← Book Riot - The Podcast
Book Riot - The Podcast
A Proposed Nationwide Book Ban, The NYPL's Most Checked Out Books of All-Time, and more
01:04:54
Jeff and Sharifah talk about a new sweeping federal book ban law that was introduced in Congress, The New York Public Library's 10 Most Checked-Out Books of All-Time, bookstores buying their buildings, recent reading, and more.
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For over a hundred years, the world has been captivated by Hollywood.
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The stuff that dreams are made of. Where stars are born, made in bond, cover the world.
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But just beneath the stardust lie a million more fascinating stories that when sewn together, form an incredible history. The secret history of Hollywood. Available now wherever you get podcasts.
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Are you earning and investing in the stock market?
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In real estate?
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How about in relationships? Are you earning and investing in your life? I'm Doc G, semi retired hospice physician and host of the Earn and Invest podcast where we have the 201 or next level conversations about money and life. Not only how you make money and grow it, but also how you use your wealth to create a better and more fulfilling existence. Join us every Monday and Thursday wherever you listen to fine podcasts.
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This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff o', Neill, sitting in for Rebecca this week. Sharifa Williams, our director of content here at Book Riot. Sharifa, you get to sit in for Rebecca and usually that means we're just talking about news, but unfortunately this week we've got one of the most disturbing news pieces of the recent book banning and censorship thing. I do want to say at the top that we're going to get into it somewhat to introduce people to the story, but Kelly Jensen for us, as always, has written a more definitive piece on this nationwide book banning legislation that we're going to talk about here in a second. I'd say it's glad to see you. It's always nice to have a conversation, but it's a bit of a bummer when we have something like that.
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Yeah.
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On the top. So we'll get into that. That's going to be our headline of this show today. Some news and notes here right now. 1984 by George Orwell is over in the zero to well read feed. Already have several nice notes from listeners saying that's exactly what I wanted from a 1984 episode. Some people who maybe, you know, thought they always should have read 1984 but never really got around to it. They knew it was important and knew some of like the words like big brother and then went ahead and picked up the book even though they felt like they didn't need to, they wanted to anyway. Sharifa, so that's what we're trying to do there. What's your own relationship to 1984? Did you read that as a teenager? Do you read in college? Have you ever gotten around to it? I shouldn't assume anything. I don't want to. But I wonder.
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Yeah, I definitely read it in high school and I think after high school I conflated it with all of the other, you know, I don't know, catch 22 and harm Fahrenheit 451, brave new
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world, they kind of glommed together. Yeah, I know they did.
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And more recently, of course, in my adult life, I've come across it in canon, have been afraid to revisit it. So I think I'll revisit it through the Zero to well Ride podcast. So now.
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Oh, that's very nice.
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Not try to revisit. Read it myself again.
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Yeah, I've read it several times. It'd been a little while and you know, I guess it conflates with. I don't think I may find this while we're talking here. In a minute. The New York Public Library released its list of its 10 most checked out books of all time. And you know, there's some things that go into that list that are structural. Like kids books, for example, they get turned over a lot. They have longer shelf lives and there's budget, you know, in Kids libraries. But 1984 is like number four on that list. And I guess I was both surprised and not surprised at the same time because I feel like it's as famous as people as it is. But also a lot of people haven't read it, which I guess is just what happens with famous books at the same time in the modern dystopian canon, Sharif, I think we have to add probably Atwood and Octavia Butler sort of have been added to those. The, the Huxley, Bradbury, Orwell, Triumvirate. Does anyone else come to you? I know sci fi has been doing this a lot over the last 20, 30 years. Anyone else come to mind? Dystopian that we should think about for
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modern folks that, you know, I mean, for instant classics. Octavia Butler is the person I would think of for this because of Parable of the Sower. And it has the same sort of rise in popularity in recent years as 1984 does. And it feels very prescient. So I think that that is the one that comes immediately to mind. Other ones, I can't really. There are so many books that have like, you know, that political dystopian, I think Infomocracy,
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Malika.
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Yeah, is. Is another one that's come up and I don't think has been read as widely, but it's another one of those books that's like, oh yeah, this, this feels very real and timely.
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And we sort of skipped over to just the post apocalyptic novel.
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Yeah, that's true.
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Right. So then we get like the road or Station 11 or things like that. Or we've gotten the YA dystopia, right? The Hunger Games, the Divergent series and things like that. So it's been interesting to see how many of those have sort of trundled out from Orwell's Overcoat there. So go listen to that. Sharifah also joined us if you didn't check it out already, for our episode on the Warmth of Other Suns, which was a fantastic episode and a wonderful book and we were so glad to have you over for that. Let's see other bit of Housekeeping the IT Books of March episode will hit the feed on Wednesday, so you're going to be listening to this folks that are not in the Patreon feed. That will be our first March episode of the month. We try to make that the IT Books episode, but because of the way the month happened and Rebecca being on vacation, we're going to hit that on Wednesday. A pretty chock a block march. I I would say I was looking at the New York Times picks for the 27 books to read in March and yeah, there's a lot that I want to do there. All right, we're going to take a quick sponsor break, do a little email follow up and get into the rest of the news.
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Quite a bit of follow up from listeners about audiobook, ebook, print book synergies or dis synergies where they do and don't work together. This is a really good tip from Mark. Thank you so much. Mark says there is a discount that's been around since the history of Whisper sync, but it's not advertised and is often cheaper than buying the audiobook alone. So this is about making de facto bundling. So Amazon doesn't advertise the audiobook price discount for owning the ebook until you buy it. But for titles that support Whisper Sync, it's almost there. For example, he just purchased the Dungeon Crawler Carlbook 6. The audiobook is $31. The Kindle book is 599. However, once I own the Kindle book, the audiobook gets a reduced price of 749. So this is a well known hack for getting cheaper ebooks and audiobooks and then sometimes you go to Reddit to find out a discount available so you don't have to do the purchasing of the book situation. So I don't do a lot of that kind of book buying, but that's pretty interesting. I'm guessing Amazon is thinking, well, you've already got the ebook, so you're probably not going to spend another $31 for the audiobook. But what if I give you a coupon to buy for 850 or something like that? A lot of this came out of and I guess I'm going to aggregate several emails about people saying they would try the page match in read along functionality. Some people just want to try it. Some people do this naturally. Anyway, I guess it's people that help the most is people who are already trying to go back and forth between audiobook and print. Anyway, I didn't get a lot of email from people saying that this would induce them to try switching formats. But the people that are doing it say this is, this is quite a wonderful boon. I know. Srifa, you do quite a bit on audio. Have you ever thought about moving back and forth between print and audio? Or like where are you standing that polygen generic?
