Reading for quality over quantity

[00:00:00] CAROLINE HINES: I love crying at the end of a book, but it doesn't have to be a sad cry. I love a happy cry. It means I felt something.

ANNE BOGEL: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

Readers, we have two important things for you to know for this episode. First, with the holidays just a few short days away, there are still great gift options to ship directly to your favorite reader. If you've been puzzling over the perfect book to buy as a gift, the My Reading Life reading journal is a perfect choice because it caters to all tastes, and a new reading journal for 2025 gives your favorite reader a fresh start to their reading year.

[00:01:08] Here at What Should I Read Next? HQ, we are also looking forward to the end of your holidays. So it's a good time to let you know that this is our last episode of the year. We'll be taking the next two weeks off so our team can relax and enjoy some good books and time with loved ones. We'll be back in January, where I'll be sharing my best books of 2024. I can't wait to tell you all about them.

In the meantime, we have hours of bookish enjoyment in our archives for your holiday travels, both here on the podcast and in our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club and Patreon communities. Enjoy today's episode, and we will see you back in 2025.

Readers, today's guest lives on a Christmas tree farm, which feels like the hallmark-perfect setting for our final episode before this year's winter holidays. You know we're going to hear more about that. But that's not actually what caught our team's eye about Caroline's submission.

Caroline Hines wrote in to get my help because she's feeling stuck between quality and quantity in her reading life. With all the end-of-year reading reflections happening lately, I am willing to bet that she is not alone.

[00:02:09] Caroline started tracking her reading against a numerical goal several years ago—a move she describes as a game-changer in her reading life, but not in a good way. Rather than reaching for the heftier reads she suspects she'll love, even though they take her longer to finish, she finds herself dashing through fast-paced thrillers because she knows she'll read them quickly, not because she thinks they're perfect for her.

Today we're talking about reading for quality over quantity and how Caroline might enjoy that glorious feeling of falling headfirst into a book more often. Let's get to it.

Caroline, welcome to the show.

CAROLINE: Thank you so much for having me here today, Anne.

ANNE: Oh, the pleasure is mine. Our team was really excited about your submission, so thank you for answering the call.

CAROLINE: Thank you. I was also very excited to sit down and write my submission, but I never thought that you would pick my submission. So I'm so happy to be here.

ANNE: Well, we're so glad you sent it in. And also I almost said you'd be surprised, but maybe you wouldn't, how many readers tell us that the process of completing the submission is a little bit like therapy, a little bit like journaling, and often provides some insight into a reader's reading life, even though they haven't talked to anyone except themselves?

[00:03:18] CAROLINE: Yeah, 100%. When I had to sit down and really... I had told myself I was going to do this for a few years now, and then this year I said, "Just do it. They're not going to pick you. Go for it." And then I had to actually think about the questions that you were asking, and it was very, well, difficult. I'm sure you hear that quite often. But it made me be a little more insightful about my reading, for sure.

ANNE: Well, I'm so glad you did. Well, Caroline, now you get to tell the readers what you've already told us in your submission, although you may feel differently today than you did, I think, back in October when you filled this out. Okay, well, tell us about yourself. We want to give all our readers a glimpse of who you are.

CAROLINE: Okay, well, I don't live a very exciting life, but it's a quite comfortable, lovely little life here. I actually live on a Christmas tree farm in northwestern Connecticut, and we are recording the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which means that we just had our busiest two days of the year.

[00:04:19] My father-in-law, my husband's dad, is the actual Christmas tree farmer, but my husband and our two children live on the property where the trees are. So every Thanksgiving, we gather at my in-law's house and have a lovely Thanksgiving meal with his two sisters and their families as well, and then next morning, bright and early, we are out there selling Christmas trees, creating holiday joy, which might not always be the same joy that's inside the house while we're selling the trees.

But people love coming here and we love providing them with a special tree. My father-in-law does a great job and it's just a really fun place to live, especially this time of year.

ANNE: So you don't just live on the... I mean, the farm is your life, your work at least.

CAROLINE: No, actually. So it's kind of confusing. We just live here and then we help my father-in-law sell his trees. He is the actual farmer, but since we live here, you know, I do all of the farm's social media and responding to emails and things like that.

[00:05:22] My husband has a corporate job. I am currently a stay-at-home mom whose two children are school-age. So I am home during the day. Of course you probably know… well, you do know as a mom that that doesn't mean I'm just sitting around reading all day, which would be lovely, but I am home after teaching for 15 years. I quit my high school English teaching job and now I'm a full-time stay-at-home mom.

ANNE: Caroline, tell us about your reading life. What does that look like right now?

