Does your reading change during the summer?

Have you ever wondered why we have "summer reads" but not winter or spring or fall reads? We both had various associations with "summer reading," namely from being kids out of school and having the languorous expanse of the summer stretching out in front of us. But we wondered what is really behind this phenomenon. Join us to find out more and hear about our own summer TBR lists.

-----------------------
Books we're reading in this episode:   

Dragon Haven (Rain Wild Chronicles 2) by Robin Hobb
Swift and Saddled by (Rebel Blue Ranch #2) by Lyla Sage
Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman 
How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin

----------------------- 

Sources listed in the order they appear in the episode:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/books/a-brief-history-of-summer-reading.html 
• https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5405022/fake-summer-reading-list-ai
• https://lindac.substack.com/p/why-do-writers-use-ai 
• https://lithub.com/50-of-the-greatest-summer-novels-of-all-time/ 

Transcript

[All Books Aloud theme music and intro]

Martha: Hey, Liz.

Liz: Hi Martha, how are you?

Martha: I am doing great. How are you?

Liz: I am doing really well. What are you reading right now?

Martha: Oh my gosh. I just finished Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb, which is the second book in that Rain Wild Chronicles I told you about last time. And I am absolutely obsessed with this series.

Liz: [00:01:00] Ooh.

Martha: I think it might become one of my new favorites of all time. It took me a long time to get through the first book 'cause I, , checked out a copy from the library and it's , a lot slower pace than what I normally gravitate to.

So I found that it took me a while to get through on paper and I was traveling and doing a bunch of other things and not really prioritizing it, but it definitely wasn't because I wasn't enjoying it. So I switched to audio for the second book and I just flew through it that way. It's so great.

It's definitely a slower pace, but it's just so rich. Her world building is fantastic. The characters are so well developed and complex. They're each lovable in their way, but also very imperfect. So you have to love the characters for who they are, [00:02:00] not because they're idealized versions of people and there's so much symbolism and so many themes like power dynamics and the patriarchy and L-G-B-T-Q rights and people reckoning with who they really are and going through changes and

I even see themes of communism versus capitalism, and there's just so much going on within the story. If you start thinking about the deeper meanings that

Liz: Wow.

Martha: just, it's fantastic. It's just fantastic writing. So thank you again, Rebecca, for recommending it. My friend Rebecca, we interviewed from Fireside books.

She recommended the series to me when I was on my Dragon Kick, but it's so much more than just about dragons. It's fantastic.

Liz: Oh my God, I really wanna read these now. You know, I'm not usually a dragon fantasy person, but you've sold me, I think.

Martha: I think you would really like it just being a character reader and it's just [00:03:00] so smart. And it's funny, I just laughed to myself today when I was reading some of The Good Reads reviews, because. You know, reading is subjective, but some of these people are giving it a one star review for whatever reason, and I'm like, you guys just clearly don't get it, so whatever.

Liz: Well, remember our first episode of the season when we interviewed Nancy Pearl. One of many golden sayings of Nancy's is that no two people read the same book. And yeah, I am always reminded of that , when there's a book that I just absolutely love and then I meet someone who didn't love it as much as I did or who hated it,

Martha: And you're like, oh, I just learned something about you.

Liz: kind of, but it has happened to me before with people , who , I know and like, and respect and I know that it doesn't mean that they're a weird person or something, but it just, your reading taste can be so different. I actually just had this experience with one of my colleagues at work that I am also friends with [00:04:00] and we have liked a lot of the same books, but, .

We were talking about Tom Lake, which I absolutely adored, and I think we talked about it on the podcast. We definitely talked about it in life. , I just absolutely adored it. Listened to the audio book with Meryl Streep, which she did as well. At first I thought maybe it was just because we took it in in different formats, but she listened to the audiobook as well and

she was like, meh about it, and I just couldn't understand 'cause it hit me so hard in the feels. That book.

Martha: , It happened to us recently too because I read Evy, Drake starts Over, and I was like, eh, and you're like, I love that book. So it, it can happen. So that's what I was listening to. And then I'm gonna start the third book today probably. And then after I finished the first Rain Wild Chronicles on paper I switched to Swift and Saddled by Lila Sage, which is the , number two book in the Rebel Blue Ranch series.

It's just a contemporary romance. And a [00:05:00] good quick palette, cleanser type read. You don't have to think at all. Which I feel like is a good pairing for listening to the Rain Wild Chronicles.

'cause it's so deep and rich that my physical book can just be kind of a mindless romance. It's the kind of romance where the main characters are kissing within the first chapter right after they meet. But I like 'em. They're cute. They're like, you know, western contemporary western theme, which is fun and different,

Liz: Yeah, that is different. I assumed that they would've been older because you really don't see very many Western related, books these days. 

Martha: think it's having a moment. It's kind of a trending trope I think. Right now.

Liz: Fascinating.

Martha: What are you reading?

Liz: My physical book right now is Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks, which you sent to me and recommended to me, and I am liking it. I'm not [00:06:00] loving it. . The conversation that we just had about sometimes we have different opinions about books. 'cause I know that you really loved it and you were like, oh, you're gonna love this.

And I do. I am liking it. I do like it. ,

it's about an American woman from Texas who, , suffers a tragedy and moves for a year. I think it's supposed to be, moves to Ireland for a job to get away from her life and start over. , And, , gets entangled with her next door neighbor who is an undertaker. And I really love a lot of things about it.

