Recreating the magic of your first reading experience

[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: Things are evolving, and I hope that’s a really good thing for everyone, for the writers and for the readers.

NATASHA GOVENDER: I hope so too. From our lips to publishers’ ears.

ANNE: 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. Every week we’ll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

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[00:01:22] Today’s guest has historically enjoyed tackling heavy topics and hard books. As the South African of Indian descent, Natasha Govender appreciates how reading real life stories especially from Indian, Middle Eastern and South African authors, help her connect with the human experiences behind the pages.

However, Natasha would love to bring more levity into her reading rotation. She especially wants to discover brown voices writing fantasy, thriller, middle grade, or just lighthearted tales rather than the heavier plots she often encounters.

When Natasha finds a book she loves, she’ll often reread it again and again. So today we’re looking to see if we can add new titles to Natasha’s to-be-read list that she’ll not only really connect with, but will love enough to want to reread. We’ll also explore the landscape of Brown voices offering stories that feel joyful, celebratory, or just plain fun.

[00:02:19] Natasha works by day as a marine biologist, and do we sneak in a duo of recs strictly because they may hold appeal for her because of her profession? You’ll have to listen to find out. But I bet you think you know the answer.

Readers, let’s get to it.

Natasha, welcome to the show.

NATASHA: Hey, Anne. I’m very excited to be here talking books with you. I have to vandal a little, even though I promised I wouldn’t to my husband because I’ve been listening to you for at least seven years. I found your podcast in those very, very first weeks as a first-time mom, which is generally a very vulnerable time. And I must say that it really helped me ground myself, find myself, and of course, find great books. I’m sitting here with this giant cup of tea, and I can’t wait to do this deep dive into my reading life with you.

[00:03:12] ANNE: Oh, thank you so much, Natasha. I’m so honored to be a part of your life and a part of such a significant transition and humbled that that is tied up with your early parenting years. Thank you.

NATASHA: Oh, no. Definitely. Thank you.

ANNE: Well, I’m excited to talk today. And thank you for being… You and I were just discussing this, but I believe you’re our first South African guest. So, thank you for coming on to the show to share your view from where you sit in the world about books and the reading life.

NATASHA: Oh, what a privilege to be here!

ANNE: Oh, I can’t wait to hear more. Okay, Natasha, we want to give the readers a glimpse of who you are. Tell us a little bit about where you are in the world and what you’re usually up to on a Tuesday morning. Or afternoon, because we don’t all listen at the same time.

NATASHA: Yeah, it is afternoon here where I am.

ANNE: You’re a quarter turn around the world from where I am in the U.S.

NATASHA: Exactly. So like you’ve already said, Anne, I’m South African of Indian descent. I live in Durban, which is a coastal city on South Africa’s east coast. I thought what I’d do is to paint a picture of where I live for your listeners who may not know Durban, because usually when people speak about South Africa, they’ll speak about Cape Town or Johannesburg.

[00:04:24] So I thought, let me give you an idea of Durban just using a quote from an author who grew up in Durban. Her name is Shubnum Khan, and she says, “Durban is a fever dream. The green is so lush, so full of wanting, it seems always to be trying to eat the city alive.” I think that’s a very apt way to describe my city.

ANNE: Natasha, Shubnum Khan. I was wondering if I might be recommending a Shubnum Khan book to you today, and you just introduced her into the conversation already. I love it. That’s a beautiful quote.

NATASHA: It really is. It was actually just something that she had put up as a reel on Instagram and I read it and I was like, Wow, this is so true. This is so true of Durban. It’s so green. It’s so lush. We’ve got the warm Mozambican current, which means we’ve got beautiful beaches, lovely weather. So yeah, very fortunate to be where I am.

I’m a mom of two boys, beautiful boys, seven and four years old, a wife, a marine biologist, and I spend way too much time in front of a computer in an office and too little time at the moment in the salty sea. But it’s the current season of life and I’m okay with that.

I obviously love reading. I’ve loved reading my whole life. And yeah, I think that’s me in a nutshell.

[00:05:41] ANNE: Natasha, tell us a little bit about your reading life. What does that look like right now?

NATASHA: All right. So this was the question that I was a little bit more nervous about getting too detailed about, but I’m just going to go for it. When I was little, I did not have access to many books. And now I know, obviously, that it’s a reality for the majority of South Africans, people just in general in the Global South. But nevertheless, I read everything we did have.

My aunt was one of the first people in my family to go to university, and she had this giant Webster dictionary, which I would page through. Now, I don’t know, Anne, if you’ve ever seen these huge Webster tomes. In addition to being a dictionary, like a third of the book has just interesting information at the back. So like, information about American presidents, information about famous authors and poems, quotes from books, random sections on science, and the universe, and star constellations. It was the most bizarre thing, but also most lovely for my inquiring mind. So it was one of the books I did have at home.

[00:06:54] I was also lucky that my dad worked in a printing press, and he would sometimes bring home these comic books, mostly Archie and Casper the Friendly Ghost, which I devoured over and over again. Those are my earliest memories of reading.