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Yeah, I do that. I do that. Not you do that. I did it with the warmth of other suns as a matter of fact. And it's not, it's not with like every book. It doesn't always work for me that way, but especially with like a big book. I think I did this as well with the Count of Monte Cristo. I went between the audiobook and the physical copy and it's weirdly like you develop this second sense of being able to locate where you are. But that does not mean that a person like myself would not appreciate the Paige thing. So I can absolutely see people who are already in the habit of doing this and already having the premium subscription so that it's available to them being really grateful for the feature.
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So what's harder? Is it harder to go from print to audio or backwards? Like if you're making the handoff, which do you find has the most friction?
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It really depends on how the book is Labeled like the chapters in the warmth of other suns was so specifically labeled with the time period and all that that it was really easy both ways. With most books that are just like regular old chapter long chapters, it is really like I find it easier in a strange way to find the page in the physical copy and I don't know, like I can scan the text.
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I mean flippability is real. Right. Like that you can flip through. Flipping is hard on audio. Like if you skip forward and listen to 10 seconds it's not the same as your eye kind of gets accustomed in a book to where you are in the story. That makes a ton of sense to me.
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Yeah. But I take great pride in my stuff skill, my ability to do that.
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I feel. I mean maybe it's one of those things that gets easier as you do it. But I even find hard if I zone out and this happens sometimes, especially when I'm working on some other project and I zone out and I have been sort of not listening to the audiobook even though it's been on for 30 minutes. I find it very difficult to relocate. Okay, what's the plastic. I was actually plugged in and consciously paying attention.
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Yeah.
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To what was happening. So I can only imagine the. The dysfunction there. Sharif, I just dropped into the agenda. We might look at this for a minute. I meant to put in the top checkouts of the nypl so I already spoiled for listeners here we'll play a little game that listeners can play on their own. These are the top 10 most checked out books of the last 125 years is what they say here Now I don't know the methodology here is. I guess they just counted. There is. I'll give some people hint. There is nothing here older than 1936 I believe is the oldest of these books. Pretty sure. I'm wondering if some of the things that are out of copyright just don't get borrowed because people buy them or they're cheaper to buy or I don't know. So that's interesting there. George Orwell was. It was the third on the list with 441,770 checkouts. Presumably that's more today than it was beforehand. The top two are kids books. So I just want. I'm going to give people maybe name that book. Let's play that. Let's give people hints. Sharif. Let's see, we can come up with here for name that book for the top two. For number two, let's see what hit could we give one of the best selling all Times children's authors. And probably. Would you say this is their author, that author's most famous work?
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I would say this is the most. I'm thinking this is probably the most famous work other than the other one that sells a lot during.
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Other than the other most famous work.
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The other hint is that this author has written a book that is hugely popular for graduation gifts.
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There you go. Great hint. Yes. All right, so if you haven't got it yet, we'll give you a second here while I try to vamp and think of another. Oh, the title has a rhyme in it. How about that? So I don't know that we can give more hints than that without just giving away. Sharifa, can you come up with anything else to give?
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I think people have got to get it based on that. I mean, there have been adaptations of.
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Yeah, freaky ones. The Terrify. The. The most terrifying adaptations on a very banal. Not a banal book, but a very, like, safe, funny book. The Cat in the hat by Dr. Seuss. I don't care for any of those adaptations. Real people dressed up as Dr. Seuss characters. Is Nightmare Fuel. Animation is.
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Yeah, it's not meant to be. I mean, I've been forced to watch the how the Grinch Stole Christmas or whatever it's called, like, a bunch of times, and I don't like it every time.
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No, I don't like it every time. My daughter really likes the most recent. I think it's just called the Grinch where Benedict Cumberbatch voices the Grinch. It's the same studio that does Minions illumination. It's quite charming.
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Animation. Yeah. Always better with Dr. Seuss.
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We're not to give too much information, but where are your kids at on movies? Are they into movies? Do you do movies at all? You trying to keep them away from screens. Like, at some point they're into them and some point they're out when they can sit and watch. Even sort of the best of kids, they.
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They will watch a movie and they'll shout for movies. And we let them watch a movie on the weekend usually. But Sesame street is really where they're at. They are obsessed. The early Sesame street episodes are the only ones they watch because I can't with the newer ones. Sorry to anybody who's a fan out there.
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Okay, that's fine.
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But the old ones, they love it. We sing the Sesame street theme song all day long. And Muppets. The Muppets movies are huge hit with them.
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Oh, yeah. Do they have a favorite?
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I think the. What was the original one called Just a Muppet Movie. Yeah, that's the one that.
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Yeah, yeah. Just with a fork and road. The big fork in the road.
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They love that one. They love that one. So do I.
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My kids prefer the Great Muppet Keeper, but it's only for that last sequence where they're throwing the baseball diamond around and they're doing the Muppet heist to steal, that we still watch all that time. Okay, we're on the Muppets. Yeah, Muppets. Elite Goated of all time, number one. So this is one I think a lot of people wouldn't get. And I know this is super popular in New York Public Library system because it's come up back and forth, see? Do you want to start with a hint? Where would you start with a hint?
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They turned the COVID into a postage stamp. I think it was the COVID They turned the book illustration into a postage stamp in recent years. That's not very helpful.
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I think this is also set in New York. Is it explicitly set in New York? It's been a while since I've.
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I always thought it was, but I don't think it ever actually. Like, there's no real. There's no real explicit mention.
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Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I just always imprinted on it that it was a New York Public Library bestseller and it has an urban environment. Like the COVID has a traffic light on it and looks like a city or town. It is weather related. I would say.
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It is weather related.
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It's a children's book. I don't know if we said that already. A picture book?
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Yes. Oh, my goodness, how it's so simple. It's hard to come up with a hint that I know. So hard. It's one of the few 1950s, 90s, 1960s, I guess is when this was published. Children's books that features a black child.
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A
Black child, yeah. It's number one. It's 485, 583. Checkouts. So basically, in the ballpark of cat and hat, one. One snowy day will put it in the lead. It is Ezra Jack Keats classic 1962 children's book, the Snowy Day, about, you know, a child enjoying snow. Great for kids of all ages. And it won the Caldecott in 62. And it's just been available in multiple languages since it was available in New York. So I don't know. I wonder. I'd be curious to see how this list of top 10. We'll go through the rest here quickly. Won't play this game for everything overlaps with like the Chicago Public Library, the Los Angeles book libraries other kinds of places. Of the remaining 10 Sharifa before we read the mouse anything that struck you as anything you also might be surprised by or people might be surprised by. Do you think?
