[00:00:00] MEL JOULWAN: This thing is so entertaining and has such atmosphere. I absolutely loved it. It makes me want to use the word droll.
ANNE BOGEL: That’s a great word. Hey readers, I’m Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that’s dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don’t get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read.
Today, I’m so excited to be back in conversation for the third, fourth time with our good friends, fellow book lovers, and fellow podcasters, Mel Joulwan and Dave Humphreys, the literary minds behind Strong Sense of Place. They are longtime friends of our family at this point, and sometimes they’ve even been our travel partners.
[00:01:02] Today, I’m excited to load up my to-be-read list for the year, probably years ahead, with an assortment of literary tourism reads from destinations we’ve been to together, destinations I know are on many reader wishlists, and are certainly on mine, to other places I think might surprise you. But then again, maybe they won’t if you’re regular listeners of Strong Sense of Place.
We have destinations galore and a long list of titles to share with you today. So pack your bags and get ready to add new stamps to your literary passport.
Let’s get to it.
Mel and Dave, welcome to the show.
MEL: Hi, Anne.
DAVE HUMPHREYS: Hello, how are you?
ANNE: I’m great. I’m also up early. So a little peek behind the scenes, everyone. Mel and Dave are in Prague, where the time is not the same as it is in East Coast United States. So I’m getting an early start. Drinking my first cup of tea. Happy to be spending the beginning of my day with you all.
And this is not the first time we’ve done this. This is your third or fourth time on the show. Mel, I know that you and I recorded our first episode, and I think at this point we were only internet friends.
[00:02:06] MEL: That is true.
ANNE: We hadn’t yet travel-bonded in Scotland, like we did. Not that long thereafter. But you were on an episode right around the end of the year. It was back-to-back with Will, 61, 62. And I still think about that episode all the time, that if I haven’t said, we will link in show notes, because it’s called The Last Page Can Make It or Break It. And every time I read a book that is great until the final chapters, or one that I really thought I was going to love for the summer reading guide that a few bookseller friends had loved, I thought the last paragraph undermined the whole premise of the book. And I was like, dang you book. And also Mel was right.
MEL: That is the worst. The throw it across the room syndrome, when it’s just been great.
ANNE: Look, you’re more violent with your books than I am. But I might have smacked it down in disgustings.
[00:03:03] MEL: You could stop that sentence after “books”. I’m just more violent than you are.
DAVE: Also, there’s this sort of double agony of being upset at the book as a reader, and then being upset at the book as somebody who likes to tell other people about books.
ANNE: Okay, yes. Mel and I know what you’re talking about. Say more for our listeners.
DAVE: Oh, so occasionally I’ll read a book and I’ll be enjoying it, and I’m going to mention it on the podcast, and then I’ll get to the very last chapter, and no, it just falls apart. I can’t talk about this book. I can’t recommend this book. And there’s just such a… It’s so disappointing. It’s so like, well, okay, that was a waste of time and emotionally fatiguing, and we’re going to move on now.
ANNE: Okay. I will say though, the thing that can redeem that for me is if I can get on the phone, or even better, like sit at a table with readers like you and Mel and be like, Okay, you’ll understand this. Listen to what happened to me with this book. I do find that that can be redeeming in a sense.
[00:04:17] The opportunity to commiserate with other book lovers about the experience of thinking you were going to get one thing out of a book, and instead having your hopes dashed.
DAVE: Yeah, that is accurate.
ANNE: Reading, it’s a wild ride. Okay, so I think the first time we had all four of you on the show was in May 2022 for Strong Sense of Summer, where we found books with strong summer vibes. And I think about that episode all the time too, in no small part because of ice cream.
Dave, you recommended the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream book, and now it lives on my shelf. And Will makes ice cream from it sometimes, and it makes my life better. So the gift that keeps on giving is your presence on What Should I Read Next?.
DAVE: That’s so nice. I’m glad to hear I’ve had an influence on your household.
ANNE: But truly, in the reading landscape, you all don’t just talk about terrible last pages, terrible last lines, and ice cream. Would you tell us about Strong Sense of Place? When did you start it? Why do you do it? I think our notes say, what’s the fun in all that? So tell us everything.
[00:05:26] DAVE: So we started Strong Sense of Place in 2020. And the idea there is that we talk about a destination someplace in the world and we discuss what makes that place special and why you want to go there. And then we talk about five books we loved that took us there on the page. And that’s important. It has to be five books with a strong sense of place that resonated with us.
MEL: And also that have more than just name-dropping city streets. It has to give you a sense of what that place might sound like or smell like, what the customs are, what people are eating. It’s almost like a guidebook put into fiction. Or it doesn’t make the cut.
DAVE: Right. And we cover a mix of fiction and non and contemporary literature and classics and fantasy and mystery and children’s books, and… whatever we can get. We try to go wide. It’s not a show about world literature. It’s a show about how humans everywhere have compelling stories.
[00:06:30] ANNE: So in other words, it’s not a book that could be set anywhere. You’re talking about books that could only take place… Well, I might be making a more stringent definition than you do. But a book that’s not incidentally set in the place but is drenched in it.
MEL: Some places are harder to find books for than others. But ideally, what we are looking for is a story that could only take place in that particular destination. And when we find those, it’s like the golden ticket.
DAVE: I think that’s true with the majority of books that we talk about, though, that they can only be set in that place. They are sort of birthed of the people there, of the situations there, of the history in that place. I can’t offhand think of anything that we’ve talked about where you could swap out L.A. for New York and it would be the same story.
