← Book Riot - The Podcast
Book Riot - The Podcast
AI Disasters, Amazon's Best Books of the Year So Far, and More Book News
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- [00:01]
Danica Ellis
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [00:26]
Jeff O'Neill
This Father's Day helped dad be all he can be with a gift from the Home Depot because he's not just dad, he's the handyman of the house, the plumber in a pinch and the emergency mechanic. Upgrade his gear this Father's Day with the Husky mechanic's 270 piece tool set from the Home Depot. Now on Special Buy for $119 a $695 value for every kind of dad. Find the perfect gift this Father's Day at the Home Depot. This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff o' Neill. Rebecca is still out traipsing around some bucolic Eastern European country that I couldn't pick out on a map if you paid me $10,000. But I am delighted to have Danica Ellis join me again after our slightly unhinged but much enjoyed beach read episodes that Erica joined us for. Danica. So welcome back.
- [01:21]
Danica Ellis
I'm glad to be back.
- [01:23]
Jeff O'Neill
Do you think we're going to be. It's, it's hard not to have a good time with Erica, you know.
- [01:28]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, it's true. It's true. I said beforehand that it was dangerous to get the three of us on a podcast together because I think we're the chat, possibly the chattiest people.
- [01:39]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, we almost had Vanessa too, and that really was something.
- [01:42]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, I don't think it, I think we'd still be recording.
- [01:47]
Jeff O'Neill
But that was a lot of fun. So thanks. For those of you who wrote in, I shared with Danica and Erica and I think it made our day a little bit that we made some other people's day here. Points of order. Rebecca will be back next week. We'll have a regular news episode. Today's just sort of a regular news episode. A lot going on. We are doing a live event at pals again July 9th. Rebecca and I and Vanessa will be there for that along with Keith Mossman, who is, I think the head book buyer, one of the the honchos of book buyers over at Pals to talk about the best books of the year so far. There'll be a link in the show. Notes here to go get a ticket. Also, join us on the Patreon. Rebecca and I did a recent reading catch up and other media diet and we have other stuff coming up next week. I'm chockablock on First Edition. I had Damon Young and Susan Choi earlier this week in the main feed. You heard? I did my the Hey, I just might Jeff books of June. I've got Oliver Darkshire and Pete Mendelsohn and Kate McKean and a whole bunch of people coming up next week and the rest of the month because there's a lot going on in June. So check that over there. Let's see what else. Yeah, I guess I did. We're gonna do a sponsor break and we got it's kind of a couple weeks worth of news to catch up on Danico, so let's go that way.
- [03:03]
Mel
If, like me, you love travel as much as you love books, you're into stories that sweep you away and stay with you like a favorite souvenir. Check out Strong Sense of Place. It's a podcast that explores the world one destination at a time. Think Morocco, Iceland, or New Orleans through five handpicked books that bring each setting vividly to life. You get culture, food, history, and the kind of texture that makes you want to buy a plane ticket on impulse and pack a bag. It's not just about geography, though. It's also about the atmosphere, the kind of storytelling that lets you hear the music from a street corner in Havana or smell the spices in a Thai market without ever having to leave the comfort of your couch. The hosts, Mel and Dave, are a writer photographer duo with great chemistry and a real curiosity about the world. They're in their seventh season now, with more than 60 episodes to dig into.
- [03:51]
Jeff O'Neill
So.
- [03:51]
Mel
So if your idea of a perfect escape is a great story in an unforgettable place, Strong Sense of Place might just be your new favorite. Listen subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or head to strongsenseofplace.com.
- [04:07]
Unknown
Today's episode is brought to you by Wattpad Books, publisher of Never Kiss yous Roommate by Feline Harms welcome to Seven Hills, an elite boarding school where ambition reigns and so do secrets. New arrivals Evelyn and Seth quickly bond, but their whirlwind start is disrupted by the Watcher, a mysterious blogger spilling in the school's juiciest gossip. Now Evelyn finds herself falling for her aloof roommate, Noelle, while Seth is smitten with charming theater kid Jasper. But just as romance blooms, the Watcher strikes, threatening to expose everything in a world where reputations are everything. Will love survive the spotlight? So this is a young adult sapphic romance. It's perfect for Pride Month and for fans of Gossip Girl, but who want, like, a little queer twist. Forwarder reviews says, quote, for all the queer people who fell in love with and felt betrayed by books about magical boarding schools, never Kiss your Roommate is the book they've always deserved. Here. The real magic is that queer love is very, very real. I can get into that. Make sure to pick up Never Kiss yous Roommate by Feline Harms. And thanks again to Wattpad Books for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. Presenting Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. So Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is starring Camille Rutherford. It's a new romantic comedy about a Parisian woman who dreams of becoming a successful writer and experiencing true love while attending a Jane Austen writer's residency in England. It is all types of, like, cozy, bookish, rom com y goodness. And I think I feel like we need that right now. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is now playing in select cities and opens nationwide May 30th. For more information and tickets, visit janeaustin wrecked my life.com Again, that's Jane austenreckedmylife.com. thanks again to Sony Pictures Classics for sponsoring this episode.
- [06:14]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay, this is one I think that's been in the. I'm not sure there's much to say about it, but Salman Rushdie's attack, Solomon Rushdie's attacker was Indeed sentenced to 25 years in jail. This was from May 16th. I. We had several people email this to us. I think I have this here just so you know that we saw that. So there we go. Janica, we don't have to comment on that unless you've got some crazy hot take and real insight to the, the English legal, the American legal system and, you know, attacking people and no, I don't think there's anything else to do. Okay, here's one to do because you and I, we've written a list or two on the Internet about books in our life. And when you saw this story about the Chicago Sun Times running an AI generated summer reading list with a bunch of fake books, what was your first thought? Do you remember? Do you remember what your first thought was?
- [07:07]
Danica Ellis
I think, honestly, my first thought was just like, ooh, this is such a good book. Gossip Day.
- [07:14]
Jeff O'Neill
The content, our content.
- [07:20]
Danica Ellis
Because like, everybody was talking about it. But I think, I think I originally saw it just kind of in isolation. And then when I found out it was part of you know, 500 recommendations for summer where there was this and then there was like albums and snacks and music, like whatever movies, everything you could possibly recommend. Obviously that doesn't excuse using AI. That was a horrible move and many people would have liked to write it, but it was sort of like, oh, you're, you're kind of setting yourself up for fluff, you know, like nobody's going to be an expert in all of these things. But what about you?
