[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: Intellectual curiosity leads to a good deal of overwhelm because when everything sounds interesting, you have a lot more options than someone who only wants to read about pharmacology, let’s say, under the circumstances.

AMY ST. AMAND: Sure. And that’s something I don’t want to read about.

ANNE: I have zero recommendations for you, so that is going to work out really well for both of us.

AMY: Perfect.

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.

[00:00:56] Readers, if you’re a member of our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club, today’s topic may sound familiar in a really fun way. Today, we’re exploring the idea of a personal curriculum, something we touched on in our recent book club class called A Close Look at Great Books when our community manager, Ginger Horton, shared more about her ongoing grad school experience focused on a great books curriculum and how you can apply some of those great books ideas to your own reading life in ways that are either formal or informal, depending on what you’re looking for.

If this sounds like good nerdy fun to you, I want you to know this is the kind of thing we do in book club all the time. Head over to ModernMrsDarcy.com/club to see what’s going on over there right now, and if you might want to join us in book club. That’s ModernMrsDarcy.com/club.

Now, for today’s episode, when our guest sent in her submission, her reading project immediately piqued my interest, and I knew I wanted to hear more, and I thought you would too.

[00:01:56] Amy St. Amand is joining me today from Rhode Island, where she works as a primary care clinical pharmacist. Amy told us in her submission that she sent in to whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/guest that because she’s a person who wants to know a little bit about a whole lot of things, she is working to build this personal curriculum, and she wanted to know if I could perhaps help her develop and refine her topics of interest. I couldn’t wait to hear more about Amy’s personal learning plan that she wanted to design for herself. And I was so honored and excited to be a part of it.

Today, we talk a little more about Amy’s why, as well as the origin and progress of her planning so far. Then I’ll recommend a whole lot of mostly nonfiction books that will help her delve deeper into her chosen topics.

As promised, this is good nerdy fun. Let’s get to it.

Amy, welcome to the show.

AMY: Thank you, Anne, so much. I am really excited to be here and want to thank you for the invitation.

[00:02:54] ANNE: Oh my goodness, I’m so excited to chat. Your submission hit our inboxes here at What Should I Read Next? HQ at a really serendipitous moment. And I’m excited to dive into the topic you’ve brought today, but first, would you start just by telling us a little bit about yourself? We want to give our readers a glimpse of who you are.

AMY: Absolutely. So, I am born and raised in the smallest state, Rhode Island. If you talk to any Rhode Islanders, a lot of us choose to stay local in part because we sort of view a 20-minute drive as a road trip where you need to pack a lunch.

I went to the University of Rhode Island and earned my PharmD or Doctorate of Pharmacy degree there, and then did two years of residency to become what’s called an ambulatory care pharmacist. So, on a day-to-day basis, I work with primary care teams to help them with their patients and do medication management for a few different conditions, anything from diabetes to high blood pressure to smoking cessation, just to kind of name a few. And it’s something that I really love and enjoy and find fulfilling.

[00:04:09] Outside of that, I also teach at a medication technician program. That’s where we help CNAs become certified to pass medications at assisted livings and nursing homes. I’m also an indoor cycling instructor. I’ve been doing that since college.

I have a wonderful partner, Jason, and some of our hobbies that we enjoy doing together include building Lego kits, and we like to watch competition reality shows. And we hang out with our cats, Pickles and Donut.

I’m also really close with my sisters, and we like to do trivia nights together. Lately, we’ve been on a mission to find the best local coffee shops and cafes and ice cream parlors around the state. So we’ve kind of enjoyed being tourists in our own state this past year.

[00:05:07] ANNE: Oh, that sounds amazing. Okay, I’d love to get you on the record as saying what you said in your submission about, as you might imagine, you have a type A personality, and that shines through in your reading.

AMY: Yeah, well, I think that kind of goes hand in hand with the profession. You know, we have to be very meticulous and cautious and be thinking about a balance of risks and benefits. But yeah, I’ve been type A since I can remember. Always sort of an overachiever in a lot of ways.

ANNE: I’m very curious about how that does shine through in your reading life. Would you start by telling me about that? What does reading mean to you? What is that looking like for you right now?

AMY: Well, I’ve always loved reading for as long as I can remember. I remember my sister actually used to make jokes when we were younger that she was an average child and didn’t read a book a day the way that I did. I remember being so excited for library trips and when the Scholastic Book Fair came into school.

[00:06:08] Then I had, of course, a lot of required reading in high school and college. So it was really after graduation that I was able to delve back into my love of reading for fun. These days a lot of my reading comes in the form of audiobooks because I actually take in information really well that way, but also, it allows me to multitask while I’m reading. So I can be driving in the car or on a walk or cooking dinner and be reading along the way.

