The art of discovering go-to authors

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.

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Readers, now I'd love to introduce you to today's guest who is struggling with bookish overwhelm. Katherine Kwong is a Southern California-raised reader who now lives in Nashville, where she enjoys visiting the library, crafting, and a unique hobby you will hear about today. She knows what she enjoys on the page, from fantastical stories to well wrought endings. But finding the books to deliver those experiences is not always so easy.

[00:02:01] Today, Katherine is interested in finding new ways to understand her own reading selections, including identifying authors she'll be able to connect with from book to book, and also gently expanding her comfort zone by reading in genres she's overlooked in the past. I will help Katherine identify a fresh way to conceive of her reading choices and aim to share a selection of titles that speak to her current reading goals.

Let's get to it.

Katherine, welcome to the show.

KATHERINE KWONG: Thank you, Anne. It's really great to be here.

ANNE: Oh, my gosh, the pleasure is mine. Thank you so much for sharing your reading life with our listeners today. Our whole team was really excited at your submission. So thanks for sending it in.

KATHERINE: You're welcome. Oh, I'm really excited about this.

ANNE: I'm so glad. We are especially intrigued by your bookworm problem, but we will get there. Katherine, let's start by just giving the readers a glimpse of who you are.

[00:02:56] KATHERINE: I guess I would describe myself as a curious person. I'm interested in a lot of things. It is fairly difficult for me to be bored in most situations. I am from Southern California, but currently, I am a recent two-year-old transplant to Nashville, Tennessee, where I've been introduced to seasons. Haven't yet eaten hot chicken. I am afraid to. But have discovered a lot of other things like wonderful parks, local bookshops, some hobbies that I'm now currently in.

But just like my day job, I am a team manager on a customer experience team for an eyewear company, so I know a lot about glasses, contacts, vision service offerings, and basically just make sure that my team is equipped to provide the best customer service that they can to folks that we have reaching out to our support team.

Then when I am not working, I enjoy watercolor, painting, reading, of course, listening to podcasts definitely, and then have recently picked up learning German longsword as well.

[00:04:07] ANNE: Okay, You have to tell me a little bit about that. How does one get into German longsword?

KATHERINE: The way that I first heard about it was my older brother discovered it in grad school. It's part of something called HEMA. That's an acronym. So it's Historical European Martial Arts. So it's just a group of folks that are dedicated to the preservation and practice of fighting with medieval weapons the way they did when those were the only weapons to fight with. So basically, how to train the way that soldiers in the 12th century and moving up in history used those weapons.

So German longsword specifically is using a two-handed longsword. So pick your fantasy of type that have longswords and like great sword fights. So it's that type of weapon. But the learning of it involves a lot more of like the technicalities that maybe we would associate with like Olympic fencing, like all that fine footwork, very little sword blade movement, and a real concentration on fitness and technique.

[00:05:14] So, anyway, there is a club here in Nashville that teaches this. So I've been doing it now for about six months with a group of other students. Have made some really great friends through it. And it has just been something that's been a real joy for my inner child because I was the type of kid that loved Robin Hood and King Arthur and just wanted to be a knight very badly.

Anne: Oh.

KATHERINE: And now it's more or less happening through this hobby, which has been really neat.

ANNE: Well, Katherine, I love that your curiosity has led you to explore this area and find joy and friends in Nashville.

KATHERINE: Yeah, me too. It's been neat.

ANNE: Katherine, tell me a little bit about your reading life.

[00:06:00] KATHERINE: My reading life. This is always the... When I've listened to other guests, I'm like, This is a fascinating, enormous question. I think something about it is I, at least at the moment, am open to it having some change or a curveball thrown into it, because reading was always my strongest subject when I was a student in elementary school. So it automatically became one of the go to things just about me as a little person then and has continued on into my late 20s.

I think my reading life for the most part is steered by probably curiosity. There's actually a great observation that my younger brother made once. He said that there's two types of readers in the world. He said, "There are people whose life informs their reading and people whose reading informs their life."

[00:07:00] I am the latter of those. So I really do let a lot of my reading inform my life. So sometimes it's also then the things that I'm interested in that steer me towards those books. Big library user. Love paperbacks. I do have a Kindle. I've given audiobooks a try once or twice. Definitely loved them as a kid, but haven't met too many audiobooks recently that I've really enjoyed.

ANNE: I was intrigued by what you said in your submission about how your books reflect various stages of your life. Would you tell me a little about that?

KATHERINE: Yes. So the stages, a lot of it is associated with the memories that I have of like when I acquired the book and for what reason. So, for instance, the books that I have from my time in college, for instance, some of them are definitely texts that I read for class, and they were the ones that kept getting chosen. Like, I'm keeping these.

[00:08:03] When you're kind of going through all your stuff after college, like all the papers, all the books, all the printed-out essays that you have. So I have a couple of books that have continued to make the cut from those cleanouts that I have kept partly for just remembering how much I was impacted reading those, and then where I was like.

For instance, some of the books I have are from traveling abroad in the UK during my sophomore year. So I have kept those. Some of them I also see as deliberate choices in college to be like, I've never read this genre. I'm going to get a book in this genre.

