[00:00:00] SARAH SWARBRICK: It was a book I very nearly didn’t finish. And I only did because I needed to see if it had a happy ending, which kind of doesn’t.

ANNE BOGEL: Oh, I hate the idea of reading that holding out a hope. I don’t think we’re spoiling anything. Are we spoiling anything?

SARAH: I’m trying not to. It is a fabulous book. It’s just so not for me.

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 today we’re doing a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:00:55] Readers, first I want to tell you about our Patreon community. If you missed last week’s episode, I had a great conversation with teammate Ginger Horton about Book Club, Patreon, and how these communities fit different styles of readers. Our Patreon community for What Should I Read Next? makes a very real difference in our ability to do the work we do.

As a way to say thank you for that ongoing financial support, we share weekly bonus episodes like our recent industry insights that explored the world of special editions, our One Great Book series that features reading superlatives from me and also sometimes from other members of our team, and episodes where our team answer questions submitted by our community members like last month’s starter guide to the romance genre.

Patreon delivers more for your bookish listening pleasure and features more of a behind-the-scenes casual book talk vibe than you’ll hear on your main feed. Thanks to everyone who is already a part of our Patreon community and is tangibly supporting the effort and budget it takes to make the show every week. We are so appreciative.

[00:01:53] If you would like to come join us, get the details at patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext. We would love to have you there. We’re doing amazing things this spring, and we will get you ready for the Summer Reading Guide coming not too far from now. That’s patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.

Readers, one thing we talk about from time to time on this show is re-reading and how that practice fits into every reader’s life in a different way.

After finding needed inspiration courtesy of a used bookstore find, today’s guest embarked on a challenge this year that brings a fresh perspective to her re-reading. When our team read her guest submission, we knew we wanted to hear all about it.

Sarah Swarbrick joins me today from the outskirts of Sydney, Australia, to talk about the special project she’s crafted in advance of her 53rd birthday. With her responsibilities shifting and her kids also getting older, Sarah’s finding more time for reading lately. After many years of gratefully turning to reading for relief and escape, she’s excited to begin a new season in her reading life, one in which she has extra space to approach her books with a different kind of thoughtfulness and intention.

[00:02:58] She’s decided that this year, she wants to re-read a selection of her favorite books from childhood. But that’s not all. She’s also trying to pair each childhood favorite with a more recent release. And there’s the rub. It turns out it’s hard to identify thoughtful pairings.

As you’ll hear, Sarah is looking for books that have a lot to say to each other, that can really be in conversation with each other, and not just in the ways that are obvious on the surface.

Today, I’m excited to connect with Sarah and hear about the brilliant pairings she’s already made, and learn a bit more about how she’s putting these pairs together. Then we’ll explore some unpaired re-reads and identify recent releases, or in some cases, new-to-her old releases, that she might want to experience side-by-side with her long-standing favorites.

Let’s get to it.

Sarah, welcome to the show.

SARAH: It’s thrilling to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

ANNE: Oh, thank you for joining us. I’m so excited to talk books with you today. We loved your submission. I can’t wait to dive in. Would you start by telling us a little about yourself? We’d like to give our readers a glimpse of who you are.

[00:04:02] SARAH: I live in Australia, obviously by the accent, in the very edge of Sydney, so almost as far from the center of the city as you can get, and still be called Sydney, which means I look at the Blue Mountains out the back window, which is just lovely.

ANNE: Oh, that sounds lovely.

SARAH: It is. It’s really peaceful. It’s very nice. I have two kids who are older. One’s left home, the other is at uni and basically just comes home for washing and to sleep sometimes. For several years with my husband’s job, the four of us went to live first in Norway for three years, and then we moved to the U.S., to New Jersey for two years. So that was very interesting.

ANNE: Did you bring any souvenirs for your reading life back home with you? I really mean metaphorically.

SARAH: No, I took my books around the world though, so I have very well-traveled books. They’ve been all the way around the world, some of these books.

ANNE: I hope they enjoyed the experience.

[00:05:03] SARAH: I don’t know. So for the last nearly 10 years, I’ve been a full-time carer for a family member, and last year they had to go into care because, you know, there comes a point at which that is what needs to happen. And I suddenly found myself — kids have grown up — with all this time.

So while I was caring, reading was my absolute savior. But I found I couldn’t read anything very deep or very dense or anything, and so I read a lot of romance, which was an absolute lifesaver, and I have nothing bad to say.

ANNE: But do you have a favorite book to toss in?

SARAH: Oh.

ANNE: Any favorite.

SARAH: Favorite.

ANNE: One of many favorites.

SARAH: Any favorite. So Jasmine Gilroy was a starter, and Ashley Poulson, who’s a newer author, they, you know, kind of auto must-buys because they transport you away. And that was fabulous. But when everything changed, I was like, I can read different books now. I can think a bit harder about what I’m reading.