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B
I wasn't entirely surprised by everything. I am always surprised that how to Win Friends and influence people is still like a big People must be checking that out today still to make this list by Dale Carnegie like I know it's a. Like it's constantly referenced in every like businessy self helpy sort of I don't know a certain type of book.
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A
Yeah it's the original sort of self business slash self help crossover which of their scads now but it very much is Yeah I think that one I've been surprised enough that I'm no longer surprised that makes sense at this point but it is number. What number is that? I'm now looking number 8 with 284,000 checkouts. Also this book has sold more than 30 million copies in print which is just astounding Wild you know I wonder if we should do a zero to well read on how to win friends friends and influence people. When I was doing my busman's MBA in the earlier days of booker I was like trying to teach myself like how not to screw up a business. I read this and it's pretty good but also feels. I don't know it feels maybe obvious in some way. It's more obvious and is easy to implement like be interested in other people. You know you can Google there's infinitely Google summaries that you can do here but that's a. That's interesting one too A lot of children's books here so let's just go down the rest. Well where the Wild Things are number four 436,000 checkouts Maurice Index classic picture book for adults and email. I think that's what's what we've done there to kill A Mockingbird 422 900,000 checkouts Harper Lee's of course 1960 breakout contemporary classic Charlotte's rep I was just talking to my daughter about this other day in the car and trying not to cry as I was walking through the end of yes Charlotte's Web EB White's fable of a pig that can is sentient pig that can talk to other animals. Once once you start getting into like the mythopoetics of this it kind of breaks down a little bit. But a beautiful book about farm animals helping each other avoid probably the first
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B
book that made me cry in my life.
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A
What? How old were you?
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I think I was. I remember being in my third grade class talking about it so.
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Oh God, you're the worst a. I mean the perfect and worst age because you're. You're like again, yes, everyone knows why third grade is exactly the wrong and right age to experience.
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It was memorable, I'll say that.
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Very memorable. Speaking of memorable books, Fahrenheit 451, 316,000 checkouts. Ray Badberry, 1953 short novel. Yes, very timely always already as we said, number eight, how to win friends that influence People. Dale Carnegie, number nine, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I think this is the most recent book on the list. 1990s, yeah. Nothing really even close. 231,000 checkouts. And then lastly Eric Carle, the Very hungry caterpillar with 189,000 checkouts. So we're really going from four, you know, almost a half a million checkouts to just under 200,000. So sometimes, especially when a goodreads or book sales you'll have a bigger drop off. It's like not quite triple from 1 to 10. But it does say that just time in market really matters. And children's books and these Contemporary readable classics, 84, Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451 are all really page turner too. So there's that. I'm not sure what else to say about this list. I'm finding myself nodding my head and saying this makes sense. But I'm trying to figure out if there's anything people might surprised be surprised.
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B
I think now that we're re. Now that I'm looking at it again, I. I think I am kind of surprised that the Very Hungry Caterpillar didn't get up higher on the list. I feel like because it's. It's from this. So it's been around for a while and it just feels so ubiquitous in children's literature. In the same way I would imagine, you know, I would almost imagine it to be slightly above where the Wild Things Are. But I don't know if that's a bias.
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A
That's. You know, what if, if we. If you gave me blank. If you gave me this list with blanks for the children's books and told me to arrange them, I think I would probably get it really wrong. I don't know that I would. At Snowy Day.
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B
I don't think I would have.
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A
I don't think I would have. I know that it's very popular, but I think I would have thought like you that the very hungry caterpillar I would have put probably where the wild things tend. That it just sort of sneaks on because I don't, I guess, I don't know. My kids are now unbelievably 12 and 14, so they're, they're out of the kid books era. Rowan actually just started the Hunger Games yesterday.
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B
Oh, wow.
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A
God help us all. Oh, she's locked in, by the way. Just, just, just a report from the front locked her in like a tractor beam in Star wars, man. Just. That's all she could do right now. It's great. I mean, I really like it.
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B
That's amazing.
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A
But I don't feel like where the wild things are was really in our. That wasn't in our repertoire. I don't, I don't know why.
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B
Yeah, I mean we have the book just because it felt like the thing to get and it, you know, won awards and things like that. But I reread it and I was like, yeah, it's great, but it just like doesn't. It's not as snappy as some of the other children's books, if that makes sense.
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A
Yeah, yeah, I guess that's true. And it's, it's not as bedtime readable because it's big monsters kind of, kind
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B
of a bratty child.
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A
They're not supposed to be like, yes, do not emulate madness.
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B
Yes. Not what the moral.
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A
Everyone here. Maybe over time Little Blue Truck and the little Blue truck industrial complex will come for one of these spots. I think that of. Of the ones that was in our orbit. And then I just see from book sales like I was looking at the best selling books of the week last week that Danica put together and Little Blue Trucks. Valentine's Day. There's a bunch of holiday ones related. So maybe that dissipates the interest. But I love Little Blue Truck. Interesting honorable mention. Did you make it all the way to honorable mention? Part of this.
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B
I scrolled one honorable mention and then sort of.
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A
Okay, I'll hit you with. You can have the same reaction here to the story of Goodnight Moon gets an honorable mention. But it's because of this weird fact. So this is. This book was published in 1947. I don't think I could have told you what year Goodnight Moon was published in. But the. But the editor's note here is that the extremely influential New York Public Library children's librarian Ann Carol Moore hated Goodnight Moon when it first came out. So the New York New. The New York Public Library didn't carry it for the first 25 years it was in print.
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B
Oh, my gosh. Because one person didn't like it.
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A
Because one person didn't like it, so they didn't buy a bunch of copies. Or maybe any copies. It says didn't carry it at all till 1972.
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B
That's so shady. I cannot.
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A
Isn't that crazy?
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B
What. What problem could anybody have with Goodnight Moon? I just need to know.
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A
I don't really know because it's over. So there's like nine words in it, but they're so.
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B
I mean, I love Goodnight Moon, so I'm biased, but.
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A
Oh, you're. You're not. You're just offended. You're not even curious now. You're just pissed off. Okay.
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B
I mean, how. How mean? Like. But that is hilarious. I didn't even know that this is a thing that, you know. I wouldn't have guessed that it would have been weeded out for that long because one children's librarian did not like the book. That's like a vendetta against a children's book.
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A
So I've got a couple. I did a little research I. This. I'm so glad you're. You're a goodnight mood, Stan, because I did a little research on Ann Carol Moore. Would you like to hear a little bit about her, let's say idiosyncratic reign as the New York children public life? Now?
