[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: This is kind of what I'm thinking, but tell me what you're thinking.
CALLIE DEAN: I think you have nailed exactly what I'm going for.
ANNE: A little bit of everything.
CALLIE: A little bit of everything.
ANNE: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel, and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading, and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.
[00:00:45] Readers, with the end of the year only weeks away, we still have great last-minute gifts in our Modern Mrs. Darcy shop. Treat your favorite reader to a present inspired by your shared love of reading, like our sturdy tote, gorgeous journals, reading accessories like book darts, or delightfully nerdy pencils and stickers. We also have signed copies of my books available, which I'd be happy to personalize any way you'd like.
My book journal, My Reading Life, makes a great gift for any style of reader, any time of year, but especially with the new year upon us. And for the kids in your life, my book journal, My Reading Adventures, is perfect for the 8 to 12-year-old set or for kids at heart.
For those who need a truly last-minute gift, give a membership to the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club. No shipping required, and select from the length of time fits your budget and gifting needs. Find out more and shop our in-stock selection at modernmrsdarcy.com/shop.
[00:01:40] Readers, today's guest has been participating in reading challenges for nearly a decade, and she's putting a unique spin on this tradition in 2026 that I'm eager to discuss today.
Callie Dean is joining me today from her home in Shreveport, Louisiana. She's often found reading, of course, but also enjoys activities like playing the violin in the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, writing children's books, and running and baking.
We take a flexible approach to reading challenges around here. They work great for some readers, not the best for others. But today I want to explore Callie's 2026 project because it just sounds like fun, and I thought it would help get you thinking about what you want from your own reading life in the year to come.
Callie's challenge is both highly structured and incredibly flexible, because in the new year, Callie's hoping to read one book that starts with each letter of the alphabet. And if you think, that sounds like a piece of cake, what? I thought so too, until I figured out just how intense her guidelines really are. You'll hear about it.
[00:02:39] Today, we'll talk all about the books Callie's already identified for this challenge and where she could really use my help to fill in the gaps so she can strike a delightful balance of topics, genres, and authors in 2026. You know I've got ideas. Let's get to it.
Callie, welcome to the show.
CALLIE: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
ANNE: Oh my gosh, I'm excited to jump in. So when readers are listening to this, we're going to be on the cusp of a new year. And when we saw your submission come in, we thought, hmm, this would be a great way to like say goodbye to 2025 and get ready for 2026. So thanks for bringing it to the show.
CALLIE: Yes, I can't wait to talk with you.
ANNE: Callie, the first thing we want to do is just give our readers a glimpse of who you are. Would you tell me a little bit about yourself?
CALLIE: So I am a lifelong resident of Shreveport, Louisiana. That is up in the northwest corner of the state, about as far from New Orleans as you can be and still be in Louisiana. I live here with my husband, Jordan, and we have three boys who are ages 11, 9, and 4.
[00:03:40] And by day, I work at Louisiana State University in Shreveport, where I'm the director of Applied Research at the Institute for Nonprofit Administration and Research. That's a really long title. But what it means is that I spend about half my time teaching classes in nonprofit administration and about half my time working with local community-based nonprofits and helping them to collect data and measure their impact and tell their story.
So I love my job. I love what I do. I also have the pleasure of getting to play in the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra. I play the violin. And I'm a children's book author. My first book will come out next October, October of 2026, and it's called Marvelous Mistakes, and it tells the story of eight different people from history who made some kind of mistake in their work.
And it juxtaposes the historical figures with modern-day kids who are also making mistakes. The hope is that it challenges kids to embrace their mistakes and learn from them and find ways to make them marvelous.
[00:04:38] ANNE: Oh, that's so fun. Now, Callie, would you paint a picture of your reading life for me?
CALLIE: Probably my story as a reader will be one that's familiar to a lot of your listeners. I was a very avid reader when I was growing up. I always had a book in my hand. And then when I went to college and grad school and starting off in the working world, I didn't have a lot of time to read for fun, nor did I really know exactly what it was that I liked to read as an adult and as finding my own way as a reader.
That took a little bit of rediscovery. I actually found my way to your blog back in, I think, 2014, right as I was having my first child. At the time, you were doing all of your literary matchmaking on the blog. And so I love being able to see what other people liked and finding books that I had in common with them.
And then your recommendations were helping people to branch out and find books that they would like that might be in a slightly different genre than what they knew that they liked.
So I started following your recommendations and branching out and trying out lots of new genres, and the rest is history. I think that reading has become a really important and central part of my life. It's something that gives me a lot of joy.
[00:05:44] I read pretty widely. I read a lot of different genres. I think the only genres I don't really touch very much are horror and true crime. But everything else is pretty fair game. I started a book club back in 2018 or so, and I thought it sounded kind of boring for us to all get together and read the same book. So instead, I challenged everybody to bring a book that they loved that they'd read recently and they couldn't stop talking about. And we did a white elephant style swap. And we've continued meeting since then just a couple times a year.
But what I love about it is the women that come to this group are all... they all have very different tastes, but they all have excellent taste. So I know that I'm going to come back home with a new book and also a list of just a diverse list of books that I can put on my reading list and it will sustain me until the next time.
ANNE: That sounds so fun. Callie, what brings you to What Should I Read Next? today?
[00:06:38] CALLIE: I love a good reading challenge. I always try to have some kind of annual reading challenge that goes along with the calendar year. I started off with actually your reading challenges that you have posted on the Modern Miss Darcy website that were like 12 books a year. So essentially like one a month.
What I love about a good reading challenge is that it's typically coming in categories where you're trying to find a book that fits every category. And so it pushes you just a little bit into some new territory that you might not touch on your own. But I've always found that I find books that I love through a reading challenge.
So in 2025, right now, I'm at the tail end of a book bingo challenge, and so there's 25 different categories that are all arranged on a bingo card. So each time I read a book for the category, I get to cross it off. And I'm going for a blackout bingo by the end of the year.
