Ep 449 - A Better Metric for Book Tracking?

you're listening to reading glasses a show about book culture and literary life designed to help you read better i'm author and book devourer mallory o'mara and i'm brie grant filmmaker and e-reader in this episode we're talking about the length of time read versus books read as a metric did that make sense how i said that i said it in a weird way but okay the time it takes you to read a book versus like the number of books you've read interesting new way to track your reading plus we solve a book tech problem about library ebooks and debate putting smut in your little free library which i texted me about last night uh yeah but first bria what are you reading i just finished a book by friend of the show it's i what a thrill i got to read an early copy of Devil Inside by Clay McLeod Chapman, who's coming on our show. We love Clay so much. I'm so jealous. I haven't got my arc of this yet. Well, it's fantastic. And also, well, I'll plug because I'm doing something with him about the book on February 18th. But first, I'll tell you about the book. It's called Devil Inside. And it basically is, do you remember, I haven't told him this, but do you remember that movie Fallen with Denzel Washington in it? Yes, weirdly. I watched that last year. Okay, it's a good movie. It's kind of people don't talk about it that much. This is basically if that was a horror romance. So God, I love Clay so much. Man falls in love with a girl. Turns out the girl is a demon inside someone else's body. It's happened to all of us. Tale is all this time. And the demon hops from body to body. And it is somehow it is. It really does that. It walks that fine line where it is a horror book. There are things that are scary. There are things that are supernatural. there are things that are like you know strange and unnerving but also it is a romance like it is a true romance they do fall in love romance readers would not be disappointed if you can handle the horror so i honestly this sounds like a like my dream book i'm so excited you you would love it and uh clay i don't know why you haven't sent mallory a copy a copy i do think he sent us e-arcs that's where i read it but i loved it and just to plug we are doing something called date night with the devil on february 18th at 5 p.m on instagram live i don't know if it's pacific oh such a good eastern i guess eastern oh okay so it's uh and for la people it's uh lunch with the devil yeah lunch with the devil we're going to talk about horror romance and this book um the book does not come out for a few months but we're going to talk about that shit baby and you should pre-order if you're a horror romance person the book is sexy the book is fun and it's very romantic and um i just loved it i could not put it down i was talking about it a lot like people i kept going to bring it up to people like i just thought it was so wonderful what are you reading i'm reading kind of a horror anti-romance right now i okay uh we we got a advanced copy of this book and very highly anticipated it's the body by bethany c morrow man this book fucks it is really really good i i'm only i'm not that far into it but it's basically this woman gets into this is not a spoiler this is how the book opens up she gets into a car accident and truly as soon as the car accident happens like she gets brought to the hospital she's okay but her husband meets her there and as soon as the car accident happens her husband starts acting weird like they have this really weird history where like she has a very contentious relationship with her parents with her husband's parents the marriage has been sort of beleaguered since they got married people have been kind of against it and now her husband is acting really weird and weird stuff starts happening and good anti-valentine's day book i think but it's really creepy love i love to see her uh return to more like because i think my favorite book by her is mem so i love to see her return to like really weird surreal you're not sure quite sure what is happening um it is great it's like a great examination of marriage and you know you're like is this an unreliable narrator or an unreliable situation ever like you know i love surreal weird shit so this is very much up my alley uh so i'm reading the body by bethany c morrow and i read devil inside by clay mcleod chapman so we want to take a moment to share some listener feedback jessica wrote in to say, here's my stupid tip for the triage reader. So the triage reader was the person who has a TBR stack, but that keeps getting overrided by the library books that this person has coming in. So they just keep reading library books, even though they're pre-ordering or buying hard copies of things that they're excited to read. So Jessica wrote in to say, here's my stupid tip for the triage reader. Get that book you own and want to read out from the library. The deadline still works for me, even when I own my own copy, especially if I get it in a different format. But honestly, even the same format works that is amazing to just be like you know what i'm giving myself i've done that i have done that where there's books i want to read and then i see it's available at the library and i'm like well i'll just get it from the library and then but because i haven't it's because i think a lot of us who are e-readers it's hard for us to go pick up those physical books yeah for me at least because i'm like oh i but i have all these books like right here on my kindle and i don't need to like go elsewhere so that it does work for me if i just get that book from the library and put it on my Kindle. And then I and then I have a