Hello all!
We hope you’re enjoying the early days of summer — we have plenty to share from the world of BookGo and beyond. This week, Nancy Merritt Bell takes us to the beach with an insider’s guide to the book podcasts worth listening to all season long. And Michael McKinley is back with his Agony of Genius column, this time with some hard-won advice for anyone with a story to tell — which, as he points out, is all of us.
Our poem of the week comes from William Makepeace Thackeray, whose spinning sage feels like the perfect companion to Michael’s column: sometimes the answer to a writer’s problem is simply to stop going round in circles and sit down.
We also have news on the Oxford Writers Workshop, subscriber deals on military fiction, and more. As always, do share with anyone you think would enjoy being part of the BookGo community!
Have a wonderful weekend, The BookGo Team 💛
Table of Contents
Giveaway: Come Up Big in audiobook: request your review copy
Feature: “The Beach, the Book and the Best Book Podcast” — Nancy Merritt Bell
Poem of the Week: “A Tragic Story” — William Makepeace Thackeray
Feature: “Advice for New Authors” — Michael McKinley
Reading Roundup: Deals on thrillers deals for BookGo subscribers
Announcement: Oxford Writers Workshop scholarship applications closed; final places available
Giveaway: Come Up Big in Audiobook
Chuck Wardell’s Kirkus Starred Review memoir Come Up Big is now available as an audiobook. We’re giving away review copies to listeners who’d like to share their thoughts on Audible. Promo codes available for US and GB stores.
Feature: “The Beach, the Book, and the Best Book Podcast”
By Nancy Merritt Bell
If you were stranded on a desert island, what books would you take? Or so the old question-trope goes.
Since it is 2026 and most desert islands have been bought up by tech billions, who could—or would--want to go there and read? Seems it is time for an update for the old trope which now might go like this: “If you were stranded on a quiet, sunny beach, what book podcast would you listen to?”
With June’s arrival and the beach calling out for books to be read, my first stop on the way to summer reading is the book podcast. Since 2004, when podcast tech was popularized, book podcasters have been chatting about books and recommending them to book lovers for summer and all year round. All this book-love comes to us via 1000 plus podcasters in the US alone and continues to engage us and our literary habits without annoying ads, or a big PR push for sales, or even Oprah. Just books.
Recently, I spoke with my favorite book podcaster, Will Cooper, of Books and More, about this divine threesome: the book and the podcast and the listener...
Poem of the Week
A Tragic Story (1840)
By William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray is best known for Vanity Fair, his sweeping satire of English society — but he was also a gifted comic poet with a sharp eye for human absurdity. A Tragic Story, first published in 1840, is one of his most beloved short piece
There lived a sage in days of yore, And he a handsome pigtail wore; But wondered much and sorrowed more, Because it hung behind him. He mused upon this curious case, And swore he'd change the pigtail's place, And have it hanging at his face, Not dangling there behind him. Says he, "The mystery I've found — I'll turn me round," — he turned him round; But still it hung behind him. Then round and round, and out and in, All day the puzzled sage did spin; In vain — it mattered not a pin — The pigtail hung behind him. And right and left and round about, And up and down and in and out He turned; but still the pigtail stout Hung steadily behind him. And though his efforts never slack, And though he twist, and twirl, and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back, The pigtail hangs behind him.
Feature: “Advice for New Authors”
By Michael McKinley
I have had the pleasure of being a guest on book talk podcasts of late, and a question that recurs is one I think bear posing again here: what advice do you, as in me, give to new authors?
It’s a question I asked when I was just starting out as an author, and the answer I got was “Don’t.” I thought it revealed more about the respondent than it did about my reality, so I ignored it, and more than twenty books later, I am glad that I did.
If you’re a new author, as in someone who has just realized that you have a story that you want the world to know, then you have cracked Hard Part #1. That’s realizing that you have a story that you want to tell. We all have stories, but not everyone wants to believe that they should be told. Good on you for making that leap. You believe in yourself...
Reading Roundup
Each week we highlight the work of independent authors we think you’ll love — with opportunities for early access copies, subscriber deals, and more.
If you liked In the Jaws of the Dragon...
Michael Wellman’s geopolitical thriller has been flying off shelves — and we still have a handful of free review copies available for BookGo subscribers. If you haven’t claimed yours yet, now’s the time.
For those who have already devoured it, we have a treat: a curated bundle of military fiction from independent authors, available to BookGo subscribers at a special rate. If you love taut, high-stakes storytelling rooted in real-world conflict, this one’s for you.
Get the military fiction bundle
And if you haven’t yet discovered Jack Meyer’s Wayward Patriot: Preserving the Vote — a non-political thriller about elections, treason, and the fragility of democracy — this is your moment. Gripping from the first page.
BookGo receives no payment for recommending books we love. We share them because we think you will enjoy them.
Note: The books featured in our newsletter swap section are shared as a service to our author community and do not represent an endorsement of their content by BookGo. We encourage you to discover them for yourself — and if you enjoy what you read, why not help a fellow author out and leave an honest review?
The Oxford Writers Workshop – One More Week to Apply!
Thank you to everyone who applied for a scholarship to the Oxford Writers Workshop, taking place August 14–20 at Keble College, Oxford.
Applications for the BookGo Scholarship to the Oxford Writers Workshop at Keble College, Oxford (August 14–20, 2026) have now closed, and we will be in touch with our winner very shortly.
But there is still time to book your own place at this extraordinary week-long writing intensive in the heart of Oxford. Places are limited — if you have been thinking about it, now is the moment.
Reservation deadline: June 14.
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