Read With Us Lounge: 8/31/26

 

As our summer together in the Read With Us Lounge comes to an end, I want to say a big thank-you to everyone who joined in, whether you participated in every discussion, dropped by occasionally, or simply kept the Lounge in the back of your mind as you made your way through your summer reading.

When we started, the goal was pretty simple: No Rules. Just Fun. We hoped to make reading feel a little less like a checklist and a little more like an adventure. I wanted us to challenge some of our usual reading habits, try books we might not otherwise pick up, and most of all, have fun talking about books with other readers.

So, before we close the Lounge for the summer, I'd love to hear what you thought!

Did you enjoy the Read With Us Lounge?

A few questions to get the conversation started:

• What did you enjoy most about the Lounge?

• Did you discover a book, author, or type of book you wouldn't have tried otherwise?

• Did any of our prompts change the way you thought about your reading?

• Was there a particular discussion or post that stayed with you?

• Did you enjoy having the freedom to read whatever you wanted, rather than following a traditional book-club reading list (and no Book Bingo cards)?

• Was there anything you would change if/when we do this again?

• Would you participate in another Read With Us Lounge?

• And, maybe most importantly, did the Lounge help make your summer reading more enjoyable?

I’ve loved seeing what everyone has been reading and hearing your thoughts along the way. One of my favorite things about this group has been discovering how differently we can respond to the same book, and how much we can learn from someone whose reading tastes or life experiences are completely different from our own.

Thank you for making the Lounge such a welcoming place for readers. I hope you've maybe found a few new favorites, reconsidered a few old reading rules, and added some books to your ever-growing TBR pile.

Now it's your turn: tell me what you thought! And if you have ideas for what a future Read With Us Lounge might look like, I'd love to hear those, too.

Happy reading, and thank you for spending part of your summer with us!

======

One last chance! As a small token of our appreciation, we'd love to send you a thank-you gift for participating in the Read With Us Lounge. If you're comfortable sharing your mailing address, please send it to me via email (highlyreasonableATgmailDOTcom) and we'll get your parting gift on its way in a bit. Thanks again; we really appreciate your commitment to our "No Rules. Just Fun!" philosophy.  

 

Read With Us Lounge: 8/24/26

Hello and welcome to my penultimate Read With Us Lounge post. One of the things I’ve been trying to do as part of the Read With Us Lounge this summer is expand my reading. Not read more books, but read differently, especially books by people whose lives and experiences are very different from my own.

That raises an interesting question: Do books have to be “relatable” for us to enjoy or appreciate them? We hear that word all the time when people talk about books. I really related to this character. It was so relatable! Sometimes that connection is exactly what makes a book meaningful. It can be comforting to recognize ourselves in another person’s experiences, thoughts, fears, or mistakes. But I wonder if we sometimes ask too much of books when we expect them to reflect our own lives.

One of the books that first made me think about this was Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur, which the Read With Us group read back in 2020. Brodeur’s memoir describes a complicated relationship with her mother and the enormous secret she was drawn into as a teenager. Her family dynamics, choices, and experiences were very far removed from my own life. And yet I found the book fascinating. I wasn't fascinated because I recognized myself in Brodeur. I was captivated because she gave me a window into a life I had never experienced, and into the complicated ways people can love one another, hurt one another, and become entangled in one another’s choices.

This summer, I’ve read several other memoirs that have taken me well outside my own experience. Sober Mom by Elizabeth Jannuzzi introduced me to the experience of a suburban mother struggling with alcohol addiction. Homeschooled by Stefan Merrill Block gave me a glimpse into a childhood and family structure very different from anything I knew. And Little Princesses by Marion Crawford offered a fascinating look at life inside the British royal family through the woman who served as governess to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

I am not a homeschooled royal alcoholic. The only thing I really have in common with these authors is that I am a fellow human being. And maybe that is enough.

Reading about people whose lives are completely different from ours can be a reminder that we don't need to have the same experiences in order to recognize something of ourselves in another person. We can recognize fear without having experienced the same thing that frightened someone else. We can understand loneliness without having lived the same kind of loneliness. We can recognize love, shame, jealousy, grief, ambition, regret, or hope even when the circumstances surrounding those emotions are completely unfamiliar. That may be one of the great gifts of reading.

A book doesn't always have to say, “This is just like my life.” Sometimes it can say, “This is nothing like my life, but now I understand a little more about someone else's.” And that seems especially valuable right now. It is very easy to make assumptions about people whose lives look different from ours. We can reduce someone to a label, an experience, a mistake, or a set of circumstances we don't understand. But spending several hours inside someone else's story can make that person more complicated, more human, and harder to dismiss.

Does reading automatically make us more empathetic? Probably not. But I think it can give empathy somewhere to begin. I will never understand exactly what it is like to be an alcoholic (hopefully), to be homeschooled, or to grow up in the royal household. But after reading these books, I have a little more understanding of people who have lived those lives. And perhaps the next time I encounter someone whose experiences are completely different from mine, I'll be a little less quick to judge.