I love the fish out of water. , I love a book about a woman, especially , moving to England, who is from America. , And I also really love , that there's, . Some different representation in it. One of the characters is Ace asexual, which, , does not mean that they don't have sex at all.

'cause there are some pretty spicy moments in the book. , But it's a different way of relating to romantic relationships that I thought was really interesting. . So it's hard to put my finger on what, I'm not extra loving about it, but it's taken me a [00:07:00] while to get through, which is usually my indication that it's not my favorite book in the

Martha: It could be the writing or who knows. I mean, lots of things,

Liz: it's hard to say. I mean, I'm finishing it though, I'll probably finish it tonight or tomorrow. , And then I just finished listening to The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osmond, which is the fourth book in the Thursday Murder Club series, and I loved it. I was lukewarm about the third one, and I loved the second one.

And you'll remember one of the things I've talked about a lot with you and on the podcast is that I have a hard time sometimes getting into a series because I just feel like I've read the book already

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Liz: when I start listening to the subsequent books. , But this is one of the few times where I have just been devouring this series.

I love it so much. I love being in this world. I love every single one of the characters. I'm always surprised by the mystery. , I'm a little bit of a gullible person, so , that could be why I'm not [00:08:00] really sure if the mysteries are particularly creative or not objectively speaking, but I'm surprised by them. , I don't know. I just absolutely love it and there also is more character development I've realized, which is probably why I love it so much in these books than in many other cozy mysteries that you'll find. And it might be because he's been allowed to do a series, so he's able to get deeper into the backstory of the characters.

, But yeah, I just, I really love it. I was so sad when I got to the end, 'cause this is the last one that's out, but then I realized that there is a fifth one coming out in September,

Martha: Oh, nice.

Liz: so I won't have to wait long. But then after that, I'll have to wait like a year for the next book, which will be sad.

Martha: Well maybe wait until January to read the fifth one and then that'll

kind of get you through. 

Liz: I don't know if I, can keep myself from it. Yeah, that's really hard. I don't know how we've talked about that before with [00:09:00] series is how you do that. , And then I just started How To Seal Your Fate by Kristen Perrin, which is the sequel to How to Solve Your Own Murder, was her first book that I listened to, , a couple of months ago and really enjoyed.

And since I have had this experience of liking a series, I thought I would give the second book a try and I literally just started it. So it's hard for me to say whether it's gonna be a successful experiment or not,

Martha: , You're still on your series journey.

Liz: Yeah, maybe I am on a series journey for sure. , I also checked out a definitely unrealistic but very excitingly large pile of books from the library to read over the summer because I have some time off, , being on the academic calendar over the summer. And so I always over, , not over commit 'cause I'm not committing to anyone besides myself.

But my reading eyes are bigger than my reading stomach, I think I would say when it comes [00:10:00] to that. But that brings us, to our topic for today, which is summer reading,

We are gonna talk about our summer reading Tbrs.

, But first I wanted to chat about this concept overall, this phenomenon of summer reading. What's the deal with summer reading? What comes to mind for you when you think about summer reading?

Martha: You know, I don't. know, that I had really thought about this too much until we started talking about this episode because I don't work on an academic calendar. I don't have the summers off, or anything like that. I don't think that my volume of reading necessarily changes or that I feel a pressure , to change the way that I'm reading.

However, when I was reflecting about it, I do think that the types of books that I read probably does shift a little. , But when I think about summer reading, I tend to relate it to reading as a kid, being off for [00:11:00] the summer, , getting to read whatever you want instead of what you had to read, that sort of thing.

Liz: Yeah, absolutely. So obviously I am on the academic calendar now, but I haven't always been in my adult life, I had a job for a long time where I worked a normal person during the summers. It's only in this second career that I've been able to recapture that.

So for me, I would say that mainly summer reading before I've been able to have the summers off again, was also most connected to that experience as a kid that you were just talking about, of being able to read whatever I wanted and of reading voraciously over the summer, which I always remember doing.

And I don't know if you participated in these, but I definitely participated in the summer reading programs that. I think maybe the library or possibly the school did. We talked about it in the episode about the IMLS, [00:12:00] the Institute of Museum and Library Services, because a lot of libraries, especially rural libraries and smaller places with smaller tax base, , fund their summer reading programs using grants that come from the IMLS.

, But the one that I always remember very clearly is the bookit Summer Reading program, where if you read the number of books, , a , they gave you the mini endorphin rush of getting the little pin that you then would put stickers on for every book that you read. But then if you a reward that I possibly still use for myself as an adult stickers, , but then if you read a certain number of books, you got.

A free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut, which was the pinnacle of indulgence as a kid.

Martha: Oh yeah, I definitely remember that. And. I don't know that I did it every summer. It might've gone away towards the end of my elementary school years or middle school years, or maybe we just [00:13:00] stopped doing it. I do remember having lists sometimes from some teachers for the following year too, of what they wanted you to read before your school year started.

Liz: Yeah. Oh my God. You know what memory that just brought back for me, Martha, is when I was, I think it was after my freshman year English class, the first year that I had Mrs. Lawton, who was my favorite ever high school English teacher. , She probably will never listen to this, but if she does shout out to Mrs. Lawton,

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Liz: , Definitely encouraged and, , helped, , grow my love of English literature.