[00:07:27] ANNE: Uuuh, you know, this past weekend I finished two books with strong sense of place. Although one, I thought could only have taken place in Paris. It was so French, so Parisian. I really enjoy Googling the locations, which is not the only thing that gives it that strong sense of place. But I could also see where the action was unfolding with my eyes, which I appreciated. But I didn’t really like the book. Does that have a place in your show?
DAVE: Oh, no.
MEL: Not really. The two things we need are a strong sense of place and we have to really enjoy it because our show is more about making recommendations than reviewing. So it has often been the case when I’ve read a book that had a very strong sense of that place and I was like, Ooh boy, I wouldn’t tell someone I care about to read this book. That was tough.
ANNE: I’m going to be talking about this book eventually, but it’s probably going to be in the books I read for the Summer Reading Guide thinking, oh, this could be a great fit. And it turned out, nope. So we’ll probably be talking about that title on Patreon.
[00:08:26] And the other, I think, is an L.A. book that I think is going to be in the Summer Reading Guide. That’s what made me think of it, the Los Angeles comment.
When I first heard out of Mel’s mouth the idea of this travel website and podcast, Strong Sense of Place, I thought, Oh my gosh, that’s perfect for you too. But to our listeners who don’t know you, can you… this may sound like an invitation to brag. And look, it’s not not that. Tell me about how this is a natural evolution out of what you enjoy and what you’ve been doing with your lives to this point.
Also 2020. What a time to start such a project! If I had to take the Mel and Dave pop quiz, I would have filled in like early 2019 is when it launched. I didn’t realize it was 2020. When in 2020?
MEL: The website launched in the fall of 2019 and the podcast started in January 2020.
ANNE: Wow, okay.
[00:09:21] MEL: Yeah. Dave and I are lifelong readers. I think before we were even dating, he gave me a copy of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, this beautiful little edition because he knew that I loved that book. So like this bookish stuff has been going on since we met. We’ve done a bunch of cool projects together. We wrote cookbooks for a while. I tested the recipes and wrote them, Dave did the photography. We’ve made websites together.
In 2017, we moved to Prague, which was a big creative project. And then when we got here, we were like, “And now what will we do with ourselves?” I’ve always been interested in international food and culture. We’ve always traveled a lot. And I don’t know, the idea to combine these two things that we love just started to make more and more sense.
[00:10:19] DAVE: Yeah, I feel like we realize that reading and traveling talk to each other, right? So when we read a book about a place before or after we go, it makes us feel more connected to that place and the people who live there. It makes us more likely that we will understand what we’re seeing and the people we meet. It increases empathy. That was a huge piece of it for me — the empathy.
I think that’s our very not-secret mission that we are big fans of empathy. And the older I get, the more that I think that empathy might be the thing that saves us all, really. And reading and travel are both excellent exercises in empathy. And we try to make that as sort of fun and delightful as possible.
ANNE: That seems like it captures it for me. I’m so excited that you all are here today to take all these skills, this craft that you have, and to invite me to share places that I’ve been, places that I’d like to go, places that I’m actually planning on going later this year, and get a taste, a strong sense of place is applied to my reading life. I’m so excited about this.
[00:11:35] MEL: Talk about empathy. I really took this assignment seriously. And when I was thinking of books that I was going to share, really wanted to think about what I think you would genuinely like, Anne, which is different than what I usually do. Because usually I’m talking about books that I enjoyed and saying why I think someone else might like them too. But in this case, I was thinking about you in particular. And it’s really different. It was really fun, but also really challenging. You’re so good at this.
ANNE: Well, but as you say that, I’m thinking back to all the conversations we’ve had over the years, where you’ll describe something you’re reading and I’ll say, “Oh, I love that for you. That sounds like an incredible Mel reading experience. Do you think I would like it?” Or I’ll catch myself talking about a book saying like, “Oh, I loved it. It was perfect for me. Perfect timing. I don’t think it’s right for you, Mel. Yeah, I don’t think it is. But it was a great reading experience for me.”
[00:12:35] Well, thank you. Thank you for bringing the personal touch to this today. And I think as our listeners are listening, that’s good for them to keep in mind as well.
Now, as a Strong Sense of Place fan and listener, and a Mel and Dave fan and listener, I know many of the places you’ve been and you want to go. I don’t see the reading for the secret places that you’re contemplating featuring on the show, but I wouldn’t necessarily know that you were interested in some of the places that might come up today.
I’m so interested in hearing not only how your travel interests inform your reading, because I feel like I see how that works. But how do your reading interests inform your travel? Would you riff freely on that idea, please?
MEL: Dave and I kind of have a long history of seeing one small detail somewhere in the world and being like, “Okay, let’s just go there and see that.” For example, when we still lived in Austin, Texas, I’m going to say this was probably, I don’t know, 2011, something like that, we saw just a small photograph somewhere of a green dragon statue perched on the end of a bridge. And it was so cool looking.
[00:13:55] And I remember showing it to Dave and saying, “I don’t care where that is. I want to go.” And we figured out that it was in Ljubljana, which is the capital of Slovenia. And not too long after that, we went. And that’s kind of been a thing we continue to do. One little detail sends us off to a new place.
The latest is that I want to go to Saint-Malo, France because I read about the world’s best butter.
ANNE: That’s the best reason.
MEL: It’s made by a small producer in Saint-Malo, France. And the article that I was reading particularly said, there’s a version of the butter that they make with little flecks of seaweed from the ocean right there, mixed into the butter, and that you can buy some of the butter and a baguette and go sit by the sea and eat it and have the best day of your life. And I was like, “Yes, I’m in. Sign me up for that, definitely.”
