Ep 538: Our team's best books of summer (Part 1)

What Should I Read Next? - Anne Bogel

In this first of a two-part series, host Anne Bogel and her team—Donna Hetchler, Ginger Horton, and Leigh Kramer—share their favorite books from the

Key takeaways

• Reading preferences vary widely even within a single team, reflecting the broad spectrum of reader interests.

Main topics

• Summer reading highlights
• Personal reading strategies and rating systems

Notable quotes

"I'm reading one book at a time. I'm reading fewer books. And I'm using Goodreads to help me narrow down my selections." – Donna Hetchler

Conclusion

This episode offers readers a rich, diverse preview of standout summer reads from the

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) I just want to note that I'm always accused of talking about more books than we're technically allowed, but I have not done that at all. Anne and Ginger have both been like sneaking in extra titles. It's true. Speaker 3 (0:18) Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogle 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. Today's episode is part one of two for a popular summer tradition featuring the Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next team. Speaker 3 (0:49) Readers, we're talking summer reading today, but fall reading is just around the corner. And if you're curious about the titles that you may be hearing about in the weeks ahead, or what new releases might be suited to your to-be-read list, our fall book preview is designed to help with those answers. We are gathering for our eighth annual fall book preview on Thursday, September 17th. A la carte ticket holders and eligible community members will receive a downloadable digital preview plus an invitation to our live unboxing event happening that night at 8 p.m. Eastern. That's when I get to talk about it all and answer your questions. If you are a member of our Modern Mrs. Darcy book club or our Patreon all-inclusive or bonuses and events tier, you're good to go. You'll have full access to the event and our digital fall book preview lookbook. If you're not yet a member, our Patreon community invites you to join us at two different levels, and now is such a good time to do so. Our bonuses and events tier includes events like our Fall Book Preview, as well as our weekly bonus episodes. Our all-inclusive tier also gives you weekly access to ad-free episodes of this podcast. If you'd prefer a one-time charge, you're welcome to purchase an a la carte ticket for just this event. That's Fall Book Preview Unboxing and the Fall Book Preview Download. We are offering a printed booklet edition of our preview this year, our little lookbook. And I had so much time getting in and designing it because this year we're doing something a little bit different. I can't wait to show it to you. This is smaller and in a different format than our printed magazine style summer reading guide. It's priced accordingly. We are working out the details and we'll have them ready for you soon. But right now we wanted you to know. Fall book preview, Thursday, September 17th. All the details are coming. Now is a great time to join Patreon if you're interested. Find out more, get all the details and your Patreon info at modernmrsdarcy.com slash FBP for fall book preview. That's modernmrsdarcy.com slash FBP. Speaker 1 (3:02) The Speaker 2 (3:02) city moves fast, but your vibe, that's different. Sharper, smoother, more alive. Speaker 1 (3:13) The new Speaker 2 (3:17) Honda City isn't just made to drive, it's made to feel. The new Honda City, all new vibe. Speaker 3 (3:27) Readers, for years now, our team members have joined me on the podcast at right about this point in the year to share the books they've been loving most this season. Last year, we had so many titles to discuss that we split this conversation into two separate episodes, and we heard really positive feedback from all of you about that format. So that's what we're doing again this year. In today's episode, the first in our two-part series, I'm in conversation with three of our team members. They are our resident spreadsheet queen, Donna Hetchler, our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club community manager, Ginger Horton, and our Modern Mrs. Darcy editor and social media manager, Leigh Kramer. Next week, you will hear from the rest of our team. As a team, our reading lives vary widely. We read across a range of genres that reflect the reading world at large. So I'm pretty confident that between today's conversation and next week's part two, every listener will hear a title that appeals. Today, you'll hear about true crime and books in translation, a backlist novel that inspired an award-winning musical, a literary mystery from a fan-favorite author, romanticy and thriller titles that captured our team's imagination this season, and more. Readers, let's get to it. Hello, team. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me in this format. I'm so excited you're here today. Speaker 4 (4:46) Excited Speaker 5 (4:46) to be here. We Speaker 4 (4:47) are excited too. I love summer. I always love sharing my favorite books, so it's an honor to be here. Speaker 3 (4:54) Oh my gosh. The pleasure is all mine. We have been doing this for several years now and just always have the best time. Readers, we really enjoy this episode because we don't need an excuse to talk about books as a team, but we will still take any one we can get. And we have, I think Shannon divided us into two groups of two. So as you heard today, I'm joined by Donna. Donna, tell us hello so everybody can hear your voice. Hello, Speaker 6 (5:21) everyone. Speaker 3 (5:23) Hi, Speaker 6 (5:24) everyone. Speaker 3 (5:25) And Ginger. Speaker 6 (5:26) Hi, Speaker 5 (5:27) this is Ginger. Speaker 3 (5:28) And we're kicking off a two-part Best Books of Summer. And we're going to talk about what that means, best, favorite, how we individually thought of our superlatives, because I didn't make the rules. We make our own reading rules around here. We're the bosses of our own reading lives. But first, I'd love to hear, here we are, late August. But I feel like my summer is kind of over because the kids went back