Season 6, Episode 49: Ask Us Anything!

On this episode of Currently Reading, Meredith and Kaytee are joined by show regulars Roxanna and Mary and they are discussing:

• An Ask Us Anything Episode!: You asked, and we answered!

• Show notes are time-stamped below for your convenience. Read the transcript of the episode (this link only works on the main site)

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2:30 - Ask Us Anything

What was the first book that got you hooked into reading?

3:00 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (Mary) 4:59 - Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (Roxanna)

7:07 - Do Not Open by Brinton Turkle (Kaytee)

7:39 - The Witches by Roald Dahl (Kyatee)

8:26 - The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (Meredith)

If you could only recommend one book to read for the rest of your life, what book would that be?

10:09 - The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher (Roxanna)

10:17 - Circe by Madeline Miller (Mary)

10:29 - All The Lonely People by Mike Gayle (Kaytee)

10:36 - Scythe by Neal Shusterman (Meredith)

What is the book you ACTUALLY recommend the most to people?

11:03 - This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel (Mary)

11:10 - What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty (Kaytee)

11:19 - I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (Meredith)

11:32 - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Roxanna)

11:44 - The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers (Roxanna)

If you were to do a podcast about something unrelated to books, what would it be?

12:26 - Homeschooling (Kaytee)

13:13 - The joy of being a novice (Mary)

15:11 - Style in the everyday (Roxanna)

17:52 - All things Enneagram (Meredith)

What is your favorite beverage to have while reading? 

19:55 - I’m a seltzer girlie (Mary)

20:27 - Very cold ice water with crunchy ice (Kaytee)

21:45 - Masala Chai (Roxanna)

22:18 - Coffee, preferably Texas Pecan (Meredith)

How many hours a week do you spend reading?

23:36 - I aim for an hour a day (Mary)

26:09 - Ideally an hour or two a day, but sometimes it’s 15 minutes at that’s ok (Roxanna)

28:38 - Around 10 hours a week (Kaytee)

29:23 - Between 90 minutes and 2 hours on the weekdays, and 4 hours total on the weekends (Meredith)

If you could only read one genre for the next year, which would it be?

30:33 - Romance (Kaytee)

30:51 - Women’s Fiction (Roxanna)

32:27 - Mystery - but not gory or true crime (Mary)

33:47 - Historical Fiction (Meredith)

34:50 - Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

What turns you off of a book almost immediately?

36:22 - Second person narration (Meredith)

35:35 - The miscommunication trope. Go to therapy. (Mary)

36:43 - The lack of quotation marks (Kaytee)

36:55 - Characters that make bad decisions but everyone thinks its fine (Roxanna)

How do you feel about books people recommend to you?

38:29 - I feel like I always do. If you rec it, I won’t read it. It’s all in my head. (Kaytee)

40:08 - IRL I don’t have many bookish friends so I get a lot of “hot” book recs which I don’t read. So I just say “Oh yeah maybe I’ll pick that up!”... and never do. (Roxanna)

40:55 - If from bookish friends or CR listeners, I will take it under advisement and check Goodreads to see if I’d like it. (Mary)

42:44 - I love when people send recommendations. (Meredith)

44:03 - The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Where are you when recording an episode of Currently Reading?

45:03 - In my small walkin closet because the audio is the best here. I’m located in Toronto. (Roxanna)

45:39 - At my basement therapy office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Mary)

46:05 - Normally i’m in my bedroom in Gilbert, Arizona but today I am in Colorado for a family reunion in a guest bedroom/office. (Kaytee)

44:46 - I always record on the floor of my closet. (Meredith)

What are the mechanics of us scheduling recordings?

48:09 - SPREADSHEETS! (Kaytee)

How do you come up with deep dive topics?

49:55 - A mixture of places. Some come off mic in conversation. Some get emailed or dm’d. Some get brought up in the bookish friends group. If we think of one ourselves, we just pop them into the spreadsheet. (Meredith)

What is your number one bookish recommendation source?

51:57 - A single person would be Katie Proctor but a broader source is the Indie Press List (Kaytee)

52:28 - Instagram (Mary)

53:20 - Backlist podcasts (Roxanna)

54:03 - Elizabeth Barnhill with 19% of my recs so far this year (Meredith)

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