[00:00:00] LEIGH KRAMER: I just want to note that I’m always accused of talking about more books than we’re technically allowed, but I have not done that at all. Anne and Ginger have both been sneaking in extra titles.
GINGER HORTON: It’s true.
ANNE BOGEL: 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. Today’s episode is part one of two for a popular summer tradition featuring the Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next? team.
[00:00:49] Readers, we’re talking summer reading today, but fall reading is just around the corner. And if you’re curious about the titles that you may be hearing about in the weeks ahead or what new releases might be suited to your to-be-read list, our Fall Book Preview is designed to help with those answers.
We are gathering for our eighth annual Fall Book Preview on Thursday, September 17th. A la carte ticket holders and eligible community members will receive a downloadable digital preview plus an invitation to our live unboxing event happening that night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. That’s when I get to talk about it all and answer your questions.
If you are a member of our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club or our Patreon all-inclusive or bonuses and events tier, you are good to go. You’ll have full access to the event and our digital Fall Book Preview look book. If you’re not yet a member, our Patreon community invites you to join us at two different levels, and now is such a good time to do so.
[00:01:48] Our bonuses and events tier includes events like our Fall Book Preview, as well as our weekly bonus episodes. Our all-inclusive tier also gives you weekly access to ad-free episodes of this podcast. If you’d prefer a one-time charge, you’re welcome to purchase an a la carte ticket for just this event. That’s Fall Book Preview unboxing and the Fall Book Preview download.
We are offering a printed booklet edition of our preview this year, our little look book. And I had so much time getting in and designing it because this year we’re doing something a little bit different. I can’t wait to show it to you. This is smaller and in a different format than our printed magazine-style Summer Reading Guide. It’s priced accordingly. We are working out the details and we’ll have them ready for you soon. But right now we wanted you to know Fall Book Preview, Thursday, September 17th. All the details are coming. Now is a great time to join Patreon if you’re interested. Find out more, get all the details and your Patreon info at modernmrsdarcy.com/fbp for Fall Book Preview. That’s modernmrsdarcy.com/fbp.
[00:02:56] Readers, for years now, our team members have joined me on the podcast at right about this point in the year to share the books they’ve been loving most this season. Last year, we had so many titles to discuss that we split this conversation into two separate episodes. We heard really positive feedback from all of you about that format. So that’s what we’re doing again this year.
In today’s episode, the first in our two-part series, I’m in conversation with three of our team members. They are our resident spreadsheet queen, Donna Hetchler, our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club community manager, Ginger Horton, and our Modern Mrs. Darcy editor and social media manager, Leigh Kramer. Next week, you will hear from the rest of our team.
As a team, our reading likes vary widely. We read across a range of genres that reflect the reading world at large, so I’m pretty confident that between today’s conversation and next week’s part two, every listener will hear a title that appeals.
[00:03:52] Today, you’ll hear about true crime and books in translation, a backlist novel that inspired an award-winning musical, a literary mystery from a fan-favorite author, romantasy and thriller titles that captured our team’s imagination this season, and more. Readers, let’s get to it.
Hello, team. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me in this format. I’m so excited you’re here today.
LEIGH: Excited to be here.
GINGER: We are excited, too. I love summer.
DONNA HETCHLER: I always love sharing my favorite books, so it’s an honor to be here.
ANNE: Oh, my gosh, the pleasure is all mine. We have been doing this for several years now and just always have the best time. Readers, we really enjoy this episode because we don’t need an excuse to talk about books as a team, but we will still take anyone we can get. I think Shannan divided us into two groups of two, so as you heard today, I’m joined by Donna. Donna, tell us hello so everybody can hear your voice.
DONNA: Hello, everyone.
ANNE: Leigh.
LEIGH: Hi, everyone.
ANNE: And Ginger.
GINGER: Hi, this is Ginger.
[00:05:00] ANNE: And we’re kicking off a two-part Best Books of Summer. And we’re going to talk about what that means, best, favorite, how we individually thought of our superlatives, because I didn’t make the rules. We make our own reading rules around here. We’re the bosses of our own reading lives.
But first, I’d love to hear, here we are, late August, I feel like my summer is kind of over because the kids went back to school, but also it’s still a bazillion degrees. So Fall Book Preview’s coming. I’m thinking about fall. All of which to say, tell us how your summer reading is going, not how it went. Donna, you start us off.
DONNA: It’s actually going great, I am happy to report. I really went into this year trying to simplify my reading, so I am more focused. I’m reading one book at a time, I’m reading fewer books, and I’ve been using Goodreads to help me narrow down my selections. So I analyzed the data, of course I did, from my spreadsheets, and I have picked a threshold of 4.2 on Goodreads ratings. Most of my books are above 4.2 on Goodreads, and it’s been great.