[00:07:26] About halfway through the year, I started thinking, "I'm doing 25 books for 2025, it would be really fun to do 26 for 2026." So then naturally, I started wondering whether it might be possible to do a book for every letter of the alphabet. That's how my alpha book reading challenge came into being. So I'm planning for 2026 to try and read one book for every letter of the alphabet.
The rules that I have set for myself, and I might be making it harder on myself than I need to, but I have decided that all of the books, like the titles, all the words in the title need to start with the same letter, so no a's or d's unless it's that letter of the alphabet.
ANNE: When I first read your submission, I completely missed that; it never occurred to me that's what you meant because that is so... I mean, that's hard, Callie. I'd love to hear more about that.
[00:08:18] CALLIE: What I realized is I don't have a great system for finding books that fit into this narrow criteria that I have set for myself, and so I just started taking notes. Like I said, I'm a data nerd, so I set up a spreadsheet and started just... every time I saw a book that was a one-word title or an alliterative title, I would add it to the spreadsheet, so I could even see whether this challenge is possible.
But what I realized is that I didn't have my usual sense of discernment and quality control that I have like when I'm typically picking out books. So I have this long list of books, and it's been kind of fun to see what potentially fits into these categories. But I don't really have a great sense of whether I will enjoy these books or whether these are books to get excited about.
So literally at some point in here, I was thinking it would be really nice if I could talk to somebody about this who knows books like Anne Bogel. And so I filled out the form on your website to come onto the podcast. And so here we are.
ANNE: Okay, I have a clarifying question.
CALLIE: Yes.
[00:09:16] ANNE: I might actually have still assumed your challenge was looser than you're saying. So are you saying no "the's" and no "A's"?
CALLIE: No "the's" or no "A's" except-
ANNE: So like all the words.
CALLIE: Like The Thirteenth Tale would work because it's all T's.
ANNE: Oh, I got really excited for a second. Like, "Oh, the..." No. But okay. Okay. That is-
CALLIE: Is that going to derail you?
ANNE: No, we can do that. Look, I just want to know what the rules are, Callie. If you say anything today that makes me think like, "Are you sure that this is what you want for your reading life?" we could talk about this. But the thing with imposing limitations like this on yourself is you got to think about books in a different way.
I mean, there's so much you could possibly read. You have to narrow it down somehow. And yet I also hear that keeping that sense of discernment, and I think you use the phrase quality control in your submission, like you still want to read books that are good for you, that you will be glad that you spent time with. And for that to be true, it has to have more going for it than to start with a letter N.
[00:10:24] CALLIE: That is true. And actually like every year in Shreveport, we have this giant book bazaar that's a fundraiser for a local college. It's massive. I mean, they fill this room with used books that you can get for very cheap. And so in my head, I thought, "This is going to be a great opportunity to, you know, maybe find some books for the book challenge." And I'm walking around like looking, "Nope, that's too many words. Nope, that doesn't fit." And then I would find one and be like, "I don't know if I want to read this." So yes, I agree.
ANNE: Well, you got all year, right?
CALLIE: Yes. And I keep reminding myself, like, these don't have to be the only books I read. I will read more than this. But the other thing that makes this challenge different from other reading challenges I've done is that I do think I'm going to try and go in order, like A to Z. I don't know. I could change my mind about that.
[00:11:13] But most of the time when I have like, you know, 12 categories or 15 categories that I'm trying to hit, it doesn't matter what order you hit them in. And so this one is kind of unique because it does make sense that there might be an order to follow.
And part of that does intimidate me a little bit because I think essentially I am a mood reader. You know, even though a wide variety of books appeal to me on the surface. At any given moment, the book that I'm going to pick tends to be the one that feels right for that moment.
Like earlier this summer, I was on the wait list for Fredrik Backman's book, My Friends. And I was looking forward to it. I was looking forward to it. I was on the wait list for months and months and months. And then when it finally got to be my turn, I was like, "I don't think this is the right book for right this moment." And so I let the hold lapse a couple of times and ended up, you know, reading it a month or two later and really enjoyed it. But it just didn't feel like the right time back in the summer. I don't know why.
ANNE: It happens sometimes, or at least it happens to me. Maybe it doesn't happen to every reader, but it certainly happens to me and lots of the guests I've spoken to on What Should I Read Next?.
[00:12:13] CALLIE: Yeah. And I think that makes it really difficult to plan ahead. Like, what am I going to want to be reading, you know, 12 months from now, six months from now? I am trying to make sure that I have a lot of flexibility in the book list that I'm trying to put together for next year. Ideally I would love to end up with multiple books that I'm really excited about for every letter, so that if I get to, you know, letter F and I'm like, "I don't love this first choice, but I love this second choice," I can make some of those switches without derailing or getting stuck in the middle.
ANNE: I hear that. And I mean, some readers need reminding more often than others, but like you are the boss of your own reading life. You are certainly the reader in control of this challenge. So yeah, if you decide that you get to the letter E and nothing is sounding good right now, you can go to F or Q and go from there.
CALLIE: That's true.
ANNE: Or at least this is easy for me to say. Is that actually true?
[00:13:09] CALLIE: I think I can manage to do this. Yes. I'm not usually so prescriptive. This is a bit of a change, but it's a really fun challenge too. So I am approaching it with excitement and not any kind of trepidation. I want to keep it fun. Reading challenges have always been fun and they help.
Like I said, they bring joy to my reading life because they are kind of giving me a little bit of that variety and that nudge. But like I said, not too much. I'm not feeling pressure to do it. And so I would like to keep that spirit alive.
ANNE: That sounds great. So we know that we are building towards finding you recommendations for your reading challenge. What I'd love to do next is find out what kind of books you actually enjoy. Can we talk about your books?
CALLIE: Of course.