Her class is the class that I read Pride and Prejudice in. And I wanna say that that was freshman year and I adored Pride and Prejudice the first time I read it and just became obsessed with British literature at that point. And She gave me a list of a hundred [00:14:00] classics to read.

I think I might even still have it somewhere. I should probably dig it up,

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Liz: but I think it was like a hundred classics. It was one of those like a hundred 

classics 

Martha: you Die. 

Liz: read. 

Martha: Yeah, 

Liz: and I remember that summer and then many subsequent summers, I just started checking out those books from the library and checking them off the list, , I ended up reading books that were way over my intellect level,

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Liz: but

Martha: That's amazing.

Liz: Yeah. That's so funny. I hadn't thought about that list for a long time. But yeah, it wasn't so much a list of what we were gonna read the following year, although I do remember getting those lists, but she saw that I loved this type of book and was like, well, you're in luck, because there are a lot of those types of books.

Martha: Yeah, and she saw , an opportunity to help shape a young reader's, reading

Liz: Yeah.

Martha: life. I don't know how to say that.

That's awesome. 

Liz: and of course when you're a kid in the [00:15:00] summer,, it's this expanse of time to fill that just feels endless much, which is so funny. , I just have to laugh now because it's just, oh God, youth is wasted on the young. The idea that we used to be so bored in the summer, right?

Martha: and the summer felt so long, and now it's so short.

Liz: Yeah. It felt interminable not in necessarily a bad way, in some ways that was good. It was this languorous. Span of time, but , in some ways, especially, well you always were in Alaska, but especially when we moved to Alaska in the middle of my childhood and I was just all of a sudden in the middle of nowhere with no neighbor kids around to play with, I just had nothing to do.

So I just would read the whole time.

Martha: I wonder if kids these days feel that way because it seems that with technology and activities, it seems like kids are so busy now, they're kept so busy all the time and I [00:16:00] wonder if that is a reaction to our generation being bored in the summer, then feeling like we have to fill our kids' times with all these activities.

I don't know. It's kind of an interesting thought.

Liz: I think that's a good theory. 'cause I think that a lot of millennial parenting is a reaction to the way that we were parented.

Martha: absolutely.

Liz: I mean, not that either of us know since neither of us have

Martha: I digress. Just a interesting thought.

Liz: it is, , so yeah, definitely reading as a kid, but for me also, , in the last few years, 'cause I also haven't always had the summer off, even though I was working in academia, I was on a 12 month contract for a long time and that just stopped during the pandemic.

So this, , expanse of time has reopened up for me during the summer and I definitely have, like I said, tended to have a little too high of expectations for how much I'm gonna read [00:17:00] during the summer. And that is especially the case. If I am behind on my yearly reading goal, I tell myself that I'm gonna read a book a week during the summer to catch up on my reading goal.

Which I'm not doing this year because if you remember , we have an episode about yearly reading goals a couple of years ago where we talked about the pros and cons , but then this year I set a much more realistic goal based on that conversation.

And so I am a little bit behind on the realistic goal that I set, but only a book or two. So I did still check out a huge stack of books, but I'm not under any illusions that I'm gonna actually read them all.

Martha: Or

putting pressure on yourself to read them all or

Liz: yeah, I'm not gonna put pressure on myself to read them all. I like having a bunch of books to choose from so that I can then decide what I'm in the mood for.

Martha: Yeah.

Liz: That feels better this year. And I know I talked on the episode about how much better I feel, which is so silly 'cause it's something [00:18:00] that I was doing to myself.

Martha: Yeah. Oh,

Liz: I do feel so much better not pressuring myself to read more books than I know I'm gonna read.

Martha: Yeah, it just makes it more fun. It's just so funny how we do these things to ourselves. Self-inflicted.

Liz: it is really silly.

Martha: But what even is a summer read? , Obviously that is a term that you hear, a beach read, or a summer read. , It has a meaning, which we haven't really parsed out yet.

So what do you think that means?

Liz: Yeah. I'd be interested to hear what you think too, because you said that you tend to read a different type of book during the summer. So for me, I always have taken it to mean something lighter, quicker, more fun than what I would read at other times of year. Something that isn't too heavy escapist, but in a fun way.

When you were saying that you tend to read different things during the summer, is that the way that [00:19:00] you see it too,

Martha: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so. I think that it has something to do with reading for your mood. Kind of like you just mentioned, you wanna have the options for whatever mood strikes, 

but I don't think it's necessarily something that's super intentional. I think it just naturally happens.

I. I did a quick internet search about , what does summer symbolize, and I came up with things like youth and vitality, abundance and growth, passion and romance, joy and playfulness, clarity and enlightenment. So it just kind of seems natural if you're a mood reader, that in the summer you'd gravitate to something lighter, joyful, full of passion and playfulness, where in the winter, if you're a mood reader, you might gravitate to something a little heavier, just naturally.

Liz: , I never thought about connecting it to , of course it makes sense, but connecting it to , the symbolism or [00:20:00] the place of summer and the rest of society or our psyche. But that totally makes sense because you think about summer romance, summer fling, and a lot of the summer beach reads are romances, right?