What about you? Tell me about a book that expanded your empathy precisely because it felt unfamiliar. What did you learn from entering a life that was very different from your own? Did reading about that experience change the way you thought about the people who live it? And, just as importantly: Do you think a book needs to be “relatable” for you to love it?

====== 

Thank you for your participation in the RWU Lounge. We we weren't exactly sure if our "anti-book bingo" idea would work but you have helped to make it a rousing success with your thoughtful comments and discussion, no matter what the topic was. As a small token of our appreciation, we'd love to send you a thank-you gift. If you're comfortable sharing your mailing address, please send it to me via email (highlyreasonableATgmailDOTcom) and we'll get your parting gift on its way in a bit. Thanks again; we really appreciate your commitment to our "No Rules. Just Fun!" philosophy. 

Read With Us Lounge: 8/17/26

  

For the Read With Us Lounge, we spend a lot of time talking about books we love. But every now and then, an interesting question comes up: What actually makes a book good?

It sounds like a simple question, but the more you think about it, the harder it becomes to answer. Is a good book beautifully written? Does it need to move us emotionally? Should it surprise us with something we've never encountered before? Is a book better if we want to read it again or if it challenges us the first time through? Maybe the most interesting answer is that a “good” book doesn't have to succeed in just one way

Beauty of Language

Some books stay with us because of the sentences themselves. We pause over a phrase, reread a paragraph, or find ourselves thinking about a particular image days later.

Beautiful language can make an ordinary moment feel extraordinary. It can create atmosphere, reveal character, or make us notice something about the world that we hadn't noticed before. Sometimes, we love a book simply because we love being inside its prose.

But does beautiful writing automatically make a book good? Probably not. A gorgeous sentence can't necessarily rescue a story that leaves us cold.

Emotional Impact

Then there are the books that make us feel.

We may laugh, cry, become angry, feel unsettled, or recognize ourselves in a character. Sometimes a book changes our understanding of an experience we have never personally had.

Emotional impact can be powerful, but it is also deeply personal. One reader may be devastated by a novel while another barely reacts. Does that mean one reader is “right” or is the emotional experience itself part of what makes reading so subjective?

Originality

We often praise books for being original. We want ideas, characters, structures, or perspectives that feel fresh.

But originality is complicated. Very few stories are completely new. Writers are always borrowing, adapting, responding to, and reinventing what came before. Sometimes the most impressive books aren't the ones with entirely new ideas, but the ones that take familiar ideas and make us see them differently.

Perhaps originality isn't about inventing something from nothing. Perhaps it's about making something familiar feel new.

Rereadability

Here's another test: Would you read it again?

Some books are thrilling on a first read but don't necessarily call us back. Others seem to become richer each time we return to them. On a second or third reading, we notice foreshadowing, hidden details, patterns in the language, or meanings we couldn't have seen before.

But rereadability isn't the only measure of quality. Some books are difficult, painful, or exhausting, and we may be grateful we read them once without ever wanting to read them again. A book doesn't necessarily have to be comforting or enjoyable to be worthwhile.

Difficulty

Which brings us to another tricky question: Does a good book have to be difficult?

There's a temptation to equate difficulty with seriousness or intelligence. We sometimes assume that if a book takes effort to understand, it must be more valuable than one we read quickly and easily.

But reading pleasure matters, too. A book can be deceptively simple and still be profound. A straightforward story can contain enormous emotional or philosophical depth. Maybe difficulty is best understood not as a measure of quality, but as one possible kind of reading experience.

So What Makes a Book Good?

Maybe the answer depends on what we ask a book to do.

A good book might give us language we want to savor. It might make us feel something deeply. It might challenge our assumptions, introduce us to an unfamiliar perspective, or make an old idea feel new. It might reward rereading, or simply give us an unforgettable experience the first time.

And perhaps the most important thing is that “good” doesn't have to mean “universally enjoyable.”

A book can be beautifully written and not be for us. A novel can have brilliant ideas but fail to move us. A book we adore might be one that another reader finds tedious. Those differences aren't necessarily a problem. They're part of what makes a reading community interesting.

So this summer, instead of asking only Did you like it?, we can try asking a few different questions:

What did this book do well?

What did it make you feel or think about?

What, if anything, will stay with you?

Would you read it again? Why or why not?

And perhaps the best question of all:

What makes you call a book “good”?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Bring your favorite book, your most controversial opinion, or the book you can't stop thinking about, and let's compare our definitions of “good.”

