2023 Gift Guide!

Happyish Holidays and welcome to our first ever TRC gift guide! Nora and Kara (and our awesome TRC community) have compiled book recs for everyone on your gift list — from the youngest of picture book readers to the father in law who you can only talk to about the weather. 

Find all of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide children’s and YA book recs here.

Find all of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide adult book recs here.

Every time you purchase through our Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co. 

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Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

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Transcripts are not in their final form and are therefore subject to change.

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INTRO MUSIC 

Hello everybody and welcome to the Terrible Reading Club. I'm Nora McInerney. This is the world's easiest book club because you never have to meet in person. Sometimes we're not even talking about books. And always you gotta have three things in your mind before you start listing them off as though there would be more than two. It is the holidays or it's about to be.

And the reason for the season is stuff and things. If your love language is gifts, or if you just come from a gifty family, I love giving gifts. In my household, I am known to do exactly what my mother did growing up. I will buy a gift for someone, I will put it away, I'll forget it exists.

I will forget it exists for a long time. When it comes time to wrap presents for somebody's birthday or Christmas, I'll think, didn't I get them something else? No. Years or months later, the gift will fall out of its hiding place, shock me, and I will give it to the person randomly. I believe in gifting all year round, not for the sake of gifting, but because if I see something that I think will be exactly right.

for you, I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait for our lives to be over. I don't want to wait for your birthday, a holiday. I just want to give it to you now. But for the holidays, I have trained at least my own children to turn their wanters down, doot, using a mnemonic that I found on Pinterest, I'm pretty sure before I even had kids. It comes down to four things.

For Christmas, you're getting four things, something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read. Now, the want and wear and need and read, sometimes those are all one thing, I'll be honest. It requires a lot of creativity as a person, especially as your kids get older because what do teenagers want? Clothes, usually. What do they, what do...

What does an eight-year-old need? Pants that fit. No one has solved children's pants. That is a market that has yet to be solved because children are people and people have different shaped bodies. But clothing manufacturers would have you believe that all boys are wide rectangles and all girls are tiny.

I just, we don't have the right pants for anybody in our family. We're tall people, we're long legged people. I don't know what to do. But anyways, our kids get something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read. Makes it very easy for me to keep track of what I've gotten for everybody. I keep it in a shared note with my husband. What I've gotten, when I've gotten it.

And sometimes during the year I might buy something and think this is for Christmas and then they might get it. They might get it a little early because they're having a bad day or I'm having a good day and it would make me feel even better to see them happy. There is nobody who has this all figured out, least of all me. But I love giving books. I love getting books. I understand that this can be like all gift giving kind of a fraught experience because

You are really saying a lot about your relationship to a person, about what you think about a person when you give them a book. It can be very stressful. And I do shop for books somewhat chaotically. Emma Straub called it psychotic and I took that as a compliment. I don't know what a book is about before I read it unless someone has told me.

I'm not flipping it over to read the back. I am, you know, I'm not reading the flap copy. I'm truly just, I sense it and I read it or I don't read it. So I do love wandering in to a bookstore with Naria Plan Insight and just kind of seeing where things take me. I respond very well to book marketing.

Recently, I, well, I don't have the book in front of me, so maybe I shouldn't even bring it up, but recently, yeah, no, what am I doing? Stay on task. So as you kind of gear up to perhaps give people in your life some books or honestly to shop for yourself, like gift yourself some books, I thought it would be kind of fun to do a reader gift guide.

for different kinds of readers. And because this is a podcast and we can't talk forever, sounds like a challenge, maybe I will, we'll also have these over on our sub stack, which is always linked in our show description. I'll put them up on my Instagram, what's Nora reading, and we'll add to them. This is hardly an exhaustive list, but I wanted to start out with

the littlest of readers, which is people who can't read children, babies. Reading to a kid is so important in helping them build their vocabulary and getting their little brains engaged. Plus, it's a wonderful experience. I don't know what I'm going to do when there's no longer a little person bringing me a book and asking me to lay down and read it to them.