, When I think of summer reads, a lot of the books that I think of are romances.

Martha: Yeah, definitely hot girl summer.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. I'll say though. I think that totally makes sense. But there is also something that I've done in the past, which might just be a me thing, you can tell me, but I have used the summer before as this bigger space of time to get stuck into something that is more of a challenging book.

So for instance, when I started reading Middlemarch a few years ago, I started it during the summer with the intention of finishing it during the summer. And then of course, I didn't actually finish it until November or December, but it felt like, oh, well I know this book is gonna take a long time to read, and so I'm gonna start [00:21:00] it during a time when I'm not quite as distracted or , I don't have quite as much going on maybe.

Martha: Yeah, I think that totally makes sense. I also wonder if it has to do with, , naturally having more energy in the summer because of the sunshine and the weather and the energy of the season and everyone trying to get everything in, and maybe more motivation. But now that you shared that story about Mrs.

Lawton and your list of classic literature, I wonder if you associate summer months with classic literature.

Liz: Maybe, yeah, maybe. I hadn't been thinking about that before, but I think that's a good observation.

Yeah. 

Martha: It's cute. I love that.

Liz: Oh, what a weirdo. , Everyone else is reading hot summer romances, and I'm like, under my parasol reading middle March.

Martha: Oh my God. Please tell me you have a parasol to read under.

Liz: I actually do, no, I do [00:22:00] have one. I can't remember where it is. , It's in a box somewhere, , it's made out of a paper type material. So , it doesn't really see the light of day very often, but I do have one,

Martha: This could be a very, , cute photo shoot idea.

Liz: yeah, my author photo sitting under a parasol.

Martha: I,

Liz: , That is really funny. , Okay, . So that is all really interesting and I feel like we came up with some good definitions and ways to relate to summer reading. , I did look into the history of summer reading, , and found some other interesting things and also I. As might not be surprising.

Some slightly cynical things about, this concept of summer reading. So I read an article in the New York Times from, I think it was 2021, that of course I'll put in the show notes. It was really very interesting if you're interested in this type of thing. , The New York Times book review, which is still the book, [00:23:00] section of the New York Times published its first special issue featuring quote book suitable for summer reading in the beginning of June of 1897.

So not to say that they're the first people that came up with the idea of summer reading, but , they're the paper of record in this country. And so it's fair to say that that is probably close to the beginning of this concept in our popular imagination in the US at least. So 1897, I mean, that was the.

A while ago,

Martha: Yeah.

Liz: I don't think that I had an idea that it went back that far. , So that is pretty interesting to me. And they have put out an annual summer reading guide , almost every year since it says, , not without some, I don't wanna say controversy, but, it sounds like there have always been people who have questioned this idea of , why summer?

There's a quote in the article of a New York Times critic in 1968 saying [00:24:00] why summer reading one doesn't have winter reading or fall reading, or even spring reading. , So this question that we are asking of , what is it about summer reading? Is, , not,

Martha: New.

Liz: it's not a new Yeah.

It's not like we are the only ones that this has ever occurred to. . And also in the article, they make the good point that the idea of reading different types of books at different times of year dates back much longer than 1897. Like Shakespeare has the play the Winter's Tale, which is a tale to be told in the winter.

So the idea that there's winter things that you would tell in the winter versus in the summer is maybe older than

that. , But , the crux of it taking hold in the US in the mid to late 18 hundreds when the New York Times started, , having this insert about it has to do with capitalism, of course, as everything does in this country.

The middle class started emerging, , during this time. Because of the industrial [00:25:00] revolution and, everything that was happening there. And then at the same time as also part of the industrial revolution, , there were a bunch of innovations in book publishing that made it faster and easier and cheaper to, , create books. And, , so the greater supply of books and this emerging middle class that had more free time, , meant that there were more readers and many of them were women

interestingly, which is, A theme that we have circled , around a lot in this podcast is, , the way that reading sits in our society as compared to gender, the different types of books that the genders read, the way that is.

Received in our culture, , 

The amount of reading that women do compared to men. , The episode we just did about is reading a niche hobby where we talked a little bit about this manufactured, it turns out crisis that says that men don't read and that women are doing all the reading, which actually [00:26:00] is not a real thing.

So it's interesting to think that the nexus of that goes back so far and probably, , before what we're talking about as well. , But , the rise of the summer reading coincided with more people having free time, books being cheaper and easier to make, and more people having free time also.

Coincided with the birth quote unquote in, in the words of the article of another cultural tradition, the summer vacation. So what had been something that only wealthy people could afford to do, which is go to Europe in the summer or to a resort in the summer or something, right? Is something that upper middle class and middle class Americans started to be able to do and that they wanted to do as a social marker of the fact that their social standing was higher than it used to be.

So publishers saw an opportunity in this and started to, market to people who are taking their summer vacations. This idea [00:27:00] of summer reading. , They saw , the quote from the article, which I'm actually just gonna read publishers saw an opportunity in this new wave of summer travel to bolster what had traditionally been a lackluster season for book sales.

And to promote novels, which up until that point had largely been seen as an inferior literary sub-genre and a dangerous corrupting influence, particularly for young

women. So if you think about, so many of the topics that we've talked about related to women and reading are encapsulated in this.

Even as far back as, when Jane Austen was writing the novel was a new form and was seen as the trashy

reading material of the day. 