deadline. And it's also right there. The different format thing I do with do this with nonfiction sometimes because I I really love reading nonfiction via audio book. So I'll preorder or buy a nonfiction book and then I'll get a little bit into it. I'm like, I wish I was reading this on a walk and I'll get the audio book from the library. I love that. Yeah. We love double supporting authors. Fantastic. Lizzie wrote in and said, Hi, Bray and Mallory. This might not actually be my first fan mail. I I may have sent a letter to Tori Amos back in 95, but I don't normally write into podcasts. We are in great company. Thank you. I don't normally write into podcasts or participate in any online communities. I'm more of a lazy lurker. Regardless, I wanted to express my thanks and admiration for the work you do. I'm an English professor, so love of reading is kind of part of the job, I guess. But I was so burnt out after grad school, it took me years to return to reading for pleasure. Your podcast has propelled me back to the page slash e-reader screen. and I'm really excited about my new practice of reading during nightly couch time instead of scrolling on my phone and half watching a show I've seen a million times. Especially now in the cold winter of our crumbling nation, reading has been such a joy and comfort. And the cold winter of our crumbling nation goes hard. That is such a, we know, we can actually tell that you teach English, as an English professor. From that sentence, we know you're an English professor. Your pod has also got me back into another long abandoned hobby, writing fiction. I used your wheelhouse model to figure out what kind of book I'd like to read. And that is now the book I'm trying to write. Oh, I love that. I like the idea of creating a weird temporary little world for people to step into if they want, or at least for me to step into away from this garbage world. You both do a ton of intellectual, creative, and logistical labor, and then you write professionally on top of it. How? That's more Mallory than me. And it is also so appreciated. You write too? What are you talking about? And made a difference to. so many i do what i write i write in a different way yeah bria's a screenwriter although i did finally hand in my novel very exciting but and bria's handing in a project this week it literally in two days i have to hand in a movie lizzie this email made my day this is so wonderful it's so nice to hear and to be on the same in the same category as tori amos i mean i just feel very honored wow what a what an honor what an honor do you want to read lizzie's wheelhouse i do it is spooky cozy feminist horror and witch lit wow love that glitches in the matrix liminal spaces everything seems normal but something's just a little bit off love that communes and cults writing that exposes and pushes back against dominant narratives weirdness mixed media like snippets of text emails annotation sketches etc embedded within the main narrative middle-aged women coming into their power and redefining success and love critiques of capitalism and productivity culture female friendship but also mean girl dynamics lake house cabins and cottages well we all we're all obsessed with lake house cottages now yes we're all going to the cottage abandoned structures creepy on knees dark academia from the pov of the faculty this is a really good wheelhouse yeah love this and thank you the faculty is very specific and i like that that it's dark academia which is mostly students but yeah no that's let's move it let's get the faculty in there i love that so you can email us reading glasses podcast at gmail.com if you want a list of all the books we talk about on the show delivered to your inbox every month you can sign up for our newsletter. 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So hey, if you're a new Sarah, we're so excited to have you but if you want a little bit more reading glasses you want almost a decade's worth of bonus episodes you want to get in our discord which is my favorite place on the internet you want to support the show you want to get in on the on the special members only stuff got to join max fun and it not expensive for five bucks a month go to maximum fun slash join they there a link in the show notes just email us your receipt and you going to get instead of me as Aladdin on a on a carpet it me as Mallory on a on a book that flying through the sky. I'm showing you a whole new world of a Glasser community. We would love to have you there. It's so fun. Truly the discord. We get emails all the time from folks who just love the discord. It's a blast in there. And people are always recommend recommending books to each other, talking about what they're reading. Also just talking about random stuff, video games and crafting. There's a great pets channel, a lot of really cute pets out there in the Glasser community. So if you want to support us, we've been putting out this show every single week for almost a decade, and you want to get some cool free stuff and a lot of bonus episodes, maximumfun.org slash join. Sign up for even just five bucks a month and email us your proof, a screenshot of your membership, and we'll, that's the magical key that opens the door to the world of glassers. So before we debate length of time read versus books read as a metric, we're going to take a quick break. Reading Glasses is sponsored in part this week by Green Chef. Folks, it's February, which means all the exciting New Year's resolution shininess has worn off and now we're in the thick of it. We're in the we're in the trenches. We're in the we're crawling along trying to make things happen in this very