[00:00:00] EMMA SWEENEY: I love the quote from a previous person on your show, a symbol full of weird. Haruki Murakami has got to be like a Pyrex measuring cup of weird. But I love it.
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. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.
Readers, the holidays are still a little ways off right now, but some people in my life are hard to shop for. And if you're thinking I'm looking at my husband, Will Bogel, you are exactly right.
[00:00:58] If you are looking for the perfect literary gifts, especially book gifts for the people in your life, we have an upcoming episode where we will help you find the books and bookish goodies for everyone on your holiday list.
If you want to get in on the action, that is, tell us about your gift-giving situation and get answers from our team, you can do that by emailing [email protected] with the subject line "Gift Help". Let us know who you are shopping for, a little about their reading life, and ideas you have, or the direction you prefer to go. We will read some of your requests on our episode and answer lots of reader inquiries.
We have such a good time with this every year. You all enjoy hearing your requests on the show. You get great gift ideas. We've heard such good stories about how our team came through for you. Plus, we have so much fun doing it. So thank you for letting us be part of your reading lives in this way. And thank you for your great requests. Again, email [email protected] with the subject line "Gift Help" and tell us what you are looking for.
[00:02:00] Now for today, I'm welcoming Ontario reader Emma Sweeney to the show. In her guest submission that she completed at WhatShouldIReadNextPodcast.com/guest, Emma told our What Should I Read Next? team that she's interested in exploring books that incorporate elements from the horror genre.
She's looking for these because she's found that these stories often prompts reflective and meaningful reading experiences.
But there's a problem. When readers think horror, they often think scary. And Emma does not want books that scare the pants off her or give her nightmares. The question was, can I help her confidently explore books outside her comfort zone that have those horror elements? And readers, you know I'm happy to help.
Emma also voiced a plea that we've heard a lot in our submissions lately. She'd like to get better at discerning whether a book is a good fit for her or not before she spends 100 pages of precious reading time on stories that turn out to be not what she's looking for.
[00:02:58] She's hopeful I can offer better identify which books will satisfy her readerly need for haunting but not horrifying page-turners. Let's get to it.
Emma, welcome to the show.
EMMA: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.
ANNE: We were really excited by your submission here at What Should I Read Next? HQ. So thank you for responding to our call.
EMMA: Yeah, absolutely. I'm still kind of pinching myself that I was selected, so it's exciting.
ANNE: Well, we want to talk to literally everybody who fills out our form, and that's at WhatShouldIReadNextPodcast.com/guest, if listeners are interested, because I am really curious and nosy and I want to hear more about everyone's reading lives when they dangle just a little bit of our submission in front of me.
But personally I felt a real kinship with what you said, and also I know that lots of readers are looking for the same kind of books you are on the hunt for this fall. So I'm excited to dive in today.
EMMA: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:04:00] ANNE: Okay. Emma, tell us a little bit about yourself. We want to give our readers a glimpse of who you are.
EMMA: I live in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, and about a ten-minute walk from Georgian Bay, which is the bay on Lake Huron. So we're in the Great Lakes area. It's gorgeous up here.
I grew up in the big city in Toronto and we moved up here right before the pandemic, kind of wanting to get away from the big city, be a little bit closer to nature. And honestly, we just loved it.
We've been here five years now and we never really go back to the big city anymore. We just love the extra time we have here and the proximity to hikes in nature.
I have a husband and a 3-year-old son who keep me very busy.
For work, my background is in communications, and so I work in communications for our local Owen Sound Police Service. That's a pretty new role for me in the past year, but it's exciting.
I never thought I'd be a civilian member of a police service, but it's definitely a need to kind of have the pulse on our city from a policing perspective and helping with media releases, social media, or community events. It's really exciting. I get to mostly work from home, which is a dream right now.
[00:05:17] One of the best experiences of my life was teaching abroad in Asia. I spent about a year in South Korea and a year in China. That experience really opened up my eyes to certain Asian authors in translation that I was not familiar with.
I still seek out those books today and have kind of a nostalgia for my time there working and traveling for those couple of years. That definitely informs my book choices. I would be excited to have more recommendations of works in translation from that part of the world.
ANNE: That sounds so interesting. I'm curious to hear if your professional experience and your past travels are going to influence the books you choose to talk about today. I'll be listening for that.
Emma, tell us about your reading life.
EMMA: My reading life is actually really great right now in general, and I would say that's in a large part from discovering your podcast last summer. I guess in that sense, I'm a new-ish listener, but since I found out about your show, I've been trying to listen to almost every episode. It's my favorite.
ANNE: Oh, thank you.
[00:06:27] EMMA: I've always been a reader, like a number of your guests. I majored in English, but I found when I graduated, I had a really hard time enjoying books just for what they were. I was reading novels and always looking for the themes or what am I going to be tested on, and it was kind of hard to just relax and absorb it.
One of the books I'm going to talk about today really got me out of that funk, and I'm grateful that I got out of that to just kind of not be so academic about it and just purely read for my own pleasure.
Right now, this time in my life, working full-time and being a mom, I have what I call my golden hour every day, which is from 8 to 9 p.m. approximately. I go to bed pretty early. But that is my hour where I only curl up on our couch. We have an L-shaped couch, so my husband takes one end and I take the other, and we read together and drink tea, and it's pretty much the highlight of my day where I just unwind.