[00:14:56] DAVE: The project, the Strong Sense of Place project, has also brought to us a bunch of places that I didn’t really know that much about before. And now that I’ve read about them, I am in a hurry to get there. I’m not sure how that’s going to play out, but I’m very curious about them.
One of them was Sri Lanka, which I’d only heard about, I think, from tea. But we’ve read about it. We did a podcast on that. That place is fantastic.
I know I’m sort of late to the party on this, but New Zealand looks fantastic to me. The moment that I sort of fell in love with New Zealand was when I found out that they have given a river personhood so that they can save the river, which blew my mind. Like that was a thing that could happen and that these people did that is just amazing.
[00:15:55] Tasmania looks great. Mongolia looks great, which was a big surprise to both of us because we are, you know, stay-at-home breeding kinds of people. And when we do go places, we like big cities. And Mongolia does not have that at all. Mongolia is an outdoor place. It’s, you know, you go and you enjoy the steps and the people there and the hawks flying around and whatnot. That just looks great. It looks fantastic. So every time we do an episode, I think it opens us up further to, let’s go see that. Let’s go check that out.
ANNE: And there are Strong Sense of Place episodes on all those places, correct?
DAVE: Yeah, there are.
ANNE: Okay, readers, we have all that information in the show notes. Okay, here’s what we get to do today. I’m going to share a variety of destinations with you. Some are places we’ve been together. Some are places my family’s particularly interested in. Some are places where I know I love books set in that place. And I’m going to invite you to recommend a book or two that fits in the Strong Sense of Place sense with that destination. I hope that sounds good to you. Can we do this?
[00:17:06] MEL: We are ready.
ANNE: We’re going to start with Scotland, which is the place that we all first met in person back in 2018, when you all kindly invited us to crash your booking at the open book in Scotland’s national book town of Wigton, which was a delight. I read books set in Scotland to prepare, and I’ve been reading books set in Scotland with a different kind of eye and relationship with the place ever since. So take it away for Scotland.
MEL: Okay, this was tough because a lot of the books that I read for Scotland lean more on the gothic and dark side because I really love books like that. However, I think I picked one that I absolutely love that I think you will also like too. I know you love a good audiobook.
ANNE: I do.
[00:18:02] MEL: So I’m recommending Haunted Voices, which is an anthology of 27 gothic stories from Scotland. It was put out by a small publisher. And the concept is this. She invited Scottish storytellers who usually perform their stories out loud to write new stories for this anthology and perform them.
So there are new voices of some pretty popular Scottish storytellers. Some of them actually have, you know, other novels that they’ve written. And then also mixed in are archival recordings from the 50s, 60s, 70s of old-timers telling stories. And even though they’re gothic, they are not all scary. And I would say-
ANNE: You anticipated my question.
MEL: I did. I would say that all of them are more on the eerie side than straight-up scary.
[00:19:08] ANNE: Okay, that sounds like a good time. Can I listen before bed or no?
MEL: Mmm.
ANNE: Okay, that’s enough. You know what? I don’t listen to audiobooks before bed. It’s fine.
MEL: I’m going to say daytime would be better for two reasons. One, they can get a little spooky. And two, particularly with the archival recordings, it is really nice to follow along with either the print or the e-book version. It is available in all three formats. And I found it really fun to listen to the old kind of crackly recordings. The Scottish storytellers’ accents can be very strong. So being able to read along was really helpful. But the sound is so immersive.
And there are two stories that I just want to highlight to give you a sense of what kinds of things are in there. The first one is what I would call a tender ghost story. It’s eerie but more poignant than scary. And it’s set in Greyfriars Kirkyard, which is a very famous cemetery in Edinburgh.
[00:20:17] It’s just delightful. I don’t want to give anything away because it’s pretty short, so I can’t really tell you too much more without giving away the story. But I’ve listened to it, oh, I don’t know, probably five or six times. It’s just really lovely.
And then the other one is, I think, very funny, even though it does have gothic vibes. Do you know the TV show Fleabag with Phoebe Waller-Bridge?
ANNE: I do, but I haven’t seen it.
MEL: Okay. So that is the story of a British woman whose life is kind of a mess. She’s very sarcastic. She’s well-intentioned, but she just kind of bungles all of her relationships. So it’s very darkly funny.
This story reminds me of that vibe. It’s about a woman who goes to the cemetery too close to evening to visit her parents’ grave, and when she gets there, the cemetery is closed. And the story is about what happens when she tries to break into the cemetery.
[00:21:23] ANNE: I am intrigued by the funny with gothic vibes. Also, this collection definitely sounds like something I would enjoy. I love the audiobook angle specifically, but wouldn’t even know to go looking for.
MEL: And you have to buy it directly from the publisher, but they make that very easy. They have a cute little website, and they have all three formats available. I think anybody who loves the storytelling tradition of the UK, anybody who likes listening to those accents, and if you have interest in folklore or you love Halloween, there’s lots of things to recommend this collection.
ANNE: That sounds amazing. I’m glad the publisher makes it easy, but finding those small publishers isn’t necessarily the easy part. So thank you. I’m excited to check that out.
MEL: Good.
[00:22:19] ANNE: Next, we’re going to go to Spain, a place that we’ve gotten to go with you all. Our first trip, but not yours. The Bogels, our family of six, was in Barcelona in the summer of 2023, and you all flew in from Prague to join us for a few very fun, very eventful days. And once again, we read, “we” being Will and I, read before, during, and after our trip, books set in Spain, and now I’m reading those with a new eye.
