Sad summer reading, Pride Month picks and Midwest place writing with Zoe Jackson

EMILY BRIGHT: 12:49 on Minnesota Now. I'm Emily Bright in for Cathy Wurzer. So I produce a series called Ask a Bookseller that runs every Saturday morning on MPR News. And it's a podcast too-- brief, shameless plug for that. But I talk with indie bookstores all over the country and ask them to recommend a good book.

My reading list is pretty long, but it, I suspect, is about to get a lot longer thanks to our next guest. Book talker Zoe Jackson reads about a book a week and has more than 57,000 followers on her TikTok account, @zoes_reads. Lately, Zoe's been taking her readers to one of the beaches in Minneapolis. So we wanted to ask her for a few summer reading tips.

She is on the line now. Hi, Zoe. Welcome back to the show.

ZOE JACKSON: Hi, Emily. Thank you for having me.

EMILY BRIGHT: Oh, I'm so glad you're here. So before we get into your recommendations, what do you look for in a good summer read?

ZOE JACKSON: Ooh. I'm somebody who kind of likes to be a little bit sad when it's beautiful out. So I kind of like a little bit of a heady literary fiction read sometimes set in Midwest Cities like ours.

EMILY BRIGHT: All right. So what have you been reading so far this summer?

ZOE JACKSON: Well I loved The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor, which just came out at the end of May. And he was actually just here last Tuesday at the library in Minneapolis. So it was really cool to see him. But I really enjoyed that book, which is set in Iowa City and follows a group of writers, and artists, and other folks who go to college in Iowa. And it was really interesting and all about who gets to make art and who doesn't.

EMILY BRIGHT: Hmm. So you've been posting about your favorite LGBTQ+ Pride month reads. What do you recommend for people who want-- if they want to spend part of Pride month with a good book?

ZOE JACKSON: Yeah. Well, that actually does work for Pride, but I also recently read Old Enough, which is a new book that's out next week-- next Tuesday actually-- by Haley Jakobson. And it's actually about a young girl who is going to college, and she's sort of trying to deal with who she is as a queer woman with also acknowledging her past when she wasn't out. And I don't know, it's interesting to kind of look at that, especially when you're coming of age. And it's one of those stories that also has kind of like some really warm, fuzzy, finding your own queer family type of vibe to it as well. And I really liked that.

I'm always reading everything that Carmen Maria Machado puts out, including her--

EMILY BRIGHT: Absolutely.

ZOE JACKSON: --essays and that sort of thing. So I recommend both of her books to everyone, and I'm anxiously awaiting her next book. And--

EMILY BRIGHT: OK. No, keep going. Is there another one popping to the top of the list? I don't want to cut you off.

ZOE JACKSON: I really like this book called We Do What We Do in the Dark. And it's another kind of campus novel about a young woman and her very first queer relationship that came out last year, and it's just now in paperback.

EMILY BRIGHT: You know, I'm always fascinated by how the voice of an author or a character just gets stuck in your head long after you finish a book. It's like you're walking around with this new friend. Are there any voices of characters or authorial voices that you're carrying around with you of late?

ZOE JACKSON: Ooh. Well, I'm reading the Death of Vivek Oji, which is not a new book, but it's one that I feel like is very beloved by a specific sector online. And I've been trying to read it really slow because the voice in that book is so, so good. And it's kind of a chorus of voices talking about what happened to this young boy in this town in Africa. And that's really interesting.

And it's a queer book. And I don't know, it has kind of the magical realism vibe to it as well, with a group of voices telling the story. And I really see kind of the main voice in that novel in my head this week.

EMILY BRIGHT: Tell me again the title of that.

ZOE JACKSON: The Death of Vivek Oji.

EMILY BRIGHT: OK. What's coming out soon that people should watch out for?

ZOE JACKSON: Yeah. I really liked this book called All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky. I don't think I'm pronouncing her last name right. And that is a book kind of set in LA that's very hazy, night-life impacted about these two sisters. And the younger sister is sort of trying to figure out what to do with her life while also trying to find her older sister who kind of goes missing or just disappears for a while.