[00:06:08] At the same time, I stumbled across a book called My Reading Year by Alberto Manguel, in which the opening sentence almost is, “In my 53rd year, I decided to reread the books that had made me a reader.” And I will turn 53 later this year and thought, that sounds like a perfect challenge.

ANNE: Oh, an invitation. Well-timed.

SARAH: Absolutely. So it sent me down a rabbit hole of thinking about what my favorite books had been when I was a kid and reading them, but pairing them with books that are newer, that make you think or… not just make you think, but make you think about reading and how books are often in conversation with each other and how weird books often send you back to childhood favorites, or books you’ve read before, how they seem to be talking even though obviously they don’t talk. So that’s what I’ve started doing.

[00:07:09] ANNE: Is the idea of your books in conversation with each other, pinging off each other, especially when you’re reading them in close time proximity, is that something that’s been with you for a long time? Or was that largely launched by a reading diary? Because I know he’s very enthusiastic about the books themselves, of course, but also the thoughts and connections they trigger for us when they’re in conversation with each other and with what’s happening in our lives.

SARAH: Well, I think that was kind of the thought was I didn’t want to read his books because they’re not the books that matter to me.

ANNE: You mean the books that he wanted to reread for his own?

SARAH: Yes, the books that he wanted to reread because they’re not the books that made me a reader. But yes, him talking about books. And it is a thing that kind of, I guess, had been playing in the back of my head for a while. And so keeping a reading diary and thinking a little bit more about books rather than just using them as an escape.

[00:08:03] Absolutely, that’s a valid thing to do with books, but I have now a little bit of time and I’d like to think a little bit deeper about some of the books I’m reading. Not because they’re necessarily deep books, but it’s been absolutely fascinating to see where these books, some of which I haven’t reread in 30 years or more, how they’ve actually influenced where I am today in terms of my reading life.

ANNE: So now that you have time to ponder, you want to take advantage of it, and it sounds like be really thoughtful about the books you want to read in this. Now, we’re catching you in the middle of your year of rereading, I believe.

SARAH: Yes. Five months in.

ANNE: Okay. Now tell me about the idea to pair those older books with more recent ones.

SARAH: Partly because when I started, I didn’t know what I was going to find with these books. Some of these books have been around the world. I’ve carried them with me for a very long time, even if I haven’t reread them because they’ve always mattered to me.

[00:09:02] But I worried because they’re kind of middle-grade books, YA books, I worried that I would… not get bored, but maybe not complete the challenge if I didn’t kind of level up a bit. Because I could because I’ve got the time.

And I also wanted to think about, which is something he talks about, that idea of books in conversation. So I wanted to look at where, as far as I’m concerned, my reading life started, and then what are people writing now? How does the thinking that I have carried since childhood, how does that influence what I’m reading now and what I’m thinking about now? And we have such amazing books by amazing authors coming out now. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to read more books, really.

ANNE: Sarah, I know I’m not the only one who hears that comment and just smiles real big, because I know what that feels like. It sounds like you’ve been an avid reader for a long time, if you’re revisiting books now that you first read, even as many as 30 years ago.

[00:10:04] SARAH: Yeah. Some of them are a lot older, because… you know, Winnie-the-Pooh, the edition I have was given to me when I was five, and that was 1977. So I’ve been reading a long time. It’s my favorite place to go. It’s been my favorite place to go forever. When you can’t leave home or it’s snowing outside and, you know, minus 20, you gather the kids and read a book.

ANNE: It sounds wonderful. Okay. So today we get to hear about the books you love when you don’t, and we’re going to explore more about your challenge and I believe send you on your way with some older, maybe some new-to-you, but also some contemporary titles that may fit in well to this reading year you are shaping for yourself for your 53rd year.

SARAH: Fantastic, thank you.

ANNE: Sarah, you know how this works. We’re going to start with talking about the books you love. So you’ve come here today with three books you love when you don’t, and we’ll hear what you’ve been reading lately as well. How did you choose these?

[00:11:06] SARAH: The three books I love were the three books that when I started thinking about this challenge, these were the three books that came to mind. And the first two were the two that really set me up on the idea of let’s read older and newer at the same time. And I’m so glad I did. It’s been amazing to do it that way.

ANNE: Well, I can’t wait to hear. What’s the first book you love?

SARAH: So it’s Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne, which is probably not a book a lot of people would choose.

ANNE: Oh, but it puts a big smile on my face just thinking about it.

SARAH: Mine too. I haven’t reread this in many, many, many years. As I said, my copy was given to me when I was five. But just the thought of picking it up when I started thinking about this challenge, I was like, I have to start here. And picking it up was, you know, like summer and childhood and endless possibilities. And it really took me by surprise because it is that, at least for me, it is that.

[00:12:05] But it was also how small the adventures are. They’re everyday kind of adventures, which I think is probably the appeal to the child, but I hadn’t thought about as an adult because, you know, I hadn’t reread it. And the importance of friendship because really their story’s about friendship.