So what can you recommend me? It doesn’t have to be Barcelona. We also got to go to Madrid, and there are a zillion smaller towns and destinations in the country we’d like to go to one day.
DAVE: Okay, so I have a book that will make one particular moment in Madrid about a thousand times better.
ANNE: Yes, please.
DAVE: So when you went to Madrid, maybe you went to the Prado — that’s the big museum there — and you saw a painting by Velázquez called Las Meninas.
ANNE: Yes, I did.
[00:23:21] DAVE: It’s the Ladies in Waiting in English. The painting is one of the great paintings in the history of art. Some people say it might be the most important painting ever. And if you go to the Prado cold and you walk in front of that painting, I’m not sure what your experience was, but I suspect it was something like, huh, that’s a painting.
MEL: I mean, to be fair, it is a beautiful painting.
DAVE: It is a beautiful painting.
MEL: And it’s enormous.
DAVE: It is enormous.
MEL: But-
ANNE: My grandmother was obsessed with this painting.
MEL: Really?
ANNE: But whatever you’re about to recommend, it’s going to shed some light on it.
MEL: Oh, that’s so cool. I mean, there is magic in this painting.
DAVE: There is magic in this painting.
ANNE: My grandparents made us play a fine arts game called Masterpiece with my cousins when we were little, and they added all these extra rules. So you got extra points for being able to talk about the artist and the year it was painted and the background and the name. Like Masterpiece is just like, I don’t know, bid on this at auction, decide if it’s a forgery or not. And my grandparents were like, no, art history.
[00:24:26] MEL: I love that.
DAVE: That’s fabulous. I really like that too.
ANNE: But whatever you’re about to tell me, I’m pretty sure I didn’t learn from her.
DAVE: Yes. So if you go to the Prado cold and you stand in front of Las Meninas, it is very likely that you are going to say, Wow, that’s a big painting and it’s well done. And that’s probably about all you’re going to get out of that. And you’re going to go on then to look at the other pretty things in the Prado.
But you could also read The Ladies-In-Waiting by Santiago Garcia and Javier Olivares. And that book will teach you about Velazquez and his time and his work and why he painted Las Meninas and who it influenced. And you’ll find out that the painting itself is an argument for the existence of art. It’s a 17th-century immersive experience. It is Velazquez saying, “You don’t understand what I can bring” and then bringing it.
[00:25:27] And the book The Ladies-In-Waiting is a graphic novel and it’s about 200 pages long and you can get through that in an afternoon. And if you do that, and then you go to Madrid and you go to the Prado and then you can stand in front of Las Meninas and then you can be like, “I get it! It’s amazing!” Probably. I don’t know you. But it happened to me. So, highly recommended.
ANNE: That’s so interesting. I didn’t know. Also, something we always tell ourselves when we go a place is we can always come back. Because my brain right now is like, “Why didn’t I read this first?” I can go back. It’s fine. It’s fine.
MEL: Rick Steve says you should always assume you’ll be back.
ANNE: That’s a good philosophy. That’s a good “don’t overthink it” philosophy. There’s always another chance. It’s fine.
MEL: Exactly.
ANNE: The stakes aren’t that high.
DAVE: It’s an excellent emotional tool because maybe you won’t be back, but probably best not to think about that.
ANNE: Okay, I love that. Thank you very much, Dave.
DAVE: Sure.
[00:26:28] MEL: Can I throw in a Spain one, too?
ANNE: Yes, please.
MEL: Okay. So, I believe that you have read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
ANNE: I have. Forever ago now. Yes, I have.
MEL: But I don’t think you’ve read The Labyrinth of the Spirits. Is that right?
ANNE: This is accurate.
MEL: Oh, great. Perfect. Okay. Labyrinth of the Spirits was the final book in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books cycle. He was very clear that the four books are not a series. They’re not meant to be read in order. They’re a web of stories that you can dip in and out of in whatever order you prefer. I love that so much. And it kind of reminds me of what it’s like walking around in Barcelona and Madrid, where you’re just kind of wandering in these medieval cobblestone streets.
ANNE: That sounds very cool.
[00:27:27] MEL: The Labyrinth of the Spirits is set in both Barcelona and Madrid just before and just after World War II. And this one has a new heroine. Her name is Alicia. She’s a member of Madrid’s secret police, but she wants to quit. And her boss convinces her to take just one more case, which is, of course, a beloved trope in spy novels and detective novels. Just one more case.
So, before long, she is sucked into the intrigue around the disappearance of Spain’s minister of culture. But that’s all kind of beside the point. Because I feel like Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s stories are an excuse to build atmosphere and to really take you on tours of the neighborhoods of Barcelona and Madrid and explore history through his characters.
[00:28:33] So there is definitely a detective story going on, and it’s very compelling, and it has a very satisfactory resolution. But the reason to read these books is because Zafón puts you right in these cities at a time when passions were running high, and there’s tons of atmosphere, and it feels like you’re right there. And since I know you loved Madrid and Barcelona, this book could take you back there.
ANNE: Oh, I did, and I’d love to go back there on the page before I get to go back there in person. Okay, for our next destination. I love it when sometimes your destination isn’t a place that you can stick a pin in on the globe, but a place like hotels or movie theaters or the one I’ve chosen for today is amusement parks because the Bogels went to Copenhagen in spring 2024, and Will bought his tickets to Tivoli. And I was like, “I don’t know, was it worth going to an amusement park in Denmark?” They’re the same everywhere, right? No, they are not.