stressful world. And at least for me, the hardest thing, the thing that causes me the most stress is food. And there's one thing that cuts through all that noise, makes it so easy to eat healthy. They deliver real farm sourced ingredients. It's Green Chef. But Bria, what is Green Chef? Green Chef? Hey, it's a box delivery service. Maybe you didn't know that, but that is what it is if you have been living under a rock. But it is a great box delivery service. they deliver organic produce and responsibly sourced proteins and seafood. And with options like Mediterranean, high protein, high fiber, plant-based, and more, there are so many choices to support any healthy lifestyle. So you can make your habits better for the planet. If that was one of your New Year's resolutions, hey, you can get started right here. Green Chef cuts down on food waste by 20% versus grocery shopping and offsets 100% of delivery emissions, which we really like. Yes. Folks, Bria and I are the type of people that ask for a lot of substitutions at a restaurant. We got, we both have. It's true. We're embarrassing to eat with. We're so embarrassing to eat with. We go somewhere, we say, I'm sorry, but I have to ask a few questions about your menu. That's us. Like neither of us eat meat, but we both have weird food allergies. So there's all sorts of stuff that we, we don't, we can't eat. And because of that, I thought it would be very difficult to find a food box, but Green Chef is so great. They cater to so many different types of diets, all while being fresh with certified organic produce. Very easy. What is better when you are stressed out and don't know what to have for dinner than a magical box showing up on your doorstep with meals planned organized ready to cook it truly truly makes your life easier so you can head to green chef.com slash 50 glasses and use code 50 glasses to get 50 off your first month then 20 off for two months with free shipping that's code 50 glasses at green chef.com slash 50 glasses. 50 glasses. Are you a celebrity? Are you searching for meaning, connection, and a little levity these days? Hi, I'm Kumail Nanjiani, actor, writer, and yes, a celebrity too. And I've got four words for you. Bullseye with Jesse Thorne. Are you tired of junkets? Red carpets? Sick of the endless spicy snacks you have to eat? Do you want to connect with someone who gets your work and laugh with you a little? Join me, Andre 3000, Tom Hanks, Tina Fey, and many more and become a guest on Bullseye with Jesse Thorne from NPR and Maximum Fun. This week, we're delving into a different way to measure your reading are you laughing at me because of this week i didn't laugh i didn't laugh i smiled i did a little smirk i smirked never not funny folks we've been doing this show for almost 10 years we're starting to lose our minds so this is all about not books read not pages read but length of time spent reading is this a good alternative? Could it benefit your reading life? We are getting into it. So today's episode was inspired by Cass. Brea, you want to read Cass's email? Hello. I am a pretty new listener and just caught up on your end of year slash start of year episodes. You had mentioned that people may want to track things that CallPile doesn't cover, and I have a suggestion. I'm actually much more used to tracking my video game playing and time investment is a bigger factor there. The difference between a one hour game versus 150 hour game is astonishing. Although books aren't quite that drastically different as Stephen King taking your whole month is just as meaningful as a handful of novellas that total up to the same time, even though your numbers for the month change. I haven't found a perfect way to track book length, which is somewhat arbitrary no matter how you do it. But my current method is Kindle page count in Goodreads. Oh, that's interesting. Curious if you have better methods and what you think of tracking time versus finished book count. Wow, Bria, this is a whole new world. A whole new world. yeah this is speaking of aladdin uh what do we think of this what do you think well i do think some people do track time we and especially when we first started the show people would write in about how they tracked their reading time that seemed like much more of a bigger deal but now we never talk about it anymore that was like eight years ago people would track how long they read and how long a particular book would take and sometimes it would just be by like day they'd be like I started it this day, I finished it this day. And Goodreads tracks that if you want. This feels very hard to me, but obviously I like a challenge. So this is somewhat interesting. Also on Coppile, you track your audio book hours. Hours, yes. So that's like an easy thing to track. Although it's kind of interesting because if you listen to it on a higher speed, it's not the actual hours listened. So if you go look at like, I listen on Libero FM, which we're an affiliate of, and y'all can use our discount code if you would like. but if you use liberal fm you can go and see like okay this is a six hour audiobook or an eight hour audiobook but i listen to it at 1.4 or whatever i still count that as the length of whatever the audio book is the same okay i'm not i'm not doing an equation i'm not i'm not doing a math problem to figure out we're readers not mathematicians over here so don't ask us to do math i was a math major for my first year of college you know oh my god what bria why i'm good at math i know you are but actually no that doesn't is very it makes a lot of sense to me but why did you switch to history i love a i love a theoretical i love like an equation with a very