Short books that still feel substantial

[00:00:00] LEE WEICK: Also, some of the ones I'm really interested in are in that very, very long book list. And so for me to get to them, I have to have you tell me some short books I can read so I can get to those long biographies.

ANNE BOGEL: I will see what I can do.

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

[00:00:51] Readers, the Summer Reading Guide release is just around the corner, which means it's the time of year we welcome many new members to our Patreon community. When you join us there, you get immediate access to all our past Summer Reading Guides and seasonal previews, plus our weekly bonus episodes, and of course, this year's 15th Summer Reading Guide and Live Unboxing event. Choose from monthly or annual membership options that help you enjoy all that we do over in Patreon while also financially supporting our show and our team.

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[00:01:35] Readers, today I'm happy to get to talk books with Lee Weick, a Michigan-dwelling former teacher and grandmother who knows that variety keeps her reading life going. She loves big, long books and is most satisfied with her reading life when she's reading those big books on a regular basis. And she already has half a dozen such books that she's looking forward to reading on her to-be-read list. But as you will hear, Lee has learned that the rhythms of her reading life require a nice, steady supply of books on the shorter side, or she'll never be able to read the 800 or 900-page ones.

The sticking point here is Lee is feeling stuck when it comes to finding those shorter reads, especially those right around 200 pages. Less would not be unwelcome, but she wants them to still feel substantial, thought-provoking, and interesting.

Well, I personally keep an eye out for audiobooks about this length. I love a short audiobook, so my mind is already bursting with ideas for Lee. But I can't wait to hear more from her about what she enjoys, especially what kinds of books she finds interesting, because that's a really personal question. I hope by the end of our time together, I can put a few shorter books on Lee's radar that sound right up her alley. Let's get to it.

[00:02:52] Lee, welcome to the show.

LEE: I am thrilled to be here, Anne. Thanks for having me.

ANNE: Oh, the pleasure is mine. I'm excited to dig in today. Lee, we love to start by just giving our listeners a glimpse of who they are hearing from. Would you tell us a little about yourself?

LEE: I'm a former teacher, the mother of eight and grandmother of one delightful granddaughter named Daisy, which I know is a name near and dear to your heart.

ANNE: Yes, it is.

LEE: I'm coming to you from Northern Michigan, but I grew up in Georgia. One of my favorite things was when I was a teacher, I loved teaching reading. Even now, when I have an opportunity to tutor children, I love to teach reading. Initially, it was to first graders and then to my own children, who are some of the most well-read, voracious readers I've ever met. They have a sibling book club, which obviously I'm not a party to, but it's a great...

ANNE: You can still be happy to know what's happening.

[00:03:53] LEE: Yes, absolutely. Delighted. I'm on staff with a nonprofit called World Orphans. We focus on family preservation. And in my free time, I enjoy lake activities and baking, but mostly reading. And the best times are always the ones with my granddaughter, who lives down the road.

ANNE: Well, that sounds lovely. Now tell us about your reading life, whatever you think we need to know.

LEE: Well, my father taught me to read when I was about four, and I've been a voracious reader ever since. As a child, I especially loved biographies. So in second, third, fourth grade, I read every biography in the library. That came back to me during college when I had little time to choose my own reading. I had so much reading to do for school, but in order to stay on track of just being able to read what I wanted to, I would go to the library and pick a biography from each letter of the alphabet. So I read through the alphabet biographies just to stay on track with some other reading.

[00:05:01] I've also thought as an adult that I didn't like magical realism but then I realized that one of my favorite books as a child was a book called Fog Magic. And that is exactly what it is. It's very historical kind of fiction, but with a significant magical element. And I found that delightful.

As a busy mother, I always read at bedtime. I fell asleep with my nose in a book frequently and had to reread pages, but I made it a habit because that was the only time of day I could just sit and read what I wanted to read. My children love that I read one James Michener novel during each pregnancy. So eight James Micheners.

ANNE: Those are big ones, too.

LEE: They always want to know, well, which one did you read when you were pregnant with me? While I was teaching literature and writing in our homeschool co-op, that kept me engaged with classic rereads and a few new titles. But when my friend Pam learned that I hadn't read a book published after about 1970 in decades, she urged me to join her book club. And it was life-changing.