[00:29:40] But we never went to amusement parks as a family, and we went to Tivoli and we had such a good time, and it’s kind of changed our lives. And I would love to read books set in this interesting place that we’ve discovered that we love. In, you know, interesting, not platonic place exactly, but this kind of place.
When you all are chatting behind the scenes about Strong Sense of Place, how do you refer to the episodes that are set in lakes, hotels, what do you call those?
MEL: On the website we call them themes, but the working definition is places you can visit that are not geographical destinations.
ANNE: Libraries.
MEL: Yeah. We sometimes have disagreements about what follows our rules and doesn’t. For example, someone suggested detective stories, and we’re like, we love detective stories, but we can’t do detectives. That’s not a place. So we did detective agency.
[00:30:40] And that does change the kind of books we chose, because it has to be a mystery story that has a detective agency in it, not just a detective story. I mean, we’re slicing things pretty thin here to follow our own rules, but I think it does-
ANNE: No, but that makes sense to me. It’s the difference between a place and a genre.
MEL: Exactly. We currently are discussing whether or not dinner party qualifies.
DAVE: Yeah.
MEL: Because I believe it does, because a dinner party is a thing you go to.
DAVE: I am very unsure about that, because a dinner party, to me, is an event, right? It’s a time.
MEL: But it also has its own set of rules and atmosphere and place that you go. If you say dinner party, it has associations strongly built around it.
DAVE: We have the same problem with graduation. Like, is graduation a place you go to?
[00:31:40] MEL: I would argue yes.
DAVE: Yeah.
ANNE: Hmm. Okay, this sounds fun. We could have fun conversations about this.
DAVE: This is very inside baseball, but yeah, that’s the kind of conversation we have at home.
ANNE: I love it. Okay, so when I think amusement parks, so many times I think of these macabre stories or breakneck thrillers. I mean, I’m not saying I’m not open to one of those, but I’m just curious to hear what you’ve got for me.
DAVE: So first, I think it’s adorable that you guys just found out about amusement parks.
ANNE: Oh my gosh.
DAVE: Hey, these are fun.
ANNE: I’m going to get heated emails about this, but none of my kids went on a roller coaster before they did in Copenhagen. And our oldest with us was 21 at the time.
MEL: Wow.
DAVE: And youngest was 14.
ANNE: I mean, that’s not only on the parents, but I have been told maybe I neglected my parental duties.
MEL: I mean, I don’t think that would go that far.
ANNE: In a very first world kind of… yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:42] DAVE: I mean, yeah, it just, you know… it’s cute. I think it’s cute. It’s like, “These are fun. Why didn’t anybody tell us,” you know? It’s there in the name.
MEL: It’s right there in the name.
DAVE: So the book that I’d loved for our amusement park episode is only kind of about amusement parks. It’s called Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World. It’s by Stephen Johnson. It’s a nonfiction book about how delight is an essential driver of historical change.
ANNE: What? Oh, that sounds fun.
DAVE: Right? Yeah. So he takes us all the way back to Rome and ancient Baghdad to show us the invention of toys and fashion and music. And he talks about how those things have shaped our world all the way through history. Maybe the best thing about this book is that it highlights delight and play as a critical, significant part of life. And I’m very into it.
ANNE: I’m into that rec. Thank you.
[00:33:43] DAVE: If you want something a little bit more closer to the theme, there’s a book called Curious Toys by Elizabeth Hand. That’s a coming-of-age story and a murder mystery set in an amusement park in Chicago in 1910. I think if you want to read it, that might be all you need to know about that. It’s-
ANNE: Chicago.
DAVE: Chicago, 1910, a lot of atmosphere, early Chicago history, a bit of dark carnival thrown in there. If you like the words that are coming out of my mouth, it’s worth checking out.
ANNE: Okay. Thank you very much. Now, so far we’ve talked about places we’ve been to, but now I have a place that we’re going. I guess technically I’ve been. It’s New Orleans. The Bogels are going to New Orleans just for a quick trip. I’ve been once for work. I think it was when my first book, Reading People, was coming out.
But with a work trip, I feel lucky to get one good meal and one fun local thing. And I think I got that. But I definitely was not there as a tourist. There’s so many bookstores I still want to go to.
[00:34:43] I have family members who have a strong history in the city, so I’ve heard stories from them. But yeah, I’m excited to go back in 2025. What should I read? Also, my family has never been.
DAVE: Oh.
ANNE: We’re going with the younger two and Will.
DAVE: Okay. Do you know about Mason Hereford?
ANNE: No.
DAVE: Okay. Mason Hereford grew up in rural Virginia. He’s a cook now, but he grew up on meals that came out of gas stations and country kitchens and the like. Cook is really undercutting what he is. He is a fried eggs and bacon guy. He’s a sloppy sandwich guy. And he’s always been interested in cooking. He went off to school, and of course they taught him haute cuisine, the fancy stuff.
He went on to work at a bunch of top restaurants, but he always wanted to marry those two together. Like, can we take the truck stop food and bring it up, elevate it? So that’s what he did.
[00:35:42] In 2016, he opened a place in New Orleans called Turkey and The Wolf. He got famous on his fried bologna sandwich and his Italian sub and his chicken pot pie. His food is maybe humble, unpretentious, but prepared with the kind of love a good chef can bring to food.
He was recognized by James Beard that year. Food and Wine said it was one of the most important restaurants of the decade. And then he wrote a cookbook called Turkey and the Wolf. So whenever anyone says New Orleans out loud, I think about how I have to get to that restaurant. Like, that’s my first thought. So what I’m saying is, let me know how it is.