specific correct answer it makes me feel really happy like which is weird because i do art stuff and there's no correct no that makes sense for your brain quite a bit yeah it helps me i like it when it makes sense i like when you're a very structured person what do you think about timing you're reading. I think that's cool as fuck. To me, this is like reading nirvana. This is when you break past the shackles of your number goals and you reach the pure bliss of reading just to read. Honestly, might try that for February. I love it because it's truly focused on the reading itself. It's not like racking up a number of books read or pages read because you can't cheat it. You can't like inhale 10 graphic novels on the last day of the month and be like, look, I read 20 books. This forces you to focus on reading itself instead of specifically what you're reading. And I really like that. Okay. Do we think this could benefit someone's reading life? I mean, okay. What you're saying, I like what you're saying right now, because there's so many people who I feel like write into us and they're like, I wanted to read a hundred books a year this year and whatever. Like they have these very specific goals and they feel kind of that it's a bit of a curse once they start making these lists instead of like, oh, this like, it feels like a thing to check off. Whereas like reading just for a few hours, you can read whatever you want. You're probably more likely to like not finish something that you didn't like. You're probably, you will, you'll, there's no sunken page fallacy with this. Right. That's right. That's right. It's a little bit like tracking pages, which I know some people do. Yeah. I think, um, for me, I use that focus app that focus. Oh, our beans. Oh yeah. Ozzy Ozbean. Um, I'm saving up for his, to expand his home currently. I expanded. I'm in room two, baby. Wow. How many rooms you got? I'm close to saving up for the kitchen right now. Oh, nice. It is shocking how much time I spend doing things. Like, I do it when I'm writing because I'll be like, okay, this is great. Yeah, I do the same thing when I'm writing. Yeah. And setting that little bean off to do some knitting, if y'all don't know what we're talking about, there's an app called Focus Friend. Someone's listening to this like, what the fuck are you talking about? There's an app called Focus Friend and you have this little bean and you say like, okay, I'm going to to do this for 30 minutes or an hour i'm going to focus and then he goes in or she we tested it out for the show go back and they go knit and then you whatever it's very satisfying because then you knit like a fucking scarf or something and then you get to buy like room stuff so the only thing i'll say is that for a lot of e-readers i think this is sort of built in because we open up our book and we like oh this is a six and a half hour book a lot of us don read exactly that amount of time that part is built in but i think like the general idea the idea of like doing hours instead of books is probably pretty healthy Yeah What do you think? I really think so. I think this would help if someone was getting stressed out about their reading life or they like really want to, they're really concerned about getting back to the basics and enjoying reading again, especially if they haven't been reading for years. They've been in a years long book slump. They had a kid. They went to grad school, all the sort of normal reasons. Because I don't think this is a slump buster, but if you want to work on integrating reading for fun into your life again, I think this might do it. Yeah. And especially if it's like, I think when I envisioned this, I was like, it's someone sitting down and they're starting a stopwatch and stuff, which doesn't sound great to me. But if you're like, no, I'm just going to read for 30 minutes every day. Yeah, that's more what I'm thinking. For 15 minutes in the morning. That does sound lovely. Yeah. Because it's like, it could be a book. It could be a magazine. It could be reading your own journals. You could read an interesting article. It gets you in the habit of reading itself and not necessarily blowing through books. You know what I mean? And that could be, you know, 30 minutes before bed, reading for 15 minutes over breakfast. Like it really, I do like this quite a bit. Yeah. All right. So how would someone track this? Would they put in their compile? How would you be setting goals? I mean, well, again, try this bean that knits. Try out this bean, baby. I do love Aussie has bean. Yeah, you name your bean. Mine's just called Bean Bun. But you name this bean. Because the one thing that would be hard about this for me if I was doing like a stopwatch every time I read is that I do fall asleep reading and what I count the amount of time I'm literally like having dreams with a book. Like I'm like book open and I am eyes closed. I'm asleep. I am asleep, but I am still having my book. Like how do I count that time? But if you're a day reader, I think, you know, ready, set, read, little stopwatch, little like just setting aside time and like yeah doing it that way is probably better than the stopwatch which is of course where my brain goes do you have like a someone someone with a headband on and sneakers standing next to you uh personally what i would do for this is i would get a i would use a habit tracker instead of a book tracker like figure out a reasonable time whatever you want 30 minutes a day or maybe you could do like i want to do five hours a week and track it on a calendar I love this because I love a habit tracker I have this really beautiful calendar from Washi Station that is right