GINGER: I love the specificity.
ANNE: You wouldn’t have read any of my favorites then.
[00:06:17] DONNA: Sorry. It’s just working for me. It doesn’t work for other people.
ANNE: I just think it’s funny. And I’m glad to hear what’s working for you. That’s why we’re here.
LEIGH: How did you land on 4.2?
DONNA: Should I walk through the math?
LEIGH: Yes.
ANNE: Please. Yes.
GINGER: Absolutely.
DONNA: No, we don’t have enough time for it, but we can have a one-on-one session with charts and graphs.
ANNE: That’s like the three-hour graduate literary lab.
DONNA: Correct.
LEIGH: What Should I Read Next? 401 here.
ANNE: I’d sign up for that.
LEIGH: Me too.
ANNE: Donna, is there a short version? I remember reading a John Green post once upon a time where he indicated 4.3 was a magical Goodreads number.
DONNA: Oh, I’m going to look that up.
LEIGH: Oh, interesting.
GINGER: I want to find that.
LEIGH: It feels so high.
ANNE: You can fact-check me later
GINGER: One of my favorite things to happen in the reading life is when you loved a book and then you go onto Goodreads or your favorite platform and it’s like a 2.5, and I think, “Excellent, like I’m not normal and I love that for me.”
DONNA: This is a whole other episode.
[00:07:22] LEIGH: I don’t know if I’ve ever loved a book that was rated that low. I don’t even know if I always look at Goodreads first.
GINGER: Oh, okay.
LEIGH: And the rating doesn’t really bear in mind if I’ll read something or not. I always look at reviews. But this is fascinating to me.
ANNE: All right. Leigh, tell us about your summer reading.
LEIGH: Well, this has been a strange year of reading and I feel like that’s been true for the past few years, where it’s just harder to find the books that I love. I’m reading a ton. There’s lots of four-star books, so it’s not bad, but the five stars have been harder to come by. And then I don’t know what it is, but in the last month or two I’ve had more five-star books than the first like five months of the year combined. So something seems to be working. I don’t know if I’m just picking differently or if the stars have aligned, but I’m glad. Glad to see it.
[00:08:25] And just for some context, I looked yesterday to see how many books I’ve DNF’d so far this year and I’ve DNF’d 53 books.
ANNE: Wow.
LEIGH: So that should give some other context about like… it’s just been hard to find the right ones. I’ve still read around like 100. I don’t know. Donna, you’re the mathematician of the two of us, so I don’t know what that means, but-
GINGER: I did not expect to talk about this much math on a book podcast, you guys.
LEIGH: I’m taking over, Ginger.
DONNA: We love the good nerdy fun.
LEIGH: Mm-hmm.
ANNE: Ginger, how about you? How’s your summer reading? And maybe remind everyone of your history with summer reading, perhaps, not being the… you take it away.
GINGER: Yeah, we’re going to remind everybody of that because I’m usually a bad news first kind of girl. So let me tell you the bad news first. The summer slump has found me. It is early August and this is not to be surprised. I’m not surprised by this. August is usually my hardest reading month, and sure enough, that found me. But I had a great reading summer up to now. And I have high hopes for the next few weeks.
[00:09:31] Some of you know that I’m in graduate school and I had a great reading, you know, winter and spring, of course, but it looks very different. I’m reading Descartes and Augustine and Kant and Euclid. Donna told me I absolutely am not allowed to talk about Augustine on this podcast. I loved it.
DONNA: Spoiler alert.
GINGER: But I wanted to just have a grand old Summer Reading Guide kind of time. I wanted to like frolic and read the buzzy books and maybe like some middle grade. I wanted a respite, and I absolutely did have that. I think I bought every single Annabel Monaghan book after we read Dolly All the Time with book club. I wanted to reread some like Ann Patchett and Alexandra Andrews that I knew were having new books come out, Marisa de los Santos, like new books that were coming out this year. So I had a grand old start to the summer. Travel and company sometimes slows me down, it feels like, in August, and that has happened, but that’s okay. I’m okay with it.
[00:10:25] ANNE: I’m sorry the slump has found you.
GINGER: Yeah, it’s always a bummer. It’s never surprising.
ANNE: You’re still you
GINGER: But it is a bummer. And slump kind of means to me that I’m not finishing books.
ANNE: Oh.
GINGER: I’m still reading, but like nothing’s sticking.
ANNE: Okay. Interesting. I’ve had a great summer. So my two twin goals in our time together today is not to talk about Summer Reading Guide books and not to talk about Fall Book preview books. I’ve been trying to live in the in between this summer, and it’s been really fun.
