4th Quarter Favs with Renee from Itsbooktalk

Brett is joined once agin with Renee from itsbooktalk where they discuss their fourth quarter favs as well as giving up one book each they know will be on their best of the year lists. 

Books discussed:

-Running Man by Charlie Engle

-Life & Death & Giants by Ron Rindo

-Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman

-The Director by Daniel Kehlmann

-Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson

-Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicolas Boggs

-The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard

-Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor

Some Bright Nowhere by Anne Packer

Renee's substack

https://substack.com/@itsbooktalk

Renee's instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/itsbooktalk/

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Transcript

Brett Benner: 0:04

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Stack, where today I'm once again joined by my friend Renee from its book Talk. We are here today to discuss our fourth quarter faves before all of our Yearend book lists come out of our favorites. But I wanna kind of preface this, and we talked about this for a moment, to say, we are recording this on December 1st, and clearly Renee and I are both from the school of thought that we like to read right up to the end of the year because there could be some hidden gem that comes out. So yes, these are fourth quarter faves for us, with the caveat that we are aware that the fourth quarter is not quite finished yet. So anyway, Renee, thank you for being here.

Renee: 0:52

Hello. Thank you for having me back, and I had plenty to talk about, so I'm not. Not worried that we're doing this a little early, but for sure we'll leave room for that last minute gem, that kind of just bombs. So many potential options to choose to pick five of my fourth quarter phase. So I'm happy, I feel really good about sharing these today. I even have a backup.

Brett Benner: 1:21

Oh, okay. Good. We love backups. Yes. In the event we have crossover per chance.

Renee: 1:25

Exactly. Which we might. How has your fourth quarter reading been compared to the summer, which was the last time we talked about our reading?

Brett Benner: 1:36

Yeah it's, I've actually had some really good stuff. In fact, I was working backwards and I was like I could pull a lot of stuff from here. And it was almost like I could pull probably some of my favorite books of the year from this fourth quarter section. I don't know. For me it was great. How about you?