- [08:03]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I think what I wrote about in today in books, I said a couple things and my thinking has evolved a little bit A the reputational damage, I think for something like this is real at this point. Right. People, like, people aren't going to think about these things differently. These places the same. The second thing I thought was maybe more of an insider situation where this was a freelancer from a third party content company running into Chicago Sun Times. And so a couple things happen when you lease out your reputation. Right. You don't know who these people are. So we've seen things like this happen before when it comes to, you know, journalists making stuff up or other kinds of misbehavior because journalists and writers are like other people, flawed and have motivations and can get out of their skis. But this is one where I think people who don't make the Internet don't understand how common these sort of syndication deals are. And a banner can, you know, a company like the Chicago Sun Times can be, I don't know, more of a content holding company than, you know, a newsroom. Like you're looking at all the President's men or something like that.
- [09:13]
Danica Ellis
Right.
- [09:13]
Jeff O'Neill
And ours and the people running these pieces on their properties may not know, have any idea who wrote it.
- [09:20]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [09:21]
Jeff O'Neill
Right. And so they don't know if they can trust them. And then the perverse incentives from the people who don't really have any accountability or long term relationship with that corporation or masthead, they're motivated to make it as quick and cheap as fast as they can. Because here's the other thing, Danica. Internet writing doesn't pay great.
- [09:40]
Danica Ellis
No. And especially with the rise of AI, it's getting, it's harder to get those, those kinds of freelance jobs. And I think it's paying less because people are like, you could just use AI, which as we've seen, you can't really. But, but it's, it's interesting too because I think some of these stories are also revealing. Like, I, I'm not sure if the, the person who wrote this kind of didn't really do a defense, but sort of put out a statement that said, I use this for research. You I should have double checked. I always double check. Somehow I didn't double check. So if we take him at his word that it was just, you know, the selections and that he actually wrote the descriptions, like how. How many of these lists have gone out where they just googled summer reads and they copy and pasted the first 10 results, you know, but you'd never catch that. Nobody would ever notice it. So I think some of this, these stories are maybe revealing something that was already there and making it.
- [10:51]
Jeff O'Neill
I think that's right. You know, there's a follow on story and I did a little bit more writing books about this one too. I'm of multiple minds about AI and LLMs. Maybe beyond the scope of this particular conversation, maybe not. You and I haven't really talked about that, but there's some stuff that it can do that's pretty powerful. I'll give one example of something that I did last summer that is kind of how I'm using it, if I use it at all. Where I was, I did an analysis of the most anticipated books, I think, of the summer. And so I had like 25 lit, 25 tabs of various lists. And what I did is I copy and pasted all the text into chat GPT and said, can you make me a spreadsheet with just organize this for me. And it did it. And so then I went back and looked and I double checked because one of my early experience with ChatGPT is this. Who are the 10 most important living American writers? And three of them were dead. Danica. And so ever since then, I've been very gun shy about the truth. But in terms of organization and data manipulation, it's pretty powerful. And that's not, you know, that's a little bit more like really fancy spell check to me. But having said that, so I think there are some ways to use this ethically in terms of stealing people's work or however you think about that. And the climate stuff is another kettle of fish.
- [12:03]
Danica Ellis
Right.
- [12:04]
Jeff O'Neill
Which I think bears keeping in mind. But having said that, what I do think is it is the greatest tool for cheats and scammers in the history of the electron age. Just there's no doubt that I believe whether or not you can use it ethically, I think is an interesting conversation. And those things I think can live side by side. Danica. It can be really used in interesting ways and you can do some stuff that really I wouldn't have had the time necessarily myself to do all that work, especially for the amount of money it would have made the company, just to be perfectly honest. But if it takes me five minutes rather than two hours hand logging them, I've made something and I wanted to make it good. And that's where the distinction is. Are you trying to make something good or you're trying to make something fast?
- [12:45]
Danica Ellis
Right.
- [12:45]
Jeff O'Neill
Get you to fast. Faster than anything ever has. And it's a little mind boggling.
- [12:50]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, yeah. It definitely supercharges any of like any existing problems.
- [12:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Right. Yeah. Welcome to technology. I guess.
- [13:00]
Danica Ellis
But yeah, yeah. Like I think I have been thinking about. I don't know if it made it onto the pod, but the, the writers who accidentally left the prompts in their books and those were like Kindle Unlimited type of books. Right. Where you're. You're paid by the page essentially. So there's a lot of incentive to write books quickly and you know, along.
- [13:24]
Jeff O'Neill
Right, right, yeah. Volume play.
- [13:26]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, yeah. And like there were already people who are taking advantage of that and obviously people who weren't putting in a lot of work and then some people who are putting in a lot of work. But now that there's the AI factor I don't know if that sort of like if it can even keep existing because it was already hard to sort out, you know, the scammers or the, the really low effort stuff.
- [13:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Right.
- [13:51]
Danica Ellis
But now there's just going to be so much of it.
- [13:53]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. The volume is really incredible. And that was one of the early stories I remember Rebecca and I talked about where people getting submissions, I think especially like short store or science fiction magazines.
- [14:02]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [14:03]
Jeff O'Neill
Getting inundated with. So the volume was so changed because people could take more shots because it was. The cost of taking a shot was trivial before. So the thing about the Chicago Sun Times one is it was so glaring that I think it may teach us the wrong lesson or not the wrong lesson necessarily, but we may miss the forest for the trees a little bit. This was only caught because it was so bad, right?
- [14:31]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, exactly.
- [14:32]
Jeff O'Neill
I think what we're not seeing is the 1% of stuff that's untrue or hallucinated that you're not going to see necessarily because this was so blatant. Like it was books by famous authors that did not like literally did not exist. Very common authors. You don't have to. You or me or Rebecca who cover this for a living to see like Andy Weir did not write. That's. That is not an Andy. That's not a Min Jin Lee book. I will say this though. I would kind of read the summaries of some of the books. Like if Andy Weir Men Jin Lee wrote that book, I'm like, I could have been duped. If the piece was here are the next books by authors you like. I'd be like, wow, those are. That's what. Okay, I guess I'm excited for that.
- [15:11]
Danica Ellis
Wasn't the Andy Weir one about like an AI who achieves consciousness?