I think the next major book event for me was when I was in school around six or seven years old, and we had a tiny little library in my primary school, and I picked up Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree, and oh my gosh, I can still conjure that feeling of being transported to another land through story.

I was thinking today, you know, as I was thinking about talking to you, like, do all readers try to recapture that first reading experience? You know, recreating that magic of the first time a book really trapped you? So yeah, that was definitely the book for me.

[00:07:51] As I got older, I’d go to the library and I’d try to find books for myself. You know, as a teen, I went through a major horror phase. I went through also a fantasy phase of reading Anne Rice. I still love a good fantasy series, but I think nowadays I’m kind of your average reader. I will read anything regardless of genre, as long as it’s good.

I will say, however, that I don’t like overly dramatic young adult books. I think that phase has passed for me. But having said that, I do find myself gravitating to middle-grade fiction. I love the magic there and how stories are generally neatly wrapped up. I also find myself rereading more than ever before.

What I’m also finding at the moment is one of the most amazing things for me is the walls of children’s literature, obviously reading to my kids. I never had that growing up, so it’s really phenomenal to find these amazing kids’ books, share it with them, and I guess in a way also live vicariously through them.

[00:08:56] ANNE: Okay, that’s good to hear about your reading life these days. Natasha, I heard you describe yourself as an average reader. I don’t know that there’s any such thing.

NATASHA: Well, I used to be very much… I don’t know whether it’s youth. But I just turned 40 just last year, and it’s really liberating to just say that I’m not just one way, I’m a whole lot of different ways, and I’m evolving as a person, as a reader. It’s awesome the wisdom that comes with age. But I do remember being younger and always wanting to say, “This is me, I read horror,” or “this is me, I like fantasy.”

I went through all of the fantasy, you know, Steve Erickson. The very high, deep fantacy. I’m not sure what the word is, but you know the ones with maps and tons of conflicting and intertwined stories. But now I would read just about anything. I love even romance. There was a time when I would never even go there.

[00:09:59] When you see the books that I’ve chosen as books that I love, you’ll also see that they’re very different. Maybe “average” is not the right word. Perhaps it’s more someone who’s open to read anything.

ANNE: Oh, I like that description. And I’m excited to hear more. Natasha, are you ready to get into your books?

NATASHA: I am. I am.

ANNE: You know how this works. You’re going to tell me three books you love, one book you don’t, and what you’ve been reading lately, and we will explore titles that you may enjoy reading next. And you have some ideas on what you might like that to look like. We’ll talk about that. Right now, tell me how you chose these books to talk about today.

NATASHA: Firstly, I love that you always talk about three books that you love and not necessarily favorites, because as you know, it’s impossible to choose favorites. So the three books that I chose as loves were because I felt that they would give you a good idea of the type of reader that I am, even though sometimes I find that this is not something that’s fully formed in my own mind, and obviously it’s something that evolves. So, Anne, I guess here’s your challenge.

[00:11:07] So the first book is Children of Sugarcane by Joanne Joseph. I think I chose this because it speaks to my need to read the quote-unquote “important” books. So I’m not typically someone who goes in for reading those gut-wrenchingly, emotionally taxing books that are probably going to leave me in a puddle of my own tears. You know, reading is an escape, and you’ll see that my go-to genres of middle grade or science fiction do offer me that.

However, if one looked into my reading logs, I think one would find it almost overflowing with these heartbreakingly beautiful reads that often traverse that boundary between fact and fiction. So whether it’s Anne Frank’s diary or Kate Quinn’s historical fiction, which is usually set during the World Wars, books like The Hate U Give or Brown Girl Dreaming, books like A Thousand Splendid Suns.

I just feel that it’s so important that I’m able to understand the full human experience. For me the best and perhaps least hurtful way to access this is through story and through taking these difficult journeys with fictional characters.

[00:12:22] So Children of Sugarcane is obviously very close to home for me. It tells the story of indentured laborers who left India to move to South Africa in the hopes of a better life. Ultimately, it is the story of how I came to be South African, how I ended up here and not in India, and how Durban came to be the place with the highest population of Indians outside of India.

The story follows Shanti. She’s this bright, brave teenager. You know, we see her running through the village, the Indian village that she lives in. It spans two continents, India and Africa, over about 40 years or four decades.

So Shanti, she wants to escape the life of poverty and the caste system, early marriage of young girls in her little Indian village. And she ends up seeking passage to South Africa, hoping for greener pastures. You know, India was colonized by the British and so was South Africa. So she’s looking for greener pastures, but what awaits her is actually this harrowing sea voyage, where Indians were treated as subhuman.

[00:13:34] When she lands on this promised land, the shores of Natal in South Africa, she’s almost immediately thrust into a life of slavery characterized by violence and by despair. And I know it sounds like such a dark book, but amidst all of this, there’s these beautiful friendships, almost life-giving friendships. It’s a message of heroism.

I think of many of the women, the Indian women, that came to South Africa that they displayed at the time. And there’s this underlying feeling of hope amidst all of this despair.