CAROLINE: Reading is what I always say when people ask me like, Oh, what do you do? Reading is my one hobby. And it's pretty much a solo hobby unless, you know, you have a book club or you have people to discuss books with, which I do. But it is the one thing that I am just really, truly always passionate about. You know, I run often and I just ran a half marathon, but that comes in waves. Whereas reading is something that I always fall back on.

[00:06:25] I can't remember a time when I wasn't reading, you know, Sweet Valley High books and Baby-Sitters Club. But reading has always been very, very special to me, a little escape from reality with which my imagination just took and ran with when I was a little girl.

So I can't remember a time when reading wasn't in my life, but now that I'm home, I'm finding myself with a little bit more time to read and also with the freedom of not teaching, not teaching the same books that high school teachers do reread the books that they teach over and over and over every year. So without that, it kind of opened up my world a little bit of reading with some more time, but also I could explore a little bit more than I used to.

[00:07:19] For the past three or so years, I have started using Goodreads, which has been kind of a game changer in my life. And I'm not so sure I mean that always in the positive or best way. I love Goodreads, don't get me wrong, and Storygraph as well, but I am finding myself in a place where I am very much into these reading challenges, the yearly ones, and I'm wondering if it is taking away anything from my actual reading life.

I used to just keep a spreadsheet, a good old-fashioned spreadsheet with my books, and then I would write a blurb because I don't like writing public reviews, but now with Goodreads, I feel almost competitive about it.

Oh, and the other thing that has changed for me this year, which I feel a little guilty and I shouldn't, is that I bought a Kindle for the first time ever. And that has really added reading time to my life because now I can be in bed with my daughter trying to get her to go to sleep and reading while I'm pretending to be asleep next to her.

[00:08:29] ANNE: Okay, that's really interesting that you feel guilty. And you know you shouldn't, but you do.

CAROLINE: I do. I do.

ANNE: Caroline, you indicated in your submission that this is a struggle for you right now, the conflict between reading good stuff and getting those numbers up on your Goodreads challenge. Would you say more about that? I'm especially interested in hearing about reading without a [rudder?].

CAROLINE: Yeah. So I set a very realistic goal for myself every year, which is 50 books, and I have gone over 50 every year that I set that goal, which is great. However, I am finding myself being this, in a weird way, a perfectionist in that I need to hit that 50 books. I need to. But why? I'm wondering why.

I'm seeing that in January, for example, this past year in 2024, the first book that I read this year was The Lincoln Highway, and I simply loved it. I posted about it saying, what am I going to do for the rest of the year because I just read the best book of the year? And it was. I loved that book so much, but it took a lot of my reading time in January because of the length.

[00:09:46] Then I found myself reading books that weren't as fulfilling to me, personally, in January to make sure I hit my four books a month goal or five books a month goal. Then I was reading books that people were posting about on BookTok or Instagram that were not, for me, the quality of book that I wanted to read.

Oftentimes, I would pick up a thriller, a quick page-turner. If it said quick page-turner in January, I was on it because I really wanted to make sure that I didn't start the year off in a slow pace.

ANNE: So this is a tension you're feeling right now?

CAROLINE: Yes. As we're going into the new year, I really don't want to be filling my red pile with books that maybe I didn't need to read. You've taught me a lot, Anne, and I have started to be much better about not finishing a book. Really, you taught me how to do that. Before-

ANNE: This is my legacy.

[00:10:53] CAROLINE: Yes. Before I would never have put down a book that wasn't interesting to me. Now, I put down a book one every four times that's not interesting to me. So I'm getting there, but I'm not quite there yet.

As we move into the new year, I really want to be thinking about reading something that brings me joy, happiness, and also that is meaningful in some way.

ANNE: That sounds great to me. Joy, happiness, and meaning in your reading life.

CAROLINE: That's what I'm looking for. Is that a small order?

ANNE: That sounds big, but that feels achievable. Okay, Caroline, I think we should talk about your books, what you love, what you don't, what you've been reading lately, and then we can figure out what reading books that deliver joy, happiness, and meaning might look like for you. How does that sound?

CAROLINE: Sounds amazing. I can't wait.

ANNE: What is the first book you brought today that you love?

[00:11:48] CAROLINE: The first book is not unique to me. Many people on your podcast have said this book. It is Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. That book was beautifully written. It felt like a quiet book, a good winter book to me — and I did read it in the winter of last year — that I could cozy up with and just become enraptured in this family drama. The problems were over the top, but they were realistically over the top. Does that make sense?

ANNE: I think I understand.

CAROLINE: Yeah. You know families who this could have happened to, who do have the same exact issues happening.