So for instance, I have the graphic novel Nimona by Noelle Stevenson that I got right after I graduated. And I was like, graphic novels like… For the most part, comics were things in newspapers that I had read. I knew about the larger DC Marvel ones. We read Calvin and Hobbes and Tintin. But such a graphic novel like Nimona was not something that I had read before.

[00:09:03] So then that is part of the post-college group of books that are just kind of different genres. There's some different YAs that I read not at a YA age, graphic novels. Some of them I definitely see are books that I picked up based on interest. I have another graphic novel that's about audio-making and podcasting.

ANNE: Yeah, Which one is that?

KATHERINE: Out on the Wire.

ANNE: Out on the Wire.

KATHERINE: Yeah. Jessica Abel, I believe.

ANNE: I only know one graphic novel that meets that description, and I was wondering if it was the same as you. And indeed.

KATHERINE: Yeah, it's a neat one. Now that I'm well out of college now, I think I have this sense that there should be some go-to authors that I'm interested in or there should be some other genres that I should just be trying out and feel more adventurous about that. But instead, I find myself encountering a lot of hesitancy.

[00:10:05] One of the things that has helped that is getting more into a friendlier mystery category. That's been enjoyable. But I think there's definitely I'm looking to get out of my comfort zone. And because I'm curious about a lot of things, I find that the edge of my comfort zone is ill-defined because I always think I could be interested in that. But I won't know until I try it. So it's like, am I slightly more interested in this thing or the other?

And then a little bit of things sprinkled in there are like, ooh, is it a heavier nonfiction type of book? And then I'll just think, I really do want to learn about that, but I don't feel like this is the right time to be reading that. And then that will get applied to a variety of genres.

ANNE: That's interesting. We may come back to that a little more. Katherine, you've mentioned a couple of times that you're ready for a curveball and you want to be more adventurous and you want to branch out a little more. So I'm just noting that.

[00:11:10] Something else that really intrigued me was your description of how you feel in bookstores these days. So you mentioned that you're new to Nashville, you have your favorites, you're enjoying exploring the local indies, but that's… you don't feel super confident, at least when it comes to buying new fiction you haven't read. And I would love to hear more about all that.

KATHERINE: Yes. I feel like it's a good problem to have maybe. One of the first things overall is I just love how bookshops are laid out. Every store chooses to do it differently, but it's all with a great amount of intention.

So I always just, number one, love admiring the displays and then admiring all the book covers that are on the displays, especially if it's like an indie bookshop, I honestly feel kind of bad leaving if I don't buy something. I just believe in what they're doing so much. And especially if somebody put so much care into a display, like how nice it is then to see people pick things up from the display and take them home.

[00:12:17] And I look at all of the covers. I am also in many ways a visual person. I love movies from the graphic novels. Image along with words is a strong pairing for me. I just feel like cover art has really just kind of stepped it up in the past couple of years. They're just really unique.

And as a result, it makes it difficult for me to pass. Like, okay, this cover seems really interesting and then I'll, you know, read the back and then I'll see another cover. Or sometimes I'll see cover art that looks similar, but basically the back will sound really interesting.

Then something will hit me in the back of my mind basically after I've done that or maybe taking a look at the table of contents maybe, and then I think, "What if I get halfway through it and I don't like it?"

Recently I have started to not finish books maybe more often, but that is usually after trying to give it a real, real go. Then I'll kind of feel bad that I was like, "Oh, I picked up this book and I don't love it." And then I'll be trying to think about what to do with it if I didn't like it. So that, I think, is where the wave of hesitancy just crashes into my brain.

[00:13:39] And then I'll put the book down and take a picture of it. Or if it seemed interesting enough, add it to my StoryGraph, and then I'll move further into the bookstore, either to some more familiar genres and then, yeah, feel wistful about it after I leave.

ANNE: Oh no. Okay, so right now we're just going to say there are no 'shoulds' here. I mean, there's not even a 'should' involved in buying new fiction at the bookstore. That was completely your words that you were interested in working up the confidence and courage to buy that new fiction you haven't read. Maybe we'll talk about that. We'll see if you really want to keep that as a goal.

But I feel like now's a good time to talk about your library habits, because, Katherine, you described yourself as a heavy library user who isn't necessarily up to speed on what you think of as current books.

[00:14:31] KATHERINE: I realized after writing that statement if it's possible for me to slightly amend that.

ANNE: Absolutely.

KATHERINE: I want to pick a different adjective. Because basically what happens is the medium and origin of which I read will fluctuate. Like I'll go through periods where everything I read is exclusively from the library. And then I'll hit a period where everything I'm reading is exclusively eBooks from the library on my Kindle. And then I'll hit a phase where everything I'm reading is from my own library.

ANNE: So which Newton's Law is this?

KATHERINE: I am not sure, honestly.

ANNE: But once you're on a roll, you stay on it?

KATHERINE: Right. I was consistent, which granted, based on that description, it doesn't sound the most consistent. Why don't we go for... I'd say the library is consistently part of my rotation in terms of where I get my books and where I like to find my books.