I do, of course, still love sort of having a physical book in hand as well and that reading experience. More recently, I’ve actually started to enjoy using the Kindle app on my iPad, especially when traveling, just because it’s so convenient. One hack is I have a Peloton bike as well, and you’re actually able to pull up the Kindle app on the Peloton. So I’ll be sitting there pedaling and getting some exercise in while reading my ebook as well.

[00:07:15] But in terms of the type A, I do definitely keep a very organized TBR and try to stick to it. But then I do get excited when certain new releases come out, so sometimes there are books that kind of jump right to the top of that list.

But one of my absolute favorite things in my reading life right now is that my 10-year-old niece now loves reading just as much as I did when I was her age. And so she and I are doing library trips together now and helping each other pick out our next reads.

I always tell her to help me find the book with the prettiest cover on it. And then we go to the kids’ section afterwards and she gets to wander around and find what she’s interested in reading. And so it’s just been really, really fun to be able to share that love of reading with the next generation.

ANNE: Oh, that sounds amazing.

AMY: Yeah.

ANNE: Amy, what brings you to the show today?

[00:08:13] AMY: The reason I wanted to talk with you today, Anne, was to sort of cultivate some resources, because I’ve recently come across a trend on social media called a personal curriculum. This idea comes from a creator. I found her on TikTok. Her name’s Elizabeth Jean or she goes by Parmesan Princess is her handle.

I’ve just never been so thoroughly influenced by a trend in my life. The idea behind it is that you get to create your own course or your own curriculum for yourself based off of things that you are interested in. And it’s been really incredible to see all of the ideas that people come up with, all of these just fun or deep and interesting topics that people want to delve into more.

I’m a very curious and nosy person, so I just want to know everything. So I am having a little bit of a hard time kind of narrowing down the next couple of things to delve into. So I would really love your help with kind of narrowing that down and coming up with different books and resources that can help with that.

[00:09:33] ANNE: Well, I appreciate you bringing the request to the show. And also, I feel like I should tell you that as someone who shares your intellectual curiosity, I am very aware of how delightful it is to be a person who finds so many things interesting. And also something that I was shocked and dismayed and also went, “Oh, of course,” when I was writing Don’t Overthink It was that intellectual curiosity leads to a good deal of overwhelm because when everything sounds interesting-

AMY: Yes.

ANNE: Yeah, you have a lot more options than someone who only wants to read about pharmacology, let’s say, under the circumstances.

AMY: Sure. And that’s something I don’t want to read about.

ANNE: I have zero recommendations for you. So that is going to work out really well for both of us.

AMY: Perfect.

ANNE: I was saying the timing was really great. Our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club community manager, Ginger Horton, who’s been on the podcast recently, is the person on our team who’s most into TikTok. Y’all, I’m not on TikTok. I’m not on Instagram these days. I know nothing except what Ginger brings me or my kids occasionally.

[00:10:35] But she was talking about the personal curriculum and how it was everything she loved with just enough structure to feel a little bit different. And then the day after she was enlightening me about what was happening on TikTok that I’d be interested in, your submission came in. So I’m really excited to talk today about shaping your personal curriculum.

Amy, I love how you’ve discovered this idea and thought, “Yes, I can make this work for my reading life.” But how can I help today? Are we seeking to look at all the options and maybe pull it back into a manageable next steps range? I’m trying to imagine what you might have in mind. I’d love to hear.

AMY: Well, that’s the trouble, isn’t it? It’s that there’s so many things that are interesting. I’ve had some ideas of where I want to take this next, but I am always open to inspiration of other ideas or resources that you think I might just find interesting as an intellectually curious person.

[00:11:39] What I can say is that in the past, when I’ve kind of encountered similar experiences in my reading life, it has often taken the form of a narrative nonfiction book. So I think of books that I’ve read and really enjoyed, and that mean things like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Boys in the Boat, and other micro histories.

Mary Roach is an author who writes a lot of those styles of micro histories where it’s a really deep dive into a very specific topic. I think that’s what I’m looking for, is I want to know the detail. I want to know the nitty-gritty on these very particular subjects. So less so an overview of a topic and more of a deep dive.

ANNE: Because the fun is in the details.

AMY: Yeah.

ANNE: Okay. I think you said in your submission you want to know a little bit about a lot of things.

AMY: Yes.

ANNE: But not just the big picture.

[00:12:39] AMY: Exactly. Exactly. That’s something that both my partner and I pride ourselves on is being able to kind of speak to a mixed crowd about different topics and have at least a little nugget of something to say about really anything that may come up. So it’s kind of a fun way of thinking about that.

ANNE: Oh, that sounds super fun. Amy, I know you came today with a list of topics you know you’re interested in and you can’t read about all of them at once. So I’m wondering how much is deciding, actually, this is the topic I’m interested in most right now. And I wonder how much is, when you find the specific book, you’ll know it, and finding that individual resource will determine your topic.