[00:06:10] I really had a bias against contemporary literature and frequently would go through periods where I only read classics. But she and that book club introduced me to so many wonderful new titles. And they relied on me for the classics. So these days I read a wide variety. I really do like variety. That's what keeps me going. I love historical fiction. I love family drama, mysteries, magical realism a bit.

And I enjoy trying the unusual. For example, The English Understand Wool and The History of Sound are two that I read in the last year that were unlike... each of those was unlike anything I'd ever read before. And I enjoyed them. But I also like my old reliable favorites like Jane Austen and a new favorite, thanks to you, Maggie O'Farrell. My favorite three living authors are Maggie O'Farrell, Erik Larson, and Amor Towles. Although none of them show up in my books that I'm going to bring.

[00:07:17] ANNE: Well, look how you just snuck them right in.

LEE: Yeah, they deserve a shout-out. They're so great.

ANNE: All right. Thank you for the backdrop. Now, you've been listening for a couple of years. What brings you to What Should I Read Next? now? Where are you in your reading life and what are you looking for?

LEE: I noticed that I was reading a certain type of book over the last few years. It was great because I'd been introduced to these new contemporary fiction. But I was reading books that all fell in the 350-to-450-page count and were primarily, not exclusively, but primarily contemporary fiction. I had a number of lengthy books on my TBR and really wanted to get to them.

Team of Rivals has been sitting on my nightstand for two or three years. And it's a long book, more than 700 pages. But I really wanted to read it. And so I was asking myself, "Why don't I pick it up and read it?" And I discovered that it was because I like having several different books going at the same time. I don't just read one book straight through. I want some variety. I'm a little bit of a mood reader.

[00:08:38] So I want to be able to dip in and out of some different topics or some things that feel different in their style. And if I start into a long book, I was concerned that it would just get tedious for me, that I needed something to dip in and out of. But when I would do that and then dip in a 400-page book, I would never get back to the long book. So I decided that if I had shorter books to go with the long one, I need something under 200 pages, maybe under 250 pages in that range, then I would be able to have the variety I want without pulling me away from the longer books. So that's why I'm coming to you is to help me find some high-quality shorter books. The long ones, I have no trouble. I'm hoping to read six or seven of them this year.

ANNE: Mm-hmm. Are they all stacked up with Team of Rivals? I mean, maybe not literally on your nightstand.

[00:09:35] LEE: In my mind. I mostly have the longer ones selected, but I'm having a hard time finding shorter ones that are of a good quality. I can find short books, but not things that have some depth or hold my interest.

ANNE: Ooh, okay. This may be a hard question, but, Lee?

LEE: Yes?

ANNE: Tell me more about depth. Like, what makes a novel feel substantial to you, even though it may be slim? And when you say you want it to hold your interest, I mean, what do you find interesting? The English Understand Wool tells me a lot. But that's just one example. I'd love to hear you reflect on this.

LEE: That is a very good question. I read such a wide variety of books that it's not a simple, straight-line answer.

[00:10:29] ANNE: I imagine you have a good idea about some reading experiences that are emblematic of what you're pointing toward. But also I wonder if we might be talking our way towards an answer a little bit.

LEE: Yes. I do think that we may find that it has to do with the interaction between people and seeing some of the inner life of a person and how they learn and grow and discover more about themselves. But it's also key to have that interaction between other people. So I think the relationships have a lot to do with it. I also think that some seriousness, some principles, some philosophy, even if it's light, doesn't have to be deep and heavy all the time. But something of substance.

ANNE: Again, substance. Say more about substance, please.

LEE: Okay.

ANNE: That sounded so bossy.

LEE: That's okay.

ANNE: Tell me, Lee, tell me.

[00:11:36] LEE: Yes. Layers, I think. Again, it doesn't have to be heavy or serious or hard, although that's okay, too. But to have some layers that are unfolding. Maybe a quest or a mystery.

ANNE: Okay. I'm intrigued by that idea of layers. I'm thinking about a book that doesn't give the reader everything there is in the story on the first reading. Like one that could stand up to poking and prodding and questioning.

LEE: Yes. I think you're headed in the right direction. If you even think about The English Understand Wool, that's-

ANNE: Okay, tell us about that book since we're referencing it as a type for you several times.

