0:07

You're listening to Reading Glasses, a show about

0:10

book culture and literary life designed to help

0:12

you read better. I'm author and book devourer

0:14

Mallory O'Mara. And I'm Bria

0:16

Grant, filmmaker and e-reader. This

0:18

episode, we're having a state

0:21

of the union for readers.

0:23

State of the book for

0:25

readers. And we're seeing how

0:27

much reading people actually do.

0:29

Plus, we solve a problem

0:31

about talking about spicy reads

0:33

and we're recommending translated books. But first Bria,

0:35

what are you reading? I just

0:38

read a book that's

0:40

been on my backlist for a minute. It's

0:42

Mary by Nat Cassidy, which we talked before

0:44

we started recording. And you haven't read it,

0:46

which I was surprised by. Yeah, it's you

0:49

know, it's funny because now we were talking

0:51

a little bit about it. And I think

0:53

part of the reason why I haven't read

0:55

it is something that you're going to mention.

0:57

There is some, yeah, major content warning things.

0:59

Yeah, so check those. Y'all check them before

1:01

you jump into Mary, which the subtitle here

1:04

is An Awakening of Terror, which I didn't

1:06

realize it's a horror book. It's about it.

1:08

But it sounds like that's a good subtitle

1:10

for this book. It is. It is. It's about this

1:12

woman who is middle age and

1:14

she's sort of she is described as very like

1:16

invisible, right? Like people don't notice her. She kind

1:18

of doesn't even want to be noticed. She kind

1:20

of falls into the background. She works in like

1:22

a bookstore in the basement. She never talks to

1:24

anyone. But she's also

1:27

starting perimenopause and she's having hot flashes

1:29

and body aches. And when she looks

1:31

in a mirror, suddenly she sees her

1:33

face start to like morph and change.

1:35

Anytime she looks at a woman over

1:38

a certain age, she sees their face

1:40

morph and change. Now you would think

1:42

that's enough for a horror book. No,

1:44

no, this book does so much more. That's just the beginning.

1:47

Basically, she has to move back to this hometown

1:50

that she has, which she has all these weird

1:52

memories about. She remembers being bullied. People were never

1:54

nice to her. And there's this like weird building

1:56

that you were like, is it a cult?

1:59

Like what's going on there? And

2:01

it's also the home to where

2:03

the serial killer killed a bunch

2:05

of people So basically think serial

2:07

killer cult woman who was invisible

2:10

suddenly realizing that she has memories

2:13

and thoughts and ideas that are relevant

2:15

to all of this and Also

2:18

people start dying again once she goes to this

2:20

hometown So very

2:22

interesting very well written. It is

2:24

it's funny I the back begins

2:27

with Nat Cassidy saying so

2:29

why me a man

2:31

a white Man

2:33

in his late 30s. Why am I writing a

2:35

book about a woman going through Perim and a

2:37

pause who feels invisible But I

2:40

actually think he did an amazing job. I was

2:42

very impressed and as you know, like I feel

2:44

like Women over a

2:46

certain age are not often the stars

2:48

of genre material Like I feel like

2:50

we end up with like if you're

2:53

not like a hot college co-ed a

2:55

lot of times you don't you like

2:57

Yeah, teens are people in their early

2:59

20s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and so having

3:01

a genre book that is like both

3:03

adventurous But also super scary I Mallory

3:07

I really I did have this moment where

3:09

I was like I don't know who I can recommend it

3:11

to because there are like some really dark moments in it

3:13

But I do think you would enjoy reading it There's

3:15

one content warning moment that it's just one and

3:18

it's pretty late in the book and you'll know

3:20

what is gonna happen You could literally skip the

3:22

pages Wow, it's not like

3:24

if you that's the benefit of having Priya

3:26

read a book before you I will tell you where it

3:28

is No, anybody DM me I'll tell you what

3:30

you shouldn't read if the if you if there's

3:32

a content warning that bothers you But anyway, this

3:34

book was excellent. What are you

3:36

reading? I just finished

3:39

the first book That

3:41

has taken a slot in my best of the year. I

3:43

already know there's not gonna be a book Well,

3:46

there are obviously there will be other books that

3:48

are my favorite But this book has this there's no

3:50

way it's not gonna be in the top slot. Okay,

3:53

it is Kelly Lynx new book I knew

3:56

love Bria

3:58

this book blew my

4:01

face off. Oh, but

4:03

you have such a nice face. This is my,

4:05

I'm like Mr. Potato Anna. This is my backup

4:07

face. This is my break in case you read

4:09

a Kelly Link book and you need

4:13

a new face. I keep it.

4:15

I keep describing it to people. It's

4:18

tough because it really is such a

4:20

unique book and

4:22

I've never really read anything like it. But

4:24

if I had to pick like the content

4:26

of the book is kind of

4:28

like American Gods meets something wicked this

4:31

way come. Oh, cool.

4:33

I like that. And it's about

4:35

these three teenagers. They have been

4:37

missing for a year. Their families

4:39

have assumed that they're dead. They're

4:41

devastated. And these three

4:43

teenagers reappear one night in this classroom

4:45

in their high school. And they don't remember

4:47

they have vague memories of this weird place

4:50

that they've been. They don't know how

4:52

they died. They have no idea

4:54

what's what's happening. And they they

4:56

are greeted by their music teacher

4:59

who turns out is a lot

5:01

more than a music teacher. And he

5:04

basically tells them, all

5:06

right, you've come back from the dead. You all

5:08

have magic now. And here are these tasks that

5:10

you have to complete. So certain

5:12

things won't happen. You have to figure out how

5:15

to control your magic. You have to

5:17

figure out what happened to you, how

5:19

you died, or some shit's gonna go

5:21

down. And you start to meet these

5:23

other supernatural entities who are starting to

5:26

converge on this small Massachusetts town. And

5:28

these three teenagers basically realize that they've

5:30

become pawns in this kind of power

5:33

struggle with all these supernatural entities.

