I can’t read all the books, and that’s okay

[00:00:00] HOLLY DYER: So within the past, I want to say few months or so, I've been kind of feeling stressed out by books.

ANNE BOGEL: That's my... whoa. I mean, books are amazing, and also this is relatable.

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.

[00:00:47] Readers, it's been a great season in the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club, and today's guest is an active member. So before we jump into that conversation today, I thought it would be fun to tell you more about what it's like to be a book club member. Here's a quick peek behind the scenes.

Lately, we've been reading Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, a title that's shown up here on the podcast, both as a recommendation and a past guest favorite. And we've been reading that because Jesse Q. Sutanto is joining us for our February author talk. These are live events where we're joined by a selected author and get to enjoy all kinds of great conversation. We've shared a few examples of those before here on the podcast, like our chat with Kevin Wilson that you heard in Episode 499.

In book club, we host author chats like these nearly every month, and it's no exaggeration to say it is always a good time. But that's not the only reason to love book club. We host a variety of events to deepen your reading life and connect with your fellow readers, like our Reader's Day on February 7th, for which we invited our book club members to devote the whole day, or a few chosen hours, to the reading life.

[00:01:50] We included a suggested schedule and hosted an informal Spring Book Preview library chat live from my library. We had a blast. And I don't even know how to tell you about our polar party, but it was so much fun.

And our members lead the way in all sorts of other events and activities, like our community picks. These are selected by our members through the discussion forums within book club. They're not our formal monthly selection, but a title that a smaller group of book club members decides to read together. Right now, a group of readers is enjoying For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale.

We often describe book club as a buffet. There's so much to offer. And not everything is for every reader, but you're sure to find something that you will really love. Come on over and check it out at modernmrsdarcy.com/club. That's modernmrsdarcy.com/club.

[00:02:36] Readers, when today's guest wrote in to share her new mantra of "I can't read all the books, and that's okay", I couldn't wait to talk about it. And I thought many of you would relate to this sentiment.

Holly Dyer's name might be familiar if you're a member of our book club or Patreon communities, because Holly is an active member of both. She's a mom and classical musician from Massachusetts, and she's no stranger to a good book. But lately, Holly has been feeling stressed out about all the books she could be reading. This year, she'd like to refocus her reading time in order to read fewer books, spend more time with those titles, and both explore longer books and devote time to rereading books she's loved before.

Holly is excited about her 2026 goals, and I'm excited to hear more and help in any way I can. I already know that Holly would love to get my ideas on how to better vet the titles she's interested in reading before actually deciding to read them, and that she'd also appreciate talking through how she might pare down all her ideas for her reading goals and projects.

[00:03:39] Bookshelf overwhelm is a common concern around here, so I know Holly's experience will resonate with many readers. Let's get to it.

Holly, welcome to the show.

HOLLY: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

ANNE: Oh, I'm delighted to talk today. Thank you for sending in your submission, and I can't wait to get into it. Holly, the first thing we want to do is give our readers a glimpse of who you are. Would you tell us a little about yourself?

HOLLY: Sure. I live in the Boston area. I technically live in a town called Mansfield, which is halfway between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. I am a mom to a little girl who just turned three a couple weeks ago. We live here with my husband.

I am, by training and education, a classical musician. I'm a cellist, and I've done performing and educating, and I currently freelance part-time in the New England area. During the day, I work in admissions at a small health care college, and I'm actually also going back to school. I am doing an online certificate program in what's called nonprofit leadership.

[00:05:01] Those are really the big things that keep my days busy. I'm, of course, a big reader, but I also love cooking. I love exercising, running. I really love a good pour-over coffee. My husband and I identify as coffee snobs, so it's a whole thing. It's a whole process with coffee in the morning. And we basically never do like Starbucks or anything, only if we're desperate. Like, if we're at the airport, and it's five in the morning, and we just need something.

ANNE: Something I know about you, because Brigid talked to you about book clubs in our Patreon space last summer, is that you have not always identified as a reader. Would you tell us a little bit about your journey? Your journey back to books, I think.

[00:05:53] HOLLY: Sure. I only came into reading as an adult about a few years ago, and it actually coincides with when I had my daughter. I wasn't really reading at all for, I want to say, maybe eight to ten years before that. I loved reading as a kid, and going through my high school and college English classes really burnt me out to reading.