[00:07:25] ANNE: I can see why. That sounds incredible. I'm so curious to hear about the book that really did it for you a few years ago. I laughed. It might have been the laugh of recognition when you used all caps one time in your submission. Do you remember what it was about?
EMMA: Oh, about the process of planning what I want to read?
ANNE: Yeah, that was it. I'd love to hear more about that.
EMMA: You know what? I think that intentionality, too. Again, I keep saying this comes from your show. But it does. My want-to-read list is so much longer. Maybe this is embarrassing but I didn't even have Goodreads a year ago. I guess I was vaguely aware of it. Then when I started listening to your show and everybody talked about it, I was like, "Okay, I have to get this."
And that has helped me plan so much. I'm just way more organized. If I'd see a book cover in an article or online, I'd just take a screenshot with my phone and get lost in my pictures. So now I actually have a list in Goodreads and planning that.
[00:08:26] It's nice to look ahead and be like, okay... I like to be a seasonal reader sometimes and think, Okay, I'm going to save that one for the spring, or ooh, this one's going to be great in October. I just love that planning and also deciding, Okay, what do I want on audio? What do I want on my Kindle, and what do I want as my paperback? That part is fun, too, the researching. I really enjoy that.
ANNE: What does that experience feel like to you? I can definitely tell that that experience does not feel like a chore. It doesn't feel anxiety-producing. What are some adjectives that you would use to describe the planning for you?
EMMA: Oh, it's fun and exciting in that sense of anticipation. Like, ooh, I bet that'll be really good on audiobook if that person's reading it, or it's, you know, this narrator I really like. Or planning with a new release, Ooh, okay, that's coming out in hardcover. I'm definitely... you know, the new so-
ANNE: I hear you.
EMMA: Yeah, I want to read that.
ANNE: It feels like, Ooh.
[00:09:26] EMMA: Yeah. And sometimes it's like, ooh, that's too many pages for a hardcover. It's going to be too heavy, so that's definitely a Kindle. And just kind of, I don't know, having that power and planning it, because I normally have two going at the same time if I'm doing an audio and then reading either a physical book or on my Kindle.
But even planning those combinations is kind of fun, too. I don't mind if they overlap or similar or totally different genres. But it's almost like, Oh, yeah, that was a season where I listened to that nonfiction, and I also read that murder mystery at the same time, and they kind of play off each other. I like that.
ANNE: And I'm curious to hear where all that planning takes you. So, how are you feeling these days about the books you're actually reading?
EMMA: I would say sometimes when I finish a really good book and I'm looking for my next one — this happened this summer — I would start maybe five or six books and DNF them all, which, I don't know, sometimes I'm just feeling extra picky.
[00:10:26] I definitely am a mood reader, and I get my physical books from a lot of different sources. We don't have a ton of bookshop options here in Owen Sound. We have a couple. And then I go to my little free library or actual library to get books out.
So sometimes it's dependent on what's available. And I'll get a bunch of things and then realize, Oh, I was excited, but none of them were quite right. I really like books that grab me, if not from the first page, the first chapter. I need to be kind of sucked in right in there with the characters.
I don't normally have success with slow-burn books. With some exceptions maybe, but I really like to be pulled in right from the beginning. And so sometimes I feel disappointed when I DNF a lot of books in a row. I'm like, "Oh man, I don't like anything." It takes a little bit to get back into that openness of finding the right book.
ANNE: Emma, you mentioned that since you found out it was okay to not finish a book that you began, that you do it all the time. And I got the impression that while it's been really empowering, there's still a lot of tension there.
[00:11:34] EMMA: Yeah, I think that's right. I felt like, in a way, I kind of needed external permission to do that. I think previously, years ago, I would have just finished a book if I bought it or went to the library. Now I feel okay about it, but there's still some guilt, especially if I bought the book, that I have to like it and I have to finish it.
So I found myself, in some cases, like this past winter, I would get two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through a book when I realized, "Wait a second, I'm really not enjoying this, and I don't really care about the ending." So I would stop reading and then feel a little bit guilty for the time that I quote-unquote, "wasted" reading it. And so I guess I'm looking for help with when to decide it's okay to DNF this or when to push through a little bit.
ANNE: Okay. There is a lot here. We could talk about 12-step programs and the importance of being honest with yourself, which does that sound a little silly? It absolutely does.
[00:12:38] I get that that's funny, but also I'm definitely recognizing that you're right how often I hear people say, like, Oh, I really feel this pressure to like a book that I paid money for." But you can't pressure somebody into liking something. That's not how it works. And you can't pressure yourself into liking something either. You can lie to yourself or you can tell yourself that it's better than you find it to be. So that's really interesting.
Also, I'm hearing you say, when is it okay to DNF? Like when is the right time? Emma, nobody's coming to like rescue you from your book, and yet we do... I mean, the guilt that you're describing is real for so many readers. I think you did say guilt.
EMMA: I did.
ANNE: Is that right?
EMMA: Especially when I buy a book, I feel guilt. Like, "I thought I was going to like this. I spent money. I had expectations." And when it doesn't work out, it's like, Oh. But I think, you know, maybe it's the time where you bring up the Marie Kondo question, does this spark joy? It applies to a lot of areas in life.