LEE: It's very short. It's very pithy. The main character is a young girl, a young woman who most people would say has been badly treated. I don't want to give away too much. But I think people would look at her situation and assess it that she's been ill-treated in her life, but she does not perceive it that way at all.

[00:12:51] And so it's a little bit challenging to figure out what has actually gone on in her life. Who are these people in her life and what has happened to her unfolds mysteriously. And even by the end, it's not crystal clear, but seeing her inner life and how she perceives herself, I think that is something to do with showing different perspectives that people have on a situation. But it's exactly what you said, that everything about the book and what the author is trying to say, the meaning of it is not very clear immediately, and really needs to be re-read, talked about with someone else to get beneath the layers.

ANNE: And there's a lot going on in that book. It's tricksy and also it's like a send-up of the publishing industry and the psychological thriller. And the tone is really something else. This isn't even one of your favorites and yet we feel compelled to talk about it.

[00:14:09] You know, what else is interesting is The English Understand Wool is a novella as part of the New Directions series of interestingly, eye-catchingly packaged novellas. And I was noticing, just thinking about the kind of books that might be right for you, that some authors tend to write books that are short, but Helen DeWitt is not one of those authors. And I'm just now noticing that.

Like her most recent book that was published, Your Name Here, is extremely large. That would belong on the flip side of the books that belong in your reading life. But okay, I'm digressing. We're going to pull this back in. So when we're talking about books of substance that hold your interest, you've talked a little bit about the kinds of genres you enjoy, so we're really looking to give you the variety that's going to keep you going in your reading life, and especially with those longer books that you know you want to be able to prioritize reading.

LEE: Exactly.

[00:15:06] ANNE: Lee, you know how this works. You brought me three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately, and we'll explore books on the shorter side that you may enjoy reading next. How did you decide what books to bring to the show today?

LEE: That is so interesting how that process went, because if you had asked me a year ago, I think I would have had a completely different list of books. But I just sat down and quickly popped out three titles. And when I went back and looked at what I wrote down, they were not at all what I would have thought.

ANNE: Okay, I can actually tell you what titles you sent in when you submitted on Tuesday, December 3, 2024.

LEE: Okay.

ANNE: Summer at Buckhorn.

LEE: It's a great one.

ANNE: Which I'm not familiar with.

LEE: It's out of print.

ANNE: I love an out-of-print title in the books you love. Anna Karenina, and a book by Erik Larson — you said he's one of your three living favorites — Dead Wake.

[00:16:05] LEE: Yes, and I still love all those books. You know, and many of your guests say it is extremely difficult to pick three books. And I do love these three books I picked, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're my top three all-time favorites.

ANNE: Although in February 2025, you did choose one of the books I believe you're going to be sharing with us today.

LEE: I know.

ANNE: And What Alice Forgot and Dead Wake.

LEE: Also great.

ANNE: That's it for the glimpses into Lee's past that I have.

LEE: Okay.

ANNE: We have extinguished.

LEE: That is very interesting.

ANNE: So I like this going from the gut approach. Where did it lead you? What's the first book you love?

[00:16:53] LEE: The first book is called Vera, or Faith. It's by Gary Shteyngart. I've never heard of him before. I've never read anything else by him. My daughter recommended this book to me, and I was pretty skeptical. It's relatively new. I think it's been out only about a year, maybe a year and a half.

But it's a story of a family. The setting is dystopian America. This family is going under a lot of stress, just a tremendous amount of variety of stresses. And you see the family life through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl. She's the only child. And initially, she's introduced through her school experience where she's very different. She's very bright, very creative, ethnically unlike her classmates. And so you get some insight into her inner world that way, but also how she's relating to the adults in her life and the problems that they are going through.

[00:17:55] This is a hard, in some ways, painful book. It's very realistic, but also quirky and smart and funny and sweet and tender. Shteyngart really doesn't waste any words. It's a short book, but it's rich. I think what I love about it is the family relationships. The child's inner life is so fascinating and relatable. I think it's difficult to write a child well. She's on a quest. So that unfolding mystery of her quest is captivating. And it has a very hopeful tone.

ANNE: I've only read Our Country Friends by him, but I've heard good things about this one. I was so curious to hear what you would say.

LEE: It's a really wonderful, delightful book.