ANNE: Callie, you know how this works. You came prepared with three books you love, one you don't, and what you've been reading lately. And we're going to see what we can learn from what you've chosen as we think about what you might read for your alphabet challenge. How did you choose these for today?
[00:14:09] CALLIE: So I was really trying to give you a sense of the variety in my reading life. And so I was trying to make sure that I had books that represented different genres and different styles and structures and that sort of thing. That's why I'm happy with the group of books that I came up with. And I'm excited to share them with you.
ANNE: Okay, well, I'm excited to hear about them. What's the first book you love?
CALLIE: The first book that I picked is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This is the book that I often say is my favorite book of all time. I first read it in around 2015 and then I reread it a couple of years ago. And I was so delighted to find that I still loved it as much the second time around as I did the first time, so that was kind of a nice surprise.
Station Eleven is about a flu pandemic that wipes out 99% of the global population. And the narrative jumps back and forth in time between when the flu itself is starting to spread and then 20 years later. And in that ‘20 years later’ narrative, there is a group called the Traveling Symphony that travels around to all of these little towns and cities that are just starting to pop up again because society obviously totally collapsed after the pandemic.
[00:15:17] So the Traveling Symphony is going around and performing Shakespeare and Beethoven symphonies and all of these different things. These are people who are artists before the pandemic and have continued to bring their art into the post-pandemic world.
I think what I love about this book so much is that it does celebrate the power of the arts and the ability of the arts to forge those connections through time and through space. I just love the idea that even in really bleak and post-apocalyptic circumstances, there will still be people making art and people who are dedicating their lives to bringing the art to other people.
When I first read this book, I really think it transformed the way I saw the world because it's such a celebration of all the small and big things that are part of our society and part of what makes us human. So it's art, it's music, but it's also technology, and it's also all the different ways we communicate and electricity, you know, medicine, food.
[00:16:17] When I finished reading the book, I just feel like I had a new way of thinking about all of those things. And I think about this book a lot more often than I would expect because it has made me so grateful for all of the things that are in our lives. And so I appreciate that about this book.
I think also structurally, one of the things that this book does, like I said, it jumps back and forth in time and it also follows multiple characters' perspectives throughout the book, and all of their stories intersect in kind of unusual and surprising ways. And I really love that in a book.
In fact, when I was thinking about what books to share with you today, all of the books that I love best kind of tend to have this structure. I had to think hard to think about ones that didn't have those kind of intersecting stories in them. And so I loved just the way that all of those different stories connect.
ANNE: Ooh, say more about intersecting stories. Are we going to hear that in your other books as well?
[00:17:10] CALLIE: I kind of intentionally did not pick those, but I would say like other books that came to mind that I considered and didn't pick were books like Cloud Cuckoo Land and Anxious People. And more recently, I read The Names, which kind of has this cool structure because it's following the same people throughout alternate timelines. So similar kind of things that it's doing with time and different narratives.
ANNE: Interesting. I'm going to be thinking about that. Callie, what's the second book you love?
CALLIE: A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna. This is a cozy fantasy that's set in modern-day England. The main character of this book is a witch who at one point was supposed to be one of the most powerful and most promising witches in the whole country. But as a teenager, she spent all of her power or most of her power trying to bring her grandmother back from the dead. And so she ended up becoming this outcast in the magical society that the author has built in this book.
[00:18:16] So she spends her days running a little inn that has retained a little bit of magic. The way that it works is the only people that can find her inn are those that really need to be there. So she has this wonderfully delightful quirky cast of characters that are staying in the inn kind of indefinitely.
One of them ends up becoming her romantic interest and the person who's helping support her as she tries to get her magic back. I picked this one because it was just such a comfort read for me. It's just a lot of fun. I really liked the characters and the magic, like the magical world that she's built up. It wasn't too complicated, but it wasn't too simple.
And even though the story itself was kind of light, the reading experience was a light one. It still felt like it had substance and I still cared about the characters and it felt meaningful, if that makes sense.
ANNE: I think it does. And also, I'm just noticing that we've talked about this book a lot on What Should I Read Next? lately. It seems to be a real crowd pleaser.
[00:19:13] CALLIE: That's great. Yes. I had read the first one, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, and loved that one as well. You know, they kind of both have that same delightful feel. It kind of reminded me of like T.J. Klune's magical worlds that he has built up. I like a good fantasy. I don't read a ton of fantasy, but this one was one that I enjoyed from start to finish.
ANNE: Callie, what is your final favorite?
CALLIE: The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon. This is a nonfiction book that tells the story of different people from American history. Ordinary people, not the people that typically make it into our main history books, but ordinary people that did small and mighty things to make our country and our democracy better.
For instance, she talks about some teachers during the civil rights movement who were not necessarily concerned with becoming elected or becoming famous, but they were just doing the work that was in front of them, which was teaching children. She makes a really strong case that that had such a profound impact and with ripple effects throughout the country across generations.
[00:20:24] I was familiar with Sharon McMahon's work a little bit before I read this book, and so I knew that it was one that I wanted to read. I knew it would feel important and inspirational and informational. But what I was surprised by and the reason why I picked it is because I wasn't prepared for how funny it would be and how enjoyable and just... it was a great page turner. I read it all in a weekend and just, again, thoroughly enjoyed every moment in this book.
I came away, again, feeling inspired, but also feeling like I had a genuinely fun reading experience in the process. And so that was wonderful. I think it can be difficult to tie together so many disparate stories into one cohesive narrative, but she did it so seamlessly, and I really enjoyed it.
ANNE: I'm glad to hear that. How are you thinking about the fiction/nonfiction mix in your challenge? Or does it just depend?
[00:21:18] CALLIE: I'm striving for a balance. I would like to have a mix of fiction and nonfiction. Again, thinking through this alphabetically, I want to make sure I don't get stuck with a bunch of nonfiction in a row or all fiction in a row. And so I'm trying to be strategic about where I'm putting the nonfiction as well.
