Paperback Readers Podcast

Joe and I started our podcast, Paperback Readers, during the pandemic. Our introverted selves were having a hard time processing how much we were missing being with other people, browsing library shelves, handing books we loved to friends. We were reading like fiends, but we missed connecting with other readers. So we started the podcast as a way to connect.

We decided to post every two weeks, and that our format would be sharing whatever we had been reading, and then end with a book we read together. We loosely took turns choosing the shared read, although I took way more turns than he did, mostly because on his own, Joe doesn’t read much fiction, and I tend to be better at choosing things he will like than he is with me. We had so much fun talking about ideas and the things we had read.

Then we started hearing from people who were listening, people who were picking up our recommendations and were sending us ideas for books to read too. We got emails, and social media messages, and conversations from people we knew about what we were sharing. Our podcast has never had a really big following, but as we evaluated it a little over two years later, we realized that it had done everything we wanted: it helped us connect with other people over books.

So we decided to stretch that connection further by inviting guests to the podcast. This let us share the fun of actually talking about books with other people, and spread the immediate conversation beyond the two of us. We have had two guests so far, our friends Andy and Nathan, and in both conversations, I couldn’t stop smiling through the whole recording. There’s nothing like talking to people you like about books.

I don’t know where our podcast is going. We don’t have a master plan. But I’m happy and thankful for every show we get to make, every recommendation we take and read, every conversation we get to have. Books have always connected people, and I feel really lucky to get to be even a tiny part of that.