Obviously, it was a very hard topic for me to read. There’s a lot of textbooks out there about indentured laborers, about how Indians came to live in South Africa. And I’ve never been able to read them because it’s just too intense for me because of the atrocities that Indian people experienced at that time, both in India as well as laborers in South Africa.

[00:14:30] However, after reading this book, I felt so grateful to those incredibly brave and incredibly desperate men and women who left India for a better life, because they’re essentially responsible for me being where I am today. I honestly believe that I currently live a life of much greater privilege here in South Africa had my great-great-grandparents stayed in India. So yeah, that’s Children of Sugarcane, my first book.

ANNE: It’s remarkable the way that your personal story intersects with the story in Joanne Joseph’s book. I hear you saying it wasn’t an easy read, but it was an important one. I’m so glad that book was there for you. Natasha, what’s the second book you love?

NATASHA: The next book is The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. I read somewhere that she always tells people to pronounce her surname like it rhymes with mucus. So Beukes.

ANNE: Something a writer of thrillers and horror can, I think, say.

[00:15:34] NATASHA: So in a nutshell, this is a time-traveling crime novel, sort of a double creep factor of Stephen King’s 11/22/63 and maybe Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs. So in this book, we meet Harper Curtis. He’s a man who enters a house in Chicago and then exits into another time. The house serves as sort of a time-traveling device in a way with these trinkets, but it gets very creepy.

So he uses this house to travel through time. He meets young and what he calls shining girls when they’re still kids and then murders them when they’re older. So he’s a time-traveling serial killer. He continues his spree for about 60 years until one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives, and she makes it her life mission to piece together the clues of this time-traveling serial murderer to stop him.

[00:16:34] It’s a total trip, not for sensitive readers. I really enjoyed it. I loved it because it had the science fiction time-traveling component. It also had this kick-butt female protagonist. It also had this edge-of-your-seat hunt for a serial killer through time.

I chose this book because Lauren Beukes is a South African author, and I love supporting local authors, but also because the story was so different to what I was so used to reading from South African authors. So I’m just going to say Lauren Beukes herself said that she set this book deliberately outside of SA. It’s set in Chicago, and she had to do an immense amount of research to understand the setting over the 60-year time span.

But she did it very deliberately because she said that if she did any time-traveling set in South Africa, you would find that it would automatically make the main character of the book apartheid. And I guess it’s so much harder to write a pure fantasy or a pure crime novel when you’re from parts of the world in which these scars of history are so fresh and sometimes so all-encompassing.

[00:17:45] So I’m so appreciative of the brilliance of this author. It was definitely in my wheelhouse for so many different reasons.

ANNE: That’s so interesting. I mean, as a reader who’s in the U.S., I find that fascinating, and I imagine that hits very different to you being South African as is the author. Oh, that’s fascinating. Something that we’re going to be teasing out, Natasha, is you’re saying that this book was so creepy, and it’s not for sensitive readers, and you really loved it.

And also you’ve given some indications of what you’re looking for in your reading life right now, and this is not a book I ever would have put in front of you. So we’re going to talk about that. But first, tell me about the third book you love, please.

NATASHA: My lost love. I would actually say, is one of those books that may even be an all-time favorite read. It’s The Swarm by Frank Schätzing. I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that surname correctly. He’s German. I think the book may even have been written originally in German and then translated into English, but I’m not certain.

[00:18:47] This is a science fiction novel about a series of catastrophic events that start taking place on earth, all centered around the ocean. I was actually recommended this book when I just started my masters of Science in Marine Biology by a PhD student that I shared a lab with. And I must say that one cannot possibly get a better tale of fiction for a marine biologist. This book has these…

There are rockstar scientists trying to figure out what’s going on, who’s causing it, what’s causing it. There’s these U.S. military personnel and SETI personnel that are putting pressure on the scientists to put an end to this. Then there’s these sentient marine creatures that appear to be taking revenge on humans who have been slowly destroying their habitats.

The one thing that really sticks out for me about this book is the accurate depiction of the science. I’m going to totally geek out here. There’s whole passages in the book about stable isotope analysis, major nerd love, and it’s actually a tool I used in my honors research and to see it in the book and in such a masterful way.

[00:20:00] I’ve actually recommended this book to all my fellow marine biologist friends who have read it, and we all agree that the ending is a little wishy-washy. And then we have these long discussions about how we would change the ending, but we still would buy copies of the book every time we see it in second-hand bookstores, and we still would reread it. It’s really that good.

ANNE: That’s fascinating. I have to confess I don’t know what stable isotope analysis is, but what a way to get an education for the non-marine biologists. Okay, that’s high praise.

I love that you kind of hinted at the fact that some of the most just purely joyful conversations we can have about books are picking apart why we didn’t like the ending and what we would have done instead.

NATASHA: So true. So true.

ANNE: I’m glad that was a hit for you. I have to tell the U.S. readers that the cover of our edition is also just, mm, it’s beautiful. I would pick that up in a bookstore.

NATASHA: Oh, I’m so glad to hear it.

[00:20:59] ANNE: Natasha, tell us about a book that was not right for you.