MEL: Because we’re going to be living vicariously through you.
DAVE: But yeah, Turkey and the Wolf, excellent cookbook. I very much look forward to visiting the restaurant sometime.
ANNE: That sounds great. Thank you for that recommendation. We will report back.
[00:36:41] DAVE: If you’re looking for other great New Orleans reads, I’ve got two others. There’s The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings. That’s a fantasy title that supposes the myths of New Orleans are true. So if you like something like American Gods, you’ll probably like this.
There’s also a nonfiction book, Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum. This is a biography of nine New Orleans residents told pretty much in parallel, roughly set between two tragedies, Hurricane Betsy in 1960 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I wish every location we covered had a book that was this good. It’ll make you feel like you’ve lived in New Orleans.
ANNE: Okay, that sounds amazing. Now I’d like you to take me someplace that I’ve never been and only intend on visiting via armchair travel in the next few years. But I don’t know, maybe I’ll read a book that’ll change everything and reorganize my priorities. The place I’d like to go is Japan.
MEL: Okay, I have a fun one. This is a straight-up feel-good story. I feel like everybody could use a little bit of that right now. It’s a shorty, it’s only 224 pages, and it is packed with delightful people who are celebrating the magic of words and friendship.
[00:38:06] It’s set roughly now-ish in Japan, and it’s about a group of people who spend more than a decade working on a dictionary that is 2,900 pages long. The dictionary is called The Great Passage, and that is the name of the novel. It’s by Shion Miura and translated from Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter.
This thing is just a delight. It’s one of those books where there’s not a whole lot of plot. It’s almost like a workplace story. These people are working on a dictionary, but everything important happens to them. They fall in love, they make friends, they question themselves, they fail, they triumph. It’s all of life kind of boiled down into a microcosm while they’re working on this dictionary.
[00:39:04] The thing that I think readers, in particular, are going to love about this, people who like to play with words, is that the characters talk about how to define words. It’s like they’re picking them up and turning them over and looking at the bottom and looking at all the facets of them to understand all the shades of meaning. And so what looks like a simple story is actually about the depth of our relationship with language and how words can fail us or how the right words can change everything. I just loved it. And I think you will, too.
ANNE: That sounds amazing! I don’t know that one. Thank you. That sounds like a lot of story in 224 pages. I mean, Mel, you know I like a good long book sometimes. But also a lot of satisfaction in a tiny package is just a real readerly delight.
MEL: It gives you a really strong sense, too, of what a workplace in Japan is like. Things are weirdly formal in some ways. There’s a lot of food built into it. One of the characters is a chef, so you get the scoop on what they’re eating. It’s just delightful.
[00:40:16] ANNE: Okay, the next is a place I haven’t been, would like to go to, don’t have plans, but I read a ton of books set in Maine. And the number of books I adore set in Maine is uncannily high. So I don’t know what’s going on here. We don’t necessarily need to figure out that today. But I would welcome recommendations set in the great state of Maine.
DAVE: I’ve been to Maine twice, and both times I loved it. And I don’t know why we don’t go more frequently. It’s such a lovely place.
ANNE: Is it because you don’t live in Vermont anymore?
DAVE: It might be that. So there’s a book, it’s a nonfiction book, it’s called The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. And it’s by Michael Finkel.
ANNE: I own this book, but I haven’t… I mean, I’ve owned this book for 10 years and I haven’t read it.
DAVE: Okay, maybe I can get you to read it. It’s about a man, he was 20, and he walked into the woods of Maine in 1986, unprepared. He just abandoned his car and he walked into a pine forest.
[00:41:21] And he went in in 1986 and did not come out again until 2013. So he was a hermit for 27 years. And during that time, he spoke to one person. A hiker came out and they said hi to each other and that was it.
The hermit survived by breaking into people’s summer cabins and taking their stuff. He was as conscientious as possible about that. He would only take low-value items. So he’d steal old sleeping bags and stacks of National Geographic and that kind of thing.
The book does just a remarkable job of telling that story and talking about the community’s reaction to him. He was a local legend for years because nobody had ever seen him, but they’d seen evidence of him. Some people didn’t think he existed because who could survive in the Maine winter?
[00:42:22] What drove me through the story, I think, is that I’m a huge introvert. Like, I’m an only child to a workaholic and a woman who preferred reading to almost everything. And there’s a certain amount of alone time that I understand, but 27 years is way over that line. Way over that line. And that kind of compelled me through this book. I read it in 2023. I think it was one of the best books I read that year. It’s a good story. It’s well told. It’s The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel.
ANNE: That sounds fascinating. I may have to grab it off my shelf.
MEL: I have a Maine book that’s at the opposite end of the spectrum emotionally from that one.
ANNE: I’m curious to hear what that sounds like.
MEL: Okay, Anne. I’m pretty sure that you read The Midcoast by Adam White.
ANNE: Indeed, I did. Really enjoyed it.
MEL: Yes. So this is completely different from that as well. But I kind of like this in counterpoint to those more serious stories.
[00:43:22] This is a novel called Almost Maine by John Cariani. He’s an actor who was on the original flavor of Law & Order for ages, and he is also a playwright. And this novel is based on his play.
The story takes place on one particular night in a small town called Almost Maine. And on this night, the northern lights are dancing in the sky. This makes the inhabitants of this tiny town experience extraordinary things.
The story unfolds in a series of linked vignettes, which for me really captured what small-town life feels like. Like everybody’s lives are kind of touching everybody else’s a little bit here and there. And you know, you have history with these characters and people know your business whether you tell them explicitly or not. So that’s all happening.
