Loading summary
Transcript163 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, what's up y'?
- [00:01]
B
All?
- [00:01]
A
Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. My favorite thing about the holidays, Decking out my whole house. It's not a competition, but if it was, well, I'd win the season with Wayfair Outdoor inflatable Santa. Got it on Wayfair. Trees, lights and ornaments. Wayfair hosting must haves like dining sets, beds, sheets and towels. Wayfair for everything in your style delivered with fast and free shipping. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app to win the season. But again, it's not a competition. Wayfair Every style, every home.
- [00:31]
B
On December 12, Disney invites you to go behind the scenes with Taylor Swift.
- [00:36]
A
In an exclusive six episode docu series. I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close the book. The end of an era.
- [00:48]
B
And don't miss Taylor Swift. The Eras Tour the final show featuring for the first time the tortured poets department. Streaming December 12th only on Disney Plus. This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff o'. Neill.
- [01:07]
A
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.
- [01:09]
B
And Rebecca, it's our last new show of the year. It's December 18th. The week from today is Christmas Day. In case anyone's out there kind of wondering where they are in time and space, I can orient you relatable. It's December 18, 2025. I myself have to check several times a day. We are both redlining it at this time of year. There's a going on on our side. Not any of yalls problem or fault or anything but there's a lot going on at time of year. A couple things dropped in our lap that are good. They're, they're, they're, they're interesting and exciting. They aren't putting out fires. But I also didn't want to build a new barn for the horse right at this time of year which it feels like a little bit we're trying.
- [01:48]
A
To do on December. I guess It'll be the 22nd when the show drops and we're just like the idea of Christmas still feels very far away to me. So we'll see what happens in the next week. But it has been a red line time of year. We continue to read our faces off for zero to well read. Our special episode about a Christmas Carol is in the zero to well read feed right now. Thank you again to all of you all from this pod who were on the early train listening and leaving reviews for that helping us cross our goal and, and then a whole lot more to get to get reviews of that. We'll have some reflections on what we learned in the first season of the show, along with some listener mailbag stuff in the Zero to well Read feed later in the week. As you're hearing this, we'll be doing some wrap up stuff and then back with some tips for reading in the new year and the full second season kicking off January 6th.
- [02:41]
B
So we're having a great time right now on Patreon. The Best of the Rest is up in which I bemoan my small quiet life and how I need to go do more things. That's the message there. I think that we are going to have an interesting conversation. We're going to record after this. I'll go on the Patreon feed next week about the books that we missed intentionally or unintentionally from the Year in books of 2025. And I don't think do we have on our schedule a big Book Stories of the Year episode? I guess we don't.
- [03:14]
A
We don't. That's usually what we do in this slot. And as I started scrolling back through our agenda for the year, looking at like, were there big stories? It's really the sort of two ongoing threads of AI and the AI copyright lawsuits especially, and then book bans continue to be a thing. But under those umbrellas it was just a whole bunch of stuff. There were, there weren't. We didn't. We don't have major resolution on anything. Nothing really new happened in the world of book banning. It just continued to happen. Cases continued to go to court. But as I looked at it, there just wasn't a whole lot to sum up. We had a whole lot of potpourri. Like this was a more potpourri kind of year in publishing, not just in the books that came out, but in the news that broke.
- [03:58]
B
Probably the single biggest story, as you say, is the AI but also that judgment against Anthropic, the one and a half billion dollar thing that's still getting shaken out and then follow on lawsuits. There's a stuff going on there. But Rebecca, Rebecca, I think we are getting close. I mean we're still when we first, I don't know, I don't know the first time we mentioned AI on this show. I'd be curious to do maybe I can use AI to go find it. But the question we're trying to figure out in the world of books and reading, there's all kinds of AI questions out there, but in our corner of the Shire it is can you Buy a book. We know you can't steal a book. You can't do that anyway. You couldn't do that before. AI just, just to let you know, Zuckerberg and the rest of you people, you can't just do that.
- [04:40]
A
But anyway, stealing is bad. Yeah.
- [04:42]
B
Could you buy a book, scan it, type it by hand, otherwise put it into a large language model and allow it to be part of your training set to produce other things? That's, that's the question. And I'm sure there's a bunch of legals out there saying, well, there's this and this. I know that's all that, that's all the coast of Scotland problem. I know there's a lot of details. I'm just trying to figure out where we are on the map. Where in the hemisphere are we. And we're still. That question is still not answered.
- [05:09]
A
That is still the question. In the two major cases this year, one against Anthrop, one against OpenAI, the judges kind of diverged. One of those judges said, you can use copyrighted material as long as you acquire it legally. And the other judge was kind of shruggy shoulders about it, like, I don't think we're going to go in that direction. But there's no, we're not even anywhere close to coming to agreement from, you know, the more like jurisprudence side of these arguments. That's going to take a while. I think the most likely chance we would have of resolution that felt like resolution would be some, some kind of action from Congress, but we're not going to see increased AI regulation from this current administration. Now, we can talk after the midterms next year and see where we get. But in terms of regulation, that would set the tone and then provide guidance for the interpretation of the law, we're not anywhere close to that yet.
- [06:08]
B
A becalmed and I think that's putting it charitably, legislative body means that giant tech companies with a lot of money can run roughshod over these things and, like, ask forgiveness or permission later. But yeah, notably in that anthropic settlement, it was more about the means of getting and feeding the models than what came out of it. And I, and I do think it's important to realize that you could still be subject to copyright infringement if you published a book. Even if, say, you know, a court of thorns and roses. In that model, if you still publish something that's significantly like it, you could still be subject to copyright infringement if it's close enough. That's true today. If I wrote something that was close enough. Now again, there are some things about prior knowledge and how these things work. I wonder if those things about copyright may have to go away. May it be the case that you don't have to personally have prior knowledge of something existing. If you access this giant reservoir, does.
- [07:02]
A
The AI have data? Yeah.