Renee: 1:50

This quarter has been much better than the summer. I had some fun reads, some really enjoyable reads for the summer, but July and August were tough for me. Like my quality was good, but my quantity was really low and I wasn't happy with that. So I bumped that up and I'm happy with reading more books, but I don't know, I feel like if I'm looking at the entire year, gosh, the first quarter of the year for the last several years has been my best reading and I don't know what it is about that beginning of the year. Usually February especially, is a, is just a stellar month of rating for me. I would say this quarter is like a close second. Interesting. I wonder if part of your reading in the in like February is because it's so damn cold you I don't know. I don't know. I wonder if,'cause a lot of that first quarter reading, I do really go hard on new releases Yeah. and, publishing, I feel like they front load, my gosh stellar reads during a hundred percent, i'm reading January books now to figure out who to have authors on the podcast. And I'm already so overwhelmed because I'm thinking I have to get a lot of these done before the middle of December to be able to get people under record. But there is so much, it is so front loaded. It's like that and June are the two spots where it seems like, oh my gosh, it's so much and so I think you're right. I think like they literally like, okay, because December is a vacuum in a non publishing month that they're like, we've gotta get back on the horse January one. Exactly. And my reading goes heavy new release for strong on the first quarter, and then I usually start sprinkling in the back list. And so for me. I will have a significant, I don't know yet. I haven't done my top 10, but even just for this fourth quarter phases, I have three backlist. So love that. is usually really good for me and they will show up. I'll definitely have many backlist in my top 10. I know that, and I love that because it it surprises me throughout the year because I never know what back backlist I'm gonna read, and then I never know if it's gonna hit me in such a way that it's one of my favorite of the year. Yeah. Yeah. I think we talked, last time we were talking, I think we talked a little bit about what we wanted to do for the new year and what things that we were looking out for. And one of them, after we talked for me was, I don't think I mentioned this I really wanna make much more of a concerted effort to filter more backlist in, first of all, because, now that we've moved and I have everything unpacked, I have an entire wall. I'll have to send it to you in my closet of. Backless books that I've just never got to, that I haven't been able to say I'm letting you go. I'm letting you go. I'm never gonna get to you and it's gonna happen again. I'm looking just at what I have left and thinking there's no way. So I could never buy another book again and probably have years of reading in the back. So I don't wanna say I'm a hoarder, but I do want to say because also because hoarders wouldn't alphabetize. But I really wanna prioritize backlist stuff. So good. I hope you do, because there's treasures Yeah. and it's fun. We all, I like shiny new releases also, and some of my favorite books, especially this year are new releases. But there's something special about number one, finally getting to something that you have had on your TBR forever or just I know I wanna read that, but I'll read it later. And then years go by and finally getting to that book and then maybe finally loving it to where it becomes a forever favorite. I love that. I love that. Alright, before we launch in, what are you reading now? Right now I am probably a little over halfway through Harry's Trees by John Cohen. This is a backlist, and I was yet again organizing my print TBR shelf at home. So I have mini books like you. I don't think I have as many as you from what you're saying, but I have a lot of print books that I organize and then I reorganize seasonally depending, because if it's a, like right now, if it's a book that is a summer book with a summer setting or a summer title, it's going underneath the cabinet. And I put in books that. Maybe our, winter or snow or Hmm. I'm a seasonal reader, so I was organizing and I pulled Harry's trees off my print shelf. Now I bought this a year and a half ago at one of our independent bookstores, and I put it on my shelf and I've never read it. And I pulled it off and I thought, you know what? For some, for no particular reason, I just was like, I'm gonna start Harry's Trees started it, couldn't remember anything about what it was about, but it's perfect for me. It is. It's really, truly it. Don't wanna say much about it.'cause all I knew was it's about a widower and a librarian a little girl and then her mother, and that is, it's very loosely. A little bit fairytale, a lot of trees. It is set. Here's what's funny, I didn't know this until I started reading. It's set in the endless mountains of Pennsylvania, which is where we got our dog before Vinnie, and we drove. They lived at the top of a mountain in the endless mountains. I've never, that's the only time I've ever been there, but I was like, oh my gosh, how's, what a small like world to find that this book is set there. And also the main character Harry went to Ohio State. I was like, oh wow. This wow. This is wow. But the book is about, it's about people who are widowers and it's about nature and trees and it's in complicated love stories. I feel like. This book is just for me, like everything I love so far. I'm halfway. I love it. And Is there a missing person? No, there's, that is missing actually. That's missing. But there is, gosh, what else is family, the librarian, I'm not quite sure how she's gonna factor in, but I really like her. She's an elderly lady. Yeah it's right up my alley and the audio is really good, but I'm doing print and audio. So that is Harry's Trees by John Cohen. Oh, that sounds great. What are you I'm now into 2026, so I'm reading this book that's Sarah Jessica Parker's imprint. It's her next book that's coming out the first week of January, and it's called Room 7 0 6 by Ellie Levinson. And. It really sucked me right in. It's about this woman who is happily married and she's got two kids and she's carrying on with an affair, except they only meet every so often. Like he picks the hotel, they end up there they do their thing usually in the afternoon while her kids are at school. And then she goes home. One of the rendezvous afternoons, they're in the hotel and suddenly they get this call and they see on the television that the hotel has been put on lockdown, that there's some kind of takeover or terrorist activity going on, and they're trapped in this hotel. So she knows her kids are gonna have to be picked up at school. All of these things. And then meanwhile. It does flashbacks where you see when she first meets her husband and how their relationship developed. So it starts to give more clues as to what would lead this woman to have this affair and'cause at first it seems so cut and dry and you think, why is she doing this? Very compelling. And I'm, I have no idea where this thing is going. So that's room 7 0 6 and it comes out January 20th, Okay. I had that on my radar, requested it on net galley. I love that premise and as usual, got denied for it. I cannot get approved for any of her books. The that imprint. Yeah. But that sounds so good. So you will have to keep I will. No, or I'll send it to you when I'm done. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, I would love that. Alright, so launching into we're each gonna do five books like we said, and if we have crossover, we can do another one. And then as a little bonus on the end, I thought, like we were talking about just giving up one of our top 10 of the year as we start to call together our favorites of the year. Okay. What's your first. So my first pick is a non-fiction favorite. This year it's called Running Man by Charlie Engle. And this is not only non-fiction. It was recommended to me by my older son who has an interest in ultra running. I do not, but I loved this book. I really love this book. And the audio was fantastic. Charlie does narrate himself. It is about Charlie Engel, who after a decade long addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol hits rock bottom with a near fatal six day binge. That end, that ended in a hail of bullets. So as Charlie gets sober, he turns to running. Which became his lifeline, his pastime, and his salvation. He begins with marathons, and when marathons weren't far enough, he begins to take on ultra marathons, races that go on for 35, 50, and sometimes hundreds of miles traveling to some of the most unforgiving places on earth to race. There is a documentary about Charlie's run across the Sahara Desert, which was 4,500 miles. Matt Damon produced a documentary, which followed Charlie Engel and his team on this run. It was insanity to read about. I was riveted. Start to finish. This is truly an incredible story. It is nonfiction that is what we would call narrative nonfiction. It reads like fiction. It's surprising, it's funny, it is emotional because I'm not gonna spoil anything about this. He does end up having to serve time in prison and I'm not gonna tell you why, but it is bonkers and it's also bonkers how he managed to get through and come out of prison still being a runner. It's wild. It is wild. And by the way, the reason he was in prison was unjust, so he shouldn't have been in prison. And it's crazy. This is a wild story. It is so memorable. You definitely have to do the audio, I think, because it's just to hear the emotion in his voice. And he does a fantastic job of narrating it is one of my favorite nonfiction of the year. It's Running Man by Charlie Engle. It sounds amazing. that was good. All right. your first one? okay, so my first one, I almost was gonna do nonfiction decouple with you first, but I'll do a, I'm gonna do fiction. Okay. So it's Life and Death and Giants by Ron Rendo. This is something, I listened to most of this on audio, and then I bought the book just because I loved it so much. I I do that sometimes if I listen to something and flip out over it, I want a copy of it. So this is a remarkable child transforms a small rural community and soon the world. A young, unmarried Amish woman attended by a country veterinarian delivers an enormous baby and no one in Lakota, Wisconsin knows what to make of the boy. Raised by his brother on a struggling farm, Gabriel Fisher walks at eight months, communicates with animals and possesses extraordinary athletic abilities. When his brother dies, Gabriel is taken in by a devout Amish grant. His devout. Amish grandparents and for a time he disappears into the anonymity of Amish life. But at age 17 and nearly eight feet tall, Gabriel is spotted working in a hayfield by the local football coach and his life changes. First of all, this was so amazing on audio, like I was going to do like a best audio of the year, and this would certainly be one of them. The interesting thing about how, the way this story is told is it's not, it's all first person narrative by a. Collection of people in the town, his grandmother, who is my favorite character, and the woman who reads it is so amazing. But it just switches between these voices who propel his story forward. It's so moving, it's so life-affirming and beautiful. It reminds me very much of the best of John Irving. It's very accessible. I just thought it was so great and I don't know why. We've talked a lot you and I about the Correspondent, but in some weird world,, these two kind of books work together and maybe it's just because of the kind of emotional resonance they both have and they're subjects of like life and living and all those kind of things. But it's really beautiful. That's Life and Death and Giants by Ron Rendo. Okay, so I also had that on my list. Oh my God, there we yeah I knew I had a feeling we were gonna both have that. So no fear. No fear. I've gotta back up. But I agree with everything you said, and Thomas, so for me I did love Hannah's character, but I think Thomas is the one that I'm still thinking about. And I at the end of September, and I just, I don't know I would put this also agree with you in my top audio books of the year. I listen to it. It's so good on audio and your interview with Ron Rdo was so good. I really enjoyed your interview. He was so sweet. But I just loved all of this'cause there's a lot in there about Emily Dickens and, but I will say both Thomas and Hannah. They have incredible journeys where they both end up. It's it's beautiful. It's just really It is. It is. It's so good and almost an unexpected book, I feel. Do you feel like this one's Oh, feel so under one. I saw so many people missed it and it was really, it seemed like after the fact it started to catch on to people in the same way, and maybe that's another reason why it reminded me away of the correspondent, because it was very much slipping under the radar. And I think word of mouth is what start, started to propel it And I wonder if. Life and death and Giants will have more of a moment as time goes on. Like the, yeah. Like you said, with the correspondent, that's what's happened. But because his book came out, so close to the end of the year, may not see that till next year, but I will say, I usually tell my mom, you know about books I love and then she reads, she usually reads them based on what I, tell her if, and I said, you gotta read this book. She's I've never heard of it. I said, you have to read this book. Just read it. And she did and called. And she said, that is one that is now one of my favorite books And she reads I do lots of books. So I hope we do see more people picking it up. It's just such a great