====== 

Thank you for your participation in the RWU Lounge. We we weren't exactly sure if our "anti-book bingo" idea would work but you have helped to make it a rousing success with your thoughtful comments and discussion, no matter what the topic was. As a small token of our appreciation, we'd love to send you a thank-you gift. If you're comfortable sharing your mailing address, please send it to me via email (highlyreasonableATgmailDOTcom) and we'll get your parting gift on its way in a bit. Thanks again; we really appreciate your commitment to our "No Rules. Just Fun!" philosophy.

Read With Us Lounge: 8/10/26

 

Lately, I've noticed something about my reading.

When I finish a book, I don't necessarily want to be devastated. I don't need shocking plot twists, morally bankrupt characters, or another reminder that people can be greedy, corrupt, and dishonest. I can get all of that and more evil by reading the news for about thirty seconds.

Instead, I've found myself gravitating toward books that leave me feeling ... better. Not because they're saccharine or unrealistic, but because they remind me that kindness still exists. That decency matters. That ordinary people can choose compassion and doing the right thing over selfishness.

I'm talking about books with good and honorable characters. Not perfect characters. Those are usually boring. I mean people who make mistakes, struggle, doubt themselves, and sometimes fail, but who keep trying to do the right thing anyway. The kind of characters who make you think, I wish this person lived next door and I wish I knew them in real life.

There's something deeply comforting and even restorative about spending a few hundred pages with people who treat one another with generosity, loyalty, humor, or quiet courage. Their worlds may still contain grief, disappointment, or hardship, but the stories never leave me feeling cynical. Instead, they remind me that goodness hasn't disappeared.

Maybe that's why many of us return again and again to authors like Anne Tyler, James Herriot, or Fredrik Backman. Their books don't pretend life is easy. They simply insist that even difficult lives can be filled with grace, forgiveness, friendship, and small acts of kindness. These stories don't ignore reality; they balance it.

Some books that have given me this feeling include The Shell Seekers, All Creatures Great and Small, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and A Man Called Ove. None of them pretend life is perfect. They all contain loss, disappointment, and hardship. But they also remind me that integrity, kindness, and generosity are still worth celebrating, and sometimes that's exactly the kind of story I need.

Sometimes I think we underestimate the value of hope in literature. We praise books that challenge us or break our hearts, and they certainly have their place. But I also think there's real literary merit in a novel that quietly restores your faith in people. In a world that often feels loud, angry, and exhausting, reading can become more than entertainment. It can be a way of reminding ourselves of the kind of people we want to be and the kind of world we'd like to help create.

So my question this week is a simple one:

What book(s) left you happier than when you started?

Not because everything worked out perfectly. Not because it wrapped everything up with a neat little bow. But because spending time with those characters made you feel just a little more hopeful about humanity. I'd love to add a few more of those books to my ever-growing TBR pile.

====== 

Thank you for your participation in the RWU Lounge. We we weren't exactly sure if our "anti-book bingo" idea would work but you have helped to make it a rousing success with your thoughtful comments and discussion, no matter what the topic was. As a small token of our appreciation, we'd love to send you a thank-you gift. If you're comfortable sharing your mailing address, please send it to me via email (highlyreasonableATgmailDOTcom) and we'll get your parting gift on its way in a bit. Thanks again; we really appreciate your commitment to our "No Rules. Just Fun!" philosophy.

Read With Us Lounge: 8/3/26

One of the main ideas behind the Read With Us Lounge has been that reading should bring us more freedom, not more rules.

Many of us carry around an invisible list of "shoulds" when it comes to reading. We should finish every book we start. We should read the classics. We should read books in order. We should read the book before watching the movie. We should always start at page one and never, ever peek at the ending. You don't write in your books and you never dog-ear pages. Audiobooks don't count as "real" reading. 

But where did all those rules come from? And more importantly ... do they actually make us happier readers?

I've known people who read the last chapter first. At first, that sounded completely wrong to me. Wouldn't it spoil the whole book? Then I heard someone explain that knowing the ending allows them to relax and enjoy the journey. Instead of wondering what will happen, they pay attention to how the author gets there. They notice the breadcrumbs, the small moments, the clever turns of phrase that might otherwise be overlooked. I don't personally read that way, but I understand the appeal now.

I'm not about to make more reading rules, but I hereby declare that yes, audiobooks are real reading (for me, anyway.) I think that many audiobooks bring me one step closer to a story, removing the middleman of paper or a screen. 

Whether you're turning pages or listening while driving, walking, knitting, folding laundry, or pulling weeds in the garden, you're still experiencing the author's story. You're meeting the characters, following the plot, laughing, wondering, learning, and sometimes crying. The words are reaching you through your ears instead of your eyes, but they are still the author's words. In fact, stories were spoken long before they were printed. Listening isn't a lesser form of reading; it connects us to one of humanity's oldest traditions.

Once you start questioning one reading rule, it's amazing how many others begin to fall away.