And the friendship sent me to thinking about how often that’s a theme in the books that I know that I like, just in my general reading life. That’s one of the things I really look for is, is there really good friendship or found family amongst the characters in the stories? So I was surprised that it came out of Winnie-the-Pooh. I hadn’t thought about it like that before.

ANNE: But I love that you noticed that. What was it like to revisit this as an adult?

SARAH: It was a bit weird. But it was surprisingly funny, which I also don’t remember. The narrator of the stories directly talks to the reader and makes observations about, oh, well, they’d walked down the tree three times. And you think, of course, they had.

[00:13:13] But as a child, I just remember the wonder and the… the excitement of it all. And as I say, I’d not realized that it’s funny. And the stories are quite short, obviously, because they’re for children, which meant that… I think there’s only 10 in the book Winnie-the-Pooh and it took me 10 days. I just sat down and would read one at lunchtime. And it was just a beautiful way to kind of escape and go back to Hundred Acre Wood.

ANNE: And that leads us to the second book you love, I believe.

SARAH: Yes. So this is the book that I paired with that, which is a much newer book, at least newer to me, because it’s probably written at the same time. It’s called The Beauty of Everyday Things by Japanese author Yanagi, which is a series of essays.

So he was a philosopher who wrote essays in which the basic principle was that the things we use every day, the cups, the clothes you’d put on first thing in the morning, the tablecloths, all those things should be beautiful.

[00:14:16] And what he defines as beauty is not pretty or outrageously expensive. They should be well-made. They should suit their purpose. And because they are well-made and suit their purpose, that that makes them beautiful. I found that idea fascinating.

One of the things he says as part of those essays was that our way of thinking changes our way of seeing. And to me, that almost encapsulated what I’m kind of thinking about this year because… and it paired beautifully with Winnie-the-Pooh, which sounds really strange. But so many of those episodes in Winnie-the-Pooh are about they see one thing, they see something lost in the forest and it’s a hanger, so Owl uses it as a doorbell, but it’s Eeyore’s tale, right?

So we think about how if you see it as just a lost object, then you use it for something and it works for that, but it actually has a deeper purpose and a deeper place to be.

[00:15:20] The two books together, just the essays, really helped me see the beauty in Winnie-the-Pooh that I might otherwise, particularly as an adult, kind of skipped over because you read fast and you don’t slow down and think about the books.

And so reading the two books at the same time just made me go, actually, yes, this is absolutely what I want to be doing with my reading time this year is thinking about the books and looking at the ways in which they speak to each other, even though you could not almost get to more disparate books.

ANNE: And yet they have so much to say to each other. What made you think to pair these?

SARAH: When I thought about starting, Winnie-the-Pooh was where I had to start. And The Beauty of Everyday Things was a book I’d read maybe three or four years ago when I was in the midst of caring. And it had been in the back of my head and I’d left a post-it note on the book to say, come back and read this when you’ve got the brain space to really think about what he’s saying.

[00:16:24] And so it was actually just a coincidence of, well, I’m going to read Winnie-the-Pooh. I want to reread this book. So I just happened to be kind of, I went, well, I’ll do those together and what’s the worst that can happen? They’ve got nothing to say to each other. And even then that gives me something to think about.

Do I need to change the way I’m thinking about doing this challenge for myself? Or does it work? Either way, you learn something.

ANNE: Reading this pairing early on, how did it make you think about what you want from the rest of the year and how you were going to thoughtfully pair books?

SARAH: It made me realize that I need to slow down with my reading, which sounds odd. But some of these books, they’re all older, the older ones, some of them are only 150 pages. And you look at that and go, oh, I could read that in a night or in an afternoon because at the moment I have time to do that.

[00:17:24] But what putting these two books together made me realize was that in fact, I need to slow down and I need to be reading them thoughtfully and not just going, “Well, that’s a kid’s book. It’s not going to really have a lot to say.” Because in fact, the reason I’ve picked them, the reason I’ve carried them around the world is because they did matter to me. And reading them again, I should take it seriously. It’s only for me, but I should take it seriously and I should really think about it.

So finding books to pair with it has been the challenge because initially I just thought of, as I say, as an excuse to buy more books or read the couple of books on the shelf that I’m like, Oh, I’ve always wanted to reread that.

But now I’m trying to be much more deliberate. And that’s why I submitted because I’m trying to be really deliberate about what I’m picking to pair with the books that I’ve chosen. I think that’s what will give me a great experience over the year, which is ultimately what I’m looking for.

[00:18:22] ANNE: I’m just noting that that book was there when you needed it twice. That’s really inspiring to hear. I’m going to be chewing on that in the back of my mind.

Sarah, what’s the third book you love?

SARAH: The third book is Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Before a few years ago, fantasy was my go-to place. You know, made up worlds and epic battles was always a lot of fun.

Then when caring became my full-time job, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hold the stories. I just didn’t want. I wanted the comfort and the 100% certainty of knowing there was going to be a happy ending. Nobody important was going to die, which is when I switched to romance.