NATASHA: You know it’s hard to pick favorites, but every time someone asks me about a book I don’t like, this is the book that comes to my mind every single time.

ANNE: So you’re saying that’s easier.

NATASHA: So the book that was just not for me is The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Like most readers, I went through this phase where I would try to go through all the book lists, the classics, the 100 books to read before you die, and in general, I loved many of the reads. I loved Jane Austen, I loved Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray, all very special to me.

But The Grapes of Wrath just actually filled me with some strong feelings of wrath. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of the book and the brilliance of the author in being able to give this really vivid, honest portrayal of Dust Bowl America and the Depression. Academically, I can appreciate all that.

[00:21:57] However, this book just weighed me down with its extreme despair. I mean, the Joads, the family in the book, just went from one awful thing to another, to another, right until the end and it just felt so hopeless. I kept thinking and I kept reading it, expecting something to change for the better. And when it didn’t, and it just got worse, oh my gosh. I can actually feel my shoulders sinking thinking about it right now.

I tell myself that I should probably read it again. I think I read it in my early 20s, but I always remember that feeling of despair without hope. And yeah, so that’s why, just a book not for me.

ANNE: Ooh, Despair without hope. You mentioned with Children of Sugarcane that that was a hard book, but it did have that note of hope. So it sounds like if you’re going to go hard places, this is something to keep in mind.

NATASHA: A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

[00:22:56] ANNE: Okay. So I read this for the first time in high school with Mr. Ricketts, junior year, so I would have been 16. This is a book I revisited in my 30s, I think. I mean, it’s been a decade at least since I finished it, because I remember what house I was living in, and I know plenty of us date our reading experiences by where we know we were when we read the book. You know, I forgot the ending the first time. I did not forget it the second time.

NATASHA: Oh, no, you wouldn’t, especially as a mom.

ANNE: Wow.

NATASHA: Yeah, it’s rough.

ANNE: Duly noted. That is helpful to hear. Thank you for sharing it. Natasha, what have you been reading lately?

NATASHA: I know I gave your team a list of a hundred books.

ANNE: Oh, come on, there were only 60.

NATASHA: I’m exaggerating. Okay, so I’m going to try and stick to two, but I think I’m going to sneak one in because I keep talking about this-

[00:23:53] ANNE: They just want to bubble to the surface, don’t they?

NATASHA: They really do. Okay, so I’m a big re-reader, and in line with my love of magic and creating these magical moments for my kids, I just reread the Nevermoor Series by Jessica Townsend. It’s middle-grade fantasy fiction, which if I had to oversimplify, I would say sort of a mesh of Harry Potter meets Willy Wonka meets maybe the Golden Compass.

ANNE: Oh, that’s fun.

NATASHA: Such great world-building and characters that I love. It’s a series and apparently, the fourth book’s coming out in September-October this year. And you know, as the series progresses, the thing I really loved about it is that it’s a lot more than just being black and white or just good and evil. There’s some gray, which I really do enjoy. It’s a reread for me. I love reading it sort of over Christmas, just after Christmas. It’s a really great read.

[00:24:48] Then another book that I just finished that was recommended to me by a very close friend, another one of those important books is Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa. This is a story that follows a Palestinian family through three generations. And it’s very timely and speaks to the Israel-Palestine conflict in a very heartbreakingly human way. It’s a beautiful read. It broke me. And I still loved it.

Then the book that I’m going to sneak in. So when I received the notes from my submission, I was reminded that when I sent in my submission I had started reading Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire. And I just started listening to it on Audible again. And I just have to say I read a lot of science books, whether it’s Richard Feynman or Paul Bryson, and I don’t think I’ve ever read a nonfiction book with such lush and gorgeous writing.

I’m listening on Audible. So I find myself constantly stopping the audio narration to take in these passages. I know that I have to get this book in hard copy to mark up the pages and posted it and underline sentences. It’s just so beautifully written.

[00:26:01] It’s dealing with this lovely topic about how did plants… you know, have they actually been molding us to their needs? And I’m loving it. So that’s my little sneak-in.

ANNE: I read that in the same house. I read The Grapes of Wrath the second time.

NATASHA: Oh, okay.

ANNE: You shared a couple of quotes with us, and yes, I was reminded of how completely lovely the prose was. And knowing your interest in science, I’m not surprised that that was a big hit for you. So thank you for sneaking another one in.

Natasha, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

NATASHA: Anne, I love reading diverse books, supporting local and diverse authors. As a Brown girl, I want to read books with Brown authors featuring Brown characters but I have found that when I pick up books by Indian authors or books by authors of Indian descent, the subject matter tends to be heavy. We’re dealing with things like caste, arranged marriages, poverty, the immigrant experience, the impacts of globalization on small communities.

[00:27:05] There are authors that I adore, you know, like Arundhati Roy, Rani Manicka, Khaled Hosseini, Vikram Seth, Shubnum Khan. But the heaviness tends to get on those books. And I do read the heavy books, and I will. And I know that as a creative, you will draw from your lived experience. But I would love to find new-to-me Brown authors with lighter stories, be it fantasy or crime thriller, you name it, you know, just to see myself reflected in these books, but not something that’s so intense that’s going to leave me broken for a few days and having to recover from the subject matter.