It was kind of a couple of things. I think it was being required to read books that I didn't really want to read. Actually, to this day, I can only tell you maybe three books that I remember having read in high school and college combined. Also, the way that my teachers would talk about interpretations in the books, they would just be saying things that I was like, "I have no idea how you got this at all." I was like, "I didn't get that at all in how you interpreted the book." And it made me feel like I wasn't a good reader. It made me feel not very smart.

[00:07:09] And then I think also something that I want to give credit to myself is that I was also just very busy. I was very busy during school, and then even after school, you know, working full time. I think when I wanted to do a leisure activity, reading just wasn't something that came to mind.

And then it wasn't until I had my daughter, I went through the newborn phase where she was just crying and crying, and we were exhausted, and we didn't know how to soothe her. So, a friend of ours who actually works as a postpartum doula, she gave us this book called The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp. As I was reading the book, the act of just reading it was very enjoyable to me, and I was kind of like, "Oh, reading is actually kind of fun."

[00:08:08] Also at that point, I was looking for an activity that I could do while my baby was napping. So, I was kind of thinking, "What is an activity that I can do that is very relaxing, that can kind of help me recharge without actually trying to get myself to sleep?" And reading became that answer for me. So, from there, I really fell back in love with reading, and then I just have become such a voracious reader. I'm just really glad that I have books back in my life.

ANNE: I am too. I'm so sad for young Holly in those years where you felt like you just didn't get it. But I'm glad that you're in a different place now. How would you describe your reading life the past three years or even right now?

[00:08:59] HOLLY: I mean, overall, my reading life has been great. I read a lot of books. I also read very widely. I do think having a variety in what I'm reading is a really important thing for me. I like to read a mix of fiction and nonfiction. I've been recently reading more literary fiction, some classics. I'm trying to kind of as partly a feeling maybe like a little behind with not reading for close to a decade. I feel like now I'm trying to kind of come back to some of the classics.

Actually, I've done a couple of rereads of books that I did read in high school. I also enjoy some genre fiction. I really enjoy romance. I enjoy mystery and thriller, and trying to branch out more in some other genres that I haven't always read in like fantasy, sci-fi.

[00:09:57] And then I really enjoy having nonfiction in my reading life as well. So narrative nonfiction, investigative journalism, I find really interesting. I read a lot about like race, sociology, and psychology. In addition to being a music performance major, I also got a degree in psychology in my undergrad. So I'm really fascinated with the presence of psychology in my books, both fiction and nonfiction.

I went onto the Patreon feed with Brigid and Shannan, and they gave me some advice on essentially how to join a book club. I've kind of gone through quite a journey in finding my place in book clubs, but I would say, as of now, I am a part of three book clubs that I really enjoy. So that's been feeling really good to me. And one of them is the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club. I just joined that recently.

[00:11:01] ANNE: All right. I'm glad to hear it's feeling good. Holly, what brings you to What Should I Read Next? right now? What's top of mind for what you're looking for in your reading life?

HOLLY: So, within the past, I want to say few months or so, I've been kind of feeling stressed out by books.

ANNE: That's my... whoa. I mean, books are amazing, and also this is relatable.

HOLLY: I've been actually going through just quite a pretty significant shift in even just how I'm thinking about what I want to read. I am currently rereading the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. It is one of my favorite books of all time, I would say. It is unlike any self-help book that I have ever read.

Essentially, the thesis that he goes off of is that our time is finite, we are finite human beings, we only have more or less 4,000 weeks, and we tend to constantly feel like we don't have enough time. We are not prioritizing the things that matter most to us.

[00:12:16] That book has just been a really great wake-up call in recognizing that I only have so much time. And with regards to my reading life, I've been feeling like I'm trying to fit in all the books. I think I've been operating from the sense of I am going to read all the books. And it sounds silly, but I think I have subconsciously been trying to read as many books as I can. And I'm just starting to realize I can't do that. There's just no way.

Kind of with my therapist, the two of us have created this mantra of I can't read all the books, and that's okay. And that has just been my guiding focus of if I'm feeling some sort of overwhelm with, Uh, how am I going to read this and this and this and this, I can't read all the books, and that's okay. And it's taking a lot of work to really believe that, but I think that's the first step for me is just having to accept that.