One thing I've noticed is that there's a lot of weighty nonfiction and biographies that have one-word titles. And so I'm trying to be careful of not stacking the list with too many of those. But I do love nonfiction. I like history. I also like social science. I'm open to anything in the nonfiction world as well. So I do want to make sure that that's a part of what I'm reading next year.
ANNE: Okay, spoiler alert. I'm going to reference the spreadsheet. Callie, you and I were talking about your alpha books spreadsheet before we hit record on this episode. And we were talking then about how length is a factor because you want to be able to accomplish this challenge. And also, I believe you didn't explicitly say this, but tell me if this is correct, have these not be the only books that you're reading in 2026?
[00:22:25] CALLIE: Yes, I think that's correct. So, typically I'm reading between 40 and 50 books a year. And so this will be 26. So it will be a chunk of my reading life, but it will not be everything that I read. So yes, let me try to describe the spreadsheet to your listeners.
Like I said, I'm in research so I'm very much a data nerd. And so that was my immediate impulse when I started thinking about this challenge was to start a spreadsheet with all of the letters of the alphabet where I could just put in any books that I found that met my criteria, like I said.
I've got a couple of different columns. One of the columns is books that I am genuinely excited about already. And then I have a column that right now is titled "Books I Might Enjoy." And these are the books that kind of look interesting. But like I said, I don't have a good sense of whether these are books that actually will fit into my wheelhouse and be ones that I will be excited about.
[00:23:19] And then I have another one that is "Books I Probably Won't Pick Unless I'm Out of Options." And that's the column for books that I probably would not pick up, except maybe if I get stuck and I just need something for that letter. And then I've got each of the titles coded in a couple of different ways. So I've looked up which books are in the library, which ones are fiction versus nonfiction, and ones that are longer than 350 pages or less than 225. There's very few that fit into that latter category.
But what you and I were talking about with regard to length is that I'm not afraid of a long book. I like to read long books. I typically have several long books in my reading list for each year, but I don't want to get stuck and end up with five or six books in a row that are 500 pages because I'm afraid that that will bog me down and then I won't want to continue or I'll just give up on it.
So I'm trying to kind of keep that in mind. It's not a criteria that I don't want to pick long books or I'm scared of them, but I just want to keep an eye on the balance and make sure that I have some long books and some short books and some fiction and some nonfiction, you know, if that makes sense.
[00:24:27] ANNE: I think it does. Now, moving back to your books, tell me about a book that wasn't a good fit and I'd love to hear why.
CALLIE: The book that I said is not for me was Come and Get It by Kiley Reid. And the reason I said this one wasn't for me is because I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be a book I loved. I previously had read her other book, Such a Fun Age, and I enjoyed that one. So I was looking forward to this one when it came out. It, again, had a lot of elements that I thought I would really like.
The main character is a writer. She's on the campus of a university and kind of doing her research and her writing as the book comes along. What I found, though, was that all the different characters in the book, while they were, you know, well-written characters, well-developed characters, some of the decisions they made were just such colossally bad decisions that you could see were going to end badly for them.
[00:25:18] And so the consequences were predictably bad. And so from my perspective, it was a little bit like watching a train wreck happen because you could see where it was going before it got there. And so that was deeply uncomfortable. So even though the writing and the plot were propulsive, I almost didn't finish because of that.
And I've been thinking about that and why it wasn't for me. And I think it's not necessarily that I need to like or understand or have my characters be like me, but I do need to buy into their motivation. And I think these characters didn't quite get there for me. I couldn't quite go with them to the decisions that they were making.
ANNE: Okay, and I can see why you would have thought it was for you, especially with the intersecting stories. But I mean, you didn't want to watch a train go slowly but inevitably off the rails because that is what happens. I mean, I really enjoyed this book, but like that is what happens. Like you see the characters making poor choices in what it sets in motion and like, oh, everybody pays at the end for what they did in the beginning.
[00:26:22] CALLIE: Yes. It kind of reminds me of like when you're watching a TV show and the person in the show is, you know, doing something horribly embarrassing in public. And I just can't even watch because I get so embarrassed for them. You know, it felt like that kind of experience where I was feeling all of those feelings for the characters, like, "Please don't do this. Stop."
ANNE: Like that vicarious mortification, not for you.
CALLIE: Yes.
ANNE: Okay. Callie, what have you been reading lately?
CALLIE: I just finished reading My Friends by Fredrik Backman. He's one of my favorite authors. I was very much looking forward to this book and I enjoyed it. I didn't like it quite as well as I liked Anxious People and A Man Called Ove, but I liked it a lot. I really enjoyed it.
And then right now I'm in the middle of reading Soil by Camille Dungy. It's a memoir. She and her family moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, and it's telling the story of how she's like planting a garden there and getting to know the local wildlife and the local plants.
[00:27:19] Along the way, because she's a Black author and obviously Fort Collins, Colorado is a predominantly White community, so she's kind of talking about that, you know, feeling there and also exploring like the canon of nature writing of American literature, where she also fits as a Black woman in a predominantly White canon of literature.
One of the things that she does that I've really enjoyed so far is just kind of challenging this notion that a nature writer needs to be somebody who goes alone into the woods by themselves. And she's asking questions about like, what would it be like to bring your whole self into your writing and into your creative process and into your time with nature, your social identity, and your family, and all of that. So I'm just in the middle of it, but I'm really enjoying it so far.
[00:28:04] ANNE: Callie, that's so helpful to talk about your books so that when it comes to making recommendations, we'll find what you may enjoy reading next. Although for some of these, I mean, I thought you were making it hard on yourself when I thought you were allowing the filler words like "a" and "an" and "the" and "or," but oh my gosh, do I know any books that only have words that start with N or G in them? I don't know.