I think I also mentioned that I am rereading more and more these days. I really do struggle with picking books off shelves. I’ve had some misses lately and I would love to have some help in finding my next reread even.

ANNE: Okay, that sounds good. Thank you for sharing that. I just want to say that from where I sit as a White girl and also one who has the privilege of talking to a wide variety of readers seeking to find books that feel good to them at the point in their life they are at right now, I feel like I hear versions of the request that you’re making today so often.

[00:28:25] Like, “I want to read books by authors like me,” or, no matter who’s doing the asking, “by authors of color, and also I don’t want them to be pure devastation. I don’t want them to be traumatic. Like, I’m looking for joyful stories that also center diverse voices.” I really appreciate you asking that and asking that here.

Natasha, knowing that you were coming to the show as a South African reader, I did so much perusing of the vast wealth of South African literature. And there are so many beautiful, worthwhile, just fantastic novels and so many of them are not what you’re looking for right now for the reasons you said.

NATASHA: Exactly. There really are such lovely authors, and there’s so many new authors coming up. I love that the bookish life in South Africa is changing a little bit. But yeah, like you said, you know, not what I’m looking for right now.

[00:29:27] I think it’s so interesting also, Anne, that… you mentioned that this is a request you’re getting from a lot of readers. You know, globally, we’ve just gone through some really rough times and I think even at the moment, things are kind of hard out there. So maybe people are seeking this escapist fiction, but still wanting to remain true to who they are, or wanting to hear diverse voices in the books that they read.

ANNE: Yes, that resonates. Also, I’m so grateful that this request is being made so often, and is being made publicly in a way that publishers can hear, because we can only read the books that are actually out there on the shelves available to us.

I am ever hopeful that we will see increasing numbers of stories being published by, particularly as we’re discussing today, Brown and Black voices, that do have those joyful plots.

I am ever hopeful that we are seeing and will continue to see at an increasing rate more stories like you are seeking by authors of color. That’s not something that’s been published with great regularity in the past, but I do think things are changing, not as quickly as we’d like.

[00:30:43] But readers, your voice really matters. When you tell publishers, hey, this is what I wish that I could have more of, it feels like the response can be really slow. But things are evolving. I hope that’s a really good thing for everyone, for the writers, and for the readers.

NATASHA: I hope so too. From our lips to publishers’ ears, Anne.

ANNE: Exactly. Now, Natasha, you mentioned early on in our conversation that when you were little, you didn’t have access to tons of books, and that that’s a reality for a majority of South Africans. Now, I’m taking in mind that easy accessibility for you, as we’re talking about titles you may enjoy reading next, but also, purely for my own sake, I would love to hear more about what your experience is today, what you see the landscape in South Africa looking like for you and also for your fellow South African readers. Could you speak to that?

NATASHA: Oh, 100%, Anne, I’d love to. I think in South Africa or many countries like South Africa and the Global South, the access to books, to literacy, to reading for enjoyment, it’s not something that is very widespread.

[00:32:04] Things are changing. When I grew up, when I was little, we wouldn’t even go to bookstores, the prices of books would be exorbitant. My parents did the best they did, but it was always about just struggling to meet ends meet, and we never would just buy books to have a bookshelf at home.

I think things are changing at the moment just a little bit, but a lot of the content that I am buying is obviously from the US or from Europe. I think when you recommend books, Anne, or when other podcasters, or if I’m reading about new books coming out, it would be very difficult for me to just go into a bookstore and buy those books because the price would be quite high. So I would shelf them and wait, or maybe hopefully find them in a secondhand bookstore.

Another thing is that I love listening to your listeners or your guests talk about, you know, putting books on hold in libraries. I remember one reader had like 150 books on hold and I thought that was amazing. But we haven’t yet gotten to a place where our libraries are that well-resourced either.

[00:33:17] So our libraries are obviously part of our local government system for the most part, and they are very under-resourced. These kind of librarian characters from books, you know, when you go into a library, you’re going to have somebody really passionate about talking about books, whether you’re a kid or an adult, and recommending books. I personally haven’t found that.

I think our libraries are still very administrative-heavy. So your librarian isn’t somebody who is super passionate about books in many instances. It’s mostly I’m just going to be stamping books in and out and, you know, taking fines from you if you’ve not given the books in on time.

Like I said, I mean, I’m just speaking about my experiences. Perhaps in other provinces in South Africa, things may be a little bit different. You may find one gem of a librarian somewhere. I have yet to experience that. I think for the most part, that’s not something that is very easily accessible. So getting new books in our libraries isn’t something that we will easily be able to have access to.

[00:34:25] There are a lot of franchise, two big franchise bookstores, but not many indie or boutique bookstores around. But hopefully… I have seen in very, very recent months, I mean, I’m literally saying like over the last six months, that there has been a number of new bookstores opening up. I think, and I’ve noticed that with things like Bookstagram and BookTok, books are definitely getting a revival.