- [07:05]
B
You've essentially waved away plausible deniability that you didn't know about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or something like that.
- [07:12]
A
Yeah, that's a wrinkle to this that I haven't seen raised before. But. Right. Like when Twilight came out and then someone sued Stephenie Meyer saying she stole my idea. One of the ways that you fight that in court is like Stephanie Meyer doesn't know who the hell you are. Like she's never heard of you. She never saw your fanfic on the Internet that like your vampire story, whatever. But in this case you don't. As you're saying, like you wouldn't have to have read A Court of Thorns and Roses to be able to prompt ChatGPT to write you something like it or inspired by it. And like that is going to introduce a lot of complexity into how do we. How do you want. How do you resolve when someone has stolen someone else's idea? And we're not even having those conversations with the AI stuff yet. It's all been just about. What are you allowed to use to feed the models?
- [08:02]
B
I have an orthogonal mini rant. Would you like to hear it?
- [08:05]
A
Always. You know I always love an orthogonal.
- [08:07]
B
Rant as our image generation AI stuff is more capable. I'm not going to use better. That's more capable. I see a lot of boy, we're going to live in a post truth world. First of all, newsflash for you. We may already be there.
- [08:22]
A
Hello and welcome.
- [08:24]
B
But I think this is where I get a little old man waving or Shakespeare cloud. We existed for a long time before we had photo or video records and it was just good old fashioned trust, it was good old fashioned reporting, it was good old fashioned journalism is good old fashioned fact checking. And I think those things are going to come back into if not vogue utility because for there was a. There was a moment like we had this without Photoshop first coming out. You can't believe anything. And that's been going on for now. But there are things now that are going to exceed our ability to sort of spot check them which sort of is going to blow away photo in video as a singular document of proving something happens. You're going to need two sources Rebecca. Like this is, this is all in all the president's men. So the people saying, we can't, we're doomed. We're just going to have to back to a different standard of something being true. We too long took a photo or video by itself as evidence or something that can no longer be. So we have to go back. We have to go back to two sources from trusted and show your receipts. Regular old reporting. And the modern influencer based algorithms, they feed engagement, they grow on engagement. They do not. The coin of the realm is not truthiness. Right. It's not that. And I think that's something that we're gonna have to reckon with to our doom. Because I don't know if you've logged on to Facebook recently. I do every now and again just to see what, what's going on.
- [09:58]
A
My friends and family not since like 2017. So God speed over there.
- [10:02]
B
The boomers have drank the digital AGI Kool Aid, Rebecca. They just, they had no immune system to it. It's really pretty shocking. And I think it is media literacy. Like they used to warn us about the Internet. This is the worst version of this. But having said all of that stuff, for those of you out there, and I'm gonna include myself in this, there's a temptation to believe something you see a photo or video of is true. I now assume it's all fake. We have to move our prior. Assume it's fake. That's your, that's your first move? And then what is the source? Where. I was just talking about my kids this other day. We were looking. We love to look at movie trailers. You know, we spent a few minutes, like, what's coming out this time of year is a lot of stuff. And the number of multimillion view videos of fake Avenger trailers are frankly shocking. It's frankly shocking. And I don't know, we have to, we have to throw it out. We have to start over. We have to reinvent the universe.
- [10:59]
A
You said what is the source? A few seconds ago. And like that is the question.
- [11:03]
B
That is it.
- [11:04]
A
What is the source?
- [11:04]
B
That is it.
- [11:05]
A
And is it a trusted source? And trust can't just be, well, this person shows up in my feed and they have a million followers.
- [11:11]
B
That's right.
- [11:12]
A
Therefore I trust them. Like, what are their credentials? And media literacy does remain critical. I think we need a whole lot more of it, especially with the image stuff. Like, you should assume that you have been tricked by an AI image or video right now. And if you don't know which one it was that tricked you. You've probably been tricked by multiples.
- [11:33]
B
That's right. If you don't know who the sucker is at the poker table.
- [11:37]
A
Yeah. I mean, we had this. We just. In my house a couple of nights ago. A friend was over. Bob was like, talking about something that he had seen. He turn, turned his phone around to show the video. And at the same time, my friend and I were both like, that's fake. That's AI. Anything that looks like it was shot through a doorbell camera, like, real. That's a real moment to pause and ask. And there are a lot of other little tells.
- [11:58]
B
Yeah, I mean, the point you're the meta point, though, is do not assume you can. There will be tells. Like, right now, do not assume there are tells.
- [12:05]
A
Yeah, don't assume it will be obvious. Don't assume that, like, if it's AI, it will look clunky, like the tools are becoming more capable. And I think we've seen this shift over the last several years. Some of it was advertising driven and companies wanting to reach more diverse audiences. But, like, one of the things that is fashionable right now, especially in, like, women's clothing, is to show unretouched bodies. And I think this is also one of the ways that you might be able to start detecting images that are real. Like, this swimsuit model has stretch marks. She's a real person.
- [12:39]
B
And.
- [12:40]
A
And that's not guaranteed, but I think we are. That's one of the things that is shifting us back towards, like, is this real? Like, is that a real person? Do they look too clean? There was a great package from one of the travel companies this week.
- [12:53]
B
I can't.
- [12:54]
A
One of the publications, maybe like Conde Nast Traveler or one of those about the, like, the real risk and threat that AI influencers are posing to actual travel influencers. And they showed videos side by side of, like, a real travel influencer walking through a SP market in India and an AI influencer's photo in the same place. And like, it feels absurd to me to even call an AI character an AI influencer. But, like, this is an animated thing that looks like a real woman walking through the Spice market. Very polished, gorgeous. If you were not paying much attention, like, you might think that she was real and like, this piece was, you know, about real people who do this for their jobs are going to lose their jobs because AI. But the larger message there is that's only possible because people are not paying attention or because they've decided that they're just more interested in the Content like all these companies are banking on. You're more interested in having something fun to scroll and look at than you are invested in its realness. And that's a real thing to push back against and resist.