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B
I need to know.
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A
So she. She had a stamp which read not approved by expert. What she would stamp in the books that she didn't like. But the NYPD
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B
caddy Cassie Librarian. That is amazing.
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A
So she. She also apparently hated the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. And rather than, like, she had some conversation with a doll instead of the book's editor to sort of explain why she had it. Like, she did a little pantomime with the book's editor to talk about why she wasn't. Why she hated the books.
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B
All right, I went from disliking, and
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A
I know you went all the way around. I knew you would.
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B
I'm like, I want a whole biography of her. Suddenly, what was this person's life?
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A
Yeah. I will put a link in the show notes to a piece by Betsy Bird that appeared in School Library Journal called the Quintessential Librarian Stereotype Wrestling with the Legacy of Anne Carol Moore. So this is a blog post over there which I think is. Is kind of interesting. And now I kind of want a short miniseries or maybe a documentary docudrama. What a. What a fun role this would be to someone play this warm cantank or this cantankerous acolyte, champion of children's literature that is not just everything's great all the time. Fascinating. So there we go. What a journey we went on. We learned something. I think we help people.
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B
I think so too. Librarian lore.
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A
I think we did something. Something. Lifelock. How can I help?
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B
The IRS said I filed my return,
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A
but I haven't 1 in 4 tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.
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B
What do I do? My refund though. I'm freaking out.
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A
Don't worry.
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Exclude spray paint and mistints. More exclusions. Terms and conditions apply. Subject to change. Details@lowe's.com Terms same day Delivery valid and select zip codes subject to driver availability Details@lowe's.com SameDay Delivery yeah, I no matter what Ann Carol Moore thought about any particular children's book, I know one piece of writing she wouldn't like Sharifa. And that is a nationwide book ban that was introduced on The House Floor HR 7661, also known as the Stop the Sexualization of Children act, which would modify the elementary and Secondary Education act of 1965 by prohibiting the use of funds under the act to quote, develop, implement, facilitate, host or promote any program or activity, or to provide or promote literature or other materials to children under the age of 18 that includes sexually oriented material and for other purposes. The bill was introduced by House Representative Mary Miller who is a Republican from Illinois. If she happens to be your representative out there, or even if you're just Illinois, you can make some noise, send a call, make a stink, go vote. 17 other additional representatives have co signed it. So this, as far as I can tell, and I very much encourage people to go read Kelly's whole piece. I could read them verbatim, but I guess to give the overview is this is in the. Seems to have been the most successful general tactic right now in book bans and censorship, which is to make very broad and sweeping laws, regulations, guidelines, whatever it may be, in certain jurisdictions that are really vague about sex, so that anything related to sex can be flagged to the ends of certain interested parties. Is that your understanding of what's happening here, Sharifa? That's kind of as far as I got in trying to understand what's going on.
- [32:38]
B
Yeah. I think that those are the broad strokes of it. And you know, it is so it can be such a cast of such a wide shadow over what constitutes this kind of book, how it's. They're defined, that it's. It's preposterous. Like, it's obviously written in bad faith from the name of it, because who's gonna. Who wants to say no to something called the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act?
- [33:08]
A
Yes. Right.
- [33:10]
B
Obviously in bad faith, but it also has like preposterous aspects. Like it includes lewd and lascivious dancing as prohibited top. I was like, have we been transported to the 80s film Foot Footloose?
- [33:27]
A
Yeah.
- [33:27]
B
Is Kevin Bacon gonna start choreography his dances on the House floor? But it is like it is serious. And it is hard sometimes to see how a bill like this can have a broader effect and how it can be the start of many similar bills and many other ways to silence certain people's stories.
- [33:56]
A
Right. And Kelly makes the point that this, this bill itself would only initially. Or this bill only affects public schools, not all public libraries. But she makes the point that if it were undertaken for that we've seen this strategy play out where those same principles then are expanded to include all public libraries at the same time. So. And then presumably would be much farther reaching and affect sort of blue state situations or blue cities within these other places. That's one of the things too. There's. Because of the way that a lot of libraries are funded and administered, they can be quite locally controlled, but quite a bit of money comes from the federal government at the same time. I don't know. I don't know enough about the strategy here. Because these kinds of bills are very unpopular. A lot of people who've run for school board or been on school boards that have passed these kinds of laws have lost. They've been struck down though some of them are quite durable at the same time. I don't know why now. I really don't. We need our old pal Amanda to help us with the three dimensional chess about how the politics is working at this level. But thought you should know. Read the article, call your representative, stay informed. We can tell from how this the reaction when we posted this on social that people care about this. The headline's quite alarming. I don't know that it has much chance of a passing. It has to get through. It only has 17 people in the House then has to get through the House and the Senate. Do people want to go on the record ahead of midterms for this? Sharifah? I don't. I don't really know.
- [35:33]
B
But that even be floated is I. I cannot imagine. It is hard to make sense of the decisions that are being made by the administration ahead of the midterms because they are so unpopular. This is just one of many, many actions that I cannot understand.
- [35:56]
A
Right. So we'll leave that there for now. Shoot us. Email if you know more about this podcast@RiotNewMedia.com we've got a. We've got a smorgasbord of other news things. Sharifa. I don't know. We'll get to them all. Did your eye float to any of these? What you want to make sure we cover together? You'd like to say something about or talk.
- [36:12]
B
I definitely want to talk about the International Booker Prize because that always feels like.
- [36:17]
A
Yeah, okay.
- [36:19]
B
Of the year.
- [36:20]
A
Yes. This is when I feel abashed because I consider myself someone who reads a lot of books and is interested in books. And then this list always comes out and I realized how much I don't know about and will never get to because I am. Oh, for the list for this. This prize. Long list. Have you read any of these?
- [36:40]
B
I have not. But one of the books was on my. Was one of my most anticipated of 2026.
- [36:47]
A
Let me guess.
- [36:48]
B
Yes.
- [36:49]
A
Can I guess?
- [36:50]
B
You're gonna get it.
- [36:50]
A
Was it the Witch by Mary and
- [36:51]
B
Jack knew you were gonna get it? Yes, that was it. I mean obviously. But it's coming to the US this year, this April. So I had no idea it had been out for a while. But it makes sense, of course. Like this is why we in the US often feel ignorant when we confront this list because sometimes these books haven't even arrived by us. But a lot of these books have won the National Book Award or have been a finalist or have made like the New York Times Top 10 Book of the year. So they have been circulating. But I also tend not to have picked up most if any of the books on the International Booker Prize list. But that's why it's exciting to me because it's like, wow, I would have missed these books completely.
