[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: Kathryn, I'm nervous for your project with your dislike of character-driven books.
KATHRYN: I am too.
ANNE: Please discuss.
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 take a personalized approach to the reading life and 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.
[00:00:50] Readers, the 2025 Modern Mrs. Darcy Summer Reading Guide is out so soon and I cannot wait to share it with all of you. We're gathering on May 15th at both 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time for our live unboxing party.
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[00:01:50] Readers, today's guest is joining me all the way from Japan to talk about a special book quest she would like my help with. Kathryn lives on the island of Okinawa with her military husband and energetic golden retriever. Kathryn works for a nonprofit and spends her leisure time reading, knitting, or walking on the beach close to their home.
When Kathryn reached out via our guest submission form, she mentioned a specific reading project she's working on. She set a goal to read all the Women's Prize for Fiction shortlists and winners before she turns 40 in a few years.
Since this is a big project, she's come up with a strategy of reading one year at a time, though not necessarily in chronological order. And she'd love my help to prioritize which years or which titles to read next. That's because while Kathryn's excited about this project and she knows she's going to read all these books eventually, if she finishes, that is, she also knows she needs to build momentum. Plus, for reasons you'll hear about, she is keenly aware that reading project fatigue is real.
[00:02:50] She'd also love to talk strategies to help her enjoy the process of reaching her goal rather than just reading through each book as quickly as possible. Well, you know I have ideas. Let's get to it.
Kathryn, welcome to the show.
KATHRYN: Hi, it's really exciting to be here.
ANNE: Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to talk today. Although I'm talking a little bit earlier than usual and you're up past your bedtime because... I mean, tell us about yourself.
KATHRYN: I live in Okinawa, Japan. It's a really tiny little island about halfway between the very southernmost point of mainland of Japan and Taiwan. I have lived here since the summer of 2022. My husband is in the military, so they moved us here. I love it. It's a wonderful place to live.
I currently work full-time for now with a globally distributed non-profit. We have a one-year-old golden retriever. His name is Milo. He is currently asleep. Bless him.
[00:03:55] So yeah, when I'm not reading, I am often listening to podcasts. I like to watch TV with my husband when he's home. I am also working on a knitting project. It's taken me quite a while. One of my friends is getting married and she asked me to make her one of those like ugly 1970s brown and orange blankets. So I'm working on that. It's coming along really nicely. I'm very, very happy with it.
We are planning our bucket list trips. We're moving back to the U.S. later this year. So we're trying to figure out where we want to go with our last remaining months here. I spend a lot of time walking my dog. We go to the beach a lot.
ANNE: That sounds lovely. Now, Kathryn, we'd love to hear about your reading life. What's that looking like right now?
[00:04:48] KATHRYN: I will make myself a cup of tea and sit in my living room and read for a little bit until I have to start my day. I usually have two books going. I have a downstairs book and an upstairs book. The upstairs book is exclusively on my Kindle. I read myself to sleep most nights. So that helps me keep track of my pages because otherwise if I'm reading a physical book, it's falling on my face. It's falling open to not the page I left off on.
But the downstairs book is usually something. It's like a physical book. It's usually a little meatier than when I'm reading at bedtime since I usually only get through maybe four, five, six pages at the most before I'm falling asleep.
And I am working on being a Kate Atkinson completist. I love her writing. I'm also almost an accidental Fredrik Backman completist. Purely by accident. I just kept picking up his books and loving his writing.
[00:05:49] ANNE: Fun fact. His new book comes out on the day we're releasing this podcast. So happy Fredrik Backman Day to you, Kathryn, and all who celebrate.
KATHRYN: That's very exciting. Yes. I guess I'll have to look into ordering that. I get most of my books from Brilliant Books in Traverse City, Michigan. I have a subscription to their monthly book service. So every month they send me a hand-selected book, which I love. They've been some of my favorite books.
ANNE: Ooh, that's delightful.
KATHRYN: Yeah. And I love it because it's supporting an independent bookstore. They also give me a discount on additional purchases, which is really nice. One of the first books I got from them was Babel by R. F. Kuang, which I'd never even heard of. And I was like, "Ooh, this sounds really interesting." Blew my mind. It was exceptional.
And other weird books like Big Swiss by Jen Beagin and The Guest by Emma Cline. They're always sending me something unexpected and wild and wonderful. I just love them. They're a big part of my reading life.
[00:06:51] ANNE: Unexpected and wild and wonderful. That is high praise.
KATHRYN: Mm-hmm.
ANNE: Kathryn, thanks so much for sending in your guest submission at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/guest. Listeners, if you don't know, most weeks we talk to readers who want to talk to us about their reading lives. And you're working on a project right now that caught our eye pertaining to the Women's Prize. Would you tell me all about that, please?
KATHRYN: Yeah. If it's okay, I have a little bit of a journey about how I came to the decision of this project.
ANNE: Oh, yes, please.
KATHRYN: So I usually would set some kind of numbers-related reading goal. Like 2019 I wanted to read 19 books, 20 books in 2020. It was always related to the year. And for a while, I was not hitting this number goal.
And then right before we moved to Japan, I did a summer reading bingo challenge from my undergraduate alma mater and some of the prompts on this challenge were just so interesting. And I was reading books that I would never normally have read before. And that prompted me to think a little more broadly about my reading goal. Like, do I want to get beyond a number?
[00:08:12] And then I guess last year, I decided that I wanted to read a book with a main character name for every letter of the alphabet instead of just, it's 2024, I want to read 24 books. I thought, I want to read books that have a main character. It was definitely very interesting.
I think the one letter that I was really surprised was easiest to find was Q because I read The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, which was incredible. The main character's name is Quoyle with a Q. So I was like, oh, that's perfect.