I'm going to have to just go out and find little kids to read to. That sounds not great. But I love that. Some of my most treasured memories aren't a memory at all. It's just the feeling of laying in bed reading to a kid. Sometimes I would just be so swept up in the feeling of it. I would realize that I have no idea what the book is about. I was just somehow saying words like a robot while just soaking up the experience of a sweaty little head on my shoulder. A lot of kids books are so bad. They're so bad. I have picked up kids books.

read a few pages and been like, this, I don't advocate for burning books, but give me a match. This is irritating. And I won't name names because I do kind of have a policy as of if I don't like a book, you know, I'll just shut my mouth about it. I'm just not going to talk about it because there are enough people who, you know, kind of, you know, because also it's so subjective, but if I like it, I can explain to you why I like it. And that just feels more

productive to kind of raise up the things that I do like than to be like, don't, this is bad. Because honestly, every book that I hate is at least one person's favorite book. It's got to be somebody's like absolute favorite book. And some of these books that I wanted to rip apart, but they were bored books, which I did not have the physical strength to rip apart, were books that were given to me by people who were like, you're going to love this one. And I was like, this book stresses me out.

Okay, so we're starting out with little kids books. Oliver Jeffers is a writer and an illustrator. His books are very distinctive and you might've already seen them. The Day the Crayons Quit was probably my introduction to him, but truly the best book of his that I've ever read is called Stuck.

and it's so funny. Every time I read it, I truly laugh out loud. I LOL when I read his books. These are great gifts. I've yet to meet a kid who doesn't like these books and stuck as one that I could read a million times and never be like, oh God, you got to be kidding me. And by the way, guys, I'm not going to be talking about like Dr. Seuss books.

the kind of standards that every one of you was also read to as a child. And that should kind of go without saying, right? Right. I also asked for people's recommendations, and this one showed up quite a few times. It is called Hot Dog by Doug Saladdy. It is a picture book about an overwhelmed...

looks like a dachshund. And it was called An Utter Joy and one of the best books of the year whenever it came out, which I guess was last year. I have a friend, Karen Nesvig, who's one of the producers on this podcast, who has a toddler. That's one of her favorites. Another favorite that came up a bunch of times is called They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel. Look.

I don't know who saw this cat, but it was everybody. It was everybody. I've never heard of a children's book being called engaging and thought provoking, but that's what the description says. I know I'm breaking all of my rules by reading a description, but yeah, engaging and thought provoking in a picture book? Okay, I guess I trust you.

the duckling. If I know one thing about small children is they love heavy machinery. They go bonkers for it. They go bonkers for it in real life and even just in picture books, even in crudely drawn picture books. So, you know, this book is kind of giving me, are you my mother vibes? Like, no, this is not your mother. This is a snort. But the digger and the duckling.

highly recommended. I'm going to connect that to a book from my childhood that I don't even know if it is still in print. It's called Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shuffle. This book is about heavy machinery, but it is also about the sacred love between a man and his career and the pieces of machinery that makes his career possible. This book touched me so deeply as a child. That might have been my introduction to grief.

was like nothing lasts forever, at least of all a steam shovel, which I'm still calling a steam shovel even though I'm pretty sure that technology has advanced and we're no longer burning coal in our heavy machinery. So Mike Mollgen and his steam shovel is the old timey companion to the digger and the duckling.

And again, I'm going to list all these books afterwards because I know I'm talking like a mile a minute, but this is the afternoon, which is after I, which is afternoon. I don't know if you know this, but afternoon comes after noon. But right after noon, I'm dead. It's dead girl hours. And then I sort of reanimate back to life. And that's what you're seeing right now through your ears. I'm coming back to life.

There's a series of board books called Narwhal and Jelly, which is a buddy comedy series about a narwhal and a jellyfish that has been called by Dave Pilkey, the man behind Captain Underpants and Dog Man. Dog Man is so funny. The most lovable duo since Frog and Toad, which is.

You know, I'm hoping Dave Pilkey is not just throwing around superlatives like that, because to some people, frog and toad means something. Some people are not just going to, you know, compare, you know, just two random buddies to frog and toad unless they really mean it. And I hope Dave Pilkey means it. And if Kara is recommending this book, I think Dave Pilkey must have meant it. I think we can trust it.

