, well, I want to read that.”
So it may not be like working so poorly. But when I look back, I wonder how much of it is just comfort, like they’re really easy to pick up because you do know what you’re getting. But I’m not always the most satisfied.
[00:52:59] I’m early in a couple. Alex Carter being one. I read a book this fall called Liar’s Creek by Matt Goldman. And I don’t know this has even been announced as a series. Reading it, I could definitely tell, Oh, he’s developing this character as somebody we’re going to hang on to. But I don’t know that’s even been announced as a series.
And then the third one is Bruce Borges’ Porter Beck series. I think I’m on book three. And I’m still kind of figuring that out. I think I like Porter Beck. Give it a couple more books to see if I really want to hang with it. But, yeah, series are tough. I’ve abandoned a couple that I really thought were like right up my alley. I wasn’t invested enough in the character.
ANNE: William, I have watched you review your reading year in your reading journal. And often we read like next to each other on the couch. So this question is brought to you by those observations. Would you talk to me about your reading rhythms for 2025? Just like anything you’ve noticed that you find interesting or want to know more about or pay attention to or, I don’t know, maybe even repeat in 2026.
[00:54:01] WILL: Since we do generally read together, or I generally read with you—I don’t know that you’re always reading with me—but when I’m reading, yeah, you were usually on the couch, or reading or in bed or whatever. And you occasionally do say like, “Oh, you were moving through that really quickly.”
I think there were only two books that I read just lickety-split this year. It being in like… I read Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, part of that project I talked about, in one day. But that’s like an extended essay. That’s not like a whole book.
But I did read one of the memoirs that I used in that project in just two days. But I also drug through—I wouldn’t say slogged—I read Barbarian Days by William Finnegan. This is a Pulitzer Prize-winning surf memoir. It took me six weeks, which is slow, I think, even for me. It’s a very long book. I absolutely loved it. It’s like part travelogue, part memoir. It’s definitely about surfing, but also, as a journalist, even in the stories of high school and college or dropping out of college. Like he and his friend are always reading, they’re hustling to write magazine articles. They’re reading some classic, classic magazine pieces.
[00:55:21] Like there was a whole literary aspect to it as well that was really enjoyable. I’m not exactly sure that I savored it. I didn’t feel like I was in a hurry. It didn’t bother me that it took me six weeks. But I was definitely aware like, “Oh, I’m not really doing anything else right now. I’m like just making my way through this one book,” you know?
I tend to do about a book a week. I don’t know, I read maybe 40 books a year. And I guess if you spend six weeks on one book, you need to read a couple of pretty quickly to kind of keep that up. It was worth it.
ANNE: Okay, glad to hear that. How does that factor into what you’re thinking about next year for your reading life?
WILL: I mean, I’m not hung up on the number, like, do I need to get to 40 books or whatever? The thing about reading the same book for six weeks is like, usually that does feel like a slog. Usually, I feel like, “Oh, I’m just not… I’m not reading at all. Things are not going well in my reading life. I’m picking poorly,” or, you know, like, for whatever reason, I just can’t get motivated or whatever. That is actually one of the things that’s weird about this book is usually I shy away from long books, because I feel like I lose that momentum or whatever.
[00:56:25] So maybe that’s a strong sign that I had the attention span and could pick up The Brothers K again, because I think I only read 100 pages of that, because I’m like, “This is taking so long.”
ANNE: I remember reading that 10 years ago and really enjoying it while I was reading it. Never wanted to pick it up.
WILL: Right, right. And if I’m a couple hundred pages in and have several hundred pages to go, like, I don’t know, it just feels daunting, you know? Maybe next year is my year to tackle some longer books and just not worry about it.
ANNE: TBD. Can’t wait to see how that unfolds. I mean, I can’t wait. I can’t wait. I don’t want to wish time away. But I’m interested in seeing what happens next.
WILL: Awesome.
ANNE: Well, thank you for talking books with me.
WILL: My pleasure.
[00:57:17] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversations with our team members today. Learn more about each of us working behind the scenes here at What Should I Read Next? on our website, where you’ll also find the full list of titles we talked about today. Find all that at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
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Thanks to the people who make the show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, Leigh Kramer, Brigid Misselhorn, Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.
Readers, that’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” Happy reading, everyone.