5:36

And because they're teenagers, they

5:38

don't have any they're like, fuck all of

5:40

that. We don't want to help you guys

5:42

do anything. They're all in a band together,

5:44

which is really cute. And then things go

5:46

from there. There's so much that happens and

5:48

like they're all dealing with family

5:51

things and grief things and love things

5:53

in the midst of the supernatural power

5:55

struggle. And it's just like, it's

5:58

a I mean, it's almost a 700 page book,

6:00

I could not put this book down.

6:02

Wow. Could not put this book down.

6:05

It is just, again, it's like,

6:07

it's got like the interesting supernatural

6:09

entities vying for power part of American

6:12

gods, plus the like, weird

6:14

supernatural things coming to a small town

6:16

and bringing forth all these personal

6:19

relationship things from something wicked this way comes.

6:21

Plus just like the indescribable

6:23

magic of Kelly Link. And

6:25

it's so funny. And it's

6:27

so weird. And it's so

6:30

sweet. And it's just like

6:32

it's so its own thing. And I just,

6:35

I loved it so much. And again, I, there's

6:38

no possible way that this is not going to be one of my

6:40

favorite books of the year. It

6:42

comes out it comes out this month. I think it comes out in like a

6:45

week. So folks, get it. I am telling

6:47

you, fucking get it also takes place in

6:49

Massachusetts, which makes me wow. A

6:51

book written for Mallory book made for me.

6:53

So that's the book of love by Kelly

6:55

Link. And mine is Mary

6:57

and awakening of terror by Nat Cassie. We

7:04

want to take a moment to share some listener feedback.

7:06

The first one, actually, I'm going

7:08

to interject a listener feedback

7:10

for myself. Oh, wow. I think that's

7:12

not listener feedback. I feel like that's

7:14

a post feedback. Would you have to

7:16

listen to that? So

7:21

some people might know I also host a

7:23

Twitch stream for fountain pen and stationary folks.

7:25

And during the last stream that we did,

7:27

we stream every Wednesday on Twitch called Ink

7:29

Witches. And we were talking about

7:31

notebooks and I started thinking about how I like

7:34

my notebooks to lie really flat. And I

7:36

remembered how, you know, we just talked about spine training

7:39

on the show, a term which I still hate. And

7:41

I was like, I wonder if you can spine train a

7:43

notebook. Oh, yeah. And Brea, you can't. Oh,

7:46

well, you do the same motions of

7:48

like taking small sections and pressing it

7:50

flat. You can make your notebook lie

7:52

flat without cracking the spine. Do

7:55

you know, I have some reader feed

7:57

some listener feedback, my stepdad, apparently

7:59

spine. trains his books, all of them, because

8:01

he learned to do it in elementary school. That's

8:04

wild. I hope it's elementary school. My

8:06

mom listens and she's going to be like, it's not elementary.

8:08

But it was, and when he was in grade school of some

8:10

sort, they made them do that to their books and so he's

8:12

always done it to his books. That's

8:14

wild. I thought that lady might talk about this. The

8:16

lost art of spine training. No. The lost

8:19

art of spine training. Wow. Well, we're

8:21

bringing it back. But yeah, if you are a person

8:23

who has like a glued spine notebook and you like

8:25

your notebook to lie flat, you can spine train it. Hot.

8:28

Wait, wait. Hot

8:31

journaling tips here. Anyway,

8:34

Jean wrote in to say, Hi, Brianne Mallory.

8:36

I was listening to episode 342 where someone

8:38

wrote in to say staff can't see what

8:40

patrons check out. And I am here

8:42

to say that's not necessarily true, at least

8:45

at the libraries I worked at. So we have

8:47

a little mystery to solve. Jean

8:49

says, I'm a children's librarian who got my degree at the end

8:51

of 2022. Congratulations. And

8:54

was a library assistant during grad school

8:56

for my library system, which is K

8:58

O H A patrons circulation history is

9:00

automatically shared with the staff, but they

9:02

have the option to turn that off. Though

9:04

most don't. I'm sure other library systems are

9:06

different, but it would just depend on the

9:08

library and their system or even their settings

9:10

within the system. I find it really helpful

9:12

whenever patrons come up and tell me they

9:14

remember checking out a book about a topic, but don't remember the

9:16

name of the book. Love the podcast.

9:18

And I love getting different library perspectives

9:20

as a baby librarian. I wonder if

9:22

it has to do with being a

9:25

children's librarian because it's like a, you know

9:27

what I mean? Like imagine

9:29

that Jean is right that it's about

9:32

the system itself where like you can turn

9:34

it on or off or something. So yeah,

9:36

I think it probably depends on your, your library.

9:38

So don't assume your librarians can't see that you've

9:40

checked out the same book 17 times. Be

9:45

careful. Yeah. I guess

9:47

you're the librarians might know your sins. Yeah, they

9:49

might know your sins. Sorry. Sorry.

9:52

We didn't know. I wonder if, if a patron can

9:54

ask what library system they use. Like, you know

9:57

what I mean? Like, or you can just ask

9:59

and say. can you see what books I've checked

10:01

out? I mean they would tell you I'm sure. Yeah,

10:05

it's like they're a cop. They like have

10:07

to disclose. Or you can say, hey

10:09

I checked out a book a couple like

10:11

a couple months ago can you look that up and if they're like no

10:13

I can't look it up then you'll know. Interesting.