Martha: Yeah. Which is why she penned it as a lady and didn't claim who she was

a 

Liz: Part of the reason that, and the fact that women weren't supposed to be doing anything public or be seen as, working or making money or anything like that. But yeah, her brother who was supposedly the writer in the family, , and [00:28:00] who wrote things that were long tert, Victorian essays, used to give her shit about the fact that she was wasting her time writing novels, which is just so funny to me because

who remembers him? 

Martha: Yeah, I,

Liz: So, yeah, I just thought that was so interesting. And of course maybe not surprising, really this whole phenomenon goes back to, , there was a couple of social factors that started to interact with one another and publishers saw this and were like, Ooh, a chance to make money.

, I mean, it's not all bad, right? I am for people being encouraged to read and I would rather that people are making money, encouraging people to read books than making money doing something else.

, It's fine, but there is a little cynical part of me that's like, of course 

this is because someone saw an opportunity to make money.

Martha: Yeah. Like, okay, summer reading list, what are you trying to sell me? You know?

Liz: Yeah. So, you know, inevitably summer books are still a really big [00:29:00] thing in the book publishing industry have been since this phenomenon, since they jumped on , this train back in the 18 hundreds.

. There are a couple times a year when publishers tend to schedule the big books, right? The books, by celebrities or whatever. And summer is definitely one of those times. The other time is the lead up to Christmas basically. To this day that's still a big thing in book publishing. I did think it was really funny though to read this article in the New York Times because, , a lot of newspapers come out with big summer reading lists, including the New York Times, but also including other national newspapers.

And I don't know, did you hear this story about a week or two ago about how. A bunch of major newspapers that clearly all use the same summer insert that had, , it had summer reading, but it also had summer movies to watch and , it's just the big summer issue of all the summer pop culture.

They all use the same [00:30:00] one, but it had a bunch of fake books in it.

Martha: Oh my gosh. No, I didn't hear about this.

Liz: So the author used chat GPT to write it.

Martha: Oh my God.

Liz: It came out, of course people didn't know that at the time, but it's all come out now. What 

happened? So of the 15 books that were recommended of summer reads of 2025, only five of them are real. And the other 10 were real authors, but not real books.

Martha: Oh my gosh.

Liz: , I don't have it in front of me.

You can Google it listener if you want it. There's a read all about the whole scandal. But it would be like Isabel. But that it would give a fake book title. ? Because I mean, when you know that chat GPT wrote it, it makes total sense. 'cause that's what chat g PT does. It's a generative ai. It came up with something, it generated a book.

Right.

Martha: Yeah.

Liz: So this writer, oh dear, oh dear. , Used chat GPT to write this whole thing. And so then [00:31:00] it came out that a bunch of the other things, not just the books, but a bunch of the other things in it were fake too. Fake movies, fake research articles that were used as citations for other parts of it.

The issue is so much deeper than just

that it came up with fake books, right? It relates to the death of real journalism. The fact that , , these companies don't want to pay the writer who was tasked with doing this enough money to actually do it. I feel so bad for the guy.

He apologized and was like, it's totally my fault. , I didn't have enough time to do this thing. And I used this shortcut and I should have fact checked it, but I didn't

Martha: Oh my gosh.

Liz: He basically is just being paid peanuts to create this 50 page summer insert that's going in all these newspapers.

Companies want writing and they want art, but they don't wanna pay people to do it. And so then people are using the tools that now exist to do it and it's just such a mess. Oh God.

Martha: Ugh. [00:32:00] Yeah, I saw, uh, reel on social media recently that was talking about how good AI is getting, and she really was saying , unless we start teaching people how to decipher the difference between AI and real content, like yesterday, we are also screwed. And yeah, I fear that that is the case. So people we need to be so diligent about what we see online.

Liz: Yeah. It's a mess, but so depressing. , How about some real summer reading suggestions and recommendations? What's on your TBR for the summer?

Martha: My TBR for the summer is. Not really set in stone. A lot of my TBR depends on what books we're reading for book club and if I'm gonna finish them or read them or [00:33:00] not. So I'll caveat it first by saying that. But some things that I think I wanna read this Summer Are Lost and Lasso, which is the third book in that Rebel Blue Ranch series that I was talking about in the beginning that I'm reading The Contemporary Western, , romance, and then I was thinking about the Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, because it's been on my TBR for a long time, and it seems fitting based on what we were talking about,, the Mood of Summer. It's a historical fiction that spans basically an entire life and it just fits in so well with the symbolism of growth and botany and the industrial revolution and change and all of that, that I thought that could be a fun.

Thing to read during the summer.

Liz: And she goes to a lot of tropical places during her study. , Her botany takes her to all of these really exotic tropical places. So that might be,

Martha: Could be. Cool.[00:34:00] 

And, 

Similar to Signature of All Things, another one on my TBR that I've been meaning to read for a long time is Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reed, which is also a historical fiction. It's described as a coming of age story about a rock star in the seventies era.

I'm pretty sure like a fleet would Mac kind of vibe or something.

Liz: Yeah, that's what I've read is that it's a Stevie Nicks type character.