[00:44:26] The whole thing is magical. Like literally magical. Like someone is so intensely falling in love that they actually fall down. Another character is losing their sense of hope and they’re literally getting smaller. So there’s these kind of whimsical playful hints of magic while people are also kind of going about their small-town life in Maine.
I just thought it was so much fun and really unexpected. The whole thing is happening on this very cold night with the northern lights. I mean, I could almost smell the fresh air in the winter. That kind of thing. That is Almost Maine by John Cariani.
ANNE: That sounds very interesting. I also like the range here. You know, my like dark drug runner novel and also this magical small-town story about the northern lights.
MEL: We like to mix it up.
[00:45:34] ANNE: As do I. I appreciate that. Mel and Dave, you are the perfect ones to talk to about the next place I want to go and that is Prague. Will and I have been before. We’ve never been with the kids. We haven’t been since 2001. What should I read?
MEL: Number one, I’m delighted that you think you’re going to come to Prague.
DAVE: Yeah.
MEL: That is fantastic news.
ANNE: Well, we have to see you guys. Of course, we are.
MEL: And number two, Prague seems to be one of those cities that just inspires… you know, people come here, they fall in love with it, and then they go home and they write a novel. So there are tons and tons of Prague novels. I have a bunch right now on my TBR that have just come out in the last few years that I haven’t gotten to yet. We do have a blog post on our website with 15 novels that I put together when we started the podcast because Prague was the first episode that we ever did.
[00:46:33] The book I’m telling you about today is a little bit of a cheat because it’s only partially set in Prague, but I really, really enjoyed it and I think that you will like it too. So I’m going with it. It’s called The Trick by Emanuel Bergmann and it’s about an unlikely friendship between a very precocious little boy from California and an elderly illusionist from Czechoslovakia.
Max, the little boy, is 11 and he has just found out that his parents are getting divorced and he is devastated. And while he’s kind of licking his wounds, he finds an old LP of the great Zabbatini, an illusionist, who is performing a love spell on the record. And Max becomes convinced that this spell can save his family. But the record has a scratch in the most important part of the spell. So this little 11-year-old sets out on an epic journey across Los Angeles to find the great Zabbatini and, as I like to say, hijinks ensue.
[00:47:46] ANNE: Hijinks ensue. Okay, that sounds fascinating. And it wasn’t even published the last time I’ve been there, so thank you for the updated reading rec.
MEL: The thing that I like about it is that it has this big sense of adventure and really big feelings but also flashbacks to World War II. So you learn about Czech history in a very entertaining way. So it’s not like getting history shoved down your throat. By the time you finish, you have a good understanding of what Czechoslovakia was like during World War II, and you’ve spent time with these really charming characters.
ANNE: That sounds delightful.
DAVE: One of the best books I’ve read about Prague, particularly under communism, is a children’s book. It’s called The Wall by Peter Sis. It’s a picture book, but it’s a children’s picture book in the same way that To Kill a Mockingbird is a YA novel. You can read it that way, but there’s more to it than that.
[00:48:45] It’s about the author growing up in the 60s. This was a really significant time here. It was Prague Spring, and that was when Czechoslovakia was trying to lean a little bit more toward the West. They had rock bands and blue jeans. They were talking about democracy. And the Soviet Union responded in 1968 by rolling tanks into Prague.
This book tells that story from the perspective of a child and then a young man, and it’ll give you a really good idea of what it was like to grow up under communism, good and bad. You can read it in a few minutes. And if you’re anything like me, it’ll broaden your understanding of life in Central and Eastern Europe at that time.
ANNE: That sounds really interesting. Also, Dave, I love that you’ve recommended a couple books from genres that many readers wouldn’t necessarily think of first when they want to read a book with a strong sense of place, like the children’s book and the graphic novel. But I’m really excited to read both of those, so thank you.
DAVE: My pleasure.
[00:49:49] ANNE: When I think about Mel Joulwan and her reading habits, I think manor houses. Dave, I don’t want to leave you out. When I think about you, I think about your sorrow about the science fiction bookstore being closed in Wigton. I mean, I don’t think about your sorrow, but I think about that being your happy place-
DAVE: Sure.
ANNE: …and Mel’s being the manor houses. It’s the manor houses that feel particularly timely to discuss right now because you all are hosting a manor house weekend. You just sold out two weekends for your listeners in like a minute. I’m so sorry that I can’t be there, but the next best thing is to hear about it and to hear manor house recommendations.
So, Mel, whenever I’m in this kind of mood, I know exactly who to turn to for a book rec. And whenever I stumble upon a book, I always say, “Oh, my gosh, you have to know about this.” To which I think you always say, “Oh, sweetie, I do, but thank you [inaudible 00:50:43].” So, for our last destination, take me to a manor house, please and thank you.
[00:50:49] MEL: Okay. So, I’m actually going to give you the option to pick this time if you would like, because I have two ideas. One is a way, way back backlist, and the other one is a new book. So, what’s your pleasure?
ANNE: Way back, please.
MEL: Okay, you got it. I’m going to recommend the book The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate. It was published in 1981. It’s just 200 pages long. It’s another one of these like short, punch-you-in-the-face kind of books. It’s really well put together.
And I learned recently that this book was the inspiration for the movie Gosford Park. For people who are not familiar, Gosford Park is from the year 2000. It’s a Robert Altman film. What he wanted to do was take the traditional manor house murder mystery and instead of focusing on the murder, make it a character-driven drama about the relationships between the characters and specifically the relationship between the rich people upstairs and the people doing the work downstairs.