book. It's such story with memorable characters. It also feels so weirdly, like Americana to me it feels like such a, all the like parts of America that like it, I don't know. I just loved it. I think he was able to, to zero in on that, the contrast in like high tech, the high tech world of and with social media and phones and all that and really compare it with life without that he did it was so fascinating. And yes, it, we do have a large Amish community around parts outside of Columbus and so I especially thought that part was really interesting. Alright. What's your number two? my number two, I'm gonna go with new release, my other new release that I had on my list and it's Grace and Henry's holiday movie Marathon by Matthew Norman. Have you. Read or listen to this yet? Are you going to I don't even know it. So that you're gonna what? Oh my gosh. Okay. The audio is the way to go on this. It really truly, it's a, and you gotta read this before the holidays, I'm sorry. But you really do. Okay. It's about a sentimental advertising creative and a blunt, no-nonsense bar owner who find a second chance at love while binge watching iconic holiday movies in this poignant and heartwarming romance. It is a romance, but yet it is. Very there. It's very serious. It's very heartwarming. It is not cheesy at all. Okay. I started this book on a Saturday morning on audio. I listened the entire day and I finished it Saturday night. Oh my Could not stop listening. The narrators are Alex fk and Jay Meyers. They were incredible at bringing this story to life. They nailed pacing and tone. The dialogue in this book is Chef's Kiss. It is so good. It is not banter. I don't, I am not a, I don't like banter. This is, I felt like I was watching a movie and it was realistic in my head. I will tell you a little tiny bit about the main character, grace. She's a mom of two young kids. Her husband has died, and then Henry is a man whose wife had also died when these two end up meeting, it's alm, it's been about a year since their spouses had passed away and they meet in an unexpected way and then things take off from there. And it does involve holiday movies. And what I really speaking of under the radar, I think Matthew Norman is one of the best. Romance slash comedy slash contemporary fiction writers writing today. I loved his last three books. Charm City Rocks Altogether Now and Last Couple Standing. Love Them. This one is my new favorite of his, but he is fantastic. He delivers on the story the characters. We're so real. And what I think you would love this too, Brett, because the supporting characters are fantastic. Henry a brother, he's great. Like people who work in the bar where Grace owns this bar it's everything. And PS there's a dog, which always great, and the kids in the story are not brats. And I find that important information for some readers, myself included. And I loved it. I loved it so much. It's Grace and Henry's Holiday movie Marathon by Matthew Norman. Okay. That sounds great. I'm gonna we get off. Yeah. When we get off. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna look up the audio. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it. Yep. Good. Okay. Alright, so my next book was something I wanted to read for right when it first came out. I was like, oh my god, this sounds so good. And again, this is not something I've seen much on any socials anywhere. It's called The Director by Daniel Kelman. And basically. It is an artist's life APAC with the devil when the Nazi sees power. GW Pabst, one of cinema's greatest directors, is filming in France to escape the horrors of the new Germany. He flees to Hollywood, but under the blinding California sun, the world famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, who he made famous can help him. When Pabst receives word that his elderly mother is ailing, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Amark. Pabst, his wife and his young son are confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime, but the Minister of Propaganda and Berlin wants the film genius. He won't take no for an answer and he makes big promises. While Pap still believes that he will be able to resist these advances that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first step into a hopeless entanglement. Okay, first of all, this is fiction based on fact. GW Paps is, was a real director. This was all real, who got pulled into the Hitler machine to make propaganda films for for Hitler. It is so good. Again, one of those things where hi, truth is stranger than fiction, and obviously Daniel Kelman has taken liberties with this. It's also been translated by this guy Ross Benjamin. It's so fascinating and the way that he constructs the narrative where he shifts, it's not much almost life and death and Giants, where the narrative shifts points of view from people around the director Papst, including his wife, his son, who in a list to be part of Hitler's youth. And it's also, obviously there's direct parallels with what's happening in the US right now that can be made very clearly, but it really is becomes this morality tale about how far are you willing to go? What are you willing to do for your art? What are you willing to say no to? Or can you it's really. I just found it incredibly compelling. Really smart, and in some ways, a lot like a thriller. There is a sequence that comes later in the book when they're trying to film this scene in an opera house and they can't find enough people to be extras because the war is happening, and what they do is so horrific that I was just like, oh my God. Oh my God. But it's great. It's also, the subject matter is what the subject matter is, but a lot of it's really funny. I will just say, and the points of view are very funny. So it's not this, overwhelmingly intense dour kind of dark thing. Clearly those are parts of it but that's not the overreaching kind of narrative. So that's the director by Daniel Kelman. Oh, okay. That sounds really interesting and I can picture that cover. It's, is it red and black and white? Yeah yep. Okay. Oh yeah, inter. Okay. Fascinating. All right I guess I will go with my next, another nonfiction. I had a fantastic month of nonfiction, November reading, and this book has been on my TBR forever. It's just Mercy, A Story of Justice and Redemption by Brian Stevenson. I have no idea why I waited so long to read this. I knew I would love it and I did. This book is it's eye-opening. I thought I would be prepared for this story, or he uses several stories in the book, but this is Brian Stevenson's account of his case involving wa Walter McMillan. And Walter's story is the through thread for the entire book, which did create a lot of tension. And Walter was one of many of Brian's clients who was on death row for crimes that he was adamant that he did not commit. And in Walter's case, there was literally no evidence tying him to