Hannah's been busy grinding out elementary school book fairs (drug-dealer mentality for the win), so the John Updike's Ghost podcast has put in a call to the bullpen, and out walks ... Cyndle Plaisted Rials! Cyndle is a writer and creative writing teacher who teamed with Sam on a book earlier this year, as well as the Beer & Weed project, so you know she's ready to go. She has not, however, read "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Of Mice and Men," so weird stuff is on the way.

Here's what she and Sam had to chat about this week:

- "All the Pretty Horses," by Cormac McCarthy — Sam has never read this, but it's awesome. If you've never read it, you should do it now. Just be prepared for very few commas.
- "Lady Macbeth," by Ava Reid — Cyndle finds this a little better than Shakespeare's historical works, anyway. It's a little bit of a "Wicked" situation and it might help to read the original; what is Lysander doing in this book? Decent audiobook.
- "Pickleballers," by Ilana Long — A racy book about people who play pickleball and like to bang. Sam laughed a few times, but didn't manage to finish this. Still, if you like romantic comedies, this is fine.
- "Rejection," by Tony Tulathimutte — You might have seen the story "The Feminist"? That's the lead story in this collection, which is a serious collection of bad dudes. And hyper-online.