[00:15:32] ANNE: So it's a place where you frequently, cyclically both discover which titles you're going to read and acquire those titles for the reading.

KATHERINE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. I thought the part of your statement you might be amending is the part about you feeling behind on current books or new releases. Does that still resonate?

KATHERINE: That still resonates. Like I will pick up the book page reliably every time I'm in the library and, you know, be dog-earing some of the pages to be like, "Oh, this looks interesting. This looks interesting." Sometimes I will see the same authors mentioned, but because I've never read any of their books, I just think, "Oh, that's neat. They came out with another book, but I still have no idea what their genre or style is like."

I think it would be fun to be excited about someone at least that I perceive as a current author and like be looking forward to their next book. So that's definitely something that I have thought of.

[00:16:33] And then also just kind of parsing the landscape of realistic fiction, I feel like there are a lot of what I perceive to be current authors in realistic fiction, which has historically been a difficult genre for me. But some part of it is just perceiving that there's some kind of puzzle there that I'd like to understand more about.

ANNE: Is the puzzle your own interests?

KATHERINE: It probably is. Or just trying to figure out what makes one realistic fiction author different from another.

ANNE: Okay, that's so interesting. Katherine, I really noted earlier when you use the word "should" to talk about how you felt like you should have go-to authors and you should branch out. And of course, whenever one uses the word "should", like who was saying that's how it ought to be.

But then you just said it sounded fun. Like it sounded like it would be enjoyable, like it would make you... giddy might be taking it too far. But that you'd really enjoy recognizing authors having new works out, which feels different than "people seem to do this thing in the reading life, and I'm not one of them. I guess I should too." That's a different vibe to me.

[00:17:41] KATHERINE: Yes. I think, again, it's always a little bit of both for me. So I think, yes, there's definitely something that would feel fun about having kind of like a go-to author, somebody consistently that I am excited about reading more of their work.

And then I think in large part knowing the authors comes from some of the other book conversations I'm around where people, instead of mentioning titles or storylines, they mention the author and it's more about have you read so-and-so's type of thing?

And that is just a harder conversation for me to enter because I'm not familiar with the author. So book conversations also I sense like it'd be helpful for something like that.

ANNE: But you're curious. You'd like to find out.

KATHERINE: I would like to find out. Very much so.

[00:18:41] ANNE: Okay, Katherine, let's detour and talk about what you love and don't at this moment in time, and we'll explore moving forward from this point.

KATHERINE: Okay, sounds like a plan.

ANNE: Katherine, you know how this works. You're going to tell me three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately and we will move forward from there. How did you choose these books for today?

KATHERINE: Let's see. I chose these books in part because actually recalling back to the thing you mentioned when I talked about books and different stages, these three books are probably the best approximation of what I would say best represents my still forming book stages now, but are also just titles that I love.

So the first book that I picked is The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin. This is a second book in what was originally supposed to be a trilogy, but she ended up just making it a duology. The first book is called The City We Became.

[00:19:47] The summary of the story I would call it urban fantasy. The basic idea is that when a city... like just pick any major city in the world, every city has a human avatar. So there is a physical person with a name that represents a city.

So for instance, a character that makes an appearance in this book is a character named Sao Paulo, who is a representative of that city. Paris also makes an appearance. So they're people. They have histories. They have this deep connection with the city.

The World We Make is centered on New York City, which is unique amongst the cities of the world because each of the boroughs of New York City has an avatar.

So New York City's got five avatars in total. It's just a beautifully diverse representation of all the things that make up those boroughs of New York City. And they are currently engaged in a conflict that started in the first book that bleeds into the second book of basically a force that unmake cities.

[00:20:58] And a lot of the way that they are unmade is by stripping a city of what makes it unique. So that's not only its people, but its industries, the values it stands for, the culture and art that it makes, the way it welcomes people, things like that. So they're united together to fight against this force.

I think what I really love about what N. K. Jemisin does is she takes systems and beliefs that are very much at work in the worlds, you know, beliefs that are harmful, systems that disenfranchised people who are marginalized, and gives them this urban fantasy angle that has like just enough of both worlds, like just enough of grassroots advocacy that happens day to day in local government, but then also some of the good magical realism.

So it's just adventurous. The book reminds me just of the time that I lived in New York City as well. It is a truly New York book end to end. And N. K. Jemisin just has a wonderful way of engaging all five senses in print that makes you just very much feel a part of the story that she is telling.

[00:22:06] ANNE: Katherine, thank you for that description. And given the conversation we just had about not really feeling familiar with authors, I'm just noticing you've read at least two books by N.K. Jemisin, who I think The New York Times called the most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation. She's a MacArthur Fellow, won one of those genius grants.

I just want to point those things out for you. I love the way you describe that book. I really enjoyed the first book in this duology, but I haven't read... actually, funny thing, my Libby Hold came in a couple of days ago to listen to Robin Miles read me the second book. I read the first in print. I heard they both were amazing on Audio by Robin Miles.