ANNE: They were living in extremes, but that's what people do sometimes.

CAROLINE: Correct. Especially in those tight-knit families they lived in. There are many people who go through plate times when they're not speaking to their siblings or they get in fights with their parents. It just felt very real to me while, again, being problems that I wouldn't wish all of those issues on anyone at once. But it felt real.

[00:12:59] I really felt like she took the time to make you understand each character. Obviously, they weren't all as fully developed as William say, but you knew them. You could see yourself or your sister in them. They just felt really, really real to me.

ANNE: It sounds like the realism is something you really valued.

CAROLINE: It was. Yeah. I could picture poor William. I just loved William so much in that book. Even though the sisters revolved around him, he wasn't the... Well, he was a big source of stuff. But the sisters revolving around him was what made him so lovable to me, that they all fell in love with him also.

ANNE: I'm wondering if we want to hear a little more about William for people who haven't read this.

CAROLINE: I mean, he is a person of quiet. That's one of his main things is that he is quiet in this family of talkers who are out and extreme and really showing him what a family is. And he didn't have that growing up.

[00:14:09] ANNE: He starts dating one of the sisters in this Little Women adjacent contemporary world that Napolitano has created for us.

CAROLINE: You know, I don't know why I never made that connection to Little Women, which is one of my favorites. Interesting.

ANNE: Interesting. Well, she doesn't smack you in the face with it, but she talked about it in interviews. That is one way to know. Not that you necessarily should have paid attention to them. But some readers knew that when they picked up the book.

CAROLINE: The Quiet Family Drama, that book I picked it because I felt that was the epitome of that trope. The Quiet Family Drama so much.

ANNE: There's a lot of pain in this novel, but I think it's fair to say that it's handled with a lot of tenderness.

CAROLINE: Mm-hmm. Yes. When I was looking at my three books, I made a note to myself that I just wanted to tell you, Anne, I'm a glutton for punishment, I think, but I love closing a book and crying. Crying at the end of a book is my hallmark for if that book was a book that I loved.

[00:15:16] ANNE: I was not getting that from what you described as wanting a stack of novels you could cozy up with this winter. So I'm glad you said that.

CAROLINE: Yes. I love crying. But it doesn't have to be a sad cry. I love a happy cry. It means I felt something. It means I was connected to the book. And that makes me so happy.

ANNE: All right. Sounds good. Makes sense. Caroline, what's the second book you love?

CAROLINE: Harry's Trees, which I actually found through you. I would not have found this book or thought to pick it up if I didn't hear about it a long time ago, I think, on this very podcast.

ANNE: It's been a while, yeah. 2017, 2018?

CAROLINE: Okay. Yeah.

ANNE: Off the top of my head?

CAROLINE: I think it was 2018 on my own reading list that I was looking through. Harry's Trees is whimsy. It's whimsical, but it also maintains to me a real quality of writing.

[00:16:17] I was not thrown off by the whimsy or the fairytale aspects and thinking to myself, oh, this book is silly because of this. The quality of the writing was there. It made you laugh often. It really made you feel for Harry especially, but the other characters as well.

So it managed to maintain that meaningfulness that I was talking about, but... it's not light. So I don't want to say in a lighter way, but in a different way than reality.

ANNE: Interesting. Something that John Cohen, who we were just talking about in my house in a totally different context as one of the screenwriters on Minority Report, so if you've read Harry's Trees, wrap your head around that too because they're nothing alike.

CAROLINE: No.

ANNE: But something he said about this novel on the podcast, actually, I forgot that he was a guest and talked to us about it, but that the story feels magical, but there's nothing in this book that couldn't actually happen.

[00:17:20] CAROLINE: Right. And that, I think, is a really interesting type of writing. It felt like... oh my goodness, there's another book that you had recommended. I can't remember the name, so I can't say. But it was like a book about fairy tales.

ANNE: I love this game, but I need more to go on.

CAROLINE: It was a book about fairytales and Alice. No. I can't remember. I'm going to move on because otherwise, I'm going to...

ANNE: Fairytales. Alice. Okay, we're going to think about it sometime.

CAROLINE: It has a sequel too.

ANNE: It's going to pop in our minds.

CAROLINE: Yes. Anyway, it gave me a cozy feeling. Obviously, it's in the woods and the trees were all special and all of that. And maybe that the wooded aspect of a fairytale makes me feel cozy. I'm not really sure.

ANNE: Somebody is yelling the title at their car speaker right now, but we're not hearing you yet, so thanks for trying.

CAROLINE: Oh, it's going to drive me crazy.

