I’m so excited for the launch of this new conversational podcast series, Books & Beyond! This series will be more than book recommendations (although there will be plenty of those)—it will be a space for real conversations about reading. In Books & Beyond, I’ll sit down with a different guest each episode to explore what’s on our reading minds. From the books we love to thoughts on publishing, reading goals, and the literary world at large, these conversations will go beyond the pages, providing a deeper dive into what it means to be a reader.
Today’s guest is my good friend Sara Hildreth. Many of you know Sara from her fantastic Fiction Matters Substack newsletter, but she’s also the creator of the thriving Fiction Matter’s Literary Society on Patreon and co-host of the Novel Pairings Podcast. You won’t be surprised to hear that Sara and I first connected over books, specifically Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro! Books are the great connectors and I’m thrilled to have Sara as my first podcast guest.
I hope you enjoy our bookish chat, we certainly covered a lot of literary ground, shared many book recs, and I thank Sara for helping me sort out my complicated feelings about star ratings ⭐️
Highlights of Our Discussion
Star Ratings - should they stay or should they go?
This year in publishing + Sara’s predictions
Reading trends
The state of Instagram + how we each feel
Sara’s mood reading methods and priorites
A delightful tangent about a book we both loved
Books we recently loved + those we’re looking forward to
Links to all the books mentioned, as well as the other newsletters discussed will be provided below. If all this sounds good to you, simply upgrade to paid today to enjoy our fun literary conversation