KATHERINE: Oh, okay.

ANNE: I'm looking forward to that.

KATHERINE: I'm excited for you.

ANNE: That was The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin. Katherine, what is the second book you love?

[00:22:57] KATHERINE: The second book that I love is The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. I wanted to make sure to include a nonfiction in here. There's a good handful, I would say, of books I have like this that are nonfiction, but also feel just a little bit memoir-ish, but then I learned so much reading them.

The Art of Gathering was a fun one because I rented it on my Kindle from Libby twice, had to renew it twice, and then the queue for the waiting was too high, so I couldn't renew it a third time. So then I went to the library and got a physical copy, got farther through the book from there, and I was about, give or take a little over halfway in the library copy, and I said to myself, "I need to buy this book because there's too many spots where I want to dog-ear the page of this book, or put a Post-It or underline or want to come back to this particular section in this chapter.

[00:23:53] So I went to a local used bookstore here called McKAY's, which is lovely. It's a giant warehouse full of used books. I feel like stars aligned because they had exactly one copy and it was a hardcover and I bought it.

ANNE: I'm just laughing because very recently our team member, Leigh Kramer, she got to go to McKAY's for the first time in many years that she used to live in Nashville. I mean, the love for McKAY's runs deep.

KATHERINE: Yeah. They've got a very efficient operation back there. It's fascinating to watch.

ANNE: I'm so glad that happened for you. So tell me about The Art of Gathering and how this ended up being the nonfiction you picked as representative.

KATHERINE: I think one of the biggest things that stood out to me about it is it's also a book that I found by way of podcast interview. Brené Brown did an excellent interview with Priya Parker on her podcast Unlocking Us, which just strengthened my like, yes, I need to read this book.

[00:24:57] So what I loved about it is that Priya Parker, she has a very specific type of job and a really interesting set of experiences and credentials that make her very good at what she does, which my understanding is she does a lot of facilitation for dialog, conflict resolution, solution finding, brainstorming. And she does it for a lot of different kinds of organizations. Some of that's gone into diplomacy.

But the way that she talks about like when you gather a group of people, it has immense potential for many things. And the fact that she wants to kind of like empower folks who are having gatherings, regardless of whether it's like a birthday party or a dinner party or your business needs to decide like what its goals are for the next quarter, there are ways to make that meaningful.

So I think coming from a job where as a team manager I'm in a lot of meetings and thinking about how do people engage in these meetings? Why do some people seem to leave more energized than others about the meetings? How excited is the person who's presenting in the meetings? And what are ways that that can all be improved upon in a way that feels helpful for everyone and not just like business optimization?

[00:26:16] So just getting to learn about these different ways that people gather and the learnings that she's had from her own experiences of doing this. And she's also very honest about the ways in which it hasn't gone well. As someone who also loves to be prepared and again, loves knowing things, appreciate just her gracious approach to acknowledging where it hasn't been entirely successful for her, while also giving tools to others to be as successful as possible with practice in the gatherings that they host.

ANNE: I love that book as well. And readers, if you're thinking this sounds familiar, we've talked about it in What Should I Read Next? in our episodes with Mattie James. That was 342. And then we talked about it with Nadia Odunayo, the founder of StoryGraph—I know you're a user—in Episode 271.

Okay. That is The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker, who is also one of my favorite Instagram followers, if you all are on that platform.

Katherine, What did you choose for your final favorite?

[00:27:19] KATHERINE: For the final favorite, I really thought about like, Ooh, I've got to pick something that I feel like really encapsulates my love of fantasy. I have a very strong, vivid imagination. That's been something really important to me since I was little. So I chose Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

Susanna Clarke was an author that my older brother introduced to me way back when I had just started high school. He had this beaten-up, thick paperback that was called Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

ANNE: Which I still haven't read. Oh, my gosh. I have my brother's huge beat up [inaudible 00:27:58]-

KATHERINE: Hey, there we go. Go, brothers.

ANNE: ...that I either need to read or get back to him because I've had it for actually years now.

KATHERINE: Got it. It was a little brick of a paperback. I remember being really excited that that was an accomplishment to get through because it was so long. And then it was actually the same friend who recommended me The City We Became who said, "Hey, a friend of mine told me about this book called," and then we spent some time trying to figure out how to pronounce the title, "Piranesi."

[00:28:31] Again, it was the way that the story was pitched to me. The author didn't kind of click until a little bit later when I was at the bookstore. Also, McNally Jackson, Seaport location [inaudible 00:28:44] New York City, and picked up a hardcover of this one.

And I was very surprised to see how short it was. I think it was a small book. Thin. And I was like, "Okay, this is interesting. This is not what I was expecting based on the paperback brick of the previous book that she had written."

I read it in like early 2021 after leaving New York City and moving back in with my parents in Southern California. And I had this distinct feeling of reading it of being able to really inhabit this world.

The book is epistolary in some ways that what you're reading you come to find is a series of first-person accounts from the same person named Piranesi. And you get to understand the world that he inhabits, which is like imagine the grandest museum you've ever been in, marble halls, grand staircase, multiple floors, but then place ocean ecosystems in it.

