Episode 19: Checking In On Our 2024 Reading Goals

Hello, Hi, and welcome to Medium Lady Reads this is episode 19, “Checking in On our 2024 Reading Goals.”

In this episode, Jillian and Erin are checking in on how their 2024 reading goals are progressing and how it’s impacting their reading. Back in episode 14, Erin and Jillian listed off some of their reading goals for the coming year, and now it’s time for a check-in!

Jillian and Erin would love it if you checked in on how your reading goals were going, tag them on Instagram, Jillian is @jillianfindinghappy and Erin is @medium.lady!

In This Episode:

• As is the norm, the ladies check in with how their reading has been going.
• Jillian shares a new goal she’s setting for herself for the remaining months of the year.
• Erin reminds readers of what her reading goals were for 2024.
• And, then Jillian reminds readers of what her reading goals were for 2024.
• Both of the ladies reflect on their goals for 2024 and how things are going.
• Medium Lady Reads Episode 14
• Currently Reading Podcast
• Erin shares how she’s going to adjust her goals for the remainder of the year.
• Jillian shares what she’ll do to adjust her goals this year
• Hot Takes is up next! Wondering what the topic is, be sure to tune in and listen. 
• The episode wraps up with the ladies discussing their library holds list. 

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

• The Mountain is You by Brianna Wiest
• The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese 
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
• The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
• The Sun and All Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
• Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
• House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig 
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
• Real Americans by Rachel Khong
• The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
• The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr
• Good Material by Dolly Alderton
• Break the Good Girl Myth by Majo Molfino

Transcript

Who recommended it first?

I don't even know.

I noticed on Goodreads that right now you're reading the Heart and Mercy book, which I also picked up on my recent library.

So I was on Goodreads and I thought, oh, Jillian's reading that book.

I just got it from the library and it was like, did she recommend that to me?

I can't remember.

It's so crazy!

Hello, hi and welcome to Medium Lady Reads.

This is Episode 19, our 2024 reading goals check in.

Hello everyone, I'm Erin, a mom of three, a hospital administrator in Ontario, Canada, a host and founder of the Medium Lady Community and Medium Lady Talks podcast.

And I'm Jillian, an Instagram content strategist for bookish people, a mom to two, based in Buffalo, New York.

Together, we're thrilled to bring you another episode of Medium Lady Reads, a podcast about reading a self-care, passionate love for the public library, and all of our fascinating book culture having it.

Hello, hello, Erin, how are you?

I am really good, Jillian, how are you?

I am well, thank you for asking.

So before we get any further into the episode, why don't we check in, Erin, how's your reading going?

Oh, my reading is going well.

I have noticed a very abrupt pivot in the trend of my, what I'm reaching for.

I wouldn't call myself a mood reader, but this is the most moodiest reader thing I've ever done.

So the other day on our buddy reads book chat, Jillian, I think you were looking for a new personal development book.

And then you and Steph Cunningham just started like, volleying, like it was like watching a tennis match of recommendations back and forth.

And I didn't feel like I had much to contribute, but I wanted to read all of the things that you were suggesting.

And then I went down a bit of a personal development book, Rabbit Hole, and I was probably managing a bit of work related stress.

And I was like, all these personal development books will help me with the things that I'm stressed about.

So I just willy-nilly put stuff on hold, didn't really think about it.

Got a notice from my library saying, hey, you have books to pick up.

My son has swimming lessons in the community center where the library is.

So I dropped them off at swimming lessons, went to grab my books, and I found not one, not two, but six personal development books.

Six books.

Oh my goodness.

Ready for me to improve myself.

So I'm kind of laughing a little bit, because it was very, very um, brazen holds management.

But I guess all the books I chose were, are the books that you guys recommended.

And then a few more that sort of went down the rabbit hole of like finding new books.

So I'm going to call this self-development spring.

You know, Jillian, you've got your murderie, murderie spring.

I've got self-development spring.

And um, that's what I'm, I'm kind of into.