Martha: Which sounds like something I would like. I just haven't, I just haven't read it yet. For whatever reason it's on my bookshelf, but I was looking at some of the reviews for it and it seems like. Overwhelmingly, people are saying that the audio book is way more engaging

 The cast of characters makes it so much more engaging and real so I might do it that way. And then I also have been thinking about revisiting some old classics. , I've been thinking about Jane Eyre, 'cause I haven't read that in a while, and it's one of my [00:35:00] favorites.

And also To Kill a Mockingbird has been on my mind. It's one that I loved in high school, and I'm like, would I still love it? I'm sure as an adult I would have a totally different perspective on everything. So I want to reread that.

Liz: That is also a great summer book, right? Because it takes place during the summer, the 

kids' summer. Isn't that why they're free to be bothering

the man? That's a great call. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good summer Classic.

Martha: Mm-hmm. What about you? What's on your TBR this summer? What'd you check out from the library?

Liz: I won't, , give you all of the ones I checked out from the library 'cause it would be too many. But I do have quite a few romances in the traditional summer read, , category. The Bodyguard by Katherine Center is one that Nancy Pearl recommended to us

, and for whatever reason, her recommendation of it stuck with me, and so I checked that out. [00:36:00] Also, summer Romance by Anabel Monaghan, who wrote Nora Goes Off Script, which was one of my absolute favorite books of last year. If anyone hasn't read that, I think that would be a great summer read. But I am gonna read this new one of hers, , also Swept Away by Beth O'Leary.

Beth O'Leary wrote, , the Flat Share. It's the book of hers that I read that I really liked. She's, , a British author. And then How to Lose a Lord in 10 Days by Sophie Irwin. Sophie Irwin is the one that wrote, , the Ladies' Guide to Fortune Hunting And The Ladies' Guide to Scandal, which the Guide to Scandal I just finished, , a few months ago and absolutely love that.

So I have a few of those , standard summer read, , fodder. And then I have one called All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett that I checked out that I first heard about, , because it was a pick for Reese's Book Club.

Martha: mm.

Liz: So remember, , that we talked a lot about the celebrity book club [00:37:00] phenomenon in our book clubs episode.

And , after we did that episode, I started to pay a little bit more attention to the book that were, especially from Reese's Book Club because just reading what she said about . The way that she intentionally focuses on books that are written by women and for women, and that have, characters that challenge the status quo.

And, all of that has made me, , more of a fan , of her book club. So I've been paying more attention to that. And , , it's another, story about a young woman who goes to London and gets swept into a world of this high society in London. , So yeah, it also hits some of those buttons for me.

Martha: Cool.

Liz: , I also have a book called The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray on my shelf. , Which is, as it sounds, it basically uses Jane Austen characters, but their murderer mysteries. I don't always love when people do new versions of Jane Austen's stories or her [00:38:00] characters.

I'm a little bit finicky about that, but sometimes I do. So I decided to give this a chance. I hope that I like it because there are four or five in the series that I could read if I do, but that's the first one, so we'll see about that. , I also was thinking when you were talking about the classics, what about some books that you have already read that maybe aren't on your summer TBR this year, but would make great summer reads for someone?

Do you have any other ideas for that?

Martha: Anything Emily Henry, I feel like she is so good with her settings and a lot of her settings happen to be summer vibes, like, , happy places, a summer vacation in Maine. And , funny stories in Minnesota. I feel like it's during the summer and these places I'd never really considered as being destinations before.

Somehow she makes me wanna move there by the time the book is

Liz: yeah. Well and beach read like basically about this concept of,

Martha: a beach read.

Liz: Like a be [00:39:00] read versus a really serious literary novel. Right? So that would be a great one.

Martha: Yeah. And , contemporary romance, fabulous writing and yeah, anything Emily Henry would be great.

Liz: I haven't read her new one yet. That should have been also on my summer TBR, I wanna read that. It's called, what is it called? Great Big, beautiful

Martha: Yes, and I haven't read it yet because I'm holding out for the paperback because I have every paperback, so I don't wanna buy a hardcover and my library doesn't have it Si. And I can't order it from another library because it's a new release. So I'm

Liz: Right. 

Martha: ah. So I have to wait.

Liz: Okay.

Martha: So that's not on my summer TBR, but it should be on someone's. I also feel like it would be a great time to get into romantasy if you're not already, you can get totally swept away in that whole genre if you haven't yet. Two summers ago. I think it was when Iron Flame came out, or maybe it was when Fourth [00:40:00] Wing came out, I don't remember, but one of Rebecca's Yarros' books had just come out and I basically read the whole book in one day when I was sitting in my garage smoking salmon in the summer.

And so I just relate that to the summer now, I think,

which I can like smell it, you know? I could smell the smoking salmon and just, yeah, it was a great time.

Liz: Like the smoke from the dragons.

Martha: Yeah, something, it was just so perfect. 'cause I had to be sitting there monitoring the fish and I was like, well, what else am I gonna do?

And so yeah, it was a great opportunity to read that book.

Liz: I love that.

Martha: I also feel like it could be a great time to read the Shady Hollow Series by Juneau Black, which we've talked about at some point when I was reading it for book club, which is a cozy murder mystery, but the characters are all animals. So , it's not a kid's book by any means, but it's

like a Roald Dahl mixed with a Wes Anderson kind of vibe.

Liz: [00:41:00] Okay.

Martha: And the author, Juneau Black is actually a pen name for two authors who write the books together.