- [37:48]
A
Yeah, I read, I've only read one Mary and Jai book. I think it was called the Chef a few years back. I thought it was tremendous and I've been meaning to read more. She's become, I think one of the. She's been writing for a while. I don't actually know how old she is. I don't think she's one of these people that's like in their 80s or 90s and have been writing that long. I think she's a little bit. But she has some time to be burble up to the top of the Nobel Prize list. The witch just, just straight up calling it the witch is a real move. I like this, which is a funny. Did you read the synopsis at all? A mediocre witch in a mediocre marriage tried to pass on her gifts to her twin daughters, Sharifa. Is that too close to home? What's going on? Not to call you mediocre. I don't mean to say that, but come on.
- [38:33]
B
I have been, it has been weird how much. How many books about twins are coming out this year and this was just one of many. And I was like, am I gonna have. Is this gonna feel too personal? Like, oh, I could have my heart broken. Like the kids fly the coop in the story and are basically like. And so I hope it's more light hearted than it sounds. But of course I have to read it because it's called the Witch and it's about twin daughters. I have twin daughters and I. And it just sounds fascinating. I have never read any of Ndaye's books, so this will be my first one.
- [39:15]
A
Yeah, she was. She was born in 67 so she's quite young for some with the corpus she has. She published her first book at the age of 17. One of those infuriatingly precocious people that puts us all to shame. I don't have anything else to say about the rest of list. Go look at the shownotes bookriot.com Listen, any other ones that struck your eye? I've got one mediocre take. Which is long lists need to be. We can't. We can't do. We can't do 16 titles. Is it 13? There were 16 for the women's nonfiction prize. Like, I like a list as much as anybody, but like 10 at the most. For a long list at the most.
- [39:55]
B
I'm sure they felt pressure because they are trying to represent so many places. I would probably be a terrible judge that nobody will ever ask.
- [40:05]
A
You've judged things like this, though. You judge the.
- [40:08]
B
I know. Well, no, I. I was in charge of choosing the judges who would judge.
- [40:15]
A
Oh, right. Yes. I'm sorry.
- [40:16]
B
My job was easy. I had the easy job.
- [40:20]
A
There's fewer people in books, Is that what you're saying? Yes.
- [40:23]
B
I mean, I can't. I can't. I couldn't do this. But I agree. Like, it does feel less competitive when it's just like, oh, it's this giant
- [40:32]
A
list, so it's not even about. I mean, competitive. Fine. Just like, I find my eyes just stopping caring, like, halfway down. I don't know. That's me. Maybe my attention span's been ruined. But we've had long list creep over the last five or 10 years, and I think we need to put an end to it, sorry to say, for the three people that left off here. But let's do 10. And then a long list can be. No, the short list can be no longer than five.
- [40:58]
B
Okay, that's reasonable.
- [41:00]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [41:01]
B
Five is fine.
- [41:02]
A
Okay, so go check that out over there. I will now ping pong to one that I am interested in. I'll hit one that's closer to home here in Portland, Mother Foucault Bookshop, which has one of the great bookshop, maybe the greatest bookshop name of all time, Motherfoucault. It is a art, used, vintage. It's kind of. It's not. Did you ever go to Mother Foucault's when you're here? Did you ever stop in at all when you were living?
- [41:29]
B
I was trying to remember, and I cannot remember. It might have been that I happened in and completely forgot, but I was, you know, like, I just kept going to Powell's and I feel sorry that I didn't explore more bookstores in Portland.
- [41:45]
A
Yeah, I mean, I understand. It's like. It's more for local people. Right? Pals is big commercial and the tourist. And I love pals. Don't get me wrong. Motherfuko's is something different. It has a bookstore with used books piled all around. There's like a typewriter sitting around it feels like an old professor's den that's like just into a bookstore and they, they have local arts readings and poetry. It just, it has a little more bohemian element to it. Boho bohemian Portland vibe into it. And it's great. And I saw. I don't think I covered it all last summer because it did feel parochial, but it launched a Kickstarter to buy the building it was in. It created a literary nonprofit with a really highfalutin French name that I can't remember and wanted to raise $300,000 for a down payment on this $1.6 million building it owned. I think there was something about maybe the owner was going to sell the building or the lease. The real real estate shit was getting in the way. And we heard, we hear this all the time. So many times a bookstore closes not necessarily because it's fundamental business is bad or unprofitable, but the realities of the real estate market and landlords and commercial real estate, it can't keep up. Like the. Especially as neighborhoods gentrifying the boutique and the Chipotle down the way it makes that. And I'm not exactly sure what happened here because I was following the Kickstarter and it sort of stalled out. It did pretty well for a while, but it didn't really seem to get close to 300,000. And then motherfuo announced that they had enough money for the down payment and they were going to continue the Kickstarter for subsequent payments. So I don't know, a patron stepped in. That's the only thing that really makes sense there. It's a little hand wavy about that, which I don't really care about. And I bring this up because speaking of Pals and speaking of the Strand and speaking of some of the other long term institutional like indies that people know about, one of the reasons they've stuck around a lot of those is that they own the building. As the early people, the, the giant mothership pals, they own that building. The Strand. They own that building. There was. There's some other bookstores that I think do. And I don't want to say on here because I don't want to be wrong. Those two. I am 99 sure. I'm on solid ground saying that they're owned by the building, which means that they control their own real estate destiny. And I wonder now if more bookstores might consider this as a when the. When the going is good to try to snap up the real estate they're in, if that is possible. I know it's a huge ask, but this seems to me a pretty interesting way of subsidizing through patronage or memberships or something else. The bookstore that's not about just coming in to buy books all the time. And it's more sustainable. Right. If they buy the building, you don't have to go spend 25 bucks every couple weeks to go patronize it in that way.
- [44:36]
B
I wasn't gonna try to say it. I saw it.
- [44:39]
A
I know, I. It's just horrible. I don't know what to do. It translates to bush school, which, believe it or not, means a school of the outdoors or life. Not. I don't know what else it could possibly mean. It's a phrase that also connects a truancy in French as when you skip school and you're attending to the school of life, which is exactly the kind of thing Mother Foucault would name their literary nonprofit. I'll just put it that way, which I like.
