Ep 541: Books that foster a sense of warmth and good conversation

What Should I Read Next?

In this episode of What Should I Read Next?, Anne Bogle sits down with Jacqueline Duggan, a reader from Richmond, Virginia, who's experiencing a shift in her reading habits. Once deeply engaged

Key takeaways

• Coffee table books are more than decorative—they foster connection, warmth, and conversation in everyday life.

Main topics

• The role of coffee table books in modern life

Notable quotes

"It's just fun to see what people do with it. They'll either flip through it or I'll have friends like really dive in and take a look at what I've got."

Conclusion

Jacquelyn leaves the conversation with renewed clarity about what she values in

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) When I think about what used to be on the table Speaker 1 (0:02) at my grandparents' house Speaker 2 (0:04) or, you know, it would be like something local, maybe about like an area that we live in or something. But now that's my living Speaker 1 (0:12) room. Speaker 2 (0:14) There's nothing wrong with that. Like, I love it. I think it's so interesting. And I think that they can take a whole new perspective now. Speaker 1 (0:26) 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. Every week, we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest. Speaker 1 (0:57) Readers, our fall book preview is coming up soon on September 17th. And this year, our eighth year, we are featuring a new option to purchase a compact printed booklet that we're calling our Lookbook to complement your fall book preview experience. If you've already purchased your a la carte ticket or you're a member of our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club, Patreon all-inclusive or Patreon bonuses and events tiers, then you're all set to receive the digital guide and attend our live unboxing. If you're not, choose the best way to attend and save your space at modernmrsdarcy.com slash FBP. That's for Fall Book Preview. And if you'd also enjoy a little analog delight, I think you'll really love this year's printed lookbook. We have thoughtfully designed this in a smaller format than our printed magazine style summer reading guide. So you can tuck it in your journal, take it to the library bookstore, take it to coffee with a friend, take it everywhere. Basically, it is pleasantly packed with bookish goodness for the literary season to come and also includes backlist recommendations perfect for fall from our team. We designed this with an accessible price point top of mind. So you can have one sent to your door for right around 10 bucks and that includes shipping. I think you're gonna love it. This year, we also prioritized making it stand alone from unboxing in a stronger way than it ever has before. So unboxing's wonderful. But if you know I don't have the time to do that in this season, as good as it may be, then get our look book. It'll come to your mail. It's beautifully done. The professional printing is gonna look amazing. I hope you'll take a look, find out. more and select the fall book preview experience that's right for you this year at modernmrsdarcy.com slash FBP. Speaker 1 (2:41) Readers, today's guest has always been clear on her go-to genres, the ones she really loves and that she knows works for her. But lately, something has shifted in her reading life, and she's not sure why or what to do about it. Jacqueline Duggan is joining me from home in Richmond, Virginia, where, in addition to reading, she enjoys being outside and working in her flower garden with a special appreciation for her zinnias and roses. In her submission, Jacqueline told us that with this unexplained shift in her reading tastes, she is finding herself skipping the books and turning to other forms of entertainment, like re-watching favorite TV shows. While we love a good TV show around here, and her favorite shows are favorites for a reason, she is not happy with this substitution. Jacqueline is hoping I can help her pinpoint what's going on with her reading life right now so she can get back to the books she loves. Or perhaps what she wants to do is get into the new-to-her kinds of books that might be right for her in this season. There's one element of her reading life that Jacqueline has remained clear and confident about, and that is her love for a great coffee table book. I love them too. You know we'll talk about it today. We have recommendations. Readers, this is gonna be fun. Let's get to it. Jacqueline, welcome to the Speaker 2 (3:55) show. Thanks, Anne. I am so, so excited to be here. Speaker 1 (3:59) Oh, the pleasure is mine. I'm really excited about the places we're going to go today. Speaker 2 (4:03) Me too. Jacqueline, would you start by telling us a little about yourself? What we want to do is give our Speaker 1 (4:10) listeners a glimpse of who you are. Speaker 2 (4:12) Absolutely. Well, I am 33. I live in Richmond, Virginia with my husband, our doodle, Murphy. and our nine-month-old daughter. And life is just a blast right now. It's full and fun and just everything we've dreamed of. I work