AMY: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think the way that I’ve been approaching it mentally has been topic and then finding resources. But I could very easily see how if I found something, like a particular book, that really called to me and sounded interesting, how that could sort of shape a topic to look at as well.

[00:13:42] So I think it could really go either way. But the initial what you said of a topic and then finding resources is sort of how I’ve been approaching it.

ANNE: I’m so excited to get into this. And also, as we’re talking about this today, we’re drawing inspiration. Our launching off point is definitely this TikTok trend. But we are not seeking to assess the details of what’s happening on TikTok. We are taking this idea of building a learning plan you designed for yourself and running with it from here. Are you good with that, Amy?

AMY: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. Okay. Excellent. I think what we want to do today is we set the stage, have some idea of what we’re going to leave you with at the end, which is basically next steps, and hopefully some enthusiasm for more specific topics and perhaps even individual resources than you’re feeling right now.

I think a good way to hear more about what’s going to work for you is to hear about what you’ve loved and not in the past. I know you came with books today. Can we talk about those now?

AMY: Absolutely.

[00:14:45] ANNE: Amy, if we could do what we often do around here, and if you could tell me, let’s say, three books you love and one you don’t to get the beginnings of a picture of what you enjoy as a reader. What did you bring today?

AMY: Great. The first book that I brought that I loved recently was Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty. I really enjoyed this book. I think part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was the shifting perspectives and getting a glimpse into each of the characters’ mindset and their lives.

But for those of you who have not read it, sort of the background or the synopsis of the story is that there’s a whole group of individuals who are on a flight together, and mid-flight, an older woman stands up, and she starts to walk down the aisles, stopping at each individual person and predicting when and how they are going to die. As you can imagine, that causes a lot of disarray and discussion amongst all of the passengers on this airplane.

[00:16:00] Then the story sort of evolves after the airplane to the first initial couple of predictions coming true and sort of people’s reactions to that. So it’s a really interesting premise. I like that it’s very rooted in one moment in time on the airplane, and then it sort of follows the aftershocks after that.

I really liked the way that it sort of ended up creating community among the members on the plane as well. I really enjoyed reading that one. It was a fun reading experience.

ANNE: And I don’t want to give any spoilers here, but something you and I talked about before we hit record is how this woman’s profession plays significantly into the novel. And as a reader, I really enjoyed learning more about that profession. And I’m wondering if that real world concrete field explored in depth was some of the appeal for you with this story.

[00:17:03] AMY: I did enjoy that. The main character, the woman who stands up on the plane, is also an actuary in her real life. So it kind of has this tie-in of, you know, in terms of insurance and those sorts of predictions of life, but then her having obviously a much more specific and not based off of predictive models type of prediction. So that was really interesting.

This is a little bit off topic, but I also recently read a book called The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern. That is actually a book about a pharmacist.

ANNE: What?

AMY: Yeah. Yeah, I know. I think I read it after I... or maybe I forgot about it before I submitted it. But that was a really fun novel as well. There’s like a little bit of magical realism in with it, and it explored not only sort of the realistic sides of pharmacy, but she also had an aunt who is more into herbalism and sort of that main. So it was really an interesting and fun read for me.

[00:18:06] ANNE: I’m glad you found that one, or that it found you.

AMY: Yeah, exactly.

ANNE: Amy, what’s the next book you love?

AMY: The second book that I brought was My Friends by Fredrik Backman. I am just a huge fan of this author. He’s probably my favorite author of all time. I will read anything that he publishes. But this is his most recent release. It follows... they are in the modern times. There’s a young girl who’s a teenager who has a real connection to this art, this painting, and she actually ends up talking to the artist in sort of a very roundabout way.

Then the other component of the story is the background of the artist and his group of friends from several years ago. What I love about Fredrik Backman’s writing is that it is simultaneously heartbreaking and funny. And you just feel like these people, these characters are real, like you are in their lives and you feel part of it. I’ve found that to be the case for all of the books that I’ve read by him, but this was definitely a new favorite for me.

[00:19:28] ANNE: I’m so glad you feel that way. Amy, what’s the third book you love?

AMY: This is probably more in the vein of what I’m looking for with the personal curriculum trend. This book was Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. A lot of people are familiar with John Green from his young adult reading and fiction writing, but this particular book was nonfiction.

He has been something I didn’t know about, but he has been a real advocate for education and advocacy for tuberculosis worldwide as it continues to be such a terrible disease and killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. This, for me, as a pharmacist, really tied in with the public health component.

I think he does it in such a compelling way because he’s really following the story of Henry. And one of the reasons he has such a personal connection to Henry is that John’s own son is named Henry. And he thought that the Henry he was talking with, who has tuberculosis, was the same age as him, but it was actually because he was so malnourished because of the tuberculosis, and he was quite a few years older.