[00:29:49] So like one floor is like high tides, another floor is tide pools complete with the creatures. There are seagulls. So it's a very specific type of world that Piranesi inhabits.

And as you continue through the book and these, again, first-person entries, you begin to learn more about what the world is, how it works. It is revealed to you as you continue reading it.

When I finished the book, I had a distinct sense that there was another layer of meaning of some kind under what I had originally read. So it wasn't until I had a chance to read it again recently with some friends and talk it over that I just got to enjoy more of it.

There were points of humor in it that I had totally missed. There were small character choices that were really delightful to discover. And there was a little bit more of some of the history of other scenes in the book, which helped give us just a fuller picture of the way that Clarke puts together some certain philosophies or modes of thinking during a certain period of time.

[00:31:01] ANNE: That's so interesting. I loved this book, which is so slender in comparison to the massive Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I felt like I was wandering around in the dark, which is a fitting metaphor here until all of a sudden it clicked into place and I just couldn't wait to see where it would take me.

KATHERINE: Yes.

ANNE: I also want to note that you've now read two books by Susanna Clarke.

KATHERINE: That is true. Yes.

ANNE: That is true.

KATHERINE: Which again, the first one was a pitch-based story. And I was like, okay, sweet. Magicians, you know. But that is a good point. Yes, I'm seeing the pattern that you're seeing.

ANNE: Okay. It counts, Katherine. It really does. I think that might be the point.

KATHERINE: Okay.

ANNE: Katherine, tell us about a book that wasn't right for you now.

KATHERINE: So a book that wasn't right for me was Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. So to continue our pattern, I had read The House in the Cerulean Sea, listened to it on audiobook even, really enjoyed.

[00:32:04] Was pitched the storyline for this one. I thought it would be interesting and started listening to it on a road trip, and the plot was just not grabbing me. I could not find any possible angle to root for the protagonist.

The system of magic or extraordinariness in the book was difficult to make sense of for me. I know it was capitalizing on, you know, what happens after we die, how do we conceive of the waystation point if there's an ultimate destination for everyone, but not everyone goes there immediately, which is a premise that I find interesting.

But the way that it was manifested in this book was hard to stick with. It just kind of felt like it was going in circles a little bit. The waiting element was a little bit too strong. The audiobook narrator also was difficult to take seriously for certain characters that they were trying to voice.

[00:33:04] ANNE: Oh, interesting. And was a different narrator than that TJ Klune book that you really enjoyed.

KATHERINE: I believe so. They were both, yeah, male voices, but did not sound the same. But I remember I got about 35% of the way through Under the Whispering Door and decided I'm not interested enough to kind of keep sticking with this. Maybe I will come back to it, but did not finish it.

And then, yeah, transitioning to the other one, The Resisters by Gish Jen, which I felt a little bit bad about because I discovered the book listening to What Should I Read Next? I love baseball. I loved the idea that it was a little bit of a post-apocalyptic, but more on the end of like sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, like Ready Player One or something.

The characters were intriguing. I loved the family relationships. I was really rooting for it up until the end. But the things that were really difficult for me is there was some pieces of a particular character's back story that I felt were not given the appropriate due to help the character develop.

[00:34:09] The ending kind of came in a bit of a rush for me, which I didn't necessarily see coming. And then there was learning more about, I guess, who functions as the enemy or the antagonist in the book. Like their motives and their reasons for making certain choices also didn't become very clear until the very, very end.

But again, just felt kind of rushed to the end, felt really bad for one particular character in the way that they didn't get to fully develop based on what we had learned about them. It was sad, but I still finished it.

ANNE: So are you able to put your finger on what didn't work for you about these titles?

KATHERINE: I think the main character has a lot to do... The main character and then the characters they're surrounded by. So I think, Do I have a reason to root for this person? What information do I have to the contrary? If I don't have enough information to the contrary, is there maybe something about their goal or motives that I can get behind and be interested in with them?

[00:35:14] So that, I would say, was definitely the part about Under the Whispering Door that did not work for me. And then I was also frustrated with the character about the world that they were interacting with, how it also did not make sense, even though I totally understand that to be confused can be a part of a book in some ways, like Piranesi.

But if it's confusion for the sake of just underlining the fact that a character has to keep waiting for something to happen, then I'm like, Oh, that's not fair. You can't just keep them waiting forever and just keep spinning us through this for three chapters. I know for sure that that's what didn't work about Under the Whispering Door.

ANNE: Oh, interesting.

KATHERINE: If I was to put my finger on what did not work for The Resisters, I think it was character development in the sense that for the type of person and back story that they were building was interacting with this world. I think they deserved more payoff than they actually got.

[00:36:19] And rushed endings are tough for me because I love to see resolution. I love the recalling of points from the beginning that come to the end to help wrap things up.

ANNE: Interesting. Okay. So you went straight for characterization and plot. But I was over here wondering, are both stories a little too akin to fables to you? Like a little too on-the-nose moral lessons that maybe that's not your style.

KATHERINE: Hmm, that's interesting. But I don't know that I was thinking that.