for a wound care company actually based out of Seattle, Washington. I'm not a provider, but I support our provider team and our executive team. And it's just really meaningful work. I enjoy it very much. And then outside of work, I love to take bar classes at our local bar studio. Love to be outside. We have a thriving garden right now, although it's just now starting to thrive. It's been a little hit or miss this summer, but we enjoy that and love to hike and take walks and just be together as a family. And of course, reading is my very favorite way to wind down those days. Speaker 1 (5:20) Speaking of reading, this is open-ended on purpose. Would you tell us about your reading life? Speaker 2 (5:26) Yeah, I know right now it takes a lot of forms. I feel like most days I read at the end of the day and really like to pick up a couple different types of books. I, of course, love a good fiction and am really open with that. I enjoy like a contemporary fiction. I love a good rom-com. I love a mystery. I'll sprinkle in some thrillers here and there. But another type of book that I really, really love, I refer to it as a coffee table book. The one that I'm most into right now is the Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. And I love this one so much just for the visuals of it. She has... literal drawings of her birds that she observed in her backyard. And it's really like a diary log of just observing birds in her yard. And I put this in like the coffee table book category because, you know, when I think back to like being a kid and, you know, my mom would have books on the coffee table, my grandparents have books on the coffee table, but I feel like we have such a fun. picture like a fun access to them now I feel like they've really taken shape and I consider this type of book a coffee table book because you can sit it out You can look at it, put it down. I noticed when people come over to our house, they'll notice what I have out on the coffee table. It might be a cookbook. It might be, you know, a book like Amy Tan's. And it's just fun to see what people do with it. They'll either flip through it or I'll have friends like really dive in and take a look at what I've got. And it always just sparks fun conversation. But I always enjoy reading that at the end of the day. It always feels like a... like a little bit of a bedtime story, like something soothing to kind of close, close my day that way. So yeah, Speaker 1 (7:31) between fiction and that, that's mostly. like to read these days. I'd love to hear more about coffee table books. Yeah. You mentioned in your submission that you felt that they were often underrated and sometimes misunderstood. Speaker 2 (7:46) Totally. Totally. Like I said, I feel like they, when I think about like, yeah, what used to be on the table at my Speaker 1 (7:54) grandparents' Speaker 2 (7:55) house or even at my parents' Speaker 1 (7:57) house, you Speaker 2 (7:58) know, it would be Speaker 1 (7:59) like. Speaker 2 (7:59) something local, maybe about like an area that we live in or something. But now that's my living room. There's nothing wrong with that. Like, I love it. I think it's so interesting. And I think that they can take a whole new perspective now. Like one that comes to mind is called a life in good taste. And it's a designer in Birmingham, Alabama, and it just shows her home. and how she likes to decorate. And that's like a quintessential coffee table book. But then, you know, I also think recently I've been reading Good Things by Samin Nosrat, who wrote Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. She has this new book out, Good Things. And it's just an account of good things and good recipes. And I count that as a coffee table book, even though. It also obviously is a cookbook and is food writing in its nature, but it looks beautiful out on the table. It's fun to pick up and put back down. And yeah, I just feel like it brings about warmth and conversation. And that's kind of what I look for when I see it. I almost always have a stack of at least three or four on Speaker 1 (9:18) our coffee table at any time. Ooh, those are good qualifiers, warmth and conversation. As I imagine what you might have in mind by underrated, I'm thinking about how, you know how readers talk about how certain things aren't real books? Like they look like a book, but it's not a real book. Is Speaker 2 (9:39) that something that people often spuriously apply to coffee table books? 