But that's what we're going to do next is we're going to talk about specific books that you might actually be really excited to read, not just checking a box, because it sounds like that's going to be the key to this challenge of success is being excited to read these books or reading books that you might not have read otherwise and discovering something you didn't expect and feeling like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I read this." But what I really want to know is, you've hinted at this a little bit, but how can I help today?
[00:28:56] CALLIE: Like I've been kind of alluding to, I think what I have lacked in my process... I've been just finding books in bookstores and libraries at the book bazaar. Whenever I hear them being mentioned on the internet or on podcasts, if it fits the criteria, I've been writing it down. And what I really need is a little bit more discernment.
And so what I'm hoping you can do is take what you know about my reading and help recommend some books that are for the letters that I'm really struggling with. So, to be clear, I do have options for every letter of the alphabet, there are books that exist, but there are some holes in terms of like books that I'm really excited about. So some of the letters that I'm struggling with are D and E and G and J and N, O, P, and U and V. So that's a lot of letters.
[00:29:46] Now, I'll say, I will take any recommendations from you because I value any recommendations you can give. So if you come up with something that doesn't fit into those letters, that's fine. But those are the ones that I'm trying to figure out, you know, have I already found a book that might work that I just need to get a little nudge to know that it's the kind of book that I would like to read? Or are there other books that I just haven't even considered that would fit into the criteria that I should be considering and adding to my list?
ANNE: Ooh, okay, I like this. First, would you tell me some books you're really excited to read that fit your challenge regardless of the letter?
CALLIE: So like for the letter A... again, I wasn't sure when I started whether I was going to go in order, but I am kind of leaning towards starting with A and ending in Z. And so I'm kind of excited about the first three letters. I think I can start strong.
[00:30:39] So with A, I've got Audition by Katie Kitamura, and also Awake by Jen Hatmaker. And I've heard of both of these books. These had both kind of been on my radar before I started even thinking about this challenge, and they are books that I'm excited about. And since I've been thinking about this challenge, they've been popping up everywhere and I keep hearing recommendations for them.
To me, that's what I want all of the letters to feel like is I have two really good options, and it's going to be difficult to pick which one I want. And I can just go within the moment, whatever's available at the library or whatever I'm feeling in that moment.
Similarly, for letter B, I have Babel by R. F. Kuang and Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. Again, these are both books that I've heard recommended by trusted reader friends as books that I think that I would enjoy. And so these are books that I've wanted to read anyway. Again, B feels like it's taken care of.
[00:31:33] Then for C, I have Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. That's a book that I've been wanting to read for multiple years. It's made it to the top of my list, and I just haven't gotten around to reading it. So I'm excited that this will be the year that I can maybe finally tackle that.
And like we talked about with length, as I started thinking about that, it's that juxtaposition of ABC that made me think about length because Babel is a pretty long book, and Caste is fairly long too. Then I started thinking, "Well, I probably need something a little bit lighter for D." And then that's kind of where I got stuck.
It's funny because I don't have a lot of options for letters like Q and X and Z, but I'm kind of excited about the ones I've got. I've got Quiet by Susan Cain as my Q book. And X by Ilyasah Shabazz is the book I have down for X right now. I was going to give myself a pass on the Xenogenesis series, even though the individual names of the book don't start with X. That's Octavia Butler's trilogy. But since I discovered the book, X, I think that may be the one I go with.
[00:32:38] Then Zorro by Isabel Allende. And I've never read one of her books, but I've wanted to, and I'm a huge fan of Zorro. So that sounds like a really good place to end.
ANNE: That sounds fantastic. Although, I mean, ooh, X is one I wouldn't really want to play with if I were you. And yet the first book of the Xenogenesis series is called Dawn, right there at the beginning of the year.
CALLIE: Yes. And so then I did move that up to the top as a possibility for D. So even if I don't pick it for X, maybe that can be my D book. I'm not positive.
The other thing that I started noticing is there are some authors that I've never read before. So, like Percival Everett, I know he's gotten a lot of press for the book James, but he also has the book Erasure that I'm not as familiar with, but it kind of looked intriguing to me. I'm kind of intrigued to see if there might be an author that I introduced earlier in the year, whether I might be drawn to their books a little bit later in the year. So I'm trying to keep those possibilities open as well.
[00:33:40] I think the other author is Joan Silber. I've never read a Joan Silber book, but she's got Improvement for I and Mercy for M. Is there another one?
ANNE: Oh, yeah. She has more than that.
CALLIE: Probably so. I feel like there was a third one of hers. Maybe I didn't put it down.
ANNE: With nice short titles that don't get cluttered with words that start with other letters.
CALLIE: That's right. Who knew that that was such a niche?
ANNE: I certainly didn't... Okay, I'm seeing that we could blitz you with lots of options, except on the letter N, because honestly, I have no idea. But we could blitz you, how about with several options? I mean, part of what I'm noticing of the challenge here, especially as you're going in order, and like part of the fun here is reading, you actually do want to be reading, and I imagine not planning and planning and planning forever and ever and ever. Maybe a mystery or two would be fun, but you don't want to read 20 of them. And maybe a memoir would be great, but again, you don't want to read the majority memoirs.
[00:34:38] What if we do give you some options, at least at the beginning? This is kind of what I'm thinking, but tell me what you're thinking.
CALLIE: I think you have nailed exactly what I'm going for.
ANNE: A little bit of everything.
CALLIE: A little bit of everything. So if you think I'm missing something, I hope you'll feel free to chime in with that. Or like I said, if there's just a book that you think I need to add, I would love to hear it.
ANNE: Let me tell you, the nature of recording a live show is if I do think you're missing something, I won't remember for three days. And I don't actually mean this podcast is airing live, but I do mean that sometimes we get asked, how long elapses between the first part of the conversation and the second part of the conversation? And the answer is, I mean, you're listening to how long elapsed and it was basically nothing.