here next to me on my computer that I track four habits with reading, writing, exercising and going out to do something fun and I get a little different color dot and I'm trying to read and write every day but I don't exercise every day so I don't die and I obviously don't go out every day because that's too much time I'm a very busy lady but I have different colored dots for each activity and right now I get a little purple circle on a day if I read if I mark even if I read anything at all even for two minutes but I love the idea of having to hit a minimum amount of time like I read for 30 minutes today and that's how I've earned my little my little purple dot also again like you said this would be so easy for audiobook readers but I'm into calendar I will I'll take a photo I'll text you a photo of it it's really cute huge tangent but I love washi station I've talked about them in my own newsletter so much. They're such a great, wonderful website that does washi and different stationary things that are all made by independent artists. All kind of Aviva collects them. It was a person who runs Washi Station and they work with all of these different artists to get merch made of their cool art. And it's really wonderful. I love this calendar so, so much. But yeah, that's what I would do. I think, I mean, I guess you could, in your book tracker you could track how many hours each book took but this this for me this is less focused on like on a book journal and more of a more it's more of a habit it's less book it's specific focused but i think this could be really good so if you're someone who's just who's getting back into reading or you feel like you have gotten too obsessed with metrics too obsessed with how many books you're reading a year like that one any any if that is stressing you out and it feels like it's affecting your reading life, try switching over to this. I really like this idea. And thank you to Cass who wrote in this really fun little topic for us. So you can send your thoughts on length of time reading versus books read as a metric to readingglassespodcast at gmail.com. Before we solve a book tech dilemma, we're going to take a quick break. Hey, Alexis. Hey, Ella. What animal has the most teeth? I would guess a shark. A snail. No, snails don't have teeth. They have thousands and they are freaky looking. No, I don't want that to be true. Okay. Did you know that the hippocampus in your brain is named after the half horse, half fish sea creature found in Greek mythology? I didn't know that, but we're meant to be doing animal trivia and hippocampus isn't a real animal. Well, that doesn't matter on Comfort Creatures. You're right. It doesn't matter at all. Comfort Creatures is a cozy show for lovers of animals of all shapes and sizes, real and unreal. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then join us every Thursday for new episodes on MaximumFun.org. Time to look at some book tech advances in bookish technology. This week, we have a book tech dilemma sent to us from Kimberly. Kimberly says, Dear Brianne Mallory, due to dyslexia and some vision issues, I am largely an audiobook reader. I'll do ebooks largely for nonfiction that I need to take notes on. I can enlarge the text for those. Growing up, I had no problem DNFing a book that didn't fit me, I think largely due to there being no sunk cost since they were library books. If I didn't like it, I returned it and the next person got to read it that much sooner. I mentioned this philosophy to a friend who pointed out that those were physical books that, as long as they weren't damaged, weren't going to cost the library more money because I checked them out and quickly returned them. If anything, the fact that I was making frequent trips and checking out a large number of e-books could help their funding. E-audio and e-books have artificial limits on them. So am I being ethical by trying out books like this? Many of the titles I want to try aren't available in large print through my library system. I also think of large print as a more limited resource for people who need them and aren't comfortable with e-audio or e-books. Should I avoid borrowing e-audio slash e-books that I'm not sure about and may DNF? All right, this is a question we get pretty frequently, but I don't think we've talked about it in a while. So a little refresher. Bria, what do think? Well, okay. First of all, Mallory is going to talk about this, but you, there is sampling, you can sample books from the library. Um, and you should definitely take part of that. And you can do it from audio and eBooks. So that's a way for you to avoid borrowing something that you are not sure about. But honestly, we're all borrowing books. We're not sure. You're not sure about any book, you know, like you're not going to, you're not like you buy a book and you're not sure. And we would encourage you to not read the book if you don't like it. So like, I don't think this is not harmful listen if you're doing this with like 500 books a year like maybe consider like reading a couple pages before you do it um but i think this is a safe space for you to try books and i don't think we should measure whether or not you properly used a book the way you're supposed to use it on whether or not you finish it although also those numbers still count towards circulation numbers for libraries yeah they they do they do like if i check out a book and i want to use it to do a fucking headstand on i'm using the book you know what i mean like that's also libraries still have to replace those physical books too it's not like they stay perfect forever yeah and like maybe i'm checking out a book because i need to