I’ve had a pretty nerdy summer. I have definitely read some frothy… I’ve gotten to frolic a little bit, like you said. Not gotten to. I mean, I’ve chosen that a little bit. But I’ve also really enjoyed spending some time with some old books I’ve been putting off, or some more scholarly, literary, how-to-read kind of books. Like right now I’m reading a book about, I don’t know, how to craft the perfect sentence. That’s not what it’s called. I’m going to finish it first, and then I’ll tell you about it if I like it to the end, or I’ll tell you about it with my complete opinion.
[00:11:29] But I spent forever with Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. Right now I’m loving reading through my annotated like 700-page edition of Pride and Prejudice with Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club. I’ve read old Anne Tyler and Toni Morrison, and a couple of older books I’m going to talk about today as my favorites.
And I’ve just really enjoyed taking the time to, I don’t know, like read the stuff that doesn’t have a reason for me to read it right now, except that I want to, which is different from reading for a Summer Reading Guide or a Fall Book Preview. I got to go to the beach, and for the first time in a couple years, read almost a book every single day, in part because some were 200 pages. And there was an exception. I read a 500-plus page novel that I’m really excited about for fall that took me two days. And I read some backlist. I’ve just really enjoyed going, I don’t know, just spending a lot of time with good books.
[00:12:23] I have had two, not really slumpy exactly, but there were two different times this summer where I stalled out. And once, I was reading a book that’s coming this fall that I’ve already seen so highly praised, and I could tell, stylistically, this is gorgeous, but I don’t care. And I just didn’t want to read. You know, I’d pick it up, I’d read 10 pages, I’d be like, “That’s enough for tonight.” So I kinda stalled out for a week.
And then I was reading something else that was older earlier in the summer, where again, didn’t care. I mean, I powered through, and then I moved on. Powered through might be the wrong phrase. I decided I do actually want to complete this book, and I did it slowly, and then I moved on.
DONNA: You stayed the course.
ANNE: Yeah. I had something good happening in my ears in, you know, the meantime, so I was still enjoying good books. But on the whole, it’s been fun, and a mix of like frothy, and nerdy, and forthcoming, and old, and… I mean, this is the same kind of thing I always say, I think, actually.
GINGER: That’s a good mix, though.
ANNE: It’s a nice mix. It’s a nice mix.
GINGER: Yeah, we like that.
ANNE: And this is what the mix often looks like in June, July, and August.
[00:13:34] LEIGH: I mean, there could be a year where it’ll be completely different. So I want to know, are things the same?
GINGER: That’s right.
LEIGH: Or are you doing things differently?
ANNE: When we do the Summer Reading Guide that’s the pre-2000 edition, it’ll look so different. We’ll see. Okay, so we enjoyed talking a little bit before we hit the record button about how we chose our favorites and then, you know, made a joke that we should have been recording. But we all want different things from our summer reading. I’m talking to our listeners, but also just looking at the four of us, we all want different things from our summer reading and measure success by different outcomes. So what I’d really love to hear is, as you sat down to choose your best favorite superlative for today, how were you thinking about what you might choose? Donna, how’d you choose?
DONNA: Well, Anne, I went to my spreadsheet, I did, and I filtered on five-star ratings. And then I kind of like to look for a theme, see if anything pops out, which it did, and it is nonstop action are what my two picks are. And then I also try to do ones that maybe are a little bit different. Maybe people haven’t heard of them, maybe different from your picks. And that’s how I came up with my two.
[00:15:00] ANNE: Donna, what makes a five-star read for you?
DONNA: It’s like instinctual to me. It’s hard for me to describe. It just is a feeling where I was so immersed in that book, I wasn’t even aware of what was going around me. I can tell when I’m just living in a book, and that is what happened with these two books.
ANNE: So I hear you say spreadsheet a lot, which sounds like math, math, data-driven, but you got some poetry in there too. Wait, that sounds like a genre. You’ve got-
DONNA: I do.
ANNE: It’s emotional math.
GINGER: Anne has some insider knowledge of this spreadsheet.
ANNE: Vibes plus math. I was trying not to say vibes. That word is… I’m over that word.
DONNA: It is, though. It is. It’s just a feeling that I have.
ANNE: Mm-hmm.
GINGER: An art and a science.
LEIGH: Yeah.
ANNE: Oh, that’s a good way to put it.
DONNA: Thanks, Ginger.
ANNE: Leigh, what were you considering?
[00:15:55] LEIGH: I keep a note with all of my five-star reads for the year, so I just pulled that up. And honestly, I only have probably 15 five-star reads so far this year. So I thought about, of the five-star reads, which are the ones that I have thought about the most and that I have recommended the most to friends, and that’s what I came up with.
GINGER: I like that framework of recommending. That’s a great one. I’m going to keep that in mind.
ANNE: Love it. Ginger, how’d you do it?