But when I was thinking about this, I wanted to make sure that I included fantasy because fantasy has been my first love. And for many, many years, that was nearly all I’d read would be fantasy.

So Tigana is just my favorite. It technically doesn’t fit in terms of I didn’t read it when I was a teenager or a child to a teenager, but it’s my favorite. I looked at the other ones that I have still here and went, No, I want to read Tigana, again, because it is such a lush world.

[00:19:33] Guy Gavriel Kay writes such beautifully immersive stories about language and music. It’s actually my last book because I was like, I’m going to finish with this lush, immersive world, not realizing when I made a list of the months and worked out a book for each month that I think by the time I get to the end, it will be a much deeper read than I was expecting.

ANNE: I love that you are making the rules for your own challenge.

SARAH: Making them up as I go along.

ANNE: Mm-hmm. What are you looking forward to in your reread of this one?

SARAH: I’m not sure now. I thought it was just going to be a lovely place to end the reading challenge because it’s thicker and a bit denser than a lot of the other books that I’d originally picked or that I’d picked. And now I don’t know.

Now I’m not sure what it’s going to give me because I’ve got so much out of the other books that I’ve read so far that I’m really actually looking forward to it. I’m quite excited.

[00:20:35] ANNE: I’m excited for you. Sarah, tell me about a book that wasn’t right for you. I want our listeners to get to hear. And also, as we’re exploring books that may be interesting, illuminating for your challenge, I need to know what doesn’t work.

SARAH: A book that didn’t work, which isn’t on this challenge, was Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I picked it up because so many people talk about how it’s a fabulous book with wonderful writing. And it is. But the thing I couldn’t get past was the… I’m going to say the tense and the horror of what goes on in that book and as the dawning realization of what is happening to the characters. It was a book I very nearly didn’t finish. I only did because I needed to see if it had a happy ending, which kind of doesn’t.

ANNE: Oh, I hate the idea of reading that holding out a hope. I don’t think we’re spoiling anything. Are we spoiling anything?

[00:21:36] SARAH: I’m trying not to. So yeah. And it is a fabulous book. It’s just so not for me. It kind of doesn’t pair with Winnie-the-Pooh at all.

ANNE: No, no, I can see that. Well, they’re both British. That’s all I got.

SARAH: Yeah. Kind of set in the countryside.

ANNE: It’s true.

SARAH: I’ve read horror, but the horror in that book, I still have nightmares about it and I read it years ago.

ANNE: Not for you. Good to know. Sarah, what have you been reading lately?

SARAH: So for February’s Challenge, I’ve read The Love Hypothesis, which is Ali Hazelwood’s, that started life as a Star Wars fan fiction. And I was a big Star Wars nerd when I was a teenager, which perhaps sounds weird, but that is what it is.

I paired that with Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, which was the first book, at least I read, that was set in the Star Wars universe, that wasn’t a film. So they were kind of an easy pairing, easy books to go together because they were both Star Wars.

[00:22:47] I thought that they would be an interesting read, and of course, they are absolutely nothing alike. One is contemporary romance, the other is very much a Star Wars book. So that pairing perhaps was not quite as successful, but I’m still learning things. And it was interesting to see just how different they were, given the characters in The Love Hypothesis were inspired by Star Wars characters.

ANNE: It sounds like a fun pairing for that reason.

SARAH: Yeah.

ANNE: Even if perhaps you didn’t observe the things that you thought you might, I’m glad to hear that it was still worthwhile.

SARAH: Oh, absolutely worthwhile. I think the thing I took away from them is that the way we write books has changed over my lifetime. What was contemporary when I bought it as a teenager and what is contemporary now, the styles are very, very different. And that’s, I guess, a thing I knew, but it was interesting to see.

[00:23:45] ANNE: To really notice. So it sounds like you’re reading one challenge pairing a month.

SARAH: Yes.

ANNE: What are some of the books you intend to read for the remainder of your challenge?

SARAH: Jane Eyre, 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto, and then Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Earlier in the challenge, I read Anne of Green Gables, which just for so many years was my life. And we’ve been to Prince Edward Island when we were living in the US because I loved Anne of Green Gables so much. And it’s beautiful.

One of the things about Anne of Green Gables that I’ve always loved apart from the beautiful friendships and the way that Marilla and Matthew just embrace, even as a child I adored. But the other thing about those books is the sense of place and how you feel like you’re on Prince Edward Island and it feels like a magical place. And so it made sense to me to pair that with Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane, which different continent, very different writing, and very different places, but is also about place and the importance of place.

[00:25:01] I knew that that’s another thing that I just love. I love those books where you feel like you’re living wherever it is that you happen to be reading about. And Wild Places is so inspiring and you just want to go and be. And they’re expansive and beautiful and wild.

So to me that was a good idea and it worked really well. It’s been a great pairing because it did, it made me think about place. And if I’m thinking about reading, I know how much place means to me when I’m looking at what I’m reading.