Speaking of Kara Nesvig, producer of this podcast, there's a book that she gave Ralph, my son, when he was little called The Paper Bag Princess. It is from, oh, published in 1980. Oh my God. Even older than me. It's a perfect book for a child or for an adult. I love it. It is about a princess who, you know, it's about a, it's such a, it's a good little feminist

as a little kid and we still have it and it is one of those keeper books. Not all kids books are keepers. I really focus on only buying the keepers. I make good use of the library and then if we really, really love a book and I'm like, I want this for my potential grandkids. I want this to have at our house when other people bring over their little kids. The paper bag princess is one of those books. And that is a book that I've also given out to other parents because... You know, you get kind of sick of reading the same things over and over.

Our next category is still kids. We're still in kids books. Anxious kids. That's a genre of child that I know something about having been one myself. Anxious kids, kids with like a lot of big feelings. There's a book called In My Heart that is such a good physical illustration of feelings.

and really helps little kids verbalize and identify feelings. I love this book. I've seen it in a lot of different places. I feel like I saw it at Whole Foods once. And that is also a keeper book for me. The worrysaurus came up a few times. The worrysaurus is specifically written for kids who have anxiety and it is a cute little dinosaur and he is just what he sounds like. He is a worrysaurus. He's a worrier and I think it's good to trick kids into learning.

to talk about their feelings and sometimes having a piece of fiction between you while you're sitting next to each other can kind of open up pathways for conversation or remind kids that these really big feelings that they're having, they can feel so alone, they're not alone in them. They're not the only people having them and even if you are not feeling the same thing at the same time, they aren't alone.

This is not necessarily a little kid book, but it's a book, it's a graphic novel. This is a first time author who wrote the graphic novel, the Brothers Flick. The author is Ryan Haddock. He will be on an upcoming episode of this podcast. And it is such a lovely, perfect story. The kind of story that's for, you know, really for kids and for...

adults. Ryan lost his oldest son Liam suddenly when Liam was nine years old and he was already in the middle of, you know, kind of pitching and creating this Hardy Boys magical realism, adventure, graphic novel when his son died and the characters are all based on his four sons. And he continued working on it and finished it.

in the wake of Liam's death and these brothers explore loss and grief and adventure together. And it's so beautiful. I have bought many, many copies of this and it is also a keeper book to me. Right now, this is the first book in what I hope and what Ryan hopes also will be a series. There are so many kinds of kids' books that you could talk about that I would be here literally all day talking about them and I don't think that's a good plan. So we're not going to talk about them all day, but we will have new reader books, middle grade books, and some other graphic novels for kids over on the sub stack.

Which you should go and subscribe to. It is free, it is fun, and it is also where we give away quite a lot of books. But I do wanna touch just a little bit on YA and authors that you should look at if you have a high schooler, if you… want to sort of dip your toe into YA or if you want the teenager or even yourself to be reading YA that is smart and insightful and really, really worth reading. So Emery Lord is an author who I have met in real life once. She has written so many books. Let's see how many books she's written.

Do you do how many books have you written memory? So many. It's written at least seven. I don't know. She's going on her website. She's written a hell of a lot of books. One, two. Okay. No. Three, four, five, six. Wait, one, two, three. She's written six books. Her most recent is called All That's Left to Say. It is the story of… a girl who is taking it upon herself to investigate the death of her cousin. And it is a story about grief and loss and substance use and, you know, what it's like to be a teenager. And it's smart and it's really beautiful. And I really liked it. I gave it to my daughter to read.

And I think the first Emery Lord book I ever read was When We Collided. Just a great title, great book. And it didn't feel like reading YA even though the characters were teenagers. Rainbow Roll is one of those writers who to me kind of defies genre. She wrote the book Fangirl.

which I think is why I, why A and in the book, fan girl, the main character writes fanfic about a series of books that you can tell are kind of based on Harry Potter, but the two boy wizards are like in love with each other. And then that spun out into its own book series, like a series outside of a series, wild stuff. I loved fan girl, but I also loved Eleanor and Park.