CALLIE: I'm actually really impressed that you can do this on your feet.
ANNE: Oh, I haven't actually done anything yet. So don't be impressed. But can we start exploring?
CALLIE: Yes, absolutely.
[00:35:36] ANNE: I'd love to show you my first draft. I mean, what I did to get ready, Callie, is sometimes when I sit down to talk to a guest and they say, "Oh, can you tell me a book about like bank robbery?" I will forget not just every book I've ever read or heard about about bank robbery, but every book I've ever read or heard about ever.
But to refresh my memory, I just walked through my own shelves and was looking at these titles in a different way. And I really noticed how I was reading the spines in a different way than I would if I weren't looking through the lens of your challenge, which was so fun. So thank you for giving me that gift. But gosh, it's hard.
Like when I think E, I was like, "Oh, well, first of all, anything, the Early Riser by Jasper Fforde or E. E. Cummings' Collective Poems or East of Eden. But even East of Eden is no good because of that little of.
CALLIE: It's so close. Yes.
[00:36:29] ANNE: Yeah. So close. So it doesn't leave you with a lot of options, but it leaves you with some. Okay. It seems like we should maybe start with D because it's right there at the beginning of the alphabet. And so you're going to come to it real quick. I also want to say that we're not going to say a lot about the individual books. I just want to give you a like rough idea of where in the literary landscape this book nestles so you can then further explore.
CALLIE: That sounds great.
ANNE: So, for D, there's nothing you're excited about, but you do have some options. So let's see if we can add anything to the mix. We've talked about Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel on the podcast before. Is this a book you're familiar with?
CALLIE: It is not.
ANNE: Okay. This is not super long. It's a really interesting concept. It's a husband and wife writing duo. He's a novelist, I think she's a poet, or it's possible I have them reversed. But this is a weird genre-bending little book. And it's meta in the sense it's about a husband and wife who are trapped at home with their children in the early days of the pandemic that we all remember while the wife is researching her Melville.
[00:37:39] And they came to talk in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club, and they did a reading for us, which was the reading I didn't know that I was longing for. It was incredible. But they said that this book at its heart is about creative partnerships.
It's like a slice-of-life story, a book about books, a book about literary criticism. There's some history. There's a lot of Moby Dick and Herman Melville. And I saw Susan Conley's Landslide on your reading list as a book that I think you're excited about. Is that right?
CALLIE: That's right.
ANNE: Okay. Whatever drew you to Susan Conley's Landslide, which I don't believe you've read yet, tone-wise, it really reminded me of that book. So this is strange and fascinating and like 200 pages.
But if you wanted to do something different, and this is going to be all about options, I think Kathleen Norris has a lovely little spiritual memoir. She calls it a spiritual geography called Dakota that's relatively slim. Colum McCann has a book called Dancer that I have never read, but you probably know Colum McCann.
[00:38:44] CALLIE: I don't think I do, actually. Who is this?
ANNE: He wrote an early guest favorite on the podcast. He called it his 9-11 novel. It's called Let the Great World Spin. That's probably the book we've talked about the most on the podcast. He's a contemporary Irish writer and novelist. For a totally different tone, you could do Ruth Reichl's like frothy first novel, Delicious.
CALLIE: Ooh, okay.
ANNE: There's a great but ominous mystery by Tim Johnston called Descent about a family on vacation in the Rockies. They have two kids. They go for a hike, they go for a run together in the morning, only one child comes back, and the other has been disappeared, and the rest of the novel is about the fallout from that. So there's lots of different directions you can go.
[00:39:35] So we're going to keep recommending books to you. So what jumps out at you? What sounds interesting? This will help me with the next letters.
CALLIE: Oh, my goodness. I love all of these.
ANNE: Hey, that's great. You could keep this challenge going until 2030.
CALLIE: And Descent is great because I do feel like I don't have a mystery. It might be the time that I really need a thriller or a mystery at that point. And then I've never read a Ruth Reichl book. I see her books everywhere. I think that she's an author I would like, and so that might be a really fun way to get into her work.
ANNE: It could be. But you got options. Okay, moving on to E.
CALLIE: I'm ready.
ANNE: Oh, you know what I should have said right at the top? Readers, listeners, some of these letters are real hard. And if you have suggestions, please go to whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com, and go to the show notes for this episode and leave a comment with your recommendation. Because you all tell me sometimes you're screaming at your phone in the car, "Anne, Anne, this is the book you need to talk about next." And sometimes I don't get your message, and it's really sad. But you can share your message in comments.
[00:40:44] Okay, so for E, this is... gosh, I mean, this whole thing is hard, except for the P's. I thought the P's were pretty easy, but those are last. One direction you could go is like a quiet literary novel that's in the vein of like Wallace Stegner, Wendell Berry, Marilynne Robinson. That would be Eventide by Kent Haruf. This is a follow up to his novel Plainsong. It's set in the same world. There's some of the characters. It could stand alone. But that is called Eventide.
I know you said that you really enjoy reading books with like different kinds of perspectives and from... how did you put it? Just like worlds different from your own. And so we could read... We. There is no we here, Callie. I'm just like all invested in your challenge, I think.
But Maylis de Kerangal is one of my favorite French authors. I first found her because of her book, Painting Time, that was in the Summer Reading Guide a few years back. But since then I've just been reading everything that gets translated that I can get my hands on.
[00:41:51] So she wrote this book called Eastbound that won at least one prestigious award. I cannot remember what one. But this is slim. This is novella length. It's called Eastbound and it follows two fugitives on the Trans-Siberian Railway. There's a 20-ish year old who is desperate to get out of Russian military service, but has been unsuccessful so far, there's a French woman named Helene who also wants to flee to Siberia and they team up and are attempting to escape despite all that divides them, including the very real language barrier. And also there's this ever-present danger that they're going to be caught.