[00:13:36] And then also from there, recognizing that because I can't read all of the books, how can I make choices about what I'm choosing to read and what I'm not choosing to read, and to be okay with that? If there's this like buzzy new release, but perhaps it's not going to hit with me the same way it's hitting with a lot of other readers, how can I choose to just not read that? Because I want to read something else. And I'd like to use the time that I have to spend on the books that I actively genuinely want to read and not on the books that I'm feeling like I should read or I must read or I'm feeling pressured to read. I hope that helps.

ANNE: It does help. So it sounds like Oliver Burkeman's concept of Four Thousand Weeks has really resonated with you. Do we need like an equivalent 4,000 books, 3,000 books, 5,000, whatever it is?

HOLLY: I guess so.

[00:14:39] ANNE: It's not all going to fit, but your reading life can accommodate a huge breadth of experience, but not all the potential experience.

HOLLY: Right, right.

ANNE: Holly, today I think we're going to be talking with the idea in mind that since you can't read everything, how do you want to spend your reading time?

HOLLY: Yeah, definitely.

ANNE: You said a few different things brought you to the show today. What else do we want to put on the table before we get into the specifics of your books?

HOLLY: To be honest, I feel even a little embarrassed to talk about this.

ANNE: This is where everybody turns up the volume on their podcast.

HOLLY: I think this is related to my epiphany about ‘I can't read all the books’. I have had a rough start to my year in terms of my reading. I have just been feeling not very satisfied, again, I'll say within the last few weeks. I have been DNFing quite a lot. I think when I had submitted my form, I think I said I was up to four books that I've DNFed. Now I'm up to six books so far.

[00:15:52] ANNE: And we're talking on January 21st, so that's feeling like a pretty brisk clip for you.

HOLLY: Yes, definitely. A few of them I made it pretty far. Some of them I maybe got like 10% in. I was like, "Uh, I don't think that's for me." One book I DNFed with 30 pages left. I had read like 300 pages and I was just like, "I can't. I just can't read another page."

ANNE: If you don't care, you don't care.

HOLLY: Yeah.

ANNE: But this is new to you. It sounds like this is new to you.

HOLLY: I would say at this frequency it is, for sure.

ANNE: Holly, I find this very relatable and I know many of our listeners will as well, in that there's so much to know and there's so much that's interesting and so much that is important. And yet, again, when we're looking at the obstacle of limited time, of a limited number of books you actually will be able to read, even though we don't know exactly what that number is, we want to think about how to make some choices.

[00:16:58] Holly, this is so helpful to hear. And I definitely want you to be satisfied with your reading life for the rest of 2026 insofar as you are able. Anything else you want me to know before we really get into the specifics of your books?

HOLLY: Kind of related to the DNF piece, what is starting to happen now is I'm getting some bookish decision fatigue and I'm just having a hard time even just knowing what I want to read and also just getting like a little exhausted of just constantly trying to figure out, "Well, what am I going to read next? What am I going to read next? Am I going to like what I'm going to pick up reading next?" And I'm just feeling a little tired with that.

[00:17:45] ANNE: Holly, I wish I didn't feel like I had so much personal experience with what you're talking about. That sense of when I feel like I've chosen poorly a few times in a row, I start to get nervous. I start to get really anxious about like, what am I even doing? Are there good books out there? And of course there are. And I do know a fair amount about my options and my own reading life, my own tastes and interests, and I imagine you do too. So I believe we can find our way to your metaphor choice, sunnier skies, greener pastures, more abundant bookshelves. I'd love to get into the specifics of what has worked for you, maybe is working for you. Can we talk about your books next?

HOLLY: Yes, that sounds great.

ANNE: You know how this works. You're going to tell me three books you love, one you don't, and what you've been reading lately, and we're going to see what we can do to get you out of your beginning-of-the-year funk. How did you choose these books you brought to the show today?

[00:18:46] HOLLY: These are really just when I'm considering some of my all-time favorite books. I feel like these three books pretty easily came up to the surface. So the first two that I chose were fiction. The third one is a nonfiction and I wanted to have that be representative. I generally read like a two-to-one fiction, nonfiction split. So reading each of those books reminded me like, this is why I love to read and this is what I love to get out of my reading.

ANNE: Okay, that sounds great. What's the first book you love?