[00:13:42] Maybe I need to just ask yourself that simple question and, you know, get rid of that old shirt, get rid of that book that's not bringing you joy.
ANNE: Okay, so I'm breaking my no-Google rule for What Should I Read Next? because y'all don't want to hear typing. You want to hear real book talk. But in Googling "guilt", Merriam-Webster says, Guilt is the fact of having committed a breach of conduct, especially violating law and involving a penalty. So my question is, what's the breach of conduct?
EMMA: Nothing. I guess to me I think it's not liking something that I think I should like. And it's that "should". But that's something I need to work on letting go of and just having a little bit more confidence in my own taste or having the confidence to just say, You know what, I don't like this, and that's okay.
ANNE: You know, something I think about all the time is a snippet from a David Eagleman interview. I heard about his book, Incognito, like probably 10 years ago when it was newly out, and he talks about how when we're trying to talk ourselves into doing something, like, who is talking to who? Because it's all us. Like it's all coming out of our brain.
[00:14:52] So I'm wondering... there's definitely... like I hear you very rationally saying now, like, "No, I didn't do anything wrong. It's fine. I can put this book down." And yet there's something in you that feels differently. So who's talking to who? And what is the argument they're making?
EMMA: It's just my inner voice talking to myself. Like even sitting here as I record in this closet, I'm like, Oh yeah, this stack of books here that I didn't like and didn't know what to do with that I just shoved in here and I'm looking at them now, I'm like, I should probably donate those if I'm not going to read them. But yeah, I think it's that tension between I guess the expectation and reality.
ANNE: Oh, okay. This might not be what you mean, but perhaps there's a difference between feeling guilty for not liking a book and feeling disappointed?
EMMA: Yeah. Maybe it's a little bit more disappointment than guilt that I'm dealing with. Like, oh, I didn't pick that one up right and I was so excited when I bought it and saw the cover and put it in my bag. But you know what? It wasn't right. I know I do have to remember there's millions of books out there. There's other chances and so many books to like.
[00:15:58] ANNE: Emma, now I'm thinking about the difference between dislike and disappointment. I'm wondering if we're experiencing one versus the other, it would change the calculus we're doing on our own minds about whether or not we wish to continue with a book.
EMMA: Yeah. I think when I'm disappointed, it almost feels like that hits harder because there were expectations to begin with. Disliking is more just like, "Oh, no, that's not to my taste. I don't really like this genre."
Maybe I need to find ways to approach my book selection just with more neutral expectations and just kind of see where it takes me rather than thinking, Oh my God, this is going to be so good. I'm going to love it. I mean, it is fun to have moments like that, but I think just having a more neutral approach might help me.
ANNE: I don't know. But I do feel the need to clarify what I meant by disappointment. I mean, often it's not until we're disappointed that we realize that we had expectations or that we had expectations of a certain nature.
[00:16:57] Whenever we ask guests to tell us about a book that wasn't right for them, we're not saying tell us about a bad book. We're saying tell us about a book that didn't align with your taste or that you read at the wrong time or was about a topic that turned out to not be something that was beneficial for your well-being to touch right now.
Emma, am I wrong or am I hearing an inclination to take responsibility for being a bad DMFer coming from you?
EMMA: I definitely think there's a little bit of that.
ANNE: Really?
EMMA: I never really thought about it, but that's a good observation.
ANNE: This is coming from one recovering perfectionist firstborn daughter. I was about to say another, but maybe that doesn't describe you at all.
EMMA: I'm an only child. Maybe there's some similarities.
ANNE: I feel like there's an eagerness to find the right way to do it. And I don't know that that's a thing here.
EMMA: No, I think you're right. I almost feel like this personal responsibility, but it's like, what? It's to myself. That's fine. Even just talking about it is kind of helping me.
[00:18:00] ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Okay. I do hear that maybe you need to hear that there's no external standard that you need to conform to and there's no perfect way that you need to DNF or not DNF a book, and no magic cosmic right answer like, Oh, no. At the end of the day, it turns out that Emma chose wrong and she should have read that book to the bitter end, but she didn't, and so she gets readerly demerits. That's not happening.
But the idea of picking up these books and trying them, which is something that you sound very open to doing, like that is something you're doing, is to get the experience that helps you learn about yourself and make decisions to move forward.
But the experience isn't actually beneficial if you're not able to honestly evaluate what the experience is like. And I'm not calling you out for not being honest, but I am elevating the importance of allowing a broad range of reactions as possibilities for you as you pick up books that you've heard such good things about that you're certain is going to be good.
[00:19:05] I hope that's the case for you. Because what a great set of expectations to have fulfilled! But it doesn't always go that way, as many of us have learned. It doesn't always go that way. We can only be good readers. I mean, what would Emma today say about how you would want to be a responsible reader? I feel confident that your answer is not pretzel my mind so that I have the opinion that other people I know have read the book have. That's not going to be it.
EMMA: No. I think being a responsible reader is just being true to yourself. The frustration that I had experienced sometimes in certain university classes of books that I had to read, you start feeling resentful when you have ones that you don't like and you have to keep reading them. It's okay to feel that way.
And it's almost like in life experience, a bad job is not necessarily a bad experience. I think it all adds to your character over time. And those negative experiences can help you refine what you do want.