read one chapter for like a research paper or something i think that that is still you know and you also read one chapter just to try it out it's all the same you know so like you are using the book in the way it is intended for you you need to use something so like let's let's y'all let's quit judging ourselves okay like let's let's you can you can don't feel bad you're using again like Mallory just said you the library it helps them when you um check stuff out yeah if you're doing a thousand books a year and not reading any of them maybe you need to find like another way to like books out like you know whatever like yeah if you're checking the same book out from the library if you check the same book out from the library 20 times this year and you've never read it and you keep getting the e-book out and then immediately returning it what are you doing yeah get a little sample like you know but yeah yeah Mallory, yeah. What do you think? Yeah, remember, folks, sample that stuff. Pretend you're at the bookish Costco. You are strolling those aisles. I say this as someone who's never eaten a sample from Costco. I've never purchased anything from Costco, but I know Costco has samples. Have you been to Costco? I've been inside of one, and I walked around, and we didn't buy anything because the thing that we were there for, they did not have. But I know people love those samples. I know people love the samples. I know people love the Costco food, like the hot dogs and stuff. I know people feel very strongly about that where I get my Beyond Burgers they sell them in bulk Bria's just got a pallet of Beyond Burgers it's nice my mom buys them for me in this pack of like 20 it's like crazy love a Beyond Burger so pretend you're in bookish Costco honestly it's been such a huge game changer for me especially I'm the type of person that I can usually tell within a chapter if I'm going to like something or not so I will often if there's a book that I'm interested in Like I going I doing our anticipated books episodes and I like Ooh this looks really good And if it on Libby already I will look and I can read a chapter and I go Ooh this looks good And then I will put it on hold It so great You you a better woman than me I just getting those books I just getting them And I read a chapter I like no thank you Like I don I don't have the energy. Okay. There's only so many hours in the day. I can't be checking out a sample. And then look, if you're all worried about it, I know I said you could do that. You should get a sample, but also like, I, I think I might read the book. Look, am I optimistic about the books that I'm going to like? Yeah. I'm way more optimistic than the books I actually want to read and about the amount of time I have well but also we get a lot of people who who have problems with audiobook narrators it's so great for audiobooks because you kind of know almost instantly if you're into a narrator or not that is really really helpful I'm with you check out those books baby oh but you if you want you can save yourself some time by taking a few minutes with the sample checking out the audiobooks this is not you this is you you are allowed to sample you are allowed to get a tiny little plastic cup filled with one slice of book and see if you like it but but mostly be nice to yourselves god look at you you're already you're getting a book from the library you're supporting your library you're saving money like be nice take a breath you're doing great yeah so you can send your book tech dilemmas or problems or quandaries or any any synonym of of that word to reading glasses podcast at gmail.com now let's solve a bookish problem from one of our listeners which is me bria did not know that this was me and texted me last i skipped over this and i was like who wrote because it was like bria this is a question for you and i was like who wrote this because and then and then i she literally was like i was in a color session until like super late and i was like trying to like get through this and anyway that's very funny so yes you you wrote it in i just did not read the first sentence of this paragraph sorry cassandra this is i don't know why i would think it was cassandra by the way i have no idea why this is not something she would write in so oh my god it made me laugh really hard all right but today's listener is me hi my name hi brian mallory this is mallory i've been a glass from the beginning uh so i long time glasser long time glasser no i I don't think this is the first time I've wrote in. Maybe it is. No, it's not actually. So we get a lot of arcs, as you know, being the other half of this podcast. So I regularly bring stuff to my little free library. Any book that I don't like that I have a hard copy of, I bring it to a little free library. And then the other day I was collecting my stack to bring and I realized that half of them were very spicy open door romance books. A few of them are just straight up smut. And I almost texted you to ask this and I was like, you know what? I'm going to save this for the show. I think this would be a fun little problem to solve. What do we think? Can you put smut in a little free library? Should I stick a copy of I accidentally summoned a demon next to a dusty old Percy Jackson book and a pile of grimy picture books? What do you think? Does smut belong in a little free library? I love this. I love this. I think they're so funny about someone picking up like a cartoon cover smut and then getting and then it's like hockey smut. And like just that's very funny. as funny as I think that is, I'm going to actually say no. I think you shouldn't do it. I think if someone isn't keeping an