HOLLY: More Or Less Maddy by Lisa Genova. Lisa Genova is a neuroscientist who also writes novels. Her novels focus on some sort of a neurological ailment or condition, but through a really engaging story. This was her most recent book. Came out about a year ago.

[00:19:52] The main condition that she's focusing on is bipolar disorder. This book tells the story of Maddy, who is a college freshman/sophomore at NYU. She goes through her freshman year kind of with some of the, I'd say like typical, more relatable challenges of going to college, being away from home for the first time. And she gets into a little bit of a funk, a little bit of depression. She comes back home for the summer, she's feeling better. And then when she goes back for her sophomore year, she comes back into that depressive state.

That basically is the starting point of what spirals her into a series of depressive and manic episodes. She eventually gets diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is managing medications, and also how her family is taking the news of her diagnosis.

[00:21:01] She is also interested in becoming a standup comedian, so there's some of that that's explored in the book. This was a real page turner for me when I read it. The way that Lisa Genova was able to make the reader really feel and understand and experience what it would be like to be in the brain of someone with bipolar disorder was just so compelling. It really blew away any concepts that I've had of bipolar disorder through pop culture. And I'll also say that Lisa Genova did this from a third-person narrative, which I thought was really impressive.

I'll also say the Gen Z components were just very funny, and actually, I thought were much-needed brevity to some of the more heavier sections in the book. Maddy is just a huge Taylor Swift fan. So all of those tidbits were very entertaining.

[00:22:16] ANNE: And it's only been out about a year. So I'm glad you have this great reading experience in the not-too-distant past. Holly, what's the second book you love?

HOLLY: Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb. So probably no surprise that as a classical musician, I love Brendan Slocumb's books. It centers on a Black musicologist in present-day New York City. He is invited by this foundation of a very prestigious composer to do some research on a piece that was recently discovered as being composed by this composer. And they wanted this musicologist to do research and to transpose or just to kind of understand more of the composition.

[00:23:12] And then there's another timeline that happens in the past in 1920s jazz era, New York, where we actually are seeing the life of that composer. The composer is basically inspired by real life American composer George Gershwin. So those are fun tidbits for me to catch.

This composer develops this like working relationship with a Black woman who is also neurodivergent. I just couldn't get enough of it. The way that, especially in the Frederick Delaney, that's the composer storyline, like just the way that ambition and greed are portrayed is maybe just some of the best portrayals I've seen in what I've read. And then it's very interesting to see how themes in the Frederick Delaney, Josephine Reed storyline reflect what's happening in the present storyline with Byrne and navigating the foundation.

[00:24:22] I'll also just say, as a classical musician, a big topic that Brendan Slocumb raises is this matter of representation in classical music, particularly in composers and in the classical music industry. So many of the composers that we recognize and still play to this day are old dead white men. And there have been many of contributions by people of color, by women, by even composers that are currently alive that are just always overshadowed by like Beethoven or Mozart or Brahms. So to see that represented in a novel was just a really special element for me.

ANNE: I'm so glad that worked for you. I love his work. And readers, we have a podcast episode with Brendan Slocumb, which is so good. He's so much fun to listen to. We'll link that in our show notes. Holly, what is the third and final book you love?

[00:25:27] HOLLY: This is my nonfiction. This one is called Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott. This is an investigative journalism about a family that lives in New York City. I want to say the reporting starts around the late aughts and kind of goes into the 2010s. The focus is on the oldest child, Dasani, who is living in poverty.

She is of a large family. She has two parents that are pretty chronically homeless. She is one of eight siblings. Basically, the reporter spent almost a decade with this family and reporting on their conditions in the shelters, navigating the welfare system, the foster care system.

[00:26:37] Some of the things that I really enjoyed with this book is you can really tell how much care she put in reporting on this family and portraying their situation and also just really uplifting their humanity. Yes, they're dealing with difficult situations, but they're also just being kids. And they're just goofing off and dancing in the train station and having birthday parties and still being normal kids, but just dealing with a situation that has been fueled by systemic racism. Something that Andrea Elliott does is actually will kind of draw back the family's lineage to times of enslavement, which I just remember being so impressed by.

I'll also say that this is one of those non-fiction books that reads like a novel. Again, I kind of come back to ‘it was a page turner’. It's a pretty unique non-fiction read, in my opinion. I would say this was a book that really made an impression on me on what non-fiction and narrative non-fiction can do.