Liz: Oh cool.

Martha: Mm-hmm. And then we mentioned Tom Lake already, but I put that on this list because it's so atmospheric. She's telling her daughters her life story or part of her life story, which is happening in the past in the summer, and then in the present time they're on their cherry orchard during the summer months.

Harvesting, right.

Harvesting the 

cherries. So that is a great, if you're into the setting and the mood and all of that.

Liz: Oh my God, that's such a great call. That book definitely made me want to move to Northern Michigan and live on a cherry orchard.

Martha: Oh. And have coastal granny vibes.

Liz: Oh my God. I loved that book so much.

Martha: What about you? What do you think people should read?

Liz: I have a couple of ideas. Mostly I. Along the lines of , classics that I think are good in the summer, as you said, I think that , in my [00:42:00] brain, for whatever reason, Mrs. Lawton or something else has connected classics with the summer. , I love the idea of diving into a , classic that you haven't read over the summer.

Of course, my brain always goes immediately to Jane Austen and Persuasion has lots of scenes in the Summer by the sea. , One of the big events in the novel happens, in Lyme, which is a city on the seaside, and then also her unfinished novel Sandton, which was turned into a very popular series for PBS in the last couple years.

, It takes place in a seaside town and there are lots of people who have finished it. I don't have a favorite of those. , She wrote the first, I don't know, I wanna say 11 chapters or something. And then there have been a lot of people who have , finished it in the direction that they think it was going.

, But I actually just read the first 11 chapters of it and I felt like it was worth reading, just, , imagining where she was going with that story. 

It was really 

Martha: [00:43:00] That's cool.

Liz: And then I also did, look up classics to read in the summer. And I found a Lit Hub article that has a list of classics, that have a summer feel, quote unquote.

, And I didn't agree with all of them. I will put it in the show notes, but, , , it gave me a few good ideas. So it said Rebecca, which, , does have a sultry, summer atmospheric, , type of setting. Cornwall

I was a little iffy about whether I felt like that was a summer read, but there is a part of it that happens in the summer, and Cornwall is beautiful in the summer. . Cornwall is a really interesting setting to think about for this. Because in the summer it does have a very tropical feeling. There are plants that grow there that are tropical plants, which is really strange because the island of Great Britain is really northern, right?

Where Cornwall is actually its latitude is really north, but because of the Gulf Stream, the temperature is a lot closer to what it would be at the equator than it should be given where it is. So , it's a very [00:44:00] weird thing where you're in England, which is a cold, rainy place, but then you go to Cornwall and there's all these tropical plants growing in the summer.

It's very strange. So , I actually do like that idea for Rebecca, 'cause it's set in

Cornwall. , And then of course the Great Gatsby, I feel like is the ultimate tragic summer romance. It happens in the summer on Long Island where a lot of people go to summer still, but definitely in the early 20th century.

Went to summer. 

Martha: And it's indulgent, ,

Liz: yeah. Decade in.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's also short, so it would be easy to read in the summer. And then one of the ones that it listed was to the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf, which I actually think I might reread this summer. It made me wanna reread it.

Martha: Hmm. A rare reread.

Liz: Yeah. I really love that book. And it's also short, but it happens in the summer and it's such a good book. I feel like that might go on my summer. TBR, another one, which I haven't actually read, but that I thought I might [00:45:00] put on my summer. TBR is Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead. Have you ever read that book?

Colson Whitehead is a lot better known these days for. , his recent books, he wrote The Nickel Boys and he wrote , a nonfiction book where he, , got really deep into the world of , gambling. I can't remember what it was called, but , he has had some , really popular books in the last few years.

So people might not know him for this, but this novel, Sag Harbor , this article says it's the ultimate becoming someone else over the summer novel. Which is such a real thing, right? Especially when you're a teenager. The main. Character in this is a 15-year-old and he and his brother go to spend the summer with, some affluent white friends , in the idyllic Hamptons town of Sag Harbor.

, And they're African American, as is Colson Whitehead. And so it has some really interesting class and race dynamics. , And it's apparently just his third novel and he has written a ton [00:46:00] of books now, so it's really early for him. , And people say that it's one of his more personal novels that it's based on his own teenage years of growing up in these wealthy white New York spaces and what it meant to be a black teenager, , in those spaces.

So yeah, I was really sold on that one,

Martha: Yeah, that. sounds really good. 

Liz: Yeah, so I think I'm gonna add that to my 

TBR. . The other thing that I just realized now that I didn't talk about is that I actually have a couple of books that I wanna read over the summer that are writing related, because that is the other piece of my summer activities is that I try to do a lot of creative writing over the summer. Last summer, I was really focused on editing the book that I'm working on and the summer before that I was drafting. So , I try to use the summer to do big chunks of creative projects. , And I still haven't managed to read the book 1000 Words by Jamie Attenberg, which is actually a collection of essays from writers about.

Writing and staying motivated and

stuff like that. So I [00:47:00] thought that I would read maybe one of those a week or something

during the summer to try to, yeah, to try to keep myself motivated. And then I really wanna read the book, the Creative Act by Rick Rubin. It's kind of a doorstep, so I'm not sure if I'll actually read it this summer, but I might try to dip into it a little bit.