And really, Rainbow Roll is one of those authors where I would read her grocery list. I would read her, I'd read anything that she would give me. I just love her writing and I don't know who narrates her audio books, but it's always the same person and it's always so beautiful. And I love her and I hope she knows that. But her work is just so, so good. And Eleanor in Park is a keeper, like a real like keep keeper. Fangirl was such a great book to listen to in the car with all of our kids on a really long road trip, but I also have it in paper because I really wanted it in paper. Kathleen Glasgow has been on the podcast before. She wrote Girl in Pieces. She wrote How to Make Friends with the Dark. She wrote You'd Be Home Now.

Those are all really realistic fiction, technically YA, but again, it's all about really, really difficult stuff, which is, you know, obviously what teenagers experience or witness or gives them a glimpse into how other people may live. And Girl in Pieces came from her own experiences with self-harm as a teenager. It has been a New York Times bestseller many times over. And Kathleen is just such a gifted writer. And she's also made this shift kind of, or like an expansion. I won't say shift, because I remember being kind of irritated once after I wrote many funny books about sad things. And

I also wrote the book adaptation of the movie Bad Moms and I remember someone saying like, oh wow, you really pivoted into and I was like, what? No, like I am a great many things. I'm a sad girl and a funny girl and I can write a lot of things and I was so offended by that even though I know what they meant and I'm sure Kathleen would know what I meant when I say that. But you know, she sort of expanded her repertoire into mysteries.

and her mysteries that she wrote with her author friend Liz Lawson, her co-author Liz Lawson, these are Nancy Drew meets Riverdale books. The series is called The Agathas because these are two teenage girls who are obsessed with Agatha Christie and who also happen to live in a place where crazy things are happening and bad things are happening. The first one is called The Agathas. The follow-up is called The Night in Question. They just bop along. They are so satisfying. They are so cozy. And they'd be a great gift for yourself. Or a teenage reader. You know?

Okay, perhaps the hardest genre of reader to shop for is a father, a dad of literally any kind. But I'm talking specifically, my dad's dad, so not him. But father-in-law, fathers-in-law who somehow always have a bookshelf full of like Dean Kuntz, Clive Kussler. These are people. I don't...

Prove to me Clive Cussler is a real person. Never seen him in my life. How's he writing all these books? Who besides a father-in-law has read a Clive Cussler? Reveal yourself. If you have read Clive Cussler, prove it. Send me a book report, 500 words on my desk tomorrow. I'm going to run it through the plagiarism machine. I don't know. I just… Who are these men?

whipping out all these airport bestsellers and why won't they stop? Why? So I kind of think for me, my mission when I buy a book for my father-in-law is to just sort of like widen out his aperture, right? Just sort of be like, oop, how can I sneak in something that is associated with the genres you like? He likes thrillers.

Just thrill. He just he's here for the thrills. So I gave him drowning by T.J. Newman. He read it like this, and then he went and read her first book, Falling. Her. T.J. Newman's a woman. Plot twist. Tricked him into reading a lady book, okay? And you too could trick your father-in-law into reading a work by a woman. T.J. Newman used to be a flight attendant, famously wrote Falling on like, you know, cocktail napkins while all the passengers were sleeping. I do not like thrillers. As a rule, I don't like to be thrilled. I'm here for comfort. I cannot handle suspense. I've been known to flip to the back of a book just to make sure everything, you know, if I know where we go, I can somehow enjoy part of the ride. But I read Drowning.

By the side of a pool, which sounds so glamorous, but I do live in Arizona. It was this daycation, ripped right through it. I was like, holy crap. Elevated heart rate, handed it to my husband. He read it in a few hours. He was like, holy crap, this book. Give it to my father-in-law. He's hooked. It's so good. And the cover, again, looks very masculine. They won't know. They won't know. They won't know that you tricked them into reading.