And then I was actually listening to your podcast and Shannan was talking about reading intentions instead of reading goals. And it really got me thinking more about my reading life and what do I want to get out of this experience? I think I want to do something beyond numbers.
[00:09:11] Initially, I was thinking, I want to read a book for every letter of the alphabet, but then I started thinking about prize-winning books. I initially thought, Oh, I'll read National Book Award winners. But then you start looking back and that prize has been going on for a really long time. It's diverged in a lot of different ways. Like there's a paperback and a hardback winner and I just felt really overwhelmed.
But I also follow this YouTuber. Her name is Leena Norms and every year she reads the Women's Prize long list. And she will do an episode summarizing all of the books and challenges herself to read them all before the winner is announced.
I started following her a couple of years ago and the summaries that she was giving for these books just sounded so interesting. And that's when I thought, oh, maybe I need to look at the Women's Prize. And sure enough, I had already read quite a few books on the list. I think there are 170... not including 2025. I think there are 170-something books on this list. So quite a broad spread.
[00:10:27] And I thought, "I'm never going to finish these before the end of the year. I'm going to say I want to read them before I turn 40," which is giving me until December of 2030. So it's basically six years to read all these books. So that is my Women's Prize project.
ANNE: Okay. Kathryn, I know that I am with so many of our listeners and loving to hear not only about an interesting book project but also its origin story. So thank you for that.
Where are we right now in your Women's Prize project journey? Like, when did you start this? And what have you been reading? How much have you read? You know, I'm a little leery to focus on the numbers, but you just threw out 170. We have an end date. So I'm just going to rush right in with, tell me numerically what's happening and how it's feeling.
[00:11:20] KATHRYN: My reading friends all know I'm very methodical about my reading. Among the three favorite books, I was going to talk about The Luminaries because I did have a very specific reading strategy for that. But the goal is 28-ish books from the list every year, four to five of the years from the list.
I started it sometime early this year. I don't really know that I have a specific month that I remember. I've read all of the 2022 shortlist and the winner so far, and a sprinkling of winners and shortlist from a variety of other years. I think it's maybe a dozen or so, so far.
ANNE: That's right. You saying you've read all of 2022 reminds me that I thought the specific approach you described in your submission was very interesting about reading the years in chunks. Would you say more about that?
[00:12:27] KATHRYN: Initially, I thought I just want to maybe start from the beginning. The prize started in 1996, so I thought I'll just start from 1996 and work my way through chronologically. But a lot of those backlist books are very hard to get at the library, which means I have to buy them, which is fine. I'm more than happy to spend my money on books. Buying books and reading books are for me two very different hobbies.
But then I had already on my bookshelf The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, which was the winner in 2022. And then I thought, I think I just want to go by the whole year because then I can compare the shortlist to the winner and see, do I like this book that they've picked to win? Do I prefer a different book? Do I understand why they picked this book?
[00:13:25] What's actually been kind of funny is I finished the shortlist earlier this month and I thought, Oh, no, I think I need to start reading the longlist because there are some books on this shortlist that I'm surprised to see are here.
ANNE: That's interesting. So going one year at a chunk, you're going to be able to see these books in contrast. I mean, for me as a reader, it would be easier for me to inhabit a moment in time if I truly was placing myself there for six books at a go and not just one.
KATHRYN: Yeah.
ANNE: I'm just really interested in hearing more about this approach.
KATHRYN: Well, I've only done one year so far, so I don't know that I have strong opinions.
ANNE: Well, I'm interested in hearing how it worked out.
KATHRYN: Yeah. I'm excited to see how it all unfolds. I definitely want to go back and revisit Leena Norm's videos for the ones that she's read just to see her opinions, because I feel like she and I have pretty similar reading tastes.
[00:14:29] She recommends books that I often really, really enjoy. But yeah, I feel like I'm also, like I said, a very methodical reader. I'm not a mood reader. I don't even really understand what that means. I pick up a book and I look at it and I say, Ooh, this looks like it's going to be interesting. And I just read it.
Even if I get halfway through and I'm like, Uhh, I don't know that this is really speaking to me anymore, but I'm here, I'm going to finish it. I tend to plan out my reading. So I am currently reading one book and I already know what I want to read after that. And a lot of my friends are like, "Nope, can't relate. Could not be me. Don't even know what that means." I just pick up a book and go where the wind blows me. And not me, not me. Cannot operate like that.
ANNE: And is that pretty typical for you? You have a plan; you know what's coming next. I'm not saying it's your rule, but it's like your general practice.
[00:15:34] KATHRYN: Yeah, definitely. In life and in reading.
ANNE: A methodical reader. I love that self-description.
KATHRYN: Yeah.
ANNE: And does that feel comfortable to you?
KATHRYN: Oh, yes. I really like the rigidity and the structure of it.
ANNE: It is who you are.
KATHRYN: Yes.
ANNE: Okay, I love it. Well, tell me what we're doing here. I mean, I know what we're doing here today. You asked me in your submission. But would you tell our listeners what we're doing here today?
KATHRYN: Yeah. I'm looking for help figuring out what I should read next, what year from the women's prize list is going to be most exciting to me, or if there's a specific book. I mean, the good news is I'm going to read them all, no matter what. It's just, which one do I want to prioritize first, upcoming?
ANNE: Kathryn, I tend to be a pantser, as in fly by the seat of [my?]. And I really appreciated reading about, and now hearing about today, your thoughtful approach. Because it sounds like you know you're going to do this thing. What would you call the likelihood, percentage-wise, that you're going to complete this project in or by 2030?
[00:16:40] KATHRYN: It's hard to know.