10:16

All right well librarians keep writing in. We

10:18

got to get to the bottom of this

10:20

mystery. Katie wrote and said, I shared how

10:23

I have been late night shopping at my

10:25

library in the sci-fi breakout room. They encouraged

10:27

me to share this as a hot book

10:29

tip with everyone. Oh yeah this

10:31

was during the holiday party. Oh

10:34

okay. So instead of late night online shopping and spending

10:36

money on books and other things I've been placing holds

10:38

on library books at my library and then having a

10:41

bunch of books to pick up at the library. Much

10:43

more affordable. Thanks I had a lot of fun at

10:45

the holiday party. This is the first Glasser event I

10:47

attended. Katie thank you for attending first of all and

10:50

yes I think this is great. You're putting books on

10:52

hold and this is a great hot tip. Great

10:54

hot tip to save money. Go put

10:56

books on hold. Actually I feel like I used

10:58

to do this a lot especially when I first

11:00

moved to LA and was very broke and was

11:02

like okay I'm just gonna put books on. I

11:05

want to go shop online but I'm just gonna

11:07

put books on hold instead. But

11:09

it's so smart because it really does

11:11

satisfy that like add to cart urge.

11:13

Yeah where you have like no literally

11:15

like all of your not inhibitions whatever

11:17

holds you back whatever part of your

11:19

brain that holds you back from buying

11:22

shit you don't need. That goes away

11:24

after like 9pm, 10pm. You're just like

11:26

oh no I am now I can buy anything

11:28

I want but this is a great. Katie we

11:30

love this late night shopping. As a library.

11:33

Wicked hot book tip. Mm-hmm. Then

11:35

Mia wrote in to say hi Mallory and Brea I've been listening to your show since 2020

11:38

right when the quarantine happened. I really appreciated the

11:40

way you both view reading and the advice you give

11:42

to others. My friend also listened to your

11:44

podcast and we wanted to have a book party without

11:46

really knowing what that meant. A couple other people came

11:48

over not knowing what we were going to be doing. I

11:51

really wanted to emphasize that this wasn't supposed to be like

11:53

homework or judging any types of reading and I really just

11:55

wanted to talk about books with other people who read. So

11:57

I ended up referencing the podcast a lot especially how

11:59

all. books are real books, which I have on a pillow.

12:02

Don't dump any books you don't like, and don't feel

12:04

pressured to read certain books because you feel like you

12:06

should. I also gave my friend who wants to read

12:08

more a few recommendations based on what she's read. I

12:10

think that is something we will do again. We talked

12:12

about maybe making book journals or decorating bookmarks next time.

12:14

It was a lot of fun, and I've always wanted

12:17

a reason to write into the show. This is, so-

12:19

It's a book party! It was like

12:21

a reading glasses party. I love this. Yeah,

12:23

that's so cute. That sounds incredibly cute. I

12:25

love that, and very nice. And I

12:27

like that you didn't even know what it was, but you

12:29

just had the party anyway. Good for you. I was gonna

12:31

say, I love the idea of Mia just being like, listen,

12:33

I wanna hang out and be bookish with other people. I

12:36

want you folks to come over, and we're just gonna talk

12:38

about books and hang out. Sounds

12:40

like paradise to me. Sounds amazing.

12:42

You wanna read Mia's Wheelhouse? Uh-huh.

12:45

Romance, queer YA, books about food,

12:47

or donuts, specific. Books about

12:49

books, reading libraries, books about famous

12:51

people, or people in the entertainment

12:53

industry. Fantasy, queer YA, magical or

12:56

mythical. And psychological thrillers by and

12:58

about women or teens slash usually

13:00

in a school or specific setting.

13:02

I really love that Mia said

13:04

magical or mythical, because I had

13:06

never thought about that distinction. Yeah,

13:09

that's true. But it perfectly makes sense to me. Yeah.

13:12

Because there's a big difference between magic

13:14

and then like the mythical of like

13:16

big fantasy world, where there's a

13:19

lot of world building, a lot of, you know.

13:21

You can have just one witch, that's magical. Mythical

13:23

is much bigger. Yes, I

13:25

realize I'm gonna take that. Myth based.

13:28

You know, like it's like a retelling of,

13:31

you know. Yeah. I

13:33

love that. You can email us at

13:35

readingglassespodcast.gmail.com. If you want a list of all the

13:37

books we talk about on the show, deliver to

13:39

your inbox every month. You can sign up for

13:41

our newsletter. There's a link in the show notes.

13:43

And a really important, exciting bookmark from us. We

13:45

have finally set a date for the Glasser Book

13:47

Club. It's going to be March 1st, which is

13:49

a Friday. It's going to be happening at 5

13:52

p.m. Pacific. And so what

13:54

is going to happen, this is for reading

13:56

glasses members only. This is for

13:59

Max Fong members only. only, which folks, if

14:01

that's not you, you can join it. Literally

14:03

right now, while you are listening to this,

14:05

you can go to maximumfun.org/join sign up to

14:07

support reading glasses at any level. Email us

14:09

the proof and we'll send you the link

14:11

to the zoom. It's going to be a

14:14

zoom party, kind of like our glass or

14:16

holiday parties, but we're all going to get

14:18

together and talk about Starling House by Alexi

14:20

Harrah, which was the title that got the

14:22

most votes when we, uh, we asked the

14:24

glassers to write in and talk in the

14:27

Slack and pick their, what they wanted for

14:29

a book club. It was the one that was like far

14:31

and away the pick Bria already started reading the book,

14:33

a bunch of glasses have been reading it already. And

14:36

me and Bria are going to come up with questions.

14:38

We're going to bring people up to talk about it.