ANNE: Okay. Quirky, smart, sweet, tender. I'm making notes. Lee, what's the second book you love?

[00:18:58] LEE: Patriot by Alexei Navalny. He is a Russian... well, he's deceased now, but he was the counterpart, antagonist, if you will, to the current administration in Russia. And he was viewed as a troublemaker. He was a patriot. He wanted so much for his country, for people to be free, to be able to determine their own government, their own way of life. He really was enemy number one for Putin for a long time.

This book is his memoir, he talks about his childhood, his growing up, but it's written from a Russian prison. And much of the time he is going through isolation, torture, ill health. It talks about his philosophy, his politics, a lot of humor, has some letters to his family. It is one of the most compelling books I've ever read.

[00:20:12] I have so much admiration for him. He's passionate. He's funny. He's hopeful. His aspirations for his country were frustrated and his liberty assaulted in the worst possible ways from the very darkest Russian prisons. He writes matter-of-factly and humbly with humor and hope. And it kind of reminded me of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, just some of those tones of "I'm experiencing the worst that human beings can do to other human beings, but I press on and I am hopeful".

ANNE: Now, you mentioned you love to read biographies.

LEE: Yes.

ANNE: Is this the kind of book we'd see in your mix very often?

[00:21:03] LEE: From time to time. I read a great many biographies when I was younger. I don't find as many biographies now that I'm interested in. Also, some of the ones I'm really interested in are in that very, very long book list. So for me to get to them, I have to have you tell me some short books I can read so I can get to those long biographies.

ANNE: I will see what I can do. But yes, as I picture the biographies that I anticipate reading on my bookshelf, 800, 900 pages or more, not uncommon.

LEE: Yes, that's right.

ANNE: But I'm typically glad I made time for them when I do. Lee, what's the third book you love?

LEE: The third book is The Count of Monte Cristo. And I would say this one is amongst my top all-time favorites and often, I would say, is my number one favorite book of all time. And it's a long one. It's an epic adventure story. It's inspired by a real-life case, actually.

[00:22:16] It has full of twists and turns. The main character, Edmond Dantès, is accused of a crime he did not commit. And the agonies and frustrations and resentments that build in Him lead to much of the plot of the rest of the story. His frustrations and his suffering are painful, but I find that I appreciate and value reading about the pains and the frustrations of a person's life as long as there's hope and they keep moving forward. I think that's what I loved about Edmond Dantès.

He's very real and relatable. Even though his character has some flaws, he's an imperfect human being, as we all are, and makes some questionable choices, he's still quite lovable. I was rooting for him, even though there were times when I thought, oh, he's taking some bad turns. He's not the type of person maybe I would want to be in all instances. But he's the type of person many or most of us are in certain situations. So he's very relatable and very lovable.

[00:23:41] I did have an opportunity to actually visit a castle in Switzerland on Lake Geneva that was a castle that inspired Alexandre Dumas when he was writing this story.

ANNE: What?

LEE: Yes. I walked around that castle. I didn't take the tour that they wanted to give me. I just spent hours wandering around the castle and sitting and reflecting on what Alexandre Dumas must have been thinking when he was there. And then as he was writing The Count of Monte Cristo, he used that as a type for the Château d'If that is featured heavily in the book.

ANNE: Well, that's incredible. Was that after you'd read the book?

LEE: Yes. I've read the book three times, I think.

ANNE: I was going to say, I would have wanted to read it again after that.

LEE: Exactly. I read it once when I was relatively young, and then I brought it to our book club who almost didn't agree to read it because it's so long.

[00:24:43] ANNE: How many pages is it? I listened to the audio, which I remember being 45 hours.

LEE: I'm really not sure, but I want to say it's around 800, maybe. It's one of the longest books I've ever read. It could be longer than that.

ANNE: Maybe it's better to listeners considering it if they don't know.

LEE: Yes. It's long, but it's very engaging. Very, very engaging.

ANNE: It's telling that you've loved it enough that it's been consistent in your favorites over time, and you've read it multiple times. And thank you for what you said about pain and frustrations and how you're looking for that to relate to hope in your stories. That's helpful.

LEE: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: Okay. Lee, tell me about a book that wasn't right for you.