- [13:58]
B
Yeah. And again, there's the what's going on the whole world, and then what I can do with my own life. And I'm very much in the, you know what, If I have any suspicion of something I unfollow, I unsubscribe. Like, I'm just not interested. I'm, I'm, I'm really coming around to the, maybe the more grumpy point of view. I just don't find it interesting.
- [14:16]
A
It's not interesting.
- [14:17]
B
I just don't see anything interesting. I like real people. I like real opinions. I like specificity and strangeness and weirdness. And not to mention that most of the things that people are making with AI are the most crass, gauche garbage of all time. But that does. That's not a protection either. And again, the thing I care about is how do I know if something is actually true? And it may be old journalistic gumshoe 101 scratch pad, cub reporter, someone doing the work. And they have two sources in the receipts. The danger of a single narrative or the single image or a single video is it's so compelling because we are such visual creatures, and that's how we interpret and engage with the world. Not everyone, but a lot of people, we are subject to our senses in a way that we don't really understand. And we have to assume that our antibodies for this don't exist. And so you're gonna have to wear sort of the equivalent of masks and hazmat suits when you go out in the world and decide what's real and what you're gonna believe and what are you gonna think.
- [15:15]
A
And even outside of AI the like, is this story real? Is this explanation real? Is this person a reliable source of truth? Do they have sources that they can cite? Just continue to have a track record. Right. Continues to be more and more important because our brains are wired for narrative. We want things to make some kind of sense. We also have a negativity bias, and that makes us all, like, primed for conspiracy theories. And the Internet really is good at propagating those. Like yesterday as we're recording this, I went on our friend and former co worker Amanda Nelson, you might know her, as Amanda's mild takes on the Internet. I went on her substack to talk about the Vanity Fair photo shoot, the big interview that Sally Susie Wiles did for Vanity Fair this week, the President's chief of staff, because there was a conspiracy theory floated within 24 hours of the article coming out that Vanity Fair was in cahoots, like from long ago with the publishing company behind Art of the Deal and that the whole thing was done to try to make Trump look good and do a bunch of other stuff. And like, you can untangle this with three Googles, but no one has because the video that originated the conspiracy theory sounds authoritative. It's a person described as like my smart brother and he just rattles off his explanations for things as if of course, this is what happened. You can state a couple of things that you think are facts and then string them all together and people don't question it. And like, it did not take me long to be like that's absolute bs. Like, like it did not take long to unravel it. But the fact that it has to be unraveled in the first place is a real problem, a real signal of what's going.
- [17:04]
B
On.
- [17:04]
A
This episode is sponsored by Quints. When it comes to holiday gifting, I want to give things people will actually beautiful, timeless pieces they'll wear for years. And I can say this with confidence because I've been a Quint's customer for years myself. Their Mongolian cashmere V neck sweater has basically become my cold weather uniform. I have it in multiple colors, it's soft, it's structured, it doesn't pill, and it looks like something I should have spent a couple hundred bucks on, except it was $50. I reach for one almost every morning and you know, that's the real test. Quince has something for everyone. These Mongol Mongolian cashmere sweaters for $50 that look and feel designer silk tops and skirts for dressing up, perfectly cut denim for everyday wear and outerwear that actually keeps you warm. Every piece is made with premium materials from ethical trusted factories and priced far below what other luxury brands charge. You can see the craftsmanship in the stitching, the drape, the fit. It's elevated, timeless and made to wear on repeat. And their gifting lineup goes beyond clothing too. You can get home, bath, kitchen and travel gifts and everything is thoughtfully gifts so good you'll want to keep them with quints. Go to quints.com bookriot for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. It's now available in Canada too. That's Q U-I-N-C-E.com bookriot to get free shipping and 365 day returns quints.com bookriot. Ford Blue Cruise Hands Free highway driving takes the work out of being behind the wheel, allowing you to relax and reconnect while also staying in control. Enjoy the drive in blue Cruise enabled vehicles like the F150 Explorer and Mustang Mach E available feature on equipped vehicles Terms apply. Does not replace safe driving. See Ford.com BlueCruise for more details. Running a business comes with a lot of what if, but luckily there's a simple answer to Shopify. It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, including Thrive Cosmetics and Momofuku, and it'll help you with everything you need, from website design and marketing to boosting sales and expanding operations. Shopify can get the job done and make your dream a reality. Turn those what ifs into Sign up for your $1 per month trial@shopify.com specialoffer.
- [19:29]
B
And so in the world of culture and media, the AI is the big story and will be for the foreseeable future. I don't see, I don't see how this goes away ends in a way we understand because as you said and I wrote about a little bit in today books on the book world front. A strangely calm year A strangely calm year. Publishers Weekly those link in the show notes bookright.com listen or just in your podcast. You're right there. The 10 bookselling stories of the year. And I don't want to belittle any one of these stories except to say it was a little hard for my eyes and attention to grab on to any of them. Yeah, I mean Independent Bookstore day. Independent publishers are fed up with Barnes and Noble, Edelweiss, Edelweiss price hike brush fires threaten LA bookstores now. The ABA mess after Winter Institute was a that was a tempest and a teapot. But that, that was a dust up. But it's kind of gone now. Like it's within. It didn't it wasn't really a wider industry thing. It was within that organization. I think Bookshop continuing to grow and adding ebooks is a big deal. That is a big other than that, there really wasn't there wasn't a huge story. Rebecca. Like that's why we're not doing it. The 10 top stories. I don't know what we'd even talk about that we're excited to talk about.
- [20:48]
A
And like, like tariffs had an impact in a lot of ways. Book prices went up a little bit. But the publishing industry has other fish to fry. So the publishing industry has not been out like you Know, sort of sword rattling, saber rattling about book pricing and tariffs. Like all of these things are. These are all. I feel like Perd Happley. All of these things are things that happened this year.