GINGER: Well, I really was thinking in two different directions. One, I wanted to share something that I hadn’t talked much about but that I did love because book club members know that we just had our Best Book of the Summer event in book club, where members share theirs, and I gushed about Finding Grace. I think that’s such a buzzy book that is on a lot of people’s radar.
[00:16:51] I also had so many good experiences. I took down Paradise Pawn from the Summer Reading Guide in one sitting, like one day, which is really rare for me. I’m a slow reader. So what I was sort of thinking about is… I mean, I could talk about one of those buzzy books that everybody is probably already aware of, but I wanted to talk about my favorite reading experience. So those were such fun books, but I wanted to talk about the book that sort of obsessed me, that I sunk into. It was unexpected, it was surprising, and it sent me off in other directions, trips and research. So I wanted to talk about my favorite reading experience today.
ANNE: Trips.
GINGER: Mm-hmm. Well, I don’t know which one came first. Did the book inspire the trip or did the trip inspire the book? We’ll see. We’ll talk about it.
ANNE: Intriguing. Not thinking of everywhere I know you’ve been. We did not share our books in advance.
GINGER: Nope.
ANNE: So this is our reveal to each other as well as to y’all. Okay, are we ready?
LEIGH: Yeah.
ANNE: Any final words before we launch into favorites?
LEIGH: I just want to note that I’m always accused of talking about more books than we’re technically allowed, but I have not done that at all. Anne and Ginger have both been sneaking in extra titles.
GINGER: It’s true.
LEIGH: And I clocked it.
[00:18:10] ANNE: Ginger did sneak in Augustine twice.
GINGER: Definitely. Always.
ANNE: We all saw that. All right. Leigh, your gold star will be in the mail shortly.
LEIGH: Thank you. Thank you.
ANNE: Donna, would you do us the honor of starting us off?
DONNA: I will. Remember, the theme is nonstop action. Book number one is Lightlark by Alex Aster. This is a romantasy book. It is the beginning of a series. I actually don’t know how many are going to be in the series, but the second one does come out in April of next year.
I think one of the things I loved about it is it really reminded me of The Hunger Games, which are some of my favorite books and favorite movies. And I’ve been looking for another book that has that same kind of similar elements to it. So there’s kind of this hierarchy of the haves and have-nots, but in this case, the haves, what they have is magic, and then other people do not. But there’s something that happens every 50 years where the have-nots can get some magic.
[00:19:24] And there is a set of brutal, and I mean brutal, trials that happen as part of this quest to get some magic. I also really love this book because there is an enemies-to-lovers trope, but what I really want to point out is that they are really enemies. I feel like a lot of times when I see that trope, there’s just not much to it, and so it doesn’t feel like much of a change to go from, quote-unquote, enemies to lovers. But here, there is really something very serious keeping them apart, and I find that very intriguing. And I think you need that when it’s a long series. You need something serious. But yeah, just a total page-turner and highly recommend.
GINGER: I think a lot of readers’ ears perked up when you said The Hunger Games, so.
DONNA: Yes. But it does have that brutality, right? I mean, The Hunger Games is no joke, and so I wanted to make sure people understand that there is a violent side to this book.
[00:20:31] LEIGH: I mean, you had me at enemies to lovers that are real enemies. I like those high stakes of not knowing how is the author going to pull this off? How are they going to make me believe in this?
DONNA: Exactly, yes. All right. We’ll see if you’re interested in book two. It is called Cold Zero. This is by Brad Thor and Ward Larsen. I wanted to highlight this book because I feel like a lot of people, maybe in particular women, would pass this book by on a shelf because it kind of looks like a dude book, is what I’ve been calling it. There’s a big picture of a dude on the back.
Actually, one of the authors, Ward Larsen, he writes for the Tom Clancy estate, so they do write military books and thrillers, things like that. But I think that if you enjoy T.J. Newman’s books, like Drowning, you’re going to love this. Or it also reminded me of the movies like Crimson Tide or The Hunt for Red October. I love those movies. So if that is your vibe, if you like a kind of a spy international thriller, this is a good book. And it does have a female lead protagonist, which kind of surprised me and I think really helped draw me in.
[00:22:01] So it starts with a bang. A plane goes down in the middle of nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in the Antarctic. There’s something on this plane that multiple countries want. So now there is a race to the plane to get this thing, which I’m purposely not describing. And when I say nonstop action, I mean it. It is just one thing after another. And it’s kind of like watching, you know, one of those movies that I just described. And in fact, Netflix has said they have bought the rights to this, and they said that they’re going to make a big movie out of it, which I hope they do, because the book is very cinematic. Again, I just couldn’t put it down. So that’s Cold Zero. Those are my two.