Right now I'm reading The Mountain Is You by Brianna Weast.

This wasn't one of the books that I put on hold.

I can't even remember how I found this.

It was Instagram for sure.

This is very like coach vibes, like coach in a book kind of vibes.

Very much about self-sabotage and self-mastery.

A very direct communication style.

Kind of like cut out the BS kind of style.

But I'm enjoying it.

And so yeah, I'm calling it.

I'm calling my next reading season self-development spring.

Jillian, how's your reading life going?

Really, really well.

So I decided, I think, for the rest of the year, the remaining months of the year, I'm going to try to read a big chunk of a book per month.

That may not happen every month, but I kind of want to start reading because I keep putting them off and putting them off.

And I need to stop doing that because I really want to read them.

So what I'm thinking is because we had talked last episode about how this was the year of the graphic novel for me, I think what I'm going to do is start reading, you know, one or one not two, one chunk or a month.

Your face.

You made a face that was like Jillian, get real.

Yeah, I mean, I would not enjoy that very much.

Read one chunk or a month.

And then, you know, if I have time, I'll read just regular novels and then also fill in with graphic novels because I am enjoying them so much.

So why not investigate more?

You go to Barnes and Noble and you see the shelves upon shelves of graphic novels.

And I'm like, you know, why not investigate what's there?

So, but I haven't chosen what I'm going to read in April yet.

I will have to let people know in on Instagram or in stories or in our feed what I end up deciding to read.

But I'm leaning towards the Abraham for Gacy book.

What is it?

Covenant of water.

Yeah.

The one that you brought to our Hobart weekend and just sat it on the table.

I was like, I was like, book as a monument.

This is a book.

Okay, Jillian, I have more questions for you, but I'm going to save them for later on in the episode because this episode is all about our reading goals.

And we talked about our reading goals.

I think it was episode 14.

Yes.

So five episodes ago, we shared our reading goals for the year.

And yeah, that's going to be the focus of this episode because there's, you know, the fun thing about setting goals is like, you feel like you're going to achieve great things.

But I'm not usually in the habit of checking back on those goals and being like, do these goals still fit for me?

Am I doing what I said I was going to do?

So I guess we're kind of using each other as accountability partners a little bit.

I love it.

I love it.

Now that we've checked in, we can get to the main part of our episode, which is checking in on our 2024 reading goals and how they're coming along and how it's impacting our reading back in episode 14.

Aaron and I listed off some of our reading goals for the coming year.

And it's about time that we check in.

Aaron, why don't you start us off by reminding the listeners what your reading goals were back in episode 14.

I had said that I wanted to read more from the hashtag on voices or authors of racialized backgrounds in the year of 2024.

And one of the ways I did that was to sign up for the Fold 2024 challenge.

I've mentioned this in a couple of other episodes, but the Fold Foundation celebrates diverse authors and storytellers at festivals and events.

They are an organization based in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, which is not very far from where I am.

My reading goal, like number wise, was to read 86 books.

That's just the number that popped into my head.

I didn't really overthink it.

I plugged it into the Goodreads challenge.

My other reading goal is to read one book recommended from a friend.

It's my 12 books, 12 years, one friend challenge.

And that's kind of what I have on the docket.

Jillian, can you remind listeners of your goals for 2024?

Absolutely.

So the number one thing that I think I said over and over again was to not stress about all the new releases that were coming out because last year I had gone bananas with flatlays.

And every time a new flatlay was it presented to me, I was like, give me all the books.

And I'm mining typing on my computer, not that you can see me, but I wanted to stop doing all that.

So there was that one.

Then I wanted to DNF two books.

And I'm still working on this next one.

Find a book to rival my favorite book under the whispering door.

I wanted something that rivals that.

And the final one was read 60 books, which just like Aaron, there really isn't a rhyme or a reason to that.

It was just sort of a number I picked and went with it.

But maybe next year I'll actually think about what number I choose.

Maybe I'll do some math and pick it that way.