- [21:09]
B
Yeah right. And then you know, the romantasy book talk like that continues to be a story but I don't know that there was a step change in either direction. Maybe softening in the idea of romanticity, the. The replacement of some of those sales into dark academia. We haven't heard stories of bloodbaths on advances.
- [21:28]
A
No.
- [21:29]
B
At some point that will happen.
- [21:31]
A
That will happen. I don't know that we'll hear the story but it will happen.
- [21:34]
B
And maybe it's already happened and no one's talking about it but I'm still seeing major deal language and publishers lunch about Romantasy series and stuff. That's another thing. Honestly. There are some uses for LLMs and one of them, the one that I use is like data analysis because I'm not a statistician nor do I have access to one or the capabilities of hiring one. But you could put a bunch of text and say hey can you even. It's just a control F on a huge document honestly is all that is.
- [22:01]
A
Yeah.
- [22:01]
B
In a glorified way. But I wonder the instance of those things you could probably count over time but we haven't pulled Pete hit Pete that yet. I do think we talked.
- [22:13]
A
You don't think we've hit peak Romantasy?
- [22:15]
B
No, no. The book talk peak like I've kind of. I'm kind of assuming that there will be a king of the mountain in the book Doc AI or not. Sorry, that's a Freudian slip. Pardon me. The algorithmic social video platforms that's Instagram and Booktok. There's going to be kind of a revolving door of champions king of the hill style like it was Colleen Hoover for a while now we've got a little freedom Fadden and some romantasy and dark academia is coming. Then we get something burble up from backlist like calculate not calculation volume. But I who have never known men like there's sort of. There's like three. There's like a silver, bronze and gold on the platform for. For things that have been crowned by the social video algorithms. I just can assume they're going to rotate for a while but the real story for me is going to be does the podium start to crumble And I don't think we've gotten there quite yet.
- [23:03]
A
I don't think we have interesting thing.
- [23:06]
B
Let's See, I didn't put it in today's because it's. I didn't put it in the show notes here, but rumor that the parent company of Barnes and Noble and Daunt Books are going to collect those two into a company and spin it off into an ipo, which is a transition to be maybe next year. And if that happens, that will be the big book story of next year. Barring some other thing. I say in that piece today in Books you can subscribe, there'll be a link in the show notes that there's I maintain that a healthy, prospering Barnes and Noble is good for American book buying and I think for Dante books in the UK it is good for them as well, though I can speak less confidently about that. And I think the best version of that is a independent Barnes and Noble that's not owned by private equity or some other person. But there's really only two. There's only two options. You're a privately held company or a publicly held company. And unless Barnes and Noble is going to somehow buy itself from Elliott Management, which is not going to happen, you go public or you're going to be sold to some other holding company. So while this isn't the best version of this, I think it's the least, it's the most attractive the available options now that it has a whole host of other problems. But Elliott Management seems to have done the thing they tried to do with Barnes and Noble, which is do a restructuring or turnaround. And I know not all the stories coming out of that have been positive and I see and hear you Barnes and Noble employees, but it didn't go away and it's growing and I'm not sure what odds we would have gotten on that three years ago. Rebecca?
- [24:39]
A
Yeah, I don't know either. And the new store layouts are nice.
- [24:43]
B
They're nice.
- [24:45]
A
My local Barnes and Noble turned over into the new layout earlier this year and it's, it's gorgeous. It's a, it's just a pleasant experience. The last couple times I've been in there, I've seen folks lingering. I was there for like an hour one day and there were people just hanging out in Romantasy, pitching each other books, which was fun to see.
- [25:02]
B
That's peak romantasy.
- [25:04]
A
Yeah, that is peak romantasy. Just like. And I thought like the kids are going to be all right was the feeling that I had at that moment just watching these two young women holding up of like just grabbing stuff off the shelf and doing the like. Did you read this one? I liked that. What about this other one? Ah, not that one. That's just encouraging to see. I do think they've done a good job of turning Barnes and Noble around. Like was it two years ago that the story was Barnes and Noble turns the ship around. Like James Daunt went on kind of a six month.
- [25:32]
B
Yeah, that was last year after sort of a year, 18 months of doing stuff.
- [25:35]
A
Yeah. This is what you, this is one of the things that you want, like you do want the Barnes and Noble turnaround to be successful. It does provide a ballast, especially against Amazon. This is good for the publishing ecosystem. And once you're in the land of huge corporations owned by like international conglomerates, there is not a solution that's going to make everybody happy. There's always some, you know, there are some worms under the rock of any of those things. But the top line story that a big book selling company could have an IPO and go public and be competing with Amazon in that way as well is really interesting.
- [26:13]
B
Yeah, it is. The maybe it's notable in its absence how little discourse we have done and that's a function of what we're seeing is the state of indie book selling. When have we ever. When in the last 10 plus years of doing the show have we talked about independent bookstores less? And that's probably good. That's probably a good sign.
- [26:35]
A
Yeah, I think last year we had a story about like the number of independent bookstores that had opened last year and it did significantly exceed the number that had closed. But it seems to me that post Covid bookstores have at least normalized. Like indie bookstores have normalized. Every now and then there's a more human interesty story about like romance bookstores or mystery bookstores, the more specialized. I wonder if we're going to see more of that as algorithms continue to drive people into more and more like specific and specialized niches of reading. Or will the bookstores themselves just get better at catering to that? But we have not had a big indie. There hasn't really been a big indie bookstore story this year other than Barnes and Noble agreeing to acquire books in.