LEE: I sometimes hear people say that this was difficult. I didn't find this difficult at all. In fact, I thought of a number of books that weren't right for me. But I chose one particularly because it's a good book. I believe it's well-written. So it's not that the book didn't have quality. It's that it wasn't right for me.

[00:25:50] It's The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. And it has lovely writing. She's a brilliant writer. It's very atmospheric, and I did like that part. But even though it's quite short, I found myself sloshing through it. I had to force myself to finish it. And I think the reason is because there was no dialogue. I started to say not enough dialogue. But if I'm remembering correctly, there was almost no dialogue. There are no other people. It's mostly this one girl who has escaped servitude, wandering through and trying to survive the wilderness. And it just became very same, same to me.

[00:26:41] So I enjoyed the first few pages, and I thought, "Oh, this is intriguing. It's very atmospheric." So I kept waiting for where it was going to go next, and it seemed like it kept going to the same places, or they were very similar places. It just became very repetitive to me, or had the same feeling.

And I didn't enjoy some of the gross descriptions that some people get a big kick out of. I think I might have appreciated this character, the young girl, as a person. But I had no opportunities to observe her interacting with others. And I didn't know this before, but on reflecting about this book and why I didn't like it, it has come to my attention that that matters to me.

[00:27:32] So, for example, even in a Michener book, you have a similar thing to this description of a wilderness. At the very beginning of those books, he lays the groundwork for the rest of the novel by talking about the prehistoric place. All his books are focused around a place. So he describes the prehistoric setting in pretty great detail. And there's no people and no interaction between people. And just when I would think I can't bear this another minute, he stopped and went on with the story. And the people came, and they began to interact and talk. And Lauren Groff's book never did that.

ANNE: Okay. Yeah, well, her interactions happen at a distance. I can remember one man she sees after she flees, and then in her memory. And you were hoping for more like immediate, vivid descriptions of people relating to each other in your fiction in general.

LEE: Apparently.

ANNE: Apparently. Okay, we're going to go with it for our purposes today. Until we decide to do otherwise, we're going to go with it. Lee, what have you been reading lately?

[00:28:44] LEE: Recently, I listened to audio. And I'm not a huge audiobook person, but if I'm driving more than a couple of hours, I will listen to an audiobook. And this one was perfect audiobook. It's called Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench.

ANNE: I listened to that on audio on a road trip.

LEE: Oh, it's the only way. I've never seen the book in print, but I cannot imagine reading that book any other way than audio. Judi Dench is delightful. She's brilliant and funny. And the book is an interview with her, as you know.

I felt like I got a mini course in Shakespearean literature via Judi Dench and a little bit of the theater, like behind the scenes of theater. And it's about her life, but a lot of it is about Shakespearean plays and how they were presented and the British theater. And I just found that delightful.

[00:29:48] I've also been reading The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon by Beth Brower.

ANNE: You and everybody else [inaudible 00:29:55].

LEE: Yes. Yes. It's very, very popular. Wildly popular. I am really enjoying them, especially in contrast to some heavier things. So that's where I enjoy kind of that mood reading or that bouncing off of if I'm reading something very serious or a little more dry than to have something like Emma M. Lyon to dip into as fun. I appreciate The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon because they are delightful, have some humor, they're lighter, but they're not fluff. I think there's some good character development, there's some topics that we all deal with that Emma walks through, but the best part about it is it puts me in a place I want to be. And that is Victorian England, or any England.

ANNE: Well, then I'm glad you found them. And there's plenty of them, so that can be your Victorian escapism for quite a while.

LEE: Yes.

[00:30:56] ANNE: How are those working as perhaps counterbalances to these long books?

LEE: Initially, okay, because the first couple are fairly short, but they get longer as you go along, so the tone of them work well for that purpose, but the length of the later ones, again, has me swept into Emma M. Lyon for too long and neglect my Lonesome Dove that I want to read.

ANNE: Okay. So you'd like something that's more a distinct standalone reading experience?

LEE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. That is helpful. Now, Lee, you've told us what you're looking for in your reading life. You're looking for books that are... how many pages or hours? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

[00:31:53] LEE: Well, absolutely under 300 pages, but it would be okay if they were 250-ish, just something that I can read in a day or two in order to have the variety and little palate cleansers in between, that sort of thing. I don't want them to be much longer than that.