All right.

So now that we're kind of oriented to our goals and we're about a quarter through the year, which is like insane to believe, but it's true.

Let's take a moment to reflect on our reading goals.

Jillian, have you encountered any unexpected challenges or successes in your reading journey so far?

Definitely.

I found that releasing the whole new releases had on me has really opened up my reading to enjoy more books.

I felt so many of the books I chose last year weren't great.

And I read them just because they were new releases.

Where this year I am consciously making a choice on what books I read and making it's making a huge difference in my reading enjoyment.

Plus, I don't feel like I'm rushing through books just so I can get on to the next one.

And that is hugely changing because I was in such a hurry last year because I almost all the books that I was getting out of the library were seven day holds.

I was constantly like, okay, gotta read this one.

Gotta read this one.

Gotta read this one.

I wasn't ever really enjoying the book.

Even like, hello, beautiful, which I know is an absolutely beautiful book.

And I know I loved when I finished it.

I was kind of like, eh, it was okay.

But looking back on it and we've had conversations on the podcast about it that I've kind of realized how much I really did enjoy that book.

So it's been wonderful to not stress about that.

I've DNF'd won books so far, which I'm very proud of, which was quiet, the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking by Susan Cain.

Nothing against the book.

I'm sure lots of people like it and there are probably lots more that will eventually like it.

It just wasn't for me.

I found it boring.

I had trouble focusing.

I would be reading and I would like, dose off.

It was just, it was rough.

I was not having a good time.

I want to pump you up because I know that DNFing is like a muscle you want to grow and develop.

Yeah.

And you DNF this book with very little, at least from what I could see, very little like internal turmoil.

You were like, I think I'm going to DNF this book and then you were like, I did it.

Yeah, that, wow, that was like not even like emotionally a big lift.

Good for you.

That's exactly how it should be.

Honestly, exactly how it happened.

I think because I was really not enjoying this one.

I just, I brought it to the Buddy Reads chat and all I needed was one person to say, yeah, DNFing, and both you and you and Stephanie were there at that point and we're said, yeah, just don't just end it.

Don't do it.

And so I didn't do it.

I just DNFed it and then it was over.

I love how our Buddy Reads chat is like a reader support hotline.

It really is.

There's usually one of us, if one of us texts, one of the other three is usually ready to like, almost always engage in real time, almost always yet.

It's, I love it.

It's a very important part of my life.

Mine as well.

Okay, what about your other goals?

All right, so I have not found a book to rival under the whispering door yet.

You had recommended to me Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

I think I'm pronouncing that correctly.

I have it.

It's on my desk.

I just have not read it yet, but I had a couple of books before that.

So once I get to it, we're fingers crossed that this will be the replacement book that I need.

I mean, I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but that could be your Chonker for April.

Oh, it could because that is a Chonker.

It's a big, it's a thick book.

It's a big book.

Yeah, I think it's about 500 pages.

Yeah, maybe it will be.

You may also want to define what you qualify as, because like, you're going to go in hard with with covenant of water, which is like 900 pages.

Yeah, you're probably right.

I maybe it'll be like 500 or more, because the book that I'm reading right now, the undertaking of heart and mercy, the Kindle version of that is like 400 some pages, and I would not have considered that a Chonker.

I don't know.

I think Kindle pages make no sense to me, because you can change the font on your Kindle.

Yeah.

Which changes the page count.

This is, I was basing that on what Goodreads has as the Kindle page.

Yeah, I've seen that on Goodreads too.

And I'm like, why are you even saying the Kindle Virgin is 400 pages?

That's true.

I see what you're saying now, because you can make them smaller and whatever.

That's, anyway, side rant.

And all that said, I've also realized the importance of flexibility and allowing myself to deviate from the original goals when necessary.

And so I added in the book count goal, which I didn't mention in episode 14.

I made me to read at least 60 books, which I did say earlier.

And I'm feeling pretty good about that.

I want to say I'm at 28 or 29 right now.