- [27:18]
B
Yeah, I was going to say there's that. And you know, we've heard some locally here. Powell's has had some trouble and some turnover and they've had some layoffs. But again, I think that's more localized. It might be a Portland and that company story more than it's a book selling story. But of course it's all subject to people buying books elsewhere. And maybe the strength of Barnes and Noble locally has affected Powell's and people buying online. I don't know all the details that go into that. But not to say there aren't stories and not to say that independent booksellers are printing money, but we just haven't heard a lot about it. Shoot us. Email podcastookright.com if that sounds right to you, or if you've got stories or links, preferably to reputable sources with data and facts and figures about how that goes there. I put this link in and I just want people to go look at what Jasmine Bojdani did for Book Gossip, which is the Cuts Book newsletter. And the Cut is part of New York Magazine. It's like an imprint within a brand. Like, I don't know, it's. It's. It's mastheads all the way down. But she pulled some insiders and got some anonymous quotes. And I thought it was just really fun. And I don't think you probably had a chance to look at it, but I just encourage people to go look. If you listen to the show, you will enjoy.
- [28:33]
A
Oh, yeah, No, I looked at it.
- [28:37]
B
Is there anything that you wanted to pull out from this to talk about or.
- [28:41]
A
I feel incredibly validated by the person saying that. The most memorable review of the year was Gia Tolentino on the new Elizabeth Gilbert memoir. And it was kind of a. It was a review profile sort of of all in one. That was also one of the highlights of my reading year. Like that the new Elizabeth Gilbert book and the Patricia Lockwood book were coming out at the same time. And they were on the interview circuit at the same time. Was really exciting. I feel very validated that only 11% of people believe that the men don't read. Discourse is an actual real concern. Like, thank you. Come sit next to me. Why are we doing this again?
- [29:17]
B
And then, you know, my take on that is their loss. That's my take. Their loss.
- [29:21]
A
The literary trends. We need to retire in 2026. People have a lot of takes on that. Should authors be on Substack?
- [29:28]
B
I thought that was really good to see. And then it was all pretty. Pretty much no. Pretty much no.
- [29:34]
A
Or someone saying to the extent that it helps them, yes. But it's always going to end poorly.
- [29:38]
B
Poorly. Newsletters are forever. This is something I've had tattooed across my work brain for a while. Yeah.
- [29:44]
A
And one of the. I mean, this piece is a little New York Inside Baseball because it's part of New York Magazine. So there's stuff like the best Book event and some of the got gossip stuff is insidery like seems too insidery even to me because we work in books but we don't live in New York and we're not part of that scene very happily for me, you know. But like it. That's fine. The rest of it is. Is fun to read and people speculating about why book sale sales are down. Which imprints are doing the most interesting things. Like that's. This is a fun piece. The book gossip.
- [30:17]
B
Yeah. So things to watch. I am already Ben Lerner and transcription coming out gets a shout out here. So I'm very excited to see that. I thought this was an interesting line. Magazine editor is quoted blindly saying learner. Writing a very short book is a canny move. I think we'll see a trend of literary novels being either 120 pages or 500 pages. Much less in the middle. Which Jeff's brain does not like and likes at the same time. Because as you know, I think the perfectly the perfect novel is 334 pages long.
- [30:50]
A
I agree.
- [30:52]
B
But I think there's something to the glorified novella or you're really going to spend some time with it. I think that's an interesting thing.
- [31:01]
A
I think the low end is a product of the Internet and decreased attention spans. This book is short.
- [31:10]
B
I'll say this. You and I just read A Christmas Carol and that works at 120 pages. Are we sure that's not right?
- [31:17]
A
I think it can be both a feature and a bug. Like a lot of books do need to be shorter and more edited. So if getting them closer to a novella actually serves the story, great. If we're just going short because we're worried about attention spans, I don't love that. But I also think that if the other end of the spectrum is a whole lot of 500 page books that in some ways is also a product of TikTok like that there's some cachet. Especially the romantasy like genre. Readers have always liked really big books. That's been a feature of those genres. Genres for like a fantasy especially.
- [31:51]
B
I mean going back to Tolkien. You want to gorge on like you want. You want to spend more pages in these worlds. Yes.
- [31:56]
A
Yeah.
- [31:57]
B
Yes.
- [31:58]
A
So I don't know that I buy into that prediction, but I'm not surprised to see it made, I guess.
- [32:04]
B
No, I mean as I am more moneyballing my own reading experiences, I do Will. I mean people have heard me on this show saying I favor books that are more manageable because I have x number of pages in me. That's not true. There is some elasticity of Jeff eyeball demand, but it's not infinite. And given the choice, I'd rather read two equally, I'd rather have two good 250 page books than one good 500 page. Just because I get to read two voices, two perspectives, I get a twofer there. It's free that way. Usually really long books don't make my favorite books of the year. I tend not to include them there at the same time. Anyway, go check that out. We don't need to sort of dissect it one by one, but I thought that was fun. The National Book Critics Circle Fiction long List. One of our writers called it the most idiosyncratic of the major book awards. I think that's both fair and interesting because we get some things that you and I really liked. I mean half of this list we've talked about closely and then a couple of the books I've never heard of. And I think that's the NBCC in a nutshell. Which is kind of amazing.
- [33:13]
A
Absolutely. Yeah. I called it reliably quirky in our flagship newsletter. Like you get big hits of the year like the Antidote by Karen Russell, Audition by Katie Kitamura. We do not Part by Hong Kong. The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy. The calculation of volume book that somebody in the gossip piece was like, these are incredibly tedious. What are we doing? And then there are several small parts press books Long Distance by Ays Segul, Shivas Sea Poison by Karen Balin and the south by Tash Awe, which I've started to see coming up more the south but that's having a little bump here at the end of the year. This looks kind of exactly like what I think a National Book Critics Circle list is going to look like. Some of the critical hits of the year and some books that just enough critics liked and circled around that wouldn't have made it to a more mainstream focused kind of reader focused list. Really interesting to see.