14:40

It's going to be the first time we've ever really

14:43

done anything like this. That's so interactive and I

14:45

am so excited. So again, that's March 1st. That's a

14:47

Friday 5 PM Pacific. I'm

14:49

going to be posting the zoom link in the Slack,

14:51

but if you are not in the Slack and you

14:53

are a member still just email us and, uh, we

14:56

will send you the zoom link. And again, if you

14:58

want to join in on the fun, there it's

15:00

not too late. You can sign up literally

15:02

right now. You can sign up the day

15:04

before the book club and we'll

15:07

get you in there. We'll get you the

15:09

invite link and it'll be really fun. You

15:11

can come hang out and, uh, talk about

15:13

a haunted house book with, with me, which is

15:15

truly my dream. And then another quick bookmark from

15:17

me. Uh, if you have been

15:20

waiting for my book, girly drinks to come

15:22

out and paperback a more hand friendly book

15:24

format, you are in luck. Girly drinks came

15:26

out and paperback this week. If you want

15:28

to get signed copies, I will put a

15:30

link in the show notes. I'm partnering with

15:32

my wonderful friends over at skylight books in

15:34

LA to do signed copies. Uh, if

15:37

you are new to the show, you don't know

15:39

what girly drinks is. I wrote, uh, the history

15:41

of women drinking all around the world. If you

15:43

are a cocktail nerd, a beer nerd,

15:45

a wine nerd, a history nerd, a

15:47

foodie, you're interested in, I mean, even just

15:50

feminism. It is very fun book to write

15:52

and research. Like I'm very excited that

15:54

it's finally out in paperback and

15:56

it won a James Beard award, which I'm very proud of.

15:58

Uh, so it's got a nice little. seal on the

16:00

cover, the paperback has the has the little James Beard

16:02

Award seal. It would really mean a lot if you

16:04

haven't checked it out to pick it up. Great time

16:07

of year to be, I mean it's always a good

16:09

time of year to be reading about women's history. It's

16:11

my favorite thing in the world. So again there's a

16:13

link in the show notes for that. Thank you so

16:15

much. So before we talk about the state of reading

16:17

we're going to take a quick break. Reading

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18:55

hello. Hello. This

19:07

week, we're delivering a state of

19:09

the reader address. Da

19:11

da da da. I don't have a, I have a slide

19:13

whistle, but I don't have a trumpet. I mean, we

19:15

need to add that to the wish. Oh

19:17

God, no. We don't need, no

19:19

one needs to give us a trumpet. I

19:23

did, total side note, Mallory was laughing at me

19:25

because I'm drinking out of an off-brand Stanley Cup.

19:28

And I did just add that to our wish list because

19:30

I feel like Mallory needs to have one because I do

19:32

think they're amazing. Yeah, we're gonna

19:34

test one out. They're

19:37

such a hot commodity. We're gonna see

19:39

how they are as a reader commodities.

19:41

But anyway, folks, state

19:44

of the readers, how many books do people

19:46

really read? How do they read? And most

19:48

importantly, are you more of a reader than

19:51

you think you are? We're gonna break down

19:53

some reading data for you and tell you

19:55

all about it. So this all got started

19:57

because Bria sent me an article Post

20:00

about data taken by a

20:03

man named David Montgomery about how much

20:05

Americans read. And the numbers

20:07

really blew both of our minds. We

20:09

were like, this is very shocking. So

20:11

thank you, David. And thank you to

20:13

my stepdad. He sent it to

20:15

me originally. Well, it's been a real stepdad

20:18

episode. He's very coming through. And

20:22

also I do want to say, so this is data

20:24

for America. This is not for other

20:26

countries. I would love to see

20:28

numbers from other countries. So if you live outside of America

20:31

and you have an article about what

20:33

your population, how they read

20:35

and how much they read, please send it to us because

20:37

we would love to break that down.

20:39

So, Brea, what is the first stat that really

20:42

kind of blew our minds? Okay. So

20:44

what we sent us, 46% of Americans do not read. They

20:48

don't read. I mean, they read, but they

20:50

don't read books, which means actually

20:53

that most people in America do read. That

20:56

means 54% of America, they do

20:58

read books. And that's cool, right? Is

21:00

that higher or lower than you thought, Mallory? It's

21:03

actually a lot higher than I thought. Like

21:06

the fact that the majority of Americans read

21:08

at least one book a year, I was

21:10

like, that's pretty fucking cool. Yeah.

21:13

And it's great. Yeah, it's cool. Is it higher or

21:15

lower than you thought it was? Maybe that's about what

21:18

I thought it was. I also like, maybe

21:20

it's the number could

21:22

be higher. Like because

21:24

if this is just based on books, like

21:27

maybe people are reading magazines or articles or

21:29

things online, which is reading.

21:32

And it is, you know, it's not sitting down with a book,

21:34

which is, you know, what this show is about, but it is

21:36

reading. They're reading signs on the highway.

21:38

Like they do know how to read, right? But yeah,

21:40

I think like I kind of expected maybe it to

21:42

be a little bit higher, which maybe I don't know

21:44

if that makes me an optimist or what, but yeah,

21:47

maybe this is what I expected. Well, maybe I'm a

21:49

pessimist because I actually thought a lot

21:52

less people would be reading. And

21:55

yeah, before you sent me this, I would have thought that

21:57

the majority of people don't read like 50. 4%

22:00

of people don't read and 40% do. So

22:02

this was a huge, pleasant surprise to me. I'm

22:05

wondering if a lot of these

22:07

46% of people have not

22:09

listened to reading glasses. Maybe they read graphic

22:11

novels, but they don't think that counts as

22:13

a book. Or they're listening

22:15

to audiobooks or something. Yeah, and they're like, oh no,

22:18

I don't read, because they don't read print books

22:20

or something. Yeah, yeah. Could be. Because spread the

22:22

good word out there that all books are real

22:24

books. And I wonder, I think you're right, I

22:27

think that stat actually might be up. So

22:29

when it comes to how much, the people who do

22:31

read, how much they read,

22:33

5% of people in America read

22:36

one book a year. Which

22:38

means that if you read more than one

22:40

or two books a year, you are in

22:42

the top half of readers in this country.