ANNE: Okay, so if what we're looking for is the pendulum to swing back the other direction from something like Team of Rivals or The Count of Monte Cristo, we do actually want to make it swing?

LEE: Yes.

ANNE: All right. Well, what else do you want me to know? Because there's so many different directions we can go in, and I'm happy to choose. I don't know if you've heard me jotting things down, crossing them out again.

LEE: Sure.

ANNE: I mean, I got ideas for you, but if there's anything else you want me to know for your wishlist?

[00:32:43] LEE: There is one thing that I would like you to know, because I've said that I can handle the pain, the frustration, the hard things of life, as long as there's progress and hope. But I have stumbled on a couple of kinds of things that I don't want and I can't. I apparently can't handle or don't want to handle. The best example, it's abuse. And it isn't even... it's not someone remembering or having the emotions or the trauma from having been abused. It's the descriptions of abuse. So I could not read The Names. I started it and after the first instance of humiliating, awful abuse, I couldn't go on.

ANNE: And The Names is intense, the Florence Knapp book.

[00:33:34] LEE: It's very intense. That is not for me. I couldn't even go very far in Demon Copperhead because it talked a lot about... I want to read that book. I think maybe at some point in some time in my life, I can go back to it because I know it's a good book. But abuse, that humiliating, it isn't... you know, murder I'm okay with, but abuse, not so much. If The Names, I mean, maybe somebody would tell me, "It's going to be helpful. It is. Just stick with it," well, maybe I could.

ANNE: It's not.

LEE: Well, that's what I thought.

ANNE: I do think it can be helpful tonally to know what world you're in. And when you begin The Names, you are in that world. And that world stays pretty steady.

LEE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. Interactions between people, the inner life, how a person learns and grows. That's what we're looking for. Let's recap. You love Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart, Patriot by Alexei Navalny, and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Not for You was The Vaster Wild by Lauren Groff. You are looking for interactions between people. And you did not enjoy the descriptions of like the dead dogs lying in the road. Not for you.

[00:34:48] Lately, you've been enjoying Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench. And we both listened to the audio where Brendan O'Hea interviews her and also Beth Brower's The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lyon. And we are looking for books that really deliver on that short, substantial... you enjoy books that have a kind of philosophy or principles about them, even if it's not stated. Let me think. I feel like we could start with what will be an exceptional pick for you or really, really terrible. And we are going to find out.

LEE: Okay.

ANNE: I'm thinking of the nonfiction book that is not a biography, Wedding Toast I'll Never Give by Ada Calhoun. Do you know her? Do you know this?

LEE: I think I've heard of that book, but I'm not familiar with it. No.

[00:35:46] ANNE: I think I might've read this at the recommendation, or at least I definitely talked about it with our team member, Ginger Horton. I know we both read this and enjoyed it. This is Ada Calhoun's nonfiction personal essay collection about... I mean, it's Wedding Toast I'll Never Give. What she means by that is, hey, I've got some real frank thoughts about relationships that I would never stand up and say at the beginning of someone's marriage, but like, do I think them and believe them with my whole heart? Yes. So not appropriate to say there. I'm going to put them in this book instead.

And this book actually came into being because of a Modern Love column she wrote for the New York Times that went viral. I do not know which essay in this collection that was. I'm sure I looked it up after reading, but I have no idea now. But Lee, I know that you have been married a long time, I believe.

LEE: Yes.

[00:36:38] ANNE: Okay. If somebody had handed me this book after I'd been married for one year, I would have been horrified. But that's not me. And I thought this was so funny and frank, like to give you a taste of how it hits differently when we... we'll have our 26th anniversary this year. So Ada Calhoun said that somebody told her once, "Oh, the first 20 years of marriage are the hardest." And she talks about how at the time she thought that was a joke, but it wasn't at all. Or I think she quotes... she might be quoting her mom once when she says, even good marriages sometimes involve flinging a remote control at the wall.

But this is about marriage, relationships, infidelity, divorce, and lots of personal growth. Ada Calhoun is not afraid to have a take here and argue her point. But also, she talks about ways she's revised her beliefs along the way.

[00:37:35] It might be worth mentioning, and you can read about this because she wrote an auto-fictional novel called Crush about this. But she did get divorced after writing this. But it's called Wedding Toast I'll Never Give. It's short. The audio itself is something like three and a half hours. So the page count of this smaller format work is going to put you in that 200 pages or less sweet spot. How is this sounding?