ANNE: Wow. Ooh, I’m really intrigued by Cold Zero. That sounds like the kind of book I love occasionally. And I think it’s so… I don’t know what’s happening here that I’ve read three books in the past… I don’t remember when I read the Charlotte McConaghy set at one of the poles, but I’ve read three books that have been Arctic or Antarctic just in the past couple months that I’ve really enjoyed. So why not make it four?
LEIGH: Why not?
[00:23:15] GINGER: I would like to say, too, that my best book of summer last year was a military book, so I’m kind of like putting this in that category of sometimes that’s really surprising, because non-stop action is often there.
LEIGH: Sounds good.
ANNE: Okay. Thank you, Donna.
DONNA: You’re welcome.
ANNE: All right, Leigh, here you are with your not more than two, not dropping extra titles. You know I’m totally kidding. Here, what do you have for us?
LEIGH: I’m behaving today, but that’s also because I know that we have a Patreon vote.
ANNE: Oh, don’t disappoint people.
GINGER: Don’t change now.
LEIGH: Okay. I’m actually going to surprise everyone, and this is a good segue from the book that Donna just shared, and I am going to recommend a crime novel.
ANNE: What?
GINGER: Come on, now.
LEIGH: Surprise.
GINGER: Leigh, we said yesterday in team meeting, we don’t know you, so this is a surprise.
LEIGH: Always keep people guessing. So this is Murder Mindfully by Karsten Dusse. It was originally published in Germany, and it’s now being translated into English and published here. And it’s also apparently a Netflix series, so people may have heard about it that way. But this was so up my alley, even though I don’t read very many crime novels at all. But once you hear the premise, you’ll be like, “I understand why Leigh wanted to read this.”
So criminal defense lawyer Björn’s wife has given him an ultimatum, so he starts seeing a mindfulness coach, and this changes him in very surprising ways. I love mindfulness. It was my favorite class that I took in grad school when I got my master’s in social work, so this was my entry point.
So when Björn’s mobster client makes demands that will interfere with his time with his daughter Emily, it’s the perfect opportunity to apply the mindfulness techniques he’s been learning. And if that means he accidentally or not so accidentally kills his client and anyone else who stands in his way, well, sometimes that happens.
[00:25:17] And it includes excerpts from this fictional Slowing Down in the Fast Lane: Mindfulness for Managers book, and Björn is always consulting the book of like how should he approach this situation. Some great dark humor, so delightful.
The second book, My Inner Child Wants to Kill, came out August 4th, and I’m excited to read that next. And I really hope that the rest of the series is translated, because I want to read more. This was so much fun.
ANNE: I’m loving the zaniness of organized crime plus mindfulness.
LEIGH: Yes. Right?
DONNA: Amazing.
ANNE: You know, I want to read thrillers in German. I’m thinking, “Can I read this?” No, I don’t think I can. I don’t think I’m-
LEIGH: I was thinking that it might have specific appeal to you, Anne, because of your project. But you could get the side-by-side comparison going, so feel like you might want to give it a go.
GINGER: Hopefully they do translate those for you, Leigh, but if they don’t, you can have Anne read the rest of them and just tell you what happens.
LEIGH: Yes.
[00:26:18] ANNE: I don’t know. I believe I might be missing some of the specific vocabulary necessary to truly understand these. I don’t know how to describe the inner workings of any organization, let alone one that it sounds like is involved in this book. But, you know, you gotta learn and grow in your language skills, so maybe this is my opportunity. I just maybe need to not use those words in conversation.
LEIGH: I mean, haven’t you always wanted to learn about crime in German?
GINGER: That’ll come in handy.
LEIGH: I feel like Anne’s going to start-
ANNE: This is the book for me.
LEIGH: …bringing these mindfulness techniques into our team meetings. Better watch out.
GINGER: Hopefully the mindfulness and not the crime. Let’s-
LEIGH: Not the murder. All right. For my second book we’re going to do choose your own adventure style, and I’m going to make you pick, so nonfiction or romance.
[00:27:15] GINGER: Okay, I’m only basing this on what I’m bringing, which is not nonfiction, and so I’d love a little nonfiction in this mix. We haven’t had any so far.
DONNA: Sounds good to me.
ANNE: I agree.
LEIGH: Okay. Well, this is actually not too far from a crime novel, but it is nonfiction. So it’s called Unreasonable Women: Three Stories of Violence, Imprisonment, and Extraordinary Survival by Justine van der Leun. This might be the most important nonfiction book that I’ll read this year. It’s difficult, but it was very compelling, very well-written. So van der Leun is a journalist, and she follows three women incarcerated for murder, even though they were actually protecting themselves after years of abuse. So this really is examining criminalized survival and just how many people are complicit, from family members to the so-called justice system.
[00:28:13] While the stories are hard to read at times, I definitely want to emphasize that you should look at the content warnings. But it’s very important to not look away from what is happening. I really hope that this book leads to real change. It was just so, so well done.