the crime. And he had a solid alibi. So you also, so what he did was intersperse other people's stories and then we would get back to Walter and then we'd hear other people and they, it all just came together to create. A picture that not only left me just angered and disgusted, but I was speechless about the level of injustice and horror he describes. And I really thought I would be prepared for this story because I read and loved The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton. I also read and Loved My Time Will come by Ian Manuel, who is one of Brian's other clients that he does mention in Just Mercy. But those stories didn't quite prepare me for this story, these stories and the way Stevenson put this book together, it is very impactful. So many of the stories of people. Who were seeking Brian's help were heartbreaking. There are graphic details of child abuse, neglect, domestic violence and rape that were hard to listen to. And although I did feel anger while listening, I also felt hope. That was a core part of what kept Brian and his team fighting. I as soon as I finished, I think I said to someone Brian Stevenson is an angel on earth. He is doing incredible work. I won't forget this book. I can't imagine, I just can't imagine doing what he does. But without him, there are so many people that obviously would still be on death row and in prison, and it's shocking and it's scary. But this book. Is quite memorable and it's one of my favorites of the year. It's Just Mercy, A Story of Justice and Redemption by Brian Stevenson. He does narrate the audio book. Yeah, I have I have it. I haven't read it yet either, and it's one of those one I really wanna read then I know they made it into a movie with Michael B. Jordan. I haven't, I purposely did not watch the movie because I wanted to read the book Yeah, I get it. I totally get It's really good. Okay I'll stick with nonfiction then. okay. Oh, look at us bringing the nonfiction I know, and I have I've had, so that's, again, I said before, I've had so little of it this year, but this to me was just incredible, which is Baldwin a love story by Nicholas Boggs, which is probably this it's I say major biography of James Baldwin and it's also major just because it's huge. And I will preface it by That's what I thought. it is a doorstop, however, I have to say it is so accessible. But let me just say it's this drawing on new archival material, original research and interviews. The spell binding book is the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades revealing how profoundly his personal relationship shaped his life and work. It tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin's most sustaining, intimate and artistic relationships with his mentor, the Black American painter, Beaufort Delaney with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter, Lucien Hoppers Berger, and with his collaborators, the fame, Turkish actor, Angen Cesar, and the iconoclastic French artist, Joran Kazak, whose long overlooked significant as Baldwin's last. Great love is explored in these pages for the first time. It is so fantastic you, first of all, you do not need to have read any Baldwin before going into this. Clearly they break open his works and if you've read his stuff, and for me, I've only read Giovanni's room, so that adds to it. Of course, if you have read. But what this has inspired me to do, if in the new year I plan to. Go back and read all of his other stuff because it made me so curious. I also, because it was so big and I had been reading it and I wanted to get through the rest of it while I was away on vacation, we were doing this bike trip in the south of France, so I got the audio book and Ron Butler, this actor Ron Butler, narrates it and he's incredible. So I just plugged in and listened to this while riding around in this beautiful French countryside. And he's an incredible narrator, but it's not just about these relationships, but it really is about him finding his work and becoming the artist that he is and the writer that he was but also being a black man in America and what that experience has been like and that kind of oppression as well as dealing with the fact of being queer as well. It is truly like a stupendous work. I was just blown away by the amount of work that Nicholas Boggs had done and the time that he put in calling together and his access that he got to so many people. And so much of the research that he did it's truly mind blowing. But I thought it was just great. It's also one of these biographies I know and autobiographies and just some nonfiction sometimes we talked about this, the fear is it could be boring. I was never bored by it. Moreover, it was one of those things where I can go in, put it down, come back, and it was great. I never felt oh my God, I'm, this is such a chore. It just it was just a wonderful reading experience. So that is Baldwin a love story by Nicholas Boggs. Okay. Yeah, you sold that. I knew it was really long and I haven't really heard much about it. But I have a couple questions. So I also read Giovanni's Room a couple years ago and vaulted onto my top 10 of the year list. I love that book. Do you think, did he or did the biography spoil any of his other books? it does. Yeah, it does. I'm, yeah, it does. It goes through because it really goes through the mechanics of what he's trying to do in this work, what he was trying to express, what these characters represented. So yes, but I also have to say. This speaks to my mind by the time I'm into those books. Like I go tell it on the mountain or whatever, I don't remember the specifics enough within this 700 page tome that I feel like I might get in it and be like, wait a minute, is this the, but I'm not concerned about it. I'm not, I don't feel like I can't remember the details that specifically of each book. So lemme put it that way because he does have a lot of, he had a lot of stuff. He had a lot of works. And Giovanni's Room is such an interesting section anyway, because they talked about how, the struggle to adapt it to make a movie out of it, and also the play and all the different processes of going through that and how that worked out. Yeah, but that's that. To answer your Okay. And then I love the sound of doing something like this on audio, but do you remember in the print copy were there pictures or photos? There are, Okay. So it's worth doing a tandem for sure. Then. Yeah, there are photos. And so I, I was sent the book and like I said, I started it and I had actually, I had it on my Kindle, which was great, but I did wanna see the pictures and I found, because I didn't have the book with me then for the bulk of it when I was on vacation, I went back when I got home and was going through all the photos then, which was great. I think I'm gonna put this on my Christmas list because I was trying to think people, some of my family like to buy books for