So I'm feeling pretty good about that.

All right.

What about you, Aaron?

Have you been meeting your reading goals?

Yeah.

I mean, I think I'm doing okay.

I did go to my beloved tracker to see what the data is telling me about these goals so far.

And if you haven't heard episode 14, I go all in on how much I love my tracker, which is from currently reading Patreon group.

It's built by Katie Cobb.

She's an incredible Google sheet master.

All I do is I put in the data about the books that I'm reading and the tracker calculates and does like the data split on how my reading is going.

And so I'm really using that as a tool to keep me honest about my goals and about what's working for me.

So here's what my beloved tracker has said so far.

My total books red are 33, which if my goal is 86 books, I think that's like 38.4% of my goal.

So I feel like that's fine.

We're at the end of March today.

Total DNF is just one book.

And for my goal with hashtag Own Voices, 15 of my books red this year have been Own Voices, Julian, which is 45.5%.

I'm really happy about that.

I have been purposefully doing that.

Now it's not like I've been avoiding white authors, but I have definitely purposefully been thinking about what I'm adding to my list.

And I made that joke about the personal development category.

And actually now that I'm saying this goal out loud, I'm kind of realizing I kind of wish that I had cultivated that holds list based also on 50/50 split of authors of racialized backgrounds.

But I mean, listen, it is what it is.

And my goal, so last year I had just under 20% of my books were Own Voices and my goal was to double that to be at 40.

So I think if I continue with being mindful that I will be on track to achieve that goal, but I do think it's not the kind of thing that happens by accident.

Like you can't just say, I want to read from more racialized authors and then have that be a thing.

And I think that's also like I'm going to just say a part of my anti-racist journey of learning and unlearning.

I can't just say that I want to have more of an understanding of the lived experience of racialized people.

I have to really make it happen.

And that's because the system around us is biased to white experience and white success.

And that's just a really interesting thing to learn even within this like reading, here are my reading goals.

And like it's also teaching me kind of a little bit about the broader world that I live in and how much I'm influenced.

Okay, so I have read the Own Voices books are pretty evenly distributed across the last three months.

I read four in January, five in February and four in March, although I don't think that's quite adding up to the 15 that's in the tracker.

So I'll have to dig into that.

The breakdown of those books is predominantly black authors, but also new interest in Muslim authors as well.

And I have to say I have read some really beautiful books.

All three of the books I read by Muslim authors this year got five stars from me.

So that was really poignant, poignant to learn and the stories are really beautiful.

And I'm just really enjoying those authors.

As for the full challenge, I have successfully read one book from each of the monthly prompts.

The January prompt was to read a book by Palestinian author.

February's prompt was to read a band book or a book that was petitioned for banning.

March's book was the YA Mystery Thriller by a racialized author.

And the April challenge coming up is a book by a Sikh author.

So I'm going to read the Sun and her Flowers, which is a poetry book by Rupi Carr, which I've owned for a long time, but I've never read it.

So that'll be nice like you read from my own bookshelf.

And then I also want to kind of do some deep dives.

That's been a really fun part of the challenge for me is growing and learning more about authors in genres that I normally probably wouldn't be served on books to Graham.

My other goal is to do my 12 books, 12 friends one year challenge.

It's going just okay.

I was supposed to read the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, which was recommended by my friend Karyan Clota.

But I never made it for March.

So I'll try to double up for April so I can stay on track.

Last year, Jillian, when I did this challenge, I ended up sort of forgetting about my friends until like the middle of the fall.

And then I tried to rush through a bunch of them, but that felt kind of like I was missing the point of challenge, which is like connect with your friends.

Oh, read what they told you to read or you're a bad person.

So I don't really want that to be the experience this year.

Aaron, do you have any plans to adjust your reading goals for the remainder of the year?

Yeah.

So I guess if we think about we thought about our goals, we've thought about how they're going, do we want to make any adjustments?

I am considering increasing my reading goals slightly or changing my reading goal.

