We're taking it back to the characters we met in our youth who served as our literary spring awakening, those first tingles of romantic love. We share ours - YOU ARE NOT READY FOR KNOX'S - and we share many of yours. Which character got your motor running for the first time? Your heart race? Your blood boil (complimentary)?

• The Popcast Spring Gift Guide for FREE dollars
• Waldo's Beach Scene
• Our Patreon: Shelf Respect
• Our Instagram: @readwithshelfrespect
• readwithshelfrespect.com

In this episode series, Odd Reader Out, one or two of your Shelf Respect hosts will take a literary concept the other host or hosts are unfamiliar with and attempt to entice them into jumping on the bandwagon. In this installment, Knox is walking Erin and Jamie through one of his favorite reading experiences: short stories.

• Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates (text in full)
• The Wondering Years: How Pop Culture Helped Me Answer Life's Biggest Questions by Knox McCoy
• All Things Reconsidered: How Rethinking What We Know Helps Us Know What We Believe by Knox McCoy
• I've Got Questions: The Spiritual Practice of Having It Out with God by Erin Moon
• Knox's Substack: Binge Thinking
• Erin's Substack: The Swipe Up
• Cathedral by Raymond Carver
• Florida by Lauren Groff
• Preorder The Frenzy by Joyce Carol Oates
• A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
• The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
• Our Patreon: Shelf Respect
• Our Instagram: @readwithshelfrespect
• readwithshelfrespect.com

Spring has sprung and we're tackling all the new books coming out in April, May, and June of 2026. Get your TBRs ready.

• Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Five stars, please and thank you. (Even if that's not where you listen. No rules, just right.)
• Our List of Snake Draft Picks on Bookshop.org (this isn't just to get your money. It's so you're not spoiled in the show notes)
• Sign up to be notified about Erin's upcoming Common Ground Pilgrimage trip for Hamnet.
• Whistler by Ann Patchett
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
• Son of Nobody by Yann Martel
• The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu
• American Fantasy by Emma Straub
• Our Patreon: Shelf Respect
• Our Instagram: @readwithshelfrespect
• readwithshelfrespect.com
• Knox McCoy on Substack
• Erin Moon on Substack
• Jamie B. Golden on Instagram

What's your spring reading vibe? What's the best first kiss you've read in a book? Which new books do you have your eye on?