ANNE: You know your methodical reader track record way better than I do, and your history with experimentation, and what you're envisioning for yourself here.
KATHRYN: I have yet to successfully complete a reading challenge that I've set for myself outside of the summer reading bingo challenges that I've done. I'm pretty determined to do this one, though. The problem that I'm having, though, beyond, oh no, what year should I read next, is how do I incorporate the years as they're released? So I have not accounted for 2025, '26, '27, '28, '29, or 2030.
ANNE: Oh gosh, I hadn't even thought about that.
KATHRYN: Yeah. That's a separate problem. I'm just going to kind of wiggle them in. I'm thinking now, like right in this very moment, what I'll probably do is just read that year. So at some point this year, I'll read the 2025 shortlist and winner.
[00:17:40] ANNE: This might be wishful thinking, but I find myself even not having a strategy to read the Women's Prize, often reading half the shortlist just because as I choose books that look interesting to me, I happen to sync up with those books. Might that happen to you?
KATHRYN: I think it already has. Based on the books that I've already read, and one of them is in my top five favorites of all time, I didn't even know what the Women's Prize was when I read it. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of overlap.
ANNE: Right. I'm thinking that your reading affinity tracks with the Women's Prize, which I think is one of the reasons that this specific challenge holds appeal for you.
KATHRYN: Oh, 100%, yes.
ANNE: Okay. And I don't want to be Pollyanna about it, but maybe it's helpful to think it might not be six, quote-unquote, extra books. I also want to say, if you get to even July or July 2028 and are like, "You know what? I wanted to expand my reading and explore more backlist books. Thank you, Uncompleted Project, for serving me. And now I've recognized I can do that better in other ways." That's wonderful. No shame. Nothing wrong with that. But I was curious.
[00:18:58] But when I read that you said that you want to successfully enjoy your Women's Prize goal, I thought that was a really interesting approach. Like you want to do this thing, and also you want to enjoy the process as much as possible.
And your own words were you didn't want it to feel like a chore. You didn't want it to feel like you needed to rush through them so it was just over with, but that you did want to enjoy the process of expanding your reading and exploring more backlist.
So in coming to me today, are we establishing positive experience at the beginning? Are we framing expectations? Are we gathering momentum? What do you think?
KATHRYN: Yes to all three of those. I'm already excited about it. I feel very enthusiastic about it. It's been really fun. So far I've read things that I don't think I would have ever picked up.
[00:19:57] There's one book in particular from the 2022 shortlist that I'm very glad that I read it, but I think if I weren't doing this project, I would have DNF'd it very early on. But I'm bound and determined to read them all. I'm not going to DNF a single one. So yeah, I'm here for whatever wisdom you have to impart upon me in this endeavor.
ANNE: Oh gosh. Okay. Well, we'll talk and you can decide if you think any of it is wise or not.
KATHRYN: Okay.
ANNE: I think we're ready to talk about your books. Are you ready to do that?
KATHRYN: I'm really ready.
ANNE: You know how this works. You have brought three books you love, one you don't, and what you've been reading lately, and we're going to see about honing in on specific years and or specific titles that have been Women's Prize shortlisted titles or winners for you to prioritize reading in your project.
KATHRYN: Great.
[00:21:01] ANNE: All right. What's book one?
KATHRYN: The first book is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, which ironically was shortlisted for the Women's Prize in the year it was published.
ANNE: Ironically, because that's not why you picked it up?
KATHRYN: That's not. No. So I read this book in 2020. A friend years before this had read it and she said, "Don't ever read this book. It is the worst thing I have ever read. It was so long." And she just went on and on and on about how much she hated this book. I trusted her opinion on books pretty implicitly. I took recommendations from her all the time. And I was like, "Ooh, okay, well, I'm going to steer clear of that book."
A couple of years after the friendship ended, I was at the library and they had a copy of it at their, you know, library book sale, like the rack out front for like $1, $2 a book. And I picked it up kind of on a whim, remembering that this person who was no longer in my life hated this book and just kind of wanted to see how her opinion differed from my own.
[00:22:11] And it sat on my shelf for a while until COVID hit. I was home with a lot of time on my hands and I finally said, all right, today's the day I'm going to start reading this book. I freaking loved it. It was so good. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I loved the character. I loved the whole premise of it. It was so interesting.
So the plot of it is our main character, Ursula, is born during a snowstorm. It's been a while since I read it, so I might be misremembering, but the doctor doesn't get there in time because of the snowstorm. And she dies immediately upon birth. She's reborn and she lives a little bit longer. Something else happens and she dies. And every time she dies, she's reborn and something changes slightly and she lives a little bit longer.
[00:23:13] So she lives through the Spanish flu. She is in England. So Spanish flu, World War I, World War II, all of these significant historical events. And at first, we do get her story all the way from the beginning because she lives for such a short period of time. But as we get further and further along, the author jumps further into her timeline.
I think if she had started from the beginning every single time, yeah, that would have been really tiresome. But I thought it was just so interesting to see what things changed that made her live a little bit longer. Even now, five years after I read it, I loved it. And it's what made me such a huge Kate Atkinson fan.
ANNE: I'm so glad that you took a chance on that book.
KATHRYN: Yeah, I am too.
ANNE: Even though you'd adamantly decided not to read it in another life. Oh gosh, no Ursula pun intended.
[00:24:17] KATHRYN: That's a pretty good one though.
ANNE: Kathryn, what's the second book you love?
KATHRYN: The second book was my favorite book that I read in 2024. It is Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino. This book was recommended to me by a woman who ran a podcast for a very long time that I listened to pretty regularly. Unfortunately, since being canceled. But I still follow her on social media. She's my go-to for almost all book recommendations.
