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Season 8, Episode 15: A Poem A Day + YOUR Top Reads 2019-2024

November 10, 2025

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • Listener participation in ranking their top six books from 2019-2024 revealed a common difficulty in choosing favorites and a trend where top picks often deviated from listeners' most frequently read genres like mysteries, thrillers, and romance. 
  • The hosts highlighted the value of diverse reading, noting that many listeners' top books were those that surprised them or pushed them outside their usual genres, contrasting with the comfort found in familiar genres. 
  • Kaytee recommended the Bloom NFC card as a solution for digital distraction, successfully enforcing a 'sleep mode' schedule that blocks time-wasting apps to improve reading time and sleep quality. 

Segments

Bookish Moments Introduction
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(00:01:56)
  • Key Takeaway: The hosts will discuss listener feedback on ranking top books and reveal the giveaway winner during the episode.
  • Summary: The hosts announced an unexpected mini deep dive focusing on listener rankings of their top six books from the last six years. They confirmed they would draw the giveaway winner live on air during the episode. This segment sets the agenda for the main discussion points following the bookish moments.
Poetry Foundation Email Tip
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(00:02:03)
  • Key Takeaway: The Poetry Foundation offers a free daily ‘Poem of the Day’ email subscription, which includes links to the poet’s biography and archives.
  • Summary: Listener Dana suggested subscribing to the National Poetry Foundation’s free ‘Poem of the Day’ email for a daily dose of poetry. This resource allows users to explore various poets and themes easily. It serves as an earth-friendlier alternative to physical poetry calendars.
Louise Penny New Release Day
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(00:03:41)
  • Key Takeaway: Louise Penny’s latest Three Pines book, The Black Wolf (Book 20), is the second part of a two-book story started in The Gray Wolf (Book 19), and the series is confirmed to continue.
  • Summary: Meredith celebrated the release of The Black Wolf by Louise Penny, adhering to her tradition of waiting for release day to start the hardback. The book continues the story from The Gray Wolf, as they are sibling books telling one continuous narrative. Penny has assured fans during her tour that the series will continue beyond these two installments.
Current Read: Cozy Fantasy
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(00:06:07)
  • Key Takeaway: The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong is a comfort book featuring found family, light fantasy elements (fortune telling, magic cat), and a steady pace, differentiating it from more meditative cozy fantasies like A Psalm for the Wild Built.
  • Summary: Kaytee highly recommended The Teller of Small Fortunes, a cozy road trip novel about a fortune teller named Tao accompanied by an ex-thief, an ex-mercenary, a baker named Kina, and a magical cat. The plot centers on their search for a lost child, balancing small fortunes with rising stakes. The book offers fully drawn characters and a comforting, non-stilted plot that appeals even to those who find some cozy fantasy too sweet.
Current Read: Magical Realism
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(00:09:01)
  • Key Takeaway: The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds by Jennifer Moorman blends time travel with gentle magical realism, focusing on the relationship between a grieving modern widow and her bold 1920s great-grandmother.
  • Summary: Meredith praised The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds, which follows Josephine as she travels from the present to 1927 Nashville, altering her family’s existence. The core of the story is the bond between Josephine and her ancestor Alma, who teaches her about authentic living after loss. The book is noted for its immersive, well-researched Jazz Age atmosphere and predictable but satisfying emotional ending.
Current Read: Bookshop History
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(00:14:14)
  • Key Takeaway: The Bookshop by Evan Friss chronicles two centuries of American bookshop history, detailing their cultural impact, evolution from Benjamin Franklin’s shop to modern indies like Parnassus Books, and their role in social discourse.
  • Summary: Kaytee reviewed The Bookshop by Evan Friss, a narrative nonfiction book detailing the history of the American bookshop as a cultural institution. The book features historical photos and profiles of diverse bookstores, including queer and Black-owned shops, and highlights their role in politics. It provides a comprehensive look at bookstore evolution, from department store shops to current independent stores.
Current Read: Manifesto on Reading
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(00:17:56)
  • Key Takeaway: Books, a Manifesto, or How to Build a Library by Ian Patterson argues that wide reading is essential for human thought and provides permission for readers to be unapologetically obsessed with books, even to the point of clinical attachment.
  • Summary: Meredith found Books, a Manifesto to be part memoir, part manifesto, arguing that reading is the foundation of how we think and is necessary for maintaining perspective in the current cultural moment. Patterson democratizes reading, giving equal weight to all genres, but his intense devotion to collecting forces readers to examine their own relationship with their libraries. The book explores the tension between the compulsion to read and maintaining personal relationships.
Current Read: Thriller Debut
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(00:29:33)
  • Key Takeaway: The Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards successfully revitalizes the ‘old friends reunite’ trope by blending a dual timeline with the unique setting of a 1999 tech startup creating an early online dating site based on psychological profiling.
  • Summary: Meredith enjoyed The Wasp Trap, which follows six graduates whose summer project—creating a psychologically profiled online dating site in 1999—ends disastrously, leading to a reunion 25 years later where they find themselves trapped. The book’s strength lies in its pacing, short chapters, and capturing the early, optimistic yet naive era of the internet. While the twist is satisfying, seasoned thriller readers may spot the turns coming.
Listener Ranking Analysis
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(00:33:05)
  • Key Takeaway: The exercise of ranking top books from 2019-2024 revealed that many listeners felt significant angst over the difficulty of selection, and many noted a lack of mysteries/thrillers or romance in their final top six lists.
  • Summary: Hundreds of listeners participated in ranking their top six books from the last six years, confirming the hosts’ initial assessment that the task was extremely difficult. Many participants realized their top picks often came from books that surprised them or pushed them out of their comfort zones, such as nonfiction, which often ranked lower than their favorite genre reads. The data showed Remarkably Bright Creatures appeared most often overall, while Lessons in Chemistry was the most frequent number one pick.
Giveaway Winner Announcement
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(00:46:28)
  • Key Takeaway: Christy Peets was selected as the giveaway winner from 555 entries on the Instagram post, with her top book being Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
  • Summary: Using a random number generator on the 555 Instagram comments, Christy Peets was announced as the winner. Her top six list included Demon Copperhead, The Anxious Generation, Olive Kitteridge, The Thursday Murder Club, and Lessons in Chemistry. The hosts confirmed they would message her directly to arrange prizes.
Fountain Wish: Phone Control
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(00:48:20)
  • Key Takeaway: Kaytee highly recommends the Bloom NFC card, a one-time purchase device that syncs with a phone to enforce customized ‘sleep mode’ schedules, effectively turning the smartphone into a dumb phone after a set time (e.g., 9 PM) to aid reading and sleep.
  • Summary: Following up on a previous discussion about Stolen Focus, Kaytee found the Bloom metal card solution for Android users, which uses NFC to block distracting apps like social media and browsers. This feature has significantly improved her reading life by preventing late-night phone scrolling and promoting faster sleep onset. The device operates without a subscription fee, making it an appealing tool for digital focus.
Fountain Wish: Immersive Reading
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(00:51:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Meredith encouraged listeners to enhance reading immersion by using specific, non-lyrical music playlists or ASMR rooms, noting that background ambiance can subtly influence the reading environment for everyone in the room.
  • Summary: Meredith wished for listeners to try using music playlists or specific ASMR rooms tailored to the book they are reading to create a more immersive experience. She noted that having an ASMR room on a large TV can subtly set a tone that discourages family members from interrupting the reading space. This practice helps readers focus for longer periods without turning to other distractions like the news.