- [34:07]
B
I do feel like if my reading soul was put into one of these templated book cover long lists, I feel like the NBCC is probably closest to mine a because it's 10 but like it has audition on there. It has the Book of Records like it has we do not Part. It has the Wilderness, it has her. I mean and these are not the most of those. Some of them. I mean the Book of Records is Norton and we do not part is I can't remember now but then like audition is riverheaded and antidote. I think it's knopf. Anyway, so in the big five, the, the commercial literary titles, but they could pick other things. But that audition is on the critics list. Doesn't surprise me in the least.
- [34:50]
A
Right.
- [34:51]
B
But so is the antidote, which you and I were more lukewarm on. But I can see how critics also would like that. Like, it makes sense to me. Even the books that I didn't care for necessarily, really often show up on this list. But I'm like, oh, yeah, I can see how that.
- [35:02]
A
Yeah, I understand it.
- [35:03]
B
I kind of get it.
- [35:04]
A
I think that I would be happiest if the National Book Award longlist was the one that I had that feeling about.
- [35:10]
B
Right.
- [35:11]
A
Because that is like, that is the award that has the most, like, some of the most visibility. The Pulitzers maybe rival it, but National Book Award means a whole lot and its purpose is to bring visibility and attention to books and to try to gain wider readership. And we're usually on the horse of, like, what are we doing here when it's a bunch of Ms. Fiction. This year was an exception. And like, seeing Rabi Alameddine win for the True true story of Raja the Gullible, which is more of a like down the middle book club hit that wasn't even that well reviewed like I had. I was thinking, you know, like, I don't love this. If the National Book Award goes to a book that most people or most like critical readers don't agree is great. But it does do the thing of putting a book out in front of like mainstream readers that seems to hit straight down the middle. So sort of torn on that. But the NBCC probably does come the closest to my own. Also just variety of like a subject matter, a format. There will be something a little bit experimental. It's. It's fun to see. I mean, probably not surprising. Like, two people who read books for a living gravitate towards the books that make this list.
- [36:18]
B
This episode is brought to you by State Farm.
- [36:21]
A
Listening to this podcast. Smart money move.
- [36:24]
B
Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle.
- [36:32]
A
Home and auto bundling.
- [36:34]
B
Just another way to save with a 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.
- [36:43]
A
Availability, amount of discounts and savings and.
- [36:45]
B
Eligibility vary by state.
- [36:48]
A
This episode is brought to you by Casamigos Tequila. What do you bring to a holiday party?
- [36:54]
B
Simple.
- [36:54]
A
A bottle of Casamigos because nothing gets the party started like a Casamigos margarita. Which isn't just for summer. In fact, it's the perfect pour all year round. Casamigos is the gift that always feels right. Because anything goes with my Casamigos. Please drink responsibly. Imported by Casamigos Spirits Co. White Plains, New York. Casamigos Tequila. 40% alcohol by volume.
- [37:19]
B
Kraft Mac and Cheese is the best thing ever. It's even better than pop music music. You look just as natural enjoying us at age 13 as you do 55. Kraft Mac and Cheese. Best thing ever. The other thing that's interesting with the NBCC is that I don't know and I think we have a listener or two that participate in the bcc. Feel free to email us, you know who you are. But it has a wider body than the Pulitzers or National before 700 members quiet as it's kept those. I mean we, we talk about it but people don't realize that the National Book award is like six is like five people. The booker's like five people. The Pulse was like three people that then recommended to 100 people that sometimes like nah, nah, we're good this year. Which is its own thing. But like this is, this is a larger. It's almost like more like the Academy Awards voting body. And I think, I think that if the National Book Award I just haven't really. I'm formulating a take now. This is, this is like watching a baby walk for the first time. This is what it's like the, an Academy but for the National Book Awards. So there's a thousand writers, critics, editors or whatever that get to vote. And it shouldn't be three people. Rebecca. It can't be. What are we doing here?
- [38:36]
A
It should not be three people.
- [38:39]
B
Should not be three people. I guess the problem there, the Academy does this. There's a really good episode of the Big Picture pod where they talk to some of the Academy about how you have to have at least logged into the portal to fake that you've watched something. The I haven't read it fraud that would happen in the National Book Award voting would be rampant, understandable and distressing. But I kind of would like to see what would happen.
- [39:08]
A
I mean there are also just so many more books in a given year than there are movies and, and its attention for books therefore is so much more scarce that like I think if you are in the, if we are in this alternate world where it's, you know, a 1,000 person voting body or even bigger for books there's like, that's almost a conclave situation. Like, there would be campaigning. There would be people throwing their votes behind their friends.
- [39:35]
B
Which happens, though, in the Academy Awards.
- [39:37]
A
It does all kinds of. Yeah, all kinds of stuff. Stuff happens there. But it like the shenanigans for we have the same agent and I'm gonna campaign for your book this year if you campaign for mine next year or like, I don't want to live in that world.
- [39:52]
B
Well, libertle me this Batgirl. Wouldn't that be good for books and reading on the whole, if we had a little people campaigning and like, I don't know, maybe that would be fun. Maybe the horse race would be interesting.
- [40:05]
A
You need Katie Kitamura out there giving interviews about how she's turning in great performances lately and.
- [40:10]
B
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You know how this means so much to me and I went method, actually. Kidding me. Going method for the audition would be the most meta thing you could possibly do. I don't even know what that would look like.
- [40:21]
A
Yeah. I think, though, that one of the things around that is partially because or largely because movie stars are just part of public consciousness in a way that authors aren't. But if you're paying attention to movies enough to be like following the Oscar race, you know who the stars are. You're seeing the campaigning happening. Like, my joke about great performances is Timmy Shallow out on the trail right now talking about Marty Supreme. There are so many books and authors are just not that visible. Like most people who pay attention to books and read that, what, 10 to 12 a year that an American who's a heavy reader reads like they don't know anything about the authors. They're. They're not fault. There's not a real media tour that you're going to follow. For an author, the story is just so much harder to put together. I don't even know how that campaigning would actually work.