Just in South Africa in general, there’s a huge drive towards increasing childhood literacy. I think our stats, I mean, I don’t have them offhand, but our stats for kids that just read for enjoyment or adults that read to kids was abysmal. And now there are whole programs that are working on changing that, on exposing kids, little kids to picture books, to books in their own languages so that they are exposed to the wonder of reading.

[00:35:27] So there is a little bit of a shift happening. It is going slowly, but I do feel that there is hope. I hope I’ve answered your question, Anne. Do you have anything else that you want to ask me?

ANNE: Just a very pragmatic one. Are you a library user? Is that a place you might look to find the books that you know that you want to read or to find books you didn’t know you wanted to read but that you end up reading next?

NATASHA: Not at all. So I’m going to give you a sense of some of the libraries that I have around me still have like the Encyclopedia Britannica. So we’re talking about really outdated books. I think a lot of the books are donated. So I wouldn’t necessarily go to a library to find hot off-the-press books. I do have a library card, but I haven’t used it to get a book for myself.

ANNE: Okay, that’s good to know. As I’m thinking about what you may want to read next, I don’t want to tell you about a book where you’re like, Yes, Anne, that sounds perfect and I absolutely cannot find a copy. That’s not a situation we want to end up in.

[00:36:29] NATASHA: I will say though, you know, I am speaking from a point of privilege and just where I am. I do have Audible. I have an Audible subscription. I do have a Kindle subscription and I do some online shopping for books. So, for me personally, I think access to books may not be as big a problem as maybe the general populace, but yeah.

ANNE: Duly noted. Natasha, let’s go back and remember your books. You loved Children of Sugarcane by Joanne Joseph, The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, and The Swarm by Frank Schätzing. And yes, I thought your German pronunciation was quite good.

Not right for you was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. And recently you’ve been reading the Nevermoor series, Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa, and The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, along with a whole bunch of other titles that really do, listeners, prove out what Natasha said about being not an average reader, but an open one right now. There was just a lot of variety in what you’ve been reading lately, which was really fun to see.

[00:37:37] And we’re remembering you have a history with horror. You love fantasy. You’re loving middle grade right now. You don’t want anything that feels brutal or unrelentingly heavy. And you do love to support your local South African authors when you’re able to do so. And thank you for highlighting some of those titles today.

I’ve got some titles for you. Natasha, you started by quoting Shubnum Khan. Have you read The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years yet?

NATASHA: I haven’t. I haven’t. It is definitely on my TBR. She has been doing some book launches, and I’ve missed every single one of them because of my extremely busy life. But I’m very much looking forward to reading it. I must say, though, Anne, I’m a little bit nervous about it because, you know, I don’t read the backs of books or like to read too much into a book. I am nervous about it being something that might be a little bit hot, tuggy, but maybe you can tell me.

[00:38:40] ANNE: Yes. I think that’s well-founded. Now, I don’t think it’s at all out of character with some of the books you’ve really loved, but that doesn’t mean it’s what you’re looking for right now. I thought we needed to talk about it.

So listeners, let me tell you, this book was just published in early 2024 by the South African author Shubnum Khan. It’s appealing to a lot of readers because it combines genres in a really interesting way. It’s a ghost story, a love story, a coming-of-age tale, a mystery, and it’s all set in South Africa that Khan knows intimately.

The setting is a once-lavish estate that has long since been subdivided into apartments, and this house itself is not happy about it. And it’s making its displeasure known with things like the utilities have become unreliable, and there are strange malfunctions with the workings of the home.

But then, this young 15-year-old girl moves in with her father, and she has a history with ghosts. And unlike others who have come into the house, she’s not scared. She is curious and wants to figure out what’s the story here.

[00:39:52] Then, conveniently, she finds a diary kept by a long-ago occupant of the house and has the tools to work out the truth. Khan shows us, in alternating timelines, what did happen there long ago and what’s going to happen with the 15-year-old and her father in the house in the present day.

So, yeah, I do think this is heart-tuggy. You may really enjoy it. How about readers who enjoy it? I think will really find the cast of eclectic characters to be heartwarming. They’ll be pulled in by the mystery. It is a really tender coming-of-age story.

There is ultimately hope and redemption at the end. But if heart-tuggy is not what you’re going for right now, I… Natasha, it’s up to you. What do you think?

NATASHA: Anne, you make it sound so compelling. I don’t know if you know that it’s got a different title where I’m from.

ANNE: Oh, what is it, please?

NATASHA: It’s called The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil.

[00:40:52] ANNE: Oh no, I did not know that.

NATASHA: Which is actually the name of this house. I mean, the title in the U.S. is beautiful too, you know, and the cover’s beautiful. It’s this lush sort of turquoise and orange and pink leaves of, I’m guessing kind of like strelitzia or banana leaves. It’s beautiful. But you make it sound really compelling. In fact, I think I want to just like get it right now.

ANNE: That is your choice. Also heartbreak and loss, just saying.

NATASHA: I can do it though. I can do it. I’ll do it.

