Kaytee and Meredith are sharing a special guest with you this week, our dear friend and podcast pal, Sarah Dickinson of Sarah’s Bookshelves and Sarah’s Bookshelves Live.

You’ll hear a “bookish moment of the week” from each of us: a sanity saver behind the scenes, meeting a (kid’s) favorite author, and new reading acronyms.

Next, we discuss our current reads for the week. We’re each sharing two reads this week and we’re all over the place with sequels and weird books, and amazing books, and STRONG opinions!

We’re skipping slow but steady so we have more time to chat with Sarah. Stay tuned for an update on that next week.

For our deep dive this week, we are picking Sarah’s brain about what it’s like to almost always be reading ahead of the charts. How she tracks her reading and whether she has goals for her yearly reading. It’s a great conversation with lots of food for thought.

Finally, this week, we are Pressing Books into Your Hands. We’ve got a non-fiction pick that will tear your heart out, an oldie but a goodie, and a WWII fiction book one of us believes is “best in class.”

As per usual, time-stamped show notes are below with references to every book and resource we mentioned in this episode. If you’d like to listen first and not spoil the surprise, don’t scroll down! *Please note that all book titles linked above are Amazon affiliate links. Your cost is the same, but a small portion of your purchase will come back to us to help offset the costs of the show. Thanks for your support!*  

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4:06 - Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

4:15 - Wrecking Ball by Jeff Kinney

8:03 - Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

8:27 - Big Nate by Lincoln Pearce

8:29 - Dog Man by Dav Pilkey

11:30 - After the Flood by Kassandra Montag

13:40 - The Innocents by Michael Crummy

15:25 - Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

15:50 - The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

16:18 - The Book of M by Peng Shepherd

16:37 - Bird Box by Josh Malerman

16:50 - Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton

17:41 - A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

18:13 - A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer

19:36 - Minisode with Brigid Kemmerer

25:36 - Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

I managed to talk about this entire book without mentioning the title? How?? The Unbreakable Code by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

26:50 - Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend

26:51 - Winterhouse by Ben Guterson

26:59 - A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

27:01 - A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas

27:30 - Our companion episode with Sara Hildreth

27:32 - Sarah’s Bookshelves Live episode with Sara Hildreth

27:45 - The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore

33:20 - The Need by Helen Phillips

33:45 - Ten Things To Tell You episode about books

38:39 - The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

38:50 - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

39:00 - The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

40:18 - Lord of the Flies by William Golding

55:14 - The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

55:29 - The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett M Graff

55:50 - Sarah’s interview with Garrett M. Graff

1:00:09 - Episode 9 with Meg Tietz

1:00:22 - The Home Maker by Dorothy Canfield

1:02:54 - Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

1:03:11 - The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

1:03:13 - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

1:04:32 - Kaytee’s old (written) interview with Chris Cleave

1:05:20 - Connect with Sarah: @sarahsbookshelves on Instagram or her website sarahsbookshelves.com