But the setup is Adina is born at the same time that Voyager 1 is launched into space. And when she is very young, I think she's maybe four or five years old, something happens and she realizes that she's actually an alien sent to Earth to report back to her home world on what it means to be human. And she sends her reports back via fax machine.
[00:25:22] So it's set in Philadelphia starting in the 1980s, I think, and we go through her entire life as an alien. She knows she's an alien. She doesn't really tell people this because she knows it's kind of fantastical. But I've never read a book that writes about the mundanity of everyday life in such a beautiful and poignant way.
There's a moment where she's graduated from high school and her friends have all gone off to college. And she's working in a diner and some people come in, people who she knows from high school, and they're talking to her about what great times they had and what a memorable experience that was. They're kind of laughing and joking with her. And she just looks at them very seriously and says, "Wow, we had two very different experiences."
[00:26:22] I laughed so hard because I thought, wow, I don't know that anybody has ever put that feeling into words. The feeling of I lived my life and you lived your life. And yeah, we had these shared moments together, but we experienced them in very, very different ways.
I don't cry often when I read books. I think I could count on one hand the number of times that this has happened. This book had me uncontrollably sobbing at one point. I was reading and my husband looked at me and he said, "I thought you said this wasn't a sad book." And I said, "It's not a sad book. It's about the human condition." And he kind of laughed and he didn't really know what to say. He's not a reader. I loved it.
I was so moved and just really loved how these basic everyday moments are written about in such nice words and thought-provoking words. What an interesting premise that she's an alien here to tell her people what it's like to be human. I loved it.
[00:27:36] ANNE: Thank you for that. Okay, a picture is emerging. Kathryn, what's the third book you love?
KATHRYN: The third book is The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I read this a couple of summers ago. I picked it up initially twice on two different occasions, very far apart from each other at the library, which was for me a mistake. This book is 800-and-something pages long. It is very, very long. For me, it's not a three-week loan from the library type of read.
The premise of it in and of itself is very interesting, but what was more interesting to me was the construction of it. So it's written in 12 parts. Each part is half as long as the part before it. So the first part is as long as a novel, 320-something pages. Part two is 150 or 70 or whatever. And then part three is 80. So on and on until the last chapter is a half a page.
[00:28:38] I read this with a friend of mine. She got it from the library and read it in three weeks. I took 10 weeks to read this book because I am a methodical reader. I made a spreadsheet to calculate how many pages I needed to read to finish it by the end of the summer. I really wanted to just take a long time with this book. I wound up finishing it ahead of schedule, which was fine. I was, you know, really proud of myself.
But it has just really stuck with me even two summers later. I'm not a re-reader, but it's a book that I would enjoy going back and rereading again over 10 or 12 weeks and just really sitting down and digging into what the heck is going on.
Because the first part, so the very first chapter actually, is 40 pages. 40-plus pages. And it's the setup for the whole book. So a prostitute has been found almost dead by the side of the road. She's tried to take her own life.
[00:29:48] The wealthiest man in town has suddenly disappeared. Nobody knows where he went. And a recluse who lives in the middle of nowhere is discovered to have a huge amount of gold in his home. He lives in a cabin.
And it's set in New Zealand in the mid-19th century during the gold rush. So this man, Walter Moody arrives to this town and she just does such a great job of really setting the scene and giving you the atmosphere. It's like rainy and very gloomy and it's cold and it's wet and he's been on a boat for a long time and all he wants is to sit by a fire and have a warm meal and go to bed.
And he stumbles upon these men from this town having this very secret meeting to talk about these three mysterious events and what they think it all means. So it's told from the men's different perspectives and they're giving the backstory. And then the rest of the book is everything that happens after these events and trying to piece it all together.
[00:31:06] It was just one of the wildest, most interesting books I think I've ever read. I think about it all the time and just how did she come up with the construction of this and fitting the plot into this format? Maybe it speaks to me because I'm a methodical reader and she's clearly a methodical writer, but it was exceptional.
And I know that it's a doorstopper and that's not for everybody and it is very intimidating to pick up an 800-plus page book. I'm really glad that I did.
ANNE: Wow, Kathryn, I am really wondering about your comment that perhaps you're drawn to methodical writers as a methodical reader. We will revisit that. But first, tell me about a book that was not right for you. And I especially want to hear why.
[00:32:00] KATHRYN: This book was recommended to me by several different people and everybody was raving about it and I thought, "Oh, everybody's screaming about this book. I need to read it." This book is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. And I can hear listeners to this episode going, What? I can't believe she didn't like that book. It was amazing.
Her writing is amazing. It was very well written. I do not gravitate toward character-driven novels, typically. And this book is what made me realize that about myself. I picked it up, got about halfway through, and said, Oh, I'm really not enjoying this. I'm going to put this down and I'm going to maybe come back to it.
I think a month, maybe more, went by and my friend texted me and she said, "Oh my gosh, I just read the most amazing book. You have to read it." And I said, "What is it?" And she said, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow."
[00:33:00] And I said, "Uh, I started that book and I have not finished it." And she said, "Well, where did you get to?" And I told her and she said, "Okay, you stopped right before this incredible moment in the plot happens. You have to keep going." And I basically hate-read it until the end.
She said she loved it because she loved the friendships in it. They felt really real. And I said, "Really?" Because I felt like the friendships were incredibly toxic. These people are not nice to each other. And I don't know if you're familiar with this show on Apple TV called Mythic Quest.
ANNE: No, I'm not.