For you books and translation nerds, reminder, nerd is said with great affection around here, this is translated by Jessica Moore, who translated Painting Time and also one of the versions of The Heart, also known as Mend the Living, that I also really enjoyed by Maylis de Kerangal. How does that sound?
CALLIE: That sounds wonderful. I'm so impressed by all of the books that you're bringing together. You're making them all sound so wonderful.
[00:42:50] ANNE: Oh, I am glad to hear it. If you wanted to go a different direction entirely, Gabrielle Zevin, who wrote Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Young Jane Young has a YA book called Elsewhere that has a really interesting concept and would have a very different tone than the two books we talked about so far.
CALLIE: Okay. I'm intrigued.
ANNE: Okay. You want to do G's?
CALLIE: Yes, please.
ANNE: All right. This is tricky because I have not read any of these, but I really want to. At first, I was thinking, oh, you could do The Guide, you could do The Ghost Writer, you could do Garden Spells, you could do Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, but no, because those all have the extra words.
But there are three books heavy on the ghosts that I'm very intrigued about for you. And readers, weigh in in comments if you have thoughts here. Ghost by Jason Reynolds I know is about a character called Ghost, not because of anything eerie or spooky, because this talented runner is so fast it's like he's not even there.
[00:43:55] Jason Reynolds writes middle grade. Before, when I've read him, I have loved him on audio. This is going to be a quick read for you just because of the length. And it's definitely a change of pace from what we've talked about so far. Talking about this now, I think you know what sounds fun is like walking the dog this afternoon and queuing this up in my ears.
CALLIE: Yeah. I love Jason Reynolds. I have actually read this one, but I do love it. So you're exactly on the right track.
ANNE: Well, I think that means that we're going to go a different direction then with grown-up books. We have Ghosts by Dolly Alderton. I've read her Good Material and I've heard this one is very much in the same vein. I've also read her nonfiction that at first I thought might be good for the E's. Should I stop saying all the books I thought you could read? But the one I thought might be good for the E's is Everything I Know About Love, which I listened to on audio and was lovely.
[00:44:45] So this is a... I mean, I've heard it described as a smart, sexy, laugh-out-loud, romantic comedy. She's got this wry and real tone that is really fun and funny for the right reader. And here she's talking about romantic relationships, which is a little bit different from Everything I Know About Love, which is very much about friendships.
And then we have Ghosted by Rosie Walsh. I've read her at The Love of My Life that came out after that, which is so fun. And I'm really looking forward to her next.
CALLIE: I think I've read The Love of My Life. It's like a thriller, right?
ANNE: That's fair. What happens in The Love of My Life is a husband who writes obituaries for like a prestigious media outlet, he either assigns himself or his assigned the job, it seems more likely he assigned himself the job of writing his wife's obituary. She is very much alive. She's a prestigious marine biologist, but she's one of those individuals who are well-known enough to the public that she's gotten an obit written in advance so it's ready should anything happen to her.
[00:45:54] And he starts researching her life and finds out, "Wait a second, this isn't what she told me. This isn't what she told me either. What in the world? Like, I don't even know her real name." And in like back and forth perspectives, ooh, intersecting stories, we find out the deal. And it's fun.
So I have heard that Ghosted has that same kind of dilemma at its heart like, how much can we really know the people we love? And it's about a woman who falls just completely for a man like from the jump, love at first sight. But then he disappears and she doesn't know why.
When this first came out in like 2018, it was everywhere. But readers with good taste tell me it's still worth revisiting.
CALLIE: That sounds wonderful.
ANNE: Okay. I'm glad to hear it. All right. Next, we have, oh, J.
CALLIE: Yes. J has been hard. I didn't think it would be so hard. Do you have any ideas?
[00:46:55] ANNE: I just have one, but I think it's likely to meet some of the criteria you're looking for. Have you read Jubilee by Margaret Walker?
CALLIE: I have not. I don't even know it.
ANNE: Walker spent her early years in Louisiana, but down in the opposite corner of your state in New Orleans, and she went on to become a prominent writer of the Chicago Black Renaissance. She was a prolific poet, but she did write one novel, and it's this one. And it's a little bit on the long side. If it matters, I thought the audio was fantastic.
But this is a sweeping story that follows a slave named Vyry through the Antebellum Era, the Civil War, and then Reconstruction. And Walker modeled her protagonist after her own great-grandmother, which I thought was a really cool act. How does that sound?
CALLIE: I am very intrigued. That one has not been on my radar. So I'm excited to read it.
ANNE: Okay. I'm glad to hear it. You want to do N's?
CALLIE: I would love to, if you have any ideas.
[00:47:50] ANNE: Oh my gosh. Well, the first one I thought of was Nona the Ninth, which I have heard decidedly-
CALLIE: Oh, so close.
ANNE: Oh, because that's not an N in the middle. That's a T. Okay. Well, I didn't think that sounded like a good fit for you. So we won't be sad that it doesn't fit the bill. I was wondering about Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. And yes, that is one word. This is definitely a bonkers kind of premise. It's very much like Shark Heart. I found myself recommending it to readers.
CALLIE: Oh, I loved Shark Heart. That's a good...
ANNE: Excellent. So in this book, a woman who was an artist and is now a stay-at-home mom is not feeling like herself more and more. And ultimately, she decides, wait, I know what's happening. I am turning into a dog. I mean, soon she's struggling to hide this from everybody else. Because it's not like the world of Shark Heart, where like, oh, people have mutations. Like, of course, you're turning into a turtle. This is not the world she lives in. She wants to keep it a secret. But then she finds out that maybe it's not just her. How does that sound?
[00:48:58] CALLIE: I want to read it right away.
ANNE: I might be wrong. I do not remember this being terribly long.
CALLIE: No, as you were talking, I was just checking off all my boxes. Like, oh, look, it's an artist. We've got a creativity story. It's a mom. And we've got a little bit of magical realism. That sounds right up my alley.