to school. But also, it's still a bazillion degrees. Speaker 3 (5:57) Fall book preview is coming. I'm thinking about fall. All of which to say, tell us how your summer reading is going, not how it went. Donna, you start us off. Speaker 4 (6:07) It's actually going great. I am happy to report. I really went into this year trying to simplify my reading. So I am more focused. I'm reading one book at a time. I'm reading fewer books. And I'm... I've been using Goodreads to help me narrow down my selections. So I analyze the data, of course, and I have picked a threshold of 4.2 on Goodreads ratings. And I'm reading most of my books are above 4.2 on Goodreads. And it's been great. I love the specificity. You Speaker 3 (6:43) wouldn't have read any of my favorites. Speaker 4 (6:45) Sorry. Speaker 5 (6:47) It's just working for me. It doesn't work for other people. Speaker 3 (6:50) I just think it's funny. And I'm glad to hear what's working for you. That's why we're here. How Speaker 6 (6:54) did you land on 4.2? Speaker 4 (6:57) Should I walk through the math? Speaker 6 (6:59) Yes, absolutely. Speaker 4 (7:02) No, we don't have enough time for it. We can have a one-on-one session with charts and graphs. That's like Speaker 3 (7:09) the three-hour graduate literary lab. What should I do Speaker 5 (7:12) next? 401 here. Speaker 3 (7:15) I'd sign up for that. Me too. Dawn, is there a short version? I remember reading a John Green post once upon a time where he indicated 4.3 was a magical Goodreads number. Speaker 4 (7:27) Oh, Speaker 5 (7:27) I'm going to look that up. I'm going to find that. It feels so high. Speaker 3 (7:31) You can fact check me later. One Speaker 5 (7:33) of my favorite things to happen in the reading life is when you loved a book and then you go on to Goodreads or your favorite platform and it's like a 2.5. And I think, excellent. Speaker 4 (7:44) Like I am not normal and I love that for me. Speaker 4 (7:49) This is a whole other episode. I Speaker 6 (7:54) don't know if I've ever loved a book that was rated that low. I don't even know if I always look at Goodreads first. Speaker 5 (8:01) Oh, okay. Speaker 6 (8:03) And the rating doesn't really bear in mind if I'll read something or not. I always look at reviews, but this is fascinating to me. Speaker 3 (8:13) All right. Leigh, tell us about your summer reading. Speaker 6 (8:17) Well, this has been a strange year of reading. And I feel like that's been true for the past few years where it's just harder to find the books that I love. I'm reading a ton. There's lots of four-star books, so it's not bad. But the five stars have been harder to come by. And then I don't know what it is, but in the last month or two, I've had more five-star books than the first five months of the year combined. So something seems to be working and I don't know if I'm just picking differently or if the stars have aligned, but I'm glad to see it. And just for some context, I looked yesterday to see how many books I've DNF'd so far this year and I've DNF'd 53 books. So that should give some other context about like, it's just been hard to like find the right ones. I've still like read around like a hundred, so. I don't know, Donna, you're the mathematician of the two of us. So I don't know what that means. Speaker 5 (9:21) I did not expect to talk about this much math on the book podcast, you guys. I'm taking Speaker 4 (9:27) over, Ginger. Speaker 5 (9:29) We love the good nerdy fun. Ginger, Speaker 3 (9:32) how about you? How's your summer reading? And maybe remind everyone of your history with summer reading, perhaps not being the you take it away. Yeah, Speaker 5 (9:39) we're going to remind everybody of that because I'm usually a bad news first kind of girl. So let me tell you the bad news first. The summer slump has found me. It is early August, Speaker 3 (9:47) and Speaker 5 (9:47) this is not to be surprised. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised by this. August is usually my hardest reading month. And sure enough, that found me. But I had a great reading summer up to now. And I have high hopes for the next few weeks. So some of you know that I'm in graduate school and I had a great reading, you know, winter and spring, of course, but it looks very different. I'm reading Descartes and Augustine and Kant and Euclid. And Donna told me I absolutely am not allowed to talk about Augustine on this podcast. I loved it. Spoiler alert. But I wanted to just have like a grand old summer reading guide kind of time. I wanted to like frolic and read the buzzy books and maybe like some middle grade. Just I wanted a respite. And I absolutely did have that. I think I bought every single Annabelle Monaghan book after we read Dolly all the time with book club. I wanted to reread some, like Ann Patchett and Alexandra Andrews that I knew were having new books come out, Marissa De Los Santos, like new books that were coming out this year. So I had a grand old start to the summer. Yeah, travel and company sometimes slows me down, it feels like, in August. And that has happened. But that's okay. I'm okay with it. Speaker 3 (10:54) I'm sorry the slump has found you. Speaker 5 (10:56) Yeah, it's always a bummer. It's never surprising, but it is a bummer. And slump kind of means to me that I'm not finishing. books. I'm still reading, but like nothing's sticking. Speaker 3 (11:10) Okay. Interesting. I've had a great summer. So my two twin goals in our time together today is not to talk about summer reading guide books and not to talk about fall book preview books. I've been trying to live in the in-between this summer and it's been really fun. I've had a pretty nerdy summer. I have definitely read some like frothy, I've gotten to frolic a little bit, like you said. I've gotten to. I mean, I've chosen that a little bit. But I've also really enjoyed spending some time with some old books I've been putting off or some more like scholarly, literary, how to read kind of books. Right now I'm reading a book about, I don't know, how to craft the perfect sentence. That's not what it's called. I'm going to finish it first and then I'll tell you about it if I like it to the end. Or I'll tell you about it with my complete opinion.