ANNE: I hadn’t heard of this until our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club member best books, which put this on my radar. Several readers just raved about it. It’s interesting that the universe is now bringing it to me again.
LEIGH: It’s truly so, so well done. I really want more people to read it. I mean, it just came out in the last couple of months, but I was just very impressed with how she structured everything and how she grapples with the ethics. And also I just hope that certain prosecutors are haunted for the rest of their lives by their misdeeds. I don’t think that they are, but I hope that this book leads to some suffering, as I say with a smile.
[00:29:15] GINGER: Well, I’m glad you actually brought that one, Leigh, because it does feel like one that deserves to be put in front of more people. But I do have to ask, are you going to share your other path of the choose your own adventure on the Patreon bonus episode?
LEIGH: Yes, yes. So the romance picks will go on the Patreon bonus.
GINGER: We’ll hear about that one, too.
ANNE: I appreciate the quick yes. I get to go next. First, I’m going to repeat one that I shared in our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club Best Books of Summer. And that is Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel, which I chose as the… actually, I chose both of these as the reading experience. I thought they were both very well done, finely crafted, or whatever snooty lit critic superlative you want to use. But it was the reading experience that made this for me. And part of that reading experience was this was the third Emily St. John Mandel book I read in quick succession. I’m now a completist. There will be a blog post on Modern Mrs. Darcy coming your way before too long.
[00:30:20] But I read Exit Party for Fall Book Preview. I’ll be talking about that then. And then for reasons involving overlapping characters, I read The Singer’s Gun when Holly, What Should I Read Next? alum, organized a community read over there. And then I thought, “Well, I’m so close. I’m just going to finish,” and I picked up Last Night in Montreal, which I found out after I finished was her debut that was plucked from the slush pile by the person who became her agent, and then it was finally sold to a small press, and everything changed with Station Eleven. But I didn’t know that backstory for her early novels that I didn’t hear of until after Station Eleven had already sold a bajillion copies.
But I really enjoyed the reading experience of sinking into a story with three Emily St. John Mandel books ringing in my ears. I feel like that kind of immersive experience really let me notice style and approach in the way she talks to the reader and kind of makes an argument in her books in a way that I wouldn’t have had I just picked this up out of the blue. You know, 2020 Anne would’ve had a very different experience with this book.
[00:31:31] But I so enjoyed the lit class I was running in my head on this book. And I highlighted a bunch, and my annotations are ample in the front of my book, and I dog-eared and bookmarked and made notes and Googled.
Last Night in Montreal is about a woman who has been constantly moving since she was seven years old and was escaping something scary. Her father, who she hadn’t seen in years at that point, comes to take her away in the middle of the night. And the mother is distraught in the morning, goes to authorities. But throughout the book, you are not entirely sure that it wasn’t a good thing that she was spirited away. But you’re not entirely sure because taking a child out of her bed when she’s seven years old in the middle of a brutally cold Montreal winter, which that’s not the last night of the title, well, there’s a lot to explore there.
[00:32:28] So throughout the book, she’s constantly on the run. The story begins when she skips out of her boyfriend’s house in New York City in more the present day. She’s 20-something years old, and he always knew that she was going to leave at some point because she doesn’t stay in one place very long, but he yet still didn’t believe that she would leave him, and he goes to search for her. And interspersed, we have the story of him looking for her in the present day and her entire history of never spending more than six weeks in any place since she was seven years old.
The first line of this book is, “No one stays forever.” And how many times can I use the word nerdy? I really enjoyed… It felt like it was done with a light touch, but I’d read three Emily St. John Mandel books in a row at this point, which her new one is much more in the realm of science fiction fantasy, and yet so many of the themes were the same. Like, how does one choice we make in a moment impact the trajectory of our entire lives? Like, how might things have been different if only?
[00:33:31] And several characters in the book are living arguments for the beauty and fulfillment of staying in one place, and others really argue with their lives and actions for the necessity of being on the run. We have a PI trying to hunt her down. We have characters at odds. I mean, there’s just a lot of good stuff here. I enjoyed it. It wasn’t long. It was only 200-something pages. Just over 200. I read it quickly, but I just really enjoyed reading this with my pen in hand and my notebook early in the morning at the time I do my more like scholarly reading. But had this been queued up for me at the beach, I would’ve happily read it there. It would’ve suited me in either place. So that’s Emily St. John Mandel.
GINGER: I love a backlist.
[00:34:16] ANNE: Which does not have a 4.3. Not even close. And then my other one, again, definitely an experience for me in this season of my life, and that is Prague Spring by Simon Mawer. I chose Prague Spring because this was a book for me in this season. It’s not super old. It was just published 10-ish years… Let’s see. The copyright is 2018, but it’s about events that happened in the summer of 1968.