ANNE: That is an inspired pairing. Thank you for sharing it with us. Now, what we are going to do today is explore some potential picks for some of the books remaining in your challenge. Anything you want me to know? Any requests?

SARAH: Maybe no horror.

ANNE: Okay. I’ve noticed that you have some fiction pairings, some nonfiction pairings. How are you deciding?

[00:26:02] SARAH: It’s a guess like all of this. Part of pairing the newer reads with the older reads is because, as a kid, I guess, like most kids, I read only fiction, but recently I’m reading nearly half nonfiction. And I wanted to make sure that if I was spending a year thinking about books, I wanted there to be some non-fiction which represents what I currently read more regularly.

ANNE: Is this a good time to remind everyone that I don’t know what we’re going to talk about when I sit down? And now I’m thinking that we’re looking not so much for books that are read-alikes, you know. You’re not looking for a grown-up version of The Secret Garden. You want a book where the ideas in The Secret Garden and the ideas and whatever you choose to pair with it can really draw some interesting, thought-provoking connections in your brain that you can be pondering all year long.

SARAH: Absolutely.

ANNE: Okay. What would you add to that?

[00:26:59] SARAH: I wouldn’t. I think that’s kind of at the heart of where I am with my challenge, I want to think about what I’m reading. I want to read deeper. Yeah, I want to really think about it. So books that make me stop and think, that make me look for themes or look at an older book in a new way is actually what I’m loving about my challenge.

ANNE: Now, you also mentioned in your submission that, and please correct me if I get it wrong, that you weren’t as familiar with some new books and you were interested in reading new books. I’m also noticing that you either seem to be or especially love books that have already proven to have stood the test of time. Would you tell me more about navigating that factor?

SARAH: My old list, the books that started me thinking about this is all the books I read up until I was 18. Apart from Tigana, which I was a little bit older. As I say, I have literally carried these books around the world with me, but the newer books, I wanted something different and I paired them with the initial books I’ve paired with rereads because I didn’t have any idea of how to find… in all the books out there, finding something that’s kind of a match is hard, which is why I sent my submission in because I’d love to read books that are new to me that also fit these guidelines. But I’ve got no idea how to find them.

[00:28:30] ANNE: All right, let’s do this. Can we start with 84, Charing Cross Road?

SARAH: Absolutely.

ANNE: Okay. This book makes me happy. Much like with Winnie-the-Pooh, somebody says, do you know 84, Charing Cross Road? And I think, have I ever? It just makes me smile so big. I think part of the reason is that for those who haven’t read this book, it’s a slim little volume about… Actually, Sarah, would you like to do the honors?

SARAH: It’s a series of letters between a bookseller in England at 84, Charing Cross Road, and a lady who I think, from memory, is in New York. I don’t remember why they start writing to each other.

ANNE: Well, she needs a book. She’s writing for a book. And I don’t remember why she needs the book. Is she a journalist? It hasn’t been that long since I reread this myself, but yeah, they strike up a correspondence and a friendship. And I don’t know what your experience was reading this book, but when I read it for the first time, I was hitting up the Google going, this is too perfect. This is nonfiction, right? Because I’m not convinced reading these letters that are too good. It is. It’s nonfiction.

[00:29:39] The first thing I need to ask is, have you read her other work? I just read The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street for the first time in the past couple of years. I don’t know what I’ve been waiting for. It was such a delight. Have you read that one yet?

SARAH: I haven’t read anything else by her.

ANNE: Okay. I don’t know how this fits into your challenge. Same author, but you haven’t read this book yet. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is a sequel of sorts if we can say that about a non-fiction book. In 84, Charing Cross Road, they cement the friendship.

After The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Helene Hanff finally has money, and the reason is that 84, Charing Cross Road has sold so well that she can now afford to go to the UK to visit the friend she made through these letters that she wrote for many years.

She moves into a ho… I mean, she doesn’t move in. She’s just a tourist, but she ends up extending her stay several times at her hotel on Bloomsbury Street, and somebody makes a crack about how, “Well, aren’t you just the duchess? Everybody knows your name, welcomes you in, makes you snacks.” So that’s where it gets the title.

[00:30:45] But she is living her best life, meeting wonderful people, seeing amazing sights, and it’s a joy. I think you would enjoy it.

SARAH: That sounds fabulous.

ANNE: Okay. And I don’t say that lightly. I do feel like non-fiction is in… it’s easier to be confident about the recommendation. I feel like it’s easier to know how a non-fiction book will land than a novel, especially when you’ve read something so similar already and yet not so similar that you won’t experience The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street as an entirely different story. So please begin… You know what? You can decide where to begin. I just want to make sure that’s on your radar. But also there is… I feel like we need to go epistolary.

SARAH: Yeah.