[00:27:57] ANNE: I'm glad to hear that worked for you and worked well enough that you wanted to reread it.

HOLLY: Yeah, it did.

ANNE: Holly, now can you tell me about a book that did not work for you? And I'd love to hear why. Not a good fit, not the right timing, not what you expected. What do you choose?

HOLLY: I chose Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson. The essential premise is that a young woman is attacked kind of out of nowhere. She's attacked by being hit in the back of the head with a pretty fatal brain injury and is given... essentially she only has maybe seven days to live. And she is determined to figure out who was it that tried to kill her, essentially.

That sounds like a really great premise, and I was very excited to read it. This just did not really live up to what I was hoping for it to be. I'll also preface by saying this was my first Holly Jackson. I never read A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. I know that's a very beloved series.

[00:29:09] If I were to say my biggest complaint, I think it was the writing. The writing felt very simple. It had this feeling of like still being a YA novel, but because now there's a bunch of swear words in it, we have to technically say it's an adult novel. It was one of those that even when I kind of look back on my reading of it, I actually knew from page one that it was not going to work, but I still read the whole thing.

I think just kind of as I kept going, I was starting to feel like I really needed to suspend my disbelief that, okay, how is someone who's been given this fatal brain injury is supposed to have the functioning to solve her own murder. Then there were some big twists that were so melodramatic. I don't normally roll my eyes, but I did some big eye rolls in a couple of spots.

[00:30:19] So, yeah, this just kind of fell apart for me. But I know that it's really well loved and I know that people really love this author and I wouldn't necessarily be against trying A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, but this just kind of felt like she was trying to break out of the YA space and it didn't really completely work for me.

ANNE: Holly, what have you been reading lately?

HOLLY: I recently read Every Day I Read. The subtitle is 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books by Hwang Bo-reum. I really loved this. It's essentially a group of 53 short essays about the reading life and it's kind of everything from how to read difficult books to how to write book reviews, what does it mean to be a parent who reads, dealing with the bookish internet. I loved it.

[00:31:21] ANNE: Well, that one's been on my stack for quite a while, but I haven't popped it open yet. So thank you for the nudge.

HOLLY: Oh, of course. I've also been reading This American Woman. That's the memoir by Zarna Garg. I really enjoyed that. That was really fun. You know, she's an Indian comedian, but also with kind of a crazy story. So it was a lot more earnest than I was expecting, but I still really enjoyed it.

And then I just finished The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka and I loved that. Very unusual, but... I don't know how she got me to care about this group of swimmers and the crack in the pool, but she did.

ANNE: All right. I'm delighted to hear it. Holly, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

[00:32:12] HOLLY: I think I'm just looking for some ways to just kind of change up what I'm reading. I think some examples are I have recently been loving speculative fiction, and I would love some ideas because I actually don't have that many ideas for some good speculative novels that I would say lean a little more literary, but still with a good sci-fi bent. I just have started trying some short stories because I've been feeling a little burnt out by novels.

I'm currently reading Kazuo Ishiguro's short stories, Nocturnes, which are also about music. So I'm loving that. If you had any ideas for how I could just be a better discerner of will this book work for me or not before I actually think I'm committing to the book only to just DNF like 90% in, I would love that.

[00:33:15] ANNE: Okay, this is going to be fun. Rolling up my sleeves. Let's dig in. First, Holly, to recap, you loved More or Less Maddy by Lisa Genova, Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb, and Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott. Not for you was Not Quite Dead by Holly Jackson. And lately you've been reading Get Closer to Books by Hwang Bo-reum, This American Woman by Zarna Garg, and The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka. And you are looking to mix things up. Also, you're tired of choosing. So sometimes I want to give readers lots of options and lots of spaces, but I'm hearing you when you're saying you're intrigued by speculative and sci-fi. It's working for you lately. You like books that lean a little more literary and short stories. Did you say they're working for you, or you want to try and see if they do?

HOLLY: I would like to try short stories more? I mean, there's something about short stories, like as I'm going through this Kazuo Ishiguro collection, that may be what I need right now. So I would love some more ideas.