Maybe you like to read several books at once because your mood changes from day to day. Maybe you reread favorite books every few years because they become different books as you become a different reader. Maybe you skip long descriptions, read mysteries only after someone has spoiled the ending, abandon books that aren't working, or spend an entire summer reading nothing but memoirs. None of those habits make you a "bad" reader. They simply make you your kind of reader.

That's one of the reasons we wanted this group to exist. Not to tell us what we should be reading or how we should be reading it, but to remind us that there are countless ways to build a reading life. The goal isn't to read the "right" books or the "right" way. I think it's to keep reading in ways that make us curious, joyful, comforted, challenged, or simply happy to pick up the next book.

So this week, I'm curious...

What's one reading "rule" you've broken? How did it affect your reading life?

Please share your reading quirks. I have a feeling many of us may discover we're not nearly as unusual as we thought.

Be sure and visit Kym and Carole to see what they're talking about today. 

 

Read With Us Lounge: 7/27/26

In keeping with the RWU Lounge motto (No Rules, Just Fun), I've been thinking about book covers and how they can affect so much, like whether I take a closer look at the book, whether I choose to check it out, and my impressions of the story before I even begin. 

There's an old saying that we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover. It's good advice for people. For books? I'm not so sure.

The truth is, I judge books by their covers all the time.

Not completely, of course. A beautiful cover won't make me love a bad book, and an ugly cover won't keep me from reading something that's been highly recommended. But covers absolutely influence what catches my eye in the library, what I linger over in a bookstore, and even what I click on when I'm browsing ebooks.

A cover is often my first conversation with a book.

Sometimes it's the colors. Sometimes it's the typography. Sometimes it's an illustration that makes me wonder, What's going on here? Other times it's the opposite; a cover feels so generic that I pass it by without giving it a second thought.

What's interesting is that covers don't just persuade us to pick up a book. They also quietly shape our expectations before we've read a single sentence.

A moody landscape tells me to expect something literary and introspective. Bright illustrated figures make me think the book might be funny or heartwarming. A house in the woods? Probably secrets. Flowers and birds? Maybe historical fiction. Bold block letters? Perhaps nonfiction or a thriller. Whether those assumptions turn out to be right is another matter entirely.

Sometimes a cover prepares me perfectly for what's inside. Other times it feels like it belongs to an entirely different book.

I've also noticed that once I've read a book, I often see the cover differently. An image that seemed ordinary suddenly feels full of meaning because I understand the references. Colors, objects, and little design choices take on significance that I completely missed the first time around.

And then there are those books that get redesigned. Occasionally I love the new edition, but sometimes I find myself strangely loyal to the cover I first encountered. It's as if that's the "real" book in my memory, even though the words inside haven't changed.

It's fascinating to think about how much work a cover has to do. In one image, it has to attract attention, hint at the mood, appeal to the intended audience, and somehow stand out among thousands of other books competing for our attention.

No pressure!

How much do book covers influence your reading?

• Have you ever picked up a book because of its cover?

• Have you ever avoided one because the cover didn't appeal to you?

• Is there a cover you absolutely love, even if the book itself wasn't a favorite?

• Have you ever been surprised by how different a book was from what its cover suggested?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Maybe we aren't supposed to judge books by their covers, but I have a feeling every reader does, at least a little.

Bonus: A little extra story about the cover for John of John by Douglas Stuart. 

Read With Us Lounge: 7/20/26

The other night I watched Hamnet on Netflix, which sent me back to thinking about Maggie O'Farrell's novel; it is one of my favorite books of the past few years. While Hamnet isn't exactly a retelling of Hamlet, it feels connected to it in fascinating ways. Rather than reimagining Shakespeare's play, it imagines the grief that may have inspired it, making Shakespeare himself seem less like an untouchable literary giant and more like a husband, a father, and a person trying to make sense of loss.

It made me wonder why we're so drawn to retellings, or perhaps more accurately, to books that revisit familiar stories from a new angle. Why do we keep retelling stories?

Retellings have become almost a genre of their own. We see Greek myths told from the perspective of overlooked women (Circe and A Thousand Ships), fairy tales with unexpected heroes (Spindle's End), Jane Austen novels transplanted into modern settings (Bridget Jones's Diary), and Shakespeare plays viewed through entirely different eyes. David Copperfield has been relocated from Victorian England to Appalachia and is now a character talking about the opioid epidemic. I thought Lady Tremaine was an exceptionally well-crafted reimagining that doesn’t simply flip the script on Cinderella’s “wicked stepmother,” but interrogates how such a woman might have come to be called wicked in the first place. Many of these begin with the same impulse: What if we looked at this story differently? What if we gave another character the microphone? What happened before, or after, the version everyone knows?

Perhaps familiar stories give us a place to stand while we explore something new. We already know where the road goes, so we can pay closer attention to the scenery along the way. Or maybe every generation simply wants to ask its own questions of the stories it inherits.

