I was a guest on What Should I Read Next?!

a behind-the-scenes look at my first (and last?) adventure in bookish podcasting

Photo by C D-X on Unsplash

I’ve listened to Anne Bogel’s What Should I Read Next? podcast for years. And by listen, I mean wander around the house with my headphones on, laughing, nodding, and otherwise reacting aloud as though she and her guest can hear me. At some point during almost every episode, I pick up my phone and add some titles to my TBR. Even though I am a super shy introvert, I’ve always thought it would be cool to get on the show and one day, I decided to just go for it. As I filled out the guest submission form on her website, I felt the same way I do when I buy a raffle ticket. I didn’t really think I would get picked, but wouldn’t it be nice if I did?

After a few days went by, I figured I hadn’t been chosen. I felt a little wistful each time a new WSIRN episode popped up on my phone, but also, relieved that I wouldn’t have to follow through on what, by my exceedingly uptight standards, was a rash decision. After a few episodes had aired, these feelings passed too, and I forgot all about it until the invitation popped up in my inbox. I almost fell off the couch when I saw it.

Thrilled and terrified in equal measure, I took the earliest recording time that fit into my schedule, hoping to reduce the overall time I had to spend on anxious anticipation…which I suppose I did…but it didn’t really work the way I thought it would. Instead of being mildly nervous for a month, I crammed a month’s worth of nerves into a week. It’s not as though I thought about it all the time, but whenever I did, I would cycle between trying to prepare for disaster (you’re going to embarrass yourself on the internet!) and telling myself to relax (it’s just a conversation with a lovely bookish person). As the recording date drew closer, the more these thoughts darted at each other, like a couple of squirrels trapped in a garden shed.

I wish I could tell you that those squirrelly thoughts went away the moment we started talking. But no. They just totally destroyed the place. I mean, imagine trying to have a conversation while also listening to this, at full mental volume: Anne is so nice! This is fun! Oh no, I am the worst guest she’s ever had, why didn’t I make some notes, oh hang on, that’s a little less dumb, keep talking er actually no, just stop talking. Sigh.

Anne was so kind and patient with my rambling replies and long, panic-stricken pauses. If you’ve found your way to this newsletter by way of my guest spot on her podcast, welcome. I can only assume that this means that the audio engineers at WSIRN took the word salad I tossed out there and made it into something reasonably coherent. They are legit tech geniuses, and I will be forever grateful to them, and to Anne, for inviting me on to her wonderful show. I’m excited to read all of the books she recommended to me, and I’m sure some, perhaps all, will be appearing in later editions of this newsletter.

Two of the three books I mentioned in the “books I loved” segment of the podcast have already been featured here on All By Our Shelves, but I’d like to mention them again, as those posts are months old now, and I feel the need to make up for my somewhat haphazard endorsements on the show.

I don’t know why I thought it would be so easy to describe the basis of my emotional attachment to these books. It’s actually very hard. Trying to explain why you love a book is different, and much more difficult, than explaining why it’s “good.” Nailing down why you love a particular book is more like trying to explain why you love a person, in that it’s almost impossible to do without getting into essentially meaningless cliches or else awkward levels of detail…unless, of course, you rehearse a little ahead of time. Which I definitely should have done, and will do, if I’m ever invited to talk about books for an audience again!

But anyway, back to the books. They were:

• French Exit by Patrick DeWitt (which I wrote a very little bit about here). This is the story of a wealthy family who loses everything, and attempts to begin anew on another continent. It’s both brilliantly funny and devastating by turns, as are so many of my favourite reads;

• 2.A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino (which I wrote rather more about, here). It’s another hilarious yet deeply moving story, which unfolds over one day in the life of Madeleine, a nine-year-old would-be jazz singer who lives in a tough, but tight-knit Philly neighbourhood; and

• High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never by Barbara Kingsolver, whose personal journalism I am unable to describe without sounding like the breathless fan-girl I am. I read this book twelve years ago, as a new mother in the depths of despair, alone with a wide-awake baby in the wee hours of the morning; the essays “Somebody’s Baby” and “Civil Disobedience at Breakfast” felt like lifelines, dropped into the water just in time to haul me out. I’ve returned to this book often over the years, for inspiration and reassurance that yes, it is possible for parenthood and creative writing to not only coexist in one human lifetime, but to have a beautifully symbiotic relationship. I’ll be writing about this book in future letters, for sure.

I found it much easier to pinpoint why I didn’t like the book I chose for the “not for me” segment (Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn). One reason for this, I think, is that this book is one of many wildly popular things that I personally do not enjoy (also on that list: Instagram, amusement parks, and Christmas.) I love the things I love for the same reasons anyone else loves them, which are rather boring because they are right on the surface. I love peanut butter cups, for example, because they are so delicious, and yoga pants because they are comfortable. But I dislike the things I dislike for my own idiosyncratic reasons, which are generally more interesting because I have to dig a little bit to understand them. I need to be sure my negative reaction to something “everyone” likes is rooted in something real, and that I’m am not simply refusing to “go along and get along” because I like to be ornery, or because I’m more comfortable on the periphery, where it’s quieter.

Once I’ve figured out why I dislike a particular book, or trend, or what-have-you, I like to air it out, just to be sure I’m not alone. I never have been, not entirely, and I always find it deeply reassuring. And there’s nothing I love more than hearing these confessions from others, so please—if you’ve ever wanted to confess your deep-seated dislike of a beloved classic novel, or ice cream cones, or funny cat videos, now’s your chance. No one will judge, and chances are, you won’t be the only one.