[00:20:47] So it’s following his story, but also talking about all of the historical elements of tuberculosis and how it has affected us culturally and historically. And so it was really, really fascinating to see how all of those things tied together. And that’s where the name Everything is Tuberculosis comes from.

ANNE: Okay. And I hear you on the narrative nonfiction being perhaps more in the vein of what you’re looking for for your personal curriculum.

AMY: Yes.

ANNE: Amy, tell me about a book that did not work for you. And I’d love to hear why. Not your cup of tea, was the timing wrong, a topic that felt uncomfortable?

AMY: Yeah. The book that I put as one that wasn’t right for me was Leave the Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. I’ve read this a while ago now so the particulars are a little bit hard to remember. But what I do recall was that it was very stream of consciousness and there were just some kind of gratuitous descriptions of things that felt a bit unnecessary. It wasn’t a style of writing that I particularly enjoyed.

[00:22:00] ANNE: Okay. So I’m noticing that, I mean, as readers, we can enjoy a broad variety of books that three individual selections cannot encompass. But Here One Moment, My Friends, Everything is Tuberculosis feel very expansive and open.

AMY: Yes. And I maybe selected a few things from different styles and different genres intentionally because my reading life definitely... I read so many different styles of things. Like I mentioned before, between being curious and nosy, I just want to really kind know and enjoy all sorts of genres. There’s definitely a hard to sort of pin down one style or one theme I would like per se.

ANNE: Okay.

AMY: That’s something that’s challenging for me because I want to read it all, and there’s only so many things you can read.

[00:22:58] ANNE: Oh, that’s the laugh of recognition you’re hearing right there. I hear you. And I believe as you explore topics in your personal curriculum, there could certainly be novels that could illuminate these themes. And also I hear that you’re anticipating spending more time in narrative nonfiction.

AMY: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. Can we move on to your personal curriculum?

AMY: Sure.

ANNE: So this is a learning plan you designed for yourself to explore topics, build skills, and deepen knowledge. That’s how you described it in your submission. Do you want to tell me about some themes you’re considering? Does that feel like a good place to start?

AMY: Yeah. I mean, I could even talk a little bit about a couple of the things that I’ve already explored if that would be a helpful jumping-off point too.

ANNE: I’d love that. Let’s start there.

AMY: This past month in September, my focus was on building a better vocabulary. And people have been joking with me, “You already have a very strong vocabulary,” but I’m like, “Well, there’s always more to learn.”

[00:23:56] So I did that by taking a Great Courses class. That’s something that I have access to for free from my library system. The name of the course was Building a Better Vocabulary. There were 30-something lectures and all of them kind of took a deep dive into maybe about eight to ten vocabulary words each. And it was all about learning the history behind the word and etymology and the morphology. Really, really fun and fascinating.

Then, to kind of keep up with that, I downloaded the Merriam-Webster app on my phone. There’s a word of the day. So I’ve been writing that down in my journal and trying to utilize that word throughout the day, or at least once in a sentence here and there. So that’s been fun.

[00:24:53] I’ve actually seen some of these words come up in my reading, which has been really funny as well, or while I’m listening to podcasts, and somebody will throw out the word mercurial, and I’ll be like, “Oh, that was one of the words I studied.” And now I have a deeper understanding of it or, you know, deeper connection to it. So that has been really fun.

And then this month, I started on a different course, also from The Great Courses, called Warping Reality Inside the Psychology of Cults. And it is really just fascinating to learn more about the psychological principles behind what, you know, maybe makes someone choose to enter a cult. Obviously, they’re not thinking at the time that they are entering a cult, and then also, they get very deep into the leaving part, the survival part afterwards. So it’s been very fascinating.

[00:25:54] Those are a couple of areas that I’ve already taken a deeper dive into. I am looking to figure out where I want to take this next.

Also, I am so excited to start on Fleetwood Mac. I had never really listened to their music all that much prior to a couple of years ago. My entry point for Fleetwood Mac really was on Monday nights for my spin classes, my indoor cycling classes, I will often do an artist series. I’ll pick an artist, a band, and do a best-of playlist for that night.

A couple of years ago, I did a Fleetwood Mac playlist and fell in love. I just really enjoy their music. I know that there is a lot of personal dynamics within... like, I’m vaguely aware of some of the personal dynamics within the band and I really want to know more. That’s kind of where the personal curriculum of learning more about Fleetwood Mac comes from. So if you have resources or books suggested for that, I would love to know more.

[00:27:12] ANNE: I mean, there’s so many. You could go old, you could go very new. There was just a new book in that series called All the Songs that breaks down the entire oeuvre from an artist or a group. And the new book in that series from two French authors just came out this year about Fleetwood Mac. And they have so many songs. This book is like 600 pages. But if the story behind every song appeals to you, that book is called Fleetwood Mac All the Songs. It’s the latest in an ongoing series. Maybe that sounds fun.