ANNE: There’s going to be a book in this year’s Modern Mrs. Darcy Summer Reading Guide, or at least I think there is. It’s epistolary. It comes out late April. Some of you booksellers may already know what I’m talking about. I’d love this for you. Keep an eye out.

[00:31:39] But I want to talk about the works of Kim Faye. She’s written Love & Saffron and Kate & Frida. Do you know either of these books, Sarah?

SARAH: No.

ANNE: They’re both epistolary. Love & Saffron just came out a few years ago, since the pandemic. It’s set in the 1960s. I think the subtitle is something like a novel of friendship, food, and love. And it begins very similar to 84, Charing Cross Road.

There’s an LA-based… You know, I think she’s just a fan, not a writer herself. But she writes a fan letter to a journalist in Washington State in the Pacific Northwest in the US to her favorite food columnist writer and says, “Hey, thanks for your column. I loved it. By the way, here’s a packet of saffron and a recipe. Your column made me think that you may enjoy this.”

And the journalist writes back and a lasting friendship is born. And they become pen friends and exchange letters over the years that first are all about food, then gradually become about books, and then get very in-depth with their personal lives as well.

[00:32:47] Hard things happen in the women’s lives, but it’s so gentle and feel good. I feel like it’s written for us book lovers and those who can appreciate a long-term, deeply meaning friendship unfolding one letter at a time.

She has a newer book that feels even more akin to 84, Charing Cross Road because it begins in a very similar way to the Helene Hanff novel. Let me think. It’s called Kate & Frida. Frida is the California-born aspiring war correspondent who is now based in Paris. And she writes to her favorite Seattle-area bookstore. Actually, you know what? I think she’s writing to a variety of bookstores because she’s trying them all out. She describes herself as a card-carrying bookstore addict at one point in the book. She wants to try as many as she can.

But she writes to request a specific book to… It’s based on the Elliott Bay bookstore. If any listeners know that. I’m sure you do. She writes to request a book and because of the tone of her letter and what she’s asking for, whoever opens the mail at this bookstore says, “Hey, Kate, you’re 20-something. You’ve got that same youthful energy. You answer Frida.”

[00:33:59] There’s a loose connection to Love & Saffron for readers who enjoyed that book, but it doesn’t matter a tiny bit if you don’t know or pick that up. Kate writes back, recommends a few books, sends Frida the one she asked for, and a friendship is born. So at the leisurely speed of international airmail, their conversations start about their favorite books. And if you want ideas for what to read next, this is an excellent book to get lots of ideas.

And just like in Love and Saffron, pretty soon they’re talking about family and love and career ambitions and what it means to be human and all that good stuff. This is set in the early 90s, which wasn’t that long ago. And yet this almost felt like historical fiction, which was lots of fun and also made me feel very old all at the same time. How do either of these sound to you?

SARAH: They sound perfect. Both. Either. I’ll probably read them both.

ANNE: I’m happy to hear it. They’re not long. I feel like they go pretty quickly, if that makes any difference to you.

[00:34:58] For another nonfiction idea, but different than Helene Hanff.’s style, I’m also wondering about an adjacent work called The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper. It came out in the fall in the U.S. I mean, this is what it is. It’s a wide-ranging history of the blank notebook. It’s written by Roland Allen.

I mean, he starts by talking about marketing. I think the brand is Field Notes. He says, Okay, you know, hey, there are these people who want to make a new office product that’s going to sell really well and make them some money. They decide on the notebook, here’s how.

So I thought that was interesting. It might have been the Moleskine, actually. But I remembered when this product hit shelves, I felt like I was the target audience. And to read the flip side of that story, not the consumer side, but the creator side, was very interesting.

But from there, he launches into like, what’s the appeal? When they launched this in the, I think it was late 90s, early 2000s, they were establishing themselves as being in a long tradition of notebook writing.

[00:36:05] So in the book, he gives us glimpses into all these people through history, like Isaac Newton and Agatha Christie, to everyday workers, like journalists and police officers and deep thinkers who use this, you know, simple little tool to develop big, big ideas.

So he talks about how the notebook has become a really powerful and almost tacitly acknowledged tool for creativity. And he also talks a little bit about ways you can use it to change the way you think. Oh, I’m thinking of that quote you shared from the nonfiction Winnie-the-Pooh companion, from The Beauty of Everyday Things. What was it?

SARAH: Our way of thinking changes our way of seeing.

ANNE: Yeah, that feels in the same universe.

SARAH: Absolutely. That sounds perfect.

ANNE: Okay. I’m not sure if it would be a step or two too far, but it’s your challenge. You get to decide.

Okay. Can we do… ooh. You know, I don’t know that I have a good book for the outsiders, but I have a lot of ideas. How are you thinking about this one? I mean, this seems hard to me. Is this hard for you?

[00:37:14] SARAH: Oh, absolutely. Hence why I [sprut?] to you. When in doubt, ask the expert.