ANNE: We’re going to give you options though. I’m wondering if it might be easier for… well, you have Audible, you have Kindle. And also I’m thinking that perhaps there’s something to be said for books that have won important awards and have become bestsellers if they may be more accessible to many of our international readers.

[00:41:49] An author I’d like to put on your radar, not all their works, because some of their works are really, really tough. But some of their works. I’m thinking of P. Djèlí Clark. Have you read anything by this American author?

NATASHA: I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this author.

ANNE: Well, I’m not sad to make the introduction. Thank you for allowing me that privilege. He’s written some incredibly moving tough stuff, like Ring Shout. But he’s also read things that are fun. Like I remember one reviewer caught the book we’re about to talk about a zippy, wonderful, romp that’s just extremely inventive and creative and fantastical and wonderful.

So we just talked about The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, though it does have a different title in South Africa, The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil, which I’d prefer to go with here because recommending two books with the word Djinn in a row is just… when does that happen? Never. That never happens.

[00:42:46] But Clark does have this cluster of books he’s written that are known as the Dead Djinn Universe, though they’re also called the Ministry of Alchemy series. This consists of three novellas and a novel. I’m recommending you jump in, not with the first book, but with The Haunting of Tram Car 015. I think you’ll find it enticing. It’s eerie. It’s a book that’s spooky, but it’s not scary. Remember zippy, wonderful, romp.

What happens here is… well, first of all, it’s set in an alternate early 20th century Cairo. I think it might be like 1910, 1912. What happens is Cairo’s Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities receives a report that a tram car is haunted. And that may seem like whoa to us, but this is just totally mundane to the ministry, all in a day’s work.

So they respond by sending this odd couple partnership, a senior agent and his newbie partner, to investigate. I think it can be a lot of fun. This is a novella. It’s a great place to jump in. Readers who read, like Shannan on our team, and have really related to what she’s shared about her fantasy journey, this is a favorite author of hers and a favorite book.

[00:44:08] I think this is a great place to start. It’s a novella. It’s short. If you like it, there’s a lot more waiting for you in the Ministry of Alchemy series and other works by Clark that I would encourage you to take a look at. Email me, Natasha, before jumping in, because like I said, some of them are not what you’re looking to read right now in tone. But this one, I think this one could be a good fit for you right now. What do you think?

NATASHA: It sounds very exciting. It almost makes me think, and maybe I’m completely off the mark, but it makes me think of Jasper Fforde a little bit, that kind of rumpy kind of vibe. So yeah, it sounds very exciting.

ANNE: I think those books would have a lot of fun in conversation with each other.

NATASHA: Oh, nice.

ANNE: Yeah, I like that. Okay, where do we want to go next? What do you think about a middle-grade series?

NATASHA: I am 100% in for middle-grade series. I never thought I’d ever say that.

[00:45:10] ANNE: You know, life takes us places we don’t expect and our reading life just comes right along. Okay, I’m thinking of the Pandava series by Roshani Chokshi. Many readers may know her by her works for older readers. Like she’s the author of The Gilded Wolves but she also has this long-running and now complete series. There are five books total. The last one was published in the U.S. in 2022. This is not a retelling exactly, but it’s more of a reimagining of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata.

In Chokshi’s form, we meet a 12-year-old girl. Her name is Aru Shah from the title, and she lives with her mom in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture in Atlanta. And she has great adventures. We get to meet the family as it expands in the subsequent installments.

These kids go through really hard things, but also there’s just lots of, oh, adventures and a little bit of hijinks. She’s really focused on… you’ve used the word friendship a couple times when talking about the books you love. It’s about family and friendship and coming into your own as a young person.

[00:46:35] There’s lots of layers here. And it’s funny. And you get this lens into Hindu cosmology that’s very hospitable for those not familiar with it and that feels seen, so I hear from those who are more familiar with Chokshi’s source material. I think this could be a really enjoyable series in all the ways that you mentioned middle grade was fulfilling the needs that you have in your reading life right now. How does that sound to you?

NATASHA: Anne, I think that sounds amazing. Just the fact that there’s a female protagonist, that it’s middle grade and the series is complete, so I’m not going to be waiting around for the next book.

ANNE: Oh gosh, that’s relatable.

NATASHA: And Hindu deities. This really does sound good. It sounds very familiar the word Aru Shah. And I must admit that for some reason I thought it was YA and I thought it was going to be a little bit too icky. But you said funny, you said magical. I love the fact that, you know, there’s a family where I think… did you mention that the mom’s an academic or she works in a museum?

ANNE: I think that’s a fair description.

[00:47:50] NATASHA: So yeah, I’m very excited. That sounds really good. I’m surprised I haven’t looked into this before this.

ANNE: Natasha, you’re not wrong in that she’s written YA, and I’m glad that you could find this middle-grade series today. All right, can we close with two books for the marine biology interested reader in you?

NATASHA: Oh, yes, definitely. I want to go eek.