[00:52:00] So the movie itself has everything you want. It’s got a gorgeous house. It has beautiful 1930s costumes. It has really terrible posh people saying sarcastically funny things. Really complex relationships.
And there is a murder, and there is a little bit of investigation. But the murder is a little bit beside the point because it’s more about the people. That is exactly what this book The Shooting Party is like. It tells the story of a bunch of posh people who get together in the autumn before World War I to have a hunting party.
It is snarky and there are very few likable characters. And I don’t usually go for books without likable characters, but this thing is so entertaining and has such atmosphere. I absolutely loved it. It makes me want to use the word “droll”.
ANNE: That’s a great word.
[00:53:01] MEL: Anne, if you wanted to read that and pair it with a nonfiction, like if you’re really into Downton Abbey and this whole manor house thing, there is an author named Adrian Tinniswood. He’s a historian. He’s written 18 books about social history and architecture. And he has a trilogy about life in country houses.
The one I’m going to most recommend just because of the timing is The Power and the Glory: The Country House Before the Great War. That one covers the Victorian era.
But he also has two others, one set between the two wars and one set after World War II. So if The Remains of the Day is like a book you love, then you might like Adrian Tinniswood’s book about post-World War II country house. That was a lot of manor house stuff to throw at you.
[00:53:55] ANNE: I’m excited about a little bit of armchair travel to this manor house. But y’all are doing it for real. Would you tell our listeners a little bit about the experience you’re hosting and also if you might do it again since you sold out in the jiffy?
MEL: Yes. So we found a manor house called Trevor Hall in North Wales. It’s an Edwardian mansion with 10 bedrooms and it was purchased by this woman and her husband, Lewis and Louise Parker. They were rock show promoters in the U.K. in the 80s and moved from London to this manor house. So the way it’s decorated, it has all the bones of an Edwardian and Victorian home. There’s beautiful wallpaper, it’s got the chandeliers, the candelabras, the beautiful wood. But because they come from the rock and roll world, they updated the decor with other things they love. So it’s both modern and a nod to the past. It’s really kind of quirky and eclectic.
[00:54:55] So it’s perfect for what we’re doing because we are trying to have a traditional country house party updated for 2025. And we are really hoping that we will do it again. We want to do this one to make sure it goes smoothly and everybody has a good time.
DAVE: Yeah. So we’ve taken the house and in that house we are going to have a cocktail party, we’re going to have a tea party, we’re going to have a book club. Everyone’s going to pick out a book before we get there and we’re all going to read it and talk about it when we get there.
We’re having a fancy dinner. And then after the fancy dinner we’re having a magician come in from London. We wanted to do a seance and he does sort of a not a scary act but a creepy act. And he’s coming up to do his show in the parlor. I’m very excited about all of that.
[00:55:53] ANNE: That sounds like a good time. Remind us when this is happening.
MEL: It’s happening in October 2025 and then shortly thereafter I suspect we’ll be ready to announce if and when it’s happening again. If people are interested they can sign up for our free Substack and we’ll be announcing it there and on our podcast.
ANNE: I mean no pressure everybody but if you’re going we need you to have a good time. We want Mel and Dave to do this again.
ANNE: Thank you so much for these recommendations and for taking a little literary trip around the world with me. I really enjoyed hearing what you recommended and I look forward to reading both so I can vicariously experience places I don’t expect to get to anytime soon and so I can be ready to go to New Orleans and know which restaurant to report back to Dave on. So thank you for that as well.
DAVE: It’s always a pleasure to talk to you, Anne.
MEL: Please, please have the fried bologna sandwich with crushed up potato chips on it.
ANNE: I gotta say that’s not calling my name but I would do this for you. I would. You know what? When in New Orleans, if that’s the thing you gotta try then like maybe I’ll be surprised. Maybe it’ll be like that sci-fi novel I didn’t know I needed to read. Maybe that’s what the fried bologna sandwich will be in my life with the crushed-up potato chips.
[00:57:06] Readers, I hope you enjoyed listening to our conversation with Mel and Dave today and that our conversation put new titles or destinations on your reading radar as well. Find Mel and Dave at their website. I think this is your online hub. Is that fair? StrongSenseofPlace.com?
MEL: That’s correct.
ANNE: Check out their podcast, Strong Sense of Place. We’ve got those links and the full list of titles we discussed today at our show notes page at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
One of those places is Substack. Y’all, I subscribed, it just shows up in my feed. How can people find you on Substack?
MEL: I think the easiest way is to go to strongsenseofplace.com/signup and then it will magically show up in your inbox.
ANNE: Like magic. And then you’ll get their links and their 15 books set in Prague and you’ll find out about new episodes.
MEL: Exactly.
ANNE: Yay. We would love for you to keep up with our latest news and happenings at What Should I Read Next?. Sign up for free handwritten updates at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.
And with two podcasters joining me today, I can say please subscribe to our shows. It helps us so much subscribing and actually downloading those episodes. Podcasting is a weird place right now. It’s tricky. And this helps in a real way. So follow along and subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify. I like Overcast.
MEL: Where do you all listen to your podcasts? I use Downcast, which has been around forever.
ANNE: Old school. Wherever you get your podcasts, sign up so you’re in the know.
We are on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext. You can follow Mel and Dave @strongsenseof.
For What Should I Read Next, thanks to the people who make the show happen. We’re created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wilkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Productions. And thank you again to Mel and Dave for joining us for this episode. Readers, that is it for today. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” Happy reading, everyone.