[00:20:08] So I think that might help me going forward, reading books that I end up DNFing. And I can say, you know what, I don't think I really like that style or that character or when that happens in the first few chapters and just taking note of it and observing it. And that can help me in the future with my book planning and book shopping.
ANNE: Now, you did say you want to be better at finding and predicting what you may like in a book.
EMMA: Yeah. I just feel like it still is hit-and-miss. I don't know. Sometimes maybe I do think, oh, that's a fun cover or that sounds like a fun idea, and then a few chapters in, I'm just sort of bored. So I think I need to give the books a little bit more attention, like in the bookstore or if I'm reading reviews.
That's what I like about Kindle is that I can kind of download a book and try it out. I do love that feature. I think I should do more of that before I feel like I have to commit. But reading those first few chapters to get a feel, I think that can help me a lot.
[00:21:13] ANNE: Have you found that historically to be helpful?
EMMA: Generally. I mean, I find when you're book shopping in a store, like you can't really... I don't know. At least I feel like I can't spend that much time reading a ton of a book. So if I'm at home and I'm looking for a new book, I do like to get a taste of a book.
Sometimes it's good, but then I find sometimes the tone at beginning can change or partway through, you're thinking, Oh, maybe this isn't exactly what I wanted. And sometimes the first few chapters don't necessarily reflect where the book's going. So it's not a foolproof method by any means.
ANNE: All right. That's helpful. Emma, here's what we're going to do. Let's talk about the books you love and the books you don't and use those to further explore what it is... Well, I almost said exactly. What it is exactly. We don't mean exactly, but to try to put some more language to what does really work for you and also maybe what doesn't. How does that sound?
EMMA: Let's do it. Sounds good.
[00:22:15] ANNE: Emma, how did you choose these books that you brought today?
EMMA: I looked at my Goodreads list, which I only got Goodreads in 2024. So I looked at what I'd read this past year.
ANNE: Time out to say there's absolutely no shame needed there. I think you use the word of shame that you hadn't have it. Many readers are very, very happy without any kind of online tracking system. It also sounds like it's working for you. But yeah, no wrong answers.
EMMA: That's so true.
ANNE: It's a tool. Works for some people, doesn't work for others.
EMMA: So I picked two books that I read this year from the past six months that I loved and had given either four or five stars. And then another one has kind of been a mainstay for the past decade, or at least that I've always had a copy of, or I just think back about it. And so I felt like the list would be incomplete if I didn't say it today.
ANNE: I'm intrigued. Okay, let's jump in. What is the first book you love?
[00:23:15] EMMA: This is the one I was alluding to earlier. It has a special place in my heart because this is the book that helped me get out of my English degree only reading a book for what's going to be on the exam kind of funk. It came out in, I believe, 2011 in English translation and I think I read it in 2012, right before I was leaving for South Korea to teach. And it's 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.
This book, I think, was maybe one of the first Japanese books and translations that I had read. I love the quote from a previous person on your show, a symbol full of weird. And I know it's used on your show and I use it all the time. Haruki Murakami has got to be like a Pyrex measuring cup of weird. But I love it.
This was the first book of his that I read. It's a doorstopper. I think it's 920 pages, which is not my typical go-to. But this book from the beginning absolutely sucked me in.
[00:24:24] We meet one of the protagonists, Aomame. She's in a taxi on a Tokyo expressway. She's late for a meeting and stressed about it and the driver says, "You can get out at the expressway and take this stairway down to get on the subway." But he warns her that the world might never be the same.
And she does that. And then she finds when she looks up at the sky, there are suddenly two moons in the sky. And it just goes from there. There's a cult involved. There's lots of magical realism. It's also told from her point of view and the other protagonist, Tango, who she has a mysterious connection with from the past.
This book is weird and dark and wonderful and completely unpredictable. There's a lot of ambiguities in it. This is now my third reread of it and I still really enjoyed it. It's funny because I don't know what happened to my original copy but my husband happened to have his own copy. So that's what I read in preparation of this episode.
[00:25:29] So it was nice to read it again more than 10 years later and still enjoy it. And it was one of those experiences where maybe I didn't love it as much as I read it the first time. But I love that nostalgic feeling where I was reading it in 2012 planning to go abroad and travel and visit Tokyo. It's just such a different out-there read. And it just totally takes you away from your current reality. So that's what I liked about it.
ANNE: Okay, that sounds like a great experience three times over.
EMMA: Yeah, it's a lot of pages. I was impressed. When I found out I was going to be on your show, I felt okay, I need to reread this. And I did in a couple of weeks. So that was fun.
ANNE: Emma, what's the second book you love?
EMMA: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. I think I saw the book at the bookstore and I was intrigued right away. I'd describe it as a tragicomic family saga.
[00:26:26] We meet the once-wealthy Barnes family who live in Ireland, we don't know where, but I think about two hours from Dublin. The patriarch, Dickie, he runs this failing garage. And he has this beautiful wife, Imelda, who begins to sell their furniture and her possessions to make ends meet.
We meet their two children, Cass, who's a senior in high school and kind of drinking her way through exams. And PJ is my favorite character. And he's planning to run away because he thinks his parents are going to divorce and send him to boarding school.