AMY: That does sound like a lot of fun.

ANNE: And you also mentioned in your submission you were looking at rereading Daisy Jones.

AMY: Yes.

ANNE: You know, there’s all kinds of ways you could approach this. There are histories. There are histories on the individual artists in the group. There’s stories about the rise and tumultuous dynamics in the band. There’s histories about the 70s where Fleetwood Mac features but isn’t the actual subject.

[00:28:13] There’s been a lot of conversation about the continuing legacy of some of the living artists in Fleetwood Mac and how they continue to influence songwriters that came after and are still working, beginning to work today, and how influential, say, Stevie Nicks continues to be.

AMY: Agreed.

ANNE: Yeah.

AMY: I was interested in rereading and potentially rewatching Daisy Jones & The Six because when I first read that audiobook, I did not realize that the influence was Fleetwood Mac. I just sort of enjoyed it for the story that it was. And then later when that was something that came across my awareness, that was also kind of a jumping point for my interest in Fleetwood Mac as well, just knowing that there are sort of those deeper interpersonal relationships and drama that is within the band that I want to know more about.

[00:29:14] ANNE: Yes. And I’m so glad you mentioned about the multimedia multiple format potential here. People, readers, you, Amy, you all can do whatever you want with your personal curriculum. The way some readers are setting this up is, here’s some books I’ve been meaning to read. This is my curriculum, meaning to read. Some people are choosing a theme for the month, a theme for the season. You can read one book, you can read 10.

My favorites and the ones I love to hear about are the ones that combine a variety of perspectives, a wide variety of formats, and also that don’t just focus on the input, like the things we’re taking in and soaking up and learning, but also the assignments we make for ourselves to put this new knowledge to work.

Even if that’s just, Amy, if you and I were to discuss, for 20 minutes, the Fleetwood Mac bio you read, or what you noticed in Daisy Jones, like that would count as output. But just writing notes in your journal, completing a project, baking a recipe, running an experiment, going to a museum, you know, seeing in person a different facet of what you’re exploring, those are the ones that I think sound really cool.

[00:30:28] So Amy, you have lots of options here, I think maybe depending on how much time you have in a season, on how much a certain topic compels you to keep finding out more. But-

AMY: Right, right. I also saw some discourse about exactly what you’re saying about, you know, not only taking information in, but also there being some kind of output, even if that’s just a conversation with somebody about the things that you are learning, or, you know, with the vocabulary, utilizing that word of the day and trying to rope it into your conversations so that there’s an element of also utilizing and contextualizing the information that you’ve taken in. So we’re not just absorbing, but we’re also, you know, putting that out there as well.

It’s been so fun to look at everything that people have come up with, whether it’s... I saw somebody who’s on, you know, the journey to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie, and like look through all of the recipes.

ANNE: Oh, that’s amazing.

AMY: Like, how fun is that!

[00:31:29] ANNE: So fun. But also there’s so much you can explore.

AMY: Oh, yeah.

ANNE: Like the history of chocolate, how is it sourced today, the science of cooking. I have some books for that. Oven temperature, experimenting, the history of chocolate chip cookies. Well, you know, Toll House, how does that factor in? What are we doing now? Yeah. I love it. I’m not going to borrow that, but gosh, that sounds fun.

AMY: It’s fun. Yeah. And food science is definitely one that I have an interest in. I have gotten into cooking a lot more over the last five years since we moved into our home. One of the books that I’ve had on my TBR for a long time and haven’t read yet is Salt Fat Acid Heat.

ANNE: Oh my gosh.

AMY: I know. I definitely need to read it.

ANNE: I mean, I say it like that, not because, Oh, I can’t believe you haven’t. Because I can always when somebody hasn’t read a book, like there’s so much to read. Not a surprise. But it’s so perfect for a personal curriculum on food science.

AMY: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:21] ANNE: Well, I think we’re going to come back to that, but can we hear about some of the topics you’re considering exploring in the future?

AMY: Yeah, absolutely. So food science, international cuisine. So learning more about the flavor palates and how to cook with some other styles than what I’m used to, to really expand my repertoire.

I also have always been fascinated by Greek mythology. I actually took a Greek mythology course as an elective in college. So I’ve got a little bit of a working knowledge there. But I always enjoy every time that I revisit it, whether it’s in fictional context or nonfiction. I’d really like to delve deeper there.

Another one was how music affects the brain. Oliver Sacks, who has a book about that Musicophilia, I believe, was something I read a long time ago back in high school. And I’d love to revisit that and also look very, very scientific level of how our brain interacts with music and vice versa.