ANNE: You can just let that sit. Katherine, what have you been reading lately?

[00:36:59] KATHERINE: So I am reading... This is maybe what feels like the first time I've gotten into a new series in a long time.

ANNE: That's fun.

KATHERINE: It is the Thursday Murder Club Series by Richard Osman. It is a British series about four friends who live in a lovely English retirement community. And for funsies, on Thursday afternoons they discuss the public records of old murder cases. Again, for fun.

And then, of course, in the first book called The Thursday Murder Club, a real murder happens and they are on the case. So there's four 70-plus-year-olds from an English retirement community, pool their respective life experiences to get on the case of this real murder that's happened.

[00:37:54] I watched a lot of British TV as a high schooler, and it's just the right amount of mystery. It sounds kind of bad, but it's funny, wry British humor, these really witty insights about being old and then really poignant insights being old. And then it's like, "Oh, and by the way, somebody has died. Somebody has been killed." So it's like, "Oh, that's terrible."

But it doesn't have I guess maybe any of the darker, more complex psychological leanings that some mysteries can have. So I appreciate the tonal elements that make it kind of like a fun BBC mini-series to watch.

So The Man Who Died Twice is the title that I'm currently reading, and that is the second book after The Thursday Murder Club. And what I love just about The Man Who Died Twice is you're familiar with the characters. You really get to watch them just kind of become fuller people.

[00:38:56] The mystery is also entirely different from the first one. It has a little bit more of a globetrotting element to it. And there's also just this really sweet running gag where Joyce, one of the four members of the club, it's two men and two women, so Joyce used to be a nurse.

And she has started making friendship bracelets and just everybody they run into in The Man Who Died Twice, she gives a friendship bracelet to. It doesn't matter if it's the thug who passes them some information, the police officers they're friends with, diplomats they meet. She's like, "Would you like a friendship bracelet?" So it's just really fun elements like that that I just cannot help but smile when I read these.

ANNE: I love that. And Katherine, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

[00:39:47] KATHERINE: There's maybe two things that are coming to mind. The first is—I'm going to say the sentence aloud and we'll see if it makes sense to both of us—having an idea of authors I can return to confidently whether that's to try out some of their lesser-known works or looking forward to works that they have coming out.

Then the second thing is probably being more open to choosing or accepting curveballs in my reading life. So whether that is I scout a little for what I perceive to be a new book that's just come out and I'm able to make the leap to purchase it and find it a good home if it doesn't work out.

ANNE: So, Katherine, I was wondering if something that we wanted to lean into with our book recommendations is something you said in your submission, how that you love when there is a guiding focus to your reading. That you love a good curated anything.

[00:40:54] You specifically is that if you could plan the three books you have going at once to somehow relate to each other, that would be a dream.

KATHERINE: Yes.

ANNE: Well, you mentioned that you had 72 books to read on your StoryGraph, which I looked up. I could see that you had a lot of repeating themes. Like we could cluster these a lot of different ways if you wanted to. Is that something you're interested in doing?

KATHERINE: Oh, well, I want to say yes in part because I haven't checked it recently. So I'm sure some of the titles on there I have totally forgotten about.

ANNE: Okay. Katherine, I really enjoyed seeing the themes that emerged when I was reviewing your StoryGraph. So tell me if you realize this. You have lots of memoirs about people talking about what it was like to work in a certain job. You have lots of fiction that portrays people working in very interesting jobs.

[00:41:47] I noticed that you had some historical fiction and fantasy that made me think, "Oh, it's no wonder that somebody who lived in N. K. Jemisin, The World We Make, might be interested in reading Deacon King Kong about New York City and very complex, richly developed characters you really get to know. Or R.F. Kuang's Babel. I thought, Oh yes, if you love Piranesi, Babel is definitely a good next pick.

You mentioned in your submission that you loved memoirs that also had a strong autobiographical component where we really got to know not just a certain episode or event of a person's life, but the person is part of a larger whole. You love memoirs with that hint of autobiography, so I know you know what I'm talking about.

KATHERINE: Yes.

ANNE: And I noticed so many books that pointed to your interest in art that we know you have as a person that showed up in your reading life as well.

KATHERINE: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:46] ANNE: I didn't see as much indicating the realistic fiction that I know you want to explore more of.

KATHERINE: Oh, that is fascinating. Yeah, truly, the books get added to the to-read because they sound interesting. And I don't necessarily think to extend that interest to be like, "Ah, this book is like this one."

ANNE: What if we take a little stroll through people at work from your StoryGraph and we'll throw in a few extra titles as well?

KATHERINE: Sounds like a plan.

ANNE: Let's start with Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires. I don't know how long that's been on your StoryGraph. I've been thinking about this book a lot recently because I'm reading a book called Unreasonable Hospitality. I cannot tell you where I came across this book. It's by Will Guidara. He worked in hospitality at some of the best restaurants in New York City for many years and is talking about... I think the subtitle is The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect.

I'm not loving every minute of this, but I do love a good behind-the-scenes. And so many of the stories have me thinking of Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl, whose subtitle is something like The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise.