The book is told from their four perspectives. All of the characters face their own demons and dramas and there are definitely moments of darkness, but it has this Irish wit or Irish humor woven throughout it that adds a levity. If it didn't have that, it would make the novel way too dark. But I love these little moments of humor, the dialogue between the characters.
[00:27:24] It's another fairly long book. I think it's around 650 pages. It spans back decades in the parents' memory. The first time I read it, I think I read it on my Kindle, and then in preparation for this episode, I also listened to it on audiobook, which I loved with Irish voice actors. It really added to it.
Just the other night I read the final chapter of the book, which just makes it for me. This final chapter is so tense. The adrenaline is flowing. You're not 100% sure what happens. And part of the joy of a book like this, when I finished, oh my God, wait, what just happened? I love to go on Reddit and see people's theories about, what did this mean? Wait, did this happen or did this happen? I don't mind unknowns or ambiguous ending at all. So this one was a really fun one for me.
ANNE: You cannot have listened yet, but I just recommended this book, The Bee Sting to last week's guest, Megan Riley, who also loves ambiguous endings, and everything you're describing is a really fitting follow-up.
EMMA: Yeah.
[00:28:36] ANNE: Emma, what's the third book you love?
EMMA: Piglet by Lottie Hazell. I definitely heard about this book on your podcast. I think you recommended it to a guest maybe this past winter. So I was aware of it and I'd seen the cover, at least the North American cover with this delicious-looking cheeseburger on it, and then I had read, in the New York Times, Jennifer Weiner's review of it, and it absolutely hooked me.
I think I wrote it down. She described it as a tantalizing layer cake of horror, romance, sort of, and timely questions about the power of appetite. And her review made me think, "Oh my God, I have to get this. And it did not disappoint.
To me, it's interesting that she uses the word "horror" because it's not horror in the traditional sense of gore or scary. But I've described this book as a car wreck that you cannot look away from if you have to keep staring at it and turning the pages.
[00:29:42] We have an unnamed main character who we don't really know a ton about other than she always loved food and cooking. She works in the cookbook world. She's going to be married to her fiancé Kit in a short amount of time. And then I think it's 13 days before the wedding, we learn that Kit reveals to Piglet, her nickname, that he's committed some sort of betrayal and she has to decide what to do. Will she marry him? Will she end the relationship? She has a lot of internal struggles. But it reads like an absolute page-turner.
I thought it was so interesting too, because the author doesn't provide a ton of detail really about our characters, but her food descriptions are so lavish and fantastic. Like I was reading last night in bed and getting so hungry. She's an amazing food writer. So that's a huge part of it that I love.
[00:30:45] But it's dark, it's got a quick pace, and I keep thinking about it after reading it. So this was probably, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this, I think my favorite book I've read so far in 2024.
ANNE: Whoa. Okay.
EMMA: Yeah.
ANNE: I like that you ended up with that one and you enjoyed it so much, especially because of what I know from your submission that you're looking for right now. And we'll talk more about that.
Emma, tell us about a book that was not right for you.
EMMA: Okay, a book that was not right for me was Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder by Asako Yuzuki. I was pretty excited about this. I think I read a review, maybe in Food and Wine about being a novel of food and murder. And I think because of that, I thought it would be more suspenseful, more of a detective story, more of that buildup. And it wasn't. It was more of kind of a true crime vibe.
[00:31:42] I know it was a bestseller in Japan, and it's apparently based on the real case of the so-called Konkatsu Killer, who was convicted of killing three would-be husbands and is currently on death row. But I listened to it on audio in full, and I love the narrator, Hanako Footman, who's an author and actor. She did a great job, but I just found the writing and story boring and flat. I didn't think there was a lot of plot.
It was more about this relationship of this journalist. We meet Rika with this death row prisoner, Manako Kajii, but I just didn't find their relationship very interesting.
I also found it kind of a downer. There wasn't a lot of hope or levity in it. I mean, it did focus on hard issues like misogyny in Japan and fatphobia, but I didn't really find a compelling reason to keep finishing it. I did, but it felt like a chore.
[00:32:44] Maybe my expectations were that when I saw the word "murder", like I said, I thought it would be more of a suspense page-turner. And it wasn't. It just felt a little bit too long for me. It didn't really capture me from the first chapter. So that was a recent book in translation that wasn't quite right for me.
ANNE: Okay. Emma, what have you been reading lately?
EMMA: Lately, I've read a couple of dark books that I've enjoyed. I had a last-minute sort of long car trip I had to do, and I didn't really have anything to listen to. I think I was recommended Annie Bot by Sierra Greer, and I loved it. I did not want to get to my destination. I wanted to keep listening.
That explores Annie who we learn is basically a pleasure bot for her human, Doug. So it's pretty dark, but you see the character of Annie develop over the book and kind of gain sentience and become more human. It was really interesting in how it draws the lines between AI and humans and their relationship and possession and ownership. That was sort of an out-of-the-blue hit that I really enjoyed.
[00:34:04] ANNE: Okay. I'm glad to hear that worked for you. Emma, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?
EMMA: I am looking for books that are eerie or spooky or haunting that aren't necessarily horror, but I love those elements of darkness and especially as we head into the colder season, you know, a long, dark, gray Canadian winter coming up for me. I love leaning into those darker, creepier vibes while still being kind of a scaredy cat.