100%. Like not the kind of Speaker 1 (9:46) book, like, can I count that in my book journal? Speaker 2 (9:48) No, literally. In fact, that's like an internal conversation I've had with myself is like, should I put this down as a book that I've read? And then I'm like, of course, like I, I read the book. Of course it belongs in like my, you know, my shelved book reads like, but it's funny because it's different than like a quintessential sit down and like read a story. But this is every bit of a book. as much as something I've picked up from the local bookstore or library. And so I think that's what makes them underrated. And they're just so, at least for me, they're just so readable. Like I just so enjoy sitting down with them, whether it's looking through photos or, you know, reading the small accounts throughout the book. It kind of depends on. who the author is and what they're writing about, but there's just so much that can be gleaned. And I feel like I learned so much from my, my version of a, of a coffee table book. And that just brings me a lot of joy. All right. Speaker 1 (10:57) I'll go first. I'd love to hear a recent favorite. or two or three. Yeah. I'm thinking about what you said about what makes a coffee table book and why you enjoy them in your reading life and in your space. And the most recent one that I acquired is called Art for Everyone. And it's about, don't be scared. You can put art on your walls at home. Here's how. And this is a book that really benefits from the photography heavy. lots of visuals format that isn't characteristic of every single coffee table book, but I know it's where a lot of people's minds go when they think about that kind of book. But it's sitting on one of my coffee tables right now. And the regular visitors to our home who always just like, kind of see what's around in the house when they come over, have all sat down on the sofa and looked at it and gone, ooh, what's this? And just like reached for it and popped it open. And yeah, it's brought me joy. And it makes me want to paint and hang stuff on every wall in my house. But that's not the experience with, you know, most coffee table books. Speaker 2 (12:00) Yeah. No, I, that's so funny that you say that because I feel like that's the mark of a good coffee table book to me is when, you Speaker 1 (12:11) know, Speaker 2 (12:11) friends and family will come over and yeah, they'll like gravitate over to the coffee table and they're like, Speaker 1 (12:17) what's this? Speaker 2 (12:18) And they start looking through it. And I can always tell if one like, isn't grasping someone's attention, they're obviously not going to go for it. But then the ones that get a lot of attention are just always fun to me. Like one in particular I have out right now is called a kitchen in Italy. And it's just this beautiful account. It is a cookbook, but the photos in it are so beautiful and so masterful. And It's the story of a kitchen in Italy and like what that looks like. And so certainly I might cook from it at some point. I love to cook. I love to be in the kitchen, but mostly I keep it out because it's just so beautiful and fun to read and a fun escape. And so I feel like when a coffee table book can like fit into all those categories, that's when you know it's a fun one, but friends love. flipping through that one just because we're all like, don't we all just want to go to Speaker 1 (13:17) Italy? I love a cookbook Speaker 2 (13:20) on the coffee table. I Speaker 1 (13:21) mean, not just any cookbook, but something that's pretty, that has a lot of stories, even if they're short. Because like you said, you can pop it open into the middle, just kind of see what's there, enjoy a little bit, put it back, walk away. It doesn't hurt anything. Yeah, exactly. I love that. Jacqueline, do you have any other favorites you'd like to share? Speaker 2 (13:39) There's two that come to mind. One is called Welcome Home by Mike Willen Smith. Speaker 1 (13:45) Yes. And she Speaker 2 (13:47) has several really lovely books. This one in particular is a favorite of mine because it goes through the seasons of your home with actual seasons throughout the year. And so she talks about cultivating your home. in a way that follows the seasons of the calendar. And so I just find myself at the beginning of each season. I just always return to her book. In fact, I keep it out most all year because I love to just remind myself like, oh yeah, okay. The season is turning here in Richmond, Virginia. We have a typical like four season. calendar year and really experienced fall, winter, spring, and summer. And so I just love turning back to her book to say, okay, like what, what does feel like the ushering in a fall and what is like the vibrancy of spring? That one is really fun and just beautiful. Like really, really well done. I enjoy practical Speaker 1 (14:51) inspiration. Yes, Speaker 2 (14:53) exactly. Very practical, which, which I love. And then the other one that I'm enjoying is A Life in Good Taste by a designer in Birmingham, Alabama. Her home is just really beautiful, but she has kids and a life. And it's, again, it feels very practical, but also special. Like the way she decorates her home, it's a dream. Like there's color and pattern and it feels Southern, but it also feels very modern. And she just has really... good taste. And I just think she marries that really well. And it's fun to look through. And as a funny aside, that one, it's a beautiful book, but it always captures my eye because like the pages of the book, like around the outside are blue, the way the rest of the book is. And so it just looks so pretty, whether Speaker 1 (15:46) you have it spine out Speaker 2 (15:47) or pages out, it just. It always catches my eye. It's