[00:34:19] ANNE: Okay, we'll get you some ideas. Is that going to be plural? I think that's going to be plural. Also, you are tired of choosing. I will keep that in mind. But let's start with how to vet books. I have good news for you about this. You mentioned that you're a Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club member. We did a Book School series a few years back that is evergreen. It's six sessions in which I answer questions readers ask all the time. And they're short and punchy. My initial goal was 20 minutes a session. They ended up being more like 30-plus Q&A.

But we talk about things like how and why to track your reading, strategies to review anything, how to talk books in a way that you feel good about that sounds interesting to other readers, how to plan what you're going to read and why and how. But also, the final session is on how I vet books, where I'm just saying this is what works for me. And maybe some of these ideas will work for you as well. So we will put a link to that session in the show notes, and you could go watch it this afternoon.

[00:35:22] But some of the things that I do, just to give you a taste of it, definitely not the 30 minutes. I mean, what I do is I like kind of walk everybody into the bookstore with me or browsing the internet to say, like, these are the things I'm paying attention to, including the cover. We always say, "don't judge a book by its cover," but it has to be said. Like, what kind of message is the cover sending? Are there blurbs on the book? And we're paying attention to those too, though probably not for the reason you think.

I look at the epigraph, the first paragraph, the first five pages if I have time. I flip to a page well into the book and read it and see how the prose is there. The purpose of flipping to a page later in the book is the first five pages of the book have been worked to death. They have been edited by multiple people and carefully crafted to make the best first impression possible on you, the reader. But before that, it was on the editor, on the agent. So you flip to the middle of the book, that can be more indicative of what the experience of reading the entire book will be like.

[00:36:29] I really like to look at the acknowledgments before I pick up the story. Something else we talk about a lot is how to review the marketing copy and think about parsing out what the marketing is saying and how it might be different from what's inside the book, and also how both those things connect to what you are looking for or what you're willing to try in your reading life right now. How's that sounding?

HOLLY: That sounds great.

ANNE: Now, some things that I do when I'm not standing in the middle of the bookstore, when I am on the internet, is I think really carefully about, why do I want to read this book? Where is my recommendation coming from? Now, sometimes I just saw it on the shelf or I just stumbled across it in Publishers Weekly, say, but that would be something. Like what's my relationship with Publishers Weekly? Do I tend to sync with their reviews?

[00:37:21] Now, Publishers Weekly contains multitudes, but thinking about, how did this get on my radar and is there meaning there that could be useful? I think about that. You can read reviews when you're online. You can't necessarily do that in the middle of the bookstore or the library. I like to look at a few positive and a few negative if I'm letting reviews inform my choices because sometimes I do, but sometimes I don't. And that balances out the more salesy, markety stuff.

I really like to imagine what my reading experience might be like. Based on what I'm knowing about this book, how is it going to feel to enter the world I'm imagining I will find? Then I ask myself, is that an experience I want to have? Those are some of the things I'm thinking about. I'm assessing the book, but I'm also thinking about, right now, like today, this week, soon, do I want to step into these pages and enter that world?

HOLLY: Okay.

[00:38:20] ANNE: I'll put a link. And I hope there's more there to think about and help you ponder how maybe we can lower... I mean, there's nothing necessarily bad about DNFing six books unless you're unhappy with it. And it sounds like that's not really a streak you wish to continue.

HOLLY: I'm certainly glad that I decided to not finish those books, but I do feel like the constant stopping and restarting is getting a little weary. I'm having a hard time getting into a flow of the book if I'm just deciding to jump ship all the time.

You had said something about asking, is this an experience I want to have? I think that's something I could ask myself a little bit more because going back to this feeling like I'm reading these books that I should read, it's like people are telling me what I should be reading, but is this an experience that I want to have while I'm reading, I think it's just a mindset shift that I'd like to make.

[00:39:26] ANNE: Holly, how about some book recommendations?

HOLLY: Sounds great.

ANNE: All right, so thinking about the speculative sphere, you've read a little, but you would like to explore the genre further. I'm thinking about books we haven't talked about on What Should I Read Next? to give you and other listeners titles that are maybe new or new here. I'm thinking about Lily Brooks-Dalton and particularly her book from a few years back called The Light Pirate. Is this one you've read or familiar with?

HOLLY: No, I've never heard of it.

ANNE: Okay, this is a follow-up to her debut, Good Morning, Midnight. Just for context, I do not remember the reasons, but I remember when Station Eleven was so popular, many, many readers said, "If you love that, read Good Morning, Midnight next." But we're going to talk about The Light Pirate because I enjoyed it a little more myself.