22:46

You are officially fucking bookish. If

22:49

you read five books, you are in the top

22:51

33% of readers. 10,

22:55

you are in the top 21%. And

22:57

if you read more than 50 books, you

23:00

are in the 1% of readers. Bria,

23:04

you're officially 1%. Wow, I've

23:06

been waiting. I've been waiting my whole life.

23:10

We need a book yacht to

23:12

sail around. Is it native books?

23:14

Is it native books? That's not

23:16

gonna be very pleasant. Or could

23:18

be just one giant book. One

23:20

giant laminated book that

23:22

we will sail around on. But

23:25

Bria, that's wild. Yeah,

23:28

I think the takeaway really is if

23:30

you read two books a year, you

23:32

are very bookish. You

23:35

are in the top half of

23:37

people reading. If you're reading five books

23:39

a year, you are 33%, what do you call it?

23:43

Percentile, top 33% out? That's

23:46

pretty amazing. And people should think about

23:48

that. I think a lot of times,

23:50

especially people who listen to this show, they

23:53

put a lot of pressure on themselves to be like,

23:55

well, I have to read 100 books this year. No,

23:57

if you read two, you've read so much more than.

24:00

everyone in America. Like

24:02

that's a significant amount of books. And

24:05

it's interesting because I see a

24:07

lot of people, especially this time of year, which

24:09

I'm really glad that we did this episode so close to

24:11

the top of the year because so many people

24:13

have just set their reader goals for the year. And

24:16

they're like, I saw people in the reading glasses slack who were

24:18

like, well, I'm kind of setting it low. I'm only setting it

24:20

20 books this year. 20

24:23

books, you are in the top 20% of

24:25

readers in the country. Like

24:28

that's a lot of fucking books. So

24:31

now we know how much

24:33

people are reading. How are

24:36

people reading? So based on

24:38

the data in this article, the majority of

24:41

people still read print books, so

24:43

42% of people still reprint. 22

24:46

read e-books and 19% do audiobooks. However,

24:50

the thing that I think is interesting,

24:52

and I think this has been a data

24:54

point for a while now, among the people

24:56

who read the most, those one percenters, e-books

24:59

are the most popular. Bria, you

25:01

are the tippity-top. I just think it's because

25:03

if you read that many books, you don't

25:05

have space for all the books. You've got

25:07

to have e-books. If I bought all the

25:09

books that I read, which I know –

25:12

well, you've now come over to the dark side, but I

25:14

just think I would not have room – I'd be living

25:16

– it'd be like the little old lady lived in

25:18

a shoe, but I'd be living in a book. I'd

25:21

just like – I was going to say like me? I just

25:24

wouldn't be able to – also, it's expensive. I

25:27

mean, I guess you can get library books,

25:29

physical books, but it's more that, yeah, I

25:32

just don't have room for all those books,

25:34

and it's the travel and the convenience of

25:36

the e-book. If you're reading

25:38

a new book every week, you may not

25:40

want to go to the library that often. You may not want

25:42

to go to the bookstore that often. So

25:44

I think there is a lot of – it's a

25:46

convenience sake for people who just are devouring books, so

25:48

it doesn't really surprise me. What about you?

25:51

I totally agree. I think a

25:53

big part of it too is like if you

25:55

are that bookish, you're probably plugged into the bookish

25:57

community in some way. So – You

26:00

are here, you know about Libby. You know

26:02

that ebooks are real books. And I would

26:04

guess that these one percenters are like us,

26:06

and then they're doing, they're not just doing

26:08

ebooks. They're also doing audiobooks. They're also doing

26:10

print. They're doing some combination of

26:12

the three, and they realize, oh,

26:15

well, if I'm waiting in line at the grocery

26:17

store, I can open Libby and read a book

26:19

there. Like, they know the hot reading hacks. So,

26:22

I feel like the more connected you are

26:24

to the bookish community, the more likely you

26:26

are to try out different reading tech. Like

26:28

ebooks, like a Kindle, like a Kobo, like

26:31

books on your phone. So, yeah, it doesn't

26:33

surprise me at all. I

26:35

mean, I do buy all the books that I read, and

26:37

I am the

26:39

little old lady who lives in a book. But I also, I read

26:42

so much, but I also read ebooks all the time.

26:44

So, I would love to see, I

26:46

wish they could do some kind of breakdown and like

26:49

see how many people do a combination of all of

26:51

them. I bet the one, most of the, I would

26:53

guess that most one percenters are

26:56

combo readers. It also makes me excited to

26:58

see that all the formats

27:00

are thriving. You know? Yeah, people, there's

27:02

a lot of like, you know, I

27:05

think a lot of people have finally accepted like,

27:07

audio books are real books, ebooks

27:09

are real books. You know, you

27:11

don't have to like, smell the

27:13

smell of a book and like sit down with

27:16

a leather bound tome to have like a

27:18

quote, real reading experience. So, that makes

27:20

me really, really happy. So, based off all this

27:22

information, Bria, what are our final thoughts about the

27:24

state of the world of reading in America today? I

27:27

mean, I would say, I think this is

27:29

like encouraging. It's encouraging to know that this

27:31

many people are reading. It's encouraging to know

27:33

that people are embracing new technologies. Yeah, I

27:35

think it's a really encouraging article that it's

27:37

like, I think there's always this concern that

27:39

like books are dying. People are only watching

27:41

YouTube or you know, whatever, some sort of

27:43

thing like that. And that's not the case.