[00:33:33] Something else that has been on my list and that I’ve wanted to learn for a long time is American Sign Language. I took Spanish for forever growing up in high school and college and I’m still not conversational in it, which is terrible, but I feel like sign language, because maybe it’s using different part of the brain, or it’s not all verbal, that it might be something that sort of really loops me in deeper. I don’t know. I’m just looking to expand on that too.

So those are some of the topics. I am remiss if I don’t say that’s just like a small sampling of the things that I’m potentially interested in, because there’s just so many ways that this could go. I think that’s part of what’s so fun about it is that there’s no end date.

[00:34:30] There’s no, you know, finishing this per se. It is, if you sort of are enjoying it, something you can take elements of and implement going forward. And I could, you know, learn about a new topic every month or every season. That really, really excites me as somebody who’s always been a lifelong learner.

ANNE: Well, this is exciting. I’m excited for you.

AMY: Thanks.

ANNE: Also, my brain is drawing parallels to the priority to be read list. I like to keep just a few titles on a Post-It note to remind myself when I finish a book, oh, this is what I already decided I probably want to read next.

I think what we may be hearing is you described the potential topics you’re interested in exploring, your version of... there’s so many things you’re interested in, but you’re thinking these 3, 4, 5 topics are probably going to be the first ones you hit in the near term. They could get bumped out by new discoveries, but this is kind of like you’re working-

AMY: This is the working list. Yeah.

[00:35:28] ANNE: Okay. This is so interesting. So much to pull from. What I’m wondering about is the interconnectedness of these topics that interest you. Now, the food science doesn’t really fit here. At least not as far as I can see. When you bring international cuisines into it, it does a little bit more.

But I’m seeing how so many of these topics have to do with shaping narratives, creating scaffolding for the stories we tell about ourselves, tools to communicate like deep emotional human truths. Not just creating that scaffolding, but then putting stories upon them. We see a lot of stories and language, and narrative. I’m wondering, would all topics be about that? Is that just how we are as readers, or is there something that speaks to you in that little encapsulation?

[00:36:23] AMY: That is a really interesting observation. I do think that that’s a particular area of fascination for me is how we all interact with one another and whether that be via music or with Greek mythology, thinking about the stories that we use to explain our past and events that happen in our lives. And of course, with the sign language, I would love to be able to communicate with others in a way that’s more accessible to them and not just accessible to me.

I think that that’s a really, like I said, interesting observation. I do think that there’s some kernel there that there is a thread with some of the areas of interest that I have.

ANNE: Okay. I’m going to keep pondering that as we talk. But Amy, if it’s okay, I’m wondering if we can kind of envision some possibilities for each of these topics.

AMY: Great.

[00:37:23] ANNE: Let’s start with food science since you already mentioned it and since I told you how this is the one that doesn’t currently fit in the framework that I was beginning to see. But you already mentioned Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat, which sounds fantastic, a fantastic pick. What made you say you haven’t read it yet? Is it on yourself? Is it something you’ve been thinking you’d enjoy reading?

AMY: It’s literally sitting in the room with me right now. I’m in my home office where I have my little personal library. It’s something that I had picked up based off of recommendations that I had seen. There’s also, I believe, a documentary or short series on Netflix that each episode sort of follows one of the four.

I think this could be just how my brain works. But whenever I find an area of interest or something that I’m excited about... I do end up doing sort of like a deep delve in whether that’s like a hobby or with cooking, where when I started with that, I really just wanted to know as much as possible so that I was using the right types of seasonings and the right levels of things.

[00:38:36] So I had picked up this book with the intention of really delving deeper into that. And then just sometimes life gets in the way or other things take priority or my brain shifts, and there’s something else that I’m really excited about, and I go and dive down that rabbit hole.

I haven’t had the kind of opportunity to really read through it just yet. I have a ton of other cookbooks as well, but this is the one that really, I think, is going to go deeper into the science behind why certain combinations of ingredients work the way that they do.

ANNE: Yes, she does explain the why and how of it all. And also, I’m not adding this to your metaphorical here, but she has a cookbook that just came out in September called Good Things, which she took a very different approach to. And I’ve enjoyed hearing more about what was special about the first book in contrast to her new book, which is a more traditional compilation of recipes and less about the theory.

[00:39:39] I don’t know if this makes a difference for you, especially because you own Salt Fat Acid Heat, but it’s great on audio. Recipes are way down the list. They’re the things she begrudgingly included in Salt Fat Acid Heat.

She mostly wants to tell you how it works and to consider your relationship with your ingredients and the ingredients’ relationships to each other. And you can do that wonderfully with your ears, especially if you learn well in that format.

AMY: Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea or maybe even an immersive reading experience with that one since I do have the physical copy as well. I did see Good Things that came across my view yesterday, actually. So it’s funny that you bring that up.

I think that’s what I really want to know more about is why things work together, because then it really allows you to be more creative. And if you can understand the principles behind why these particular flavors work together, you’re able to substitute things in a recipe or make it your own, which I am really excited about.