KATHRYN: It's a workplace comedy about people who write video games. They write the stories and the code and they design video games. This book to me felt like if Mythic Quest, which is a comedy through and through, if Mythic Quest were a drama and I hated the relationships between these people. They're just... no, it was not for me.
[00:34:06] I recognized the writing was very good and I had no issue with the writing itself. For me, it was not a book for me. As soon as I finished it, — and I really read it as fast as I could, because I was like, Oh, I just need to finish this book — I closed it and I got rid of it. My friend said, "You Jumanji'd it out of your house." And I said, "100%, get this out of here. I can't look at this book anymore."
ANNE: First of all, it's never just you. So thanks for sharing what didn't work about that very popular book. But Kathryn, I'm nervous for your project with your dislike of character-driven books.
KATHRYN: I am too.
ANNE: Please discuss.
KATHRYN: I'm nervous about this too. I think what really bothered me about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow more than it being character-driven were the relationships between these three friends and the fact that so many people saw them as being such good friends to each other. That's I think what bothered me more than it being a character-driven book.
[00:35:21] Because I think I've read books recently that didn't have a lot of plot and I really enjoyed them very, very much. So I think also my reading tastes have changed. I read this book in 20... I think I read it in 2022, maybe 2023. Even though that was just two or three years ago, I think my reading tastes have changed since reading that book. And it's possible that if I went back and revisited it now, I would feel differently about it.
ANNE: It's possible. Is now a good time to talk about a recent read you included in your submission? Because you outlined how you felt conflicted about it. You know what I'm talking about?
KATHRYN: Yes, I do. Are you talking about Sorrow and Bliss? Yes. By Meg Mason. I don't know if "enjoy" is the right word for this book. It was very propulsive.
[00:36:20] But it's about a woman who's kind of going through a troubled spot in her marriage and also learning unexpected things about herself in the process. And it's written in a stream-of-consciousness style, which isn't normally my jam, but it was part of my women's prize challenge. So, of course, I had to, you know, read the whole thing. And I really thought it was so interesting. I think the way that I described it was if the sister from Fleabag wrote the bell jar.
ANNE: I can laugh now because I'm finally watching that.
KATHRYN: I love that show.
ANNE: 10 years later.
KATHRYN: Yes. Oh, it's excellent. But yeah, that's how the book felt to me that it's very, very dry and very... it felt very real. It felt like this could have been somebody's real lived experience.
[00:37:25] And what I think I liked best about it, and I think this is going to be an unexpected thing to like about it. At the end, she's diagnosed with a mental health disorder. They don't name it. The doctor says, "I think that you have_" and the author wrote the blank blank. She like put big underlined blank spaces.
I really loved that she did that because I think she knew people are going to read this and they're going to look back at the book and say, Oh, I wonder if I have that too. Because the point isn't really that she gets a diagnosis for all of these things that she's been experiencing since she was a teenager. The point was really what has she been experiencing, I think.
ANNE: I remember it being 17. Does that sound accurate to you?
KATHRYN: Yes.
ANNE: But a bomb went off in her brain and she changed.
KATHRYN: Mm-hmm.
ANNE: So that worked for you.
KATHRYN: Yeah.
[00:38:32] ANNE: Kathryn, thanks for discussing that work. That's very helpful. What else have you been reading lately?
KATHRYN: I recently finished Parakeet by Marie-Helene Bertino, and I'm currently reading The Blueprint by Rae Giana Rashad, which I received from Brilliant Books. I have to give them a little shout-out because they always send me the best stuff.
ANNE: What a lovely thing to be able to say about any store. When it comes to what you're looking for, we are all about the Women's Prize today. Is that right?
KATHRYN: Yes.
ANNE: Anything you want to add?
KATHRYN: As you're throwing out suggestions, if you think of a non-Women's Prize, that would be an interesting foil to this book, I'm open to that because I am trying to alternate Women's Prize with non-Women's Prize to kind of give myself a break.
ANNE: Duly noted. Ooh, you know, could we rattle off the Women's Prize shortlisted books and winners that you've already read?
[00:39:31] KATHRYN: Oh, sure. I've already read Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, The Power by Naomi Alderman, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak, Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, and The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell.
ANNE: All right, listeners, thanks for hanging with us with that list, but it feels important. Okay, let's move on to talk about your Women's Prize project.
Recapping what you love and don't, your loves today, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, that is a Women's Prize selection, Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, and The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. Not for you, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.
[00:40:37] What I'm really noticing, Kathryn, is that... well, I'm going to quote yourself back to you. The Luminaries was just the wildest, most interesting book. And all the books you love are a little, sometimes more than a little, out there.
Like Kate Atkinson was an unconventional time loop story where a woman keeps reliving her life, experimenting to live it out in different ways, but written in a very literary reflective style with like this droll sense of humor. Just unexpected.
Beautyland is extremely insightful. You said that she wrote about the mundanity of everyday life in this beautiful, poignant way from the perspective of an alien who's sending communications to her home colony via a fax machine. That's wild and interesting.
And then Eleanor Catton, she did a really interesting thing with structure that led you to say, do you like her as a methodical writer? Because you are a methodical reader and you feel a kinship there.
[00:41:45] All these stories are intricately plotted. It's not this happened and this happened and this happened and then it was over.
Now, Sower and Bliss is not one you chose for a favorite and not one you said that like enjoyment would necessarily be the right word, but you did appreciate it and you did sound glad that you read it.
And I'm thinking about how Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was not for you. That is an intricately plotted novel that goes a lot of places and makes video games like great literature. And look, I know that's not surprising to some of you, but I'm not a gamer. And that was pure education for me and like a new way to look at the world in a way that it wouldn't have been for many readers.