I haven’t really talked about this, but Will and I took our boys to visit Mel and Dave of Strong Sense of Place — I know many of you are listeners and fans of their work — in April. And we were browsing at this little bookstore in Prague, and Mel said, “Oh, Simon Mawer. Prague Spring. I love that book.” And I said, “Sold.” And I took it home with me, and I didn’t read it until we went to the beach in July.
[00:35:12] But I wasn’t familiar with Simon Mawer’s work, although maybe some of you will be. He was shortlisted for the Booker for The Glass Room, which I now want to go on and read, because I enjoyed this one so much. But I am wondering if this was the unique combination of the book I wanted. But I don’t know. I thought this was going to be very, very serious, and when I picked it up, it read almost like a spy novel.
But something that’s so interesting about this book is it’s called Prague Spring, which is a real historical event. And what happens is we’re looking at two couples. One is university students at Oxford who are spending the summer hitchhiking through Europe, and the other is a British diplomat stationed in Prague, and a younger Czech political activist.
[00:36:05] So as they are living their lives in the summer of 1968, the reader knows that Russian tanks are going to roll in to Wenceslas Square on August 20th. This is historical fiction. That was a historical event. But when you meet these characters in June, the Oxford couple, oh, they are young and snippy, and one is in love with the other, but it’s not reciprocated, and they’re kind of whining, and they want to have an adventure, and they’re not quite sure what they want. And they’re making their decisions about what cities to go to based on, like, literally rolling dice. Which is how they end up in Prague.
But the other couple, the diplomat and the political activist, have very different interests in what’s happening in Prague that spring. And, like, here’s a little history lesson, because you didn’t go on the amazing post-World War II and communism tour that I went on in Prague, which was an amazing backdrop to this book.
So in January 1968, the Czechoslovakian Communist Party appointed this man named Dubček to be its new chairman, and he believed in socialism with a face. And very quickly, beginning in 1968, restrictions were loosened. Western books and radio were allowed into the country. There wasn’t press censorship to the extent there had been. Like, artistic and cultural freedom greatly increased, and you can see characters in the book saying, “Things are changing. Like, we are opening to the West. We’re freer. We’re going to keep moving in this direction.”
[00:37:39] And Khrushchev did not agree, made threats to Dubček, who was like, “Yeah, yeah, this is fine. I’ll, we’re going to work it out. We can all stay friends,” because he was loyal to the Russians. And the Russians keep saying, “You gotta tighten this back up,” and he’s like, “You don’t really mean that, do you?” And then in late August, the tanks rolled in.
DONNA: Oh, no.
ANNE: So there’s this impending sense of doom because you know what is going to happen, and you know the characters have no idea. And yet, even though I knew this history, there are things in the book that I didn’t know really happened. Like the Moody Blues were playing on the Charles Bridge the night before the tanks rolled into the city, and they were trapped. Shirley Temple was in Prague when the tanks rolled in. And in the story, they’re figuring out how to spirit out the Americans or the Brits while, you know, the Czech people are stuck.
[00:38:34] But reading about this book with history that I had just been, I mean, for an eight-day trip, immersed in, and places that I had just been and sights I’d just seen with my own eyes, it was just great timing. And also not the book I expected. I thought it was going to be a chore that would make me a better reader, you know, that I should read. But from about page two, I was like, “Well, I didn’t know it was going to be like this. Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Mel told me. Mel told me. I should have known.
GINGER: That does sound like a good summer reading experience, for sure.
LEIGH: No, that sounds very, very good. I don’t read a lot of historical, but yeah, that appeals.
ANNE: That’s fun. I mean, it was a very intellectually and emotionally satisfying kind of fun. All right, Ginger, we saved you for last because you took a different take than Donna, Leigh, or I did.
GINGER: Yes.
ANNE: Tell us everything.
[00:39:33] GINGER: I love the torturous experience of deciding about one book. And I kind of already told you my qualification there is that I was trying to decide on what has been my best reading experience for the summer. So you’re not going to get off that easy. I did bring a classic, depending on how you define classic, but it’s not as old as Augustine.
So it is written in 1975, and that book is Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. So this, you might have guessed, I am second only to books is my obsession with Broadway. I don’t talk about it a lot, but I read a lot of show biz memoirs, and I read a lot of the source material. I have read the entirety of Hamilton by Ron Chernow because I wanted to annotate that with the lyrics of the play, the musical.
[00:40:20] So when I heard that Joshua Henry, whose career I followed for years and years since Tick, Tick… Boom! was on Netflix, when I heard that he won the Tony, if you have not seen that NPR Tiny Desk concert with him singing Let Them Hear You, please go do that as soon as you’re done with this episode. I just got obsessed. I thought, “I knew he was in Ragtime. I’ve gotta see it.”
