Our favorite books of the year (so far)
Hey, listeners!
We love reflecting on our reading lives, so we couldn’t wait to put together an episode sharing our favorite books of the first half of the year. This episode is packed with bookish superlatives including best audiobooks, favorite debut novels, biggest disappointments, and the books that made us feel the most scholarly. Sharing superlatives lets us talk about a lot of books we might not get a chance to feature on the podcast otherwise, and we hope today’s episode puts some great new books on your TBR!
Listen to the episode in your favorite podcast app (don’t forget to rate and subscribe!).
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Coming up:
Next week we’re discussing Tennessee Williams’ classic play A Streetcar Named Desire. It’s a quick read, but it’s heavy so be sure to check out content warnings before diving in. While we were lukewarm on the play itself, we think we really outdid ourselves on the pairings this time around, including a few books that may surprise you! We’ll also be hosting a watch along of the Marlon Brando / Vivien Leigh film for our Patrons in August. We had so much fun at our last watch along and can’t wait to do it again. Sign up for our Patreon community at the $5 tier to join us!
In case you missed it, we shared our summer selections on IGTV and in an Instagram post.
Currently reading:
Sara recently read and enjoyed All’s Well by Mona Awad (it’s a great one for Shakespeare nerds!) and is about halfway through Sally Rooney’s newest Beautiful World, Where Are You. Chelsey is deciding what to read next after receiving an awesome indie bookstore hall that included All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle and Death Comes in Through the Kitchen by Teresa Dovalpage.
*You can support your favorite independent bookstores and get two Libro.fm audiobooks for the price of one by signing up with our link, or entering code NOVELPAIRINGS at checkout!
Where to find us:
Download episodes of Novel Pairings wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Check out our blog for bonus pairings, reading tips, and book recommendations. Find Chelsey at @chelseyreads or @hereadsheread. Find Sara at @fictionmatters and her newsletter. We love hearing what you’re reading, so tag us in your #bookstagram posts!
We declare after all, there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!
-Sara and Chelsey
Ended up borrowing way more books than I was planning to from this episode :) and my work bookclub felt the exact same way about Ariadne
Loved this podcast episode. I've read several from the list, and I have a few more that I'd like to read before some new shiny book catches my eye. There have been so many good books this year; there just isn't enough time to read everything I want to read.