27:45

There's people reading. People are out there reading,

27:47

which is exciting. Well, there's also a lot

27:49

of panic. Like anytime there's like a new

27:51

format, like when ebooks came out, everyone was

27:53

like, oh no, the e-reader is gonna kill

27:55

the book. And then same thing with audiobooks.

27:57

And it shows that like, no, readers. want

28:00

more ways to read. No

28:02

new format is to

28:06

be able to read more books. I remember when we had that interview for our

28:08

disabled protagonist

28:16

episode last year, when we were talking

28:18

about how the massive

28:20

amount of audiobooks has just opened

28:23

things up for blind

28:25

readers so much.

28:27

So I think with this information, people,

28:30

if there's any like who knows what

28:32

kind of new holographic books that we will

28:34

have in the next few years, you

28:37

can plug your brain directly into a book with

28:39

your Neuralink plug

28:41

in the back of your head. Whatever it is.

28:43

We should not panic.

28:46

And like you said, I feel like once

28:48

every few years there's a new article that's like book

28:51

sales are down 5%,

28:53

no one's reading anymore, the teens only care

28:55

about TikTok. And that's just never the case.

28:59

It don't like more diversity and variety

29:01

and reading ability is it's

29:04

only going to be good for the bookish

29:06

landscape. And yeah, I guess like anytime like

29:08

a new social media app, something comes out,

29:10

people are like, Oh, well, people are going

29:12

to be on this instead of reading a

29:14

book as if reading a book is like

29:16

the pinnacle of cultural consumption, and it's better

29:18

than playing video games or better than anything

29:20

else. And I mean, teens

29:22

read a ton like they didn't mention in this

29:24

article, but one of the groups of the age groups

29:27

that buys the most print books is

29:29

teens. Yep.

29:31

So don't listen to the panic. Readers

29:33

are always going to be here. And if you again,

29:36

if you read two books a year, you were

29:38

in like the upper echelon of readers. So

29:40

take the pressure off yourself. Enjoy your reading life

29:43

this year and pack yourself a little pat

29:45

on the back because you're reading a lot of

29:47

books. And I like

29:49

to think that the glasses are out

29:51

there padding the stats of these studies

29:53

like these because I like I see

29:56

some people who are like, I want

29:58

to read 100 books. this year.

30:00

I'm going to read 50 books this year. Man, we are,

30:02

if you're a one percenter,

30:04

give yourself a little pat, pound, buck and back.

30:06

That's true. So you can send

30:08

your thoughts on the state of reading to

30:11

readingglassespodcast.com. Before we solve

30:13

a reader problem about discussing spicy books, we're

30:15

going to take a quick read. Reading

30:24

Glasses is sponsored in part this week

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33:42

let's solve a bookish problem from one of our

33:44

listeners, Amanda writes in, Hi, Brand

33:46

Mallory. Love the romanticy episode. I

33:48

just learned that it's a new genre. About a

33:50

week before your episodes, it was fun to hear

33:52

you talk about it. That genre, without knowing it

33:54

was a genre, has gotten me back into reading

33:56

after a five-plus year book slump. As a young

33:58

adult, I really enjoy reading. fantasy as well

34:00

as YA love stories, so finding the combo with

34:03

an adult twist was the perfect combo when allowed

34:05

to read whatever the hell I want has been

34:07

so fun and liberating. On a related note, I

34:09

need some readerly advice. I am a bartender and

34:11

as such chat with a lot of people both

34:14

regulars and strangers about what I've been up to

34:16

lately to which my answer recently has been reading,

34:18

to which they ask what have I been reading?

34:20

The advice that I need is how to answer

34:22

that question. My recent response has been to give

34:24

a book that I've read in the past if

34:27

my current read is not safe for work. I

34:29

don't want to perpetuate the stigma around romance

34:31

books but I also don't want to tell

34:33

Joe Schmo about my latest steamy read. At

34:35

the same time I don't want to discourage

34:37

book talk. Any thoughts on the subject would

34:39

be greatly appreciated. P.S. thanks for the advice

34:41

to listen to nonfiction books as an audiobook.

34:43

If you find them hard to read it's

34:45

been a game changer currently listening to girly

34:47

drinks. So good. Amanda thank you so much.

34:49

As soon as Amanda said that they were

34:51

a bartender I was like oh I wonder if they've read

34:53

girly drinks. Thank you so much. Briet do you want

34:55

to read Amanda's wheelhouse? Yeah it's enemies

34:57

to lovers fantasy world with a hard

34:59

to pronounce name. Badass

35:02

female protagonist. Unique magic systems previously undiscovered

35:04

magic abilities that are vital to saving

35:06

the world. Regency era fiction found family

35:08

and two people one bed what will

35:11

they do? Love it. Briet

35:15

what do you think Amanda should do with this dilemma?

35:17

Listen I get this. Like if you're

35:19

reading some candy cane smut and you don't

35:21

want to tell a customer I'm gonna say

35:23

I think it's totally fine to tell someone

35:25

a different book or say like

35:28

look if you're close to this person you say hey it's not

35:30

really safe for work but I can definitely recommend this other book.

35:32

By the way I was like this

35:34

would be so funny if this is like your

35:36

brand. Your brand is like you're the bartender who

35:38

reads dirty books you know someone comes in. I

35:40

was gonna say they're like this bartender. That would

35:42

be my go-to bar. Like I would live there.