But I would love to have something that kind of keeps me up, not being afraid, but keeps me up because I have to find out what is happening in this creepy or haunting or eerie world.
ANNE: You also mentioned that you can be a bit of a scaredy cat.
EMMA: Yeah, I struggle. I think I've heard you talk about this too, but medical stuff or gore, like a lot of blood, serial killers, not my vibe.
[00:35:07] It's really funny because I do find with books I have a little bit more tolerance for horror than I do compared to movies. I do find with books, if I'm in the middle of a chapter, I'm like, "Ooh, this is getting a bit dark," I feel like I have more control to just shut it or skim the chapter and go on to the next part. Whereas movies where you have the visual and auditory, it's kind of more overwhelming. So I do feel like I have a little bit more leeway with reading slightly scary books compared to movies.
But yeah, I think I generally would avoid really gory murders or where kids get hurt, not really my favorite. But I'm okay with a little bit of scary.
ANNE: Okay. I mean, not just okay with, but am I right in hearing that you're wanting to explore?
EMMA: Yes. And especially this time of year.
ANNE: Oh, okay. I also think it's so interesting how Jennifer Weiner's description of Piglet really captured you where she used the genre categorization of horror in a place that you really didn't expect it.
[00:36:10] EMMA: Yeah. A layer cake of horror. To me that sounded so tantalizing. Because I think I knew or hoped that it wouldn't be actual like Stephen King-level horror, but it would be horror almost like on an emotional level or in relationships or characters dealing with themselves and their own feelings of being in a really dark, difficult place and having to get through that. And you as the reader just wanting to see, what are they going to do? How are they going to get out of this situation? How are they going to react? And that part really got me.
ANNE: Okay. I hear you. Now, we talked about how you wanted to have a more finely developed eye towards being able to identify what you will like and what you won't. And I just want to tell you what I'm seeing here. And that is, among your favorites, all of these books are ones that are deliberately designed to make the reader feel off balance. Something feels out of joint or off-kilter in these books, increasingly so as they go on.
[00:37:22] You also used the word compelling more than once. You didn't find Butter compelling. It didn't have the pull to it that you'd hoped it would. And I think it felt more straightforward to you. Does that sound right?
EMMA: That sounds totally right. I think I like things that are off balance. That's a good word for it.
ANNE: That's good to hear. And I think that's also why exploring books with horror elements could be fruitful for you. The Bee Sting is not a horror novel. I wouldn't say. I wouldn't say The Bee Sting is. Maybe someone else wants to make a strong argument and that's fine. That would be a fun conversation. But it does have this building sense of dread and unease. And I wouldn't say it felt off-kilter, but it does feel like something is not right here and increasingly so. And the ending that just left you gobsmacked, it's all building toward that.
[00:38:24] I laughed when you said that 1Q84 is like a Pyrex jug full of weird. Not just a thimble, but a much larger vessel. And I don't know. Is that something that you know about yourself? You like to feel off balance in your books.
EMMA: I do. I do. I like that sense of off balance that not knowing where it's going to go, but just saying, Okay, we're going with this now. We're going on this path. That book really opened my eyes to a lot of Haruki Murakami's novels, most of which I've read, most of which I've enjoyed. But I like that weird off-balance state that they put you in.
ANNE: Emma, at the time you sent in your submission, you were reading Long Island Colm Tóibín. How did that end up working out for you? And I'm asking because it's of a different character than any of the other books we've talked about.
[00:39:23] EMMA: Yeah, it's an outlier. And I was reading it because I think I got it on lend from somebody and I just read it. It was okay. It was fine. It didn't have those weird, eerie, spooky, off-kilter vibes I'm looking for. I finished it. It's fine. Three stars, but not exactly what I'm going for.
ANNE: It's a quiet novel, not a pejorative, except to some readers, with a building sense of urgency, but it's not off balance.
EMMA: No.
ANNE: So what we're looking for are vibes that are spooky, perhaps a building sense of dread or a pervasive sense of unease. But we don't want books according to what we believe to be true about your reading life, because some of these books go to dark places that are going to keep you up all night. And I'm getting the impression that that means you don't want graphic depictions.
EMMA: Right.
ANNE: You've used Stephen King as a shorthand. Yeah.
EMMA: Yeah.
[00:40:24] ANNE: Yeah. Like not blood, guts, and gore, no monsters under the bed, unless they're very polite and only make their presence felt, but not seen.
EMMA: Yes. Very well put.
ANNE: Okay. I wasn't sure how you'd feel about that. All right.
There is a whole world to explore in this lane. And readers, if I haven't made this clear, I am also someone who can be a real scaredy cat, and yet who's really intrigued by the things that a good horror writer can do and who has enjoyed books that have a serious spooky vibe, but aren't scary.
I always think of our guest, Mallory O'Meara, who said, "You know what's really scary to me and keeps me up all night? The thought of a relationship gone bad. But monsters under the bed, whatever. It's fiction. I'm great with those."
So I find that take anthropologically fascinating. And also, Emma, I don't think Mallory's relationship with her books describes either one of ours. Is that right?
EMMA: I think so. Yeah.
[00:41:28] ANNE: Okay. I mean, how do you feel about jumping into the deep end?
EMMA: Let's do it. I'm ready.
ANNE: I'm wondering about Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. Is this a book you're familiar with?