ANNE: Okay, so the whimsy plus the quality of the writing really worked for you.

CAROLINE: Right, exactly. It wasn't cheesy. I didn't find it to be cheesy, but it was whimsical.

[00:18:24] ANNE: Okay, what's the final book you brought today that you love?

CAROLINE: Okay, so my final book is one that I, like all good Judy Blume readers, I think, I was introduced to when I was probably too young to ever initially read it, which is a quality of Judy Blume readers. But it is Summer Sisters by Judy Blume.

I remember being handed this book by an adult in my life and told I would probably like it. And I loved it. I was maybe 15 when that happened, so on the cusp of adult life, but nowhere near an adult. I think I initially loved it because I kind of felt like, oh, this is a little scandalous. There's some interesting things happening here that I don't quite understand, but I would like to.

And then I started to read it year after year. Every summer I would reread this book. I realized I really returned to it because of the relationships in the novel. It's a family drama. However, this time it's really a found family.

[00:19:33] It talks about the really beautiful friendship between Caitlin and Victoria and friends, I think, are just so important in our lives. It really delved into different types of friendships or the different issues that arise when you have a lifelong friend like they are in this book.

It also is one of the first books that I can remember that kind of switch... It doesn't switch point of view. The main parts of this book are written in a third-person point of view, so you see Caitlin and Victoria's life from an omniscient narrator. But then at the end of each chapter, one of the secondary characters, you get into their head about what was going on with the two main characters.

That was really one of the first times that the point of view switching came into my life. I wouldn't say that now I really enjoy the books that switch character point of views often. I think it just became a very, very common type of writing style, so I don't love those anymore. But at the time it was interesting to me to get a secondary character's point of view on the two main characters who I have grown to love.

[00:20:52] ANNE: I'm impressed. Actually, you know what? It sounds like the English teacher in you that really noticed that that was different in your book.

CAROLINE: Yeah. I mean, now you see it everywhere, obviously, but back then I was like, "Oh, wow, I didn't know I was going to be able to hear what Bru thinks." I was so excited, I remember.

ANNE: I love that feeling. I remember reading an Annie Dillard excerpt from The Writing Life, though I didn't know this about the time. It was an essay about the moth, and if you've read Annie Dillard, you have some idea what I'm talking about. And I was just like, "Oh, I didn't know authors could do this. This is fun."

CAROLINE: That is so exciting when you find a different way of storytelling and an author just nails it. I feel like it's one of the best things about reading.

ANNE: Oh, my gosh, and I have to say, you left for good reasons, but that was a signed reading from my high school English teacher. So I think a round of applause is in order.

CAROLINE: Yes, high school English teachers bringing joy to people.

ANNE: Okay, Caroline, tell us about a book that was not a good fit for you. I'd like to know, did it not align with your taste? Was the timing wrong? Was it about a topic that made you feel squidgy? Tell me everything.

[00:21:58] CAROLINE: That's actually a great way of saying it, the squidgy part. The book that wasn't for me was The Paper Palace. The author's name is probably right in front of me, and I'm blanking.

ANNE: Miranda Cowley Heller.

CAROLINE: Yes. You know, I went into that book with really high expectations because I thought family drama, a secondary home, which also I find interesting. I like a lot of Elin Hilderbrand books. And so the idea of a vacation home, that kind of sparked my interest.

But I just felt there was gratuitous child abuse, sexual child abuse in that book. I didn't necessarily see the need for it. It was excessive to me. I don't shy away from hard topics or dark topics at all, but I think that I do shy away from the sexual abuse of a child. And so that really turned me off of that book.

[00:22:58] I did finish it. And I understand why other people do love it. It just wasn't... It didn't give me any cozy feelings, is how I should say it.

ANNE: Okay. That makes sense to me. That's helpful to hear.

CAROLINE: I am trying to read all of Alice Hoffman's books, which I'm pretty close, but then I got to one of her books, White Horses, and then I realized it was about really sexual abuse of a child, and I had to put that down also. I was like, Oh, I'm not going to be an Alice Hoffman completist, but that's okay.

ANNE: Okay. You answered my question. So that's okay?

CAROLINE: Yeah.

ANNE: Okay. I'm proud of you.

CAROLINE: Thanks, Anne. I don't put books down very often, but I'm trying to be better.

ANNE: Caroline, what have you been reading lately?

CAROLINE: I recently finished The God of the Woods, which I just love, by Liz Moore. I just loved The God of the Woods. I thought it was so great. It doesn't hurt that I also went to a sleepaway camp in the Adirondacks for the majority of my childhood.