ANNE: Well, I would like to validate that this does not seem easy, because, I mean… it’s a unique book and yet you also only need adjacent. We’re not looking for read-alikes. So when I think the outsiders, I think a novel of a particular time and place, adolescence, friendship, grief, class tension. What would you add to that stewpot?

SARAH: The beauty of poetry and sunrise, because that [saying?] is actually the one I remember the most.

ANNE: Ooh. Okay. I don’t have the sunrise for you, but the poetry, I was wondering about the contemporary book by Tiffany D. Jackson. It’s a young adult novel called Let Me Hear a Rhyme. Do you know this book at all I talked about it on the podcast, but not for a long time.

SARAH: No, I don’t know it.

[00:38:16] ANNE: This is so fun. And if you’re an audiobook listener, because of the nature of the content, it’s so good in that format. I love Tiffany Jackson. She writes novels that are really plotty. They’re easy to read. You want to know what’s happening next. You’re invested in the characters. But then you finish them… Well, I finish them and I find myself just thinking about it. Like, why did she make that choice? Did it have to be that way? What happened to those characters? Oh, that poor person. Oh, I can’t believe. But what about and who and how would that work, you know? I think that’s really a sign of a well-written book if my mind is snagged on it and wants to keep thinking about it.

This story starts with a tragedy when an older teen is murdered. The group of friends in this story is in Brooklyn. This teen’s name is Steph and he was an aspiring rapper.

After his death, he’s left behind this incredible sample. I think it’s a whole album. And his friends, Quadir and Jarrell, they want to give him the legacy he deserves. So they enlist his sister’s help and they take the tracks and they come up with a plan to release them under a new rapper’s name, which I think is pretty great. They’re going to call him The Architect.

[00:39:27] But they don’t want anyone to know that he is gone because they’re afraid that he can’t get signed and his music won’t get released if the producer knows there won’t be any more of it. But they release these tracks, they catch the attention of a big-time producer. Then they have to figure out how to keep their story straight and how to keep things moving and how not to let the producer into… not to let him find out the truth.

But that’s not the only secret being kept in this novel. So in this story, you’ve got the class and economic tension. You’ve got friendship. You’ve got adolescence. You’ve got really hard things. You’ve also got a page-turning puzzle, which is definitely different from the out… I mean, this is different from the outsiders in many, many ways. We don’t even have to list them. But, you know, different place, different setting, different character group, different aims.

[00:40:26] But I wonder if it has some of those themes that spoke to you then, and maybe we’ll speak to you in a different way here. I also have to say, I found the ending really satisfying. It’s just a big chef’s kiss moment when that happens in any novel.

SARAH: That sounds perfect.

ANNE: I’ll take it. You know, as I started thinking about the tone of the outsiders, I really wondered about taking this in an altogether different direction. My mind went to like Rumaan Alam Leave the World Behind. I think more of that than Entitlement. He writes about class tension in really interesting ways. He’s not so big on the friendship and adolescence, but that could be interesting. Definitely darker.

Also, Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It. I love that book. Set at the University of Arkansas that does have all those elements, the friendship, the class tension, the adolescence, grief, people dealing with hard things and complicated situations. Not by any means are read alike, but really interesting and intricate. And again, darker.

[00:41:36] Also Jason Reynolds, if you’ve not read him, especially, I think, Long Way Down. But he writes about adolescence and friendship and the thorniness of the big and the small struggles in life so well. Oh gosh, Jacqueline Woodson. We can’t leave out Jacqueline Woodson. We could go nonfiction with like Brown Girl Dreaming or also an adult novel like Another Brooklyn.

SARAH: I have no idea. They all sound like they would work so well for my challenge and I’m just wondering if I read them all, really.

ANNE: I’m getting the sense that you enjoy the process of wondering what it could be like to read it as part of your challenge.

SARAH: Absolutely.

ANNE: Okay. And just kind of consider what might come up when they’re read side by side.

SARAH: Yeah.

ANNE: Okay. Can we end with the secret garden?

SARAH: Absolutely.

ANNE: What does the secret garden mean to you? What do you think of? I mean, I was thinking about both that blossoming sense of wonder that begins gradually, but then just like soaks the whole book with that air of wide-eyed possibility. But also you’ve got a couple of introverted misfits who are so much happier when they find each other. I think those are my two polls.

[00:42:55] SARAH: When I think about The Secret Garden, I think about the garden, so the place and the magic of it and the wonder and then the friendship between the children. So it’ll be interesting because this is another one I haven’t reread in many, many years.

ANNE: But I’m thinking you must be looking forward to it or you wouldn’t have picked it.

SARAH: Oh, absolutely.

ANNE: Okay. Let’s start by going old. You might have actually already read Elizabeth von Arnim. But have you read The Enchanted April?

SARAH: No.

ANNE: Okay. Yay for me. We talked about the old books versus new book question. This book is old. It’s a hundred years old, there’s no mistaking it for a new book, and yet there’s so much that feels like it could happen today if you just tweak the details gently. Because it’s about four women who are just feeling unimpressed, if not flat-worn down, by their dreary life. I want to say they’re over it, but that sounds too flippant. They need a change. They are cosmically tired.