EMMA: No.
ANNE: Okay. She may be... who am I to judge? But she may be best known for her debut, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which we read in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club. We haven't talked about Starling House on the podcast before.
This came out in fall 2023. And Alex Harrow has joked about how her husband described it the same way that he would describe any book that his wife wrote, which begins, Okay, there's this girl who finds this book, which I know is a theme that appeals to a lot of readers.
But in this book, it is important that a girl finds this cult-hit Victorian-era picture book. And they have a whole history of reading spooky stuff in the Victorian era that's real. And the things the book reveals and the places it takes her to are really interesting.
[00:42:31] But I really want to focus on the contemporary Gothic fantasy nature of this book. It's actually set in my part of the world, which I'm in Kentucky, this doesn't happen very often. So we need to celebrate it when it does. But this certainly is not a book that is written only for people in my part of the world.
But it's set in this fictional town of Eden, Kentucky that once was a booming coal town, and now is not just past its prime, but its residents are really suffering from poverty. And there's this house at the center of... she names it Eden, Kentucky. And if that maps to a real Kentucky city, I don't know what it is, readers.
But there's this brooding, almost decrepit Gothic mansion in Eden, Kentucky called Starling House. It's sinister. The kids say it's haunted. I mean, the adults may say it's haunted too. Nobody wants to go near Starling House because of the connotations.
[00:43:40] Eden, Kentucky is a rural setting. But the main character of the book, her name is Opal, she desperately needs money to care for her brother. Her mom is functionally absent. So she takes a job working at the creepy, creepy Starling House to pay the bills, and her experiences with the house and its owner are weird. It starts a thimble full of weird, but you may judge that you've got like the whole Pyrex container by the end of the book where it really takes off.
But still I wouldn't say that this is nightmare stuff for you, Emma, even though it definitely has elements from the horror genre. It also really exists in the context of fairy tales. And it's got that strong Southern Gothic rooting.
In the Southern Gothic genre, like this big haunted house... and you can decide if you would actually call it haunted, but that's like the genre trope we're working in. In Southern Gothic, a big house like this is all about what you've inherited and what you have to reckon with because of the sins, the wrongs of those who have come before you.
[00:44:57] Now, in the horror version, like the house is totally trying to kill you. And there are elements of that here too. But the combination of those horror elements with the Southern Gothic understanding of a house with secrets and history could be really interesting.
Starling House was owned by this mysterious 19th-century author several hundred years ago. According to town lore, this author she murdered her husband and she used the money to build this mansion. And that is the best-known iconic image that everyone thinks of when you think of Eden, Kentucky. This is also very much a story about relationships and family and slavery and history.
Fantasy with horror elements. Not a book that'll keep you up all night, but I think might give you a taste of what you're looking for, especially in this fall season. How does that sound, Emma?
[00:45:57] EMMA: That sounds so good. I loved your description. I loved your description of the house. Kind of gave me slight vibes of Rebecca in Mexican Gothic, which I've read before and liked. And that sounds like a great October read.
ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Next, I think almost anything by Marcy Dermansky might be a good fit for you. I'm especially thinking of Hurricane Girl. Are you familiar with this book?
EMMA: No, not at all. I haven't heard of her either.
ANNE: I'm tempted to say the horror elements are stronger with this book than they are with Starling House, but it might just be different. This is a small little novel. It's 200-ish pages. You could read it very quickly.
The story starts with a 32-year-old young woman named Alison moving across the country from the West Coast to the East to fulfill a lifelong dream. She has just broken up with a bad boyfriend and done something she'd always wanted to do, which was buy a house on the coast in North Carolina.
[00:46:59] She spent every last penny on this house, but she just wants to read and swim and eat turkey sandwiches and enjoy a bit of a respite from what has been a really chaotic and hard life on the West Coast.
But a week and a half after acquiring this house, a hurricane blows through North Carolina. And at first, she's narrating, she's saying, like, "It was fine. I thought it was going to be fine. I live on the coast now. This is life. It's fine." But then the neighbors start boarding up their houses and you start getting this sense of unease.
Actually, from the very beginning, it feels a little off-kilter because every sentence in the beginning of the story starts with maybe. Maybe this will happen. Maybe this will happen. Maybe I'll do this. Maybe this is the situation. And it just feels really tenuous, like Allison isn't maybe firmly rooted, even though she just bought this house and you want her to be happy.
[00:47:54] So the storm does come through. It's not as bad as they're predicting at first. So Allison thinks, well, it's fine. What was all the fuss about? But then she goes back to her house, but there is no house because her house has been blown away. Oddly, the steps leading up to the front door are still there, but everything else is scattered, like not just on the lot, but down the blocks.
It's called Hurricane Girl. I had missed the sun on the cover that looks like it's dripping a little bit of blood. That maybe had been a clue to me that this wasn't going to be a happy story.
But I thought that maybe she was going to pull herself up by her bootstraps and put her house back together, but that is not what happens. Instead, she is dealt a literally crushing blow to the head by a cameraman reporter who's upset that she won't sleep with him. He hurts her badly.
What follows is this surreal, almost dreamlike account of her trek home to New Jersey and everything that follows. She should not be driving because she's almost certainly concussed. We find out when she stops at Starbucks that she's bleeding. She is hurt.