Some retellings stay very close to their source material, while others barely resemble the original by the time they're finished. At what point does a retelling become an entirely new work? Is it enough to borrow a few characters or themes, or does the original need to remain recognizable? Does it matter whether you've read the source material at all?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

• What retelling changed the way you saw the original story? Think about myths, fairy tales, Shakespeare, classics, or even fanfiction-inspired retellings.

• Why do you think we're so drawn to revisiting old stories through modern lenses?

• When does a retelling become its own story? How much of the original needs to remain recognizable?

• Have you ever read a retelling before reading the original? Did it change your experience?

• Are there stories you think deserve more retellings, or stories that should simply be left alone?

Be sure and visit Kym and Carole to see what they're talking about today.   

Read With Us Lounge: 7/13/26

In keeping with the RWU Lounge motto (No Rules, Just Fun), I'd like to talk about childhood favorites today, not just for children.

Recently, I relistened to Charlotte's Web, narrated by E. B. White himself. If you've never heard it, it's a treasure. His quiet, unhurried voice feels exactly right for the story, gentle, warm, and completely without fuss. I'd forgotten how much emotion he can convey with the simplest sentences.

Then Kat mentioned reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which reminded me how much I've always loved Kate DiCamillo. Before long, I was looking up some old favorites, Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux, along with several I'd somehow never gotten around to reading: The Magician's Elephant, The Tiger Rising, The Puppets of Spelhorst, and Lost Evangeline.

As I read interviews with DiCamillo, trying to better understand what it was about her writing that I (and so many others ) are drawn to, I came across a quote that stopped me in my tracks. Speaking to the Orlando Sentinel, she explained that she always tries to leave room for the reader to read between the lines. She said she has tried to emulate E. B. White:

"He's using the same words we're all using. It must be that stripped-away quality, his heart is resting more on each word, and that's what I'm always trying to do."

The moment I read those words, something clicked.

I've often wondered why E. B. White and Kate DiCamillo feel so similar to me, even though they're writing decades apart. This quote explained it perfectly. Neither writer relies on elaborate language or flashy storytelling. Instead, they trust ordinary words to carry extraordinary feelings. They leave space for the reader. They never tell us exactly what to think or feel; they invite us there instead.

Maybe that's one reason so many children's books become lifelong companions. The best ones appeal to both children and adults. They're for anyone willing to approach them with an open heart. They ask big questions about love, loss, friendship, courage, loneliness, hope, and what it means to be kind. We simply hear different answers at different ages. The best children's books explore universal themes with remarkable clarity and without unnecessary cynicism. Rereading them as adults often reveals layers of wisdom and craftsmanship that we were too young to appreciate the first time. That's why I'm rereading some of them now.

So today I'm curious:

• Have you revisited a favorite from childhood recently? Did it hold up? Did it surprise you? Did it horrify you (like I just felt when I reread The Tale of Desperaux)?

• Have you discovered a children's or young adult novel as an adult and wondered where it had been all your life? 

• Or maybe you've found that children's literature is best read by children. I'd love to know what your experience has been. 

Be sure and visit Kym and Carole to see what they're talking about today.   

 

Read With Us Lounge: 7/6/26

 

Welcome back to the Read With us Lounge! Today Kym, Carole, and I are all talking about the same topic: Do you finish every book you begin? Or are you comfortable setting a book aside?

When we were planning the RWU Lounge topics, I thought I knew exactly where I stood with this one. Life is too short, there are too many wonderful books waiting to be read, and if a book isn't working, why not move on?

Then last week happened.

I checked out Land by Maggie O'Farrell, and from the very first pages I was completely under its spell. The novel opens with a father and son, Tomás and Liam respectively, working for the British Ordnance Survey in Ireland, ten or fifteen years after the Great Hunger. They are recording the empty homes and graveyards scarred by the famine. 

I quickly realized that the Great Hunger was so much more than the simple "potato famine" I learned about in school. The history felt richer, sadder, and far more complicated than I had ever understood. I couldn't read fast enough, but then I ran into trouble.

The story shifts into a family saga, and the hardships become relentless. Page after page, there seemed to be no relief, and it felt as if it had been written by a different author. At first I kept telling myself to push through. Surely my patience would be rewarded and it would all come together somehow. 

But then I noticed something. I wasn't looking forward to picking the book up each evening. In fact, I was actively dreading it. That was when I knew it was time to return the library book without finishing it. And I felt terrible.

Part of that was because I admire Maggie O'Farrell so much. I loved Hamnet, and I thoroughly enjoyed The Marriage Portrait. She's an author whose work I genuinely look forward to reading. Her prose is exquisite and evocative, her characters feel completely alive, and she always seems to have something meaningful to say.

So this wasn't a matter of disliking the writing or deciding an author wasn't for me. It was almost the opposite. I respected the book so much that setting it aside felt like giving up on something important. Maybe there was something wrong with me as a reader or I had missed some crucial details.