me, but then I've gotta tell them what to buy I was wonder what I would like that I don't already have. I think this would, I think I'm gonna put this on my list. Yeah. I thought it was just. Fascinating. And because like I said, I knew that he'd written all this stuff. I knew, like I, most people are aware of it, especially like with Giovanni's room, but I didn't know to know the backstory of all of this and who he was. It's pretty incredible. And by the way, just the other people that he rubbed shoulders with just all of these black artists of the sixties and the seventies who are all, up and coming and politicians and Martin Luther King and it's just, it's such a a time capsule and that I also found really fascinating. okay. Yeah, that's even I'm glad you mentioned that because that is appealing to me. lo I like the sound of that. Okay. Good one. All right. Okay. I am going back list again. And this one crept up on me and I had a rollercoaster of emotions reading it. It's the Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard. Have you heard of this No. as one of her? You've heard of Joyce Maynard yeah. Yeah. This, the title is what Got Me because, I'm in my bird era. Do and Love the Birds, and I actually love books set in hotels. So when I came across this, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is, I've gotta check this book out. And this story centers around Irene, who after a childhood filled with heartbreak, finds herself in a really happy place. And the opening pages. Now we do have, we do start in her childhood, and, but it moves so quickly. But you've gotta get through the childhood part. It's very important because something happens that will alter the course of Irene's life and it's really important. But she does end up, once she's out of childhood and she becomes a talented artist, she finds love and starts a family. And then one day tragedy ensues and it's a big tragedy and her life is forever changed. And she will very soon after, find herself in a small central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel at the base of a vaca at the base of a volcano. So this is the main setting for the rest of the book. And this is a story that is going to be set over decades, which is my favorite type of story. And we will follow Irene, but we will also follow so many other people who also live in this small village. And what happens to them? It is, there's a rich assortment of characters. And there's also people who come to stay at the hotel. This particular hotel, like it is off the beaten path. Like you have to take a boat just to get there, and it becomes a very mysterious character. In the book, there is warmth, there's drama, there's romance. I laughed and I cried. And also there's a tiny bit of magical realism, but do not like it. It's part of the story. So this book will span 40 years. And when I say I had so many feelings, some parts of this book, I, and I read this in print, so I don't know how the audio is, but there were times maybe in the sense, maybe in the middle of the book where I was like. I'm bored, like I am totally bored. What is, we gotta have something happen. I don't know, like I'm bored. Where is Joyce Maynard going? What is she doing? And then something would happen and I was like, oh my gosh. You know where you're reading stories and either the characters do something or there is, or something happens and you're like, oh my God, I did not see that coming. And then the story shifts and that is exactly what happened in this book more than once. So by the time I reached to the end, I was like, that's brilliant. It's brilliant. She, and the more, and as time has went on, I think when I finished this, I gave it 4.75. Because I was like I was bored at parts of it, but now I am like, I love this book and I haven't, I really haven't been able to stop thinking about it. And it was one of those reading experiences where now that I'm, a few weeks away from it, I'm like, I want that reading experience again. I wanna be, that's what I want. And wow. I will it's one of my favorites of the fall. Joyce Maynard, this is not my first book by her. I actually read in June her book called After Her, which I also loved. I love the Bird Hotel more. I, she knows what she's doing. knows exactly what she's doing. And I will say, if you do read this, I wanna make note that there is an author note at the end of this book and Joyce Maynard talks about who has the quote, right? To write certain stories. And she does not mince words. And it was really good. And a lot of food for thought for a lot of what we see in the book community, Brett, where people say who, yes, who can write, who has the right to write stories? And I was reading it. I was like, everyone. Should read this au. Everyone should know that Joyce Maynard has this author note out there and it's worth reading. So this one is The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard. It sounds so good. I also love, like something that you said that resonated with me and I feel so strongly about this, especially as we're approaching like end of the year list and looking at this. It's the books that I. Sometimes even at the time you're reading them, you don't know yet, and the way it sits with you. And I certainly have that going back and that's really for me in putting my, and we'll get to one of our choices in a second, but for me that is become such a kind of tent pole for me. I was like, what am I still thinking about this time later? What still floats? And the rest of them, I'm like, that was a great book. This was a really good book, but what are the things that, for whatever reason, whether it was you were laughing so hard or you were so moved, or, all of those things that something can bring up, like you just said. That's to me what ultimately what the best are of a year to me, because they're the things that stuck with me for the longest. So Exactly. And this is a perfect example for me of a story that reminds me that you, when I say you, I'm talking to I'm saying to myself like, you have got to be patient. Like with this is the payoff was so worth it. And it was worth it on more than one occasion. And then I was, and when I finished I was like, ugh. That was so not right of me to say I was and I even told my mom, I was like, I'm reading this book, but I'm bored. I think I told her at the be at the middle. But also sometimes you have, it's okay to be bored when you're reading a book and know, and especially if by the end you're like, oh, that was really good. And like you said, I didn't know at the time that this book was gonna stay with me. Like it has, I think I read it like maybe the first or second. No, maybe the first week in October. And he, it, so it's two months later and I'm still thinking about that Bird hotel. Wow. Yeah, it's really good. Okay. Okay, good. Alright. My last one of this group is minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor. So