- [15:17]
Jeff O'Neill
Right? Yeah, maybe that. Maybe the AI was trying to get Andy Weir to write a book about the plight of AI. There's like a little bit of, you know, something else going on there. So that was another piece that I was struck by is. I don't think anyone commented upon, at least to my. I was like, these are very plausible descriptions of future books. Like if this came out and published as much this was the next book. I'd be like, that kind of makes sense, honestly.
- [15:42]
Danica Ellis
Well, there was another story I read recently. I can't remember if I shared it or not, but it was someone, it was a writer who tried to use ChatGPT to put together a catalog or what do you call that, your best stories?
- [15:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh yeah, yeah, A collection of your.
- [16:00]
Danica Ellis
Stories portfolio and, and not. Not using CHAT BT GPT to write it, but just to give advice about which stories to include and was sending links of these stories and ChatGPT would come up with these really in depth analyses of the, the strengths of each of these. And she was like, wow, how are you? So you're actually reading these? And they said, yeah, I'm. I'm reading every word. And then about three more exchanges down, she was like, that's not what this story is about. And it kind of slowly reveals that it hasn't been able to access any of these links. And it's just fully like kind of horoscope style being like, yeah, your voice is really strong in this one. It shows your unique style. And like it could be anything but. But it continually said, well, this one I couldn't actually read. But the rest I have been reading every word until it was prompted and then was like, okay, I did lie about that.
- [17:08]
Jeff O'Neill
That, that is nuts. That, that, that part really is nuts about how easy it is for it to fake. Even someone who's looking for fakes out. That's. That's really disturbing, to be honest.
- [17:19]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, well, that's honestly why I, I have, I have many concerns about it, but in terms of practicality, because I just can't trust like it could make things up. Then you have to double check everything. And if I'm double checking everything, that's taking more time than if I just did it.
- [17:40]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. I can't use it for truth.
- [17:43]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [17:44]
Jeff O'Neill
But like I said, if I have a bounded data set that I understand, it can do some stuff that's pretty interesting. I should have. I meant to link to this. I might. I think that I put this. It doesn't matter. I'll put this in the links here. This was a really good piece on subject by Sean Kiernan from last month and it went kind of viral on Subset because. Because you're going to hear why 13 sign. You've used chat GP to write that. And it's not satirical. And there's some. So if you're interested in having a. I guess if you're interested in having a filter, you're a human meat. Filter for. Wait, does this feel like it could be chatgpt? These all give specificity and voice to things. I kind of understand its propensities. For lists, for example, lacking death EM dashes, a lot of parallelism. There are no typos. Longer complicated sentence structure. Another one is lack of specific details in talking about something. It doesn't use numbers, it can't use descriptions because it doesn't know anything. And it's crowdsourcing, interpretation, everything else. So I thought this piece was pretty cool. And maybe there's a LLM plugin. You can key this in and say, look for all these things. And these things advance all the time, but you can tell. And there are some very, very plausible fakes going around in a way that's very difficult to manage. It really is difficult to manage well.
- [19:09]
Danica Ellis
And it becomes this weird cycle where first of all, I've heard of students saying, I can't use EM dashes because then my teacher will take.
- [19:20]
Jeff O'Neill
Right, exactly. Yes.
- [19:21]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. Which is a shame because that's a perfectly.
- [19:26]
Jeff O'Neill
I love an EM dash.
- [19:28]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. To write. But also I've heard of. Again, like, I think the cutting edge of Chat GPT writing is student papers trying to get away with it just going in and adding typos. You know, like, this is the advanced way of doing.
- [19:45]
Jeff O'Neill
I mean, you can do stuff like say, hey, can you rewrite this so that it looks more like I wrote a human wrote this. Or yeah, old wrote this. So it's pretty wild. Be careful out there. I guess I should say we. We here at the br, we were hand picking. These are human selected lists. You know, we're not using ChatGPT to create lists at this point I can't imagine that happening anytime soon. There was a follow on story, I think in the wake of the piece about the Chicago Sun Times. Some people had the. I don't give them cover or gave them realization that there was a story here. I think you shared this one.
- [20:16]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, I think so.
- [20:17]
Jeff O'Neill
About Canadian authors talking about AI dupes of their books. So here's how this works. You have a book and you write like kind of normal style, like the normal publishing thing. Let's do that. And it gets put on Amazon. And what someone can do now if they think there's any heat at all around your book is make a fake looking cover quickly using, you know, LLMs for images, retitle it, but very close to it, especially if it's nonfiction. You can do the memo. I think this is a memoir of a wannabe pm, I think or a biography of a wannabe PM is the Canadian PM in this example. And then you have chat GPT write a book, right? I mean this is seriously what happens about that topic. And you put it on Amazon self publishing and you charge $3 for Kindle for it. And then you can also have a $5 audiobook version that you've made with an LLM and you're basically tricking people looking or interested in the legit book for your thing and it's cheaper and it looks plausible and let's give it a go. And this is terrible. Danica. This is one of my least favorite books in a long time.
- [21:27]
Danica Ellis
It's, it's again one of those things that was already a problem when I worked with a bookstore and I ran the online side of it that we, we would like list books that were, it's complicated but we listed books that were getting printed somewhere else from Ingram and then we, but we would be the sellers, right? And one of the things that they would print were these summaries of books which I feel like should not be legal honestly because they're, they're such scams. But it would be like a new especially like business or self help new hardcover. They, they publish this 20 page summary in paperback. And people who were just looking for the paperback and didn't real like weren't looking very closely like oh Great, this is $8 for the paperback instead I'll buy that. And then got very angry at us because they didn't get the actual book except again now it's even easier. But the one in that piece that was horrifying was that one of the books was a woman who wrote a memoir about her late husband and someone did this.
- [22:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Literary grave robbing essentially is what it is.
- [22:50]
Danica Ellis
It's wild and like kept her husband's name and son's name the same and did a prequel a prequel to her memoir about her. Oh my God. Like that is really disturbing.
- [23:06]
Jeff O'Neill
I do think your comments about Kindle Unlimited's business model groaning to the point of breaking possibly under this. The Amazon being the principal purveyor of this at least the United States. I'm sure it's different in other countries but there could come a day where there's a huge class action lawsuits about Amazon not doing enough work to keep these from. From the buy or sell side. Right? Yeah, because there's a lot of fake crap out there. It was I think in the early day the Kindle I fell for one of those summaries or no the early days of doing VR when I was trying to teach myself how to like run a business without like going up in flames. I was looking for one of these business books and go a Kindle edition for three bucks and it was a summary of the thing and I was like oh, now I have to watch out for that. I only got taken for three. I learned did learn to watch out for it.