[00:40:44] ANNE: I’m glad to hear that.

AMY: I also, when I was in college, I did a lot of nutrition courses. I almost was able to minor in it. I was like two or three credits short, but I feel like this kind of ties into that same interest as well, just more on the flavor side of things as opposed to the actual chemical composition of the food.

ANNE: Wait, what’s the first part? As opposed to the actual chemical composition, it focuses on the-

AMY: It’s about the flavors and how the flavors work together.

ANNE: Okay. Well, then I’m wondering if some of these other books that I was thinking of that were very much about food science are actually up your alley. But Harold McGee’s on Food and Cooking is a classic. He wrote an update in 2010 called Keys to Good Cooking. But there’s some newer ones.

And I wonder if the one that is basically a popular Harvard class turned into a very long book would be good for you. It’s called Science and Cooking: Physics Meets Food, from Homemade to Haute Cuisine. And it’s by Michael P. Brenner, Pia Sörensen, David Weitz. It’s available in audiobook. I don’t know anything about the audiobook.

[00:41:47] But it does have recipes. It’s not a cookbook. Chocolate chip cookies are featured prominently in one section, if that’s your personal curriculum. But what they’re doing is saying like, here’s what we know about physics, chemistry, and engineering, and what it means for what you’re making in your kitchen.

And they cover all kinds of dishes, like the cookies, but also caramelized carrot soup or Chinese soup dumplings. I wonder if that would be interesting.

AMY: That sounds really fascinating. And especially for me, the scientist brain, you know, as a pharmacist of like wanting to understand that relationship too, that does sound really compelling.

ANNE: I think when I found out about it, it was described as being perfect for science geeks who love to cook and cooks who love the science of it all.

AMY: Well, that sounds just about right.

ANNE: I’ll hold back. There’s more along those lines. For international cuisine, there’s so many options that you can hone in on individual cuisines. But for an overview, I really love National Dish that came out a couple years ago. This is available in audio, but the illustrations are so beautiful and such a prominent part of the book. I might recommend seeking that one out.

[00:43:04] But this is by Anya von Bremzen. The subtitle is Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home. And what she’s doing is examining six different places through the lens of their quote, “national dish”. Maybe not the only one, but a one that is beloved that they are known for. Like in Seville, she goes into tapas, and in Tokyo, she goes into ramen and rice, and Naples gets pizza and pasta.

I mean, the specifics, the details that you enjoy about a particular place and an individual dish, I think are very interesting. But also just the way she’s thinking about what does food mean and how does it become imbued with this meaning, I think could potentially be really interesting.

And a launching off point for, okay, what do you want to explore more of that was in these pages, or what do you want to read about that wasn’t here, and you find yourself missing it and wanting to know more?

[00:44:03] AMY: That sounds like a really great option. I am interested in learning more about sort of the cultural aspects of food as well. So I think that that would be a really good place to start.

ANNE: Okay. I’m glad to hear it. I’m excited for you. And the outputs you could create for yourself, the assignments-

AMY: Those are the most fun. They’re cooking.

ANNE: With food. Yeah. I mean, Netflix documentary, but also time in your own kitchen, time out to restaurants, travel. You could order all kinds of spices off the internet. Or I don’t know what’s available in Rhode Island. Maybe you go to your local shop. But that sounds like so much fun.

Okay. So you love Fleetwood Mac and you’re interested in the science of music. And putting those together, there’s a lot of good stuff about how music, what did you say, affects the brain?

AMY: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:49] ANNE: And also some books that pull in some narrative crafting perspectives. As you were describing... well, you mentioned Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. Oh my goodness. You said that John Green, Daniel James Brown, Mary Roach were up your alley. Oliver Sacks I think has written so much about such a wide variety of topics that I think you would, by and large, really enjoy.

But there are some great books by Daniel Levitin. He wrote a book called This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, where he’s seeking to make the neuroscience of music accessible to... I mean, you’re more educated in the sciences than I am, but like accessible to the lay person who doesn’t speak neuroscience, but is very interested in how it all works and why.

He also wrote a book that came out a year ago called I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine, which builds on that idea. It came out more recently and talks about how music affects our brains in very particular ways. And I think either one of those books sound right up your alley.

[00:45:59] I also read a book last year called This is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas. This is not so much about the science. There were some ways in which this book wasn’t what I had wanted it to be, but I thought this book had a very like What Should I Read Next Approach to music.

It said like, okay, here are some elements that you might not be able to articulate that go into what you love. They talk about rhythm and lyrics and beat and tempo and all the... I’m doing this from memory. This is a terrible list I just gave you. But they pull all these artists, some well-known and some not at all, from history. And in the audiobook, they play snippets of so much of the music and say, “Notice this, pay attention to this. What do you like about this? This is what this artist is doing. This is why it was controversial. This is why it was different. This is why it’s important. This is how it works.” And I think especially on audio, that could be a really interesting experience for you.