- [45:00]
B
It's both hilarious in that, you know, the bookish person is not the person you expect expect to be like in the bush, literally, or being truant from school. But it does make sense because of the sound of the personality of this bookstore. I could see it, and I do think that this could be successful as a model for other independent bookshops that are specifically deeply rooted in the community and have evolved beyond the small business model into more of a third place, like a library is. But I think that if you just have a very straightforward independent bookstore model where people do just like come in to buy books and leave, then I don't know that this would work for that kind of store. But I'm thinking of like loyalty bookstores, for instance. They are very community oriented. They have events, they're very like, they have a level of activism. So I think that they could generate a lot more of that patronage from like just people who have come in and love what they do.
- [46:07]
A
Right.
- [46:08]
B
So I.
- [46:09]
A
Right.
- [46:09]
B
I would love to see that for those specific types of bookstores.
- [46:15]
A
And I don't know that so many of the kinds of stores like this would be making so much profit that moving to non profit status would be a real loss of cash for the owners. Right. You could still pay yourself a salary and pay people salaries and do all that kind of thing. But it, you know, it definitely would be a trade off to be a non profit. But I think there's a lot of stores that maybe sort of de facto are non profits in terms of like, they make enough money to pay the, the employees and the owners, but they're not making a whole bunch of money in addition to that. And if that's the case, the non profit status can give you some tax benefits and has strictures too. But you could set up some sort of institution where, you know, one and a half million dollars is a lot of money. Sharifa, I don't want to. I don't want to say that isn't. But there are people that give a lot of money to things in excess of $1.5 million that if you could vouch for safe the library in your neighborhood, I think some people would be amenable to that, that have deep pockets. I think that's.
- [47:07]
B
I think so too, because it's also just romantic to be a patron of the arts, of the bookstores of the world, and to be able to say, well, you know, I. And I'm not saying that people who would support or fund places like these are driven by narcissism, but it does feel good to do something like that because everybody loves an independent bookstore, especially one that feels like. As romantic as. As Motherfoucault sounds.
- [47:43]
A
Yes, very much so. I don't know why this. I'll tell this quick story. I once heard about a bookshop in New York, and I think it was the old Blue Stockings. And they had a patron and their mode of patronage, which is, I want a copy of every book you carry. So if you ever. Whenever you're ordering books, make one extra copy for me. And they would just come every week and pick up like a hundred books.
- [48:08]
B
Oh, wow. Every week?
- [48:12]
A
Every week. You know, whatever. I mean, it's a small bookstore. So like, you know, if they were ordering a new title, like, whatever was new, if they were getting one for the store, there was like plus one just for this patron. And I don't know what happened to the books. This is a story I probably heard 25 years ago. So take it with all the grains of salt. Now that my brain is ricotta cheese and I can't remember things. But that stuck with me. But that was their way of, like, they wanted the books, but it was an ongoing sort of standing order to. To keep some cash flow.
- [48:39]
B
Interesting way to patronize a store.
- [48:43]
A
Yeah. If you all happen to know how exactly I could be corrected with understanding that story. Shoot me an email podcast@book riot.com. so I got that. We got Indy. Let's do. Where do you want to go? You pick next. We only got a few left here before we're gonna hit.
- [48:58]
B
I have to talk about the pride And Prejudice and Jane. Air of it all.
- [49:02]
A
All right. Are you excited for these? What do you think? So what? Tell the people what these things are. Sorry, should. We should actually know. Let them know we're gonna talk about.
- [49:11]
B
So we are getting both a new Pride and Prejudice adaptation. I think both of these are. Wait, the Pride and Prejudice adaptation is a series? And the Jane Eyre on Netflix.
- [49:26]
A
And it's done. It's like, it's shot, as far as I understand. There's a teaser for that.
- [49:30]
B
Yes. And then the Jane Eyre adaptation is a film, I think.
- [49:37]
A
It's not quite clear yet.
- [49:39]
B
They've TV adaptation. TV adaptation. So it's another thing.
- [49:43]
A
Oh, it is. It does say TV adaptation. Okay.
- [49:45]
B
And so we're getting ready, but we
- [49:46]
A
don't know what platform it is. Someone might pick it up, they sell it to somebody else.
- [49:49]
B
Yeah, yeah. It sounds like it's a UK production, so who knows when we'll see it or how we'll see it. But I am excited about both of these because predictably, Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre were my favorite teenage reads. You know, when there were classic works that I were immediately drawn to, these were the two. Now, that does not mean I have liked every adaptation. I was not a fan of the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice adaptation. I know a lot of people were, but I was a BBC miniseries. Pride and Prejudice.
- [50:30]
A
Okay. See, I. Is it. Is it. You have to be one or the other? Like, you can't. You can't like Star wars in Star Trek. Is it one of those where you've got to pick your BBC vs Keira Knightley?
- [50:39]
B
In my internal world, it is probably. To nobody else, it is.
- [50:45]
A
Well, I like the BBC one, but I like the Keira Knightley one quite a bit better. And I haven't really investigated why. I think it's because it's shorter.
- [50:53]
B
Mine is probably very nostalgia based because that was the first Pride and Prejudice. I'm pretty sure I actually watched Pride and Prejudice before I read it, which was not my usual thing as a teen. I was very opinionated about that, but that's how I sort of discovered Jane Austen for myself. And so, of course, I have this fondness for that particular adaptation, but I am so. I'm not even like. I'm more curious about this Pride and Prejudice adaptation, especially after seeing the teaser trailer, because I was like, wow. They're like, really? It feels. The vibes feel different than what I would expect from an adaptation for Pride and Prejudice.
- [51:38]
A
My. Yeah, I noticed the same thing. And my first thought was they were trying to make it seem like a withering height situation.
- [51:43]
B
Yes.
- [51:44]
A
Which Pride and Prejudice is not.
- [51:46]
B
Or
- [51:48]
A
10's not. I mean, I guess you could do it where you're much more out on the moors and looking.
- [51:52]
B
Yeah.
- [51:52]
A
But it's much more verbal and much more a comedy, frankly. It's a comedy where things go well. It's a romance in the classical sense. And the pleasure, I think for me at least, and the people I've talked to and when I've taught it is the wit and repartee that go back and forth. Whereas Wuthering Heights is the staring and hitting each other, I guess is what people like about that book. But that was my first thought was, wow, I wonder if they cut that teaser differently if Wuthering Heights doesn't make $90 million at the box office.
- [52:22]
B
Yeah, that was my thought too. I was like, oh my gosh, these marketing people were scrambling to cut this teaser to make it look like, you know, that say, to give it that smoldering, smutty appearance which you really can the yearn. And so I was very confused for a minute because I was like, this is Jane Austen, right? Yes, this is Jane Austen. I'm not misremembering, but now I want to see an actual like full length trailer because I can't. I'm really struggling to imagine that this is the actual tone of it. And if it is, I will be super fascinated, perhaps angry.