[00:43:54] Because this is her story about leaving her job, I believe, in Northern California, moving to New York City to take her dream job as food critic for The New York Times, quickly discovering, "Wait, you can't honestly review restaurants as the New York City food critic because your picture is on every restaurant in the city and they know who you are the minute you walk through the door. Your service is going to be far superior to anybody else's.

So she enlists the help of her mother's theater friend to costume herself in these different personalities that she develops very strong backstories for her to go into restaurants to review them as a patron and not as the New York Times food critic.

It's fun and friendly, but also has so many anecdotes about not just her job but the industry and restaurants. It just has this warm vibe, but also like, "Hey, come over my shoulder, I'm going to show you some things."

I think the things you've mentioned today about what you tend to gravitate towards means that that's on your list for a reason. And maybe, maybe you can read that sooner rather than later. How does that sound?

[00:45:03] KATHERINE: It sounds hilarious, but also educational, which is a really fun combination. I think it wasn't until I added the title... like there is something about Ruth Reichl's name that had sounded familiar, and I double-checked my bookcase and I realized it was because she was the editor in 2018 for the Best American Food Essays collection.

ANNE: Oh.

KATHERINE: So she has an introduction in there. The introduction always gives a little bit of a background about how she curated the essays that go in that collection. So that was where I first got wind of her work in food and food writing.

So when I heard about this title and found out that it was sort of like a behind-the-scenes, but also like those sense of memoir, I was like, "Okay, this has got to be good," and it got added to the list. So that sounds great.

[00:45:58] ANNE: And if you like this work by Ruth Reichl, it sounds like you read her as an editor before, but she's written... I mean, I'm going to say my next favorite memoir of hers is called Save Me the Plums. She talks basically about how she came to work at Gourmet and running that operation in Times Square.

And then in My Kitchen Year, she talks about the collapse of the magazine industry in that kind of editorial subsequently. And then she's written... well, she's written two novels, but one's not coming till spring 2024. I mean, her work could keep you busy for a long while. This is an author you could get to know.

KATHERINE: Oh, how exciting.

ANNE: I think so. I'm excited for you to discover that. Now, let's step into the fiction space. And honestly, I don't remember if this was from your list or my addition, but I'm thinking about The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal. Is this a book you know?

[00:46:58] KATHERINE: This book has been mentioned to me by one of my good professor friends. She mentioned it to me that I would learn a lot about how to make beer, but that it was also a multi-generational story with very strong female characters. Again, it was pitched a lot.

ANNE: Yes.

KATHERINE: And that sounded super interesting. I've nearly forgotten probably until you said that, that I had that on there. Tell me more. That does sound interesting.

ANNE: I am glad we could resurrect it. I think your professor friend started you in a good place. This does follow several generations of a Minnesota family as they seek to establish themselves in the brewing industry, not just establish but dominate the competition but in the process of succeeding in brewing led by their female brewer. Because women don't do that. It's hard to learn the secrets when no dudes want to tell you.

[00:47:51] But she figures that you'll root for her along the way. But the family itself falls to pieces in the process. There's a big family feud, lots of tense moments, but the tone of the story is hopeful throughout.

J. Ryan Stradal writes stories that are firmly set in the Midwest with those values of hard work and family. There's also a strong element of fate here. Lots of little secrets about making a world-class beer.

Look, I don't want to give anything about the ending away because I know you want to get to a satisfying ending that feels well-paced, it feels like the character's earned but the closing scene has unexpected people brewing beer, and it is just Chef's kiss. I think that could be fun for you.

KATHERINE: That actually does sound really neat. Especially now that it's fall as well, something about the elements of that, of like making something, you know, a group of women working together to make it in an industry and especially something like beer.

[00:48:51] Which actually is pretty ironic I'm allergic to alcoholic drinks, so I can't drink beer. But it would still be really neat to know how it's made. So that does sound really intriguing. And I love that you emphasize that there is a hopeful tone throughout that. That will mean a lot to me based on the conflicts that you mentioned.

ANNE: I am happy to hear that. Next, while we're having fun with food and people at work, Jesse Q. Sutanto's Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers could be a really fun romp. This is light-hearted, but in a more cozy... Nothing about this book is fantastical. But it's more whimsical. You know, The Lager Queen of Minnesota could happen. And while there's nothing in Vera Wong that couldn't happen necessarily, it feels a little more madcap.

It's an adorable tea shop murder mystery. Vera Wang comes downstairs one morning to her struggling San Francisco tea shop storefronts and finds that there's a dead body clutching a flash drive on the floor for a tea shop.

[00:49:57] So she calls in the authorities eventually. She doesn't want to because whatever the authorities are going to do, she thinks she can do it better. But her son is like, "No, mom, that's not how this is going to go." But she's completely unimpressed by how they approach the case. They're just a little lackadaisical for her taste, so she takes matters into her own hands.

It's delightful and chaotic. It ends up being a story of, I mean, the bad guys get their just desserts, but there's also a real feel-good ending here that I didn't expect. And it's a story of happy endings and found family in murder, all those things.