The last one I just talked about was my 12 books, 12 friends one year.

I'm going to make a commitment to circle back to those friends after I finished their book and try to return the favor of a recommendation to them.

I'm going to try to think of a book.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah, I'm going to try to think of a book that fits them and say, Hey, thanks for your recommendations.

Here's what I love about this book.

And I wanted to do you the favor of sharing another recommendation.

And then I think that that will motivate me to keep these books on my list month over month.

And it will also deepen the purpose of the challenge, which is just to connect with my friends and loved ones about books.

Where's my years was talking at night by Claire Davrely, which we dedicated a whole part of last.

No, no, no, I know that.

So I mean, where's my recommendation?

Oh, well, project her Mary is my recommendation, but I also, so I did, okay, where's my, are you hurting for book recommendations, Jillian?

I'm not, but I just love, I love when you recommend book.

Well, I can do that anytime, but I also feel like you and I are in this like mutually symbiotic relationship where it's like who recommended it first.

I don't even know.

I noticed on good reads that right now you're reading the Heart and Mercy book, which I also booked up on my recent library.

So I was on good reads and I thought, oh, Jillian's reading that book.

I just got it from the library.

And it was like, did she recommend that to me?

I can't remember.

So crazy.

I have it.

Because that's my Kindle book that I usually only read when I'm eating my breakfast.

So I don't often recommend those books, not for any reason, then I just, I'm reading them very slowly.

But because I only had like 200 pages left, I'm going to try to finish it for this month for March.

And so I'm so surprised that you picked that up.

That's yeah, and I have not recommended it.

But also, I picked it up because someone I had heard on currently reading that it's adjacent to under the whispering door.

And I thought, hmm, I'm going to read this.

And if I agree, then I'll recommend it to Jillian.

But then I was like, oh, she's already reading it.

Huh, you don't think so.

I've not so far.

But I still have, according to Kindle pages, I still have 100 pages to go.

I mean, I think you'd know.

Well, it's just so weird because the, when you look, when you look in good reads, then the pages for the book are like, 336.

I looked at it last night.

That's why it's on the top of my head.

336.

The pages for the Kindle version are 449.

Right.

Like, that's a huge difference.

It's usually not that big.

But don't you find when you're holding your Kindle, you're just like clicking really quickly.

Like, I think I could probably read two or three Kindle pages in a minute.

Yeah, normal book.

I don't know.

I probably be like a minute a page.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're probably right.

It's just weird.

I've never, maybe I've just never noticed it before.

I feel like this is just extreme example because it keeps telling me I'm only 60% like 70% done.

I'm like, but I want to be, I want to be more done.

It's very good.

It's very good.

I just, I so far, would not compare it to under the whispering door.

Okay.

Well, there you go.

Jillian, what are the adjustments you're making to your goals?

The only thing I want to adjust is that, and I already talked about this earlier.

So I already, you know, ruined my surprise, is I want to start reading a big chunker every month.

Since I do tend to avoid the big chunk books because it slows me down and takes me longer to finish.

I want to stop doing that.

I want to enjoy the chancers and I want to not worry about my good reads numbers or anything else.

So that's really the only thing is that I'm going to be adding those in.

Can I ask, are you going to treat these like a slow and steady?

My slow and steady book for this month is this, or you're just going to introduce the chancers into your normal reading routine.

Right now, I'm just going to introduce them into my normal reading routine.

If I find that it's taking me too long and I'm not, because I really, there's no competition in getting certain amount of books read a month.

I know that, but I just enjoy reading that much that I would miss, not reading more.

So if I find that I'm not reading as much as I was or like it depletes, it significantly decreases, then I would probably do a slow and steady and just start one in April.

If it takes me until May, that's okay.

But yeah, initially I'm going to I'm going to start writing and just add it as one of my books in April.

You know, I mean, I'm with you.

I always avoid chonky books.

When I put a book on hold and then it comes from the library and I'm like, I think I actually made a real on that.