[00:24:01] ANNE: No. That wouldn't hurt at all.

CAROLINE: Yes. And some of my girlfriends from camp do listen to your podcast, and they know we were told... There is a very large prison in the Adirondacks, a federal prison. And we were often told ghost stories, quote-unquote, about, okay, girls, someone has escaped from Dannemora, and they're headed straight to our small town just to scare us, I guess, camp ghost stories. But that really drew me into that book, that connection.

But my husband, I pass on books to him that I think he'll like. He's not a big reader. So I read them, and then I give him them. He loved it also. You don't need that connection, but man, I thought that was just really, really beautiful storytelling.

And the grief that was in that book, the unspoken of grief was beautiful. The issues that were coming up were just so amazing and amazingly well-written, I thought.

[00:25:02] And then another book that I have read recently is The Measure. That is obviously not something, I hope, that would ever happen in real life where you're given a box that tells you how long you're going to live, but I loved the way the people in that novel grappled with how to handle their strength.

They were given a string that indicates the length of their life, and hearing all the different ways that people either accepted the string or didn't accept the string, and how the world really responded to everyone receiving the string at a certain age, 18, I believe it was, that was the unrealistic type of reading that I just loved because it's actually realistic. Does that make any sense?

ANNE: I think it does. So it's just got that one element of magic that sets it up in an otherwise completely realistic tale.

[00:25:59] CAROLINE: Exactly. It could have been anything that these people were responding to, it just happened to be this unrealistic aspect of everyone at 18 receiving a string. But the humanity, that's what it is, the humanness of their reactions, they were all so realistic to me. I was like, "This would happen. Yes, that is how people would react. Yes, these protests would be happening." It felt so real.

ANNE: That is a great thing to notice about your reading life and helpful to me to hear. Caroline, tell me what else you are on the hunt for in your reading life right now.

CAROLINE: So every year I do try to incorporate at least one nonfiction piece into my reading life. Right now I have two books going that are nonfiction that are both very interesting. One is The Anxious Generation, which I'm sure most people with children who are listening to this podcast have either heard of or read.

[00:26:57] And then the other is The Country of the Blind, which is, I guess, a memoir technically about a man who is losing his eyesight and he delves into what it means to be blind in America.

Both of those books I am learning so much from. I'm underlining and really trying to apply what I'm seeing to my own life. I do want to incorporate more nonfiction. Last year I said I had to read five nonfictions and then some of them were like The Jessica Simpson Memoir, which has a time and place and totally fine. But I really want to be spending my nonfiction time this year learning more than anything.

That applies to my fiction reading as well. I want to be reading something that is going to enrich my life in some way, shape, or form where I think to myself, oh, man, this is humanity in a good way or a bad way, I suppose. This is what life is about, these relationships, learning and growing, always wanting to grow.

[00:28:04] Sometimes, yeah, that might be, again, a beach read where I get transported. We need to be entertained in our lives also, but I'm looking for a deeper read is what I guess I'm saying, Anne, after all of this is what I'm really thinking.

I read, like I said, a lot of thrillers this year that were page-turners, but I would close those pages and be like, oh, what did I get out of that? I didn't get anything. And I want to be able to say-

ANNE: Okay, you just said that we need to be entertained in our reading too.

CAROLINE: Oh. We do. We do.

ANNE: Not wagging my finger. I'm saying, let's figure this out, Caroline.

CAROLINE: Yeah. But entertaining to me-

ANNE: Yeah, right track. Love it.

CAROLINE: I want to be transported and I want the writing to still be interesting and unique or something that I can... maybe I'm talking about connection. I'm not a con woman who's out there trying to figure out, I don't know, who killed someone that I was working for.

[00:29:10] I am looking to be entertained in a cozy way, in a transporting way. Which people love thrillers and they love the fantasy reads and all of that. And I do read those also. I just don't want that to be the majority of my reading this year. Do you think that makes more sense, Anne?

ANNE: Yeah. But I want to like second draft that, may I?

CAROLINE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay, so entertainment for you doesn't just look like a good plot that you can't lift your head from the page about to find out what happens next, only to close the book, walk away, and forget it, never to think of it again.

CAROLINE: Right.

ANNE: Part of the entertainment is like, "Ooh, look at the way they put those words in that exact order. Wow, pretty." That's something you really want.

CAROLINE: Yeah, the English teacher dork. Yes, that's what I'm looking for.

ANNE: You want English major entertainment.

CAROLINE: I do.

ANNE: Not that English teachers can't read a variety of things for a variety of reasons.

CAROLINE: Right. I'm looking for walking away and remembering the book, not having it blend in with any other book that I have read.