- [53:06]
A
How you do that for the whole miniseries. Right. It's gonna feel.
- [53:08]
B
So it's gonna be too much. Like I would struggle with it. But my curiosity is edging out my cynicism right now for this one.
- [53:21]
A
And I like Jack Loudon quite a bit from Slow horses, who's playing Mr. Darcy.
- [53:25]
B
Yes, I agree.
- [53:26]
A
I don't know much of the woman who's playing Elizabeth Bennett. I think my favorite thing about the 2005 Keira Knightley was the some the character who played Tom Collins and then Donald Sutherland. Like, I think they did a particularly fine job with the secondary characters at the same time. And I, both my daughter and I listened to the soundtrack on Infinite Repeat while I'm working. So it just sort of wormed its way into my brain and then. So that one was already in the can. That was. Maybe the teaser cut was related to Wuthering Heights success, but it was already done. But I think this other one in which Amy Lou Wood is going to start a new TV adaptation of Jane Eyre for working titled Amy Lou Wood of White Lotus Fame, like What other brontes in the public domain? Let's go get it. Let's go get Jane Eyre. And when we did this year to well read episode for Wuthering Heights, we did note that Jane Eyre was a huge phenomenon, even more so than Wuthering Heights. And I think probably more contemporary readers have read Jane Eyre than Wuthering Heights.
- [54:30]
B
I would think so.
- [54:31]
A
I should look this up.
- [54:32]
B
I would be shocked if it was the other way around. And I think more people have like at least an anecdotal understanding. Maybe I, I, this might be me being in my insular world of bookish people, but I think that they have more of an idea of what Jane Eyre is about than what Wuthering Heights is about.
- [54:53]
A
Right. Yeah. I think the pitch is a little simpler for Jane Eyre. Yeah. Like just a plot.
- [55:00]
B
Yeah. And the idea, it has a lot of like the sound, the plotting and sort of the intrigue of even some contemporary mystery. Mystery like this woman in the. Sorry, spoiler alert for this super old book. But you know, this Woman in the Attic.
- [55:17]
A
I think we're beyond spoiler alerts for Jeanner.
- [55:18]
B
You would call this the Woman in the Attic and sell it, you know. But I think that this story has also seen. I'm trying to remember. It's seen more adaptation. I know in the piece it said it hasn't had a recent.
- [55:35]
A
It's been, I mean, I thought I had the same thought. Sharif was like, what is the Jane Eyre that I know on film? And I could, I, I came up blank. I, I really did. I'm like, there isn't one starring like, I don't even. Who would have started like Barbara Stanwyck or something like. I don't even know. I'll look it up now while we're talking about this a little bit to see. There was one in 2011 with Michael Fassbender.
- [55:57]
B
Yes. That's the one I, I watched multiple times.
- [56:01]
A
You watched that one. But I feel like that didn't do.
- [56:03]
B
I don't think it did.
- [56:04]
A
I don't think a lot of people,
- [56:05]
B
I think it was very like, I don't think enough people were kind of into those works or those adaptations unless it was something like, you know, Emma or it was a lot of like Austen stuff. Emma and Sense and Sensibility where it was more light hearted. I don't know that a lot of people were into the, the dark.
- [56:31]
A
That's an interesting point. Yeah. Yeah. Directed by Carrie Joji Fukunaga, who you probably know now for like True Detective and no Time to Die and some other stuff. Directed that. And I butchered Mia Kowska's name. She plays the titular Jane Eyre. And then Jamie Bell's in it a. Well, it looks like. I don't know. Looks like it did okay, but it didn't do well enough. I was like, oh yeah, they just did this. There was a 2006 miniseries.
- [56:57]
B
I did not watch that.
- [56:58]
A
That I don't know anything about the stars. Ruth W. So you know, there have been some. There's been some. There was a 1996 one. This would have been in my wheelhouse. Who's in this? Oh, Franco Zeffirelli directed this with Charlotte Ginsburg, Anna Paquin and William Hurt. I did see this. I remember not enjoying that Sharifa, now that I'm looking at the. The Quick View.
- [57:22]
B
Oh, no, I mean I think Franco Zephyrelli adaptations are very divisive. Wasn't he the one that did.
- [57:29]
A
That's right.
- [57:30]
B
Was he the one that did. Wrote the Romeo and Juliet adaptation. Okay. Yeah.
- [57:34]
A
Famous Romeo and Juliet where they're.
- [57:35]
B
Yeah. Later got sued over it.
- [57:36]
A
But there's so many of these. There's a 1997 TV. There's a 1997 TDF. There is so many. 1983. 1973.
- [57:49]
B
I would have guessed that a lot. 1961 would come from the UK. The like UK production like BBC DC has probably done a thousand adaptations of Jane Eyre.
- [58:02]
A
They're terrible. Daytime television must be so much better than ours. Like we have like the Hallmark TV movie and soap operas and they've got like 17 Jane Eyre's that no one's ever heard.
- [58:10]
B
I would be so happy not with the food but with the viewing over there. I'm sorry.
- [58:17]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:18]
B
The UK people.
- [58:20]
A
So I assume. I can only imagine that they're like, we can do. We can, we can snap up. Well, you don't want to snap anything up. This is public domain. You can't do it. You don't ask anyone permission.
- [58:29]
B
And honestly, the casting of Amylou Wood makes me very. Makes me feel like this is a very promising start because I loved her in White Lotus and I think that once I saw the news that she was cast as Jade Eyre, I was like, of course, of course. Because she is not like a. A perfect model esque heroine. She's not Margot Robbie exactly. And there's something interesting and complex about her. So I think that I can see her doing.
- [59:07]
A
Yeah, I think that's an interesting point.
- [59:08]
B
Yeah. We don't know who Mr. Rochester is yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
- [59:15]
A
I'm sure they will get who would they? Well, that's a different. That's a different.
- [59:18]
B
I don't know enough about contemporary actors to be good at this.