- [23:51]
Danica Ellis
It's yeah like the one of the most common scams on Amazon. But I also think even, even outside of lawsuits like I. Amazon is going to be so hard to use if for every legitimate title there's what 2100, a thousand AI versions could be that way.
- [24:16]
Jeff O'Neill
You're right. The other thing they're dealing with too is there's so many ads on Amazon's pages now. So a combination of ads and then fakes and then recommendations that are sort of like the thing it's much. I mean it's kind of the Google search problem at large to be honest with you. A similar kind of dynamic at the same time where the cost of bad content is effectively zero and it competes with decent content that's hard to make which drag downs the value of that and you get into this recursive cycle that's extraordinarily difficult to get out of. So like say you wanted to support something and they had a Patreon that would be a good way to do that. I'm just throwing that out there for the kind of independent media companies people might like. Another one was the Business Insiders. Another story where this really hit me. I think you and I had a little back and forth on chat or a Google chat about this was a Manager, Business Insider, who wanted to, I guess motivate or somehow show, give, offer a list of books to employees about good journalism writing. And they clearly used some sort of LLM because there were fake books on it. There was mistakes about some of the books that were legit, and there were some fake books on it. And that's another one. Like they actually didn't want to provide a good list. They wanted to be seen providing the list. And they forgot about the good and doing it fast. And much like the Chicago Sun Times, their reputation is gone in that setting. I don't know how they would be trusted by an employee again.
- [25:40]
Danica Ellis
Well, we were talking about. Because here's. I think if you're going to assign or definitely if you're going to assign. But even if you're just going to recommend a book to an employee, like for the average person, a book is an investment. You know, you're spending how many hours of your time on this?
- [25:59]
Jeff O'Neill
10, 12 depending.
- [26:00]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. And the to recommend they read a book that you haven't even read. You know, it's. It's bad enough, it's obviously worse that it doesn't exist. Yes. But why would you recommend they read a book? You don't even know if it's good. You don't know what's in it. What are they? It's just so performative to make yourself feel better by just wasting your employees time. Like just showing that you do not care about their time at all. So disrespectful.
- [26:32]
Jeff O'Neill
It is really disrespectful, especially for people like us. On the book recommending side, where I'll hesitate to recommend a book that I just kind of like. Right. You know, I really need to feel like it's. Or I'll go out of my way to caveat and say, you know, here's strengths and weaknesses on the whole, I like it. But just a blanket recommend is pretty tough, I think for those of us the fine art of book recommendation. So anyway, that's a lot of AI is bad and I don't have a lot of AI is good for you today. That's not what I'm doing here today. You know, I gave you my one couple use cases, but other than that, pretty tough out there. All right, we're gonna take another sponsor break.
- [27:13]
Unknown
Today's episode is brought to you by Hanover Square Press, publisher of Life is a Lazy Susan of S Word Sandwiches by Jennifer Welch and Angie Pumps Sullivan. From the hosts of the hit podcast I've had it comes a bold, hilarious guide to navigating life's challenges with humor, resilience and hope through raw honesty and sharp wit. Jennifer Welch and Angie Pump Sullivan share the lessons they've lear tackling addiction, heartbreak and self doubt together. Part memoir, part survival guide, their book is packed with wisdom and laughs to help you find joy and connection no matter what life throws at you. Or I should say, no matter what kind of sandwich life throws at you. You know what I mean? This is for fans of bold self help. Perfect for readers who loved big Friendship or the subtle art of not giving an F. This book is a guide to embracing life's messiness or with grace and laughter. And we need a lot of grace and laughter these days. You know what I mean? Make sure to pick up Life is a lazy Susan of S word sandwiches and thanks again to Hanover Square Press for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by 8th Note Press Publishers of Learning to Fall by Peach Morris 18 year old Casey feels stuck. Her friends are off to school, she's stuck at home caring for her mother and her trifling raggedy boyfriend cheats on her. But then the unknowing other girl, imagine, offers an apology, friendship and introduction to the world of Roller derby. And Casey's world finally starts to look a little brighter. Casey soon joins a group of fearless teammates who aren't afraid to speak their minds and body slam each other, which I guess is a good quality to have in friends. Plus, she's nursing a serious crush on her magnetic new friend. The question is, will roller derby be a brand new start or a place to break her heart and her bones in one go? We're gonna find out. We're gonna read it. Debut author Peach Morris is a queer, non binary disabled author who, like their main character, Casey, found solace in the roller derby community. I'm excited for this one, y' all. Make sure to pick up Learning to Fall by Peach Morris. And thanks again to 8th Note Press for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Sourcebooks. Landmark publisher of the Ghostwriter by Julie Clark Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her life hiding the fact that she is the only child of legendary horror author Vincent Taylor, famous not only for his novels, but for being the prime suspect in the brutal slaying of his older brother and younger sister in 1975. Now Olivia Miss Olivia is on the brink of financial ruin when she's called back to Ojai to ghostwrite her father's last book. With no other jobs on the horizon, Olivia accepts, assuming it's her father's next horror novel. Now, what she doesn't expect is that after 50 years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk. From instant a New York Times bestselling author Julie Clark comes a dazzling thriller in which a struggling ghostwriter is hired to finish her legendary father's last book, a story that will finally force him to tell the truth about the murders that have haunted their family for 50 years. I'm intrigued. Make sure to check out the Ghostwriter by Julie Clark. And thanks again to Sourcebooks Landmark for sponsoring this episode.
- [30:38]
Jeff O'Neill
We're right smack dab in the middle of Best of the Year so Far season and Danica, you've been on the Internet for a while, like I have around books. It's not just me, right? That the of the year so far has never ever has been as prevalent. Like we've been doing this for a while. And again, I'm not saying it's bad or anything, but like there's lists from all kinds of places on, not just books and movies and music and everything else so far is a big deal right now.
- [31:03]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, no, it used to be a lot. And it definitely didn't start in May before at least. Not that I have some thoughts about that.