35:44

I think you can figure it out but look

35:46

sometimes the workplace is not the place you tell

35:48

people about horny fairies and I

35:51

also work in you know a workplace sometimes in

35:53

which I can't be like oh I'm reading this

35:55

horny fairy book because I'm like people's boss and

35:57

I feel like this there's this lines that I

36:00

I have to be very careful of. I

36:02

don't wanna make anyone uncomfortable. I don't

36:04

wanna end up in HR by being like, have

36:06

you ever read Garth's book? Oh, here comes the horny fairy lady. I

36:10

can't do it. I'm people's boss. I'm

36:13

reading about a centaur who fucks. I can't

36:15

talk about that. So

36:17

I gotta be careful. And

36:19

for that reason, I was gonna say, I feel

36:21

the same way. You're not in charge of changing

36:23

the stigma around romance in your workplace. I

36:26

understand that you don't want to be a person

36:28

who's like, oh, I don't like, I

36:31

get what you're saying, but this is not

36:33

the place to don't

36:36

die on that hill in your

36:38

workplace. So the only thing you're in charge of

36:40

is reading, going to work. So you can really

36:42

do whatever the hell you want. And I have

36:44

often been reading a book where I'm

36:47

like, I don't feel like I should just explain

36:49

what this book is because if you do say

36:51

something, people are like, what's it about? You're gonna

36:53

have to talk about it. And I

36:55

had been in situations where I'm like, I'm reading this, or

36:57

I just read this book and you

36:59

can say you just read this book, which could be anytime. And

37:02

that's not a lie. And you can talk about a

37:04

book that is safe for work. Unless I think it's

37:06

like a regular who you're like, feeling like, oh, maybe

37:09

I could say this to this person. There are people,

37:11

obviously I work with, where I feel totally comfortable telling

37:13

them about horny fairies,

37:15

but not everyone. And

37:18

I think that it is smart of you to

37:20

make sure you are keeping your workplace a professional

37:22

environment where you don't end

37:25

up getting fired for, for

37:27

being a horny fairy lady. Talk about gargoyle

37:29

smudge. What is your advice? Well,

37:33

first off again, I wanna thank Amanda so much for reading

37:35

girly drinks. Second off, I agree. I think this

37:37

is a dilemma that a lot of people have. Yeah.

37:40

You know, there's a lot of people who work

37:42

in environments like this. Like imagine being in

37:44

an office and someone's like, I'm reading and

37:46

you're like, you don't wanna say that you're

37:48

reading, you know, what was the name,

37:50

what was the name of Titan? Was

37:52

that the gargoyle one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But

37:55

I do wanna- It's a Daddy Dom

37:57

erotica book about. about

38:01

gargoyles yes they

38:03

fuck with their tail and

38:07

that's how Mallory was arrested Mallory

38:11

has been she's not in

38:13

the country anymore she had to leave gargoyle

38:17

smut fugitive but

38:20

I do want to say first off

38:23

I do think that

38:25

Amanda can talk more about the

38:27

book than Amanda thinks that Amanda

38:29

can probably I would put

38:31

money on the fact that most people who you

38:33

are talking to won't know the title of the

38:36

book and if they ask say it's a you

38:38

don't have to say it's an erotica book you

38:40

don't have to say how steamy it is like

38:43

there's nothing wrong with saying I'm reading a romance

38:45

like and if someone is like but

38:47

to me it's no different than being like oh

38:50

I watched when Harry met Sally last night you

38:52

know and I'm gonna be creepy at you at

38:54

a bar they're gonna be creepy at you regardless

38:56

but unless the title of the book is like

38:58

I love butt stuff which might actually be a

39:00

Chuck Tingle book there

39:03

is a butt stuff related Chuck Tingle book yeah

39:06

oh there's so many like in the title yes

39:09

yeah I yeah I think you're like so

39:12

unless you're reading Chuck Tingle like

39:14

if I you know you're

39:17

reading a Sarah J Maas book you're reading the

39:19

new Sarah J Maas and you're like the customers

39:21

like oh hey what are you reading and then

39:23

they're like oh I'm reading House of Flame and

39:25

Shadow by Sarah J Maas and they're like oh

39:27

what it's about you could say oh it's a

39:29

it's a fantasy romance you don't have to be

39:31

like there's fairies and they're fucking like

39:33

romance like you don't have to most

39:36

of the time again people aren't gonna know what

39:38

book you're talking about and they're just trying to

39:40

make conversation and like I would say 99.999999

39:44

percent of the time they're not gonna go home and like

39:46

look up the book they just want to talk

39:49

to you so I I wouldn't

39:51

worry about it as much like Bria said you

39:53

don't have to you don't have to share things

39:55

you don't want to you don't have to say

39:57

yeah I'm reading a book about two centaurs

39:59

fucking You can just be like oh, I'm

40:01

yeah, I'm reading a fantasy romance like I think yeah.

40:04

Yeah. Yeah, I agree I agree so I wouldn't I

40:06

wouldn't worry about it as much and again if you

40:08

get like a regular that you know very well You

40:10

could be like hey guess what I'm reading

40:12

about yeah, uh-huh, huh, but you know

40:15

yeah You don't have to divulge any

40:17

of this stuff I mean

40:19

I've been in situations like this before and I

40:22

think the feeling happens that you like

40:24

kind of panic because you're like oh I know

40:26

like I know to myself that I'm reading something's

40:28

money But nobody else knows and the title of

40:31

the book is not going to divulge that so

40:33

just just play it cool and be like Yeah,

40:35

I'm reading a cool cool romance with fairies like

40:37

no I don't think most people are gonna assume

40:39

that a book about fairies has is smutty

40:42

you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, that's really true. You're