, Rick Rubin is the very famous music producer who co-founded Def Jam Records and worked with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg in the nineties. , That's how he's best known. But I listened to a really brilliant interview with him on a podcast that I very highly recommend called On being with Krista Tippett.

And she's one of those interviewers that has this way of getting really deep with everyone that she interviews, and it was so interesting and he has this whole theory about how we are creative and how to unlock that in yourself and stuff. , I wanna try to do some of that reading over the summer because, , I'm gonna try to get into a new writing project because I actually just finished and [00:48:00] have started querying the novel that I've been working on since, , let's see.

I wrote the first draft of this novel in November of 2022.

Martha: Yay.

Liz: So yeah, so basically in April, March or April, I finally finished it and now I'm querying it. And so now that I'm querying it, I'm really not allowed to make any more changes to it. I have to stop changing

Martha: for people who don't know, can you explain what querying means?

Liz: Oh yeah, sure. , when you want to be traditionally published, meaning that you want to. , Have your book published by Penguin or one of the big five? I think there are publishing houses these days. , Usually , in order to do that, basically always in order to do that, you have to have , a literary agent.

And in order to get a literary agent, you basically have to email a pitch for your book, for lack of a better [00:49:00] word, , to agents that you think might be a good fit for it. So either they represent that type of book or they have a client that has a book that's similar to yours or, they do interviews where they talk about what they like.

And writers basically just come up with these huge lists of agents , that they think might be interested in their work and email them this short synopsis or pitch for their book. And so I have started doing that for my book, but they want your book to be finished, which mine is, but there's such a compulsion to keep tinkering with it, but I don't want to send one version to one agent that has a hundred words that are different and then another version to another agent, and then one of them rejects it.

And then I have to wonder, is it because of those a hundred words that I changed?

Martha: Right. 

Liz: Right. I feel like I just am gonna drive myself crazy if I keep changing it. So I'm like, have to be done with that now that I'm querying it. And so I feel like I need to start writing something

Martha: yeah. To keep you occupied, if nothing else, so you're [00:50:00] not tempted to change it. That's so 

Liz: Exactly. Yeah. It is exciting. , It's scary. And it's also the time where, , you as an a writer, you have to start stealing yourself for the part of writing if you wanna be published, which is the rejection because. Most of the agents that you send it to are gonna 

reject it. Obviously you only need one , to like it and say yes, but it's a lot of rejection and that is tough when, like I said, I've been working on it for almost three years and it is like my child

Martha: yeah,

Liz: and I'm sending it out into the

Martha: yeah. For people to dissect and, you

know. Yeah, Nerve wracking, but also very exciting. So 

you'll have to keep us posted.

Liz: I will, I will do that. , I don't know that I've ever talked about what the book is about on the podcast.

Martha: I don't think so. I know we talked about you were writing a [00:51:00] book, but I don't think you gave any details about it is.

Liz: Yeah, I don't want , this tangent to be too long, but it just made me laugh because it is about an American woman who moves. To England and is a baker, , and works on a big country estate. And so I was laughing throughout this whole episode because I either have read or want to read all of these books that basically have characters who are in that same fish out of water, , context.

And so I'm like, Hmm, I'm sensing a theme potentially in my own life and in my writing and reading.

Martha: and you're both book would be a great summer read, so

Liz: It would yes

Martha: maybe in the future it can be on people's tbrs for the summer.

Liz: yeah, I hope so. , That would be pretty exciting. So yeah, I'm also gonna be trying to do some sort of creative work and reading to help spur me forward with that.[00:52:00] 

Martha: Wonderful.

Liz: Yeah.

Martha: Well, it sounds like we're both geared up to have a great summer of reading and writing in your case, and hopefully all of our listeners are too. We did just want to make a note that this is our last episode of season two, . So thank you for joining us again this season, and if you've made it this far, you're probably a regular listener, so we wanna just let you know that we're not gonna be doing regularly scheduled episodes after this.

We've had so much fun doing it over the last couple of years, but it takes a lot of time and work, and we both kind of want to get back to doing some other things in our lives on the weekends. . But we did wanna let you guys know that we're not going away completely. We're taking our usual break for the summer, and then after that we're gonna publish episodes as we feel inclined to talk about a certain topic, or if there's a book we really love that we wanna talk about, just kind of as [00:53:00] the mood or the need arises.

We're gonna publish some episodes, so definitely subscribe if you're not already, so that you'll get notified when we do have a new episode. And we'll be popping into your feeds with chats related to books and reading. But it's just gonna be a nice little surprise when it does happen.

And as always, if there's a topic you'd like to hear us talk about, email us at  allbooksaloudpod@gmail.com and let us know what that is.

Liz: , And then I also did wanna just mention that if you've made it this far, you probably are in the category of listener who might consider doing this. So just to mention that, if you'd ever. Like to support our efforts in making the podcast, I'll be at less on, on less of a regular basis.

, We are now set up with the site Buy Me Coffee, which lets people make small donations to creators whose work you enjoy. So you can find the link in the show notes or in the top navigation of our website, which is allbooksaloudpod.com. [00:54:00] And of course, thank you so much in advance to any of you who choose to do that.

Martha: Yes. And thank you all so much for listening. If you want more bookish content, you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok @allbooksaloudpod, and read on my friends. 

[All Books Aloud theme music]