I read his other books. I read the re I read Real Life as well as the Late Americans. I did not read Filthy Animals, but this was by far. My favorite Brandon Taylor book I just really keyed in when it started. Well, lemme tell you what it's about. First, it says, New York Simmers with Heat and Unrest As Wyeth, a painter finds himself at an impasse in his own work. After attending a dubious show put on by a collective of careerist artists, he retreats to a bar in the West Village where he meets Keating, a former seminarian over the long summer. As the two get to know each other, they talk and argue about. God, sex and art. Meanwhile, at his job working for an art restorer, Wyeth begins to investigate the life and career of a forgotten minor black artist. His search yields potential answers to questions that Wyeth is only now beginning to ask about what it means to be a black artist making black art amid the mess and beauty of life itself, as he did so brilliantly in the Booker Prize finalist Real Life and the bestselling the Late Americans, Brandon Taylor brings alive a captivating set of characters. This time at work and at play in the competitive art world. Minor black figures is a vividly etched portrait, both sweeping and tender of friendship, creativity, belief, and the deep connections between them. So for me, this book was so interesting and he's Brandon Taylor, like reading interviews and reading. He's very outspoken, he's very opinionated, he's very intelligent and there's a headiness about him sometimes. Even when this book started, I'm like, I thought to myself, am I gonna be able to key in? And also because this character of Wyeth, I will just put it right out there. At first I found him a little bit offputting and so I thought, am I gonna be able to, is this kind of gonna just be a curmudgeonly character that you have to deal with? But what was interesting is as you. Begin to be introduced to his coworkers and their kind of reactions to him. It very became clear, this is who this guy is. However, the moment he meets this man, Keating, this former seminarian, and their relationship starts to develop, it opened up this whole new, I'm not gonna say world that sounded so dramatic, but this whole new side of this character and I. Just was so captivated by these two and their dialogues and the conversations that we're having and the way that this kind of dance began to play out between the two of them, that I was completely captivated. It felt like in some ways this very intellectual romance in a way. And it was also uncharacteristic of Brandon Taylor to me.'cause a lot of his books can be a little bit of a downer. And this really worked against that. And so I found myself completely captivated. I thought that these conversations that he was bringing up about art and artists and just the gatekeeping of the art world, the kind of the whitewashing who gets to participate. I thought was really fascinating. I don't know, the whole thing to me just became this incredibly immersive world that I was so drawn into and these two characters in particular, they're two of my favorite as a couple. They're certainly one of my favorite couples that I've read this year. So that's minor Black figures by Brandon Taylor. okay. That sounds a nice surprise. Totally. Oh yeah. Okay. I've heard of that and he's on I do subscribe to his Substack but I didn't really know much about that book. Yeah. It's good. It's really interesting. Okay. Did you say you did the audio I did not, I You read I just read it. Okay. Gotcha. Alright, here's my backup, but also one I really loved and it is Some Bright Nowhere by Anne Packer, and you may have seen this floating around Instagram and or Good Reads. I haven't really, I. I dunno if I've checked good reads, but I do know that a lot of people did not like this book and I loved it. It is an intimate and profoundly moving look at a long marriage and the ways in which a startling request can change a couple's understanding of who they are together and apart. So in this story, we have Elliot and his wife Claire. They've been happily married for almost four decades. They have two grown children. They live in Connecticut, and they have like many people in a long marriage, whether the ups and downs of a long life spent together. In the opening page, on the opening page, we find out that Claire is leaving her oncologist's office and her oncologist is telling her. It has been my honor to treat you. And within the next, few paragraphs, we learn that her cancer, that she has been battling for eight years is there's no more treatment. She's finished with treatment, she's going to be considering hospice, and that is where the story starts. Not a spoiler. And I'm actually going to really not say much about this. Other than Elliot, her husband really like zeroes in and starts focusing on what is gonna be their last days and weeks together. What is that gonna look like? And then Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him shocked. Like reeling just flabbergasted. And really quickly, Elliot's world is shattered. And the story is gonna go on to really take a look at what ha, what if your partner's dying wish broke your heart? And do, does someone who is dying does their dying wish supersede anything else? And I'm not even I am choosing in my reviews for this book not to say what her request was. I think it is in the synopsis, but I think if you don't know, I think it's better to go in without it. But I did know before I started reading this, and actually I wasn't, I thought that the premise sounded so farfetched that I wasn't gonna read it. But then I. I decided to listen to Oprah's interview with Anne Packer because this is Oprah. This was an Oprah's pick for November. And listening to the interview as well as the many of the audience members, there were men in the audience who had very similar experiences to this. I was shocked. I, so listening to that together, I was like, oh, now I'm gonna read this book. Like I have to find out. I loved it. I think now Elliot tells the story, so the whole entire thing is from Elliot's perspective, and I thought that was a real, I thought it was a great way to tell the story. However, we don't get Claire's. Perspective, which would've given us a little bit of a, I think, a more in-depth understanding to her and her motivation. But that's not what we get. And I think a lot of people's criticisms of this story that I have read is that they thought that the characters were unlikeable. I didn't find that to be the case. I was very frustrated with Claire and I didn't understand a lot of what she was doing. But then I was also thinking when it all comes down to your last time on earth, shouldn't, should it be about all about you maybe. I thi this book will, it challenged my compassion and. I had to dig deep, but I also, as someone who's in a long marriage, like