- [41:08]
B
It would all be be book gossip in the cut. It would be insider, insidery stuff. But listen, democracy is the worst solution, except for all the rest. You know, as Churchill famously.
- [41:19]
A
I think that my take is that the National Book Critics Circle is the evolved version of the regression to the mean. You get on the Goodreads Choice Awards. Like, yeah, yeah, that I like the. I'm down for the. The version of democracy that is the book critics voting on things. Thanks.
- [41:35]
B
You're an electoral college lady. I didn't know this about you.
- [41:40]
A
Maybe only in this instance.
- [41:41]
B
Maybe only in this instant.
- [41:44]
A
Talk to me in 2028.
- [41:45]
B
I think from there we can go to Front list foyer a little bit. Rebecca.
- [41:50]
A
Oh, before we do Front list Foyer, I do just want to shout out Jasmine Guillory's book the Wedding Date, Wonderful rom com from several years back, is finally getting an adaptation. The news broke this week that it'll be adapted for Netflix. Prince Har and Meghan Markle's production company is one of the production companies involved in it. I really enjoyed the Wedding Date. I like Jasmine Guillory a whole lot. Just delighted to see that news. She was out there writing the contemporary rom coms before Emily Henry broke really big. The Wedding Date was a huge wave of new readership and I'm so happy to see this happen. Also the characters in the Wedding Date. Then like she does the extended romance universe thing where some of the side characters in the Wedding Date become the main characters her next book. So there's real possibility for her to have a really fun universe of Netflix shows and I would love that for her. So just a congratulations from me to Jasmine Guillory. I can't wait to watch this. It's really.
- [42:50]
B
I'm glad you mentioned that. The other thing about the wedding, there's many other things to say about the wedding date and I haven't thought about this at all. So this is off the dome again. Welcome to live podcasting is I wonder because I remember the Wedding Date becoming a phenomenon and it felt like an inflection point for romance to become. Romance is huge. It has been huge for a long time and we all get that. But it's not what it is now. But there's something around the Wedding Day. Crazy rich Asians. Like there's a few books sort of in that era that felt like maybe they didn't exist. Maybe we're not on this path. I don't know. I think it's possible. My spidey sense says there's a collection of books. It's not like a Twilight situation where there was one, but there's sort of a handful. And I do think it was coming out of a moment of which we were a part in. Book Riot was and the blogging community was saying, you know what? It is cool to romance is cool. And then they got some other and then it got pushed a little more mainstream and then it's exploded from there. But it feels like their wedding date is maybe if it's not the big Bang, it maybe is a flag in the sand of what was happening at that.
- [43:55]
A
Yeah. And it really it was marketed as a rom com like it was not marketed as a category romance. Have a clinch cover like, like it would but it also predates the illustrated style of covers today.
- [44:09]
B
But it kind of has one like this wouldn't look, it wouldn't look completely contemporary the original cover of the Wedding Date, but it wouldn't look odd or a throwback or something like that.
- [44:19]
A
Yeah, like it's bantery. It's really fun. If you've not read Jasmine Guillory, I think the Wedding Date is wonderful and it's a good romance gateway drug as well for people especially the folks who are like watching a lot of holiday romances right now. If you want a holiday rom com you're gonna enjoy the Wedding Date. Like not a holiday story but just really fun. It's been a while since I saw like honestly I'm not sure that I've seen an announcement about a rom com adaptation that I am stoked for. But I'm really looking forward to see what they do with it. Like the characters are smart and the banter is actually good. And that was my complaint about trying to read Emily Henry was like this feels like somebody impersonating what they think good ban sounds like. But Jasmine Guillory is excellent. Can't wait to see it.
- [45:10]
B
That brings us to Frontless Foyer which is brought to you by ThriftBooks. ThriftBooks.com an endless selection of books, video, music, gifts and games. We're now we're getting to last minute shopping. You can do orders, free shipping orders of $15. You might check to see if it's going to make it to you in time especially since it's three days from now. But you're really going to turn your attention to 2026.
- [45:33]
A
Yes, reading.
- [45:34]
B
You want to stock your reading. You want to get something for the winter. Make it a part of your life. I know a lot of people are doing reading of resolutions around 2026 for you and for others check out thriftbooks.com because they've got over 19 million titles to browse. New and used books and DVD and Blu Ray. If you are a part of the physical media mafia that is sort of forming out there. People getting cassette tapes, VHS vinyls, compact disc, they're all getting it now and you can find there. So the latest new releases. Get something that's an out of print childhood favorite paperbacks to stock your shelf. Put in your vacation bag. Go to thriftbooks.com for more. Rebecca, I'll go to first and I've got a confession to make. I am reading Jack Squat right Now I haven't read anything in five days. Project dropped in my lap. A lot going on. I'm in the book world, but I do not have a current read and I don't even have anything on the offing. Like if someone said, you know what, you have two hours right now and the only thing you could do would read, I don't even know I would pick up. So if you want to shoot me a recommendation, podcastookriot.com I've got some things I'm interested in. I've got some things I definitely know I'm not going to read, but I thought I was gonna have more reading time sort of starting tomorrow, and that's not gonna happen. So I'm not sure what the end of my year reading ketchup was gonna look like.
- [47:00]
A
I am reading right now, but I'm in the middle of our next zero to well read book. For an episode. Yeah, for an episode that comes out in like February. So I'm not revealing that yet. So I thought that I would do a couple like we call them book radar, like little shout outs to upcoming releases for early 2026. Now we will have the full spring, like winter 2026 draft in the Patreon. After the first of the year, we're gonna have some books to look for coverage, but these are shinsky Core of the Highest order. The first is by Terry Tempest Williams. Visitations from the Holy Ordinary is the subtitle.
- [47:36]
B
Wait, when does that come out? That's out.
- [47:38]
A
It's coming out in March. No.
- [47:39]
B
Oh, oh, okay. Sorry, sorry.