- [31:13]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, okay, because Amazon lists the best books of the year and Goodreads has their most popular books of the year so far. And even a couple of the popular books, I think the Schwab isn't even out yet. It doesn't come out till next week, so I guess it's just people shelving it. It must be how they're doing it there. Our Best Books of the List year list is coming out the 24th, which is the all it's so it's through June and all the June books will be out because I think the 23rd is the last Tuesday of the month. That's. That's a hill I am going to. I'm not going to die on it.
- [31:39]
Danica Ellis
But.
- [31:40]
Jeff O'Neill
But I'll kick some dirt at the top of that hill. Shoving yeah, it should. The book should be out. Wait till the books are out at the end of the year, in November, in October. Even again, if you're not a trade publication but a consumer publication, us the vulture place like that. Wait till mid November or even the first week of November because most of the books are out just because the way book buying happens. But you want to put a list out where people can go buy the book right now. So that's my meta commentary there. Amazon's Best Books of the year so far. So Charlotte McConaughey's wild dark shore is the best book of the year so far. I wrote about that today and today in books. I'm here to tell you it is a good book. Have you read any of her books? Do you know her at all?
- [32:20]
Danica Ellis
I haven't. I've been meaning to. They're definitely on. On my list, but I haven't read.
- [32:25]
Jeff O'Neill
That's okay. There's. You don't have to apologize here. You don't have to. You don't. I'm not going to check your list either. So you don't have to say, you know, I'm not going to knock on your door, say, danica, I need to see the list you said exists. But she has carved out a very interesting place. It's her third book after Migrations and Once There Were Wolves. And they are literary climate fictions with, like, strong family relationships and strong family vibes and relationships often a little bit of a mystery. They're. They're a little more literary than you might think, and they're packaged as such. These books are good. I'm glad. She's a thing. She's a. She's an official thing now. This book is selling very well, and I think I drafted it for the fantasy draft. So I'm not sure I'm going to say it's the best book of the year. But when I saw this, I'm. This book is good. And this makes a ton of.
- [33:13]
Danica Ellis
It's got a really good hook, too. Like, I think it's a little easier to see sell than her earlier books because. Yeah, the idea of just like a strange woman washes up on the shore of the island that you live on with your family. Like, that's. That's interesting.
- [33:30]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't. I don't think I told the story of why I first put this book down when I first started reading it. Have you heard this story? I'm sorry if I'm repeating listeners. So I was. I picked it up because I was excited to read it and I heard it was good. And I like, I like her work. And I was picking up from my Hawaii trip. And the first pages. And this is an important thing to know. We were staying on the beach, and my daughter's name is Rowan. And the first page is like, the chapter heading is Rowan. And it said, the first time I drowned. And I put it down immediately because I can't do that. That's too close.
- [34:04]
Danica Ellis
That's not fair.
- [34:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Spending a week with your kids playing in the waves. I can't read a book about a kid named Rowan or someone named Rowan drowning. Anyway, I got over that. We got landlocke, you know, we came.
- [34:17]
Danica Ellis
Inland and it was safe.
- [34:19]
Jeff O'Neill
It was safe. Yeah. Because I don't know what kind of magical reverse magical thinking that was, but I wasn't there for. But it's, it's a. It's a pretty quick read, but it's very evocative. The sense of place is really cool. I'm thrilled that this, this is a person who's going to sell a lot of copies of the more popular commercial literary stuff that's come out recently. I think this is my favorite. I like it better than the Kristen Hannah's of the world. And I'm trying to think of somebody else that no slack to those people. But I'm trying to give it a recommendation is what I'm trying to do. Yeah, by shading other people on the rest of the list. Anything that jumps out to you. I don't know if you saw anything that you wanted to talk about for a minute.
- [34:55]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, some. Some obvious ones like Sunrise on the Reaping Atmosphere though, again. Did that even come out yet?
- [35:04]
Jeff O'Neill
It's just out. It's just out.
- [35:05]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, and then some. I haven't, I don't think have heard of Dead money.
- [35:12]
Jeff O'Neill
No.
- [35:13]
Danica Ellis
Lloyd McNeil's last ride by Will Leach no more Tears.
- [35:18]
Jeff O'Neill
The dark secrets of Johnson Johnson.
- [35:21]
Danica Ellis
That's a surprise. I hadn't heard of that either.
- [35:24]
Jeff O'Neill
I will give it up to the Amazon books editors. They will throw a curve, a non fiction curveball every now and again.
- [35:30]
Danica Ellis
Which I like that they actually Amazon surprise. If I were to guess with no knowledge of any of the lists, which one would be the most eclectic? I would not think Amazon. But they actually do have some more unknown picks, which is kind of surprising. Like you would think it would just be absolute bestsellers.
- [35:55]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I've been interested in their project here because again, King of Ashes, Emperor of Gladness, Sunrise on the Reaping Atmosphere. Matriarch by Tina Knowles. There's Mark Twain by Ron. I'm not saying these books aren't really great. They might be. I haven't read all of them, but some of them are familiar. But then some of them aren't. They just aren't.
- [36:18]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, Waste wars, the wild afterlife of your trash.
- [36:24]
Jeff O'Neill
I think maybe that's for me. They're like, we need one for Jeff.
- [36:29]
Danica Ellis
How do we get Jeff.
- [36:31]
Jeff O'Neill
We need Jeff to talk about trash. You know what? I tip my cap. The folks over at Amazon. So I'll be curious to see how they stand up for the year. I didn't notice it hasn't been. There hasn't been a real standout seller. I Auditioned by Katie Kitamura is my favorite book of the year. Again, it's pretty literary and I don't know. Again, these are people. This is another thing you could tell with the Amazon list is these are people's favorites. This is not the algorithm's favorite favorites. Which I like. Which I like. Say what you will about Amazon and there's plenty to say. It maps to some degree on the most popular books that Goodreads listed. Shore's on here as well. So if Rebecca was here and Danica, you've heard us talk. We might need to have. Wild Dark Shore is now in the chat for it. Book of the Year contention.
- [37:22]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [37:23]
Jeff O'Neill
People are reading it. It's selling well. I'm interested. I can see this getting. I'm surprised there hasn't been an adaptation. I can very much see like Elle Fanning walking on a moor somewhere in these kinds of books. So I don't know. I've got my eye on this. The Wild Dark Shore train seems to be living the station.
- [37:42]
Danica Ellis
Did anyone. Did anyone pick that for the Fancily?
- [37:46]
Jeff O'Neill
I feel like I might have. Though that could just be regret.