40:44

right. So I think you're right. I think that's a good

40:46

way to look at it I think I was going way

40:48

more this much the like the Erotica

40:51

route, but yes, I think if it's probably fine I

40:54

think you're right too like you just don't you

40:56

don't have to divulge anything you don't want to

40:58

and you could always like Just

41:00

say you're reading a fucking issue of National Geographic

41:02

like Most

41:05

again most people are just making conversation like they're sitting

41:07

there at the bar They want to chat

41:09

with you. You know you don't have to

41:11

tell them anything and Amanda

41:13

let us know how this works out and let us know

41:16

how you solve this problem because I mean I'm

41:18

interested to see what is a good method

41:21

for Amanda So if you want us to solve your

41:23

horny very reader problem send it

41:25

to reading glasses [email protected] Time

41:32

to answer a recommendation request from

41:34

Jeremy not my boyfriend another Unrelated

41:37

you defeat wrote in though. Hi, Brian Mallory. I'm

41:39

looking for some recommendations to help with a 2024

41:41

reading challenge I'm

41:43

setting for myself next year. I'm aiming

41:45

to diversify my reading by diving into

41:48

novels translated into English Specifically 12 novels

41:50

translated from 12 different languages I'm open

41:53

to anything from literary classics to modern

41:55

genre adventures one caveat I don't need

41:57

Japanese recommendations since I've already got it

42:00

a deep bench of those books to choose from. Boo!

42:03

I know, I saw that as a funny thing. No,

42:05

that was gonna be good. He has like a whole

42:07

armload of Japanese book recommendation and is like, damn it.

42:09

I know, and then I just have to drop them

42:11

all and walk away. Crap,

42:14

Bri, you wanna read Jeremy's Wheelhouse? Literary explorations

42:16

of queerness, books set in the

42:18

real world but something's off, recluses

42:20

who are too cool for school, robot and

42:23

or animal points of view, and

42:25

books that make you gasp out loud. I mean, that's a

42:28

good wheelhouse. Bri, what do you think,

42:30

what non-Japanese book do you think Jeremy should

42:32

read? Such a bummer. I thought about recommending

42:35

this one. Well, okay, yeah, I can see why.

42:38

So I'm gonna recommend Mouthful of Birds by Samantha

42:40

Shweblin, translated by Megan McDowell, because

42:42

we so rarely get to recommend short

42:44

story books. Yeah. Like, because it's

42:46

very rare that someone's like, I love short stories

42:49

because it's just like, it's a, they want a

42:51

novel usually, so this is very exciting. I have

42:53

never read a Samantha Shweblin book that I did

42:55

not like. This one, we did

42:57

one of the stories for a book club,

42:59

and everyone, every story in this book is

43:02

a banger. Like, everyone, you're like, it's a

43:04

lot of things that will make you gasp,

43:06

and the real world, but something is off.

43:09

It's very weird fiction,

43:11

surreal, fantastical. Everyone is

43:13

weird, everyone is intense. When I read this, I

43:15

was just like, like the opening story is about

43:17

a woman and she's

43:19

at a gas station and she gets out of the

43:22

car and she's in a wedding dress, and when she

43:24

gets out, there's like a bunch of other women in

43:26

wedding dresses, or it's a rest stop,

43:29

and they're all kind of, well, I guess

43:31

I can't tell you that part. Anyway, it's

43:33

just like everyone, that's like such a wild

43:35

premise, right? Or there's one where, the one

43:37

that we read for the book club is

43:39

about two parents dealing with the fact that

43:41

every day their child needs to eat a

43:43

bird, a live bird. Oh,

43:45

yeah. That was the plot of it. This

43:47

is translated from Spanish, right? Correct. I'm

43:50

sure you have a lot of Spanish ones, but this one

43:52

I think would be really fun. What do you have? I'm

43:55

recommending a book that we both really love, and we haven't

43:57

talked about this in so long. You know what's weird when

43:59

you wrote this? I was like, that's a

44:01

translated book. I didn't know that. Yeah.

44:04

So it's a book called The Matka

44:06

by Karen Tidbeck. And you might not

44:08

realize it's translated because the author is

44:11

the one who did the translating. I

44:13

love that. That's so cool. So Karen

44:15

Tidbeck is Swedish and she originally wrote

44:17

this book in Swedish and then translated

44:19

it herself to English for English language

44:21

readers. And it is a queer literary

44:23

sci-fi book. And I always forget this

44:26

is a queer book too. Mm-hmm.

44:29

It's about it's like a sci-fi kind

44:31

of like world where this woman, she's

44:33

an assistant and she's sent from her

44:35

planet to this colony that the company

44:37

she works for is trying to collect

44:39

information on this colony. Only

44:42

she arrives at this colony and something's

44:44

a little bit off about the place

44:46

and the people there. Yeah.

44:49

It's very weird. And like her housing setup is

44:51

a woman that she's sharing her living space with

44:53

and she ends up falling in love with this woman and

44:56

wants to stay longer. And

44:58

it's not always good to stay in a place

45:00

where something's off and things get really weird and

45:02

it is so good. Breanne

45:04

and I both read this book and we were just like blown away

45:07

by it. And something about it is

45:09

quite Swedish. I don't know what it

45:11

is but like if you were like what book what

45:13

has this been translated from I would say oh yeah

45:15

that totally makes sense. I didn't realize it. I

45:18

loved this book. Yeah we haven't talked about it in a while but it's

45:20

a good one. Good recommendation. So that's a

45:22

Matka by Karen Tidbeck translated by Karen

45:24

Tidbeck. And mine is

45:26

Mouthful of Birds by Snitch Shweblin translated by

45:29

Megan McDowell. If you want us to answer your

45:31

recommendation request you can send them to readingglassespodcast.com is

45:34

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45:36

on our Facebook group. And folks remember you

45:38

can buy reading glasses, tote bags and shirts

45:40

and stickers over at our void merch store.

45:42

There's a link in the show notes. It's

45:45

January or actually no it's February now.

45:47

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45:52

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