LEE: It sounds delightful. It's hard to know, you know, until you experience it. I agree with your initial assessment that it's probably something that would be you love it, or you really don't. But it sounds like fun.

ANNE: I think this would be a book that if you like to talk about your reading with others, there's a lot of good conversational fodder here. Whether you think, oh my gosh, she articulated that thing that I've always kind of believed, but haven't been able to put into words so well, or whether you think, that is wrong, and let me tell you why I think so. I think it could lead to really good conversations if you enjoy that.

LEE: Yes, very much.

[00:38:35] ANNE: Okay, that is Wedding Toast I'll Never Give by Ada Calhoun. Now, I want to say that... well, here, let's find out if you’ve read it yet. Have you had any Miriam Toews? I'm thinking of Fight Night specifically.

LEE: Nope.

ANNE: Not sad to hear it. She's a Canadian writer. And she's written fiction and nonfiction. This is a short novel about three generations of women in one family. This just came out a few years ago. The narrator is mostly a nine-year-old girl. Her name is Swiv. And when she is expelled from school for fighting, her family is upset. She starts spending her days with her frail, but spunky grandmother, who has an unconventional approach to homeschooling her nine-year-old granddaughter.

[00:39:30] So her grandmother says, "Okay, Swiv, you are to write letters about what's happening in your life and in our family to your father, who has been away since their mother got pregnant." And she's supposed to update him on her mother's third-trimester pregnancy. Swiv is like, "Well, okay, if I have to write these letters, then I want you to write some of her own." So her grandmother is also assigned writing about the family.

But the women in this family, I mean, the grandmother especially, feel larger than life. You mentioned in talking about the Shteyngart that kids are hard to write well. Swiv has such sass and character without feeling obnoxious, like sometimes adults write kids, which makes it, at least for this reader, easy to trust Toews as a writer.

[00:40:26] Swiv's mother is a pregnant actress. She is not as much in the picture as the other women in the family. She's mostly described coming and going, but she is a big personality, like all the women in this family have big personalities. There is a background of mental illness that the family is talking around that feels really scary to some people in the family. So there is definitely pain and sadness here and frustration. The father's gone. That's discussed as a big gap. And there's a bit of a question as to why for much of the story.

But there is definitely hope. The grandma makes at least one speech about joy and how important it is when times are hard. And this has a really lovely wrap-up at the end. Not all like pat tied in a bow, but it feels really fitting. It's darkly funny. I mean, there aren't a lot of books around like this one. How's this sounding?

[00:41:27] LEE: That sounds amazing. It strikes me as unique and perfect. So many topics it touches on that are near and dear to my heart. So it really sounds like it'll be perfect.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. And then finally, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd pick this up, but have you read Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional?

LEE: I'm aware of it. I've not read it.

ANNE: This one has a broodier tone where we talked about the Ada Calhoun nonfiction and Miriam Toews' Fight Night. Both of those feel like brighter and brasher. This one is definitely moodier. It's slim. It was shortlisted for the Booker. It's Australian. And it was described to me before I picked it up as a book that sounds quiet but reads as anything but.

[00:42:22] And you do get a lot of inner life musings in this story. But you also see this Sydney woman who has retreated to take up residence, not as an initiate, but she's living at a convent and lodging there far from home on the plains of New South Wales. She has taken a leave of absence from her life, from her work, from her family, from her marriage. And when she first comes to the convent, she's just literally lying on the floor for many hours a day thinking, like, how did I get here? So lots of inner life. But we do see her interact with people as well.

There's a series of three arrivals that happens in this story. When we were talking about books that have substance and layers and a structure that will hold when you push on it, that doesn't give everything up on the first reading, that you really could dig under and around and see what the author is up to, this structure of the visitations, I think, could be interesting to explore.

[00:43:30] But there are these visitations, and they really disrupt our narrator's peace and call her for different reasons to contemplate her past and future life. Now, one of these visitations is an overwhelming invasion of mice. And the descriptions of these were like... they're kind of icky. I'm thinking now of how you said you didn't like the descriptions of some of the things in nature found in The Vaster Wild. They're brief, but she wants you to know that overwhelming invasion of mice, she's being serious about that overwhelming part. And there's a couple of brief descriptions that give you a sense of the scope here. But also the mortal remains of one of the convent sisters who died far away for reasons that are gone into arrive back to rest at the convent. And that kicks up a lot of excitement and gossip among the nuns.