But I suspect that what you're looking for is... because you've praised books that felt very real. And I wonder if your conversations with your fellow readers about this book actually diminished your appreciation because you wanted a real read, real insight into the human condition in a way that feels... of course, I'm all theorizing here. In a way that feels like it's boosting you. That it's like... edifying is a really lofty word. It's not really the one I want. In writing, we would edit this.
[00:43:10] But I feel like you are looking for insight into the true and also perhaps the good, like the aspirational. And you felt like this was about a toxic relationship. And while there's insight there, I'm not sure if it's not what you wanted or if the gap between what you were hearing about the book and your experience of the book made that really uncomfortable. So I'm spouting a bunch of theories. How is this landing for you?
KATHRYN: That feels pretty accurate. I think I try not to look at book reviews too much before I read the book. When it comes to the podcast that I mentioned earlier, it was a weekly podcast and then she did a book club... like two episodes for this book club.
So in one, she would talk to the author and then in one episode, they would do a spoilery discussion. And so I would read the book and then go back and listen to the episodes.
[00:44:11] That was the thing that they all said was how much they enjoyed the relationships among these three characters. And the more I listened to it, the more I was like, "Wow, did we read two different books? This is wild." So yeah, I think it was just not the human experience that I think I was expecting to get out of it.
ANNE: Okay. That's helpful. What do you think about the potential idea that you like, bracketing my own thoughts to say, or maybe your superlative selections have this characteristic, but you like books that do something unexpected, that do something a little out there.
KATHRYN: Yes.
ANNE: Time loops, aliens, wacky structures.
KATHRYN: Yep. Yep. That's all for me.
ANNE: Something I'm noticing about the Women's Prize shortlisted books and winners that you've read so far is it feels like you've kind of honed in on many of those books already. Ruth Ozeki, like trademark. The Sentence, supernatural.
[00:45:14] Sorrow and Bliss was interesting too, but I feel like that's the least aligned with what I'm saying about your reading life. The Island of Missing Trees, one of the narrators is a fig tree. Piranesi, that book is... wildest, most interesting, could definitely be applied to that book as well.
So what I want you to know is that when I'm thinking about how are you going to enjoy this project, I want books that embody that, but also books that do something interesting that's not the kind of interesting I see already represented here. Or at least that's my hunch of where to go. What do you think?
KATHRYN: That sounds spot on.
ANNE: Okay. Maybe it's a little late to be zooming out, but readers, if you don't know, Kathryn, I know you know this history, but the Women's Prize has been around since 1996. It's not always been called the Women's Prize. Its specific purpose is to recognize great literary works from female writers.
[00:46:12] You could look up some more history on this, but the inspiration was the 1991 Booker Prize. They have a short list of six every year, just like the Women's Prize. And that year there were no female authors. That caused a stir, feels like a very polite way to put that. That year, 60% of novels, something like that, were published by female authors. And the result of that was the establishment of the Women's Prize several years later.
The Women's Prize organization says that the prize exists to celebrate female creativity. They're looking for books that explore the need for personal freedom, explore human connections, shortlisted books, and winners offer compelling multi-layered stories that, in their words, urge you to sit up and take notice of the world around you. Are you feeling an affinity there, Kathryn?
[00:47:12] KATHRYN: Yeah. And that actually really aligns with the books that I have read.
ANNE: Okay, that feels good as you're embarking on this project that that's what you want. That's been your experience with the books you've chosen so far. So their picks are aligning with what you would expect from Women's Prize winners.
This has gone through several different names and that has to do with corporate sponsorship. This happens for all kind of prizes, but it used to be known as the Orange Prize for Fiction, then it was the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction, and same award.
This award is based in the UK and it is considered their most prestigious literary award for a single book. And while it's based in the UK, female writers of any nationality who have published their work in English are eligible for consideration.
Let's start with one that has an out-there conceit. Although really, I think it felt a lot more out there when it was written than it does now.
[00:48:14] I'm thinking of Hotel World by Ali Smith. This is 2001. Do you know anything about this book or about Ali Smith?
KATHRYN: No.
ANNE: Okay. Wow, what a voice. What an interesting point of view. That's how I want to start here. There's lots of wordplay. Oh gosh, I was about to suggest that you read this on audio for reasons that we will talk about, but actually seeing the words on the page is really interesting.
Hotel World. We have five characters in this book, all first-person narratives. The first is a ghost. Her name is Sarah. She's a chambermaid in a hotel in a generic British city. She's playing around with the dumb waiter. She falls and she dies.
And her point of view, her words on the page as she fades into non-existence are so interesting. It really starts with a sit-up-and-take-notice kind of way. But we also hear from four other women who are tangential to Sarah's life and death.
[00:49:19] There's the crabby receptionist who doesn't like her job at the hotel. There's Else, a woman who is homeless. There is a journalist named Penny, and there is the deceased, distraught sister, Clare. She has such a way with words. This is not a long book, so I think there's a lot of experience here and literary experimentation in a rather concise package. Not that you said you need to be efficient or get through them as quickly as possible, but I don't hate that for you.
This story begins at the end. We know Sara was playing the dumb waiter. She fell. She died. And then it works backward. But we do do a little back and forth in time in between. If we had to pick a theme for this book, Smith is writing about how we're moving through our lives and we don't want to actually look at people and acknowledge their humanity or experience or understand or even consider what the world is like through their lives and in their shoes.
[00:50:28] You and I talked about your struggle with audiobooks, how that's not a format that's worked for you. You mentioned that it's your least favorite reading method because you tend to tune out or lose track of what's happening unless you're like a captive audience, like in the car on a road trip. And that's not something you do a lot these days.