So my husband and I booked a quick trip to New York on the train. I grabbed the book to read on the train, and I have been listening to the soundtrack forever. But I really didn’t know much else about the origin story or anything, but I just got obsessed. So reading this on the train on the way up to see Joshua Henry as he ends his run really shortly, actually, was just such a delight, kind of having the soundtrack in my ears and the book in my hands and, you know, going to this place where the story takes place, New York. It was so immersive.
[00:41:17] I didn’t quite finish it on the trip itself, and so after I got home, I was still continuing just to research the references, the Broadway lyrics. I was annotating that book, again, with all the lyrics that I knew in my head. It was just such a delightful immersive. Since then, I’ve been buying old books on ragtime music itself. I mean, I love when a book influences a trip, and the trip influences music, and the music influences learning about the music. That is my favorite kind.
A little bit about this book itself. It is pretty standard size, like just over 300 pages, but I do not know how E.L. Doctorow fits in this many characters. So lest it sounds like a dull, dusty classic, it feels very timely and very modern. He shoves so many… The three main characters, yes, but their family members, their friends and neighbors. There are historical figures in here, like we… You mentioned Shirley Temple. That was so funny because Evelyn Nesbit, Houdini, J.P. Morgan, like there are these historical figures that come into the book and the play that are just really fun to see how they intersect, how their lives intersect.
[00:42:28] I had the best time reading this. It is really present writing. Like I said, it’s not too long, but it almost feels like Hemingway-esque in that it’s short and terse and propulsive. And because you’re following so many characters, there is a lot of action, again, in this book. Yeah, Donna. I just loved it. I mean, I loved the experience certainly, but I was so surprised that this book has some things to say about the immigrant experience, about women’s experience in the home and outside of the home. It had a lot going on, and yet it was pulled off so successfully.
LEIGH: I’m going to sound ignorant, but I didn’t realize that the show was based on a book.
DONNA: I didn’t either.
GINGER: Truly. Me neither. That’s it. Yeah, exactly. That’s-
LEIGH: I was like, “Does everyone know this?”
[00:43:15] GINGER: No. And what I really love is when you do sometimes read Broadway source material, how seriously the people that write the book for a Broadway show are drawing on. I mean, there are some exact quotes I cannot give away. It is a huge plot point. If I tell you, my favorite line of the entire soundtrack is a really shocking line from the younger brother, and it is word for word in the book. And I mean, when I tell you I laughed out loud, I laughed. I honked a laugh out loud, because I was not expecting to see that humor folded in there. And it’s always a surprise to me, no matter how many times I’ve heard.
LEIGH: That’s so fun.
GINGER: It was a really good time.
ANNE: I love that for you, and I love a field trip. Is this the reason you went to New York?
GINGER: I think the impetus was Joshua Henry was finishing his run on Broadway, and I just wanted to be in the room with that man’s voice. So I think it’s in 10 days from the time we’re recording, so I knew that that was my moment. I hope he goes on to do even bigger and better things in the world, because he’s a delightful human. But if this is the pinnacle of his career, he has done something extraordinary with his life. Again, I mean, just go listen to that man’s voice is extraordinary.
[00:44:27] ANNE: I mean, if we must, we must.
GINGER: Well, you must.
ANNE: Yeah, we must.
LEIGH: This is my kind of homework.
GINGER: Yes, exactly.
ANNE: Any parting thoughts or peeks into what you might be talking about in the Patreon bonus?
GINGER: I did hard work. Now, I could talk about books all day, but I decided on one. And, really truly so many of my great reading experiences this year have been summer reading guidebooks. I mean, if I can break all the rules and just say Country People and Trash and Main Characters, like, Anne picked out some great-
DONNA: Cheater.
GINGER: …SNG books. I’m not talking about them, I’m just saying I loved those titles. Is that allowed?
ANNE: We’re never going to tsk-tsk in our buddy for sharing more books they loved.
LEIGH: I’m truly impressed by the way you’re just able to weave that in. I feel like your sneakiness inspires me to be more sneaky the next time.
[00:45:27] GINGER: A maximalist will come with one title, if you can hear the air quotes there, and somehow also mention six others.
LEIGH: Yeah.
ANNE: I said very clearly up top, you make your own rules. Thank you all so much for coming on to talk favorites. It’s always a pleasure.
GINGER: This was great.
LEIGH: It was so fun.
DONNA: Had a great time.
ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed this first part of our team’s conversation about their best books of summer. Find the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. Keep up with our show and other happenings, like our upcoming Fall Book Preview, by signing up for our email updates at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.
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[00:46:31] Find us on Instagram at whatshouldireadnext. We love it when you help us spread the book love by sharing our posts or commenting and responding.
And thank you to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, Media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager 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.