They won't know. They'll believe they just read a thriller by me. It sounds like they're sexist but I think they just know what they like and we're just going to say that's okay. I got a very good recommendation where I was like, how did I not think of this? Somebody said Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabriel Zevin. Gabriel and Gabrielle are two different names. They're all very hard for me to say. This was, I think, one of the novels of the year. It's a beefcake. It's a lot of pages. It is so good. I loved every minute of it. I did not know, because I never know, that this was a book about...

video games and love and life. And I think that this would scratch a very similar itch for any father-in-law. I think this could be a hit. And it would also give you, it gives you something to talk about. If you can give somebody a book that you loved, it gives you something to talk about other than weather, sports, and weather. In a similar... vein. I think having anything that is creative, nonfiction too, I got a few recommendations for The Warmth of Other Sons by Isabel Wilkerson. And if your father-in-law, like, and The Warmth of Other Sons by Isabel Wilkerson, which I think could also be a really great book and also give you something to talk about.

Isabel Wilkerson also wrote Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents, but The Warmth of Other Sons is about the great migration of black Americans out of the South. And if your father-in-law likes history, if your father-in-law likes American history. It is a book that you might consider giving him. I cannot say enough things about the book Slender Man by Kathleen Hale. Kathleen Hale is just a very, very gifted writer. This reads like an extended Vanity Fair piece. It reads like a movie. It is tragically a very, very true story of mental illness.

and violence and the violence of our criminal justice system and our horrifying mental health care system in America. It is just a great book. It's a great book. It is a keeper. That would be a great gift. If your father-in-law is already reading like dark thrillers, thrill him with a dark tale of...you know, present day America. A few other themes that came up and themes and recommendations, authors that are, you know, to kind of expand your father-in-law's repertoire are the following. Karen Slaughter, who I love, Tana French, who I've wanted to read, and William Kent Kruger, who I have not read.

I know is prolific and I know that because the very first book event that I did when I had one book, I was unfortunately seated next to William Kent Krueger who said he would sign his entire back list and he had a stack of them. And I went after him and I said, I'll also sign all my backlist. It's one book. And he was very lovely. He was very, very lovely. And I was just like a little baby author. And he was so nice about it. Okay.

So we're moving through the family tree. We're moving into moms, mothers-in-law, like your favorite sister, things like that. Tom Lake, Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I did not know anything about this book. As usual, I didn't know anything about this book. And you know what else I didn't know about? I didn't know anything about...

theater. I didn't know anything about farming. I didn't know anything about anything. And after I read this book, I felt like I knew the secrets of the universe. I felt like everything was going to be okay. I cannot explain what this book did to me other than soothe the very core of my soul. I've heard that Meryl Streep did the narration of the audiobook. And once I knew that, I could read the book in her voice in my head.

I loaned that book to my neighbor who is in her 70s. Catherine, I do want it back. I do want it back. That book is a keeper. I'm going to give that book to my mom, but she doesn't listen to my podcast, so I wipe my whispering. Tom Lake, oh my God. Oh my God. If you like Anne Patchett, you will also like Hello Beautiful. Hello Beautiful.

The author is Ann Napolitano. Yes, Ann Napolitano. Every time I say that I'm like, no, it's Neapolitan. No, it's Ann Napolitano, okay? This comes recommended from Kara Nesvig. Again, I don't know anything about this book. I don't want to know anything about this book, so I will not read the description to you, even though that's my job. We trust Kara. In Kara we trust. There are a few books that I kind of like keep on hand. Books that are useful to give to people who you love, who you want to, you know, make feel loved. And one of those books is Tiny Beautiful Things, which is a, you know, collection of, I think just Cheryl Strayed's greatest hits. I have this book, I have a signed version of this book. It is also a keeper book.

It's also a book that I will buy from time to time in multiples so that I have it to give to somebody who needs like a little like pick me up kind of, or needs like kind of a little bit of a comfort read. And the other book that falls into this category is anything by Pema Chodron, but specifically When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. I have so many copies of that.

I have one that is underlined heavily and sometimes I will go through and make similar underlines but I keep the main underlined one for myself. Don't ask questions. It makes sense to me. Another author who falls into the same category is Anne Lamott. Yes, Anne Lamott is religious, but she's not a jerk about it. You know what I mean? There are people who really use...

like their religion is kind of a blunt force object, a way to sort of like bypass all the difficulty in your life. She doesn't do that. She just happens to be a person who is a very keen observer of the world around her and the emotional world around her, who also happens to find a great amount of comfort in Christianity. And yet I wouldn't call her a Christian author. And I should probably examine that a little bit more closely, because I don't think she would mind it. But also maybe she would.

