At the end of last year, you heard us ask for your help to create this celebratory episode. For ten years now, you’ve been telling us how this show has bolstered your reading life, and in some cases, completely transformed it. We don’t just talk book titles here: we love diving deep into conversations that explore why we love what we love, why some books just don’t work for us, and importantly, what it all means in our reading lives.
We firmly believe that the reason this format works, week in and week out, is that we are constantly together, finding the universal in the specific. While each week I get granular with a reader about their highly unique and individual reading life, the conversation gives you a framework by which to think about your own reading life.
For today’s show, we wanted to celebrate what What Should I Read Next? has done for your reading lives, and specifically, we wanted to hear what good books you found through the show. With that in mind, we asked you to call in and tell us about a title you discovered, or finally made time to read, because of the show. Your messages poured in, and our team so enjoyed listening to and reading them. Today, you’ll hear a collection of oft-repeated themes, a few surprises, and a whole bunch of delightful reading moments.
Please tell us about the titles that you discovered thanks to our show by leaving a comment below.
Join us for a live Ask Anne Anything!
A few weeks from now, we are airing a special episode of Ask Anne Anything, and we are inviting members of our Patreon community to submit their questions and join me live for this episode recording. If you’d like to be there as it happens and or share your burning questions in advance, you can do that by joining us over on Patreon, where you will also unlock immediate access to our full archive of bonus episodes, past summer and seasonal guides, and special membership events like our team’s best books of the year. Find out more and join us at patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.
Books mentioned in this episode:
• Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
• This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
• The Chief Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny (#1: Still Life)
• Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin
• Shark Heart by Emily Habeck
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (#1: All Systems Red)
• Shopkeeping by Peter Miller
• Love & Saffron by Kim Fay
• Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
• How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
• The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
• Congratulations, the Best is Over! by R. Eric Thomas
• The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
• Lovely War by Julie Berry
• The Ensemble by Aja Gabel
• Celine by Peter Heller
• True Biz by Sara Nović
• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• The One-In-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson
• Maya & Natasha by Elyse Durham
• James by Percival Everett
• Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Also mentioned:
• WSIRN Episode 28: Books that no one’s writing about in Entertainment Weekly
• WSIRN Episode 245: Finding the right mix for your reading life
• WSIRN Episode 233: Escaping into someone else’s story
• WSIRN Episode 237: When the library is closed, what’s a reader to do?
• WSIRN Episode 357: Welcome to Three Pines, with Louise Penny
• WSIRN Episode 421: Go ahead, judge that book by its cover
• WSIRN Episode 434: Hospitable books with a strong sense of welcome
• WSIRN Episode 392: Insightful and entertaining memoirs
• WSIRN Episode 366: Great books spur great conversations
• WSIRN Episode 489: The satisfaction of sinking into a good book
• WSIRN Episode 405: Books that pair with pumpkin spice
• WSIRN Episode 501: Crafting a personal curriculum for a lifelong learner
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