[00:47:01] AMY: That sounds like so much fun. You know, even though it’s not necessarily the science or the medicine of music that you mentioned with the other two books, it does speak to that other thread we were talking about, about the connection between human beings and sort of the way that we craft our own narratives. So that I think really appeals to that side of my curiosity.

ANNE: Yes. And if we’re piling on, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco has a series of books, but he has a super short, excellent on audiobook called How to Write One Song that is not remotely a how-to. He talks about the process of writing a song. And every time he sits down to do it, he thinks, I don’t know how to do this, but he writes the songs.

And talking about that, shaping narratives, what is the scaffolding for this emotional experience that I want to convey, I think you may enjoy that kind of reflective approach. It’s three hours. You can decide if you want to, you want to chance it and see if that’s up your alley or not. I’m curious.

[00:48:11] AMY: I mean, all of these sound amazing. And like I said before, like, I am so curious about everything that it would... all of these sound really interesting and fascinating to me.

ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. I mean, I want to learn about all this. I want to read all these, or reread for some of them. I know how good they are. I want to do it again.

Let’s talk about ASL and Greek mythology and then we’ll stop piling on. But again, stories, language, how we communicate. There’s a great courses class that’s quite popular called American Sign Language for Everyone. So that may be available to you.

AMY: Yes. That’s on my watch list.

ANNE: Okay. You mentioned Oliver Sacks, and he has a book from 1989 that really holds up as far as I know anything about the topic. It’s called Seeing Voices, and it’s his journey at the time into the world of deaf culture and what he calls, as Oliver Sacks does, the neurological underpinnings and also the social meaning and structural scaffolding of the visual language of those who are congenitally deaf. I mean, this is Oliver Sacks doing what Oliver Sacks does.

[00:49:20] And there are so many fascinating books you could pair this with. One I’ve been meaning to read for ages, but have not read yet and is referenced constantly as a classic is from the 80s. It’s called Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language, about hereditary deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. This was profound and groundbreaking at the time and is continually referenced today. They’re wonderful opportunities to practice ASL yourself and do output in that way.

Also there’s some really great novels, like Sara Novic’s True Biz, which we read with book club that talks about deaf culture, but also some of the complexities and nuances that as a person of hearing who wasn’t very familiar with that world, I just never considered... like some of the tensions and ethical dilemmas I never considered and really enjoyed learning about in those pages.

And then there’s a historical novel pointed to all the time called Ann Clare LeZotte, called Show Me a Sign that I haven’t read yet, but would be on my list where I’m putting together a personal curriculum soon for this topic.

[00:50:21] AMY: Well, those all sound like perfect compliments to maybe doing the class on The Great Courses. I have actually read True Biz, but ironically, read it as an audiobook. And I think that there may be something with that particular novel that it could be lost in the audio version of it.

So I think if I were to revisit that, I would probably want to read a physical copy because I believe, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they actually show some of the signals within the text of that novel that I didn’t get as a listener.

ANNE: That’s true. But I read the print and didn’t listen to the audiobook. And so I know what I missed was hearing the narrator make the signs as they’re referenced in the book, which I thought was really cool. This is one of the books that I might actually do in tandem.

AMY: Yeah. Maybe another immersive experience for that one. Okay, that’s great. That’s exciting. And even if I’ve read something before, sort of revisiting it with this new lens of how it ties into some of these broader topics or these deep dives that I’m going into, I’m always open to revisiting something that I enjoyed in the past.

[00:51:35] ANNE: Yeah. Okay. In Greek mythology, there are so many directions you could take this. And readers, if you’re interested in this, we did a class last fall in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club called Greek Mythology for Readers that could be used straight-up as a personal curriculum. Although it would keep any reader busier for much, much longer than a month. But there’s so many directions you could take this. I know you’ve thought about them. You could read modern retellings, you could read the original stories, you could see adaptations. What specifically appeals to you? And we’ll get you some resources.

AMY: I think the most fun that I’ve had with it has been the retellings, whether that’s in fiction novels. I recently read Hera by Jennifer Saint.

ANNE: Yeah.

[00:52:25] AMY: I’ve really enjoyed novels like that. And I guess what I would love is to be a little bit more prepared with the backstories before diving into some of those novels, just so I’m able to make those connections more succinctly.

Every time I’ve come back to Greek mythology, and often it’s been in the form of fiction, I always have a fun time with it and remembering the stories and how all of the gods and goddesses interact with each other and the heroes. It’s just so much fun. There’s so much there. I feel like this is a bad confession, but I’ve never read the Iliad or the Odyssey. So that might be something that I should prioritize.

ANNE: I don’t think anyone’s aghast. And it wouldn’t really matter if they were.

AMY: Yeah\