- [37:52]
Danica Ellis
I made. I don't know if you saw. I made my own All Queer Picks.
- [37:56]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes. Yeah, I'll put that in the show notes. That was really fun. I would like to easily beat us other notables and I think. Did you write up this piece for us? I can't remember. The most popular books on Goodreads. Is that you?
- [38:08]
Danica Ellis
I think so.
- [38:09]
Jeff O'Neill
So a couple of those that you picked out. Bare Bones in the Midnight Soil again, not out yet. It comes out next week. We've got an Emily Henry atmosphere. Is there no surprise. I'm trying to look for some surprises. Oh, the Dream Hotel by Leila Lami. I was glad to see that. I think.
- [38:24]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [38:24]
Jeff O'Neill
Return to that when the year is over. The Night in the Moth seems to be the big non Yarrows romantasy release of the year. They did some ads with us sometimes that's indicative, of course. Sunrise at the reaping one day. Everyone have always been against this. So this is a hundred. They gave us 144, which is a really random number. I have no. No idea. I guess that's. That's all I've got to say. Anything surprise you here?
- [38:51]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, because there. So Goodreads put out two lists. One was the most popular books of the year or the most read books of the year so far, the Most read had 144.
- [39:04]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh, I'm conflating two books. You're absolutely right.
- [39:07]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. The most popular had 51 books. And those actually have write ups for each.
- [39:12]
Jeff O'Neill
Right.
- [39:13]
Danica Ellis
Each title, which now I'm looking at it, no More Tears is also there. So really, I guess, I guess it's a big book. Didn't, didn't know about it, but most of the others are pretty straightforward. I always feel like I want the expose of what it's like behind the scenes for the Goodreads editors because I feel like they're always just fighting tooth and nail with the like, most popular. Like I, I feel like they're trying to put in a more diverse list like in the first round of the Goodreads Choice Awards, but the math is.
- [39:51]
Jeff O'Neill
So hard for them to fight.
- [39:53]
Danica Ellis
And then as soon as the actual, you know, voting goes in, all those interesting pics are gone.
- [39:59]
Jeff O'Neill
They just get complete. I mean, this is, this is like, this is a bit of a jag I've been on. Like, the readers are no picnic either on this stuff. You know, the industry's got industry things and media's got media things, but when the rubber meets the road of people reading and buying books, hearts and minds are the last thing to come. I think a lot of the structural stuff has changed. I think the, the world of books and reading around diversity has certainly changed since we started doing this 15 years ago with BR and sales and the common readers. Reading is a little bit different, but it's much less different than one would think or hope given the amount of work that's gone into.
- [40:33]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, yeah, I do. And I wonder. I'll just say allegedly. I don't know what happens, but I feel like even in the these like most popular lists, I think they're putting their thumb on the scale a bit to make it slightly more interesting than it would actually be. Like, I don't know, maybe I, maybe I'm wrong. But yeah, they're. The way they're ordering, say sci fi novels. It says it's an order of popularity, but that doesn't seem totally reflective. You wouldn't.
- [41:08]
Jeff O'Neill
We'd be interested about the polygraph. Polygraph test around that. Yeah. Well, we used to do more polls on VR around like, what's your favorite book? And it was just so uninteresting because, like your favorite book was To Kill a Mockingbird.
- [41:21]
Danica Ellis
Mockingbird.
- [41:22]
Jeff O'Neill
Again, it's not. Again, if your favorite book is to come up. I'm not here to adjudicate that, but like the answers are. So it's like what's your favorite kind of ice cream? And you get enough. And we would get enough response that it was vanilla. Like essentially we're getting vanilla ice cream answers. And that's not interesting. So anyway, yeah, I think they have that kind of a problem too. And they don't have. They don't really have a editorial mandate at Goodreads where they're doing like under the radar picks, things you should add to yourself. I don't see anything like that come from them. Not that they should, but they just don't do it.
- [41:51]
Danica Ellis
No, I don't think so. It seems to be mostly just a reflection of reader shelves.
- [41:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, that's right. Big book announcements. You know, Danica, I don't know where you are, but a big fashion coffee table book is not something I'm excited about. And it doesn't mean that's bad. But that's what Michelle Obama's next book is part of the fulfillment of this giant deal Sheena Barack signed with Crown a while ago. It's called the look and it is a lookbook about her outfits and the stories behind them. 200 photographs, never before seen images. And some thoughts, I guess, about how we present ourselves to the world.
- [42:32]
Danica Ellis
Is there a topic she could have come up with that you would be less interested?
- [42:37]
Jeff O'Neill
I didn't want to say that.
- [42:39]
Danica Ellis
More disappointing version.
- [42:41]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't, I don't think so. That's what I said in today in books, I'm like, I'm sure this is, this is not for me. And that's okay.
- [42:47]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [42:47]
Jeff O'Neill
I, I don't know what I would. My own reading experience. I said this is that becoming kind of. Did the memoir work? There doesn't seem like there was a lot there. And so I was interested about what would be next. And I guess this is. I guess this is what it is. And she gets to live her life. This is not about trying to criticize what she's doing. That's. I'm just talking as a reader's point of view. This is a pass for me.
- [43:14]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. I think if it was any other celebrity who had signed on for a multi book deal, this, you know, wouldn't be surprising or disappointing at all. I think it's more because her books really have been respected as books outside of her celebrity.
- [43:34]
Jeff O'Neill
Right.
- [43:35]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [43:35]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't, I mean she does. She wants to be in the public eye, clearly, but she doesn't want to do Politics and that's okay. So I think she finds herself or we find her. Maybe she feels perfectly comfortable where she is from the outside. A pretty strange of like Oprah plus in terms of profile. Right. Feels like more of a player on a global political cultural stage than Oprah is at this point. But then not wanting to do much with it on. On the book side at least I, I had. I held out a scintilla of hope that we might get a here's what I believe kind of book or something else or the 10 most difficult questions in America. Like just something where I could sink my teeth into a little bit. I don't know that there's a person in the world that the look that's this. That's the same packaging and it's a different human in it. It's not about Michelle Obama. Like I just don't care about this for any Lady Gaga. I don't. I'm. I'm trying to. I'm struggling to think of anyone I would remotely and actually probably it's Michelle Obama. If anyone's gonna write this I have any interest in it might be a Michelle Obama. That's another way of looking at it. So she did the workbook with becoming. I'm not sure how many she's got left to write. I don't know what she has to do to fulfill. I think Obama has another big one coming is my understanding. So I don't know. I'm sure it'll be beautiful. It'll probably cost $80. Yeah. A real. A real glow up though. I was thrilled to see the forward is by Farrah Jasmine Grisf Griffin, one of my old teachers at Columbia in the English department there. So forward by an English scholar that I used to know a little bit that that does get out. I'm going to be more interested in Farah's introduction than the pictures to be honest with you. Okay. It takes a lot to get me or Rebecca to talk about adaptation news anymore, Danica. For reasons I think you understand and I guess I'll throw it to you before we say what this is. Does this pass the smell test to you of talking about it for four minutes? That's a no. It's okay. You can say no. You don't have to say yes.