in June of 2026, will be our 30th anniversary. I was like, oh my gosh, what would I do? And you think about that and you think it, it just really, it's one of those stories that there are no right or wrong answers, I don't think. And it's very thought provoking is what I will say. Now. I did the audio. The audio is great. I did, I, it was sad. Of course. It's a sad story, but it's also really compelling. There were some funny parts and I just, I don't know. I loved it. I'm giving it five stars. So that is some Bright Nowhere by Anne Packer. Yeah, I just downloaded it like last night'cause I think it was a libro and yeah, so I'm I would love to know I wanna talk to you about it too because from, I don't know, I'm not gonna get the chance to hear from another like man about it. Not I don't know that many male readers to be able, not only are gonna read this to say, what did you think? And you've been in a long marriage, what do you, I wanna hear what you think. Yeah. Okay, great. I'm excited. I'm excited. Alright, so we're gonna, we're now drum roll. Do just one of our top, which is gonna be in our top 10 of the year. Now do you don't, do you know all your top in already or are you still waiting to figure it out? No I know a lot of them. I'm not I'm staying open to that one might slip in, and then I always have the, I always argue with myself like, is this true or is this recency bias? But I end up going with usually my intuition and I usually know whether something, even if it's last minute, deserves a spot in my top 10. So I don't have my top 10 nailed, but I do know a few of them. Do you have yours? For sure. No, I have over, I have over half of'em. I wrote down a lot of them, a lot of different ones, and I'm like, we'll see what fights it out and we'll see if anything in the next two weeks the same pushes through. But yeah. So do you wanna go first? Okay I will go first. This book will for sure be in my top 10. It's Slanting Towards the Sea by Lydia Hilley, and this is a debut. I read this one in January of last year. I've talked about it all year long, and it's the story of Ivana and Villajo. It's their complicated love story. It's set in Croatia, and it's also a father and daughter love story. And it's a love story of one's homeland and of new beginnings and. Finding oneself as an adult. We talk about coming of age with, child to young adult and all that. This is a coming of age of an adult and it's about not only Ivan Ivana, but Ilaho finding, like everybody in the story kind of finds themselves and it's set over the summer, which I just, I've loved this book from, the second I finished it and I was able to sit down and talk with Lydia for a podcast interview on my Substack, which just was a highlight of my year. So this one will be there for sure. I don't know exactly where it's gonna land yet, but we'll see. It's Slanting Towards the Sea by Lydia Hilley. I love that. And I remember, and I read it after you. I loved it. And and I read it based on your recommendation. Yeah. Okay, so mine is the Slip by Lucas Schafer. It's Austin, Texas. It's the summer of 1998, and there's a new face on the scene at Terry Tucker's boxing gym. 16-year-old Nathaniel Rothstein has never felt comfortable in his own skin, but under the tutelage of a Swaggering, Haitian born ex fighter named David Deli. He begins to come into his own. Even the boys slightly stoned Uncle Bob Alexander, who's supposed to be watching him for the summer, notices the change. Nathaniel is happier, more confident Tanner. Even then. One night he vanishes, leaving Little Trace behind across the city. Charles Rex now going simply by X has been undergoing a teenage transformation of his own trolling the phone sex hotline that his mother works, seeking an outlet for everything that feels wrong about his body, looking for intimacy and acceptance, and a culture that denies him both as a surprising and unlikely romance Blooms X feels for a moment like he might've found the safety he's been searching for, but it's never that simple. More than a decade later, Nathaniel's Uncle Bob receives a shocking tip, propelling him to open his own investigation into his nephew's disappearance. The resulting search involves Jim goer's past and present, including a down on his luck twin and his opportunistic brother. A rookie cop determined to prove herself and Alexis edta a promising lightweight to cross the US Mexico border when he was only 14, carrying with him license bearing the wrong name, and face bobbing and weaving across the ever-shifting canvas of a changing country. The slip is an audacious, sorry. The slip is an audacious daring look at sex and race in America that builds to an unforgettable collision in the center of the ring. This thing was so good and so unexpected. Lukey Scheffer, swung for the hills. And there were times when I was reading this book that I was like, oh my God, he is going to go there. And he does. I never figured the mystery out until it was revealed. I never would've even come up with what he comes up with and what happens. It is fantastic, like truly a and it's been getting a lot of accolades and it deserves all of them. It is like a monumental debut to me. Just fantastic. Oh, okay. Yeah that's one. I remember that there was a missing person and Al that you said that. So may have to put that still on my 2026 TBR. Yeah. I did not and I read it too. I don't, I dunno how the audio is, so I don't even know who reads it, but it's great. It's great. So This is amazing, and now we're very excited to see what's gonna pan out to be our favorites of the year. But I think we've thrown together a good group of books for people to nab hold of before. We each end up now announcing our favorites. So thank you as always for being here. I so appreciate it. yes. Thanks for having me. And I good luck with your last couple weeks You too. You too. I hope find that little gem that's in there that you're like, I to have this one. I know. We will keep trying. But yes, thanks for having me and happy to come back anytime. Awesome. Alright, talk soon. Okay, Bye. bye.

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Thanks again, Renee, only one more episode of Behind the Stack this season where I'll be coming to you with my top 10 books of the year. So look for that before the month is over. And then starting in January, 2026, there'll be a whole new season with author interviews, So consider subscribing to the show so you don't miss a single episode wherever you get your podcasts. And what would actually be a great holiday gift to me is if you could go to your podcast platform of choice and rate the show with five stars, what would be incredibly amazing is if you can also write a review. It's reviews and stars that help get the podcast in front of other people. So I can continue to bring you these conversations on behind the stack. Have a great day, and thanks again for listening.