- [47:40]
A
This is Lookaheads, comes out in March. Terry Tempest Williams, wonderful nature writer, conservationist, really writes with the heart of a poet and is the closest that I found to like a contemporary Mary Oliver vibe in the way that she writes about the world. She has this dream in March of 2020. We all remember what was happening in the world at the where like this word Glorian comes to her in a dream. And as she's contemplating, like, how do I respond to this moment in the world? Gracefully. And the answer that she lands on is that you try to have encounters with grace. The word Glorian comes to her in a dream and she just understands when she wakes up that Glorians are these little moments of grace. So like a cup of tea, friendship, a tree, like all sorts of things can be a Glorian in Terry Tempest Williams's interpretation of it. And this book is her sort of set of meditations sharing with readers the encounters with grace that she has experienced. There's Very much a climate spin to this. A climate focus. She's a great climate activist. I've had the galley for a couple of weeks. I'm really like trying to hold off and save and read it closer to the publication date so that it will be fresh. I don't know that I'm going to make it through holiday break without. Without actually getting into it. But a new Terry Tempest Williams book is a huge moment for my reading year and I think there are a lot of folks looking forward to it. So that's one for me.
- [49:17]
B
It's going to be really hard for me. I've kept the galley of Vigil by George Sanders out on our credenza and it's going to be. It's very tempting me for. For me to go ahead and declare 2025 bankruptcy and just get into Saunders and get.
- [49:30]
A
It's real.
- [49:31]
B
I thought I was going to have more time to do 26. Look, it's. You don't do audio. Do you do audio fiction?
- [49:37]
A
Oh, I don't usually because like I'm, you know, I'll have trouble like following the story while I'm doing other things. But I've heard the audio production.
- [49:45]
B
Yeah, it's like Offerman and a whole cast of people. I think Offerman is Lincoln in that. I didn't do it in audio initially, but I've heard such good things about it. I've always wanted to go do it, but like I thought this weekend, next week, this is a little behind the scenes stuff. I was really going to turn my attention to 2026 new releases for the, the draft, do some publicity stuff and placements for this show and the newsletter. I got something dropped on me that's not going to happen, which is, which is fine. But it's also making me say like I'm just going to really turn the table because I'm behind. I do want to shout out Sophia, who gives us regular updates about books tracking. And I was kind of looking for this for like, what have I missed? A couple of things that she sent to us in her December update that I thought I would just mention here. Run for the Hill saw a really big uptake in growth this month. That's the new.
- [50:33]
A
Interesting.
- [50:34]
B
We were middling on that. She's also picking up on, I think the early holiday gifting situation because the ServiceBerry doubled in November and I have to believe that's gifting.
- [50:47]
A
It has to be gifting. Yeah. Indie bookstores and gifting. Yeah.
- [50:51]
B
Things that are growing faster November than they were last month. About the berry pickers. I also think that's gifting. I think that's something that people liked last year year also Amanda Peters there was announcement about a new book. I don't know if that matters one day everyone always been against us. I think that's award season. I also think Buffalo Hunter Hunter is best of list. I think that's also Wild Dark Shore here where the ax is buried. That's the new Ray Naylor. I don't know, maybe people are remembering finally getting to it. Automatic Noodle, which came out much earlier in the year. I'm glad to see. And then the 10 year affair by Aaron Summers. I thrilled to see.
- [51:22]
A
Oh, love to see that.
- [51:23]
B
And King Sorrow by Joe Hill, which is a giant Dragon Academy book I think gifty and people getting to it. So kind of an interesting list. I thought. I thought there. You know what? I'm surprised she has a list of oldest books still growing at 10% or more. These are Goodreads reviews. The ServiceBerry One day everyone begins this. That's a February book is Sola, which came out in February. Allegra Goodman, who has a short story collection coming out in March. I just saw and shockingly to me, Death Takes Me by Christina Garza, which we did a whole episode on and not for the Phoenix.
- [51:54]
A
It was on the New York Times 100 Notables list. So that explains the bump. But a whole lot of people are reading a blurb about a murder and a message scrawled in nail polish and then they're being surprised by the very experimental fiction they're getting.
- [52:07]
B
And it could be the law of small numbers now where it doesn't have that many reviews, so you get 50 and maybe it grows quite a bit there. So anyway, thank you. Sophia is always super interesting to see.
- [52:17]
A
Thank you for your one last 2026 early shout out my dear you by Rachel Kong.
- [52:23]
B
We love her short stories.
- [52:25]
A
It is short stories. And I'm so excited because I love her fiction which is like her novels are already very tight. Real economy of language. Very like. She just packs a powerful punch. And I really have been curious about what she would do in the short story form. My Dear you comes out I think in April and I can't wait for that one. So we'll have those links in the little show notes down below. You can also find them@thriftbooks.com BRpodcast with all of those. The front list foyer books.
- [52:57]
B
Okay, with that we're going to end our show today and close the book on the year of book and reading news for 2025. If something pops up, we'll hear from us in 2026 about it. Thank you all, as always, for listening throughout the year. The Patreons, the people that listen to the regular feed, that shoot us an email, that submit holiday recommendation requests, thank you all so much for listening, listening, a really wonderful part of our working lives. Thank you, Rebecca, for joining me once again on another calendar year of the tempest in a teapot, which is book news and culture talk.
- [53:34]
A
Even when the news is boring. This is not boring, and I'm grateful for that.
- [53:38]
B
All right, thank you so much, everybody. We'll talk to you later.
- [53:50]
A
A world on fire, nations collapsing, ideologies clashing, and ordinary men and women caught in the storm.
- [53:57]
B
Hi, I'm Ray Harris Jr. Of the.
- [53:59]
A
History of World War II podcast, and we'll cover the battles that shaped the war, from the deserts of North Africa to the frozen forests of the Ardennes.
- [54:08]
B
Because history isn't just names and dates.
- [54:11]
A
Hates its people, choices and consequences at World War II podcast net.