This week we're diving into THE CORRESPONDENT by Virginia Evans — the runaway debut novel that's sold over a million copies, hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, won the 2026 PEN/Hemingway Award, and is officially heading to the big screen with Jane Fonda attached to star.

Told entirely through letters and emails, the novel follows Sybil Van Antwerp — a sharp-tongued, fiercely private retired lawyer in her 70s who uses correspondence to make sense of her world. She writes to authors, neighbors, suitors, a customer service rep at a DNA testing company, her estranged daughter… and one mysterious recipient whose letters she never sends.

We're unpacking it all: why we were both skeptical of the epistolary format and how quickly the book won us over, Sybil as a complicated mother and an even more complicated woman, the DNA test storyline, the suitors (RIP Theodore's cat 💔), the gut-punch storyline with Desi and his father, the burden of grief Sybil has carried for decades, and what we hope the Jane Fonda film keeps intact.

Plus: our full fancast for the adaptation, our ratings, and a peek at the 15-ish books Sybil mentions throughout the novel — basically a built-in TBR list.

📖 Up next on the pod: HALF HIS AGE by Jennette McCurdy

⚠️ Spoiler warning: this is a full-book discussion. Read it first, then come hang.

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When Dan Pelzer passed away at 92, his daughter discovered something extraordinary — a handwritten log of every book he had read since 1962. All 3,599 of them. She turned it into a website and shared it at his funeral via QR code, and the reading community hasn't stopped talking about it since.

In this Brief Encounters episode, Desiree and Morgan dig into Dan's story and the bigger questions it raises: What do the books we read say about who we are? Are there books that feel permanently stamped to specific seasons of your life? And has a book ever actually changed the way you live?

In this episode:

• The viral reading log that made us both emotional
• Books that timestamp your life — Twilight, Harry Potter release nights, a box of Goosebumps from a yard sale
• The DNF debate: is it okay to abandon a book?
• The return of analog habits and why they're good for your nervous system
• We build our dopamine menus live 🍽️
• Honorable mention reads: Evelyn Clarke and Yesteryear

Visit Dan's log yourself: what-dan-read.com

Facts & Fictions is a cozy book club podcast where we talk about the books we're reading and the thoughts we're having on them. New episodes weekly.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Desiree and Morgan are reading Discontent by Beatrice Serrano — a debut translated novel from Spain that is part workplace satire, part slow-burn existential unraveling, and entirely too relatable.

We're talking about Marissa: a mid-level marketing employee in Madrid who looks fine from the outside but is quietly dissolving on the inside. She's hiding in her office watching YouTube, surviving on tranquilizers, and dreading the corporate retreat that's about to push her over the edge.

In this episode we dig into:

✦ Why corporate burnout isn't just an American problem — and how uncomfortable that is to admit

✦ The connection between Discontent and My Year of Rest and Relaxation

✦ Faking productivity, stealing ideas from interns, and the particular horror of the workplace retreat

✦ What this book gets right about loneliness and the need for real community

✦ That ending — and why it might actually be Marissa's happily ever after

✦ Fan cast picks for a potential adaptation

⭐ We gave it a 4–4.5 out of 5. It's a great read if you already love the "quietly falling apart" genre — but maybe not the one to hand a beginner reader.

Facts & Fictions is a cozy book club podcast hosted by Desiree & Morgan. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.