No, I did.

When I picked up covenant of water, I literally like screamed internally.

I was like, oh, so I am with you and I will be following your goal with great interest.

Okay.

I'll keep you all posted.

Because I definitely never even cracked the spine of covenant of water, which I still would love to read.

And I've heard such beautiful things about that book.

So, you know, if it turns out to be something you love, you could be very influential in my own reading life.

Okay.

Both my mom and my sister Katrina have read it and have loved it.

My mom listened to it and she struggled because she said there are a lot of characters, but Katrina read it.

I mean, listening is reading, but I just mean like she read physical product.

And she loved it.

So I'm anticipating that I probably, although they both loved presumed innocent and we all know if you remember correctly, where we all stood on presumed innocent.

If you don't remember, that's the book that I recommended for our buddy read.

One of the books I recommended for our buddy read and we none of us enjoyed it.

It was a legal procedural mystery thriller.

Yeah, it was not good.

I mean, it didn't age well.

It was from like 1989.

Okay.

Yeah.

Sorry, Scott Churro.

Great segment.

Great, Jillian.

Thanks for checking in with me.

I think we will probably do another one of these episodes certainly before the end of the year to continue to review our goals and to tinker with them.

And we want to encourage you if you have any goals to share them with us and to share how your goals are going.

And maybe there's changes that you've decided to make based on how your year is going.

For me, tracking my reading is, oh, it's just like brings a lot of depth of joy to my reading life and so do these goals.

They also keep me learning about myself.

And as we keep saying with this podcast, podcast is about reading as self-care.

And a lot of self-care, you just have to do on purpose.

It doesn't just happen by accident.

And I think that's what we're both feeling from our goals in particular this year.

Agreed.

It's time now for hot takes.

Hot takes and our current thoughts on book culture.

A hot take is an opinion usually formed off the cuff and with little research, sometimes provocative.

Jillian, today's hot take.

Cracked Spines.

Does this mean a book is loved or is it book torture?

Oh, I struggle with this, but I'm going to say book torture.

Those videos, those TikToks you see of people like snapping the book so fast, I can't stand it.

Like it kills me to see not.

I don't necessarily think it's book torture.

And I think library books that have crack spines are wonderful.

And I think that they should have crack spines because so many people are reading them.

But I personally, my own books do not get crack spines.

I do flip the page, the cover over, and I do kind of like smooth that down, but I don't crack the spine typically.

My husband, he is the neatest reader in the entire world.

He finished a book, a chunker, you know, I think it was 1200 pages and you couldn't even tell that it had been read.

Wow.

He just, you could, we could have returned it to Amazon because it was so well kept.

Christine.

I'm not that good.

My corners get banged up and my cover gets a little bent up, especially if it's a soft cover.

What about you?

Okay, so here's the thing.

When I read a library book, I really try to not manhandle it.

And I don't read enough from my own collection.

So there's those two things.

But the other thing is you know when you pick up a book, if it's been glued and bound in a way that allows it to flop open or in a way that doesn't, the book I'm thinking of is actually legends and lattes.

When I bought legends and lattes, I literally said this book is meant for reading.

It's meant to flop open versus some of the other books that are right now.

I'm holding this book by Brianna Weast unless I push the book open and hopefully you know what I'm describing.

The book wants to close, you know, and those are the kinds of books where I struggle.

I do think that like you're just asking me to crack that spine.

So I do think I'm curious about book binding as well.

The other thing I will say is I think recently about the House of Salt and Sorrows, which is by Aaron A.

Craig was one of our buddy reads books.

And when I picked up my copy from the library, it was soft and buttery and floppy and battered and well loved.

And I loved holding that book in my hands.

And she had the craiciest of spines.

There's also something to be said for a book that is so worn in that it feels like the pages start to feel like fabric.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah.

So I don't know, like it hurts me to crack a spine.

But if someone's done the, if it's pre-cracked, if it's pre-cracked, I enjoy that.

Yeah.