- [45:43]
Danica Ellis
I guess personally I'm not super interested but I think once it's made I think it'll be one of the big adaptations.
- [45:55]
Jeff O'Neill
Right. So the news here is that James Cameron, Jimmy Big Jim as I call him when I see him has announced that he will co write an adaptation of Joe Abercrombie's the Devils for the Screen Dark fantasy novel. Classic horror. Sounds like a pretty good fun time. He writes a little explanation of why he's interested. An alt universe Middle Ages romp where your best hope of survival is the monsters themselves. So Cameron is in the middle of this sojourn into the Avatar Wilds for like two decades and that he would pop out of it to work on this seems like a real boost to the idea of this book in Abercrombie. I'm not sure this will ever get made, right? Who knows if this will ever get made. It seems also weird that Cameron wouldn't himself direct it. He's talked about maybe passing off Avatar directorial duties to somebody else. I'd imagine he's tired so maybe this will be his life raft off the water that he always seems to be filming in or around. I think more than anything it got me to look at Abercrombie definitely again because this is a name I've seen recently and there was recently a profile and this book has gotten quite a bit of early buzz and horror is such an ascendant that we're looking, we're not looking for there's room for more big time horror authors. And it looks like Abercrombie is really. His hat is in the bloody ring of being one of the top tier AAA folks. And yeah, I would imagine if this movie gets made that will really cement the deal. So I don't think we've horror horror readers in our listenership. But if you do and you know Joe Abercrombie, I'd sure like to know what the kind of vibe is horror lovers for for him. So anyway, well, thank you for humoring me on Danica. This. This didn't get into the show notes today, but I think that I was thinking about and related this as we're trying to think of something interesting to say about it is there was a piece in Publishing Perspectives, I think it was about romance sales to date year over year still up 24% the whole category year over year even now. So it's not slowing down. But one thing that might be changing is a turn into dark fantasy. Right? Not just romantic scene, some of them are romantasy but dark fantasy where there's more horror and. And anti heroes and that vibes with the larger horror and mystery thrillers are really dark right now on the whole it seems like look, we're in a dark place. Like there's an appetite for dark stories. I can't imagine why at this point. But this also suggests to me, like, there's like a, there's an undercurrent here of interest and attention and appetite for darker stories, which you don't have to be, you know, Carl Jung to figure out where that may be coming from. But it seems. Is that going on in LBTQ books? Where's the, where are the LBTQ books on the dark horror stuff?
- [48:36]
Danica Ellis
I think I've been noticing more Gothics, more queer Gothics coming. So I think that's true.
- [48:43]
Jeff O'Neill
All right.
- [48:43]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [48:44]
Jeff O'Neill
All right. We're gonna do frontless foyer. We've invited Danica over. We're not even make her take her shoes off. You can come right in. Presented by Thriftbooks, which has over 19 million titles, new used movies, books, games, DVDs, other kinds of gifts. If you're looking for something for your own summer reading, Father's Day, you got a new grad in you. Thriftbooks.com. they've also got a loyalty program that every purchase gets you closer to a new book. I have certainly cashed several of those in with a reading rewards program and free shipping on US purchases over $15. Danica, what have you been reading recently?
- [49:22]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, one that I finished recently that I loved. I talked about it on the all the Books podcast is the 10 incarnations of rebellion by Vash.
- [49:31]
Jeff O'Neill
I saw this on the shelf the other day. I'm so excited you're picking this. This.
- [49:35]
Danica Ellis
It's so good. I think it's my. I think it's my first. No, I think it's my second five star 2025 book, but it's an alternate version of 1960s India where the previous rebellion was violently quashed and they're still under the control of the British. And we are following Kalki as she is, kind of slowly, as she gets older, beginning to lead the new rebellion and fight for India's freedom. And it is. It's alternate history. It's not the real history of India, but everything is inspired by real events. And it is extremely complicated and thorny. Like, there are so many very difficult decisions to make. There are some very dark moments, but it's also kind of inspirational. Like, it made me think about how we have all these dystopian novels about fighting back against an oppressive government, but they're always set on different planets. They're not, you know, talking about actual oppressive forces that exist on Earth and what it looks like, at least for me. I haven't read a lot of books that talk about what it actually looks like to fight back and the kind of conversations that are happening, you know, what is the role of violence? What do you do about existing inequality that was there before British rule? It's. It's so good, huh? Yeah.
- [51:17]
Jeff O'Neill
It's adult.
- [51:18]
Danica Ellis
Yes.
- [51:19]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Okay. I may have to check that out.
- [51:22]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, Highly recommend it.
- [51:24]
Jeff O'Neill
I just finished listening to Proto How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney. It is about recent efforts to deduce pie, which is proto Indo European, which is the. The language that half of the world's languages have come from. The other is an Afro Asiatic, I think. But this is Indo European starting in the all language, starting in Africa with this one, jumping up to Indian Indus River Valley and then promulgating throughout Western Europe. And then of course English and the Germanic languages and the Romance languages. But. So I'm into language on the whole. But this one is about using a combination of extant historical linguistics that have tried to deduce origins and relationships among languages. With modern breakthroughs in genetic testing of human remain old human remains where we now can get a better sense through genetic testing of the biological dispersal of people. And then you can try to map onto that what we know about languages. And there are some rules about how languages work and disperse, where you can understand and sort of get a family tree all the way back to the, you know, the Adam and Eve. Again, Garden of E, whatever. That's a metaphor. Or if you believe that, I guess, congratulations to you. But like kind of go back to the source and figure out how this thing happened. Unbelievably interesting. It gets a little in the weeds because each of the chapters in the middle is about One of the 12 branches of Indo European and how it promulgated in its history. I read the first. I think I'm glad I listened to the whole thing. I listened to this thing. I think there's a version of this for people. Check it out from the library. Get it from Libby or buy it, that's fine. Read the first and second chapter, the intro and the first one about proto Indo European and then the last chapter and you're gonna have a great time. And then if you want to go back and go in, you don't need them. I mean, they're each interesting by themselves. But it's a big ask to do if you're not really, really into this. But that's. I listen to the whole thing. But I would recommend even just the first couple of chapters about what they're doing to understand these things is pretty fascinating. So that's Proto by Laura Spinney. Also wonderful narration. I don't know that it's her. If it's her, she. I'm now jealous because you shouldn't be able to write and do this and sound like that, narrating your own book. Anything else on your list, Annika, you want to shout out right now?