[00:40:14] It is the second novel from Lily Brooks-Dalton. It's speculative, dystopian. This is in the realm of climate change fiction, and it's about a young girl named Wanda. At least she's young when the story opens. And she was named for a powerful hurricane that swept across her home of southeastern Florida on the day she was born.

So when her neighbors, when Floridians hear that her name is Wanda, what they hear is death and destruction and chaos. They associate her name with a storm. As she grows up, Florida's landscape, and this is where we really go into the speculative realm, it grows ever more precarious with the climate, but also what that increasing difficulty of even surviving does to the people and the cultural, not just physical landscape.

[00:41:10] So Wanda has to learn what it means to survive as one, it seems whole epoch of human history comes to an end and another is being ushered in. Now, she always has the help as she's growing up with the help of her older survivalist neighbor, Phyllis. But difficult circumstances, difficult relationships, hard stuff comes into Wanda's life.

But I'm hoping what you'll find is I did, that I was rooting for her so hard as she fought for survival and sought love and emotional and physical safety and found these improbable ways forward and just really struggled to come to terms with her world as what she once knew was gone and just like learning to cope with what it's like now.

If anybody cares, this is also really good on audio. And if you are a fan of this book and have read Lily Brooks-Dalton before, I know she has a new one coming this spring. I believe it's called Ruins. I don't know the details, but I know some of you are going to want to Google it right now. Holly, how does that one sound?

[00:42:10] HOLLY: This sounds great.

ANNE: Okay, I am wondering about a book that's pretty weird that combines that speculative fiction and short stories. It's by Ling Ma. She's perhaps best known for her collection Severance. But this one is called Bliss Montage. It came out a few years ago. Gorgeous cover with oranges on it under plastic wrap, actually. Readers, if that sounds familiar. Is this one you're familiar with, Holly?

HOLLY: No. I've read Severance, but I haven't heard of this one.

ANNE: I know I already used this word, but this is weird and fun and clever and perhaps disorienting. But the collection itself is only 200 pages, and there are only, I think, under 10 stories in it. But this is so unexpected. This is the kind of book where when I was reading, I go, "How did she come up with this?"

[00:43:10] The story that's most memorable for me is one of a woman who's living with her husband, but her husband only speaks in the text in dollar signs.

HOLLY: What?

ANNE: But she's also living under the same roof with her dollar-sign-speaking husband with all of her ex-boyfriends, and they're living together in this giant Los Angeles house. It's silly, right? But it doesn't feel silly to read it. It feels like, whoa, what are you telling me?

There's another story about a woman who takes a drug with her childhood best friend and it lets them be invisible. There's a story where a woman goes to a mourning festival where they find out, ooh, this isn't a metaphor that's happening here as we're reenacting ancient rituals. There's actually going to be some stuff happening that we didn't expect.

[00:44:11] These stories are very strange and unexpected and playful, but also she's talking about really serious topics like grief, rebirth, broken trust, immigration, otherness. It's just really fantastical and strange and maybe different, definitely different from all your favorites, but we're looking for different. How does that sound?

HOLLY: I wonder if the weirdness works if the story is short.

ANNE: It's a bite-sized weirdness.

HOLLY: That reminds me of how, what was it, was it last year, how the thing was a thimble full of weird.

ANNE: Yes. I love that phrase.

HOLLY: Yeah, I think that's kind of what it's making me think of. That sounds interesting. I would check it out.

ANNE: Maybe worth a try. Maybe reading a handful of stories wouldn't feel like such on your part, correct me if that's the wrong word, compared to stopping a book with 30 pages left to go.

[00:45:14] HOLLY: Yeah. And I was actually kind of on that line. I was even just considering the short story collections of like, you know, if I'm not liking the story, maybe I'll just skip and go to the next one, which I feel like is so against our concepts of you have to read the entire thing from beginning to end. But I feel like, yeah, with a short story collection, it can be like, I can try this one. Oh, if I'm not feeling it, let's just go to the next one and not feel bad about doing that.

ANNE: Yeah. And that would be enough. Just a taste would be enough to discover if the audacious and fantastical is something that delights you, or something that you want to keep in small doses, or find maybe isn't for your reading life right now.

