
Monday May 11, 2026
Episode 105 - The Absolute Most with Vanessa Diaz
On this episode, Vanessa Diaz, managing editor with Book Riot, talks about how her reading life is affected by her job, recommends woman-led mysteries, and talks about her current favorite authors. If you like witchy books, you have a lot of really great recommendations in this episode.
Books mentioned in this episode:
What Betsy’s reading:
Kin by Tayari Jones
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley
Books Highlighted by Vanessa:
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Sylvia Moreno Garcia
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Scammer by Tiffany D. Jackson
An Ember in the Ashes by Saba Tahir
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Christina Rivera Garza
A Tip for the Hangman by Allison Epstein
You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom by Vincent Tirado
Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
We Need No Wings by Ann Dávila Cardinal
The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller
All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.
Other books mentioned in this episode:
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
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