ANNE: The first is one that we’ve talked about the podcast early and often that Brenna first put on my radar and that I know that many of you grabbed a hold of and really, really loved. So maybe you know it. Maybe you’ve read it, Natasha. But I’m thinking of Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. Is this one you’re familiar with? Mermaids, but make it horror?

NATASHA: Not even a little bit. Did you just say mermaids and horror?

ANNE: I did. I did.

NATASHA: That sounds awesome.

[00:48:42] ANNE: So readers, you may know I’m a scaredy cat and I still love this book. Will made fun of me because there was one moment where I was sitting on the couch reading and I went, Uuuh, like out loud. But I really enjoyed it.

The premise of this book is for reasons a research expedition embarks on a voyage to the Mariana Trench in search of mermaids. They are rumored to be real. This expedition is following in the path of a doomed expedition from many years before, where there’s some really weird video footage, because they were shooting a documentary or something like that, and nobody could make sense of the footage. Like it looks made up. But everybody died on board that expedition, and now they’re seeking a do-over.

So these mermaids are better known as sirens in this story. Some of the researchers on board believe with their whole heart that these mermaids are real, even though most of their scientific peers are like, what are you talking about? But even the skeptical are willing to see where this series goes.

[00:49:42] So a huge swath of the scientific community set sail on this voyage. And what happens is they discover, everyone discovers, oh, that these mermaids are very real. They are terrifying. They are after this boat and want to take it down.

It’s exciting and creepy and creative and just a wild ride. I don’t know that you’re going to have any isotope analysis. I feel like I’m missing a word in that phrase in this book. But you know, you’re not going to be like, Oh, just like on my job. Or at least Natasha, I really hope you don’t read this and thinking, That’s exactly like what I do at work. How does that sound to you?

NATASHA: I want to say wow, I really do. For so many reasons. I love everything about hydrothermal vents and the Marianas Trench and Mermaids. This sounds really good.

ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. And we have been talking primarily about books by Black and Brown authors. That is an exception, The Mermaid Book. But you mentioned that you were reading romance sometimes, which is not a place you saw yourself going. But readers, we have a Summer Reading Guide spoiler alert here. This book doesn’t come out till August. It will be in the Summer Reading Guide. It’s called Second Tide’s the Charm by Chandra Blumberg.

[00:50:58] This is a sweet, chaste, low-angst love story about two marine biologists who share a passion for their work, which is specifically focused on sharks, who are meant to be together, but life and their professional ambitions that neither, especially the woman Hope, did not wish to compromise on. They got in the way, but three years later their love of sharks brings them back together.

As a reader, you get to hear about the sharks. I felt compelled to Google all the sharks. They talked about how terrifying goblin sharks are and I Googled them and I was like, yes, I see your point. That is a really scary photo. It seems like somebody made that up and that is not real.

But they’re out on the boat, they’re doing their research, Adrienne has found a way to educate and entertain would-be science and nature enthusiasts everywhere with his YouTube channel content about sharks. So you get to go on the boat with them as they’re, you know, falling in love again and sharing their love of sharks with the masses.

[00:52:11] This is not down and dirty in the details of the profession, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever encountered a romance that revolved around marine biology before, and I love to learn in that way. I love stories of people at work. Maybe you’ll want to take a chance on this. What do you think, Natasha?

NATASHA: Yeah, definitely something different to what I would normally pick up. But you know I like trying new things, so yeah. And bonus, sharks.

ANNE: It is purely the marine biology that makes me want to put this on your radar, but truly for a story that feels calm and dependable, and you know they’re going to get their happy ending. That is the deal that Chandra Bloomberg is making with you when you pick up this book. If that’s what you need in your reading life, that’s what you’re going to get.

NATASHA: I am all for happy endings, Anne, so it’s gonna go down on my TBR.

ANNE: I think I’m happy to hear that. Natasha, we talked about a lot of books today, so I’m curious to hear what you think you may read next. Of course, we just finished with Second Tide’s the Charm by Chandra Bloomberg. That doesn’t come out till August, so I imagine that’s not next.

[00:53:21] But we also discussed The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan. We talked about P. Djèlí Clark’s Dead Djinn Universe, specifically The Haunting of Tram Car 015. We talked about Aru Shah and The End of Time, the series opener from Roshani Chokshi. We talked about the terrifying mermaids from Mira Grant in Into the Drowning Deep. Of those five titles, what do you think you may read next?

NATASHA: I think I’m going to go with the Mermaids in Horror. I think I’m going to do it.

ANNE: Really? Okay.

NATASHA: I know, I know. I’m surprised as well because I thought I was going to say the Pandava series because I love a good series and this looks so good. But perhaps the Mermaids and horror first because I kind of feel like I want to go back to my horror roots.

ANNE: I did not see that coming, but I’m really glad that you slipped that one in there. Okay, Natasha, I’ll be excited to hear what you choose to pick up and also how the mermaids work out for you. This has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking books with me today.

NATASHA: Thank you so much for having me, Anne.

[00:54:31] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Natasha, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Natasha on Instagram @TeaTalesandTomes. We’ve included that link along with, as always, the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that’s it for this episode. 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.