[00:44:24] And then there's a climate activist who comes to visit and our narrator knew her in a past life. And that relationship brings up all kinds of emotions for the Sydney woman who's taking refuge at the convent. There's not a clear plot, exactly. You don't get to the end and be like, "Oh, I see how that resolved." But if you like the sound of a book that's contemplative, about kind of blowing up your whole life, I think this is that book. How does that sound?

LEE: That sounds intriguing. It sounds fascinating. And I believe I will like it if I can get past the mice. My kids will tell you that I loathe mice. I would rather meet a snake than a mouse. However, since you've warned me about it, and you said they're brief, and they don't have to be in the room with me, I think I can handle. I'm willing to give it a go, because the rest of it sounds so brilliant. And that I would very much enjoy that I think I can face the mice.

[00:45:38] ANNE: I am glad to hear it. I don't believe it's necessary to linger on those descriptions. I think you'll be just fine without them.

LEE: Yes.

ANNE: You're not going to miss anything crucial.

LEE: When you said taking a leave of absence from her life, that was a really appealing thought. Because from time to time, I have that thought. It would be nice to just go take a leave of absence from life and contemplate who you want to be. But I don't really want to do it. So I'd love to read about it.

ANNE: Well, maybe this could be your vicarious one.

LEE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. But let's give you a backup in case.

LEE: Okay.

ANNE: Have you read The Summer Book by Tove Jansson?

LEE: No.

ANNE: Do you know it at all?

LEE: No, not at all.

ANNE: 160 pages, 1972. Are we going to call that a modern classic?

LEE: Sure.

[00:46:36] ANNE: So Jansson is Finnish, I believe. This was originally written in Swedish. This is a book in translation. It reads almost as a series of just like really gentle short stories about a grandmother and her six-year-old granddaughter spending the summer together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland.

So this is also gently paced with just these beautiful, lush descriptions of the natural world. And there's heavy and light here, but both are handed with gentleness and just like this undercurrent of deep goodness and the relationship between the grandmother and granddaughter. And you said a couple of things, both about your reading and about your life, that made me think, maybe. How does that sound?

LEE: That sounds beautiful. I find that very appealing, not the least of which because I am spending a lot of time with my seven-year-old granddaughter.

[00:47:30] ANNE: I am glad to hear it. And then can I just share a few authors that tend to write short books?

LEE: I would love that.

ANNE: There's all kinds of healing fiction that's so popular in Japanese fiction and Korean fiction right now, like We'll Prescribe You a Cat. You know, I just said that I was going to share authors with you, but okay, there's a specific book. But also that whole genre, it often comes in right about the length you're looking for. But also Katie Kitamura, Kevin Wilson, Julie Otsuka, Graham Greene, Susie Boyt, Paulette Jiles, Joan Silber. You have a lot of authors who often write books that are like 220 to 240 pages.

And we didn't really talk directly, we talked a little bit before recording about how some of what goes into page count is like trickery and packaging and it's not as helpful as it might be. There's no objective, like, this is what a 200-page book feels like. It's not the word count. But they do tend to write books that I think are about the length you're looking for to counterbalance, say, Team of Rivals.

[00:48:42] Okay, Lee, of the books we talked about today, they were Wedding Toast I'll Never Give, the nonfiction by Ada Calhoun, Fight Night by Miriam Toews, Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, and The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, of those books, what sounds good? What do you think you might read next?

LEE: They all sound like must-reads. And I'm delighted and amazed that you were able to mention so many books and authors that I'm really not very familiar with. But the one that rose to the top and just shone for me is Fight Night. So I'm going to read that one first, but I suspect I'll read them all.

ANNE: Well, I hope you really enjoy it. And I hope it is able to power you through the long books that you know you want to read this year. Lee, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking books with me today.

LEE: It's been delightful for me, and I really appreciate you having me. Looking forward to reading these.

ANNE: I can't wait to hear how it works out.

[00:49:46] Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Lee, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Lee on Instagram. We have that link plus the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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[00:50:44] Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, Media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.

Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.