And as she looks for her sister, she also is exploring her heritage as an Eastern European woman and kind of how generational trauma is also generational magic as she tries to find her sister. And that's out next month. And it was excellent. I read it in January, and it's one of my favorite books I've read this year.

EMILY BRIGHT: I think I should read it just for the term generational magic.

ZOE JACKSON: I know, right?

EMILY BRIGHT: You're a fan of Samantha Irby. Tell me about her book.

ZOE JACKSON: Yeah. I-- she's another Midwest kind of writer that I just think gets the region so right. And my fun fact about her is that she lives in my college town. So it's always fun to read her essays that talk about Kalamazoo, Michigan of all places.

But her new book is really good. It's called Quietly Hostile. And I don't know, it kind of has some of the elements of the pandemic that she writes about while she's working on a TV show in Chicago, and she hears about this crazy thing and has to get back to Michigan. And just sort of her reflections from that very weird time are in there, but it's still super light and not traumatic to read back.

It's enjoyable to kind of remember where you were and that sort of thing. And she just talks about TV shows and pop culture in the most fun way. And all of her books have everything from like Judge Judy to-- it's so fun even if you don't watch these shows that she likes.

EMILY BRIGHT: So I want to ask you about trends. What are you seeing on book talk? What's getting buzz lately?

ZOE JACKSON: As usual, I would say Emily Henry. Her new book Happy Place came out a couple of months ago. And that one is still huge-- still huge on the bestseller list as well. And that's a fun one that's really great for a beach read. It's a second chance romance about a group of friends who are in their early 30s, and they go away every summer since college to this Maine beach town. And yeah, it's good. If you like a second chance romance, I think you will enjoy that one.

And there's this new book, a fantasy book, I haven't read called Fourth Wing that is like all over my free page, including being read by the literary fiction girls who don't really read fantasy. So I'm kind of curious about it as well.

EMILY BRIGHT: Yeah. So I understand you have an online book club. And I know finding a good book club is kind of worth its weight in gold. So--

ZOE JACKSON: Yeah.

EMILY BRIGHT: --I want to hear about it.

ZOE JACKSON: Yeah. It's called the Woman Versus the Void Book Club, and we read exclusively books by women authors, a lot of books by queer authors and authors of color, that are all about different women confronting either existential, societal-- I don't know-- climate change, or should I have a child in a world like this sort of problem, or an internal who am I type of battle that I think a lot of people can relate to. And yeah, we're almost at 5,000 members which is fun.

And I hear from a lot of people who are just kind of like I don't really want to read Colleen Hoover, or I've already read the books that maybe my local book club tends to read. And we do read a lot of relatively newer releases too. So yeah. And it's actually--

EMILY BRIGHT: So how do I find that?

ZOE JACKSON: It's on the Fable app, which is a book club app, and we have an Instagram as well.

EMILY BRIGHT: OK. And so, last question for you. For people who want to read more but find themselves too busy in summer, or life, or whatever happens to be going on, how do you make time for reading?

ZOE JACKSON: Yeah. I mean, I feel like it sounds really simple, but just having a book with you whenever. Because I feel there's always this weird dead time that's even built into our busy lives. And just having a book in the car when you're waiting for somebody who's late or squeezing that in. If you have it with you, I think you're more likely to read it. So I always have a book with me unless it's so good that it would distract me from everything else I'm doing if I picked it up.

EMILY BRIGHT: All right. I love it. Well, Zoe, thanks for your time, and happy reading.

ZOE JACKSON: Thank you.

EMILY BRIGHT: You can follow Zoe Jackson on TikTok @zoe_reads or Instagram @libraryofzoe. And while you're taking notes on great titles to read this summer, let me just throw a few more at you. The Midwest Book Awards will be awarded Saturday in Minneapolis. , That list of finalists includes 83 titles in 32 categories by authors across the Midwest. You can look up all the titles by searching Midwest Book Awards.

And that's it for the show today here on Minnesota Now. Cathy will be back tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in.

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