[00:44:06] So it begins when one of these four women reads an advertisement in, I believe, a newspaper, which is not how we would find out about a potential escape today. But she sees this ad for a small, perhaps tumbled down, medieval castle that is pitched at those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine. And I just want to raise my hand real big. That sounds great.

And she starts dreaming about, I mean, here she is in dreary, dripping Britain and thinks, yeah, get me out of here. I want to go appreciate wisteria and sunshine in a castle in, oh gosh, I think it’s in Italy. Let’s say definitively it’s in Italy and I hope I’m not wrong.

So she recruits a friend to be her partner in travel. They’re going to go away for a month. And these two friends seek out two strangers so they can have a party of four women. One is young, one is old, two are somewhere in the middle.

[00:45:05] So they go to this Italian castle and they spend the month finding out what it’s like to live in wisteria and sunshine and what it’s like to have a fresh view on life. And here we go again back to the beauty of everyday things. Our way of thinking changes our way of seeing. Here it might be more like our way of seeing changes our way of thinking.

But they get to spend time together and find out what they have in common and find out that they’re all unhappy with the life that they’ve just kind of slid into, and they get to come into their own — I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that — in this Italian castle in like 1922.

If that sounds good, she has another book called Elizabeth and Her German Garden with a different plot but similar vibes. How does that sound?

SARAH: You had me at cosmically tired and escaping to Italy.

ANNE: I think I hoaxed myself with that line too. I might need to reread this.

SARAH: Definitely going on the list. That sounds like the perfect pairing.

[00:46:04] ANNE: Well, I’m glad that you get a new-to-you book that has also been around for a little while. Now, when I heard the secret garden, my brain starts scanning for beautiful gardens I’ve read about in literature. One of the places my mind alit was Kate Morton’s novel The Forgotten Garden. Have you read anything by her?

SARAH: I have. I’ve read I’m pretty sure everything by Kate Morton.

ANNE: Okay.

SARAH: She’s a fabulous writer.

ANNE: Is there anything interesting in that pairing? I’m not asking you to reread but now here at the end, I’m just wondering if I’ve been thinking about this right.

SARAH: No, I hadn’t thought about the Kate Morton book. And that would actually be a very interesting pairing because in my brain when I’m remembering it, there are some similarities that would make for interesting reading. But I also want to read The Enchanted April so maybe I’ll read two.

[00:47:06] ANNE: Well, you only need one but if you wanted to try something else new, I do wonder about Barbara Kingsolver has a novel that’s not set in the garden. It’s set in southern Appalachia. It’s called Prodigal Summer and it came out I want to say about 10 years ago. Is this one you know?

SARAH: No, not at all.

ANNE: Okay. Again not a read-alike but maybe an interesting companion to The Secret Garden. This follows three couples over the course of a single summer that turns out to be life-changing for all of them. There’s a wildlife biologist who’s come back to her home county to work. There’s a widowed farmer’s wife who is at odds with her husband’s family and there’s a pair of feuding neighbors.

When I think about my reading experience with this book I just think of the lushness of the descriptions of the natural world and in many cases the work that these characters are doing in the landscape that they find themselves in for this one summer. Does that hold any interest for you?

[00:48:07] SARAH: It would definitely be an interesting pairing given that when I was thinking about it, I was thinking you know Europe or England and gardens. But to go to the U.S. might be a very interesting experience. And I’ve not read any Barbara Kingsolver so it might be a good place to start.

ANNE: It could be. But I was also wondering about James Herriot if you have not read his works yet.

SARAH: I have read James Herriot. Not for many years as well but yeah.

ANNE: I’m glad to hear that. I thought those two books celebrated the wonder of nature in very different ways.

SARAH: I like the idea of Prodigal Summer, I must admit.

ANNE: Well, you can report back and let me know where you landed on your selections because I would love to hear where your 53rd year and for this challenge that you’re doing in advance of your 53rd birthday, where it takes you.

Sarah, thank you so much for being so generous to share your deeply personal challenge with us here, with your fellow readers. We are grateful.

SARAH: Thank you for giving me the chance. It’s always good to talk about books.

[00:49:08] ANNE: Oh gosh, it’s always good. And I’m interested to hear how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking after talking it through and surveying some possible options.

SARAH: I have no idea because pretty much every book you’ve suggested I can see being an amazing read. Limiting myself to one, I suspect I’m going to read very many of the list. But finding one to pair, I suspect I’ll read Love & Saffron first because 84, Charing Cross Road is coming up. But I will probably also read The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street because that just sounds too perfect not to.

ANNE: Oh well, I’m so excited to hear what you think. Thank you so much for talking books with me today. I really enjoyed it.

SARAH: Thank you so much for having me on.

[00:49:57] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sarah and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. Find the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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