So this could be a really fun follow-up to The Lager Queen. It could also be very much a palate cleanser if you read it after something like, say, Bewilderment.

KATHERINE: Yes, that's kind of what I was thinking based on that. Ooh, good to know. Good to know.

[00:50:52] ANNE: If you enjoy that, I think it's worth just highlighting the existence of a book for you. It's called Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune by Roselle Lim. I don't know why we keep going to San Francisco with these recommendations, but that is what we're doing.

This is another story of found family and mending relationships. This is the story of gentrification and really good food. But this has slight magical elements that your fantasy-loving heart may enjoy.

KATHERINE: Ooh, I love the combination of those three things together. That definitely does sound interesting.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear that. And then zooming out a little bit for people at work, I noticed that you had Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses on your list.

KATHERINE: Yes.

ANNE: I'm not sure how that book ended up there, but I thought as you're exploring your relationship with fiction and with books, we can say with books and reading, but also you, you mentioned that you really wanted to hone in on realistic fiction and learn more about it, I thought your curious spirit maybe interested in hearing how the work gets written, how the writers are trained, and what a writing workshop might be like, what Matthew Salesses thinks a writing workshop could look like instead.

[00:52:04] This is a book for writers, but I think not just for writers, for anyone who wants to understand how the books we love to read, how that writing process is taught, and how he thinks it might be able to be taught instead. I thought this could be a nice title to round out a selection of reads focused on people at work.

KATHERINE: Oh, thank you for noting that one, because that's also a book that I own and it's been sitting on my shelf since 2021 when I picked it up at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle. And it's just never felt like the right time somehow to read it based on what it's about. But now that you mention it in this context, I'm like, Mm, has the time come? That's really good to know.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear that. I'm wondering what inspired you to feel confident and courageous to pick that up.

[00:52:52] KATHERINE: There was a small newsletter that I wrote during the time that I lived in New York City. It was a really great creative outlet for me. I did get to curate things in there. And then once I left the city, stopped writing it.

So I think I definitely wanted to... I don't know, I was just looking for a little boost or I was like, "Maybe I just need to do some more reading about writing to write some more. I think it is possible I might have heard about the book with another interview that you did with another guest on the show. And the way that it was described, I thought like, "Ooh..."

It sounded different like any of the other more academic books that I had read during my English major. It sounded a little genre-challenging in some sense, since it was a book about writing, but different than other books about writing. So I think all of those things combined, I was like, "This sounds like something I would enjoy."

ANNE: Well, since you moved it across the country, I think maybe it's worth taking a look at.

[00:53:52] KATHERINE: That's a great point.

ANNE: I mean, Katherine, can we throw in one more bonus?

KATHERINE: Sure.

ANNE: Okay. I just like to leave you with something fresh that could be fun for a while.

KATHERINE: Thank you.

ANNE: You've used the word puzzle a few times. I know that you love fantasy, you love characters that you can be with and root for, and feel like you're looking over their shoulder, figuring things out together. I wonder if you've read A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.

KATHERINE: I don't know if I've heard about the title or the author at all.

ANNE: Okay, it's a longer novel, but it could sit nicely on the shelves with Piranesi and The World We Make. The World We Make is bigger action. Piranesi is a different kind of world, more confined world. But this is another... It's a real little puzzle box of a book. It's a real brain bender.

This is the kind of book that can make your head hurt in a good way, because what she's suggesting is happening in this story is so... the way she talks about time, a tale for the time being, she's talking about us, about people. Like we are beings who live in time. We are time beings.

[00:55:03] But the story begins with a novelist in the, I think, Pacific Northwest who finds a diary written by a troubled Japanese schoolgirl that has been pushed across the ocean by waves from a tsunami. And there's a connection between the girl, the diary, and the novelist. The novelist slowly begins to figure out. It is weird and wonderful and magical and wild.

KATHERINE: Mm, How interesting. Yeah, that sounds really intriguing.

ANNE: I know that not all these are in your StoryGraph, but I wanted to make sure that we had more than one or two that weren't on your StoryGraph.

KATHERINE: Yeah.

ANNE: Katherine, we talked about a lot of books today. We talked about Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl, The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal, Jesse Q. Sutanto's Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, We talked about Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune by Roselle Lim, Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses, and finally, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.

[00:56:07] So that's a lot of books. One of them are in your house right now, but I'll leave it to you. What do you think you may read next?

KATHERINE: Oh, all of them sound fantastic. So I'm looking at some point exploring all of them. But I think right now with how dearly I want to manifest colder weather, it's going to be a toss-up between The Lager Queen of Minnesota or something about Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune also sounds like that could be a really good read right now. So those two.

ANNE: I'm excited to hear what you land on.

KATHERINE: Fantastic.

ANNE: Katherine, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking books with me today.

KATHERINE: Thank you so much, Anne. Really appreciated your time and advice today. It's been wonderful.

[00:56:53] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Katherine, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Connect with Katherine on Instagram @thisbookthatbookpodcast.

Find the full list of titles we talked about at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.