- [53:50]
Danica Ellis
I feel like I should mention the other five star.
- [53:52]
Jeff O'Neill
I was gonna say I was about to throw back to you because you can't see the emails. Check off 5 star recommendation which is.
- [54:01]
Danica Ellis
Awakened by a Osworth, which I'll just say is about a coven of trans witches who take on an evil AI.
- [54:10]
Jeff O'Neill
That's do they win?
- [54:12]
Danica Ellis
That's all it is.
- [54:12]
Jeff O'Neill
Spoiler alert.
- [54:14]
Danica Ellis
I can't tell you who knows, Danika?
- [54:17]
Jeff O'Neill
If AI wins and kills these witches, we're gonna have words. We're gonna have a Patreon where you have to account for your recommendation. If that's something you did, don't.
- [54:24]
Danica Ellis
Don't hold it against me.
- [54:27]
Jeff O'Neill
After the show we've done. You recommending a book where AI takes out some witches would be a real heel turn for you. Unbelievable. That's great. Okay, mine is the. My other thing that I read recently, the Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett. I have followed her from Rabbit Cake to Unlikely Animals to this book. It is a road trip novel and I don't even know how to just. I didn't know how to describe Unlikely animals. I didn't know how to describe Rabbit Cake. I think this is someone that Liberty actually turned me on to. She really loved Unlikely Animals and I did too. So this one, there's a cat named Pancakes and he's orange and he can sort of tell when people are going to die, but he's not the main character. He's sort of a familiar to this found family that goes on a super ill advised road trip across the country. And they're all flawed and in pain. And for those of you who listen to my and Sharifah and Rebecca and I, sort of middling response to Run Farther Hills by Kevin Wilson. I think the Road to Tender Hearts is maybe the book I was hoping that book would be, which is zany, heartfelt, strange, inventive, and kind of hard to recommend to people who aren't a little weird themselves. I don't know who buys these books because they're not commercial enough to be commercial, but they're also not weird fiction. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's me and Lib. That's who it is that we're buying and keeping the road growing. I think there's actually more of a market for it. But you can even maybe hear me struggling to talk about what it is. I think if you like a book like, and I said run for the Hills, I was hoping it'd be like a little bit more Little Miss Sunshine. This one's a little bit more A Little Miss Sunshine. There's a very light speculative element into it that Hartnett has no problem just sprinkling in, not explaining. It's not important. It's not about the speculative piece. It's just, I don't know, it's. It's these little supernatural or even just sort of across, barely across the veil elements. Give it an air of zaniness, surrealism, and anything can happen that I really like. But then ultimately it's grounded in like pretty basic need for connection and human desire and wanting to be seen and loved and heard and try to do something interesting with your life. So that's the Road to Tender Hearts. Bonnie Hartnett. I read this in like two days. It's out from. Oh, who publishes why? PRH homepage. Do you make it so hard to see, like the publication date? Listen, Danica, I'm on it right now. This is the page for Road to Tender Hearts. This is where they want me to go, right?
- [56:59]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [57:00]
Jeff O'Neill
And I don't know, the publication date is tiny. It's like the sixth smallest font. Right. But the imprint is nowhere to be found. I don't even know. I don't think I can find the imprint on this page. I don't think I can.
- [57:19]
Danica Ellis
So many publishers, pages just have the month that a book is published. And I don't know about you, I don't know what your behind the scenes organization is, but I have a big spreadsheet of new releases and they're organized by date. I'm like, I cannot plug this in until you get.
- [57:36]
Jeff O'Neill
I have to know the date. I have to. Because you're doing it. You know, we're doing it for this show. I'm looking at for it books. We need to know the date April 2026. Doesn't help anybody.
- [57:47]
Danica Ellis
No. And with all the books like it's. I'm looking for the first Tuesday of every month. If you can't tell me what Tuesday it comes out, I can't. I can't read it.
- [57:56]
Jeff O'Neill
I know, I know, I know, I know. So this is from Ballantine, which I had to find out by clicking through to bookshop or.org because it's not listed there. So everyone works at Valentine. You might want to talk to your webmasters and say, could we, can we get our imprint on here? This is like, this is. This is exhibit A for people don't care about most imprints. This page right here. All right. Choose an email podcastookriot.com book riot.com listen for the show notes. Check out the Patreon. There's a link in the show notes there as well. Also the pals vent. Danica, people can find you writing our queer shelves. You're a once a month thing over with Lib on all the books. Is that what your rotation is? Once a month over there working on the Read Harder challenge, writing news stories for us and having a good old time. Anything else you want to plug while you're here?
- [58:47]
Danica Ellis
You can also find me at my book blog, the Lesbrary.
- [58:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Right.
- [58:51]
Danica Ellis
Still can't about books enough here.
- [58:53]
Jeff O'Neill
I think you're the only one that still has a thing that we used to make.
- [58:58]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [58:59]
Jeff O'Neill
Which is great. It's amazing. Danica, thanks so much for joining me.
- [59:04]
Danica Ellis
Thank you.
- [59:15]
Jeff O'Neill
Welcome to those who Can't Teach Anymore, a narrative podcast series that explores why teachers are leaving education and what can be done to stop the exodus. This season we're getting a look at the year and the life of teachers from across the country through their audio journals. I am Darcy Ostermiller.
- [59:31]
Danica Ellis
This is Megan Obergart. This is Sophie V. This is Charlie Blackwood. This is Taylor Barris.
- [59:34]
Jeff O'Neill
This is David Whisker. Dan Morris. Look for those who Can't Teach Anymore. Season two, a different kind of the Same thing.