This experience made me realize that deciding not to finish a book isn't always as simple as I had thought. Sometimes the decision is easy. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you stop because a book isn't good. Other times you stop because it's too heavy for where you are right now, or because it's asking something of you that you simply can't give. But whatever the reason, I still believe that readers shouldn't feel obligated to finish every book they begin.

But now I understand that choosing to DNF a book can come with a surprising amount of guilt, especially when it's written by an author you deeply admire, and especially when it's a book you were certain you were going to love. So I'm curious.

Have you ever stopped reading a book that you actually thought was excellent? Have you ever returned a book unfinished, not because it was poorly written, but because it simply wasn't the right book for you at that moment? Or do you make a concerted effort to finish almost every book you begin?

I'd love to hear your stories!

Be sure to check in with Kym and Carole to see what they have to say about finishing what you start.  

Read With Us Lounge: 6/29/26

Welcome back to the Read With Us Lounge!

This week, I have a question that's been simmering in the back of my mind:

Why does food writing affect us so deeply?

Or maybe it doesn't affect you that way at all. That's part of what makes these conversations interesting.

Food shows up everywhere in literature. Sometimes it's a lavish feast. Part of why I loved reading Redwall with my kids was because of the vivid descriptions of the feasts. Sometimes it's a simple cup of tea, a sandwich, or a bowl of soup. Yet those scenes often linger in our memories long after we've forgotten other details of the story.  

Why is that?

Food is one of the most universal experiences we share. We all eat. We all have favorite foods, comfort foods, foods tied to celebrations, and foods connected to people we've loved. A description of a meal can evoke memories, emotions, and even physical sensations. Reading about cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven or tomatoes warm from the garden can make us feel as though we're right there at the table.

Food also tells us something about people. What they cook, what they crave, what they refuse to eat, and who they share meals with can reveal character in ways that pages of exposition never could. A family dinner can expose tensions, a holiday meal can reveal traditions, and a simple act of cooking for someone can become an expression of love.

Some of my favorite food writing comes from Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. They're not cookbooks in the traditional sense. They're collections of essays about food, cooking, family, friendship, hospitality, and everyday life. Colwin understood that cooking is rarely just about the food itself. It's about caring for people, creating a home, making mistakes, celebrating successes, and gathering around a table. Reading her essays often feels like sitting in a kitchen with a wise and funny friend.

The best food writing seems to understand that meals are rarely just meals. They carry memories, relationships, hopes, disappointments, traditions, and sometimes entire histories. Food becomes a language all its own.

So this week's questions are:

• What books, memoirs, essays, or stories contain food scenes that have stayed with you?

• Is there a particular meal in a book that you still remember?

• Why do you think food writing can feel so intimate?

• Have you ever cooked something because you read about it in a book?

• Or are you completely unmoved by food writing and prefer your books with as little discussion of meals as possible?

As always, there are no right answers here. Read what you want, think what you think, and tell us about it. I'm looking forward to hearing what books and meals have found a place at your table this summer.

I think this prompt fits especially well with the Lounge's spirit of exploring how reading connects to everyday life and personal experience. It invites people to talk about books, but also about memory, family, and the stories we carry with us.

I hope you're enjoying hanging out in the Read With Us Lounge so far. Be sure and visit Kym and Carole to see what they're talking about today.  

Read With Us Lounge: 6/22/26

One of the things I hope we'll do together in the Read With Us Summer Reading Lounge is question some of the assumptions we carry around about books and reading. So my question this week is:

What makes a book "summer reading"?

When someone says they're looking for a good summer read, most of us probably have an idea of what that means. But when you stop and think about it, it's surprisingly difficult to define.

Is it the setting? A book that takes place at the beach, on vacation, or during a long hot summer?

Is it the tone? Something light, fun, and easy to read while sitting on a porch or beside a pool?

Is it the pacing? A page-turner that keeps you reading long after you planned to turn out the light?

Or maybe it's nostalgia. Perhaps a "summer read" is whatever reminds us of childhood summers when school was out and we had long stretches of time to disappear into a book.

It could even be marketing. Publishers and booksellers certainly have ideas about what belongs on a summer reading list, and every year we see displays filled with the latest beach reads, thrillers, romances, and family dramas.

It could simply be reading that happens in the summer. 

But I wonder if summer reading is really much more personal than that.

For some people, summer is the season when they finally have time to tackle a long classic they've been putting off for years. For others, it's the perfect time for mysteries, romance novels, memoirs, graphic novels, or rereading old favorites. Maybe a summer read is simply any book that arrives at the right moment.

I know my own definition has changed over the years. There was a time when I would have said summer reading was light and entertaining, like when I used to check out ten Nancy Drew mysteries from the library. Now I'm not so sure. Some of my most memorable summer reading experiences have involved books that were thoughtful, challenging, or even a little difficult.

So I'm curious:

• What makes a book feel like summer reading to you?

