Currently Reading

Season 8, Episode 18: Re-Reading + How We've Changed For Good

December 1, 2025

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • The hosts promoted their Patreon, highlighting new features for the 2026 reading tracker, including comparing personal ratings to Goodreads/StoryGraph and adding visual scales for spice and murder levels. 
  • Meredith and Kaytee engaged in a deep dive reflecting on how their eight-year partnership on the *Currently Reading* podcast has positively changed their reading lives, specifically regarding buddy reads, openness to challenging literary fiction, and valuing community. 
  • Meredith shared her excitement for a new business-focused limited series podcast with her brother called 'Monday Next,' premiering January 5th, while Kaytee wished for listeners to finish their 2025 reading year strong. 
  • Kaytee promoted her new project, the "Monday Next podcast," assuring listeners that it will not affect her commitment to *Currently Reading*, which remains her top priority. 
  • Kaytee's wish for the end of the year, made during the 'Meet Us At The Fountain' segment, is to approach her reading life with more intention, joy, and consistency, encapsulated by the goal to 'finish the year strong.' 
  • The hosts emphasized the importance of giving oneself grace regarding reading consistency, especially after chaotic or inconsistent reading periods, a concept Kaytee noted Meredith has helped instill in her. 

Segments

Patreon Ad and Tracker Updates
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(00:01:15)
  • Key Takeaway: The 2026 reading tracker will feature new functionalities like comparing user ratings to Goodreads/StoryGraph and adding visual scales for spice and murder levels.
  • Summary: The hosts advertised their Patreon, focusing on the upcoming 2026 reading tracker, which will include a feature to visually compare personal ratings against external review sites. New additions also include the ability to select multiple timeline and location settings for books. Furthermore, the tracker will incorporate visual elements like chili peppers for the spice scale and knives for a new murder scale.
Bookish Moments Introduction
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(00:08:10)
  • Key Takeaway: A bookish friend suggested creating a personalized, non-clutter book Advent calendar using AI-generated prompts to select 12 books to read in the following year.
  • Summary: Meredith shared a bookish moment idea from the Bookish Friends Facebook group: using ChatGPT to generate 12 prompts (e.g., ‘book with the most blue on the cover’) to select 12 books from one’s shelves for a personalized reading challenge. This low-cost, non-trinket Advent calendar concept is designed to help readers commit to their 2026 reading list.
Meredith’s Wood Bookends Hobby
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(00:11:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Meredith is pursuing a woodworking hobby by acquiring live edge olive wood to craft a pair of unique, burled bookends.
  • Summary: Meredith found a local seller of live edge wood, which retains the natural bark edge of the tree, and purchased a thick slab of olive wood. She plans to slice this slab in half to create a mated pair of bookends, applying skills learned from her father in their wood shop.
Current Reads: North Sun
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(00:14:30)
  • Key Takeaway: North Sun by Ethan Rutherford is a National Book Award nominee featuring a 1878 whaling voyage that evolves into a haunting horror story with perfect pacing between lyrical lulls and plotty intensity.
  • Summary: The book follows the voyage of the Esther into the Chukchi Sea, shifting from whaling profit to something stranger, reminiscent of The Terror. Its structure uses short, sharply delineated scenes, and it contains intense animal violence related to the whaling industry, making it thematically heavy and not suitable for sensitive readers.
Current Reads: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
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(00:21:27)
  • Key Takeaway: Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McCallister utilizes backward time travel, where the protagonist wakes up one day further in the past each morning, effectively bypassing the typical ‘butterfly effect’ paradox.
  • Summary: The novel centers on a mother who witnesses her son stab a stranger on Halloween and subsequently wakes up on the preceding day, traveling backward in time to find the catalyst for the murder. Because memories reset daily for everyone except the protagonist, she can share information without consequence, making the time travel mechanism highly effective for the mystery thriller structure.
Current Reads: And the World Spins Anyway
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(00:26:25)
  • Key Takeaway: Georgie Jones’s debut poetry collection, And the World Spins Anyway, offers accessible, witty, and honest reflections on modern millennial existence, dating, and platonic love.
  • Summary: The poetry reads like candid conversations, immediately magnetic due to the author’s gentle delivery, yet capable of delivering searing lines about chaos and uncertainty. The collection is particularly resonant for those navigating the struggles of early adulthood in the 2020s, chronicling the feeling of failing at the ‘Instagram version of life.’
Current Reads: Awake by Jen Hatmaker
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(00:32:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Jen Hatmaker’s memoir Awake is a raw, vulnerable account of her public divorce, functioning primarily as a love letter to the family and friends who supported her resilience.