But there's a brand-new release that just came out a few months ago of this audiobook, which I think says something on its own. This book was shortlisted for the Women's Prize in 2001. I don't know if we want to mention the Booker in this context, but it was also a Booker finalist.
But there's a new multi-voiced audiobook that I've not yet listened to the whole thing start to finish, just the preview. But I wonder if the uniqueness, the variety, the interesting point of views, if that would make a more compelling audiobook for you than what you've tried in the past.
That's Hotel World by Ali Smith. It's 2001. What do you think?
[00:51:27] KATHRYN: I'd be willing to try that as an audio because one of the things that often doesn't work for me on audio, especially when it's multiple points of view, is when it's the same narrator. I tend to lose track of who's speaking, who are we hearing from now. It's why I read Beartown a year or two ago and I tried to do it on audio and I just couldn't because I couldn't keep track of what was happening. I need the physical book. But if it has different narrators for different characters, I can get behind that. Yeah.
ANNE: Something that I think is really interesting about this book and about your project is you're going back to a moment in time and you're spending six books worth in that time. When this was published, it was like nothing so many readers had ever seen. It was groundbreaking to be written with the perspective of a ghost and then five other narrators, multi-voiced, all first person.
And now I feel like this is much more common. So I'm interested in how that will feel for you in 2025. I was surprised how much this book reminded me of the Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand, which also is narrated in part by a ghost who lives in this hotel and we hear perspectives of others as well.
[00:52:49] I just want to note how literature changes over time. And the way you've designed this project, I do think it's really interesting. And I'm jealous of the experience you'll have of being able to camp out in 2001 for a little bit, knowing what literature, not to like sound too beret and pipe about it, is like in 2025 and seeing how things have evolved and how the conversation and conventions and what we consider to be like wild and out there has changed.
KATHRYN: That sounds really good. I often like a short book. It feels kind of like taking a little break and like reading something concentrated. It really packs a punch. Some of the best books that I've read have been on the shorter side.
ANNE: That is good to know. For now, for reasons, I'm inclined to stay in 2001 and do Margaret Atwood. How does that feel?
KATHRYN: Yes.
[00:53:55] ANNE: Okay. Something interesting about Margaret Atwood is she keeps getting shortlisted for the women's prize, but she has never won. Same thing for Hilary Mantel. They were both shortlisted three times and at least so far have not won.
I like her for you because she writes books that are intricately plotted and stylistically complex, which are two things that you love. I also like the idea of you sticking with 2001 because I think with these two books, plus the four that are not known as well, that you will also read by virtue of reading all the books in 2001.
It'll really give you a taste of what the rest of the project will be like. And I'm not saying you're deciding if you're going to stick with it or not, but I do think it will give you a taste of what the rest of your project will be like. Because in 2001, we have Hotel World that we just talked about, and The Blind Assassin.
[00:54:54] We have a Jane Smiley novel, but one of her lesser-known ones, at least from my vantage point in 2025, called Horse Heaven. But we also have books that I don't believe I'd be conversant with at all were it not for the Women's Prize list. Rosina Lippi's Homestead, Jill Dawson's Fred & Edie, and Kate Grenville's The Idea of Perfection, which was actually the winner that year.
But it's The Blind Assassin that sounds up your alley because it's kind of wild. It's interesting. The structure is interesting. Can I just keep saying "interesting"? I think you like the interesting.
KATHRYN: I do. The perfect bird.
ANNE: Okay, good, good, good. This begins with an older woman looking back... In the first 20 pages, you learn everything that happens practically. But she's looking back at what happened a long time ago when her sister drove her car, I think off a bridge, and died.
[00:55:55] That the narrator's husband died on a boat, that her daughter died in a fall, and that the husband of that dead sister raised her granddaughter. And now we go back in time with this wistful perspective of years and find out what happened back then.
She's musing on the human condition. The writing is lyrical. The family is unhappy. The characters are brooding but you do get to know them really well. So she's unspooling this story.
Then in the middle of this appears a novel that's being written. It's called The Blind Assassin. And it is about two unnamed lovers who are meeting in these dark alleys and embarking on... I think the word “seedy” might be used about the affair they're engaging in. This is a science fiction story. I think it's so interesting.
[00:56:55] The Blind Assassin is historical fiction, where now I think Margaret Atwood is so much better known for her science fiction. But you've got that science fiction angle in here with the book within a book that is called The Blind Assassin. This is about sisterhood and love and class and unhappy families and aging with this reflective tone. How does that sound to you?
KATHRYN: It sounds very exciting. I went on vacation to New Zealand for three weeks with my husband last month. We don't have bookstores here that carry books in English because it's Japan. And so I was on a mission to buy Women's Prize books, especially ones that I can't get at the library, at least on an eBook. And I was able to get a copy of The Blind Assassin at a used bookshop.
ANNE: What?
KATHRYN: I saw it all over the place, actually, in multiple bookshops.
[00:57:55] ANNE: That's amazing. Okay, what do you think about the idea of reading 2001 right now?
KATHRYN: I like it. I mean, it sounds like a great place to start all the things that you're describing. And it's backlist, which is very exciting. I like reading backlist. I feel like I get a lot out of those books because I was 10 years old, 11 years old when these books were published. I definitely was not reading them at that time. But now I'm an adult, and I'm the right audience for them now. So yes, it sounds great.
ANNE: Well, I'm excited. And I'm especially excited that you're excited. All right, for our third book, I'd love to do Small Island by Andrea Levy. What do you think about that one?
KATHRYN: I don't know anything about it.
ANNE: Okay, well, let's go. Something to start with that I didn't realize when I started thinking about this for you was that in 2005, it was named The Orange of Oranges, where the judges went back and assessed the winners over the previous decade and chose one Women's Prize winner to rule them all of that 10 years. And Small Island is what they chose. This one won the Women's Prize in 2004.
