Mostly Fictional

Hallie and Pam review their 2022 stats, reflect on their book goals, and pick bookish superlatives.


Books mentioned, in order:
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
I’ll Be Gone In the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Summerwater by Sarah Moss
Severance by Ling Ma
The Overstory by Richard Powers
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
Search by Michelle Huneven
Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
Down Days by Ilze Hugo
How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery
A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell
The Project by Courtney Summers
Mrs. Death Mrs. Death by Salena Godden
A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Littlebadger
Not Your Sidekick by C. B. Lee
The Ghost In the House by Sara O’Leary
Good Omens by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman
Useless Magic by Florence Welch
Sourdough by Robin Sloan
Reprieve by James Han Mattson
Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
The Maid by Nita Prose
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Demon Copperhead by Barabra Kingsolver
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
The Colony by Audrey Magee
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro

Find Pam and Hallie online!
Follow Hallie’s Substack at wordsmithreads.substack.com
Pam can be found on Youtube and Bookstagram at @pams_inkheart
Or, send us both a message at [email protected]

Hallie and Pam talk about their October reads and the CAWPILE rating system, begin planning for their 2023 book goals, and host a spoiler-free book club discussion of their first buddy read: Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield.

Books mentioned, in order:
Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
The Gathering Dark by Tori Bovalino
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser
Search by Michelle Huneven
The Eden Test by Adam Sternbergh
The Animals by Cary Fagan
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
The Lies She Told by Cate Holahan
The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Night Film by Marisha Pessl
No Gods No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions about Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
The Imitation Game: ALAN TURING DECODED by Jim Ottaviani, illustrated by Leland Purvis
I’m The Girl by Courtney Summers
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
Sourdough by Robin Sloan
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Lady Sapiens: Enquête sur la femme au temps de la Préhistoire by Thomas Cirotteau, Jennifer Kerner and Eric Pincas
Face au chocs écologiques: 12 entretiens pour comprendre l’anthropocène by Philippe Vion-Dury and Rémi Noyon
The History of the Bible by John Barton
Spinster by Kate Bolick
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
Marvelous by Molly Greeley
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Then Everything Happens at Once by M. E. Girard
Girl Mans Up by M. E. Girard

Find Pam and Hallie online!
Follow Hallie’s Substack at wordsmithreads.substack.com
Pam can be found on Youtube and Bookstagram at @pams_inkheart
Or, send us both a message at [email protected]

In this episode of Mostly Fictional (we finally say our name!), Hallie and Pam prepare for the spooky reading season and attempt to coordinate a buddy-read.

Books mentioned, in order:
The Employees by Olga Ravn
The Lovers by Paolo Cognetti
The Doloriad by Missouri Williams
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
In the Orchard by Eliza Minot
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Toddler Hunting and Other Stories by Kono Taeko
Outline by Rachel Cusk
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn
I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers
Sadie by Courtney Summers
The Project by Courtney Summers
No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull
The Hearts We Sold by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser
The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror by Tori Bovalino
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Find Pam and Hallie online!
Follow Hallie’s Substack at wordsmithreads.substack.com
Pam can be found on Youtube and Bookstagram at @pams_inkheart
Or, send us both a message at [email protected]

In this episode of Mostly Fictional, Pam talks about reading on trains and about trains, and Hallie tackles an enormous library stack.

Books mentioned, in order:
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry by Florence Welch
The Sandman Vol 1 by Neil Gaiman
The Sandman Vol 4 by Neil Gaiman
The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
Compass by Murray Lee
The Colony by Audrey Magee
The Trees by Percival Everett
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
A Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways by Mike Ashley
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Night Film by Marisha Pessl
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
One Last Stop Casey McQuiston
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers
The Employees by Olga Ravn
The Doloriad by Missouri Williams
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
The Lovers by Paolo Cognetti
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser
Family of Origin by CJ Hauser
Dracula by Bram Stoker
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Lovely War by Julie Berry
Search by Michelle Huneven

Find Pam and Hallie online!
Follow Hallie’s Substack at wordsmithreads.substack.com
Pam can be found on Youtube and Bookstagram at @pams_inkheart
Or, send us both a message at [email protected]

In this pilot episode of Mostly Fictional, hosts Pam and Hallie get into the swing of talking about books and what they enjoy in a good read.


Books mentioned, in order:
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
Huntress by Malinda Lo
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
The Imitation Game: Alan Turing Decoded by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by Leland Purvis
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Sadie by Courtney Summers
1984 by George Orwell
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
The Sandman Vol 4 by Neil Gaiman
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Electric Idol by Katee Robert
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror by Tori Bovalino
The Gathering Dark by Leigh Bardugo
The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown
Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver
I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Find Pam and Hallie online!
Follow Hallie’s Substack at wordsmithreads.substack.com
Pam can be found on Youtube and Bookstagram at @pams_inkheart
Or, send us both a message at [email protected]