  • Summary: The book details the aftermath of the divorce that began after an overheard conversation, focusing not on the ex-husband but on the support system, including her parents and children, who helped her survive. The narrative is deeply emotional, highlighting the necessity of asking for help after reaching a point of desperation.
Current Reads: Lady Tremaine
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(00:37:36)
  • Key Takeaway: Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hawkhauser is a dark, sophisticated Cinderella retelling that explores complex themes of maternal devotion, feminine rage, and survival, culminating in visceral horror imagery.
  • Summary: The story follows Lady Tremaine, who must secure her daughters’ futures through marriage but faces a crisis when the wrong daughter attracts the prince, uncovering rot within the royal family. The novel excavates the emotional reality beneath the fairy tale, showing desperation dressed in respectability, and the final third contains horror-level violence.
Current Reads: A Wish in the Dark
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(00:42:33)
  • Key Takeaway: Christina Soontornvat’s A Wish in the Dark, a Thai-inspired Les Misérables retelling, sparks deep conversations about the distinction between law, power, and true justice.
  • Summary: In a dystopian society controlled by a governor who rations light, a boy named Pong escapes prison to seek freedom and potentially start a revolution. Rereading the book aloud with her children led Kaytee to discuss how goodness is distinct from power, showing the book’s impact across different age groups.
Deep Dive: Host Changes
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(00:46:46)
  • Key Takeaway: Kaytee credits Meredith with changing her perspective to embrace buddy reads, value literary challenges, and internalize that differing opinions on books are valid, fostering self-acceptance.
  • Summary: Meredith noted that Kaytee convinced her to try buddy reads, which became a favorite activity, and that Kaytee’s influence broadened her acceptance of challenging literary fiction. Kaytee admitted that Meredith helped her move past the belief that only one opinion on a book can be correct, allowing her to embrace her evolving reading self.
Deep Dive: Community and Support
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(00:55:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Meredith was instrumental in breaking down Kaytee’s resistance to community, leading to the creation of the highly valued Bookish Friends Facebook group.
  • Summary: Kaytee acknowledged that Meredith persistently encouraged her to engage with community, which she initially resisted, leading to the creation of the Bookish Friends group, now a source of joy for many listeners. Furthermore, Kaytee credited Meredith’s unwavering support for helping her overcome sensitivity to criticism and value her own voice and contributions.
Fountain Wishes
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(00:59:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Meredith wished for listeners interested in her business insights to follow her new, separate limited series podcast, ‘Monday Next,’ premiering January 5th.
  • Summary: Meredith promoted her new podcast, ‘Monday Next,’ which she hosts with her brother and focuses on small-to-medium business operations, assuring listeners it will not affect the schedule or focus of Currently Reading. Kaytee’s wish was a general one for everyone to finish their 2025 reading year strong, acknowledging the confusing nature of time perception this year.
Promoting Monday Next Podcast
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(01:00:26)
  • Key Takeaway: Kaytee reassured listeners that the new ‘Monday Next podcast’ will not negatively impact Currently Reading.
  • Summary: Kaytee addressed listener concerns regarding her new project, confirming that Currently Reading remains her first priority in the podcast world. She encouraged listeners to follow @mondaynextpodcast on Instagram for a limited series aimed at business-minded individuals. The hosts noted the scheduling coincidence of both shows dropping on Mondays, suggesting listeners might as well download both.
Kaytee’s Reading Wish
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(01:01:13)
  • Key Takeaway: Kaytee wished to approach the final month of the year with intention and joy to ‘finish the year strong’ in her reading life.
  • Summary: Kaytee expressed a desire to regain intentionality in her reading, including returning to giving star ratings, which had fallen off recently. She specifically wants to start and finish books well, a habit she attributes to Meredith’s influence. This goal is encapsulated in the wish to finish the year strong despite a chaotic reading timeline.
Grace and The Never King
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(01:02:25)
  • Key Takeaway: The hosts affirmed the importance of extending grace to oneself for chaotic reading years.
  • Summary: The hosts agreed on the necessity of giving themselves grace for reading years that have been all over the place or chaotic. Kaytee mentioned binge-reading The Never King by Nikki St. Crow as a positive way to practice self-grace. Both hosts expressed strong positive feelings about The Never King.
Closing and Contact Information
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(01:02:53)
  • Key Takeaway: Listeners can connect with Meredith on Instagram as @MeredithMondaySchwartz and Kaytee as @NotesOnBookmarks.
  • Summary: Meredith provided her Instagram handle (@MeredithMondaySchwartz) and Kaytee provided hers (@NotesOnBookmarks). The show’s producer and editor is Megan Phouthavong Evans (@mostofMegansReads). Listeners can support the show commercially-free by joining as a Bookish Friend on Patreon for $5 a month.