[00:30:19] ANNE: Okay, so part of being entertained is discovering something unique, having an experience you haven't had before.

CAROLINE: I think so. Yeah, whether it's, you know, transporting me to a different world or a way of writing, a type of writing that interests me a lot also.

ANNE: You want the language. You want to go to a new place. You want a certain kind of atmosphere.

CAROLINE: Yeah. Yes, I do.

ANNE: If you ordered hot chocolate and somebody brought you like a strawberry daiquiri, like that might be good, but you wouldn't be happy.

CAROLINE: Right. Yeah, I mean, I would still drink it. Don't get me wrong. But I-

ANNE: I don't know. What if it's really cold outside?

CAROLINE: Well, that's true. Yeah.

ANNE: What if you're standing outside watching people pick out Christmas trees? Like maybe you wouldn't.

CAROLINE: I have learned a little bit, even just through talking you through right now is I'm kind of a mood reader. And right now my mood is that I want to be enveloped by a story to... I'm like putting... you can't see me, but I'm putting a blanket around my shoulders in a pantomime. I want that feeling of falling headfirst into a book.

[00:31:26] ANNE: All right, that's helpful. Let's pull it together. You ready?

CAROLINE: I am ready. I've just got a little bit giddy, in fact.

ANNE: No pressure.

CAROLINE: It's fine. You got this, Anne.

ANNE: Caroline, you loved Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, Harry's Trees by John Cohen, and Summer Sisters by Judy Blume. Not for you was The Paper Palace. And lately you have been reading, as you said, so many books, including The God of the Woods and The Measure. And you're really looking for, I think, girding in your readerly soul to read for quality, not quantity. And I think you know how to do that.

I was talking to somebody yesterday and they were like, you know, at a certain point, if you want to do something different in your life, you have to do something different in your life. It's the most annoying thing ever.

So what I hear is that like, you know, you know what this makes me think of, Caroline, is this reading challenge we didn't have on Modern Mrs. Darcy years ago. Like five plus years. We've never done it because it sounds hard to explain and like it's not a challenge.

[00:32:31] But the thing that I wanted to do was invite readers to, instead of setting a numerical goal, or instead of saying, read a book with a blue cover, read a book whose author shares your name, read a book that you, you know, didn't read in high school, instead of that, saying like, Here's your challenge. Let's read five knock-it-out-of-the-park, amazing books in whatever timeframe you want to set.

Because what I liked about that was it would totally change the way you decided what to read. Although I thought it might really paralyze some readers and make them feel like, Oh my gosh, I don't know how to pick. But what makes me think I might possibly love this.

But I thought that if the goal were to read widely, to try a variety of different things, and to count success as not checking a box, but going, oh, wow, that was fantastic.

CAROLINE: Oh, sign me up for that challenge, Anne. That is exactly what I'm looking for.

[00:33:26] ANNE: All right. Well, sketch me out a PDF so we can figure out, you know, what to do with it. But I would really love to invite you to think as you're planning what to read... You mentioned that you got distracted by like a good PR blitz on social media. I don't know if you do library, bookstore, shop your shelves, but whatever it is, as you're thinking, what might I read, what am I going to read now, how am I feeling about the book I'm in the middle of, that you'd be thinking, what do I hope that I will get from this?

You know, you said that you still felt a lot of tension in putting down books that aren't working for you. I think that's really a good thing. Like readers who are happy in their reading lives are trying different things. They're not just reading more and more of the same.

When you're reading more of the same, it's easier to put a book down because you have read a lot of the same thing, you know the world you're in. And what we want to do is like step outside of that so you can have that surprise and subsequent delight that comes from tasting something different from going somewhere that's new to you.

[00:34:33] But to think like, am I picking this up because it's short and I want to check a box. You already know to stop yourself if that's the story you're telling yourself. Because that's not what you ultimately want.

CAROLINE: Right.

ANNE: I do think there are writers of a certain kind of relationally based thriller that you might enjoy more than the ones that you've been reading. I don't think any genre is off limits to you and your quest to read for quality not quantity, but I am hearing what you're saying about how entertainment looks a certain way to you. And you do really value that reading experience that compels you to, and I may be riffing a little bit on what you said in your submission and not necessarily that you just voiced to our audience, but that compels you to read slowly. Like it took you forever to get through The Lincoln Highway, but you were really happy with that choice. Is that right?

CAROLINE: Yes. I just got the chills even thinking about the characters on The Lincoln Highway. And-

ANNE: Yes, that's a great sign.

[00:35:32] CAROLINE: There were Odyssey references in that book that my English teacher heart was loving. And yeah, it really still a year later is bringing me joy. So definitely.