But also, I just don't want people to be turned off by a book because of that, if that makes sense. I don't know. I love all of her books, but Stitches and Help Thanks Wow, Help, Thanks, Wow are just really beautiful. They're really beautiful. They have just enough in them where you can read a little bit, like a chapter at a time, set it down.

come back to it. And they're also really beautiful books to give somebody. They're like thin, small, hardcover volumes. And they look really good as a set. They look great on a bookcase. And what do we always say? It's what's on the outside that counts. What do we always say? Judge the book by its cover. What do we always say? Judge people by the books on their bookshelf. That's what we always say.

I have another genre of books. I have another genre of books that might not make sense to anybody else. But pop culture people love to read. If you have a friend who loves Bravo, if you have a friend who loves Following Dumois, if you are that friend, I love pop culture books. And I also love pop culture books that are kind of like almost like historical a little bit.

What's this one called? I just, okay. So I've got a couple that fall into this category. I just, liking pop culture does not make you dumb. It does not make you, you know, silly. And I do think that the Britney memoir is going to be a very gifted book this year, as it should be, as it should be. Okay. Now that we've freed Britney, we all have to do our part to continue to support her.

and to bear witness to all of her suffering. It is very clear because the book kind of leaves off right after her, the dissolution of the caretakership. Jeez Louise, now I'm back in dead girl hours, really. Now I'm just like, now I'm gone again. Conservatorship, that's it. And...

The book also stops before she gets a divorce. So can't wait till the next Brittany memoir. But another book, if somebody liked the Brittany memoir, is Julia Fox's memoir, Down the Drain. It is punchy. It is, you know, in the voice that if you know who Julia Fox is, you kind of know what that voice is going to be. And also it might surprise you a bit.

Julia Fox is another example of how much we just love to hate women. I hated the trend on TikTok that then just went everywhere where somebody cut out that sound bite of her saying, uncut gems on call her daddy. I was just like, God damn, there's no good way to be a woman. Sorry, sorry she talks. Sorry she has a voice. Sorry she says words in a way that you don't like.

God, everyone was piling on, I hated it. But anyways, the Julia Fox Down the Drain memoir would be a great gift for a person who loves pop culture. I also read, this year or last year, I read Ladies Who Punch, the true story of The View. Do you remember The View? Do you remember when The View started? Do you remember how The View was like, there was, us, tabloid magazines were reporting on like,

a daily talk show and the host. It was such a weird time to be alive. And if it feels like a fever dream, if you're like, oh my God, I vaguely remember that Lady Supanch, it was dishy, it was gossipy, it was bitchy. I loved it. I loved it. Similar and different is Real Housewives, Diamonds and Roses. Diamonds and Rose, the inside story of the real house. Okay. Oh my God. Similar and different is not all diamonds and rosé, the inside story of the real housewives from the people who lived it. Look, there was just a recent piece in either Vogue or Vanity Fair about, you know, when you watch Real Housewives, you know, you do suspend your reality. You suspend your belief, what you know.

which is that this is exploitation, that these are manufactured scenes, that you are watching people who are in the midst of mental health crises and or a lot of substances. And this book is, it's just, it's great. It's great. People love Andy Cohen. He's a polarizing figure, so people also hate Andy Cohen. He also wrote a book called Daddy Diaries.

And if you are a Bravo person, or you know a Bravo person, that might be a good gift book. It's his memoir about becoming a dad. This next book is a friend of the pod. I blurbed this book, which means I recommended it and my name is on the back cover. It is called One in a Millennial. It is by Kate Kennedy from Be There in Five. It is coming out in January. So you actually can't gift it. You can't gift it, but you can give the idea of it. You can give the idea of this book. You can say, I pre-ordered you Kate Kennedy's one millennial. You're really giving the gift of delayed gratification. You're teaching somebody that they should cool their jets.