ANNE: I hear you. There's also an old Michael Crichton I haven't read called Next.
CALLIE: Okay.
ANNE: If you really want to mix things up, go way backlist.
CALLIE: I think I'm probably going to read Nightbitch.
ANNE: I'm not sad about that at all. Okay, so I found the O's easier to come up with, but I see that you don't have a book you're really excited about on your spreadsheet.
CALLIE: No, so I would love to hear your thoughts.
ANNE: Do you want to do like a fun basketball romance that came out last fall? Because that would be One on One by Jamie Harrow. And it's set in the world of college basketball. That was a spotlight title for a Fall Book Preview last year because I loved it so much.
[00:49:53] You could also do Oona Out of Order, where for real this time, all the words start with O, which is about a woman who doesn't live her life in chronological order like the rest of us, but completely out of order, but for one full year at a time. So bonkers premise, maybe a lot of fun.
CALLIE: Yeah, those both sound really good. I don't know which one I would prefer to read. I went to UNC Chapel Hill, so like college basketball has a special place in my heart. But also, I love the idea of this person living her life out of order. So, yes, I'm excited to have a couple of great options for O because I couldn't find hardly anything.
ANNE: All right, I'm glad to hear it. You could do a dystopian tale that Holly, our team member, loves called Orleans. It's by Sherri Smith, who wrote Fly Girl, which I loved. In this story, the former New Orleans is separated from the outer states of America by a big wall, and it has to fend for itself amidst all kinds of man-made, but mostly natural catastrophes, like great floods and also Delta fever. And then we have like an adventure plot layered on top of that.
[00:51:08] CALLIE: That's fun. I love all of these Louisiana connections too. That's an added bonus.
ANNE: That's why we're talking about that one. And also there's some great nonfiction like Open by Andre Agassi or Oranges by John McPhee.
CALLIE: I'm writing all of these down. Thank you.
ANNE: Oranges is a skinny little book.
CALLIE: Those both sound great.
ANNE: Excellent. Now we have brought ourselves to P, and I'm just going to rattle these off. I imagine you've heard of some of them, and see what jumps out at you.
CALLIE: Okay.
ANNE: Pachinko, if you've never read it. Passing, if you've never read it. So short, so good, so page-turnery, in case you didn't know. Persepolis, the graphic memoir that we've talked about on the podcast a lot. Piglet by Lottie Hazell. Ooh, we could do Plainsong by Kent Haruf, and you could do the one too. But Plainsong and Eventide would not be in the right order, though, if you go in the order of the alphabet.
[00:52:03] Possession by A. S. Byatt, like the original dark academia classic that I feel like is getting a lot of play in literary circles today. You could read Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. You could read a nonfiction book Will and I really enjoyed, Priceless, about an art heist that's nonfiction. Not an art heist, about art crime in general. I don't think that's what you mean by true crime, even though I guess technically, yeah.
CALLIE: No, that's the kind of true crime I can handle.
ANNE: Yeah. You could read Pride by Ibi Zoboi.
CALLIE: I read that one earlier this year. I loved it.
ANNE: Okay, I'm glad to hear it. Do any of those jump out at you? Do you know those books? Do you want to hear more about any of those books?
CALLIE: I know a few of them, yes. I'm actually intrigued by Persepolis. I remember there being a lot of hype about it, and I was not super into graphic novels at the time, so I kind of passed it over. But since that time, I have really come to appreciate and enjoy graphic novels, and so that might be a really good one to come back to.
[00:53:01] ANNE: It could be. And just scanning your spreadsheet, it does seem unlike the other ones that you're reading so far. And I know that just diversity and nice mix for your reading life is important. It could be good to add to the mix.
CALLIE: Absolutely. Yes.
ANNE: Okay. We've talked about a lot of books today. I don't even know what to ask you next. Callie, how are you feeling about all this?
CALLIE: I am so excited. Well, I'm a bit overwhelmed. I was hoping to come away with like one or two, I guess three is the typical number of ideas. And I have so many that I'm really excited about all of them. I feel like this conversation has done everything I hoped and more to just kind of enrich this challenge, kind of get me fired up and excited about all of these different books. I kind of want to read them all.
ANNE: No, don't do that. You won't finish. Okay, what I really want to know is, did anything go in the "books I'm excited about" column?
[00:53:56] CALLIE: Yes. I'm excited about Eastbound. That one sounds really intriguing. Nightbitch really stood out to me as well. Like I said, I want to read that immediately. And I think all of the options for O, I was not excited about what I had for O, but now I am really excited about all the ones that you shared.
ANNE: Oh, I'm so glad to hear it.
CALLIE: So I don't know what I'll read yet for O, but I think I have a lot to choose from, for all of the letters really.
ANNE: Well, I don't think you're going to need to know for a while.
CALLIE: That's true. I do have time to let it settle. I just so appreciate how well you have understood both my intent behind the challenge and also the connections you've been able to make with all of these books with very narrow criteria. I know it's not easy for you at all, but you have just gone above and beyond anything I could have expected. So thank you so much.
ANNE: It is my pleasure. Thank you so much for being so generous with sharing your reading life and your challenge with me and with our listeners. And please, Callie, report back. We want to hear how this goes and what you actually end up reading.
[00:54:58] CALLIE: I will. I'm not a big social media person, but I do plan to post the books that I'm reading to Instagram. If anybody wants to follow along, they're welcome to do it or join the challenge themselves and share what they're reading. I'd love to hear.
ANNE: We'll put that link in show notes, readers, so you can connect with Callie there. Callie, thank you again. This has been a pleasure.
CALLIE: Thank you so much, Anne.
ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Callie, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Callie online at her website, calliebdean.com, as well as Instagram and Facebook. We have all those links and the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
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Thanks to the people who make the show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and MMD HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.
Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.
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