[00:59:02] Levy herself was born in London to Jamaican parents. And she is drawing heavily on her personal experience to write this book. Though it's set, this is historical, it's set in 1948. And what she said about the book is when she first wrote it, she thought it was good, and she also thought that when people heard about it, they wouldn't want to read it.
And she talked about how she told her publisher, "Can I just go door to door?" Like can I just take a basket of books and go door to door and convince people one at a time to maybe take a chance on my book. But it did, in fact, find its audience. And that's how it made its way to the prize committee, I imagine. But then, of course, the spotlight that gets shown on a Women's Prize winner does not hurt.
And it's largely set in 1948. And it follows two couples, four main characters, as they're living and struggling with numerous things in post-war England.
[01:00:05] So for the Jamaican couple, we have a man named Gilbert who served in the Royal Air Force and he grew up in Jamaica, is now wanting to settle in post-war England, but to do so he has to marry a woman named Hortense because that's the only way that he can have the money that he needs for his passage. And then they set up house in London.
But he is dismayed to find out he has such great pride in being a citizen of the British Empire and finds that that is not remotely reciprocated. The couple speaks perfect King's English, but they're always viewed as foreigners every time they open their mouths.
Something that's very much put me in mind of was the conversation we had on the podcast with Nikki May about This Motherless Land. Or you know forget the conversation, if you've read the book that is the experience of one of her Nigerian characters in the UK.
[01:01:01] So we have Gilbert and Hortense. They need lodging and they move in with a woman named Queenie who incidentally you already knocked out your cue protagonist character but this is another one if any readers are embarking on that particular challenge.
So they move in with Queenie who is White and she's fine with having them. But then her husband who's been stationed abroad during the war in India, he comes home and he's like, "Why are we renting to Jamaicans?" He is unhappy that Black immigrants are living in his home.
So this is four characters, Portsmouth, England. That's not like a wild, you know, intricate setup. But I think one review said like, "deceptively simple plot, but then like Levy explores this yawning abyss of colonialism, racism, war, and also the everyday pain that people inflict on one another."
[01:02:00] And because you see each individual's point of view, you get to see both the heartbreak of some of their experience and also the rationalizations that people are telling themselves in order to make their just cruel and heartless behavior okay in their own minds.
This is a character-driven story, but also there's a lot going on here. There's the love and loss and riots and fighting and infidelity and protest. There's a lot going on. And I wonder if that combination of character-driven with action, even if it's... I mean, that sounds sensational, but it's a quiet kind of action. I wonder if that will work for you and also be a nice stepping stone to some of the more character-driven works in the women's prize list. What do you think?
[01:02:53] KATHRYN: It sounds really interesting. I think you're right that the combination of character-driven with other things happening, even if it's not the characters doing something, but things happening to them is probably a good fit. I mean, like I said earlier, I'm going to read it no matter what. It's just, when am I going to read it?
ANNE: Well, I also love the books that 2004 will give you. So you have this Andrea Levy. Also, that year is another Margaret Atwood. She seems like your cup of tea. Oryx and Crake was the one that year. You have Shirley Hazzard with The Great Fire, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with Purple Hibiscus, and also two lesser-known books that readers, that I have not read yet, but I hear readers continuing to say, "These stand the test of time. I'm so glad I found these." That's Gillian Slovo's Ice Road and Rose Tremain's The Color.
Ooh, The Color might be set in New Zealand, actually, which I believe would be of interest to you, especially with your recent travels. And then Ice Road is a story set in Leningrad in the 30s.
[01:04:00] KATHRYN: Oh, those all sound really good.
ANNE: Okay. So 2001, 2004, taking you way back. As far as the Women's Prize is concerned, relatively speaking, that's deep backlist. Okay, I'm not going to be the one reading these books, but that sounds fun to me. I'm excited for you. How do you feel?
KATHRYN: I feel even more excited about it than I did before. Sometimes I feel more excited about the books that I'm going to read than the books I'm currently reading, if that makes sense.
ANNE: Oh my gosh. I mean, it does. It does. That's real.
KATHRYN: Yeah. I still enjoy the process of reading, but sometimes when I'm in the middle of a book, I just think, Oh, I want to pick out what I'm going to read next, you know, because I'm excited about whatever it is going to be.
That's how I felt as I've been plodding my way through this challenge. I feel really excited about these two years and their backlist. So it's going to be kind of the thrill of hunt of finding the books too. So it feels like very much a win-win.
[01:05:07] ANNE: I'm thinking of how you said book buying/collecting and book reading are different hobbies and different kinds of enjoyment. And I'm thinking the same might be true for your project planning and your project reading.
KATHRYN: Yes. A hundred percent. Yes.
ANNE: All right. Love it. Okay. We talked about a lot of books, but really focused on three. They were Hotel World by Ali Smith, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, and Small Island by Andrea Levy. Kathryn, of those books, and I know this is a big choice because you're choosing a year, where do you think you'll go next?
KATHRYN: I think I'm going to go with The Blind Assassin because it's sitting on my bookshelf right now.
ANNE: Oh my gosh.
KATHRYN: It's like it's calling to me. And then I'll dive into 2001 and see how I feel about the other shortlist and the winners.
ANNE: That sounds like it was meant to be. Kathryn, I'm so excited for your project and so glad we got to talk about it on the show today.
[01:06:08] KATHRYN: Yeah, me too. This has been really, really fun.
ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kathryn, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Kathryn's on StoryGraph. We have the link to her profile and the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
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Thanks to the people who made this episode happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Productions. Readers, that is 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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