• Are there certain genres you gravitate toward in the summer?

• Do you intentionally choose lighter books, or do you read whatever appeals to you?

• Can a serious or literary novel be a perfect summer read?

• What's the best "summer reading" book you've ever read, and what made it feel that way?

As always in the Read With Us Summer Reading Lounge, there are no wrong answers and no reading rules. Read what you want, when you want, and tell us about it. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

I like this question because it gets at one of the themes of the Lounge: challenging the idea that there is a "right" way to read or a particular kind of book we should be reading at any given time.

I hope you're enjoying hanging out in the Read With Us Lounge so far. Be sure and visit Kym and Carole to see what they're talking about today.  

Read With Us Lounge: 6/15/26

I've been forced to change my comment settings because I was inundated with stupid spam. Currently it's set for users with Google accounts. I'm sorry to do this and don't mean to make things more cumbersome for my valued readers as I do appreciate your comments. I also chose to moderate all comments, so please submit your comments (just once!) and they will be visible after I moderate and publish them. Sorry and thank you! Now, back to the much more relaxing Read With Us Lounge.

Today in the Read With Us Lounge I'm wondering if star ratings help or flatten the reading experience? Can a deeply meaningful book still be just 3 stars?

If you've spent any time on Goodreads, StoryGraph, or Bookstagram, you've probably noticed that star ratings have become one of the dominant ways we talk about books. Before we know anything about a novel's themes, characters, or emotional impact, we often know whether someone gave it two stars or five.

But what do those stars actually tell us?

Star ratings are useful. They offer a quick shorthand for our reactions and help us keep track of what we've read. They can guide recommendations and make it easier to spot patterns in our own reading lives. Looking back at a year's worth of books, a rating system can reveal surprising things about our tastes.

But I think star ratings can also flatten the reading experience. A single number has to carry the weight of hundreds of pages, dozens of emotions, and countless personal connections. The result is that books with very different strengths and weaknesses often end up receiving the same score.

Think about two books you rated three stars. One may have been a perfectly competent novel that entertained you for a weekend and was forgotten a month later. I would choose On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan for this example. Lovely prose but not much else for me. The other may have been a challenging, flawed, but unforgettable work that raised difficult questions and stayed in your mind for a long time. This one for me is Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande. I probably think about this book at least six or eight times a year. My star ratings are identical, but my experiences were not.

This raises an interesting question for me: Can a deeply meaningful book still be just three stars?

I would answer yes.

We often assume that ratings measure importance, but they may actually measure enjoyment, or some combination of enjoyment, craft, originality, emotional impact, and personal timing. A book can be significant without being entirely successful. It can provoke thought without being pleasurable. It can change the way we see the world while also frustrating us as readers.

Some of the books that generate the best discussions fall into this category. They may have pacing issues, unlikeable characters, or uneven writing, yet they tackle subjects that linger long after the final page. We may admire them more than we enjoy them. We may be grateful we read them even if we would hesitate to recommend them broadly.

In book groups especially, the most interesting conversations often emerge from books that land somewhere in the middle. A universally beloved five-star read can generate enthusiastic agreement, but a three-star book can produce debate. Kym, Carole, and I have purposefully not chosen some books that we thought everyone would love (e.g. Tom Lake) because we were afraid there would be little discussion and we would all just sit around saying how much we enjoyed the book. Readers bring different experiences, values, and expectations, revealing just how subjective reading can be.

Perhaps the real limitation of star ratings is not that they exist, but that they sometimes become the entire conversation. I have long wished that Goodreads would allow for the awarding of half stars, but even that wouldn't really solve the star issue. When we focus too much on assigning a number, we risk overlooking the richer questions: Why did this book affect me? What challenged me? What frustrated me? What will I remember a year from now?

A star rating can capture a verdict, but it rarely captures the whole picture. Maybe I should stop depending on them so much! 

Things to think about:

• What factors influence your star ratings most: enjoyment, literary quality, emotional impact, originality, something else, or all of them together?

• Have you ever given three stars to a book that you still think about years later?

• Is there a difference between a "good" book and an "important" book?

• Do you rate books based on your personal experience or on what you believe the author achieved?

• Have star ratings changed the way you choose books or talk about them with other readers?

• If you had to give up either written reviews or star ratings, which would you keep?

Be sure and check with Kym and Carole to see what they're thinking about today!

Read With Us Lounge: 6/8/26

 

One of the quietest pressures many readers carry has nothing to do with time or attention span. It’s the endless chorus of reading “shoulds.”

We should read the classics.
We should read the prize winners.
We should finally tackle that intimidating novel everyone else seems to have read in college.
We should read serious books, educational books, important books.
We should read book series in order.
We should keep up with best sellers.
We should always have an audiobook going while we fold laundry, commute, exercise, or walk the dog.
We should finish every book we start.