- [59:21]
A
Yeah, we'll have to saddle up the three of us for zero to well read for Jane Eyre when the time comes to do that when this is coming out. All right, let's do front list foyer now. Sharifa Brought to you, Brought to us. Brought to every really brought to the world by thriftbooks.com at thriftbooks.com you can find 19 million new and used titles. A lot. I mean there's multiple copies of Jane. You think there's a lot of adaptations of Jane Eyre. I was doing the pre roll for the Wuthering Heights. I think I said on that there were 1800 what editions that were available? No, 181. Now I'm getting hundreds of different editions of Wuthering Heights over the years that you could find listed on thriftbooks.com with each purchase gets you closer to a free book award which you could use to pick up an old paperback or use towards a book purchase of any kind. Free shipping on orders of over 15 bucks in the US and if there's something you've got your eye on, you can hard it if it's not in stock now and come check it out later. I will spoil this by saying not really. But there is a our next episode is for contemporary ish novels, which there's not a lot of editions that are available, you know, American editions or English editions over time. But there's like this Chinese boxed edition that is super cool and I saw they don't get them that often, but I made a little heart there. If that ever comes in, I want, I want to be told they didn't have a price for it, which I'm a little nervous about. But I wanted to know there you can do all that on thriftbooks.com thanks so much for them for sponsoring front list foyer. What have you been reading, Shree?
- [60:51]
B
I just finished the Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikisha Elise Williams.
- [60:57]
A
I don't know this book.
- [60:58]
B
It is so good. It just came out in January, I think late January. And it's historical fiction. It's a generational saga about the Dupree and daughters. And it starts like in 19th century Alabama and goes all the way to 90s Chicago, Illinois. So there's some like 90s stuff going on there which is very close to home for me. And then there's like this huge story of the maternal line of this family that is, you know, quote unquote, cursed by this terrible violent event that happened with the first Dupre daughter who birthed a girl. So it is a hard read, but it is so good. I love a generational saga. This speaks to my heart. So I cannot recommend that book more.
- [61:59]
A
Cool. I read and finished quite quickly on a road business trip the other week or last week. Two women living together, which Rebecca talked about in Frontless Foyer and I mentioned is one of my anticipated books of the spring by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo, translated from the Korean a nonfiction dual memoir of them moving in together and buying a house platonically and how they came to make that decision, what was like to do it. I thought it was interesting. I think Rebecca talked about it feeling a little. I don't want to put words into her mouth, but it was interesting and affirming. But it didn't quite have, I don't know, it didn't quite have the teeth I was looking for or the mess or the. It felt reserved. It felt like they were holding quite a bit back. Now, that could be just. I'm not used to reading these kinds of books and translation, a different expectation. That's fine. But I kind of wanted more of a story and more of. I don't. I guess I wanted to feel more like a family story. But they happen to be two single women who aren't romantically entangled, but they are entangled by a real estate transaction. And I think some of that is. Some of that is because we don't even know how to think about a relationship like this. Like, is it family? Is it not a family? Is it a business arrangement, like we're taking care of each other's cats? But, you know, if you've got insurance or these other medical things that come up that are sort of limited to family, how does that work? Yeah, I'm glad I read it. It wasn't very long, but I felt myself feeling like I wanted something more introspective and revelatory than what I got here, to be perfectly honest. So I can't not, not. I'm not, not recommending it, but I'm not going to really be stumping for this one.
- [63:49]
B
Yeah, I was curious about that book. So it's helpful to know that.
- [63:55]
A
Yeah, I wouldn't go out and run it now. If you're considering, like, if you're actually. I think if you're actually considering doing something like this, it might be interesting to see it has. I'm not in a position where this is something I'm interested in, but it didn't feel like it was interesting enough on its own as anything other than a concept. It felt a little more instruction manually and maybe a long blog post of like how this happened together just didn't really have juice. And sometimes it's hard to know what that. What's missing in something.
- [64:23]
B
Yeah.
- [64:25]
A
Anyway, so there you go. That's what I've been reading. Right now I'm the middle of like three different things. Audiobook, another. I will say right now that I just started. I got a audiobook advanced copy of the new Patrick Radden Keefe London calling and I am finding every single minute I can spare to throw my headphones.
- [64:45]
B
I love that. Experience. Experience.
- [64:47]
A
I will. I will say more when I'm done, but I am. It comes out in April, so I am completely enthralled by what Patrick Raden Keefe does there. As listeners of the show will know. That is no surprise to hear that I like a new Patrick Radden Keefe book. So there we go. Anything else? Sha. What else we got coming up? Do we have another best books of the century coming up soon? Do we have one?
- [65:09]
B
Yeah, we do. We have one. We have one every month. Yeah. I don't even know what. What time it is. I think the next one. I don't think I'm spoiling anything here.
- [65:19]
A
No, no, you're not spoiling anything.
- [65:20]
B
I think it's mystery thriller, which is a big one. So I think a lot. It's a tough one to conquer and I have to give it up to Vanessa who led, who captained that list because it was no easy feet. But that one is one of our big best of the century lists we're releasing. So look forward to it. March 11th.
- [65:50]
A
Yep, March 11th. That's my birthday. Happy birthday to me. Yeah, sorry, T.M. i put that on the Internet. I didn't mean to do that. Anyway, bookright.com listen for show notes with the link to this to the stories we talked about in this episode. You can find it right in the palm of your hand in your phone. And the episode notes for the in your podcast player of choice. You can choose an email podcastookriot.com look for Thrift Book. Excuse me. Look for the Eight Books of the March season. Winter March. March is a sneakily good, I think in the draft of the best book releases of the year. Right now I go September, June, October, May, March. So I guess it's kind of more in the middle, but it's closer towards the end of the top. It's always. It's always a sneakily good month. Like the first week in January is sneakily good. All of March is sneakily good.
- [66:45]
B
Wow. Now I have to go.
- [66:46]
A
Look at that. Yeah, I don't know what's off the top of my head. Oh, I still just bought by Kin by Terry Jones after Rebecca was raving about at Spark. Speaking of frontless foyer, my my stack runneth over there. Check out Zero to well Read. Check out the Patreon patreon.com BookRiot podcast to get our bonus content over there. We get a couple of bonus episodes per month. Always appreciate your support. Srifa A pleasure.
- [67:12]
B
It was great. Thank you for inviting me.
- [67:22]
A
Hello everyone. Stuck UI here.
- [67:23]
B
And I'm Gabby and we are the hosts of History of Everything, a podcast which you can probably guess by the name is. Well, it's about Everything. Do you want to know why people thought potatoes were evil and would give you syphilis?
- [67:36]
A
Are you curious about all the stories
- [67:38]
B
of the terrible and stupid ways that people have kicked the bucket over the years? Do you want to hear tales about
- [67:43]
A
all of the different badasses of history
- [67:45]
B
and the lives that they had brought to life?
- [67:48]
A
Well, if so, then look no further.
- [67:50]
B
History of Everything is just the right podcast for you. It's available on Spotify, Pandora, and anywhere else that you get your podcast from.
- [67:57]
A
Join us for some fun and just
- [67:59]
B
see how weird and wacky history can be.