eye on a 10-year-old and maybe putting what is essentially porn in a little free library is not the greatest idea. Like, would you put a Playboy in there? You know? Well, but there's no pictures in these books. Okay. But I'm not. Okay. Correct. Yes. I think there's a difference between a centerfold playboy spread and icebreaker okay i do think there is a difference but i do think that we can get into like the the philosophy of like physiology here but i do think that that you i mean i don't know i guess the question okay here's the question why would you not put a playboy in well first off turn turning somebody on who's not correct no i want to put a playboy in there because who the fuck would want to touch a used playboy well who wants to touch your used smut books wow i guess i wish i could i should have put stickers on them that says for professional use only that's right i think i mean look yes do i think it's like not as a playboy is different i do but i also think there may be things that are a little too adult and a child would not understand in a smut book i the thing is i actually do agree with you because my thought was that i feel like why is this tentacle like it's just like maybe they should understand 10 year olds walking up to their mom going what's a not oh god see that's the fear right there and i think you know different people experience but they understand sex in different ways and like maybe some people are more visual and some people are like more verbal or whatever and i think maybe all of it should be explained before someone sees something where they're like forever scarred by the touching of horns or something 40 years from now some woman is having her her husband put on tentacles and be like listen when i was 10 i found this library i got really jackson really imprinted on me so yeah my thought was that i put the tamer romance in there that looks like a romance novel okay but the like the straight up smut like i accidentally summoned a demon boyfriend I bring there's a local bookstore near me that takes book donations and I feel comfortable giving that to them because they will put it in a place that is marked for that kind of stuff and then you know obviously I recycle my arcs because a lot of young people go to little free libraries and I do feel weird about some 12 year old grabbing icebreaker because it looks like a YA book you know what I mean yeah yeah I think like especially like I think that should be a conversation for them and their parents not them in a hockey hockey smut book as much as i want to kick kids into hockey i don't this is such a funny problem to have though it is which one is okay for the little free library this is a very uniquely mallory o'mara problem to have yeah it's really true but i'm sure there's a lot of romance readers who have the same thing we get a lot of people who are stressed out about what to do with their little free libraries so i thought it would be nice for me to have my own quandary with this and i'm sure we're going to get a bunch of people who actually have very differing opinions on this i would love to hear it i do think you're like the ones that look like romance i weirdly am more comfortable with those going in because i think it's signaling like that's what i mean certain adults type book yes you know and but the ones with like cartoony like cutesy covers and then you open it up and it's like he's not inflated you know like i'm like that's what they do a little bit of the modern day uh porn in a bush something we talk about on our our other show we do another show called reading smut if you don't know and okay what if i did okay okay what do i do what do i put the bush yeah because everyone has this story about when they were kids that they found porn in a bush which does not exist anymore but now it's porn in the little free library what if i put all the regular books in the little free library and then next to the little free library i stick all the smut books in a bush yeah that is where you're supposed to find them like that's where you find your i'm just dying at the thought of me going on my audiobook walk and i put some books in the little free library and then i keep walking and underneath the overpass i toss a tote bag full of all my smut books that's great but yeah i think overall i completely agree with you and this is how i felt i was i immediately was like this feels weird to do so i'm glad you're agreeing with me that it just feels strange especially because at least a little free library near me there's always a lot of kids books in there there's always a lot of like middle grade books there's always like picture books in there it just feels and there's a lot of kids who go I'm sure are walking home from school and go through little free libraries without any supervision you know and I just I do feel weird about that and I don't mean like teenagers I think maybe a teenager could be okay with it but I'm talking about like a 10 year old a 9 year old an 8 year old who's like hooray there's a middle grade book in here look it's a cute ice skater with a cute pretty dress on and cut to screaming um yeah all right right in i'm very interested because i'm sure that there are people who have some differing opinions strong thoughts angles we haven't thought of if you want us to solve your reader problem send it to reading glasses podcast at gmail.com as always want to thank the wonderful mods who run our discord server and our facebook group folks we have the best mods truly they we were talking to max fun hq about our discord recently and I was like, we just have the best mods. 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