Now, I do realize this happens very often in bookish conversations generally, but I heard you talk about New York a lot, and there was a story collection I love from a few years back that was set in New York. I'm wondering if you've read Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana.

HOLLY: I've never heard of it.

[00:46:18] ANNE: Okay. Well, I first picked it up because I kept hearing it get compared to Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place, which is another fun collection to pick up that's several decades older than this one. But this is a debut collection. There's just eight interconnected short stories in it. Not a novel, but each one does not rely on the others, but he does build a world over the course of the novel.

And the link is, as you can probably guess, everyone lives in the same building that is identified geographically as being at the corner of 129th and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in New York. I think the author says very early on that this place houses a little bit of everybody.

So in the world of this story, gentrification is on everyone's minds, rents are on the rise, and quickly. And we hear eight different perspectives from eight different tenants who are each dealing with their own struggles.

[00:47:17] My favorite story in this collection is Miss Dallas. And I love that he identifies where everybody lives. So she's in 3C, and she's a paraeducator who is just increasingly frustrated with her job because the school she works in is not doing well, and she doesn't like what is and really isn't being done about it.

I also really enjoyed Mr. Murray's story. He's elderly. He lives in 2E. That one's called Federation for the Like-Minded. And all Mr. Murray wants to do is play sidewalk chess in peace. But the neighborhood police are not really on board with his plan, and he does not appreciate how the building's busybodies want to help him find better, air quote, uses for his time.

Some of these stories are pretty difficult to read. There's hard stuff happening in these pages, but the overall tone is just really compassionate. It's really good on audio readers if you're into that. Some of my favorites like Bahni Turpin and Dominic Hoffman voice some of these stories. How does that sound to you?

[00:48:20] HOLLY: Well, that sounds great. Bahni Turpin and Dominic Hoffman. I'm like, oh, I definitely have to check out the audio. Although maybe it's worth saying this. I think for short stories, I kind of want to start with trying them out in print first because I did have an experience with reading The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. I started that one on audio and... I don't know. I think it was because... I mean, the narrator was great, but I felt like because the stories are short, if I'm not fully paying attention for the 20 minutes that the story is occurring, then I just felt like I got to 75% in. And I was like, "I have no idea what's happening." So, I stopped.

I did have a print copy of it, and then I went to print, and that worked a lot better for me just because I was able to slow down a little bit more and really try to get the details. Because when the stories are short, there isn't that much wiggle room to let your mind wander for a couple minutes because then it's like you've missed half the story.

[00:49:34] ANNE: I hear that. And that sense of like, whoa, where am I and what is happening? It's funny in hindsight. It's not funny at the time.

HOLLY: Yeah. I mean, I think what I would do with the Stories from the Tenants Downstairs, I would probably start with it in print, and then maybe at some point later down the line, consider a reread on audio. I've been liking doing that recently.

ANNE: You know, if you're tired of choosing, that could be maybe a way to regain some momentum, to think about what you've really enjoyed in print this past year, or you could even go back quite a bit if you wanted to. And then, yeah, experience a story you know you've enjoyed in a different format that's worked for you.

HOLLY: I was literally just thinking about doing that with an Abby Jimenez because it's been a couple of years since I read Yours Truly, and I was kind of like, maybe I just need some Abby in my life.

[00:50:29] ANNE: You know, I'm smiling so big just thinking about that possibility for you. That sounds fun.

HOLLY: Yeah. But I read it in print the first time, I was like, "Well, maybe if I try it on audio." And I've been feeling also just a little kind of weird with my audio picks. So maybe that can be a way I can go, at least for the time being, do some audio rereads.

ANNE: That sounds great. Okay, Holly, of the books we talked about, they were The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton, Bliss Montage by Ling Ma, and Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana. Of those books, what do you think you may pick up next?

HOLLY: I definitely want to read them all. I mean, honestly, because I feel like I could use an idea for an audiobook. I may start with The Light Pirate on audio and then check out the short stories. I think I would then go next with the Stories from the Tenants Downstairs.

[00:51:29] ANNE: Well, I can't wait to hear what you think. Holly, thank you so much for talking books with me today.

HOLLY: Thank you so much for having me. This was great.

ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Holly, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Holly on Goodreads and StoryGraph. Those links are on our show notes pages, along with the full list of titles we talked about. That's at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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