ANNE: Okay. So I feel like you know, to a large extent, what to do. Maybe that mental image of five amazing books, maybe that call to ask yourself, what am I doing with my reading life right now, maybe those specific things will help you, but like you got this. You know what to do.

CAROLINE: Yeah. And Anne, what I really need to do is be more firm in not finishing books also. That's part of this also. So I'm, again, taking from you and not feeling guilty about not finishing. The more we talk, the more I'm like, Wait, okay, five books. That means I can put other books down if I'm not enjoying them. So that's in the back of my head also right now.

ANNE: Amazing. And Caroline and readers, the goal is not to read five amazing books in a row. Like that's not how the reading life works. It's the variety of experience and noticing how a certain piece of literature — does that sound too obnoxious — like how that meets where we are right now, that really matters.

CAROLINE: Yes.

[00:36:48] ANNE: But to read five amazing books over a year.

CAROLINE: Which is actually, you know, a hard order here. But I think that, with your help, I can do it.

ANNE: I believe in you. Okay. You want to talk titles?

CAROLINE: I do. Yes.

ANNE: I just said something existential about your reading life. Like what is it that you're making of your reading life? And it made me think of a Parker Palmer book that I wonder if it might be a good nonfiction selection for you. Do you know that name? Do you know anything?

CAROLINE: No, I don't.

ANNE: Parker Palmer is a contemplative writer who I would describe as writing in a tradition that is spiritual, but not necessarily religious. He's a Quaker. He has this series of books. The last published one I've read by him is called On the Brink of Everything. But the book of his that I would suggest that you start with is called Let Your Life Speak. And it is on the topic of calling and vocation. And by vocation, he doesn't necessarily mean English teacher or Christmas tree farm resident, but a broader way of: who are you at your core? How do you show up in the world? What are you here to do?

[00:38:00] And he talks about his journey and how by resisting his calling for a long, long time, it led him to some dark, dark places and how he realized all the ways he fought against his calling to his true vocation and how he was finally able to make that more incarnate.

He also talks about the seeds of his passions and what that might look like practically being lived out in his adult years were present from the very beginning of his life. He talks about wanting to make little picture books of airplane illustrations. And he said for a long time he wanted to be a naval aviator because airplanes. But he said he finally realized, well, yes, that was the topic. But what he was making was books.

CAROLINE: Right.

ANNE: And he is a writer, but he's other things as well, including really a teacher. But he has this way of writing that makes you, if you're Anne Bogel, sit down with a new tin of book darts and use every single one because at least once a page he drops a line that makes me go, Oh, that's so well put. Wait, I need to read that again to... Like, hmm, all these words are familiar, but I've never heard them put in that order. Like he's not saying something that's completely... he's not explaining, I don't know, rocket science or nuclear energy to me. Do you see how I just reached for the sciences?

CAROLINE: Yeah.

[00:39:17] ANNE: He's talking about living your life and yet he's able to put like a new 30-plus-year-old idea in front of me that makes my mind circle back to it throughout the day. He didn't really say that you were feeling unsettled after leaving teaching behind, but I don't think this would be a bad book for anyone to read. Whether you feel really secure in your vocation, then great. Read this. Great. You'll feel encouraged. You'll be like, oh, yes, that's exactly what it's like, Parker. Or you could read it and go, "I don't know what it's like. Tell me."

CAROLINE: Yeah, that sounds absolutely amazing. We had talked a little bit about being without a rudder in my reading life, but also, you know, I'm still trying to figure out my rudder in my regular everyday life also. So that sounds amazing.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. There are so many different directions we could go. And I think it depends on what you're interested in. I talked about Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy in last week's live recording from WriterFest. I think you'd really like that.

[00:40:25] I'm wondering about something like James by Percival Everett for your English-

CAROLINE: Oh, I loved James. Ah, Anne.

ANNE: Wonderful.

CAROLINE: That was such a wonderful, wonderful read for me. I mean, for everyone. But I love discussing it with my best work friend. We just adored that book. So that is the right track.

ANNE: Glad to hear it. I think you may enjoy Rebecca Searle, who writes realistic stories with just a dash of magic in them. And I wonder about Jacqueline Woodson, who writes these beautiful family stories about hard things, but with a really gentle touch and tone.

CAROLINE: I have read Jacqueline Woodson.

ANNE: And how did she do for you in the past?

CAROLINE: It was great. Yeah, I enjoyed it.

ANNE: Okay, I'm glad to hear it. There's lots we could talk about. But I want to maybe tell you about a romance.

