Off Subject Episode 4: Reading Wheelhouses & Why They Matter

Josie first heard about wheelhouses on The Reading Glasses podcast a few years ago. Knowing your wheelhouse makes selecting books much easier and it’s fun to know things about yourself. It’s almost like the Hogwarts Sorting Hat!

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Christy's Wheelhouse:

Favorite Character Types: The Librarian/Archivist; The Scholar Detective; The Archeologist Adventurer (Indiana Jones, Lara Croft); The Wise Sage

Tropes, Devices: Generational; multi-narrators; mysteries that span the continents and require research (Dan Brown’s Davinci Code); uncovering secrets and solving long standing mysteries; middle age women makes over her life.

Genres:

1. Magical Realism - Alice Hoffman and Kathrine Howe

2. Southern Gothic - Think William Faulkner, Flannery OConner, and Carson McCullers. Beautiful Creatures (Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl) & Conjure Women (Afia Atakora)

3. Southern lit and books set in the lowcountry specifically - Keeper of the House (Rebecca T Godwin) Mark Twain, Pat Conroy, Dottie Frank

4. Books about books and book shops - The Bookshop (Penelope Fitzgerald) The Storied Life of AJ Fikery (Gabrielle Zevin) Camino Island (John Grisham)

5. Mysteries (especially cozy ones that hint at supernatural) Agatha Christie, Daphne Du Maurier, Karen White,

6. Dystopian or alternative timelines - The Giver (Lois Lowry) or The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

7. Christian Thrillers-Ted Deker and Frank Perreti (The House) or Robert Whitlow

Josie's Wheelhouse:

1. Sisters

2. Bookstores or Libraries (setting or subject)

3. The Discovery of Magic and the consequences of power

4. Books set in Manhattan

5. Heists

6. Magical Circuses

7. Magical Detectives

And my favorite books combine several wheelhouses- magical sisters who live in NYC and run a bookstore? The heist of a library? Sisters who discover a magical circus? I am here for it. (Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, The Night Circus, Skin Game, Harry Potter -- all wheelhouse books!)

Also, books in my wheelhouse that I’m looking forward to reading: The Lions of Fifth Avenue; The Memory Theater, The Ladies of the Secret Circus, Six of Crows, The Conductors.

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Now, to flip the script a little bit -- do you have anti-wheelhouse or a reading doghouse? Books that completely turn you off?

CHRISTY:

1. No matter what has to have a level of realism and must stick to the rules of the universe the author created.

2. Inaccuracy in real life person, place, or thing which breaks the suspension of disbelief.

3. When the villain who is the best at what he does is easily defeated, makes a stupid mistake, or is suddenly run out by the new bad guy in town.

4. Whiny characters.

JOSIE:

I have a couple of big ones and it’s probably going to make people hate me.

1. Fiction set during WWII --especially romances. I have one or two exceptions to this rule, of course, but overall it just seems like there is a flux of these books on the market, and I never like things that are “too popular”.

2. Nicholas Sparks -- all of his books seem to be sad, and the girl almost always dies or is abused or gets ill in some way -- and it makes the man a better person. I just can’t.

3. Political Thrillers -- give me a cozy mystery starring a baker or an elderly woman anytime over these books.

4. Anything involving suicide, child death, or harm to children and/or women to push the plot forward. I will put it down immediately and never pick up anything else by the author.

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CHRISTY’S BOOK REPORT

Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman

Follows the story of a house on the Massachusetts Cape through the centuries by telling the stories of the people that live there. Some are happy, some are heartbreaking. Some are about healing. And, of course, some have a touch of magic to them. It’s amazing how quickly you can get caught up in the stories of other people’s lives.

Each Chapter either follows a different generation or a different family living in Blackbird House. Each could really stand on its own as a short story, which I love. It makes the book easy to pick up and put down. Yet there is something so compelling about it that you can’t wait to see what happens next.

The Good House by Tananarive Due

I heard this book recommended to a reader who shared very similar tastes with me on the The Modern Mrs. Darcy podcast What Should I Read Next? (WSIRN Ep 274: #Bookstagram made me do it) with Anne Bogel. Ok, so technically, Anne recommended The Good House by Ann Leary and I picked up the wrong book from the library! I kept thinking, “Huh? This sounds so different from what she described.” However, it was a happy accident. There’s a gorgeous old home with a backstory. There are generations of women at work against forces unseen. There is magic and a struggle of good and evil.

It ticks a lot of boxes in my wheelhouse. I will tell you more next week after I’ve finished.

JOSIE’S BOOK REPORT

The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew. A book outside of my wheelhouse but it was so compelling that I finished it in three days!

To view or purchase any of the books we've talked about here, visit our Bookshop.org shop.