[00:49:05] The descriptions aren't graphic, but they give you just a few words to let you know this woman is actually hurt. She's not imagining things. She's not exaggerating things. If you were there in the coffee shop, you would look at her and go, "Oh, sweetie, let's get you some help."
But it's also really funny because Allison is a really wry observer of her experiences. Even while what she's telling you is horrible, she's kind of making you giggle about it. Because we know she's been concussed, she's not a reliable narrator. It feels very off-kilter because you don't know what's happening. Even if you're inclined to believe that she's seeking to be a faithful teller of her own story, a concussed person can't necessarily do that.
So she gets back home to New Jersey and she starts making some very strange, funny, Pyrex full of weird decisions. And you're going, is this real? Is this not real? What does she want? What's going on?
[00:50:03] There's also some really interesting, you can ignore it if you want, English major symbolism in this book. In some ways, it's very much about all the ways you can mess with somebody's head. Especially the ways that bad, scary men can mess with a woman's head.
The publisher said this story walks a knife edge between comedy and horror. You know, it's not a layer cake. They're giving you a different visual, but I still think it might be one that perhaps appeals to you. How does that sound?
EMMA: Anne, that also sounds so good. I'm making all these notes. I've never heard of this author, but I love the idea of an unreliable narrator, that sense of unease, but that wry humor. This is definitely one I'd be interested in.
ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. There are a lot of different directions we could go. Especially I'd love to tell you about White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, but I think maybe some Stephen King might be appropriate. Since we've talked about him so much in this episode, what do you think?
[00:51:15] EMMA: Sure. I'll give it a whirl.
ANNE: Okay. My fellow crossword nerds will know that The Shawshank Redemption was prominent in the theme, in the Sunday puzzle of the New York Times crossword a few weeks back. So maybe that's why this is in my mind.
But the novella that that movie is based upon, it's not the Stephen King that you're imagining. And I wonder if you may find that interesting to explore. I mean, do you like the idea of reading a Stephen King that you can actually read and not have nightmares?
EMMA: Definitely. I do. I feel like I'm left out because I haven't read his works. And so, a taster or a different style of his writing would be incredible.
ANNE: Emma, did you say in your submission that you were interested in nonfiction as well?
EMMA: Yeah.
ANNE: Okay. He has a nonfiction book that published way back in 2000. I wonder how he might update it now, but it's called On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, where he talks about getting started as a writer and the process that went into some of his books and his relationship with his wife. But you may find that interesting, where he can talk about how he approaches the craft without any of the scary stuff.
[00:52:30] EMMA: Yeah, I would definitely be interested in that. I didn't realize he had that title, so I would add it to my list for sure.
ANNE: 2000. And you mentioned listening to The Bee Sting on audio in your reread. He reads his memoir, and maybe you'd enjoy hearing him read it to you.
Okay. While I think you may really enjoy that nonfiction book, I think a great place to start is with his novella that that movie is based on. The novella is called Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. It is only 128 pages.
It is a good story, well told, about a convict. His name is Andy Dufresne. He's something like a tax accountant. I mean, this is a white-collar, nerdy worker who is wrongfully convicted of a terrible crime and ends up in prison. And he has a really rough go of it at first. But he becomes indispensable to some people on the staff. I think he ends up serving as the librarian in the prison. He makes friends and allies in the prison. He learns to navigate the system.
[00:53:43] Andy Dufresne is playing the long game. He wants revenge. He's determined to get it. He has nothing but time in prison. And this is a story of how he goes about hatching and executing his master plan. It's got some really great characters. It's so immersive. 128 pages.
I don't think it's going to give you nightmares, although there is a little bit of gross-out stuff that is not horror. It's just nasty. But in the regular, every day, that's disgusting sense, not in the monster-under-the-bed sense.
That's a spare description. But how is it striking you?
EMMA: Yeah. I mean, I'd definitely try it, especially at 128 pages. That sounds very accessible. Something I could read in a day or a weekend and just give a try. I'm open to it. Thank you.
ANNE: You could. I mean, this is a book that's all about setup and payoff. I don't need to say more about that. I hope you do. I'd love to hear what you think.
[00:54:45] Okay, Emma, I hope you're feeling more empowered to assess your own reading life with a clear eye and without the pressures coming from outside or within that perhaps you've been feeling before. And I don't expect it's going to be like a light switch, like, oh, you turned it off and everything's different now. But I hope you can learn to pay attention and just give yourself the honest feedback you need to learn more about who you are as a reader and what that means for what you choose to actually read.
EMMA: Thanks, Anne. I feel so empowered from this conversation, and I'm really excited about the recommendations you gave me for my fall reading list. So thank you.
ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Okay, let's look back at them real fast. So of the books we talked about today, they were Starling House by Alix E. Harrow, Hurricane Girl by Marcy Dermansky, and then we finished with Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, of those books, what do you think you may pick up next?
[00:55:45] EMMA: Hurricane Girl is calling my name. That sounds so good. So I'm going to see if my library has it, I maybe just order myself a copy. That sounds great.
ANNE: I'm so curious to hear what you think. Emma, thank you so much for talking books with me today.
EMMA: Thanks for having me. This was so much fun.
ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Emma, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Emma on Instagram. We've included the link to her bio along with full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
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[00:56:54] Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and 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.
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