At some point, reading can begin to feel less like pleasure and more like homework with no due date.

One of the things we hope to do in the Read With Us Lounge this summer is gently question those “shoulds.” Not because classics or award winners or ambitious reading goals are bad (they absolutely aren’t) but because reading is deeply personal, and our reading lives change over time. The books that nourish us at one stage of life may not be the books we need at another.

Sometimes the most meaningful reading experience comes from picking up the exact “wrong” book at the exact right moment.

Maybe you discover that you actually prefer reading contemporary romance to literary fiction. Maybe you abandon a 600-page masterpiece halfway through and feel relieved instead of guilty. Maybe you read children’s books for comfort, reread old favorites from your teenage years, or spend an entire summer immersed in mysteries, cookbooks, essays, graphic novels, or cozy fantasy. Maybe you decide silence is better than forcing yourself to listen to audiobooks just because everyone else seems to multitask their reading.

Challenging our reading “shoulds” can feel surprisingly uncomfortable at first. Many of us learned early on that some books were “good for us” while others were considered fluff, escapism, or a waste of time. But joy matters. Curiosity matters. Rest matters. Reading for delight matters.

And often, when we let go of obligation, something unexpected happens: we read more honestly. We become more adventurous. We notice our real tastes instead of the tastes we think we’re supposed to have. We stop performing as readers and start becoming ourselves again.

That doesn’t mean abandoning challenging books forever. Sometimes we truly want to wrestle with a classic or work our way through a demanding nonfiction title. But there’s a difference between choosing a difficult book because we’re interested in it and forcing ourselves through it out of guilt or fear of not being “well read.”

This summer, consider asking yourself:

• What reading “shoulds” have shaped my reading life?

• Which ones actually enrich my reading experience?

• Which ones make reading feel stressful, competitive, or performative?

• What kinds of books do I secretly love?

• What would happen if I gave myself full permission to read exactly what I want?

Maybe the answer is that you really do love classics. Maybe the answer is dragon-filled fantasy novels, celebrity memoirs, nature writing, romance, rereading childhood favorites, or checking out giant stacks of random library books with no plan whatsoever.

All of it counts.

I'll start by admitting that I have occasionally chosen a book to read because it seems like everyone is reading it, and I don't want to miss out. The latest example of this is The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion. I checked out the first four volumes from hoopla and happily started listening. Over the course of a week, I thought that maybe I was just more interested in other books and returned them. I  tried twice more to listen to Volume I, and have finally decided these are just not for me. All telling, no showing, and just too much forced whimsy. I finally admitted that these books are just not for me at this time. I felt quite a sense of relief when I gave myself permission to stop trying and move on. 

Be sure and check with Kym and Carole for their take on reading "shoulds". 

So tell us: What “shoulds” do you carry around reading? Have you challenged any of them? And when you do, are you happier as a reader? We would love to know!  

Read With Us Lounge: 6/1/26

Welcome to the Read With Us Lounge, our brand-new online adult summer reading program!

This summer, we’re throwing out the rules, the pressure, the reading quotas, and the guilt. Read With Us Lounge is built around one simple idea: No rules. Just fun. 

We know that many of us carry around a lot of ideas about what “counts” as good reading. Maybe we think we should be reading more classics, more nonfiction, more award winners, fewer thrillers, fewer romances, fewer rereads, fewer graphic novels, listening to fewer audiobooks. Maybe we feel guilty for abandoning books or for reading something light when the world feels heavy.

This summer, we’d like to challenge those notions together.

Read With Us Lounge is an anti-book bingo experience. No rules. No assigned categories. No pressure to optimize your reading life. Just an open invitation to read whatever feels right to you.

Want to spend the summer immersed in cozy mysteries, giant fantasy novels, beach reads, food writing, poetry, fan fiction, childhood favorites, or books with dragons? Excellent. Want to reread beloved books instead of chasing the newest release? Wonderful. Want to listen to audiobooks while gardening or walking the dog? That's great, too.

Our goals are simple:

• Challenge the assumptions we hold about reading and books
• Encourage joyful, pressure-free reading
• Build camaraderie and community through questions, conversations, and shared experiences
• Gather for a couple of casual LOUNGE hang-outs via Zoom
• Distract ourselves from the daily horrors in the news for a little while

Throughout the summer, look for our blog posts on Mondays where we’ll post discussion prompts, conversation starters, and questions designed to get us thinking and talking. These are definitely not meant as a test of whether you “did the homework” because there is none. There are no reading minimums and no expectations except kindness and curiosity.

Think of the Lounge as a comfortable chair, a cold drink, a stack of books, and a group of fellow readers who are happy you showed up exactly as you are.

So bring your library stack, your neglected TBR pile, your weird reading habits, your favorite rereads, and your enthusiasm. Or your reading slump. Those are welcome too.

Read what you want. Join us in the Lounge this summer for No rules. Just fun.