And I think to it's those TikTok videos or reels that you see where they're cracking them like snap like a bone, those are really harsh.

I don't mind so much if you stretch out a spine and you know, you need it because it's not a book that it lends itself to be read.

Then yeah, you kind of, you've got to stretch it a bit.

But overall, I just can't handle the cracking, like the crack.

And we've all had those books that are cheaply bound.

Yeah.

When you crack the spine, and then all of a sudden your books are coming out like a pad of paper, your sheets, the sheets of the book are starting to follow like a pad of paper.

That's like instant panic.

All right.

That wraps up our hot takes.

Now let's talk a little bit about what our is on our holds list.

What's on yours?

So because it's a odds listed episode, I'll share my physical holds list, but I have a confession to make.

I was feeling, as I said, I was feeling stressed at work.

I went for those professional development books, but I also ended up going down the rabbit hole of an article on Goodreads called The 58 Biggest Books of Spring According to readers.

And I went on a hold blitz.

I pulled, I pulled a Jillian circa 2023.

And I desperately at my computer added books to my holds with Want an Abandon.

You needed some dopamine.

I did.

I need that.

So you know what?

It was and it served its purpose.

It was like akin to like putting a huge cart on Sephora or Amazon or something.

It was, it did give me that dopamine hit.

But now I'm chasing the 2024 releases.

And hopefully this results in a positive reading life for me, but we'll see.

So I have a number of books on hold that are not yet published.

The one I'm really looking forward to is called The Ministry of Time.

This is a science fiction book.

And another book is called Where Sleeping Girls Lie.

That's Mystery Thriller by racialized author.

Another book called Real Americans, which is like a family saga.

An interesting book called The Husbands.

This is a book where it's kind of like sci-fi mystery.

This woman is talking to her husband.

He goes up to the attic to get something.

And then when he comes back down, it's a different husband.

Whoa.

Right?

Whoa.

And then the fellowship of puzzle makers, which I can't remember what that was about.

But it's called the fellowship of puzzle makers.

Sounds like the cutest, coziest book ever.

So those are on my hold.

And I have no idea when they're coming out.

But they are all spring releases.

So I'm expecting them to drown me in May at some point.

Jillian, what's on your holds list?

I finally got good material by Dolly Alderton.

I've been waiting for that for quite a while.

I feel like when I added my name to the list, I was number 80 something.

So finally got it.

And I also just got a brand new personal, well, it's not brand new to the world, but it's brand new to me.

Personal development book, Break the Good Girl Myth.

How to Dispantle outdated rules, Unleash your power and design a more purposeful life.

Very excited about that.

But other than that, nothing really unhulled right now.

Again, I'm just, I keep getting the books that I can keep out for longer.

And so I don't need to request as many.

And it feels good.

So I don't know.

I mean, hopefully we still have a lot to talk about in this whole list segment.

But it feels like we're, we're kind of like, there's less desperation on the holds list these days, which is fine.

That's good.

That's a good way to live.

Yeah.

I'm sure it'll come back.

Like when we start getting into the Emily Henry's book and Carly Fortions, we'll all be like, yes, please, we can't wait.

Exactly.

Exactly.

All right.

That wraps up episode 19 of Medium Lady Reads.

Medium Lady Reads is a spin-off of the Medium Lady Talks podcast and Instagram community.

You can find me, Jillian at Jillian Finding Happy.

And you can find Aaron at medium.lady for more of our current reads and other shenanigans.

And of course, you can follow the podcast itself on Instagram at Medium Lady Reads.

If you'd like this episode, please share it with another bookish friend or post on Instagram and be sure to tag us.

We would be tickled pink to hear from you.

Thank you for listening.

I'm your host, Aaron.

And I'm your other host, Jillian.

Until next time, we hope that your holds arrive quickly.

And your next book finds you right where you get most.

We'll talk to you soon.

Bye.

See ya.

[Music] I really like the book wants to... wants to...

Shit.

The book attacked me.