CAROLINE: Okay.

ANNE: Are you up for that?

CAROLINE: I am up for that. I don't read a lot of romance, but I have dabbled in it. So I'm willing to try anything.

[00:41:28] ANNE: I know. So I've been stalling. So I'm giving you lots of choices. But I really like the sound of this particular book for you. You can tell me if you think it might be promising. So it's by Kate Clayborn. She's written several books we featured in the Summer Reading Guide, like Love Lettering and our seasonal previews. She wrote the Chance of a Lifetime trilogy that I love and adore and have read several times. But The Christmas Tree Farm got me.

And this story that she's written that's adjacent to one of her books in the Chance of a Lifetime series, it's not set on a Christmas tree farm, but it's got a snowed-in, very Christmassy vibe. Also, it's very short because it's a short story. It's only 77 pages. So I've told you nothing. But how do you feel about taking a chance on something off your beaten path?

CAROLINE: Yeah. That sounds like a low-stakes chance. I love it.

ANNE: A low-stakes chance. It is exactly that. Although the characters do not feel like they are in a low-stakes situation.

CAROLINE: Okay. Even better.

[00:42:27] ANNE: Even better. This story is called Missing Christmas. It came out in 2019. Just thinking about it makes me want to reread it for the holiday season. And if you have read, readers, Kate Clayborn's Chance of a Lifetime series, you might remember that male main character's best friend, whose name is Jasper, and thought, is Kate Clayborn planting seeds? Is he going to get his own book later? And he does get his own story, and he gets it here.

So we meet Jasper. He has a business. The line of work, I do not remember, and that is okay. But he's been working with his business partner, Kristen, for over five years. He is so in love with her. If you like pining in your stories, readers, this is a pining story.

So he's deeply in love with her and has been forever but they work together. And that work is going well. And they are such good friends. And he'd love to make it a different kind of relationship. But if he tried and it didn't work out and he would lose what he had before, then it's just not worth it. So he's not going to do it.

[00:43:43] But then they take a business trip right before Christmas, and they get snowed in with this lovely couple in someplace probably hard to access where they don't plow the roads. Just they're stuck together.

Kate Clayborn has all the tropes here, if you're a regular romance reader. Like forced proximity, they're snowed in together, only one bed. This is definitely a friends-to-lovers story overall. But Kristen is missing Christmas, and she really wanted to go home to be with her family for Christmas because they make a big deal about Christmas. But now she can't leave because of this blizzard. And Jasper is like, Have no fear. I will save the day. And he finds a way to get the ingredients to make her favorite cookies, and he wants to decorate and make her so happy.

And the older couple who's hosting them in their home are like, We totally see what's going on. How can we help? And it's just so sweet and cozy.

And she writes fade-to-black sex scenes in this story for readers who want to know that. And you can find out that Jasper's been through some hard things in his family relationships. But that's referenced. It's not the present-day story. What do you think? Would you try that?

[00:44:53] CAROLINE: I would try that, actually. Again, I'm pantomiming putting a blanket on over me. Yeah, that sounds interesting to me.

ANNE: All right. Well, I would be very interested in hearing what your low-stakes gamble ends up teaching you. Maybe that's not what entertainment looks like for you. But maybe it's like, ah, another category of cozy I can keep in my rotation.

CAROLINE: Yeah. I think you might be right.

ANNE: Okay. Caroline, of the books we talked about today, they were Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer, we talked about a bunch of authors you might consider reading next, and then we talked about Missing Christmas, your 77-page reading experience from Kate Clayborn, what do you think, Caroline? Of those books, what do you think you might read next?

CAROLINE: Well, Anne, I'm really just picturing myself, now that we're done selling Christmas trees, sitting by the fire and looking at my own Christmas tree in the twinkling lights. And I think I'm going to go with the Kate Clayborn. Sounds exactly what I'm looking for at this particular moment. And then I'll take the Parker Palmer and start a new year with some motivation and some life lessons.

[00:46:04] ANNE: I love the sound of that. Caroline, thank you for being so generous with your reading life and talking books with me today.

CAROLINE: Oh, seriously, Anne, thank you so, so, so much for this experience. It is absolutely wonderful to talk to you.

ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Caroline, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find the list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

And remember, we are taking the next two weeks off, but we'll be back in your podcast players in January with my best books of 2024. Be sure you're subscribed so you'll be notified as soon as our first episode of 2025 is available. That's at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

Follow along with us over on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext, where it's easy to share your favorite episode with your friends or chime in on the latest episode's book talk.

[00:46:59] Thanks to the people who made this episode happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wilkoszewski, 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.