Lance, Debra, and Megan look back at their favorite reads from 2025 and share what they’re excited to read in 2026. The episode touches on what’s ahead for the store, including new events and activities, and ways they’re hoping to make the shop an even more active place for readers to spend time together in the year ahead.

📖 The Covered Pages

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss

The Everlasting by Alex E. Harrow

Whitewash by Carey Gillam

Poisoning the Well by Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin

The Call by Yannick Murphy

Fast Like a Girl by Mindy Pelz

The Menopause Reset by Mindy Pelz

Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire

The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig

Where the Rivers Merge by Mary Alice Monroe

The Torchlight by Mura Bofini

Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear by Daniel Bernstrom

If this caught your ears, you can find it through the links in the section below.

Stay connected with Middle Ground Books After Hours by following the store on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The team shares new arrivals, staff picks, community updates, and behind the counter moments.

Explore upcoming events, book recommendations, and new releases at https://www.middlegroundbooks.com.

If you are near Emporia Kansas, stop by Middle Ground Books and Gifts at 606 Commercial Street to shop local, meet the hosts, and find your next great read.

If you cannot visit in person, you can support the store through their Bookshop page at https://www.bookshop.org/shop/middlegroundbooks.

Every purchase through Bookshop helps keep the shelves full and the community growing. You can also browse expanded reading lists curated by each host.

Middle Ground Books After Hours is remotely produced and audio engineered by Cosmic Atom Sound Studios. Learn more about creative audio, music production, and media services at https://www.cosmicatomsounds.com.

Follow @CosmicAtomSounds on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. If you have a podcast or creative idea waiting to be heard, Cosmic Atom Sound Studios helps bring your vision to life and make it sound. Let us come together and build something new.

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

This is the final part in the Christmas Special trilogy, closing out the holiday season with a conversation about Dungeon Crawler Carl and how it can actually be attuned to Christmas, kind of like Die Hard.

📖 The Covered Pages

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

If this caught your ears, you can find it through the links in the section below.

Stay connected with Middle Ground Books After Hours by following the store on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The team shares new arrivals, staff picks, community updates, and behind the counter moments.

Explore upcoming events, book recommendations, and new releases at https://www.middlegroundbooks.com.

If you are near Emporia Kansas, stop by Middle Ground Books and Gifts at 606 Commercial Street to shop local, meet the hosts, and find your next great read.

If you cannot visit in person, you can support the store through their Bookshop page at https://www.bookshop.org/shop/middlegroundbooks.

Every purchase through Bookshop helps keep the shelves full and the community growing. You can also browse expanded reading lists curated by each host.

Middle Ground Books After Hours is remotely produced and audio engineered by Cosmic Atom Sound Studios. Learn more about creative audio, music production, and media services at https://www.cosmicatomsounds.com.

Follow @CosmicAtomSounds on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. If you have a podcast or creative idea waiting to be heard, Cosmic Atom Sound Studios helps bring your vision to life and make it sound. Let us come together and build something new.

A Thank You to Listeners and Followers:

The cast of Middle Ground Books would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you and yours, and to say thank you for joining them for the laughter and the in depth conversations about the books they have come to love and wanted to share with you, the listening audience, After Hours once the store is closed for the day. There is more to come, but in the meantime they wish you a safe closeout to the year and an even safer time bringing in the new year.

Cosmic Atom Sound Studios would also like to thank you, the listener, for the interaction and support, and hope you enjoy every moment of hearing these three voices come through your speakers, headphones, or even your TV. Here’s to many more episodes ahead and, one day, to you visiting their shop in Emporia.

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

Part two of the three part Christmas special finds the group talking through children’s Christmas books and how those stories land differently now than they did growing up.

The Covered Pages

• How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss
• Jan Brett Christmas and winter titles: The Mitten, The Hat, The Christmas Sweater, Alice in Wonderland, The Nutcracker, Gingerbread Baby, and The Night Before Christmas
• How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney by Mac Barnett
• That Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen
• Elmore the Christmas Moose by Dev Petty and Mike Boldt
• Murray Christmas by E. G. Keller
• The Twelve Days of Christmas by Greg Pizzoli
• A Stickler Christmas by Lane Smith
• Let it Glow by Marissa Meyer
• The Christmas Murder Game series: The Christmas Cracker Killer by Alexandra Benedict
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles M. Schulz
• The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

If any of these caught your ears, you can find them through the links in the section below.

Stay connected with Middle Ground Books After Hours by following the store on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The team shares new arrivals, staff picks, community updates, and behind the counter moments.

Explore upcoming events, book recommendations, and new releases at https://www.middlegroundbooks.com.

If you are near Emporia Kansas, stop by Middle Ground Books and Gifts at 606 Commercial Street to shop local, meet the hosts, and find your next great read.

If you cannot visit in person, you can support the store through their Bookshop page at https://www.bookshop.org/shop/middlegroundbooks.

Every purchase through Bookshop helps keep the shelves full and the community growing. You can also browse expanded reading lists curated by each host.

Middle Ground Books After Hours is remotely produced and audio engineered by Cosmic Atom Sound Studios. Learn more about creative audio, music production, and media services at https://www.cosmicatomsounds.com.

Follow @CosmicAtomSounds on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. If you have a podcast or creative idea waiting to be heard, Cosmic Atom Sound Studios helps bring your vision to life and make it sound. Let us come together and build something new.

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