Now, I think some of these books sort of fall into a similar category, but I was talking to somebody that I love today and they were like, does it just feel like everybody on earth is just kind of at the end of their rope and kind of melting down and generally not okay. And I was like, yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. And if that is you, can I recommend Jenny Odell's first book, How to Do Nothing, and her follow up to that one Saving Time? Both are books that kind of push against this relentless culture of doing and production and efficiency.

I truly could not give less of a shit about being efficient. I spent 40 minutes today walking to a closed coffee shop. So who cares? Who cares? The world's going to end anyway. Let's not end there. Let's not end by talking about burnout. I also want to talk about just books that are beautiful, like things of beauty.

things of beauty. And there's this author who I love called Leif Enger, L-E-I-F-E-N-G-E-R, and he wrote this book that is so affecting, so beautiful that I won't lend it out. I will recommend you buy it, but I'm not giving it out. And it's called Virgil Wander. And it takes place on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. Leif himself is an author who is in Duluth, Minnesota. And it is a one-man odyssey. It takes place in a world that is somehow modern and bygone. It is so touching and beautiful and so beautifully written. The use of language is just…

So beautiful. It is a stick to your soul kind of book. I recommended it to my mom. She bought the audio book, listened to half of it on her flight home, landed and set him on my way to the bookstore to go buy a hard copy of it right now. I sent it to my 86-year-old uncle last summer, and he wrote me, hand wrote me a letter to tell me how much

He liked it. I have given copies to all kinds of people in my life. I just got the next Leif Enger book. I just got an ARC of it and an advanced reader copy of it. And I'm like saving it. I'm not opening it yet. It's sitting on my bedside table. But Virgil Wander is out now. And it is just so beautiful. It's just so beautiful.

wish more people would read it and be introduced to Leif Enger and the way that he uses language and the way that he opens up these worlds and these interior spaces and these characters that, oh God, I just love it. I love his writing. I'm also very tardy to the party as usual on Eve Babbitt's. Okay. Look.

Everybody, everybody's read Didion. Everybody's read Didion. But only the hottest girls have gate-kept Eve Babbitt. And I just got through the gate and I read Slow Days Fast Company, which is a collection of essays about her time in Los Angeles set in the 70s. And God damn, can this woman write?

a sentence. I thought I would have that book with me. I just had it. Her books are a thing of beauty. Her books are a thing of beauty. I just bought all of her back lists. These are slim little books too. So these are books that are good to give. I find these to be good gift books or even good books for yourself if you're like, oh God, reading a whole book because reading…you know, a 10 page essay, reading a 20 page essay, and setting it down and coming back for like another bite at the apple at some point.

It's just much easier. It's just much easier to do for me. Another author who falls into that same category for me is Lorrie Moore, L-O-R-R-I-E, Moore, M-O-O-R-E. She's written so many books, and I love to see people kind of going past that first table, even in our mental bookstores, to kind of go into the backlist. Backlist. The backlist is kind of a...

where it's at for me. And I just also I like know it means it means a lot to authors too, to have their work appreciated, not just because it's brand new, because you know, there'll always be something new. There will always be more books, but those other ones are still waiting for you. So we are going to wrap this up. We are going to have all kinds of lists and gift guides, things beyond just books, including the book light.

that I recommended this summer that I have validation in the form of feedback from people who also bought it that say it really is the best book light ever. The best book light ever. We'll have all of those over on our sub stack. We'll link to that in our show description. I'm Nora McInerney. This has been Terrible Reading Club. Session adjourned. Bangs the gavel. Is that how book clubs end? I wouldn't know.

I've never been in one. This is an independent podcast, so thank you for being here because you know what? We're just people doing our best in a sea of just giant companies with giant pools of money. We're out here just hanging out, making stuff we like for people we like. Our production company is called Feelings & Co. because we are here to celebrate your feelings. All of them to help you have feelings to force you to have feelings even if you don't want to. Just kidding. Let's not make that our tagline. Our team at Feelings & Co. is myself, Marcel Malekibu, Claire McInerney, Megan Palmer, Michelle Planton, and Grace Berry. And on Terrible Reading Club, it is Kara Nasvig, baby. Our episodes are either mixed by Marcel Malekibu or Amanda Romani.